The Loosening Skin

by Aliya Whiteley

  That’s why it’s not right that he should come walking in, eight years after I shed him, looking like he’s too good for the place. Which he is.

  ‘Max Black,’ I say. ‘Superstar.’

  ‘Still just Max to you.’ He smiles.

  ‘Not to the rest of the world.’ He walks on water, and everything turns to liquid around him for his ease. It ripples to his touch. So many words, so much adoration, for the actor turned director. I read on a gossip website that he was making a film about the Stuck Six. ‘Were you just passing?’

  He browses, actually browses, a circular rail of men’s shirts. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Sussex and Lincolnshire must have got closer together since the last time I checked. You are still in Sussex?’

  He hesitates, then nods. He picks a tartan shirt from the rail, with frayed cuffs and collar, and fingers the sleeve.

  ‘That crazy house,’ I muse.

  ‘I timed this for lunch,’ he says. ‘Let me take you to lunch.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you loved me once.’

  That was the last thing I expected him to say. I’m aware of Terence’s attention, ears pricking up, in the back room. I get this vision of him leaning forward over a bin bag of clothes, straining to catch every word. He’s so young, only one skin out of school.

  ‘Terence,’ I call. ‘Can you watch the shop for an hour?’

  No reply.

  I pull open the curtain and find him just as I imagined, except the bin bag contains romance novels, the covers dog- eared and shiny.

  ‘Terence.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Hold the fort.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking behind me, at Max Black, and his sparkling eyes are saying - it was true. It was all true.

  › • ‹

  ‘He’s in love with you,’ says Max.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The kid. In the thrift store. Terence.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  Max shrugs. He’s comfortable here, sure of his own thoughts in the back of his bulletproof Range Rover. There was no point in attempting a cafe, a restaurant, anything normal. His bodyguard would have to clear the place first and the staff wouldn’t leave him alone. Thus speaks the voice of experience. But here, parked up near the bus station, we can talk and his bodyguard – a good-looking woman, of course – can wait outside in the car park for however long it takes. She won’t like it, but she’ll do it.

  ‘I thought you were a private investigator or something,’ he says. ‘Last time we spoke you were working in London. Instead you do a disappearing act and I have to hire someone to track you down. What happened?’

  ‘I shed.’

  ‘You’re so weird,’ he says, in an angry rush, as if the words had to escape out of him, ‘You are so fucking weird, Rosie.

  You could have just called me if you needed money. We were – we were so happy. If you were in trouble, you could

  have called.’

  ‘If I ever am in trouble, I’ll bear that in mind.’ I open a cubbyhole in the central console and find a half-bottle of champagne, unopened, and a glass. Underneath that there’s a packet of mints.

  ‘You may find this ironic,’ he says, ‘but it turns out I’m the one in trouble.’

  I can’t even begin to get my head around that one. ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘I got robbed.’

  ‘Get real.’ He’s never alone, he’s never vulnerable. He hires people to make sure of it.

  ‘The Sussex house got turned over. A professional job.’

  ‘What did they take?’ I know the answer before he says it.

  ‘The skins.’

  ‘They got into the safe room?’

  I saw that room being built. I liaised about the safety features. It was Fort Knox in the South Downs. It was

  unbreakable.

  It was asking for trouble. I find I’m not surprised. But the skins – that’s a different matter. The skins are a big deal. The thought of someone else having them makes my insides hurt. I’m suddenly grateful this isn’t my problem; Max burned my old skin. I watched him light the bonfire. The only skins in that room were his own.

  If he was a normal person he would have burned his own, long ago, or sold them for a few pounds. But the rich and famous, they don’t do normal things. They keep every single shedded skin, and it’s the fashion to have special temperature-controlled rooms for them. There are so many people out there who want a tiny piece of a celebrity to call their own.

  ‘Check the top-end businesses,’ I say. ‘They’ll try to shift them on the quiet.’

  Max shakes his head. ‘We checked. They’re not moving through the usual channels. Whoever took them is keeping them, for now.’ He wets his lips, then says, ‘Find them for me.’

  ‘I don’t do that any more. That wasn’t what I did, anyway, exactly. I wouldn’t be any good at this.’

  ‘You knew people, right? Someone in the trade took my skins. I don’t want anybody else to have them. I know you

  understand this.’

  It’s difficult to think clearly about skins from the past. I don’t want to be near those old loves, to touch them, or feel them. But, like Max, I don’t want anyone else to, either. Particularly the skin in which Max once loved me.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ he says. He takes a card from the pocket of his shirt and holds it out. ‘My private number, if you change your mind. I can pay well. But then, it’s not about the money, is it? Or the love. If you work out what the hell it is about, let me know.’ He signals and the bodyguard opens the door, so I climb out and stand in the car park, watching him drive away until I can’t see the car any more.

  I can’t quite believe he left me here. It’s a fair walk back to the shop.

  I look at the card.

  MAX

  it says, and then a number. He doesn’t even need a surname any more.

  A bus will take me back in the right direction.

  While I ride, I take out my phone and browse online. I start off with looking for stories about him. Is he in a relationship? Well, I’d never find the truth by searching through the gossip sites. But the pictures show him with people, of course. All kinds of people.

  The skyscraper ads are all about love.

  It makes our world go round; the merry spin of who is in love, out of love. A story catches my eye about the Stucks. Six of them, in love with each other at the same time, once upon a time, but now the magic is over and their story is about to be turned into a thing of cinematic beauty, courtesy of Max Black. The photo of them at the top of the article shows them in the midst of that miracle of timing, all holding hands and smiling with rare radiance.

  If only other emotions were lost in the moult. Fear, pain, guilt, sadness: why must these remain? Some people say it’s because those emotions are true, lasting, while love could never survive for longer. But I think love is the strongest feeling of all, and that’s why it has to die, and be sloughed away. Otherwise it could kill us. I remember how I would have taken a bullet for Max, or murdered someone whothreatened him. Surely I’m better off without those feelings.

  I’m better off being the kind of person who won’t even make a few enquiries for him.

  Fear, pain, guilt. Sadness.

  When I reach the Skin Centre I stand outside the doors and call the number on the card. To his credit, he answers the phone himself and has the decency to sound surprised.

  ‘Okay,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll poke around. But that’s all. I have a life here.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I saw it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means thank you. I know how hard this must be for you. I didn’t realise—’

  I cut him off, and go back to work.

  2005. Leaving the once loved.

  Petra’s office, once Rose finally located it, turned out to be in one of those back alleys that had been squeezed
into the shadows of other buildings. A supermarket depot jostled up behind it, the two separated only by a high wall upon which had been arranged a regiment of broken bottles. Hammersmith Road was in front, the cars bunching up and loosening in a continuous concertina.

  It was locked up tight. She pressed the doorbell, and an outline appeared through a small central panel of leaded

  glass.

  ‘It’s Rose,’ she said.

  The unbolting of the door took an age.

  ‘I could have lost another layer, that took so long,’ she said, when Petra’s face was finally revealed. She felt the muscles of her cheeks contorting but refused to cry. Petra wasn’t the kind of person she felt she could cry on.

  Petra pointed at her leather backpack. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You shed your skin on the floor of a superstar, then break up your fabulous romance, and that’s all you bring? I expected at least one suitcase filled with money, or statuettes, or something.’

  ‘I don’t want to take anything of his.’

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot.’

  ‘I can’t help it. Can I come in?’

  ‘Yes, sorry, manners. Come up, come up.’ She stood back and admitted Rose to the tiny hall that led to a steep wooden staircase. ‘Space is money. The door on the left.’

  The bolts were slammed back into place behind her, and then she heard Petra’s fast feet drumming up the stairs. The room on the left was a surprise: larger than she thought it would be, and lighter, with tall windows. It had a half-moon shaped pine desk in one corner, and a rubber plant in a bronze pot opposite. The plant exuded health, the shiny leaves tilted upwards. Apart from that, there was a yellow chaise longue with scrolled arms, squarely in the centre of the room, and an open fireplace with a pillared mantelpiece, painted white. Upon it were stacked letters and bills, photos and manila folders, and a silver lighter. But the room did not smell of smoke, and there was no ashtray in sight.

  ‘You told Phin?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rose. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now you come and work for me. With me, if you prefer. Is that okay?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’m an investigator. Fancy being one of those?’

  Could this new skin be an investigator’s skin? She wondered at how quickly she had left her last self behind. The self-assurance of the bodyguard, wiped away. But she already knew, this time around, that what she had lost in confidence she had gained in curiosity. There was so much she wanted to know, such as why the love disappeared and how the hate managed to stay behind, intact. If there wereanswers to be found to any question, she wanted to do it.

  ‘What do you investigate?’

  ‘The worst things.’

  ‘Do you stop them?’

  ‘Always,’ Petra told her. There wasn’t a speck of doubt to be found on her in that sharp suit. She inhabited the office, and the work. Whatever it was. ‘Always. One way or another.’

  2013. Unguarded.

  A leave of absence from the shop is the hardest part to arrange. Head Office wants a return date. Eventually we settle on a Monday a month away, and I don’t mark it on the calendar, which tells me something about my state of mind.

  It’s not even as if my moult is due. I should have at least another five years, but I feel done with this version of my life already.

  The fast train from Grantham, then from King’s Cross to Waterloo, an easy journey out of rush hour. I try to ignore the tight feeling London gives me in my chest; is it simply the stale air of the Underground? Down to Petersfield, which is a tight, monied kind of a town, secure in itself. I decide once I get there to hire a car rather than take a taxi using the expenses card Max had couriered up for me. The note that came with it bore his handwriting, but didn’t tell me anything useful such as how much of his money I could spend, or how much he would be paying me. I’m guessing he didn’t even think about such issues.

  The approach to his Sussex house is the same: undeveloped stretches of rural land for so many miles around, green fields, dotted trees that darken the sky. But then, he owns it all, so the current building boom wouldn’t affect him. The tall fence with the high spikes still runs alongside the road for miles, and then broadens out into a set of gates – chunky, not flashy. Definite in their discouragement. I pull up to the metal pillar that houses the intercom and have a short conversation with a guy who sounds familiar, but I’m not certain that it’s Mike until I’m admitted and he comes out of the booth beside the beginning of the gravel drive to greet me. I get out of the car and find myself giving him a genuine smile.

  ‘Look at you,’ Mike says, holding out his arms and then dropping them again before I can mistake it for the offer of a hug. ‘You look great.’

  ‘You look the same,’ I tell him. He really does. ‘Don’t you age? I can’t believe it, eight years and here you are.’

  ‘Ah, well, it’s just a job. I never get the itch after a moult the way some people do.’ Then he flushes, and I realise he’s embarrassed.

  ‘I have to get out straight after. Same every time. Sorry I never said goodbye. It’s just how it takes me.’

  He nods and we’re over the awkward moment. ‘Mr Black said you were coming to see the safe room. They cracked it without a scratch. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Were you on duty?’

  ‘Yep, and nobody came through here. I’ve checked the perimeter since, twice. It’s intact.’

  ‘Nobody through the gate – not even a legit caller? A girlfriend, boyfriend?’

  ‘Nobody. The only thing that was different that day was Taylor – the bodyguard – changed her day off. The replacement came down, signed in early in the morning, and stayed until the following morning. She’s covered for Taylor before, she’s all right. But she said she didn’t hear anything. Max took two sleeping pills and was out like a light. He’s lucky they didn’t strip him of the skin he’s in now.’

  It’s a horrible crime, but I’ve heard of worse. ‘Max in?’

  ‘Filming on the estate. He’s got a village set up there, caravans and everything, for this new thing he’s working on. Nobody’s staying at the house.’

  ‘So there’s a lot of people out on the Downs, then? Actors and crew?’

  ‘Fifty plus.’

  I roll my eyes and he smiles. It’s a security nightmare, basically. ‘I’ll have to go poke around.’

  ‘Starting in the house, though, right?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It’s great to have you around,’ he says. He leans forward. ‘None of the ones who have come after have been a patch on you.’ He gives me a set of codes and leaves me to it. I was unprepared for the emotion, but it really is good to see him.

  In contrast, the house is not a welcome sight. It gives me that uncomfortable sensation straight away – like I’m done with it, and should have left it behind. At least the decor is different. Out with the neon, the vases, and in with dark wood and rich red tapestries, even a vast open fireplace. This latest designer obviously believes in the classic English Lord look, and has succeeded in making the place too warm, too close, for my liking.

  I walk the corridors and find myself in the bathroom where I lost my love for Max. It’s different too; tiled purple, with more dark wood around the edges, almost black. A framed pen-and-ink drawing of the Eiffel Tower, just a few lines creating the feeling of the city, hangs over the clawfoot bathtub.

  I could be sick.

  I hunch over the toilet.

  The feeling passes, and I straighten up and check in the bathroom cabinet. Max always was a believer in pills, all kind of pills, but I don’t see any, not even the sleeping aids Mike was talking about. Perhaps the last couple of moults have changed that aspect of his personality; who knows what’s been taken, and what he’s willingly thrown away?

  Besides, that’s not my business. My business is the safe room, in the basement. So that’s where I go, and the shock of seeing that thick metal door le
ft open, and the temperature-controlled wardrobe emptied, bare, is considerable. It’s a forlorn, forgone expensive space with those skins missing. A collected life history has been taken.

  Besides that, there are some building materials down here; he must be having some work done to the place. Strengthened, perhaps, for the return of his skins? Max always did believe in the best possible outcome.

  We’ve not discussed it, but I’m fairly certain the police haven’t been here. There are no signs of an investigation. Max wouldn’t want them poking around.

  Besides, there’s nothing to see. No points of interest. Nothing was forced, nothing was damaged. Whoever did this had the door code. Which means I need to talk to the bodyguards – the one who was on duty, and the one who had the incredible foresight to not be.

  › • ‹

  She seems efficient. I’d guess he isn’t sleeping with her, the way she talks about him, but I was good at maintaining that distance in public, back when protecting him was my job. To stand behind someone, at the ready, without touching, looking at them only with the professional gaze in place, is an easy trick to learn. You use it no matter what your feelings about your client, or you endanger them. Some of Petra’s lessons have lasted.

  ‘You ex-Forces?’ I ask her.

  ‘Navy.’

  ‘Then you got hooked up with Starguard?’

  ‘Phin approached me in a bar. I was bouncing there.’ She smiles. So Phineas Spice has been up to his same old tricks.

  She looks fond of him; it’s easy to like him, even though it’s not sensible to.

  ‘Been here long?’

  ‘About a year.’

  She checks behind me – over my shoulder – that Max is still in her line of vision. We’re sitting in canvas chairs next to the catering wagon, which is offering a range of breakfast goodies that I struggled to resist. My croissant looks good on the plate but soon disintegrates into a mess of crumbs. At least the Americano is hot and fresh. Back when I was on the job I never would have eaten, and I’m pleased to see