‘It’s what I’ve always tried to do.’
‘So who set you on the wrong path, then?’
‘That doesn’t concern you,’ he says, and I glimpse the man in the file. ‘I don’t know where Rose is. She fell off my radar not long after Max died. If you’re serious about finding her, you should go look for Petra Cross.’
It’s a name that’s not unfamiliar to me. I wonder if Gwen has mentioned her before. ‘Where can I find her?’
‘Doesn’t mean a thing to you, then?’ He smiles, but I get the feeling he doesn’t find it as funny as he’s pretending.
‘Just tell me.’ Why am I always having to say that to people?
‘Don’t judge us all too hastily when you get your answers, okay?’ He opens the door, and swings it back. ‘It was a long time ago. Before Suscutin, which I’m guessing you take. I’m not judging you. I take it too.’
‘Most people do.’
‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘Most people do. Some don’t like themselves for it.’
‘Like you, you mean? Why not?’
He hesitates, then says, ‘I like the dream it’s selling us. Just not the fact it has to be sold.’
‘What dream is it selling?’
‘That love lasts forever.’
Ah, now I understand. He’s fallen in love and moved up here for the quiet life, sustained by Suscutin, but he misses London. He misses being Phineas Spice. ‘So where’s your other half?’ I ask him. ‘Your dream?’
‘Wrong way round,’ he says, amused at me. ‘I made the changes so that if love comes along, I’ll be ready for it. Worthy of it.’ He winks. ‘One of these days, it’ll find me.’
‘In Shefford, Bedfordshire?’
‘You are just so young, aren’t you, mate?’ he says. ‘Right.
Out you go. Don’t come here again.’
Renovations.
If twenty-nine is so young, why do I feel so crumpled? Time has folded me this way and that, and left its marks.
Twenty-nine is old enough to have seen things change, and to change along with them. It’s more than old enough to know things might change back, one day. But not yet. There’s no point in racing towards it. There’s no reason to force change in the hope someone likes it.
I’m not like Phineas/Alexander, who’s sitting in his shop pretending he’s become lovable, and that some good man or woman will notice. I’m not stupid enough to imagine that could work.
I can’t reconcile that dreamer with the man I read about in the file. If there’s one question I wish I’d asked him, it would be why did you choose such a stupid pseudonym? Phineas Spice is a pathetic name.
But even if I knew why he called himself that, I get the feeling I’ll never understand him. The file, the facts: they give me no insight into a person. It’s the equivalent of somebody reading press cuttings about me and thinking they’d know what happened when I was part of the Six. You can’t get to know someone through the written word. A compilation of actions, laid bare on the page, have all motivation missing from the information.
I find myself driving east.
› • ‹
Living on the edge of Grafham Water seemed like a good idea, once we came to the attention of the press. They couldn’t get at us from every side; that long calm lake – a reservoir, in fact – deterred just about all of them, except for the few who were desperate enough to hire boats from the local sailing club, from time to time.
I stop the car down the road from what used to be our house, on the verge where the paparazzi used to park. I get out, and stretch away the hours of driving. It’s a warm evening, and still. I skirt around, keeping a distance from the barn conversion, large, on a remote part of the water. There are no cars parked directly outside. We rented it, paying for six months up front after we’d been brought to the attention of the world as the Stuck Six. Howard made the decision to give an exclusive interview to get the money together. He didn’t consult us. But I was grateful that he organised everything, and didn’t make me speak in public.
I was different, then.
He was in charge, and when he said it was time to leave Birmingham, our jobs, our studies, our friends, we did it. Some articles called him a cult leader, but the truth is that somebody had to be the boss of us. The entity we were. You don’t get six people together for any period of time and find decision-making works in a democratic sense. For one thing, there’s not an odd number to sway a vote.
The hawthorn provides cover from the big window at the front, and I skulk around to the side of the house, where changes start to become obvious to me. There’s a storage area with a slanted roof jutting out from the wall, between the kitchen and the bathroom windows. Logs are arranged, pyramid-style, inside – a good supply. A burner must have been installed, ready for a cold winter.
But that was always Dan, stocked up for the worst situation while hoping for the best. He was so adamant we would make it through the difficult times, stay together even after he moulted. But when I said I couldn’t stand it any more he was the one who gave me the money he’d been saving, and an address of an old friend in London who I could stay with.
I wonder why he chose to buy this place when the money came through, and to live here still.
I should knock at the front door, like a guest, in case he’s in. But I end up at the back door, trying the handle as if I still have the right to enter.
It’s locked.
My instinct tells me nobody’s home.
I look through the glass pane and see little differences everywhere rather than the things that have stayed the same. These variations on my past jump into clarity: an amateur’s painting of Grafham Water at sunset with a charm about it; a silver spice rack; an open cookbook and a blue striped teapot. None of these objects look like Dan’s taste to me, and everything is far too tidy. He’s living here with someone, is my guess, and he hasn’t told me. Or any of the others. I think if he chose to tell one of us, it would be me. We told each other everything.
But perhaps lovers always say that of each other, and it’s never exactly true.
I hope he’s happy. And other clichés.
I move away from the door.
We never swam in the Water; I don’t know why that’s so strongly in my mind. We didn’t even spend long looking at it. It would have been a photo opportunity extraordinaire for the photographers that camped outside, or sailed past. Mickey Stuck, looking depressed and alone – is there trouble in paradise? And to strip down, reveal my body to them, was unthinkable. Mickey Stuck, youngest member of the Six, showing off the physique that makes him so desirable.
I take a stroll down the footpath, overgrown, that leads to the familiar view that trapped me while the world waited for us to end. There, at least, nothing has changed. Nothing apart from me.
Gwen is dying, and I’m looking at an old view.
I take off everything, shed my clothes on the grass and wade into the water. It swallows me, claims me. Fuck, it’s cold, my lungs tighten with it, but as it slides up over my skin my body adjusts, and then I’m swimming. If there was someone with me, waiting on the shore for me, I would call – Come in, the water’s fine.
It is fine. It’s good, and it’s only for me. I don’t need to share it. If I wanted to, I could swim right across this reservoir. I’m fit, I’m still young, I’m free.
Of course, I’d be naked at the other end.
So I splash around for a bit longer in the late afternoon light, trying out one stroke, then another; I even do a bit of butterfly, feeling my shoulders working hard, starting up a deep ache in the muscles. When I realise I’m shivering I head back to the shore.
There’s a flash of red on the footpath. It swings, and emerges from the bushes; it’s a handbag, suspended on a woman’s shoulder, giving away her presence like a bright target. She has something in her hands.
She holds the small object up and out, in front of her. I watch her gesture, and place its meaning. She’s taking photos of me on her pho
ne.
‘Come on then,’ I shout, and then I’m walking towards her, naked, shouting loud and fast, and she turns and skitters away behind the bushes, out of my view in seconds.
Common sense kicks in.
I stop chasing her. I return to the water’s edge and put on my clothes, having to struggle with them as they stick to my wet skin.
Fuck it, fuck her, fuck it all.
› • ‹
I should probably phone the others. Howard, at least; I should tell him what’s happened. I’m guessing it’ll take a while for the woman to agree a price with a newspaper or website, and then the story will appear. That gives me a window of maybe a day. I should attempt some damage limitation, as least by explaining to Dan what I was doing outside his house, naked, swimming in the reservoir.
As soon as I work it out myself, I’ll let him know.
For now, London is what I need. It’s past ten when I get in, and the tiled hall with its clean mirrors placed along the white walls is just what I need. I take the stairs to my top-floor flat, and am relieved to find it’s still not a home to me. It’s just a space I rest in sometimes, where I don’t have to be recognisably anything. Not even a person, really.
I’ve lived here for a few months. One of the things I like best about it is that my cleaner keeps moving everything. I like the thought of her, shifting it all about, rearranging to her satisfaction while pretending it’s for mine. She works for an agency; I don’t even know her name. Whenever I get a glimpse of her, early in the morning, she puts a finger to her lips and tiptoes off to another room.
Perhaps that’s the kind of relationship Max liked, with his female bodyguards. They took care of him without once expecting a word from him. Maybe I should get a guard too. But no, I don’t want that kind of life any more. Having a bodyguard is a bit like proclaiming you’re worthy of one, and trouble invites trouble. I don’t want to be the focus of any more fantasy or jealousy.
I never should have swum in the water. Stupid, stupid.
I eventually find the instant coffee at the back of a cupboard, and make myself a cup, enjoying the way the smell awakens the flat. There’s always something to apologise for. I’ve done something terrible, Gwen said, the day we left Max behind. The day he took all those pills. These sins, I can’t believe in them. And Alexander, Phineas, whatever he called himself – he made out like Max was some sort of monster. But these people are my friends. These are the people who found me at my lowest, and saved me. These crimes feel like a child’s crimes; I am finally a parent, with transgressions brought before me, and I must smile and mend the toy, and say All better now. Is that my role here?
But Max is dead and Taylor is dying, and there are so many pieces to glue together.
The sleek wall-mounted television, background company, reports a large anti-Suscutin rally at Westminster. In the aerial views the streets are packed, and then the camera cuts to the inevitable close-up of angry faces, and a car on fire. Not here in Kensington of course, but somewhere not far away people are raging, screaming, fighting to restore what they think of as the natural way of things. But they are a minority.
The camera cuts back to the main desk, and the serious presenter moves on to similar rallies being held across European capitals today, and protest gatherings across the US. She doesn’t mention Africa or Asia, and she doesn’t mention a possible link to Epidermal Sclerosis. It’s as if these things belong in different programmes, or not in the news at all.
How am I meant to know things if nobody will tell me the truth?
Flicking through the channels, I land upon Max’s face, young and handsome, playing a cop tracking down a serial killer who makes girls fall in love with him so he can slice off their skin and wear it. All of his expressions, his movements, are familiar to me, but in a different context.When he’s disgusted by the barbarity of a crime, I see it as that time he hated the amount of mayonnaise I put in his sandwich. When he expresses his love for his beautiful young wife, who will undoubtedly end up in danger, I see him on our ridiculous camping trip, in his own backyard of his Sussex Downs estate, telling me that it’s a great sunset and a wonderful world, and he could do with another beer.
Yeah, that was a great camping trip, even if we didn’t go further than a mile from his house and the tent leaked.
While he tracks down the killer I tap the name Petra Cross into my phone.
Two things:
She has her own Wikipedia page.
She’s dead.
I scroll down the page, and the reason why I know her name comes back to me. Every person at the Suscutin march, out there rioting on the streets tonight, would have told me in a heartbeat that she is their hero, their martyr. She attempted to burn down the biggest Suscutin laboratory in the UK three years ago, and didn’t escape the blaze she had started. Firefighters managed to save the building, but her body was found within; she’d climbed into a janitor’s cupboard when she was unable to escape, and died of smoke inhalation.
There are lots of memorial sites and mentions of her name, but I find only a few pictures of her online; in this day and age it’s quite an achievement to have been so camera-shy.
There’s a photo of her with a military unit, in camouflage gear. They are arranged in two rows, and she is front left, kneeling, with dark smears on her face and twigs sticking up from her helmet. She looks very young.
There’s also a photo of her after she died, curled up in that small cupboard; someone took a picture of her, and slapped it up on websites and wherever, at a price. Her face is half-twisted away, and her limbs are folded up tight.
I wish there was a third photo of her, smiling naturally at the camera, or maybe caught unawares with a group of friends, looking the wrong way or pulling a funny face. Then she would become someone I might recognise if I passed her on the street.
There’s nothing to suggest a link to help me find Rose Allington, but there is one interesting aspect. Both Petra and Gwen are ex-military; could Rose be the same? Starguard: that’s the link. You’re a superstar and you want a cool bodyguard, then you employ an ex-military looker. Max always used Starguard.
Wherever I look, Max’s face pops up. Right now, he’s saving the day as his beautiful wife gets kidnapped by the serial killer. He finds her in time, punches the killer in the face, and seals the whole deal with a long, loving kiss. Wife, and skins, saved.
I’m not going to pass this puzzle back to the private investigators I hired before. I’m going to solve it myself. I want to understand it in ways that a report can’t tell me.
I start working through all the Google results for Petra Cross, methodically, while the serious news presenter returns and runs through the same lines about the rally all over again.
› • ‹
‘What happened?’ says Howard. ‘Your film not doing well enough at the box office, so you have to strip off for the publicity?’
‘Don’t be a dick,’ I tell him. ‘Have you spoken to Dan about it?’
‘He says you should have let yourself in and grabbed a towel. Apparently the spare key is still under that pot Sunetra made at night school.’
‘Seriously?’ I had forgotten all about that pot, and her experiment at integrating into the local community while learning a brand new life skill. It lasted about four weeks, as all her projects did, before she hit on poetry, and her one creation – a lopsided pot with a thick handle and a patchy green glaze – got consigned to the garden as a planter into which nobody planted anything. Not one of us was much of a gardener. ‘Tell him I’m sorry.’
‘You tell him.’
‘I’m busy. I’m doing something for a friend.’
‘Are you driving?’ he asks.
‘I’m on hands free, and keeping my eyes on the road, Howard.’
‘Come out to Cologne. You’ll love it. Nobody in Germany gives a crap about your skinny-dipping.’
‘I said I’m busy.’ I pull into the fast lane, and speed up, until I’m going faster than he
would like. It’s petulant, but it makes me feel better. I shouldn’t have accepted his call, but the guilt got to me for a moment.
‘The UK can’t be the nicest place to be with that headline.’
‘At least I didn’t make the front page. Somebody got killed in the riots yesterday. I’m page three.’
‘How apt,’ he says. He always did have that sort of sense of humour. ‘Seriously, I’m worried about you. Come and stay for a bit. I’m out all day working, so you won’t see that much of me. You’re not doing anything, are you? Your film’s done.’
‘It’s not my film. It’s Max’s film.’ I indicate, slow down, and pull into the inside lane. The exit for Swindon is coming up fast.
‘Yes, bloody Max,’ he says. He was so jealous of my friendship with Max; Max’s death didn’t seem to change Howard’s dislike of him. ‘Do you hear yourself? Why do you make out you’re still a teenager and I’m your dad? I’m not trying to make you do something you don’t want to do, but you seem to go out of your way to piss me off. And you make me feel really old in the process.’
Now he’s annoyed, I feel better. A switch flips in my head, and I can relax. ‘You are really old,’ I tell him. ‘I’m thirty-seven and you forgot my birthday. Again. It was last Thursday.’
‘Sorry. Many happy returns.’
‘You idiot,’ he says, but I can hear his smile. ‘If you want you could talk to Nicky. She’s in London at a convention. Get together, do drinks, or something. Distract her from her serious academic life.’
‘I will, but I’m not in London right now, okay? I’ll phone her when I get back and she can bore me for hours about romantic fiction in the 1800s or whatever.’
‘Okay, cool. It’s probably a good idea to be out of London for the time being.’ There’s a pause. I swear I can hear him thinking. ‘Maybe you should give me an address for where you’ll be staying, just in case, because I’m going to get our solicitors and media team to just look over—’
The Loosening Skin Page 11
