Second Skin

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Y … yes, of course.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Scott, clutching his groin. ‘That coffee’s gone straight through me.’

  Nicky shook her head in despair. ‘Honestly, you lot, you’re worse than a kindergarten class.’ She switched off the engine and briefly checked her hair in the driving mirror. ‘Actually, I think I’ll come in too, if you’ve no objection, Catherine? I’d love to meet your son. And I’m not in any rush. A couple of hours’ windsurfing is more than enough on a day like this. The wind’s so strong, It’ll be damned hard work.’

  Catherine opened the car door, wishing she had the gall to tell Scott and Darren to use the public toilet at the recreation ground. But they had already clambered out and were advancing on the front gate. She stole a quick glance at her watch: twenty-five past twelve. Nicky might not be in a rush, but she was awfully late. Antonia, a stickler for punctuality, had specified twelve sharp for drinks. Jack and Maureen were also invited and she could see their grey-green Volvo parked a few yards on. Well, Nicky would get to meet more than just her son.

  As she rang the doorbell, she heard Scott behind her, imitating its ding-dong chime and jigging about, impatient for his pee. Andrew came to the door, wearing smart grey flannels, a navy blazer, a spruce white shirt and his golf club tie. His initial sense of shock was quickly disguised by a politely welcoming smile.

  ‘H … hello,’ he said, riveted by Scott’s hair, which was shoulder-length and spectacularly matted; a reddish-brown version of dreadlocks. His own hair was as tightly clipped as the privet hedge next door. His eyes moved to Darren, then Nicky, then her. Judging by his uneasy expression, no one’s hairstyle passed muster – although at least her Spiced Plum crew-cut wouldn’t seem so shocking alongside Darren’s ponytail or Scott’s flamboyant mane. And Scott’s clothes were now subjected to his scrutiny: two shaggy jerseys with the elbows out, crumpled army fatigues and hulking great Doc Martens.

  He finally dragged his eyes from Scott and gave her a nervous kiss. ‘How are you, mother?’

  ‘Fine, darling.’ She made the introductions, explaining that her friends weren’t staying and just needed to use the loo.

  ‘Yes, of course. Come in.’

  ‘’Scuse me, Where’s the bog?’ Scott asked, barging past him into the house. ‘I’m desperate.’

  ‘Just along here.’ Andrew rushed him through the hall.

  Scott’s dishevelled figure vanished into the cloakroom, but he didn’t bother to close the door and soon a fierce torrent could be heard spattering on to porcelain, accompanied by a groan of relief.

  Antonia chose that moment to appear, elegant in an oyster-grey two-piece, with her hair swept up in a chignon. Catherine was embarrassingly aware of her own tightly clinging tube-dress. She had searched Fiona’s wardrobe this morning for a reasonably conventional outfit, but this was the best she could find. It was straining over every curve (as well as revealing the line of her bra and pants), and seemed to be getting tighter by the minute.

  Antonia, however, gave no hint of disapproval, either of her or of the others. ‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ she smiled, shaking hands with Nicky and Darren. ‘Will you join us for a drink?’

  Say no, Catherine implored.

  ‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ Nicky replied, ‘so long as we’re not intruding. I know you’ve got a lunch appointment.’

  ‘No, we don’t need to go just yet.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said Nicky, unbuttoning her coat. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, too. I’ve heard such a lot about you.’

  Thank God you don’t know what she’s heard, Catherine thought with a twinge of conscience, as she followed them into the sitting-room. (Darren remained outside, patrolling the cloakroom door and urging Scott to get a move on.)

  Catherine kissed Jack and Maureen, dismayed to see how stiffly they got up. With each visit they seemed slower and more worn, as if Gerry’s death had speeded up their ageing process. Maureen’s arthritis was clearly worse, her fingers twisted and the knuckles red and enlarged. Catherine longed to find out how they were, but etiquette demanded another round of introductions.

  Jack shook hands with Nicky, his eyes straying to her crotch-length skirt. Then he turned to Catherine and ruffled the nape of her neck, ‘Well, this famous hair’s not as bad as Andrew made out. In fact, I rather like it.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack. You’re a sweetie.’

  ‘Well frankly, I don’t,’ Maureen put in, with rather a strained smile. ‘You know I’m not one for mincing words, and I have to say I think it’s far too short.’

  ‘It’ll grow,’ said Nicky tactfully.

  ‘Do sit down,’ Antonia plumped up a cushion. ‘And what can I get you to drink?’

  ‘Alka-Seltzer for that lot.’ Scott strode into the room, still doing up his flies. ‘They’ve all got lousy hangovers.’ He threw himself in a chair. ‘Christ, it’s hot in here!’ He struggled out of his jerseys, revealing a dirty tee-shirt underneath, with JESUS HATES ME printed on the front.

  Oh no, thought Catherine, trying to shield him from Maureen’s line of sight. As a committed Christian she might well take offence. Fortunately Darren stumbled in at that moment, still wearing his black sunglasses (a necessity, he’d insisted, after last night’s dope and drink). She saw a flicker of apprehension on Jack and Maureen’s faces. He did look rather menacing, dressed, as usual, all in black, and with his face half hidden by the shades. Still, at least he was relatively presentable and, unlike Scott, he did believe in washing his hair.

  ‘Nicky’s going windsurfing,’ she said brightly, partly to distract attention from Scott and Darren and partly to remind Nicky that she ought to be leaving soon.

  ‘Oh, that sounds fun,’ said Maureen, ‘but isn’t it rather cold this time of year?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Scott, ‘but Nicky’s a fanatic. In fact she’s a bloody masochist.’ He grabbed a handful of nuts from the dainty glass dish, scattering some on the floor.

  Antonia was hovering with the sherry decanter, filling Nicky’s glass.

  ‘Beer for me,’ said Scott.

  ‘You weren’t asked,’ said Maureen tartly.

  ‘No, it’s quite all right – I’ll get it.’ Andrew jumped up, looking glad of a chance to escape.

  ‘And can I have an ashtray, mate?’ Scott extracted a packet of Gauloises from his back trouser-pocket and offered them around. Everyone but Darren refused.

  ‘Beer for you, Darren, or sherry?’ Andrew had already appeared at the door again, armed with several cans of lager.

  ‘Just water, thanks. I’m not feeling too brilliant today.’

  ‘Well then, you shouldn’t smoke,’ said Maureen.

  ‘Darren and me believe in smokers’ rights,’ Scott interjected, snapping his lighter on and off. ‘All this anti-smoking lark’s a load of crap, if you ask me. I mean, why stop at fags? You have no-smoking carriages on trains, right? And no-smoking bars and restaurants. Well, why not no-ugly-people restaurants, or no-fat-people bus seats?’

  ‘Because fat people don’t give other people cancer,’ Maureen retorted, herself on the tubby side.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s still not healthy, is it? And they take up just as many hospital beds as smokers.’

  ‘Do you all live in Camden Town?’ Jack enquired, diplomatically changing the subject.

  Yeah,’ said Scott, ‘though God knows why. It’s a real shit-hole. The sickest place in London, so they say, with more AIDS cases and schizos than anywhere else in the country. And of course everyone’s on drugs – pushers all over the show. Any sign of the fuzz, though, and they just chuck their gear in the canal.’

  ‘Come off it, Scott,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s nothing like that bad.’

  ‘It’s a Third World hell,’ Scott insisted obstinately.

  Catherine rubbed her aching head. Scott was extremely immature and said things for their shock-effect, as she had realized in the car, but her relations weren’t to know that. His words would frighten them so much they’d
never want her to set foot in Camden Town again, let alone move there permanently. And they would doubtless assume that Scott was part of the Gosforth Road household, which would prejudice them against it even more. The very room seemed to shrink from his presence; the spotless carpet cringing under his none-too-clean Doc Martens; the coffee table mortified when he carelessly flicked ash on to its highly polished surface. If only Nicky or Darren would help her out. Nicky had made a few stabs at conversation, first with Antonia, then with Jack and Maureen, and was looking as embarrassed as she was by Scott’s atrocious manners and loud, attention-getting voice. But far from trying to silence him, she sat uncharacteristically subdued, evidently still affected by her hangover. Darren, too, was slumped in an armchair, smoking moodily, and had exchanged little more than a few trite remarks with Andrew.

  Scott, however, continued to regale Jack and Maureen with Camden Town horror stories – knifings two a penny; eight-year-olds on crack cocaine; mutilated corpses fished out of the canal.

  ‘So why do you live in such a terrible place?’ Maureen asked, aghast.

  ‘Because I can’t afford to move, that’s why. My brother owns a flat there and he lets me have a room dirt cheap.’

  ‘What sort of work do you do?’

  Scott blew out a plume of smoke. ‘I’m an artist,’ he said grandly.

  Catherine glanced at Nicky, willing her to remove Scott bodily before they started on that controversial subject. Scott had been discussing his ‘art’ in the car. Apparently he sculpted nudes from butter, soap and chocolate, in order to make the point that human life was short, insubstantial and messy.

  But Maureen’s face had brightened. She dabbled in art herself – gentle, pastel watercolours of the River Wey or Richmond Park. And Art for Jack (always with a capital A) meant Leonardo da Vinci or Van Gogh.

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Scott, ‘I’m way ahead of my time. People are such philistines they don’t appreciate my stuff. So,’ he shrugged, flicking ash into the nut dish, ‘I’ve been on the dole for years.’

  In the tense silence which followed, Catherine could guess what Maureen was thinking: why on earth should a young, able-bodied man accept hand-outs from the state? And even Andrew seemed uneasy. She was well aware of his feelings about the vast amount of benefit fraud being a drain on the country’s economy.

  It was Jack who spoke, though, not Andrew. ‘I’ll tell you something, my lad,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair. ‘I got my first job at fifteen and I’ve never taken a penny from anyone, or missed more than the odd day’s work until I retired at seventy-five.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Scott. ‘If you like work.’

  ‘Liking it’s not the point, Scott.’

  ‘But what is the point? You tell me. I mean, why kill yourself slaving from nine to five every day, when we’ll all die soon enough in any case?’

  There was another awkward silence, followed by a sudden protracted rumble from Scott’s stomach. ‘Shit!’ he said, tipping the remainder of the nuts from the dish into his mouth. ‘I’m famished. All I had for breakfast was coffee and fags.’

  Nicky was galvanized into action at last, clearly appalled by Scott’s behaviour. ‘I think we’d better be going,’ she murmured, rising to her feet with a ‘drop-dead’ look at him before turning to Antonia. ‘Thank you so much for the drink,’ she said, making a belated effort to be gracious. ‘It was a great pleasure to meet you.’ She shook hands with Jack and Maureen, then propelled Scott and Darren firmly towards the door.

  There was a general sense of relief as the trio trooped out to the car, Scott kicking the front gate open with his boot and leaving a mark on the paint.

  ‘Do forgive the invasion,’ Catherine blurted out, once the front door was safely shut. ‘When I told you I was coming by car, I thought it would be just me and Nicky.’

  ‘Mm, Nicky’s an attractive girl,’ Jack mused.

  ‘But where does she find her boyfriends?’ Maureen wiped ash off the coffee table with her lace-edged handkerchief.

  ‘Oh, they’re not her boyfriends,’ Catherine laughed. ‘Darren’s the chap she works with and Scott’s just an odd acquaintance.’

  ‘Very odd,’ said Maureen acidly.

  ‘Have I got time to change?’ Catherine asked, before Maureen could expand on the theme. ‘I’ve had to borrow clothes all week and this dress is far too tight.’

  Antonia consulted her watch. ‘Well, we’ve booked a table for half past one, so if we leave in fifteen minutes …’

  Catherine ran upstairs to her room. She stopped at the doorway, gazing in at the virginal white sanctum – strangely unfamiliar after a mere eight days away. She had grown used to crimson walls, to Fiona’s cheerful clutter and a seductive male nude looking down on her each night. This room seemed more suited to a nun.

  She opened the fitted cupboard and hunted through her clothes, which also seemed drearily sedate. Who am I? she wondered, staring in the mirror with a sudden surge of panic. And where do I belong?

  The mirror reflected a background of chaste white walls and a demure flower-sprigged counterpane, with her shorn wild-purple head a brash intruder in the foreground. With a sigh of resignation she took out a plain beige dress, tied a bandeau round her hair to hide the worst of the purple, and put on some shell-pink lipstick.

  It was only five past one, so she picked up the letters which Antonia had left in a neat pile on the dressing-table. The top two were addressed to Gerry, forwarded from Carshalton. Seeing his name on the envelope always hit her like a blow. It seemed so crassly insensitive, assuming he was still alive; still interested in office supplies or book clubs or insurance schemes. She shoved them in a drawer and sorted quickly through the rest, consoled by the sight of an airmail envelope with colourful Indian stamps. She treasured Kate’s rare letters, which, apart from anything else, were a marvellous form of armchair travelling. Reading the vivid descriptions she could almost smell and taste the Gurgaon streets: buzzing mopeds overtaking ox-carts; push-bikes wobbling dangerously under loads of green bananas; patient fruit-sellers dwarfed by piles of water-melons. She propped the letter against the mirror – a treat for later on. She would read it and re-read it, to bring her daughter closer.

  One other item caught her eye: an official-looking envelope, which she tore open right away.

  ‘WITH LOVE ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE’ was printed in capitals across the top of a sheet of paper. Intrigued, she read on.

  This letter has been sent to you for good luck. It has already been around the world nine times, and if you send it on to twenty other people, you will receive good luck in your turn.

  Do not send money – fate has no price – and do not throw it away. For some unknown reason it works, as you will find to your own advantage remarkably soon.

  She stared at the words. She mistrusted chain-letters and normally would have thrown it away without a second thought. But it did seem rather extraordinary that such a thing should arrive at the very moment in her life when she was faced with a big decision – a time when she needed luck. And it seemed to tie in with her lottery win, as if luck were favouring her already.

  Pure coincidence, Andrew would say scornfully. Chuck it in the waste-bin, Mother. Chain-letters can be dangerous.

  The problem was, everything was dangerous – Camden Town and its low life, gin and sex, even Nicky’s windsurfing, and certainly new starts. But if she continually avoided danger, she would end up as a hermit. Most of her life she had been waiting for some vague and unspecified future; it was always ‘when’, never ‘now’: when she grew up and could leave her father’s gloomy house; when Gerry made more money as an actor (or worked less punishing hours as a businessman); when the children were older; when she wasn’t needed any more …

  She walked slowly to the window, looking out at the grey and sullen sky. The New Year was already three weeks old, but would it be new for her, or would she simply scuttle back to hibernation? Gerry was dead, and the children off her hands, but
she was still shying away from the future. Crazy as the idea might sound, could this letter be a sort of … call, to go out and seek her own luck, make the future happen?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a real call: a summons from Andrew, downstairs.

  ‘Are you ready, Mother? We ought to be leaving.’

  Oughts and shoulds again. Would she ever escape them? She hid the letter under her pillow and hurried obediently downstairs. Andrew and Antonia had already washed the glasses and restored the sitting-room to rights. She had a sudden bizarre vision of them scouring away every trace of Scott and Darren: sterilizing ashtrays, disinfecting the furniture, sending the carpet to be fumigated.

  ‘I love that dress,’ said Andrew, obviously relieved that the golf club would be spared the sight of Fiona’s whorish clothes.

  Impulsively she gave him a hug. ‘And I love you, my darling.’ She felt him tense with embarrassment. Mothers shouldn’t say such things; naked emotion was dangerous.

  ‘Er, we ought to make a move,’ he said, frowning down at his feet.

  She let go of him, feeling a deep sadness that Nicky, whom she had known a week, could embrace her with such simple natural affection, whereas her own son felt so threatened by her touch.

  ‘Beef for you, or lamb, Mother?’ Andrew picked up the menu: a pretentious-looking affair hand-written in italic script and bound in tooled green leather. ‘Or there’s salmon trout, if you prefer. And of course, the chef’s speciality – steak and oyster pie.’

  ‘No, the lamb, please,’ Catherine said. She must be a good little lamb herself and not touch a drop more alcohol, not after last night. Her headache was still hammering away.

  ‘I love oysters,’ Maureen remarked, unfolding her starched white napkin, ‘but unfortunately they don’t like me. I think I’d better have the trout.’

  ‘And for you, Grandpa?’

  ‘Oh, good red beef. There’s nothing finer, in my opinion. And never mind mad cow disease! It’s just a lot of scaremongering, if you ask me.’

  Catherine squeezed his hand. Like father, like son. Gerry had always chosen the beef when they’d come here for lunch with Andrew, and showed the same contempt for health warnings. He would eat his way blithely through the menu, starting with a huge plate of hors d’oeuvres and finishing up with double cream and ice-cream on his apple pie or cheesecake. If only she had been stricter about his diet, he might be here today.