by Various
I loved it, the way the ambi-lighting wrapped me in a sensory daze, rendering me unable to pay attention to anything else while it was on. I suppose that’s what annoyed her, my total immersion. Now she’s gone, I can see how it dominates the room. I put on a DVD last night and had to switch it off after half an hour. I felt dizzy and my head reeled and I had the unwelcome sensation that there was someone else there in the shadows with me.
“All these boys’ toys,” she used to say, “these funky gadgets. Who are they for, who do they impress? You never have friends round, don’t really have any friends, so who gets to see them?”
I know they are there, I thought, I can tot up the amount spent on hi-tech hardware in that flat and know that it comes to about twice the average annual salary. Everything perfect, everything shiny, all mine. I created that space meticulously, but I spend no time in it. I realised this week how empty it is since she left. At what point did minimal cross over into empty? And when did peaceful become silent?
It’s quiet here in Hana’s room, but never silent. I have become used to the faint music she plays in the background, to the soft rustle of her dark-green uniform, the delicate swooshing of her oiled hands as they move across my skin. I wonder what she thinks as she is rubbing me, where her thoughts wander, whether she has her mind on her job or is creating mental shopping lists. I’ve never seen her outside of this room. Maybe I wouldn’t recognise her if I saw her in jeans and a t-shirt, with her hair swinging free. It is hard to imagine her life, shopping, cooking, talking to friends. What does she do when she isn’t here? Maybe the clinic wraps her in cotton wool, tucks her away in a cupboard at the end of the day. That’s why she always looks so fresh, so perfect.
I watch her shadow moving across the cream-painted walls like an echo of the strange foreign animated films I remember seeing as a child. Her shape is dream-like when silhouetted; her usually graceful movements seem oddly jerky. For one moment the shadow of her hands looms jagged against the wall and I realise again how little I know this woman for whom I literally lay myself bare every week. It’s so hard to tell who’s friend now, who’s foe. I instinctively feel I could trust her with any secret, but I couldn’t even ask her out, could I? A man in my position consorting with a masseuse? It would become an office joke, if it ever became known, maybe even a disciplinary affair, if she was an illegal. The kind of thing that ends careers. Now if I really were James Bond, she’d be a honeytrap, a SMERSH agent and soon we’d be at it like knives, rolling over the massage table while she clutched me tight with her firm, well-oiled thighs.
Arghh. Don’t think like that, John. I stare at the carpet, trying to distract myself, gazing intently at its small tough loops. I start counting, can see at least six shades of blue and some grey and purples and even something pinkish mixed in there. Strange, don’t you think, that someone sat down and designed this carpet with so many intricate colours that blend to create an overall impression of, well, blue? It must be an odd job, being a carpet designer; perhaps they call themselves ‘flooring colourists’ when women ask them what they do. That’s better, I feel calmer. My mind sometimes drifts into strange places, banal avenues when I am being massaged. Though that is better than the times when my mind turns in on itself, when I start to examine my life.
Some people might think my profession unusual, it has occurred to me. But you end up with the job that suits you. I naturally gravitated towards the secrecy, the sense of knowing things that would curdle the blood of the average man on the street. There is a degree of power. It would be so easy to check up on Hana, to trace her. So tempting. I could call in some favours, run a few checks, uncover her immigration status, her parentage, her education. I could dig as deep as I like, find out her friends, her lovers. I could discover whether I should really trust her.
It wouldn’t even be an abuse of my position, not really. Even our old Director General didn’t take the official secrets act that seriously – first she published her memoirs, then it was novels. Honestly, what a joke. Everyone knows if you tell a woman anything then it’s not a secret anymore. I can only hope that she was just a figurehead and never entrusted with how this place really works, what’s actually going on out there.
“Token,” the lads called her, a sign of the times, nothing more. They joked that they never kept her in the loop, had all their really important meetings in the men’s rooms so she’d have to bug the toilets to find out what they were up to.
Women are so unpredictable. I Interflora-ed my Mother for her birthday last week, a few clicks of the mouse to send her a bouquet in creams and pinks that wouldn’t clash too badly with her chintzy Edinburgh sitting room. She eventually phoned last night, expecting to speak to Danielle, so I had to tell her that we’d parted. It was all quite amicable, I informed her.
“I’ve just not met the right woman.” I said breezily.
“What utter nonsense,” Mother said, unusually tart. “It’s not about the women, there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s about timing. No-one will ever be right until you are ready.”
I don’t understand why Mother got so upset; I always thought she didn’t like Danielle very much.
No-one at work needs to know that Danielle and I have broken up. They only met her a couple of times after all, when it was advisable that I take an escort along to a function. Sometimes it looks suspicious for a man to appear on his own, yet what guarantee is there that his partner will be compatible with his work, especially with what I do? It has always seemed so incongruous having office parties – as Danielle always commented, we could hardly go down to the pub and talk shop, could we? She laughed, rather snidely I thought, but well, she had it exactly right.
It’s easier to live like this. When Danielle left, she was very calm, very cold. That’s how I knew she really meant it. It was almost a relief. I still dream of her, for my subconscious seems unable to accept that the status quo has changed. Funny, because I rarely dreamed of her when she lived here; her absence obviously means more to me than her presence. The flat will not have changed at all since I left this morning. No magazines tumbled on the sofa, no cosmetics strewn across the dressing table, no strange food in the fridge, no spits of toothpaste in my bathroom sink or smears of mascara on my towels. All the things that used to enrage me when Danielle was there, the crumples, the mess, the clutter of feminine impedimenta. All gone, all smoothed away, everything tidy and just how I like it. I wonder if there will ever be room in my life for another person.
The kitchen will still be spotlessly gleaming with stainless steel, even the work surfaces sleek and grey and shiny. There’s a four-slice toaster though I rarely eat breakfast, and the Gaggio squats redundantly now, for it seems a waste to fire it up for one solitary espresso every morning. I am back to using the kettle, its sleek bullet shape so unexpected that sometimes I have to look around the kitchen and remind myself how to boil water. I have a lady who ‘does’ every week, though I don’t see her for months at a time. She lets herself in and lets herself out, the emptied bins and folded laundry and polished floors my only proof of her visits. I leave her an envelope full of tenners in the kitchen and it is gone when I get back, even her fingerprints neatly wiped away behind her.
“I feel you’re clearing the decks ready for another relationship,” Danielle accused as I helped her carry her boxes to the car. “Is there some other poor girl in your sights?”
I shrugged. “I have nobody in mind.”
That was a lie, I now realise, for Hana is always on my mind, though at the time I believed I was telling the truth.
I have never touched her. Not once. I have no idea what her skin feels like, what her hair smells like, how it would be to hold her. I do think about her though, fantasise I suppose you would call it. It is always her calm impassive face I start with, then her hands, kneading and pummelling then gently massaging, stroking. I think about the oil, warm and flowing along my newly released, suddenly lithe spine, as though stiff leather has been kneaded into su
pple skin by her hands. Then the oil becomes water, warm water and we are standing together in a shower and she is soaping me, working up a creamy lather with those strong hands and the blasts of water are falling hot and hard on our heads. I want to come here every day, block-book her to massage me exclusively, I don’t want her touching anyone else. Oh God, that way madness lies.
I can’t explain my feelings for Hana. Who would I tell? It would all get so very misinterpreted. I once mentioned that I had massages for my back to one of the lads at work.
“Do you have a Jackanory?” he said with a leer.
“What’s that?” I said impatiently, wondering what he was on about.
“You know; a massage with a happy ending.”
Hearing that from him made me feel a bit sick.
My hour is nearly up. I want to stall Hana in some way, but I can tell by her rhythm that it is nearly over, that soon she will be taking the warmed towels from the rail, moving quietly from the room, letting me come round. And then I will be cast out again, away from this comfort and into the blaring, blasting brightness of the city. It’s like when you go to the cinema during the daytime and then are wrenched from those visions, thrust back into the real world.
Sometimes I worry that I am becoming invisible. That as I get older my skin will become as colourless as my hair, my eyes will fade to grey and eventually I will slip into the shadows, finally disappear altogether. I hate change, always need everything mapped out and planned, leaving no room for spontaneity, for danger. That was the last insult Danielle threw at me before she left, tossing it back over her shoulder like a grenade.
“You’re probably borderline autistic you know,” she said pityingly, “everything has to be exactly the same, day after day, so safe, so sterile. Even your wardrobe is colour coded, which considering you rarely wear anything other than blue and grey, is pretty sad.” I must have looked surprised, though I said nothing.
“You should take a real risk once in a while,” she continued, “throw away your comfort-blanket, reach out and really touch someone.”
Maybe I could ask Hana. I could take that chance; for once in my life abandon the calculated moves. Danielle would be proud of me. Actually she would be bloody furious if I finally took a risk, made a bold gesture, and it wasn’t for her. But if Hana said no, I wouldn’t be able to come here anymore and surely it’s better to have her for one hour a week than never at all? And yet, and yet…
He’s lonely I think. If John had a girlfriend or a wife who really loved him, he wouldn’t need to come here. Any woman could do what I do, learn how to massage, take the time to rub his back until his muscles relax and unknot. I don’t think he unwinds easily; he is too wary, all taut like a spring. Very handsome, he is, though his eyes are hard like aquamarines under water and his lips carved in a way that gives his mouth a secretive look. There is something ungenerous about him – it is not a face that smiles easily.
He must be rich though, I have seen the label in his coat when he hangs it up; one hundred percent cashmere. He always tucks his scarf into it carefully as if he is afraid a chill will touch him. He looks cold like permafrost with that silvery hair and those icy eyes as if he spends too much time in darkened rooms. He needs a blast of warmth, some sun, maybe a long holiday. I do not mind the cold at all. The houses here are all so hot and sealed tight that it is a relief to step out into the air and feel the wind on your face. It is never really cold here anyway, it does not snow from year-to-year and when it does, everything grinds to a halt in piles of dirty gritty slush.
It is not like home, in so many ways, though it has taken me a year over here to realise that there was nothing actually wrong with the town in which I grew up. No, it was not bad, simply different. My Mama encouraged me when she heard of her friends’ children who were going abroad, finding jobs and nice places to live. It wasn’t even that she wanted me to be sending the money home, for she must have known I wouldn’t leave her until it was all over. She simply wanted something better for me. She didn’t need to tell me, I could see how little we had, how it was different from the places I read about, the glamour I devoured in pictures and films. The world was out there and available for the taking, I could not pretend any longer that the little we had was all that there was.
She was terrified that I would fall for a Polish boy, become trapped the way she had.
“Men are all the same,” she used to say, “only after one thing. Even the ones that seem to respect you, well, you know what they say; men put a woman on a pedestal so they can peer up her skirt.”
She is right, I find. There is always something else they want isn’t there? They are blinded by appearances, wanting an ornament for their arms and never looking at the real you. My boyfriend here had no idea of what I was like, the real Hana. And these English men, they say one thing and mean another – it is all in the tone of voice. I am not yet getting the hang of it.
I am gradually becoming what they call half na pol, or half-and-half as the English would say. We London Polski are developing our own little rituals, our own dialect even. Ponglish they call it, mixing the languages, taking their words and giving them our own accent, our own twists and meanings. It is a way of making this place ours, making it more like home. Some things here I will never get used to, such as their liking for milk in their tea, like babies. Ugh. And also their horrible sausages like fat pink fingers, with no spice and no flavour. And then instead of one tap that mixes the water nicely, their sinks have two taps, one hot and one icy, so your hands they either boil or freeze. I do not understand this. It is a good job I have my fingers in the oils and creams all day or they would be worn red raw by this, I am thinking. This is why they have ugly hands, why they are all needing false nails.
I knew though that this clinic would be a good place, a lucky place for me, when I saw the colour of the front door. The door and the uniforms and furnishings and towels are all of a rich green. That beautiful dark green like the pine forests of Lubuskie, where I used to walk with my Mama, sometimes gathering mushrooms for her famous Hunter’s stew. Every woman had her own recipe, her own variations on the theme, but they never tasted as good as the ones she would make. Though actually, she was not all that much of a cook. Oh, I do not know why today I am thinking so much of home. Maybe I am starting to feel sad, for I see the drops of oil falling like pine resin, and close my eyes for a few moments as if they could trap my thoughts like amber.
Last year on All Souls’ Day, I could see the candles gleaming in the graveyard, fluttering in the night breezes. You can see them for miles around in the darkness, like tiny golden stars, very beautiful. As a child I found them eerie, thinking of each candle being lit for a loved one who had died. But that evening I found the sight reassuring, knowing that there was one out there for my Mama. That was the last night I spent at home. I didn’t wait even the month or so until Christmas, for I knew I would find it more painful there without her than to go somewhere far away, somewhere new, with no memories.
John is very far away today, very tense. It is like rubbing a bundle of twigs, so wiry and tall as he is. But still that is better than the doughy ones, where I lose my hands in the rolls, and don’t ever feel I am reaching the muscles under all that flab. I have studied anatomy – I know all about soft tissue release and muscle energy techniques, but really, some of these people defeat me. I cannot distinguish one single muscle in the whole of their big fat bodies.
“You give of yourself too much,” Kathie said. “You are a very open-handed person. Maybe we need to psychically cleanse your massage suite, to ensure you do not take on any bad vibes.”
I do like her so, even when she talks like this. I think maybe she is interested in me, a little.
“This room so calming,” she said, “that’s the lovely atmosphere you create, Hana.”
“I like it to be so. A tranquil space,” I reply, “It is more therapeutic that way.”
So I let her use a smudge stick to purify the room. It is s
imply a little bunch of herbs set alight, giving off a smell like burning paper. But she insisted, after that man with his little czlonek, to chase away all his negative energies. I thought that was quite sweet of her.
“People like that can be so polluting,” she tutted. I think she would like to ban men altogether, but so many of the medical referrals here are men.
Over coffee the other day, she talked to me about her plans for the future. She would like to set up something she calls a retreat, where people come for holidays. She could be charging a lot more. “We’d get a very good class of client,” she said hopefully, “not so many of these medical referrals.”
I do not know about that – I like to work with those who are really ill, who really need my help and I can see them really improve.
“I’d like to start offering a four handed massage,” she said, “two therapists working on the body at the same time, it’s the latest thing.”
That sounds a little odd to me. I like to work alone. It would be hard to pick up that flow, get into my trance with someone else there to distract me. It would not be so pleasurable. I do not think some other masseurs even like people at all; they simply see them as flesh to be kneaded like so much dough for dumplings, not individuals to be analysed and helped. I thought about that older lady and her pressure points and the city boy with no underpants.
“Four handed massage sounds peculiar,” I said, “maybe a different name would be better.”
“Hmm,” said Kathie, “that is not a bad idea, Hana.” She looked at me thoughtfully.
“How about a Sports Muscle Rub?” I said, “It could be very invigorating for the men, they worry about the treatments being all pink and girlie.”
