Stronger Than Skin

by Stephen May

  There were some other students there, even one or two I recognised. Essayists for the student magazines. Politicos. Comedians. Poets. The convener of RockSoc.

  Bim filled glasses with Mrs Lamprey’s thickly gory drink, greeting each guest with fluty bonhomie, and after he’d done so and they’d moved away, he filled me in on their secret lives. The adulterers, the swingers, the S&M enthusiasts, the serial molesters of students, the collectors of Nazi regalia. Who knew that so much ill-fitting tailoring could conceal so much varied and transgressive passion? So much desperate heat. Though it was possible he was making it up. I had known him for less than an hour and already I knew Bim wasn’t one for letting beige facts spoil a lurid story.

  Every time he filled a glass for one of the guests, he refilled mine.

  At one point, seeming put out, he said, ‘All the while the new muse continues to fail to arrive.’

  ‘Who is this muse?’ I said.

  ‘She’s only the whole bloody point of this shindig. It’s not so much a party as a launch,’ he said. Sheldon’s project. ‘Oh, we can’t skulk here anymore. We must circulate, dear boy. We must be bees.’

  ‘Bees?’

  ‘Bees. We must help pollinate this sorry meadow of ennui. Bring it to life, if that’s possible. It is down to us.’ He waved a hand. ‘Or up to us. Whatever. Let the mingling begin.’

  Together we excuse-me’d our way out of the kitchen and across the hall. The Victorians probably had salons and soirees in mind right from the moment they first started laying out the streets of North Cambridge, so it was a big house, several large reception rooms, but even so the place was filling up, beginning to sweat.

  At the main living room – what back home we would have called the lounge - we paused for a moment on the edge of things. Then Bim was gone, moving into the clusters of conversations with bold confidence. Spine straight, broad shoulders back, generalised smile taking everyone in: the way a beauty on a crowded beach might wade into the sea, expecting admiration. Like Marilyn Monroe might have looked if she had been built like a brick shithouse.

  I took a sip of my drink. Another. I had time to take in the look of the house. How it was dressed. The large pieces of abstract art on the walls, all blurred lines and bright squares of colour. The sculptures.

  Yes, the sculptures. The biggest was in highly polished blackish stone, obsidian maybe, a good foot and a half high. A lady holding a baby to her breast, both lady and baby fat bodied with perfectly round, perfectly faceless heads. The smaller pieces were simple cubes and spheres in bronze. No house I’d ever been in before had had sculptures. Ornaments, yes. Comical china donkeys brought back from Spanish holidays, yes. Collections of small ceramic hedgehogs, yes. Actual sculptures in bronze and in stone, no.

  Mrs Boyd had said the parties hosted by the Sheldons were legendary, but I was getting discouraged. The drink was making my teeth ache and my stomach fizz. I’d smiled at Bim’s stories, but they had left me depressed. So much dishonesty in the world.

  I hadn’t seen more than glimpses of Anne as she moved from group to group like a, well, like a shiny blue butterfly.

  Once, on a trip back to the kitchen, she had looked over at Bim and me. She had raised an eyebrow and we had raised our glasses in salute.

  I was properly alone now in that crowded room, wishing I hadn’t come. Wishing I was in a pub or in my room having a laugh with Katy. Even Katy with Danny would be better than this. Even sitting on my own in a room thinking about Eve would be better than this. My instincts on the doorstep had been the right ones. You should always act on instinct, I thought now.

  The minutes crawled by and still no one talked to me.

  I got angry. Why would you invite someone and then leave them alone like this? By now Mrs fucking Lamprey’s page 112 punch was kicking in and I was finding it harder to focus.

  I retreated back to my spot in the corner of the kitchen by the punch bowl. Relieved to be back in that little haven, I nursed a new drink. Vodka and coke this time, Mrs Lamprey’s punch being long gone.

  I decided to treat the whole event the way an anthropologist might treat unexpected access to the rituals of a secretive tribe deep in the jungles of the Amazon. This game worked for a bit, but not for long. Soon I was feeling properly shit. I was feeling like I’d become the most unattractive of wallflowers. Not even a wallflower actually, not even that – no, not even that. I was something drab, yes, but also something spiny, spiky and maybe slightly poisonous. A wallweed, a wallthistle. A wall fucking triffid.

  I made up my mind to go. I’d been there nearly two hours and, courtesy of Bim, I did have some reasonably juicy gossip with which to regale Katy and Mrs Boyd, even if its provenance was doubtful.

  Both of them would be disappointed at the absence of anything remotely legendary happening, though Katy would also be grimly pleased. Dr Sheldon hadn’t even made an appearance at his own party. He’d stayed upstairs while his guests drank, argued and flirted in a heavy-handed, middle-aged, corduroyed way. Faceless intellectuals talking generalised bollocks.

  With determination I began to make my way across the kitchen. I was going to find Lady Anne Sheldon and her shiny dress, and I was going to bid them both a courteous goodnight. I’d be polite but I would somehow convey that this has been two hours kind of wasted. Time I would never get back again. I would hint, in a way that was both veiled but unmistakeable, that she’d been unforgivably rude.

  Only I found that my legs were slow in obeying commands from my brain. I walked two wobbly steps and then had to stop and hold on to the kitchen worktop. That modern gentlewoman had known what she was about.

  I straightened up. I made a new plan. I’d stay where I was. Exactly where I was. I’d nod and I’d smile and I’d try and look as normal as possible. I would sweat it out.

  My whole body was in rebellion now, turning liquid on me. My guts were foaming. I had that slidey feeling again, the sense of the world slipping away from me that I’d had when I’d stood up after the accident. I looked for Bim and saw him laughing amid a group of pigeon-faced young men.

  You bastard, I thought. You bastard. Get me pissed and then fuck off. Cheers for that. If I ever saw him again, we would have words. Like I would with Anne. Lady Anne and her shiny dress. Proper words not veiled hints after all. What was her game? Inviting me, and then ignoring me. Yes, proper words with her too. Definitely. And soon. But for now I would stay where I was. Here. A plan. Nod. Smile. I was fine. Fine. Don’t move. Wait. Feel better. Leave. Never see these people again. Yes, a plan. A good plan.

  Like the anthropologist game, this worked too, for a while. For a minute, maybe five minutes even, I just stood, not observing, not thinking, entirely focused on being upright, which was why it took me a while to notice when Anne was stood in front of me making introductions.

  An older man with film star features, a Harrison Ford type. A man ageing well, crumbling in exactly that way that seems most attractive to both women and to movie producers. Just creased enough. Face craggy, skin rough and weathered. Hair plentiful, steel-grey and unruly. Grizzled. Pale, haunted eyes. Yes, a very Hollywood idea of a successful academic.

  ‘My husband – Dr Philip Sheldon.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, as if I recognised him, though the truth was I didn’t remember seeing him around Cambridge at all

  Harrison Ford was genial. ‘Ah, the kid my wife nearly killed.’

  I didn’t like this kid business. ‘I’m fine. Really. No harm done.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it. Actually, my fault anyway I suppose. Should never have bought her that damn car. Impossible to drive that thing at a sensible speed. More horsepower than anyone needs. I call it her beast.’

  Dr Sheldon really did have a silver screen look. Even with my focusing problems I could see that he was definitely a big screen presence, even down to the teeth, which were surprisingly white and square amid the cinematic decay of his face.

  ‘This is Dr Michelle Saker.’

  I
turned carefully towards Dr Sheldon’s companion. If I moved slowly I would be all right.

  I wasn’t all right. I nearly fell over.

  Dr Michelle Saker was something else. No ordinary Cambridge beauty, her. Even drunk, I felt her special allure. Dr Saker. Late twenties, black hair punkishly spiked, eyes a cat-like green behind heavy NHS specs. Madonna t-shirt. Red jeans. Expensive trainers. Jordans. Her stare defiant, as if she expected to be attacked and was keen to get her retaliation in first.

  ‘Friends call me Mish,’ she said. Her expression might have been fierce but her voice was fragile, shy. Colourless and accent-free. Small.

  But I got it then. You didn’t have to be a genius. The new muse. Dr Sheldon and Dr Saker. Philip and Mish. They were having, or would be having very soon, a thing. A fling. Maybe more than that. A proper love affair even. Though the professor was stood side-by-side with his wife while introducing his lover, it somehow didn’t feel wrong.

  Dr Saker and Dr Sheldon. On their own each of them was handsome, accomplished and very obviously super-brainy. But together they had a room-stilling quality. Together the two of them seemed lit by a kind of joint phosphorescence. A force that surely meant that no one could begrudge them coupling up. Not even a wife.

  Of course I was wasted, possibly concussed too, so I was perhaps more susceptible to flights of fancy like this. Perhaps my brain was over-heating and I was beginning to see auras everywhere. And, then, from nowhere, I was puking. A geyser of Mrs Lamprey’s blood-red punch, exploding from deep inside with sudden horror flick violence. I managed to step back one pace, and Dr Saker did a balletic twist and hop, so the puke mostly avoided her trousers, but her shoes were covered.

  From somewhere far away, someone – Dr Sheldon, if I had to guess – muttered a bloody idiot, but whoever the voice belonged to it didn’t sound angry, just tired. Mish Saker made no sound. I raised my head, looked right into her eyes. There was hurt there.

  Somebody giggled and it might have been me, I put my hand over my mouth. It was slimy against my palm. A firm hand on my shoulder and another on my elbow and I was being steered through the kitchen, through the hallway and into a little cloakroom. I had never been arrested, but I imagined it might feel like this. A gentle but irresistible movement. I hunched over the bowl waiting for further spasms. Behind me Anne locked the door.

  ‘That was priceless. Absolutely bloody priceless,’ she said. ‘You should have seen her face.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. My voice disappearing into the toilet bowl.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m delighted. Now, get everything up and out, and then we’ll pop you upstairs for a while. It’s probably just the booze, but you’ve had a nasty bump on the head too. Best keep you under observation.’

  Ten minutes later, all puked out, weak as a kitten and feverish, I was lying in a small dark room at the back of the house. A girl’s room this, judging by the profusion of pink, the My Little Ponies and the posters. The double headed monster that was Bros sneering down at me. There’s always something sinister about identical twins isn’t there?

  I lay there shivering and sweating and dozing, hearing the music and laughter coming up through the floor. After a while I felt comfortable, cosy. I was a child again. Ill but safe. I wondered when Anne would come and look in on me. Keep you under observation, she’d said. But time passed and no one came. I remained very much unobserved. Gradually I moved from warm, drowsy comfort back to the cold sweats of embarrassment. Sobriety returned with its hung head.

  I got up, found my sneakers and padded along the landing. I stole down the stairs, halted briefly. I had to. Two boys were making out on the bottom steps. One of the poets and the man from RockSoc.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said and stepped over them as they prised themselves apart without any hurry. One whispered to the other and his companion sniggered. I had sounded comically prim maybe. I had never seen two men making out before and it made me feel a bit funny. Not aroused exactly but, well, funny. Definitely that.

  Now I was in another hallway, not the one where I came in. This one was the servants entrance once upon a time. At one end I could hear the party and I was keen to get away before anyone came out and saw me.

  I was mortified. Of course I was. But the worst thing was feeling that I’d somehow failed an audition. I’d had a shot at getting into that other Cambridge – the college behind the colleges – and I’d screwed it up. The wet breeze I had to push against now seemed to confirm it. The rustle in the trees seemed to whisper it as they shook their green heads at me.

  Back home I remembered to nod to Ted, tonight’s porter. Ted didn’t nod back.

  8

  I didn’t go to college the following morning. Or the morning after that. My head and stomach hurt. Instead I read without taking anything in, listened to records that suddenly seemed melodramatic and childish, let my room irritate me. The flowers were fine but everything else was wrong. My posters seemed quaint. Callow. They made my room seem adolescent somehow. Bands. Pictures of bloody bands on my wall. Like I was still fifteen. I suddenly saw myself as being no different from the girl who kept Bros on her walls. I would take them down.

  Only thing I’d leave up was the picture of Eve singing with her group at her high school talent show. They were called ‘The Good Terrorists’ after the Doris Lessing book and they’d been okay actually, though they didn’t win. Three boys and Eve. The lads all studious music nerds, Eve with her Edward Scissorhands hair and Cruella de Vil make-up. Wielding her guitar like a machine gun. My sister fighting capitalism through the medium of power chords, feedback and songs about chocolate. Yeah, I’d leave that photo up.

  Mainly I rolled ragged fags and smoked them, trying to ignore the stray strands of tobacco that ended up in my mouth, daydreamed and didn’t move from my bed until Katy and Danny turned up after rowing practice – she was a cox for the college second eight, he rowed number seven, sitting just behind the stroke where you had to be both fit and skilled. Danny took pride in being the only state-educated student on the squad. Katy took pride in being fucking excellent.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we’ve brought beer and we’ve brought chips. Aren’t we good?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘How was the party?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Boring.’

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘Oh, you know, people. Boring people.’

  ‘So not legendary then?’

  ‘Not legendary, no.’

  She was delighted. ‘See, told you. I knew it.’

  9

  Eve, at thirteen, was allowed to get the train from Colchester to Clacton with two friends. Dad needed persuading to let her go. But over days and weeks, she built her case: it wasn’t far, only fifteen miles, thirty minutes on the train through the slow green countryside. They’ll go on the pier, they’ll eat ice cream, they’ll go to the shops, a small adventure. A jolly day out by the sea. A lark. How did he expect her to learn to take responsibility for herself, if he never let her go anywhere or do anything? It’s Clacton. Not Las Vegas. What does he think will happen? Mum. Tell him, please.

  John Chadwick was surprised to find his wife taking her side. Come on, John. Don’t be such an old stick in the mud. They’re sensible girls. Let them have their little adventure.

  So, early one Saturday, they took the 107 bus to the station and they arrived back more or less when they said they would and they seemed to have had a thoroughly lovely time. The pier was great, the beach was great, the boys were great… joking, Dad. Keep your hair on. The shops in Clacton were surprisingly good too. They bought some things. Not much, just a couple of cheap t-shirts. Some tights. Some lipstick. Hair stuff.

  The next morning, Sunday, when her dad was acting as linesman at The Blue Pig’s home match versus The Greyhound, her mum brought her a cup of tea and sat watching her drinking it for a while. Calm eyes, a steady look, a funny sort of smile on her face.

  After a bit, Eve started to get weirded out. ‘What?’
she said. ‘What?’ she sounded more aggressive than she meant to. Her mum’s smile disappeared.

  ‘So. London then. Find your way about all right? Manage the Tube?’

  Eve’s mouth opened and closed. Her mum explained. ‘Last time I looked there wasn’t a Miss Selfridge in Clacton.’ They both looked towards the bags that Eve had left hanging off the knob of the door. So busted.

  ‘Bollocks,’ she said, and then clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry.’

  A long moment where things could go either way, but then her mum laughed. She lifted her forceful chin. Showed her strong teeth.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. Just remember, whatever you do, whatever you’re planning, I will find out about it. No more hiding things. No secrets.’ She got up from the bed.

  ‘Don’t,’ Eve began.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell your dad.’

  They both paused for a second, imagining the fuss that would take place if John Chadwick knew, not just the explosion here in the pub, which would be bad enough, but also there would be the rows with the parents of the other girls to deal with, because he would be bound to assume his little girl had been led astray by her badly brought up friends. Would not believe that it had been Eve’s idea, whatever she said. That would mean bad weather everywhere – at home, at school, in town on Saturdays, everywhere.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m serious. No more hiding things. No secrets. Drink your tea.’

  Mum told me that story at the wake after Eve’s funeral. ‘I believed her you know, I thought we really would never have any more secrets. I thought she really would tell me everything. Absolutely everything.’

  ‘She wasn’t herself, Mum. She was ill.’

  ‘But I should have seen that, shouldn’t I?’

  Of course she should, nothing I could say could change that. When it comes to your children, look hard, look close and listen. Listen more. Eve taught us that if nothing else.