The Loosening Skin

by Aliya Whiteley

  So Max did, and the game began.

  Saturday, 20 July 2022, 9:14pm.

  Mik: —understand why there was no trace of you. I had investigators on it.

  Rose: Petra had some talented friends in… unusual lines of work. After she died they came to me, told me she’d asked them to change my name and alter my records if anything went wrong. I think she was worried the Suscutin lot would come after me.

  Mik: Seriously?

  Rose: You’re sweet. Weirdly innocent about life. Which bit don’t you believe? That people would want to protect a multi-billion-pound industry, or that other people would be able to protect me from them? Well, maybe you’re right. I’m not sure anybody ever did come looking for me. Until you. Why should they bother? I’ve learned my lesson.

 

  Mik: So… why are you recording again?

  Rose: Another question for you.

  Mik: And then you’ll tell me what I need to know?

 

  Mik: That was the deal, right?

  Rose: I know, I just… Are you sure you want to know? I find I’m reluctant to destroy that innocence.

  Mik: If it’s not a deal then stop recording.

  Rose: No. It’s still a deal.

  Mik: Okay. So what else can I tell you about Gwen to make you realise she’s not the devil? She likes disco music. She’s rubbish at poker because she always looks delighted when she gets a good hand. She reads a lot of books, big fantasy books, you know, thirty-eight in a never-ending series-so-far books.

  Rose: Not about Taylor. About Max. Tell me about the last time you saw him.

  Mik: No, I don’t think so.

  Rose: Why? Did you argue?

  Mik: No. It won’t give you what you want, that’s all. Nothing happened. It was a normal conversation about filming, and you don’t want that, do you? I’ll give you what you want. What will satisfy you.

  Rose: No, I don’t want—

  Mik: Listen.

  2013. That's what friends are for.

  ‘I’ve done something terrible.’

  She stood back from the steps that led to the door of the trailer; Mik could look down on the crown of her blond hair, for once. Her arms were crossed, and her shoulders raised, defensive.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I have to get out of here.’

  ‘Is Max all right?’ His first thought was that she’d had to confront an intruder, maybe even tackle them personally. But the more Mik looked at her, the more he could see that it was not adrenaline running through her, but some deep emotion she was trying to contain.

  ‘He’s fine, he’s not— The best thing for everyone is if I get away from him, and stay away. I shouldn’t be near him. I make everything worse.’

  The other trailers were dotted about the long flat section of grass in this part of Max’s estate, but as work had been halted for the last few days most people had taken the opportunity to go home or go to London. Still, Mik felt self-conscious, standing above her, meeting her eyes at this angle. ‘Come in,’ he said, and quickly threw the remains of the ready meal he’d had for a late Sunday lunch into the bin in the cupboard under the sink.

  He had discovered a fondness for trailer living, which enclosed him and yet demanded no permanence from him, but he hated others to see it, pass judgement on him because of it. Gwen looked around the small, messy space – his film magazines and dirty crockery – but didn’t seem to care. She sat on one side of the padded bench that ran around the tabletop, and he closed the door quietly, then sat opposite.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  She didn’t even respond to that. ‘Look, I wouldn’t ask, but you said…’

  ‘I know, I know. I meant it, you were right to come here. What do you need?’

  ‘A ride. Don’t ask me what happened. Don’t ever tell Max where I am.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  ‘Can you do that?’

  He heard a different question underneath. The question of whether he really was her friend. It was Dan who popped into his head. Dan, and his decision to help Mik leave when all the others were determined to make him stay. It’s still love, Howard had said, over and over, just in a different form, not in the skin, but we can make it work, if you’ll only try harder. It had been Dan’s money, Dan’s contacts, Dan’s understanding, Dan’s unconditional help that had saved him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can do that.’

  He grabbed his phone, wallet and car keys and took her hand as they left the trailer, heading back across the grass in the afternoon sunlight. Her palm was clammy, her grip strong – what couldn’t Gwen, amazing Gwen, possibly face? Didn’t she know she could overcome anything? What had Max done to rob her of her control? She stared up at the house as it came into view, her gaze fearful; he thought she was looking at the windows, checking to see if Max appeared.

  She was afraid of seeing him.

  That couldn’t be right.

  ‘Did Max… touch you?’ he said, grasping at straws.

  ‘Do you think I’d let him?’ she said, and he saw a trace of the Gwen he knew well, and was relieved.

  ‘In that case, surely we can sort it out. It’s probably just a miscommunication. Nothing could be that bad. Nothing is unforgiveable between friends, right?’

  She didn’t answer.

  They veered off to the left, to Max’s enormous car park with its painted white lines and gleaming vehicles. Mik unlocked his BMW, and Gwen tucked herself into the passenger seat, sliding down low as they pulled away. He drove them out of the estate with only a perfunctory wave from the security guard at the gate.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Devon,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I went there a few times as a kid. The north coast. I know it, a little.’

  ‘You got enough money for a hotel down there? Until this blows over?’

  ‘It’s not a whim, Mik.’

  ‘No, I meant – I’m sorry. You will need money, though, won’t you? Think it through.’

  ‘Okay. Yes. I’ll need money. But—’

  ‘Well then. I have money.’

  ‘No, I don’t want…’

  ‘Shut up. It’s just money. I have it, more than I need. I always wanted to get into property. Listen, I’ll buy a house down there and you’ll live in it for me. You can help me choose it. Think investment potential. From a bodyguard to a live-in housekeeper and portfolio manager in one day. Come on, let’s do it.’

  ‘You’re mental,’ she said, but she was smiling, and she didn’t say no. It was a wild gamble, an attempt to make an adventure, but why not? That was the great blessing of money. And when she was ready to make up with Max, and for it to be the three of them again, he would know exactly where she was. He would keep her safe.

  ‘What kind of house did you stay in before? In Devon?’

  ‘It was a rental cottage in a village. Just a pub and a post office. No television. We stayed in the same place every year. I used to read so many books. Stories I could escape into. Then go and walk along the cliff paths. It never changed. I hope it still hasn’t.’

  ‘Cottage. Pub. Post office. Cliffs. Room for books. Got it.’

  ‘Mental,’ she said, again.

  Mik’s phone rang. The dashboard displayed the name—

  MAX

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Gwen, I should just—’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Okay,’ Mik said. ‘Okay, okay,’ until she was calm again.

  Max rang four more times on the journey to Devon, and then fell silent.

  There was a B&B in Lynmouth that was, Gwen said with great emotion, just the same. He gave her what cash he had in his wallet and then handed over one of his credit cards. He told her he’d be back in a couple of days to start house hunting with her.

  ‘Are you going back to Max’s?’ she said.

  ‘Of course. I won’t mention you.’ Max would, no doubt, tell him
everything. But with a gloss upon it. An argument? A hare-brained scheme that had backfired? Mik had considered all permutations. Nothing fit.

  The room in which they stood had a large bay window that looked out over a valley; he crossed to it, and was rewarded with a view of a fat, slow river winding through boulders below, and an astonishing mass of greenery – an explosion of natural beauty. Gwen came to stand beside him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘I can see why you like this place.’ But it would have been too quiet for him; he already knew that.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she whispered.

  ‘What isn’t? Tell me. Just tell me.’

  ‘The last time we came here I was thirteen. We had a brilliant week. My mother, my stepfather and me. When we got back home he moulted. He left that night. We never saw him again. End of happy families. Then I moulted for the first time the week after, the week after, God, everything was suddenly so different. I was different. I couldn’t bear it. I wanted it all back, to have it back, to have that one thing and for it to last.’

  ‘You’re my friend. Friendship lasts. It’s not love. It’s not even the Bond.’

  ‘You chose me over Max. I know how much that will cost you,’ she said, and then told him she was very tired, and wished him a safe journey back, so formally, like a grand lady saying her goodbyes at the end of a party.

  ‘Gwen,’ he said, before she could shut the door on him.

  ‘It’s okay. You’re still you and I’m still me.’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, and then he left her, and began the long drive away from a magnificent sunset over the sea. He tried to reach Max, ringing every half an hour. There was no answer.

  Back at the estate, the gates were standing open, unattended, and there were so many people, uniforms, at the top of the gravel driveway, with the blue lights of the police cars and the ambulances flashing, flashing, flashing.

  Saturday, 20 July 2019, 10:05pm.

  Rose: You couldn’t have known. You didn’t know a thing about it. Why he took all those pills. You still don’t know, do you? Taylor never told you. It’s not your fault.

  Mik: He called me. I didn’t answer.

  Rose: You did your best. You couldn’t help them both.

  Mik: I don’t get it. Why I had to make a choice between them. But I made it, and I’ve stuck to it. Whatever Gwen did, I didn’t falter. That’s a good friend, right?

  Rose: Yes. Absolutely.

  Rose turns off her phone. ‘I’m done recording,’ she says. She wears a deep frown. I get the sense she’s profoundly troubled by the things I’ve told her.

  I get up from the sofa, stiff from sitting still for so long, and take a slow walk around her living room. On the mantelpiece, above an unlit wood burner, there are matching candlesticks holding white tapering candles. They look like they’ve never been lit. There are two silver-framed photographs, too. One shows the Eiffel Tower. The other shows Rose, not much younger than she is now I’d guess, with a toddler on her lap. There’s a sky-blue background behind them both; it looks like a happy holiday memory.

  ‘You’ve got a family?’

  ‘Just Ethan,’ she says. ‘My late miracle. He’s six now. He’s with his dad this weekend.’

  ‘You’re on good terms with his dad?’

  ‘Yes, fine. I was never in love with him, so that simplifies things. I’ve learned how to stay friends with people over the years.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Friends.’

  How pathetic these words are: sex, love, friend. How little they describe.

  ‘I’ve spent years trying to understand myself,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve even tried writing it down. I described myself in the third person, past tense. She did this. She did that. She fell in love. She became a student. An administrator. A bodyguard. An investigator. A designer. It never all adds up to one person. One complete person, not in the way Max was complete. But now I’m beginning to think that’s how it’s meant to be. To be otherwise is either a lie or insanity.’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is I keep looking for the truth.’

  ‘You think it will make a difference?’

  ‘How could I ever know that until I hear it?’

  ‘All right then,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you my truth. I’ll tell you what they did to me, and you can decide what they are, and what I am.’

  It’s getting late. I could easily tell her to leave it until the morning, or even later still. Or never. I’ve lived life in the easy territory of not knowing for so long.

  I return to the sofa. She’s composed, and ready to speak.

  ‘Just tell me,’ I say. ‘Tell me now.’

  2022. Business.

  Gwen’s right. The duck pond is restful. Insects skim across the surface, and the ducks dally, dive, resurface to create concentric circles, radiating out from their activities. It’s a sunny afternoon in Devon, and she’s picked a good place to wait to die.

  Her pain is managed, but her papery face is still lined with it. I watch her nod as Rose talks to her.

  They sit on a bench together, opposite me, the pond between us. I have been keeping my distance, pretending to look at the view, or to smell the roses that line the path. I have been taking very small steps around the paths to give them time.

  There are many sufferers of Epidermal Sclerosis here; I have greeted some on my walk, and tried not to wince in sympathy at their diseased skin, crumpled and hanging, losing its shape.

  I understand now how Rose could say there was a certain irony to Gwen’s condition. I also see how she could refuse, even after all I told her, to provide forgiveness on demand.

  In the end I didn’t ask her to. Some things really are unforgiveable, but whether Gwen’s decision to help Max commit those acts of violence, of horror, is one of them is up to her, not me.

  I only asked her to come with me to this hospice, that’s all, and to set eyes on Gwen. To breathe the same air as her.

  Rose made the move, made her own decision, to sit beside her on the bench.

  I’ve done something terrible, Gwen said, and she was right about that too. I was arrogant to assume she was incapable of a terrible act. I robbed her of an essential part of herself, and she spent years living on my money, in my house, trying so hard to be the person I wanted her to be.

  Enough.

  I walk back to the bench, and Rose makes eye contact with me. She stands. ‘I’ll go,’ she says. ‘We’re all done. Bye.’

  ‘Bye,’ Gwen says, softly.

  I follow Rose a few steps from the bench, towards the house, and she turns in a quick movement and offers me her hand. I shake it. It’s a fitting end to a business deal, and that’s what this is. An exchange of information. I couldn’t even claim to like Rose, with her devotion to her own illness when it could so easily be cured, and her certainty that some people deserve to die. But I’m prepared to accept that she is what life has made of her. Just as life is working its magic on me.

  I’ll never be totally true, unflinchingly loyal, to another friend again. Not even if I find one who I think deserves it. We are all unworthy of devotion that does not ask questions and demand answers before acting, and that is how it should be.

  Gwen. Max. The Six. I should have asked questions of all of them.

  ‘I’ll keep the recordings safe,’ says Rose. ‘And in return you won’t reveal to anyone where I am. Particularly if you go through with your idea.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘You really want to do this?’

  ‘I want to try.’ Enough of funding films about the Stuck Six and other fairy tales. I’m going to use my money to make a film about Suscutin. A film that looks at the story from all angles. The kind of film Max might have made, if he’d not been given everything he ever wanted. I know Rose thinks they’ll try and stop me. Personally, I think they won’t care less. Everybody will still use their product anyway, even if it causes skin disease and death, and has its roo
ts in other people’s suffering.

  Everybody except me. I haven’t taken a Suscutin pill since that night at Rose’s house. I’ll moult sometime soon. I can feel it building.

  I watch Rose leave, then take my seat next to Gwen, who says, ‘My favourite duck is the one with the little white spot on his chest. See him? The other ducks never spend any time with him. I reckon he’s an outcast.’

  ‘You don’t know a thing about him,’ I say. ‘He might be perfectly happy on his own. He might shun other duck company. He might not even realise he’s a duck, and be wondering why he’s sitting in a pond all day.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Did she forgive you?’

  ‘No, but she allowed me to ask for her forgiveness. That was the important bit. She let me ask. Can we go back inside now?’

  She keeps refusing to use a wheelchair, so she leans heavily on me as we return to the big double doors of the hospice. ‘So,’ she says, when we’re about halfway there, ‘now you know me.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t know anybody,’ I tell her. I take her weight, and keep on walking.

  2011. From the outside.

  The usual paparazzi were waiting for him, the three of them parked on the grass verge opposite the house, sitting separately in their cars, training their lenses upon him. Mik gave them a wave as he retrieved the shopping bag from the back seat. They didn’t wave back, and that was usual too.

  Grafham Water was choppy in the spring breeze, and Mik hadn’t worn a coat to the supermarket. He hurried around the side of the house, and used the side door that led directly to the kitchen.

  ‘Who’s up for lunch?’ he called.

  Cheese, bread, salami, olives, lettuce, and a tin of tomato soup for Nicky who had been grouchy lately and needed comfort food: he had shopped to provide lunch options for everyone. He laid the purchases out on the counter, stacking Sunetra’s timetable for night school and Howard’s appointments diary to the side, then fetched six plates.

  ‘Food,’ he called, and the silence of the house struck him.