Under My Skin

by Alison Jameson

  ‘I want my apartment to be empty again.’

  ‘I want to make something that no one else has ever made.’

  And finally, without a flicker of emotion, just his blinking eyes and his beating heart, Glassman wrote his thoughts; in pure logic because it was all he had.

  ‘I want to feel something more than hope.’

  And he stood looking out towards Ellis Island and watched as his wishes flew away.

  When Matilda came home she called out to him from her bath, would he like sushi, or Chinese, or broccoli tempura? She had a knack of keeping her voice light and easy when things were going wrong. She used everyday things like the cable bill and the dry-cleaning and sushi to keep their problems at bay. Glassman hated broccoli and Matilda knew that. Now he wondered why these things were important. Sushi or Chinese or carrots or broccoli. Will anyone ever say that about him when he dies? ‘Here lies dear Glassman. He hated broccoli and he preferred sushi any night to Chinese, unless it was from Mr Chow’s.’ The small details that made one person different from another.

  She had already set the table in the kitchen and there were three yellow candles and a box of matches waiting on the windowsill. Somewhere outside the Manhattan skyline flickered, and Liberty stood frozen in New York Harbor and he wondered for a moment if she could feel the cold. ‘God bless America,’ he thought, ‘on a night like this she could catch her death.’ The bathroom door was open and he knew that in a little while Matilda would step out, steam lifting from her arms and legs, just hoping that he would see her there. Instead he noticed that she had left the polka dot napkins out with the chopsticks.

  ‘Chinese,’ he called. And he could hear the relief in her voice, just because he had answered her at all. Through the open door he watched as she dried herself. He was familiar with this aspect of women and how they needed to display themselves. The power they had and yet how his illness had rendered him and her, powerless. She leaned over and her towel fell so he could see, and in his mind they were labelled and marked down, the curve of her back, still wet, her ass, her thighs and her calves. Heavy oval breasts. Underarm hair. Low round buttocks. White transparent skin – and her best feature, her winning asset, the one that had won him at the start, her old-fashioned lips, beautiful, full, yes, and always red.

  In every movement now she called out to him. She cried out in silence for him to touch her. And all the time, the air was cloudy with the small decisions of their short life together – the angle of the couch which they had agreed on, her books and his, the clock and the glass of water on the bedside table – the air was clouded with her hopes and fears and dreams and in her every movement now, especially the long stretch of her neck, which she knew he had loved, she called and called to him and Glassman in logic could decide to hear or not.

  He walked the landing, past the ceramic plates from Denmark which she had bought and arranged, and past her blue coat and her blue scarf and her keys and the Persian rug over the dark wood. With each footstep he prayed for him and for her. He did not want to break her or break her heart. She turned and she was smiling before she turned and he pulled her into his arms and kissed her neck in behind her ear. And when she turned towards him he could feel how her smile had changed her flow of skin and how she was breathing and her scent and aura said joy and all because he had noticed her after all.

  She did not know that Glassman was only trying because his physician had told him he should. He had told him that the medication would affect him. That things would change, and now three months later Glassman did not know which part of his own mind to believe. So he walked the landing to Matilda and she offered herself up and he was always astonished by this. How big the crime and the hurt from the man and yet how quickly women could fold – and how softly – to forgive and forget and just give themselves. He bit her neck with his lips and she pretended to hurt. He kissed her breasts and left a mark. He took her hand and led her into his bedroom and opened her up and tried to find the way to her and prayed he would not forget. Glassman was a good lover. He knew where to put his fingerpads and his kisses and even his thoughts.

  He told himself to get real now and to try to treasure her, and yet his spirit seemed to be somewhere else – and how she tried, God bless her, kissing him, taking him in her mouth, holding him, needing him, loving him and all the time –

  ‘God bless her again,’ he thought, ‘it must be like fucking a mannequin.’

  Outside New York lived and around the city in studios with foldout beds, and under low hanging shades, and with a whore, freezing against a railing, other New Yorkers found their own version of New York Love. Afterwards she curled her body around him and made a neat line of kisses along his spine. From behind he looked like an old man and he knew this and he also knew how much she loved him then. And they slept, her feeling safe and almost loved and Glassman thinking about the bruise that he had made on her breast. In the morning it might show in yellow and green and faint brown and how they would both be glad, somehow, that he had left a mark. And when Matilda slept he got up and wrote more words – ‘hollow’, ‘warmth’ and ‘soul’.

  Later they ate Chinese that was not from Mr Chow’s but he had decided to make this Matilda’s night and she wore their love now like a ratty bathrobe. For now he had made her happy and she was flushed with it, and then – as she offered him some broccoli on a chopstick – he finally decided, in that New York minute, that he needed to simply walk away. He would take her to his friend’s wedding in early February and after that, he would end it. But that night she glowed and her cheeks were flushed and he could see how beautiful she was and he searched for a feeling, for Glassman knew he had a heart somewhere but it was empty now and not even sad for the hurt he was going to cause.

  On Friday Matilda’s column was about Starbucks. He read it at the open fire on his taupe couch and that evening she came over again and in his mind he knew she had not been asked.

  She sat on the rug and leaned against his legs and he wondered at how she could not feel his indifference flooding out from his every pore. She had written about Ray Oldenburg’s theory about the third place and how everyone in New York needed the office, their home and the third place to go. She had decided that it was Starbucks and in between making mind-boggling decisions about lattes and chai and grande and vendi, people had found a third place to be. Glassman only went to Starbucks when he needed the restroom and even then they were never clean enough.

  Then Matilda said that her third place was his apartment and he said he knew that and she asked where his third place was and he said he was still trying to find it.

  And that night he went to bed before her and he read the words he had written, in a long thin row, reading downwards like a Chinese poem.

  hope

  anticipate

  wish

  look forward to

  ridiculous

  unachievable

  inconceivable

  unbearable

  feel

  touch

  hurt

  need

  search

  find

  romantic

  can’t live without

  Love.

  3 The World of Us (February 2001)

  Honeymoon n. – 1. A period of time spent alone together, especially by a newly married couple. 2. A short period of harmony or goodwill at the beginning of a relationship.

  The flat is freezing again. It is Poland, Moscow and Siberia in here. The gas cooker is on in the kitchen and Doreen is wearing her coat to keep warm. Jack Frost is making flowers on the window and outside there are Russians doing a Cossack dance up and down the hall.

  ‘Will you be home soon?’ I asked the telephone in the hallway and when Larry answered I knew he was looking across the counter at Vertigo and into a very crowded room.

  ‘I’ve just closed up,’ he said and he sounded really tired. ‘I’ll bring some dinner home.’

  Doreen is carving out a heart in the frost with a teas
poon. ‘What do you think of this coat?’ she asks. She keeps looking at the heart and does not turn around. Someone left the coat in the restaurant last night and it walked home with her, along with all of our hats and gloves and every umbrella we have ever owned. We play ‘I Wish’ which is our version of ‘I Spy’ until we hear the front door open and bang shut again.

  ‘I wish Larry was at home.’

  ‘I wish the Indians would give me free food.’

  ‘I wish we could go on a honeymoon to the Waldorf Astoria.’

  ‘I wish the Indians closed on Sundays.’

  ‘I wish Larry was at home.’

  When the kitchen door opens my husband’s eyes reach mine from the narrow hallway. He has been working all day and most of the night and now when he looks at me, we are together and safe and warm. He is carrying our dinner in a brown paper bag and the new blue plaster on his finger means he has burnt his hand on the oven door again.

  He hands the first parcel to Doreen.

  ‘Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and sage stuffing,’ he says, and she begins to laugh.

  ‘And for you,’ he says, and here he kisses my cheek, ‘Dover sole, dauphine potatoes and a selection of Mediterranean vegetables.’

  We turn up the gas and begin to eat our hotdogs and fries.

  When Larry sits at the table he opens his coat and pulls me inside.

  ‘That was the nicest roast chicken I have ever had,’ Doreen says and she winks at Larry and goes off smiling down the hall.

  ‘Any plans for the weekend?’ he asks and when he speaks he looks away and scratches his eyebrow.

  I reach for the ketchup and say, ‘Hanging around with you?’

  ‘Better pack a bag then,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you. First I want you to meet my parents and then… we’re going on our honeymoon.’

  Bandhu calls and asks if Doreen is at home. She stands beside me shaking her head and waving her arms and then he calls at the door and I’m still saying, ‘Can I take a message?’ and he is still talking into his phone.

  ‘We’re going on our honeymoon,’ I tell him, and he smiles and bows low but all the time his eyes are watching Doreen. She stands back and he walks up the stairs ahead of her.

  ‘I don’t see why I can’t come,’ she says and she watches as we put our coats on. ‘We could have got a good family rate – two adults and one child for free.’

  Bandhu smiles and puts both hands on her shoulders. ‘Doreen,’ he says and his voice is low and gentle, ‘you are not a family.’

  Outside Larry scrapes the morning frost from the window and when he starts the car the kitchen window slides up.

  ‘Bring me back something,’ Doreen shouts and then she waves and waves until we can no longer hear her calling out, ‘Goodbye.’ Larry drives the car down the main street and in between changing gears he holds my hand.

  Wig n. – 1. A covering of hair or something resembling hair worn on the head for adornment, ceremony, or to cover baldness. 2. A toupee (informal).

  ‘Good-looking,’ his father says, except he cannot speak and so he writes his words on a notepad and hands it to Larry. He is a tall man with a wig and a neat orange tie. He is a gentleman farmer in shining brown brogues.

  ‘She has small hands,’ his mother says. Her grey hair is twisted into a thin knot at the back of her head. There are bare country feet in Birkenstocks and she is crooning at the fire. The Matriarch in all her glory and this house rotates around her. Larry’s house is Georgian and it looks as though it is sinking into the ground.

  I eat apple pie and it is too dry and I know it is trying to choke me.

  ‘Made with buttermilk,’ his mother says and everyone looks at my hands.

  The kitchen is untidy. There is a dead plant on the fridge, sets of keys, a clock, several ornaments. There are bridles hanging from pegs on the wall. A saddle on the table. A carton of milk. The window seat is piled high with cardboard boxes and there are footprints on the black and white tiled floor. They are walking in one door and then, understandably, out another.

  Now that I am here I want to go back to our flat. Back into the dark. Back to make tea and light the gas fire and watch something stupid and comforting with Larry on TV. I know I don’t belong in a place like this but somewhere along the line I knew I belonged with Larry. I was already in love, with him.

  Another face appears and looks me up and down.

  ‘This is my brother John,’ Larry says.

  ‘The Doctor,’ his mother says, and we shake hands. He has hands like Larry’s. Wide, long-fingered, and they have already touched every part of me.

  ‘Small one,’ the Doctor says and then with a backward glance as he also leaves the room, ‘You won’t need a bale of hay at the end of her bed,’ and everyone laughs, the soft reluctant laugh that country people have. It starts low and becomes louder as if they are all somehow put out by it. Larry winks at me and smokes a cigarette with his back to the fire.

  I wonder if we will make love tonight, if we will sleep together under the same roof where all of these other people were made. He tells me that his parents still share the same bed, eleven children and fifty years of marriage later, the wig on the dressing table, the Birkenstocks under the bed.

  The house is three miles outside Ballina. An old country estate with broken-down gate piers and only one stag’s head to welcome us in. There are no gardens. Not even a shrub or a hedge. Just muck and sheds and several cars parked up around the door. Grown-up children still pulled magnetically back to the family home.

  I was worried about my clothes and what his parents would think of me. ‘Believe me you needn’t worry,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’m more worried what you’ll think of them.’

  We crossed a mucky yard and he started laughing again when I stopped and scraped my shoes carefully at the door.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ and then, ‘Left,’ and he steered me through an arch.

  ‘This is Hope,’ he said to his mother and as he spoke he was already taking a cigarette out. When I looked at his fingers I saw them give a little shake. His eyes looked into mine though and they said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s OK.’ His mother studied me inside out. Her small dark eyes took in my face, my small frame, my small hands. Inside I think she was saying, ‘This girl does not belong in a family like this.’

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you…’ I heard myself say and so far there was nothing lovely about it but I used a word she would never use, and that told her she was right.

  What I thought was a cupboard door opens and Larry’s sister Patricia comes in. ‘Well,’ she says in a stout mannish voice. She has been walking with their dog through wet fields in the rain. She comes in shaking the rain from her hair and stamping her Wellingtons. She is wearing the vintage-leather jacket I bought Larry for Christmas. I spent hours picking it out. Asking complete strangers to try it on. Asking bewildered shop assistants which colour would be better and there was only a choice of black or brown. He loves that jacket. Now whenever I smell an old leather jacket I think of him. She takes it off and throws it on to the stack of newspapers and then takes the dog’s face in her hands and kisses it. Then she begins to pile eggs into a saucepan and puts it on to an electric ring.

  Larry carries our bag upstairs. The carpet is threadbare and dangerous and there are children’s toys scattered here and there.

  ‘In here,’ he says and as soon as the door closes behind us we are laughing and kissing each other. Congratulating ourselves on surviving the experience of being in his family home.

  ‘She says you’d be no good at carrying buckets of water,’ and he is laughing himself sick about this.

  When he kisses me his arms are wrapped around me. He moves his fingers through my hair and down my spine and under my skirt again. This bare room with the mahogany bed and the plain white linen spread makes us want each other but he turns then and puts his hand on the doorknob instead.

  In this house people increase and
multiply. Children appear at corners unexpectedly. A little girl with brown hair spoke to us in Irish when we came in. There are strange smells of talcum powder, urine, child and dog. But he is gone. Leaving our bag on the bed and jogging lightly back down the stairs. Whistling softly. There are two white matching pillows, a white bedspread, a nun’s bed, and I am expected to lie here with him tonight.

  I change into a pink dress and comb my hair and then there is a gentle hand on my back.

  Patricia’s voice comes suddenly. ‘You missed a button,’ and she buttons it gently and says, ‘There.’

  When I look in the mirror I am amazed my hair is not standing on end.

  The kitchen window looks out across a bleak wet yard. I sit and have dinner with his family and no one speaks. So far there is only brown bread and hard-boiled eggs and a pot of very strong tea. When Larry tells his mother about Vertigo she will not meet his eyes and finds the middle distance instead.

  ‘It’s going really well,’ he tells her.

  ‘A university education,’ she replies.

  He looks at me and I look back. Both of us feeling hurt.

  ‘And what do you do?’ she asks then and when she turns and faces me it is as if there is an Alsatian in the room.

  ‘I work at a record shop – but I’ve just got a new job in an advertising agency.’

  His mother looks back at me as if I am speaking Dutch.

  ‘What university did you go to?’

  ‘I didn’t go to university,’ and I can feel my cheeks going red.

  ‘What does your father do?’ she asks.

  ‘He used to own a shop.’

  ‘And your mother…?’

  And all the time her eyes are boring into me and I can feel some sort of tears moving up from my toes.

  And then Larry suddenly begins to speak.