Skin

by Tobias Hill

  I turn round and start walking towards the bedside light before I see they’re gone. The bedclothes are flat, rumpled slightly by the vacant impressions of their bodies. I start screaming. Beyond the weird high pitch of my voice I can hear the sound of Julia belting up the stairs. So fast it sounds like she’s falling. The door slams open and I’m scrabbling at the computer, still screaming.

  ‘What? Oh what – Dan, please tell me what –’

  I can’t tell her. I don’t know. The PC powers up. I’m whining now. The main menu comes on in a flare of light, multicoloured icons in a blue field. Nothing but work folders and the twins’ games. Julia’s arms on my shoulders, shaking me off balance. She’s shouting but I throw her off. I drag the mouse across its table-mat until the arrow is on the games file. Double click to open.

  ‘Dan! What have you done?’ She’s bellowing in my ear. More pain. The games come up, icons strewn untidily around the window. A box of children’s toys. Rubix Conundrum, Street-Fighter II, Desktop Invaders. I start to cry. ‘They shut down. I didn’t think. They just shut down –’

  ‘No. That’s not fair.’ Her voice has gone dead. Her hands against my back. ‘Oh God, Daniel –’

  Face pressed there. Wetness. I jab the arrow up to Exit. Back on the main screen I start double clicking randomly on work files, Freelance A, Freelance B, Internet.

  Internet opens up. In the middle of the box is a ringbinder icon, WEBSTER. I pull the arrow across to it. My hands are shaking so that the mouse quivers on its mat but I line it up eventually. Open the icon.

  ‘There!’ Julia stubs her finger against the screen. There’s an envelope-shaped icon, one of many in the window. This one says INTERNET OUIJA. ‘There’s nothing in there,’ I say, but I’m moving the mouse already. It clicks open.

  A small box-menu comes up. There are two icons, little clock faces, counting down to zero. I don’t know how they got here. I double-click on the one marked MAY and the bed creaks. I feel Julia push herself up and round. She sobs. Somebody starts to cry.

  June

  ‘What’s this? An index?’

  ‘That’s right. All you have to do is double-click where you want to go. Any preference?’

  ‘Um.’ Greenish light spills across her face. There are a lot of lines there that weren’t around four years ago. She still seems young, though. Something about the way she holds herself. And I shouldn’t be thinking about the twins, tonight of all nights. Twelfth of June. Deathday.

  ‘What’s Lovebytes Anonymous, then?’

  ‘Well, my guess is that it’s some kind of on-line trainspotters’ house party. But I could be wrong.’

  ‘We’ll give that a miss. Am I squashing you?’

  ‘No, no. I’m quite comfortable, thanks for asking.’ Comfortable is what we’re like these days. Four years ago tonight I felt like I’d died twice. But the days kept coming. We’ve kept each other going. Julia was talking about starting work again today. Updating her portfolio. ‘Are you putting on weight?’

  ‘Mind your own business. Internet Ouija! What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. I kiss the back of her neck. ‘Why don’t you try it and see?’ The keyboard rattles. Only her second lesson and she can type with two fingers. She sits back against me.

  ‘Oh, this is interesting. Look. First ever Internet Ouija. We just turn up at midnight GMT and use the mouse. What time is it now?’

  ‘Almost that.’ I read over her shoulder, DO YOU BELIEVE IN COMPUTER MIRACLES? ‘Would you like a drink while you’re ouijing?’

  ‘Wine. Please.’ She gets up and I go downstairs while she types in a questionnaire. I can hear her talking to herself from the kitchen. Then it stops. I look up; three past, but the kitchen clock’s a little fast. Julia yells from upstairs.

  ‘Dan! Quick, it’s working, hurry!’ I jog back up the stairs with a half-corked bottle to the children’s room. The spare room. The mouse revolves slowly under her hand, leaving a groove in the mat.

  ‘Don’t push so hard, will you?’

  ‘I’m not! It’s the mouse –’ Words and binary code flicker across the screen. The keyboard starts to ripple like a pianola and a complete sentence forms in the centre of the console. I walk forward, lean towards the words.

  MAY’S THIRSTY AGAIN. WE CAN COME BACK NOW.

  ‘Oh ho ho.’ The screen goes dead. Julia swivels round. In the light of the console, her pupils look like pinheads. ‘I don’t understand.’

  My left hand is heavy; I look down and see the wine. Lift it up. She laughs and leans against my thigh. I kiss her hair and she raises her face. No one remembers to turn the computer off.

  I wake up to the sound of crying. Someone is in the spare bedroom, knocking very gently at the handle. Like a child coming back from a nightmare. I get out of bed and open the doors and pull them up together into my arms before I know what I’m doing.

  ‘But where were they? Do they know?’

  ‘No. If you ask them they just sulk. Lick?’ She takes the ice cream, bites off a chunk. We’re walking along the Southend pier, under the bright shapes and grey voices of gulls. The sun catches Julia’s hair and pulls it out into white braids and streams.

  This is where we came after the train crash, while I was still convalescing. I remember crossing the yellow platform line to pick up the laughing twins, the InterCity coming in past us, the thick weight of a door swinging open. There was an arm opening the door, pinstripe-suited. No watch. Have I said this before? I think of it all the time.

  Four years ago now. I haven’t seen Julia joyful in all that while. Only happy. Happiness is a solid; joy is a liquid. I read that once, somewhere on the Net. Now I can feel it. Joy. It’s hard to control.

  ‘You look good,’ I say. She laughs.

  ‘I look good? Daniel –’ She stops, puts her hands on my arms. The boardwalk smells of tar and burning. ‘When they learn to leave the room we’ll bring them here, OK? And we should buy them souvenirs! Lots of them. Are there any sticks of rock round here?’

  ‘It depends what you had in mind.’ We kiss. After a while someone claps and takes a photograph. We find a shop that sells rock and sea-shells and Apocalypse by Chocolate Cake. We buy four slices. Further out there’s a bench in the sun between two abandoned shopfronts. We sit and watch the sea whet the bright edge of the beach until it’s time to go.

  The World Feast

  She walks into a bar in Prague and there he is, drinking absinthe at noon. He’s hunkered forward, eyes and lips screwed tight with concentration as he turns a sugar-cube over the flame of a paper match. He holds it expertly over the small glass of lighter-fuel-green alcohol. Then she says his name, Angus, and the hot sugar burns his fingers.

  He drops the match and spills the glass, swearing as the table is sheeted with blue flame. She helps him put it out with her hands. His teeth are brown with aniseed.

  ‘Alia!’ he says and leers. ‘From the World Feasts, yes? Do you still eat, my dear? I mean, really, eat? I’ve never forgotten. Do you remember anything?’

  She remembers everything. She remembers the delight of the first supper, live lobsters opened up like secret mechanisms. Their flesh already filleted inside the livid exoskeletons. It tasted exquisitely sweet and Alia felt faint with the sense of power. She remembers mammoth, hacked from Icelandic permafrost, as a hot weight in her belly. But most of all she remembers Angus, the red wetness of his lips, talking through mouthfuls at his favourite students. Letting them wait for the secrets. Letting them do nothing except breathe. Like wines.

  Now he is back, smiling and smelling of fast food grease. She almost feels sorry for him. She wants to bare her teeth at him because she has never stopped thinking of him. Of his talk, from the last meal to the first time he picked up the telephone and said

  ‘Today is raw meat cultures, can you ring back?’

  ‘Oh. But I’m –’ Alia is standing bent over the Arts B phone, frowning at the number she has dialled. The note on the Accommodation Board r
eads WANTED: ONE FIRST-YEAR, NO SMOKERS NO VEGETARIANS. RING ALAN ON 01273-090166. She thinks about putting down the phone and going back to her warm B-&-B in Hove. But it’s the second week of term; there are only a handful of notes left on the greasy fake-cork noticeboard. She tries again.

  ‘It’s about the room. Are you – is it still available? My name’s Alia. Are you Alan?’

  ‘How lovely. Are you black?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  A student with greasy blond dreadlocks is waiting to use the phone. He has a turquoise lamé mountain bike. He bounces it against the corridor wall as he waits, grinning. Alia turns her back on him and tries not to shout.

  ‘Did you just –’

  ‘Ah. I’m sorry, here he is. Goodbye, Alia.’ The phone clicks against something, a hall table, then there is nothing. Alia feels her anger begin to bubble up into a giggle. She closes her eyes and imagines a hallway, a telephone table, the tick of a clock. If she concentrates, she can hear a clatter of pots and knives. It is the noise her aunties used to make in their Birmingham kitchens, as they fried spices the colours of rust and dry earth in hot ghee. The phone clicks.

  ‘Hello.’

  Alia jolts back, knocking the mountain bike behind her. Someone sighs at the end of the line. A smiling, patient, male voice.

  ‘Hello. I’m ringing about the room.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you still need someone?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Behind Alia, the bike-rider gives up and rides away down the corridor. Doors slam in the distance. Suddenly the hall is quiet. Alia wipes her forehead. She is sweating.

  ‘Well can I – can I come and see it?’

  ‘Of course. Come tonight. All right?’ The phone clicks dead and purrs into her ear until she hangs up. She takes a deep breath and smiles. Then she realises she doesn’t have the address and she starts to panic again.

  She rings back twice but the line is engaged. She can imagine the receiver lying on the hall table. She doesn’t want to leave it there; she’s put in too much time already. She pulls the note off the wall and goes to the Admin Office, where the kind, paste-lipped school secretary sits with her. Together they find a name, Alan Gould, and an address: 40 Southover Street. She stays for a cup of tea.

  The road is steep and narrow and badly lit. Before Alia reaches the house she is already hot and out of breath despite the cold. The flour-sweet smells of bar food steam from pub doorways and extractor fans further down the hill. There is music coming out of the small terrace houses where students are already settled in; REM, The Stranglers, The Cure. Tie-dye sheets hung across windows. The smell of Pop Tarts, fish fingers and marijuana.

  The house is opposite a small row of shut-up shops – an organic butcher, a Happy Shopper grocery, an ironmonger’s. There is a lamp-post outside and the bright light shines oddly on the empty windows, hollowing them out like fishtanks in an aquarium.

  She rings the doorbell of number 40 and waits, trying not to look at the shops. There is a faint light in the front window of the house and a movement of shadows that might be people. She rings the bell again, leaning on it. The shadows go on moving against the pale linen curtains. There is a rattle of rollers from the first-floor window.

  ‘Angus! You came. What are you wearing? Let me see.’

  The voice is teenage, high and seductive. Alia steps back from the door and looks up. At the bedroom window a girl with white-lit blonde hair is craning out. Her face is beautiful but much too thin, the features drawn back against the skull. It makes Alia feel cold again and she pulls her baggy coat around her. She tries to smile. The girl at the window doesn’t smile back.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Alia. I’ve come about the room.’ The girl shakes her head. As if she doesn’t understand or Alia has made a terrible mistake. ‘I telephoned, before. Earlier, at lunchtime.’ The girl’s face clears.

  ‘The room.’ There is disappointment in her voice. ‘Hold on, then.’ The window clatters shut. After some time Alia hears footsteps in the hall and then the door opens. The girl is dressed in ankle socks, plaid skirt, American varsity sweater. Sophisticated, nothing cheap.

  ‘I’m Lorna.’ She waits for Alia to step in, then shuts the door behind her. They stand in the unlit hallway, not moving.

  ‘Well,’ says Lorna, ‘you’d better meet us.’ It’s Sylvia Plath, thinks Alia, the way she’s dressed. Lorna has opened a side door. Light spills out across her face. ‘Boys? This is Alia,’ she says into the light. Her voice is hushed. ‘About the room.’

  There is a creak of furniture. ‘Well, bring her in, Lorna, will you? She must be freezing.’ Lorna turns quickly to Alia, takes her hand, and pulls her in.

  There is a log fire in the grate and Alia feels something inside her relax as she sees it, feels it against her thighs. Lorna moves past her and sits down in a sagging armchair. There is a second armchair, and lying across it is a young man in a Japanese dressing-gown. He examines Alia without moving. The gown is too short and Alia tries not to stare at his legs or the ruddy tangles of his chest hair.

  She looks away. There is another man in a hard chair by the window. His hair is straight and black, and his eyes behind their too-small wire-rimmed glasses are narrowed with epicanthal folds. He nods at Alia and the corners of his mouth pull up.

  “That’s Kozo,’ says Lorna, ‘he’s from Japan, and the slouch is Alan. He owns the house.’

  He puts down a newspaper and sighs. The same patient, resigned sound he made on the telephone. He forces a smile at Alia. No one in her family owns a house. She tries to smile back.

  ‘Hello. I’m glad you found us. Sit down.’

  They wait. She looks around, but there are no more chairs. Her knees go weak with embarrassment and she feels herself begin to blush. She has to make herself walk forward, sit down on the elegant hearthrug, stare into the fire as it cracks and pops. The heat blankets her face.

  She counts to ten, feeling their eyes on her. The room smells of expensive fabrics and white skin. When she is ready for them she looks up.

  Alan has gone back to his newspaper and Kozo is hunched forward over a library book. Only Lorna is watching her, sitting up with thin hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘Where are you from, Alia?’

  ‘Dudley. In Birmingham.’ Lorna nods, her eyes wandering as she searches for something to say.

  ‘I noticed the accent. It’s nice.’

  Alia turns her face away from the heat. ‘How about you?’

  Lorna looks back, amused. ‘Oh, from all over really. My dad’s Army. So. And I’m doing International Studies. The boys are Sociologists. We have the same personal tutor. Professor Hayter.’

  She looks across at Alan and smiles. He looks up at her, jinks his newspaper flat like punctuation, and starts to read again. There is no sound except for the fire and a clock ticking on the mantelpiece. Alia tries to steal a look at it.

  ‘Here is a fascinating passage,’ says Kozo.

  ‘I expect you’re going to read it to us then, aren’t you,’ says Alan. He goes on reading while Kozo talks.

  ‘“The feast for the enthronement of Archbishop Nevill at York in 1465, at which were eaten one thousand sheep, two thousand pigs, twelve porpoises and seals, four thousand rabbits –”’

  ‘Don’t you have any luggage, Alia?’ says Lorna. Alia stands up, looking between the three of them.

  ‘It’s at the hotel, but –’ She can’t think what to say. Alan stands up.

  ‘Well, yes. Do you smoke? No? Do you like the room? It’s forty pounds a week, I’m afraid.’

  She laughs. ‘I don’t care. Really, I just need somewhere to live. If it’s anything like down here, it’s fine.’ Don’t sound so bloody desperate, she thinks. But she can’t help it. She looks round at Lorna. ‘My stuff’s all in a B-&-B down by the sea front,’ she apologises.

  Alan raises his eyebrows, looks around. ‘Any votes against?’ No one moves. ‘There. We’ll get your things later, sh
all we? How about a drink to celebrate?’ He stands very close to her, smiling. She can smell spice on his skin. Ginger, or crushed cardamom.

  The telephone rings from somewhere in the folds of the armchair. He sits back down and hauls an old dial machine into his lap.

  ‘Hello?’

  A smile spreads across Alan’s face, making him boyish. ‘Angus. Yes, very well.’ Lorna goes and sits on the chair arm next to him, whispers in his ear. ‘Lorna asks what time we are expecting you?’ He listens, eyes moving to Kozo.

  ‘Yes, he’s been preparing it all day. Enough to feed an army. Hang on. Kozo? Would nine o’clock be too late?’

  The Japanese boy stands up, holding the book tightly. ‘No. Of course. Of course not. Nine o’clock is fine.’ His English is stilted, but fluent. Alia notices how well he moves despite his weight. His face is slightly puffy with fat, bow-lipped, like a Noh mask. When she looks back at Alan he is watching her curiously.

  ‘Ah. Angus? One thing. The girl who telephoned this afternoon. Alia, yes.’ He listens. ‘Yes, she is. Oh, pleasant, smart. Sexy.’ He winks at Alia, then turns slightly away from her, voice lowered.

  ‘No, she says she’s from Birmingham. I haven’t asked. By all means.’

  He holds the receiver out to Alia. ‘It’s Professor Hayter. He sometimes does our tutorials here, and he’s coming round tonight. I think he just wants a word with you.’ Alia takes the phone.

  ‘Alia! “Close to heaven”, is that right? We spoke briefly, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice reminds her of TV chefs. Smooth and rich, wined and dined. Hard as a butcher.

  ‘What a good name. But we have a problem, my dear. I’m teaching my personal students tonight and I don’t allow people to sit in, yes?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What are we to do, Alia? Do you like food? Do you cook?’

  They are all watching her now. Lorna twists lint between her fists. ‘Yes, of course.’