Under My Skin

by Alison Jameson

  ‘You see,’ he said to The Chief, and here he turned his cup in his hands, ‘I was Arthur and she was Marilyn.’

  His friend took this piece of information, not handed over easily, and with some degree of shame. And because he thought until then that he had seen everything, he saw the funny side first and had no mercy for his friend’s pain.

  ‘Some people dress up as doctors and nurses… and you play Miller and Monroe?’

  And here both men managed a laugh and then The Chief got up and walked out to the yard. When he came back he was carrying two more beers. ‘You’re having a beer,’ he said to Glassman and then he told him what he knew all along.

  ‘She’s not breaking the law,’ he said, ‘but we could have a friendly chat with her. It might aggravate her…’

  ‘It might help,’ his friend replied.

  And then The Chief gave him some friendly advice.

  ‘She thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe – do you really think this woman is going to see sense? This is my advice. Give her time to cool off and in the meantime go home and pack a bag.’

  ‘So,’ Glassman said quietly, ‘I have to run away.’

  ‘You still got the house on the Cape?’ The Chief asked.

  ‘Sure – and she doesn’t know about that,’ Glassman replied.

  ‘You’re not running away from her,’ The Chief said. ‘You’re taking a vacation – go down to the Cape – a few weeks out of the picture and she’ll calm down.’

  At home Glassman cleaned the apartment again. He wanted to smell floor wax as soon as he opened his front door. He replaced the security chain and shot the small brass bolts and then stood facing his own world again. The locksmith had left a small splinter of wood on the rug and he picked it up and twirled it between his fingers before putting it into the trash. Otherwise the parquet floor was gleaming and the sunlight landed on it in long golden shadows and then bounced off it again. On days like this he used to feel elated. The summer sun lighting up the street and every corner of Central Park. He ran his fingers along the long narrow mahogany table, the telephone, the olive-green bowl where he kept his keys, and there was no dust. It was as if everything had been replaced with identical items so his home was suddenly clean and new. And everything else was exactly as he had left it. The soft French cheese in the refrigerator. The toilet seat standing up. The small pea of toothpaste in the sink. The kitchen mat kicked with his feet. He could still taste The Chief’s hot chocolate and how kind his voice had been when he told him in a roundabout way that he could not help.

  But really he had given Glassman something he did not have before, he had given him permission to leave.

  He could be replaced at the hospital. Since he became ill he could only work the shorter shifts. He wanted to get out of this city soon before it kicked him until he turned green.

  He pulled his t-shirt off over his head and dropped it on the hall floor. He caught sight of his slight frame in the mirror and as usual he did not know for sure now if he was sick or well.

  He stopped for a moment then and told himself to breathe slowly. He was suddenly afraid again. He could get it, the smell, he was sure of it. Last week he had called Trudy early on a Saturday morning and asked her to come over.

  ‘Glassman, can’t it wait?’ she asked and then, guessing that he was in real trouble, she pulled a coat on over her night-clothes and jumped in a cab in the rain. When she came in, she was fresh-faced and smiling and he just loved her then. Her hair soaked and how she shook it out, not really caring, and said in a voice full of humour, ‘Arthur – what gives?’

  He said he needed her help. He needed her to explain the smell. He needed her to tell him in clear simple language that he was not imagining it. He needed Trudy to tell him that he was not losing his mind. And she pulled a dramatic face and then walked through his apartment and said, ‘Sure I get it’ and then in a completely casual way, ‘I think it’s… Chanel No 5.’

  The traffic from Prince Street seemed to be inside the room today and he hated the noise and how it seemed to fill and buzz inside his head. He turned on the shower and then he stopped for a moment and listened again.

  ‘No,’ he told himself and then he said it out loud to remind himself one more time. He needed to deal with this. He needed to get a grip on himself. He had to stop coming home at night and checking every room. But tomorrow he knew he would change the locks again and hire someone else to clean. The sound of the cold water calmed him. He stood under the water and leaned his head back so that the water bounced a little off his face. And when he looked down he saw with some satisfaction his feet still slightly tanned and standing firm on the green tiles. She was still sending notes to him. One said she was walking out on her contract with 20th Century Fox. He had no idea what she meant. But she was getting into his apartment and moving things around. He was sure of it and yet it was something he could not fully prove. ‘We need to catch her in the act,’ that was what The Chief said. These days after work at the hospital Glassman liked to take long walks through the city at night. He kept himself busy without explaining it. The real reason was that he felt he was living with a ghost.

  He adjusted the showerhead and the water pounded over his back and it was only when he was finished that he heard the sound.

  It sounded like a door, the bathroom door, he thought, being gently closed. And in sequence he swallowed and his mouth went suddenly dry and then he knew that the noise from the traffic was coming through the open bedroom window and that he never left the windows open, and that that was something only she liked to do.

  He did not need to turn around so he calmly reached backwards for his towel and waited as he wrapped it around his waist, and then he turned, knowing that the bathroom door had opened and closed and that he would see her standing there.

  ‘You better start talking to me,’ she said and her voice was without any emotion and it was low as if she did not want someone to overhear them arguing in the next room.

  Glassman twisted the towel around his waist and used his hand to take the drops from his mouth and nose.

  ‘OK,’ he said and he followed her down the landing and into his bedroom. The bed was covered in pale taupe silk. The cream headboard pressed against an exposed brick wall. His jeans were slung over the armchair and he noticed that his belt had uncurled itself on the floor. Matilda walked towards the bed and waited for a moment. ‘Quite a performance,’ he thought.

  She wanted to stand and face him from his bed and to remind him of what he had taken from her there.

  ‘So how is The Chief and his young bride?’ she asked. She was speaking in a light whispering voice and he no longer knew if she was high or insane.

  ‘I know everything you do,’ she said simply. ‘I know where you go. I know who you meet. I know who you see. And I will keep following you until you listen and understand me,’ and her eyes were boring into him now. ‘We’re meant to be. I know it. And you know it too.’ He could smell her heavy scent from here. She was wearing black stilettos and when she sat suddenly on the end of the bed he noted with some strange throwback affection that they had red leather soles.

  ‘Matilda…’ and even now his voice was gentle, ‘I don’t love you,’ and she stared back defiantly.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered back. And then, ‘Glassman, there’s no need to be so afraid.’

  ‘I don’t believe I ever did,’ he said and this was the first time he deliberately hurt her and he marvelled at it. How deep and hurtful and powerful those few words were.

  When Matilda walked towards him, she was swallowing and big tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks. Even her tear-ducts were dramatic and pouring out small rivers of black mascara now.

  ‘I curse you,’ she said simply and in the sweetest voice he had ever heard. And then she blinked, closing both eyes for a second, taking her keys from the table as she always did, and as she left she buttoned her coat carefully as if against the cold. And what she said had almost
made him grin and her last words to him showed up his life in a sudden jagged flash.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he wanted to say because Glassman felt quite sure he was already cursed. And the next day Matilda wrote an article about famous suicides – Mark Antony, Adolf Hitler and Marilyn Monroe.

  The Chief wanted to help him. Not only because he cared about him but because in Vietnam he had saved The Chief’s life. He had held him when blood ran out of him and he knew by the look on Glassman’s face that as they held each other close one of them might die. But he couldn’t help now. The problem was big inside his friend’s head – but after one busy day at the Precinct it was really way too small in his. Men and women and the world wars they caused for one another – sometimes it would be better if everyone just lived apart.

  That night he put his hand against his wife’s back and felt her breathe in and out and he could almost hear her thoughts, the internal debate, the reminders of what she should be punishing him for now – how he had promised to stop smoking and now because he hadn’t quit she might withhold sex. But it was Friday night and the boys were with their mother and so she turned and quietly sighed as he put his hands on her breasts. She smelt like soap and water and her hair somehow had the aroma of freshly baked bread. She was Irish too, somewhere along the line. She had that distracting look of fresh health around her and even now, as she made love to him in her sighing, lamenting way, he rode the 1916 Rising and then he went into her and rose again. Her name was Maggie and when he came he groaned it into her ear. She was not the type to make phone calls and sneak around his house if he ever left her.

  In quiet whispers then, they did something they had not done for months. Instead of fading off into noisy hot sleep, they talked. She listened as he told her about his friend’s trouble and she said that the woman was wasting her time and that if it was her – Maggie – she would go around there once with a shotgun and blow off his balls and Gallagher smiled into the dark. And it was the first real smile that day – and he loved her, for her brutality, for her own version of love and for the sweet simplicity of it.

  12 Love, Loyalty and Friendship (September 2001)

  Experiment n. – 1. A test carried out in order to discover whether a theory is correct or what the results of a particular course of action would be. 2. An attempt to do something new, or a trying out of something to see what will happen.

  The red dress is a mistake. It is a 1950s shirtdress that is strangely demure but still shows off my figure and it is a mixture of raspberry-red and pink. He looks relaxed and I know that living on the boat gives him that. That he is happiest on his own, free from other people and me. I am wearing pink amethyst earrings with one matching bracelet and when he walks in I notice that he does not see any of this. When he looks at me he just looks into my eyes and I cannot decide if this is good or bad. We sit on two high stools at the bar and in between drinks we tell each other about our lives.

  He tells me he works for a record label and I tell him I help to make the ads that run on TV.

  ‘Do you know the story about the young bull and the old bull?’ he asks. ‘No,’ I tell him and I am leaning forward and smiling. I am trying. Every time I meet a new guy I try again. Every time it doesn’t work I say I am finished with men – and then another one comes along. And every time another one comes along he is always different and he seems like ‘big game’ compared to the one before. When we sit facing each other we pretend it is all perfectly normal and that meeting like this is an everyday thing, and that neither of us wonders if our second date could be magical and the start of… something.

  He notices how I fold my arms and then unfold them again. That my dress is red and that it shows off my ass. That I am a little nervous when I speak and that my breasts are small.

  I notice that he is five minutes late. That he is freshly shaved and smells of soap. That when he speaks it is as if he is holding a watermelon in his hands. That he is wearing a Claddagh ring and that his heart is turned in and that something has changed since we last met.

  ‘The young bull says let’s run down the hill and fuck a cow,’ he says. ‘The old bull says let’s walk down the hill and fuck them all.’ He says this sitting on a high stool and then he nods at me and smiles. I do not know if I should be frightened or turned on by this.

  He tells me about the woman who broke his heart and I wish he would stop all this. How they fought and how he couldn’t let her go and how they got back together for a one-night fling.

  ‘You should never go back for a second look,’ I say wisely and I am thinking about the night I booked a room in the Burlington because I was too drunk to go home and how a married man I know peeled my stockings off and then fell asleep, as if exhausted by them.

  The old bull touches the waiter’s sleeve and asks for more drink. I think he is an old goat to say what he said, that he is probably a tiger under the sheets, and where are all these animals coming from anyway?

  ‘Yes, but I was in love,’ he says. ‘It was what I wanted.’ He says it has taken him ten years to forget this girl. He holds up ten fingers to mark the years and all I can see is the Claddagh ring. He wonders if I will sleep with him. I wonder if it is too soon to leave. The radio behind the bar is playing ‘Stay’ (I missed you). When he asks me if I want another drink I think about my empty life and hear myself say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘A lot of women fancy me,’ he says.

  ‘Oh,’ I reply and here I cause the conversation to stop.

  I wait a moment then, before tapping a little nail into his hand.

  ‘Sometimes,’ I begin, ‘men think I fancy them but really I am just taking a look.’ I hope this will knock him back but it doesn’t work.

  ‘No,’ he says and he is firm now, ‘I have had three stalkers. I mean three serious stalkers and one woman who said I was the father of her child.’ Here he holds his hands over an imaginary bump on his stomach.

  I try to put in another nail.

  ‘You must have got worried when I called you,’ I say and I am smiling for what seems like the first time in about ten years.

  ‘Now, Hope…’ he says and he grins at me and looks into my eyes. It is the first time he has said my name tonight. It is the first time I think about going to bed with him but it is still only a thought.

  I try to look concerned then and I am. I have no idea why three women would want to stalk this man. I wonder if it is a lie and why most men don’t have any stalkers and why he has had a batch of three.

  I go to the bathroom and ask my reflection how our date is. My reflection looks nice in the red dress that he isn’t able to see. Then the girl in the mirror says it might not be a date actually but I am not able to hear that.

  In the bar he is probably checking for messages from women on his mobile phone.

  He seems to find me interesting in little flashes but sometimes I seem to fade and bore him. He tells me this by checking his mobile phone again, by yawning (twice), by sending a text to someone as I speak.

  He tells me more about his life. How his parents separated. How he is fine with that. How he does not want to get married. That he does not want to have children. How making these decisions was like losing a monkey on his back. He tells me he is fine. I tell myself he is not. He says he is not sure about relationships, that he does not like the rules.

  ‘What rules?’ I ask. ‘There are no rules.’

  ‘Rules,’ he says. ‘Like it’s a Tuesday night and she says… let’s go to a concert at the weekend.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘that rule.’

  ‘I don’t like to think beyond today,’ he says.

  We talk about going out with people and how everyone starts off well and then you start to notice things.

  ‘Ah yes,’ he says good-naturedly and here we share a little joke. We both understand the disappointment of it. The day we find out that our lovers are human and real.

  ‘You see her in a particular light,’ he offers. ‘Or you don’t like what she’s co
oked for you…’ and we both warm to the point and then it comes out, real easy and slow. Timber.

  ‘There’s this girl I’m seeing at the moment,’ and he thinks for a minute to get his words in order and it is something else about how disappointing real people are and I understand this point too well now. I imagine his girlfriend is tall and standing in a window and that when he looks at her he cannot see how she is.

  ‘I’m not in love with her, but it’s nice,’ he says and the word ‘nice’ comes out as if he has invented it. I imagine nice mashed potatoes and nice pyjamas when he speaks.

  ‘It’s nice,’ he says again as if he is forcing the thought upon me. He wants me to say that nice is good. I want to say that I really don’t care.

  ‘She’s twenty-nine,’ he says. ‘She’s an artist and she has lots of ideas.’ I listen as he destroys his girl. I imagine how she would feel to hear this and what it is like to be noticed now in a particular kind of light. How he only thinks she is nice and has sex with her anyway. I wonder how his girl would feel about all of this.

  ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ he asks then.

  ‘I thought I might be seeing you,’ I want to answer but instead I shake my head.

  ‘What age are you?’ he asks.

  ‘Twenty-three,’ and I look into my drink to tell him that he is rude.

  ‘How many in your family?’ and for a moment I want to ask if this is an interview for a job.

  ‘Just me,’ I tell him.

  He says nothing and then, ‘That’s a surprise’, and I begin to hate him then but I cannot leave because he has only just mentioned his girl.

  We talk about our work again and he asks me if I am an ‘Accounts Executive’.

  ‘No,’ I say and I explain that in advertising Account Executives work for people like me. I am weakened and Lenin deserts me and I pretend now that I am top of the heap.

  ‘Oh,’ he says and his voice is dry, ‘I didn’t know there was such a hierarchy,’ and in that moment I think he might jeer me. I wait and watch as he takes another tack.