Under the Skin

by Nina Bawden

  I said innocently, ‘Whatever for? I thought she was doing a secretarial course?’

  ‘She was.’ A further pause. More heavy breathing. ‘It is extremely unfortunate that she cannot be allowed to continue it. But after what Louise has told me, I have no option but to remove her,’ he said proudly and, I thought, excessively grammatically. He squared his heavy shoulders and lifted his chin, completing the picture of a decent John Bull, doing his duty.

  Louise gave me a quick, frightened look. Then she spread out her hands on her lap and examined her pink, polished nails.

  I said, unbelievingly, ‘What exactly has Louise told you?’

  Louise jerked her head up. Her hearing was more acute than mine; it must have been fully half a minute before I understood her hypnotized-rabbit look of paralysed horror. The front door opened, slammed. Jay called, ‘Hodi. Hallo there!’ I felt the fluttering of nausea in my stomach.

  Louise said softly, piteously, ‘Please, Reggie.…’

  But this was just the sort of situation that appealed to him. He had us all in his power.

  He said loudly, ‘That your friend here has been carrying on with my daughter.’

  Louise said helplessly, ‘Reggie, I didn’t mean.…’ She started to cry in a quiet, defeated way.

  Jay was standing in the doorway of the room. I laughed loudly as if we had all been sharing some barrack-room joke and said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Reggie. This is all a lot of bloody nonsense, and you know it. That is, if Louise has been telling you the truth.’ I looked at her. She gave a moan and turned her face away. I said, ‘Naturally, Veronica has been seeing Jay. She has met him here with Julia. If they’ve met once or twice outside – for coffee, even for a visit to the pictures – what of it? What do you think has been going on?’ I tried – and knew I had failed – to inject the right amount of surprised sarcasm into my voice.

  ‘Mr Trim—’ Jay began, but Reggie ignored him.

  He smiled at me in an ostentatiously calm way, to show how reasonable he was. ‘My dear, Tom, nothing, I hope. It is simply a friendship I cannot approve of. Nor would Veronica’s mother. I would have thought I could have relied on your discouraging it. Since I cannot, I am doing what any normal father would do – removing my daughter from an undesirable influence.’

  ‘I object to the word, “normal”,’ I said.

  ‘Do you? You aren’t a father,’ Reggie said. ‘I can’t expect you to know how a father feels.’ He looked directly at Jay for the first time and said, ‘Perhaps you can tell him?’

  Jay’s white teeth were showing in a kind of still smile of fear, or shame; he was incapable of answering. The expression on his face sickened me.

  I said, ‘If I had a daughter, I don’t think I could bear to have such disgusting thoughts about her. Do you really see her as a bitch on heat?’

  ‘I won’t have my daughter mixing with Blacks,’ he said steadily.

  Humiliation burned up inside me. I had a terrible sense of failure. ‘I would be grateful if you would leave my house,’ I said.

  Reggie shrugged his shoulders and picked up his overcoat from the chair.

  Jay turned and left the room without a word. We heard his footsteps going up the stairs.

  Reggie put on his coat and smoothed his pigskin gloves carefully over his large, hairy hands. They fitted him like his assurance. His voice held the easy contempt of the successful man. ‘If you think I should apologize, Tom, I will. Though I must admit, I think I was considerably provoked.’ He smiled: satisfaction with this little speech had made him more benign. ‘Maybe I really should have restrained myself,’ he said.

  I was trembling and full of tiredness – the almost thankful exhaustion of knowing the hideous, ridiculous scene was almost over. I looked at the egg-shaped, white pouches under his eyes, the mournful, amorphous flesh. I said, in as conversational a tone as I could manage, ‘Reggie, you have the kind of face that looks as if it were painted on an eiderdown.’

  He stared at me. As Louise gave a little shriek – half tears, half hysterical laughter – he went beet-red with vexation.

  I said, ‘It’s not the sort of thing I should normally mention, of course. But I don’t see why you should be the only one to deplore other people’s offensive physical characteristics. At least you could do something about yours. You could go on a diet.’

  ‘He’s mad,’ Reggie said, to the air. He moved, with surprising swiftness for such a big man, across the room and out into the hall. Louise darted after him. They talked in low voices. I gave them a couple of minutes and then stood on the hearth, my back to the fire, and bellowed as loud as I could. ‘And while we’re about it, Reggie, if I had a daughter I should loathe and detest the idea of her marrying you.’

  The front door slammed in answer. I sat down on the sofa and put my head in my hands, pressing the knuckles into my eyes until the lids flamed vermilion.

  Louise said, ‘Feeling better?’

  I looked up. She was standing in front of me, her eyes bright in her blotched face. ‘My word, you do have fun,’ she said.

  I repeated, very slowly, all the simple Anglo-Saxon words I could think of.

  She said, ‘Do you hate me, Tom?’

  ‘No. I hate him. Not you. He’s a—’

  ‘You’ve said what he is.’ She gave a sad, half-smile. ‘And if it comforts you, you’ve probably hurt him a lot. He knows he’s ugly and overweight – you know, he always was, even at school. He was always sensitive about it.’

  This gave me no satisfaction at all.

  Louise said, ‘It was all my fault. I didn’t mean to do it. It was all because I was so angry yesterday. With you and with Jay. I didn’t get over it. I didn’t sleep all night. I didn’t feel any better this morning. I’m not excusing myself, just explaining. Then, while we were having lunch, Reggie said he’d been down to Surrey and father had said Veronica had rather a crush on Jay and what did I think about it? He didn’t sound particularly angry or anything, perhaps he was just being clever, I said I thought they were both rather smitten. I don’t know why, I suppose I just wanted to make mischief. To get my own back partly, and partly to tease Reggie. I didn’t really think he’d take it like that.’

  ‘You should have known.’

  ‘Yes. But he was being so nice – he can be nice, sometimes, you know. At least, I think he can.’ She looked at me humbly.

  I said, with a vague sense of shame. ‘He’s your brother. You don’t have to apologize for finding him occasionally agreeable.’

  ‘Then, when I saw how he felt – what I’d done – I thought I could talk him round. Reggie’s not unreasonable, really, but you have to be awfully sly. I think I might have managed it if you hadn’t come in then.’

  ‘Perhaps you would.’ There was no point in denying her this comfort.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’ Her face puckered with shame and misery. ‘Tom – I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I felt so ghastly. I was getting the curse. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes.’ I stood up and she leaned against me, pressing her hot face against my shoulder. I patted her automatically, not feeling anything very much. ‘It’s all right, love. At least, as far as I’m concerned.’

  She choked. ‘I can’t bear to speak to him.’

  ‘You’ll have to try.’

  She pulled away and looked up at me pleadingly. ‘Please, Tom. Go and tell him I’m a bitch, anything you like. Only make it all right. Please.’

  ‘It’s a tall order. How would you feel if you were him?’

  It struck me that Louise was singularly adept at evading the consequences of her actions. Her methods were the common feminine ones; tears, the parade of weakness, the appeal to a man’s pride. There was something almost professional, I thought, in the way she wrung her hands and said, in a low, stricken voice, ‘Please, Tom – I’m so ashamed.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Jay had his suitcase open on the bed. It was a cheap,
flimsy affair, apparently made of some kind of brown cardboard. In the way that irrelevant details sometimes do, its shabbiness moved me to pity and then to overwrought anger. For God’s sake – there was nothing pitiful about a cheap suitcase. I had had plenty.

  I said, ‘What the bloody hell do you thing you’re doing?’

  ‘I shall find lodgings. I cannot stay here.’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘It’s been bad enough having to put up with that fat oaf shooting his mouth off without you making silly meaningless gestures. You’re not a child – or a woman in pod. Why should you care what that fat, ignorant fool says? Ignore him – that’s the only thing to do with fools. If you don’t, you play into their hands. Don’t you see, he’d be tickled to bits if he thought he’d driven you out?’

  He listened with an expression of sulky misery. ‘I am not going because of what Dr Trim has said. I am used to insults.’ He bared his teeth. ‘Though it is difficult not to be an over-sensitive nigger if you are one. But I’m going because it’s clear to me that I have brought unhappiness into your family. This is a terrible thing to me. You have been my good friend.’ (I was more hurt than I would have believed possible by that past tense.) ‘This is a terrible way to repay you. If I stayed here, it would only mean more trouble between you and your brother.’

  I said, ‘He’s not my brother. You know damn well that if Reggie never walked into my house again I’d feel nothing – nothing at all except an overwhelming relief.’

  He looked deeply shocked. ‘That cannot be true. Your family must be important to you. To you and to Louise.’

  ‘You are much more important to us both,’ I said. At once, this sounded false and cheap.

  Jay did not answer; he began to fold a suit carefully, turning the jacket inside out and arranging the sleeves like a tailor.

  I said, ‘Where will you go, anyway? Lodgings are expensive. Even if you find somewhere, what will you do in the holidays? You can’t look after Philip in a bed-sitter.’

  ‘I will arrange something,’ he said, almost haughtily, making me feel interfering and paternalistic. He looked at me and his expression changed. ‘Please don’t worry, Tom. You have done a lot for me and I am really grateful. It has meant so much, to be received here, in an English home. When I first arrived, it was a constant marvel to me – here I am, I thought, a black boy from the bush behaving just like a civilized gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ I muttered, but Jay’s sudden giggle reassured me. He was simply amused by his own candour.

  I looked at my watch. There was barely time to get to the studio for the rehearsal. I said hastily, ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Be a good chap and hang on till I get back, at least. We’ll thrash it out tonight, if we have to. It’s unimportant – nothing. A storm in a teacup.’

  I saw that Jay didn’t understand the expression but there was no time to explain it.

  It was hot in the studio, we had to speak carefully and slowly for the benefit of a foreign audience and, perhaps as a result, the discussion barely got beyond a recital of those picturesque but basically meaningless statistics – (a child dies of hunger every three seconds, about the time it takes you to sprinkle salt over your Christmas dinner; the price of three packets of cigarettes will buy a hundred Arab refugees a quarter of a pint of milk daily for a month, and so on.) I wondered who worked out these homely images and whom they were expected to impress? The people who suspected the photographs of the dead in Belsen of being fake? (Could they have been real to anyone who didn’t recognize a face among them?)

  I watched the clock; afterwards I came out into the bitter cold and had to run for my bus. I caught it just before it moved off. I wasn’t the last; a man swung himself onto the platform behind me. The Jamaican conductor waved me inside and said, to him, ‘Sorry, sir. We’re full up.’

  He waited, his hand to the bell. The man didn’t move. He was tall, square-shouldered and wore a belted raincoat.

  The Jamaican said, ‘I can’t take any more. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What damned nonsense,’ the man said quietly. His voice was sub-genteel, his brown eyes hot in his brown face. In spite of his civilian clothes, there was a bristling, military efficiency about him.

  ‘We’re only allowed five standing passengers,’ the Jamaican said, equally quietly. ‘It is the regulation. I’m afraid I must ask you to get off the bus, sir.’

  ‘Ask away,’ the man said with apparent good humour. ‘It won’t have any effect, that’s all.’ He smiled at the nearest passengers, seeking a flattering response to his piercing wit. One or two did smile, weakly.

  The conductor said, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to hold up the bus until you do leave, sir. I’m sure you don’t want to inconvenience the passengers.’

  ‘I’m a passenger, aren’t I?’ He thrust out his pointed chin as if brandishing a weapon. ‘You’re just being bloody highhanded, that’s what.’

  The conductor said, more curtly, ‘I have to abide by the regulations. I’m in charge of this bus.’

  The man laughed. ‘Gone to your head, has it? It’s always the same. A little brief authority. Flat-nosed bastards.’

  Someone said from the depth of the bus. ‘Oh, lay off. Some of us want to get home tonight.’

  The man’s jaw tightened. He jabbed his hand quickly towards the bell. The Jamaican caught his wrist and said, ‘If you don’t leave at once, sir, I shall have to call a policeman.’

  The man wrenched his hand away and shouted, ‘All right. All right. I shall report you – you’ve no right to manhandle passengers. You’ll be for it, then. You see.’

  He swung off the bus and walked rapidly away. The Jamaican pressed the bell and the bus moved off. He came into the aisle to collect the fares, his face expressionless. Tiny droplets of sweat were visible on his forehead.

  A fat woman with short legs – her little feet bobbed several inches above the floor – said, ‘Don’t worry your’ead about him. Silly bugger.’

  He nodded without arguing; the tired sulkiness on his young face won him no more supporters. Though the fat woman said, her gaze sweeping the bus, ‘Uppity bugger’, eyes were fixed on the ground. She shifted her plastic shopping bag on her lap and muttered; when the conductor came back to her end of the bus she beamed consolingly at him, a fat, motherly smile. He ignored it; though you could hardly blame him, this seemed a pity and I felt sorry for her. For the rest of the journey he stood on the platform, staring sullenly out at the dark, wet, alien streets.

  The silly incident depressed me. It was too trivial to be a spur to a healthy, cleansing bout of anger; I descended into a bleak depression as cold and dull and infinite as a grey Sunday, in which the world was full, not of wickedness or evil – nothing so grand – but of stupid and unattractive people behaving unattractively and stupidly. Starving children, destitute old men, out-of-work dockers (and the clueless, decent men who believed them to be idle layabouts) war refugees (and upright politicians who could talk about war without envisaging their own children mutilated and screaming) persecuted minorities, negroes in America, Jews in Russia, Indians in Africa – the waste and terror over three-quarters of the earth was due to nothing except a monstrous, inflated stupidity, lack of imagination and fear; the innocent fear of savages, white and black, dreading the unknown.

  I felt cold and tired and emptied. When I got home, Louise met me at the door. She looked flushed and very pretty as she usually did when on the defensive.

  Julia was in the sitting-room.

  Jay had gone.

  ‘I couldn’t do anything, Tom. He’d got all his things in the hall before he came to say good-bye.’

  I went slowly upstairs to his room. It was as empty as it had been when he moved into it.

  ‘I told you he took everything,’ she said. Her manner was both nervous and smug. ‘I nearly told him it was jolly rude of him to go before you got back, but it seemed a waste of time.’

  ‘It would have been.’

&nb
sp; Julia, sitting comfortably by the fire in a new green dress, nodded cosy approval.

  ‘You can’t expect Them to understand the little niceties of polite behaviour. Though I expect he was very upset. Reggie is a naughty, tactless boy.’

  I could think of no answer to this stunning remark.

  She sighed and smiled at me brightly. ‘I suppose all’s well that ends well. You and Louise have nothing to reproach yourselves with. You gave him a good start. But its probably a good thing he’s gone now. After all, it couldn’t have gone on.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She let out a little laugh. ‘Well – could it? I mean, he couldn’t have stayed here for ever.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting him to. Only for a year.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mother,’ Louise said impatiently. ‘You know quite well it’s a frightful thing. How would you like it if Reggie had been abominably rude to a guest in your house?’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little, dear?’ Julia said in a gentle, superior voice. ‘After all, Reggie had a perfect right to be worried. We mustn’t get things out of proportion, must we? I’m only anxious you and Tom shouldn’t blame yourselves. After all – it was very generous of you to offer to have him in the first place. No one could have expected you to keep him for a whole year. To speak bluntly, I don’t think it a good thing for a young married couple to have a third person always in the house.’

  ‘We’ve been married twelve years, Julia.’

  ‘You’re still a young couple to me.’ She fitted a cigarette into her holder and assumed a wise, summing-up expression. ‘No – I’m afraid I can’t be sorry he’s gone, really. Except personally, of course. I must admit I enjoyed his company. I always enjoy meeting people who are a little different. You tend to get set in your ways as you grow older – though I’ve tried very hard not to. My mother always used to say, you get out of life what you put into it, you should never refuse a challenge or a new relationship. I’ve remembered her advice all my life. I like to think I’ve tried to follow it.’