Skin Deep

by Liz Nugent

  Thanks to Freddie’s status and the approval of a certain number of his friends, I found myself accepted in most quarters, on some occasions at the palace itself. Prince Albert’s fiftieth birthday party in 2008 was such an occasion, and I thought then that Daddy would have been proud of me. My little queen.

  Freddie had changed his painting technique several times since I’d known him, and a couple of years ago had started to experiment with layering oils. ‘I’m using black as the base layer for your scarring and then building up the layers to get the texture right. There is something dark there and I can’t seem to capture it, no matter how hard I try.’

  His obsession with me remained undimmed. At the same time, his relationship with his daughter, Audrey, was terrible. They were no longer on speaking terms. She was reckless with his money and I persuaded him not to cut her off financially. Marjorie was grateful to me for that and maintained contact with her, but Freddie would not have her name mentioned. One time, when Marjorie referred to her in my presence, Freddie snapped at her, ‘Cordelia is more of a daughter than Audrey is!’

  I knew Freddie’s attachment to me was causing friction with Marjorie. She told me that entire rooms of their London home were stacked high with sketches and canvases containing only my image. She was irritated by it, and when I suggested to Freddie that Marjorie might prefer that I got a place of my own, Freddie wouldn’t hear of it. I couldn’t help myself – I played one against the other, expressing doubt to Freddie that Marjorie may not like me and implying to Marjorie that Freddie was becoming too clingy. As he got older, his visits did indeed become a little more frequent, and more often, Marjorie stayed at home.

  When Freddie came, we would often drive away up to Beaulieu or Villefranche or across the Italian border to Ventimiglia and find a quiet grove, an orchard or some other stunning view, and Freddie would retrieve his easel and paints from the car boot. He had no desire for the fashionable flashy sports cars of his friends. He always hired something functional and well designed. He would arrange me in some pose, always ensuring that I was comfortable, and he would paint me.

  It disturbed Freddie that I did not like to study his paintings too deeply. ‘Have I got it wrong?’ he would say, his face creased from squinting and self-doubt. He did not get it wrong at all. He captured everything. You could see the lies in the nape of my neck and the inside of my wrist.

  I would laugh at him and say, ‘I’m not a narcissist, you know!’ and he would look at me with that puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘One day,’ he’d say, ‘I’m going to paint you so well that you are going to fall in love with yourself.’

  ‘Why, Freddie, why are you so obsessed by the scarring? What is the big mystery?’ I finally asked.

  He paused and sighed before he answered and kept his eyes on the canvas as he explained.

  ‘I was a boy during the war. We lived in a large house outside a village in Gloucestershire. My father died shortly after I was born and my mother turned the house into a convalescent home for returning soldiers.’

  Freddie was now in his mid seventies. I tried to imagine him as a boy.

  ‘I was home-schooled, so these soldiers became my friends and my playmates. I saw them long after their surgeries, and although some of them were dealing with enormous emotional trauma, their wounds were healing and they were always eager to see me. Mother used me like a therapy dog, I suppose.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I was small and innocent and knew nothing of their experiences, and I just accepted without question that these broken men lived with us, and that they were part of my family. I was too young to know that their wounds and scars were indicators of pain.’

  I drew my hand to my face again.

  ‘I used to touch their scars and stumps, and I put my small fingers in the places where their eyes had been and traced them. I know it sounds strange, but I was fascinated by their difference, and they were grateful, I think, that someone was not afraid of their impairment.’

  ‘But why have you never told me this before?’

  ‘Doesn’t it make me sound like the most dreadful creep? Even Marjorie was horrified when I told her. I’m ashamed. That’s why I haven’t spoken about it.’

  ‘I understand, Freddie.’ I really did understand. I knew what it was like to be thought of as different.

  ‘Do you? You see, their damage was a sign of their nobility and their sacrifice. That is what I am trying to capture in you. What sacrifice did you make for those scars, Cordelia?’

  ‘I did not make any sacrifice. I didn’t go to war.’

  He said nothing for a moment and then: ‘There is something there. I know it. I just have to find it.’ Freddie was relieved that he no longer had to carry this secret shame. Afterwards, he would often tell me the stories of these men and their graphic wounds. I was repulsed and fascinated at the same time, but I never let Freddie see my revulsion.

  And so he kept trying, over and over and over, to capture the noble me he thought I was. But she didn’t exist and I was happy to forget about her. Meanwhile, I researched dermatology clinics. I found the right one in Paris. I had spent years saving money. Since I’d met the Bairds I’d saved half of Peter’s payments every month.

  May 2009

  Dear Mam,

  Today is my twenty-fifth birthday. Happy birthday to me. Thanks for all the cards and gifts you sent over the years. Not. Dad says that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but it turns out that I’m pretty good at it.

  It’s been a few years since I last wrote and still got no reply. I could pretend that I don’t care, but we both know that’s not true because I’m still writing to you.

  I’ve found out a lot more about you now, and it turns out we are alike. I tracked down Moira Walsh to a nursing home in Ballinasloe. She’s very old and feeble but her mind is sharp. Surprisingly, she was glad to see me, though when I say ‘see’, I am misleading you because she’s almost totally blind so she didn’t suffer much having to meet me. She told me that your birth family died in a fire on Inishcrann. The irony of that doesn’t escape me, and maybe that is why you never wanted to get in touch with me.

  Have you thought about getting psychological help to deal with your past? I’m not suggesting you’re mental but, well, I’ve been seeing a counsellor for a while now and I think it might be helping. He says that I need to forgive you and let you go, and that’s probably good advice, but it’s hard for me to ‘let go’ of something that I never had, not that I remember anyway. Dad says it was some nanny that brought me to the zoo, and that the memories I have are of her. I don’t remember you at all.

  The counsellor (Mark) was court-appointed and I’m seeing him in order to stay out of jail. I had to agree to six months of counselling to deal with my ‘anger’ issues and I had to pay €500 in fines to a girl that I assaulted. It wasn’t a sexual assault, I’m not a pervert. Mark says I need to accept responsibility and I’m not saying it wasn’t my fault, but I need to explain the circumstances. Firstly, I was drunk (I wonder where I got that from?) and also, the girl was obnoxious. I shouldn’t have punched her, but I guess I’m just sick to death of all these girls who just want to be my friend. I was actually dating her properly for six weeks. Nothing much had happened between us, but I guess I got my hopes up. You’d think I’d have learned after all this time. We were in a pub in town and some younger lads from a rugby tour down from Dublin thought it would be great fun to pull my hat off and run down the street with it (I wear a hat all the time, winter and summer, to protect me from UVA and UVB light, and so as not to frighten children). I got thick about it and my supposed girlfriend starts laughing and tells me to calm down. She was laughing AT me, so I told her to go away in less polite terms than that, and then other lads started getting heavy with me, telling me to leave her alone. I think she liked the attention that she was getting from the guys, but then she started acting like she was afraid of me, like I was going to beat her up.

  I
was angry so I took off to another pub thinking I’d have a few whiskeys to calm me down, but the more I drank the angrier I got. When I was kicked out of there at closing time, I went up to the Castle Court nightclub where I knew everyone was going to be. And I waited in the shadows until she came out. I followed her home and then, when we got near her house, I called out to her and asked her why she was acting like she was scared of me and why she’d been laughing at me. She was as drunk as I was and she just started screaming, so I hit her just once, to shut her up. I didn’t even hit her hard. There wasn’t even a bruise, but she was hysterical and there were witnesses and the guards were called.

  Half the town don’t speak to me now. Granny said, ‘You’re a troublemaker, just like your mother.’ So that’s what I’ve inherited from you: drinking and troublemaking. Thanks a lot.

  The worst part is that Dad’s wife, Caroline, was freaked out and doesn’t want me around my little sisters any more. It breaks my heart because those girls knew me from when they were born and they never treated me like I was weird – they were used to me and I love them. And now I’m living in a flat on my own away from them. I suppose I should have moved out of home years ago, but there was never any reason to before. Dad was on my case about the drinking, trying to get me to join AA and all that shite. He hasn’t fired me yet. I still work in his factory, but it’s only a matter of time before I get thrown out of there too.

  Granny died yesterday. She once said that she felt sorry for you, and that you must have been emotionally scarred by your childhood, and then when she’d said it, she felt bad for using the word ‘scarred’ in front of me. But I think she must have liked you at one time.

  She adored me, up until the last few years when I disgraced the family name. My grandfather would be ‘turning in his grave’ apparently. I went to see her in hospital last week and her last words to me were ‘Live your life, stop being afraid.’ What do you think she meant by that?

  Anyway, that’s all the news from Westport. I must go now and polish my shoes for tomorrow’s funeral.

  You won’t write back, but I’m sending this anyway because I want you to know about me. Just in case, it’s still jmmyrssll@outlook.ie.

  Love from Jimmy

  Why was he so persistent? I had never replied to him, so why did he insist on inflicting these miserable letters on me? I was sorry to hear about Elizabeth’s death, despite her labelling me as a troublemaker. She had tried to be kind after James was born. But I guess her time was up. I had lost contact with Moira years previously. Keeping up a correspondence with her had been futile.

  My son has anger issues. I guessed he might have inherited those from my father, because as far as I knew, Peter’s family weren’t the violent type. I hoped for his sake and those around him that his counselling sessions worked. I didn’t know why he thought that I might need psychological help. My past is in the past and that is where it belongs.

  31

  In 2009, Freddie did not come to Monaco at all. Marjorie telephoned and said he was unwell. In January 2010, he emailed to say there were shadows on his lungs and that he was coming in March to paint me ‘before time runs out’. He arrived, looking skeletal. Ashen. Clearly, the ‘shadows’ were malignant. Marjorie turned up the day after, furious because he hadn’t told her he was travelling. She begged him to come home and start treatment, but he refused, insisting that he had to finish his ‘life’s work’ and that he did not want an extension to his life that would be spent in hospital.

  I pleaded Marjorie’s case too. I looked it up on the Internet. His type of cancer was not always fatal and chemotherapy treatment had developed so much in previous years that he had a middling chance of survival, or at least a few extra years. He painted me in the apartment, with trembling hands, stopping for coughing fits from time to time. Marjorie was dreadfully upset. Freddie told her he didn’t want her there, fussing over him. She couldn’t bear it and flew back to London. She warned me to look after him and call if he took any sudden turns for the worse. She begged me to persuade him to take the treatment.

  But nursing a sick man was not in my plan. All those years, I had been making my own plans, and now I had saved enough money for the operation to restore my face. Over the previous months, I had been making preparations. I had travelled to Paris twice already and consulted with the best surgeon money could buy. Ten years of savings. The surgeon was even going to slightly lift the good side of my face to raise my eyebrows and smooth out some fine lines that had appeared around my eyes and mouth. Botox on one side of my face would only make things worse, she said. ‘Best to do the whole thing in one go.’ That month, my operation was scheduled. I did not want to tell Freddie, it was none of his business, but I did not want to leave him alone either. He was not strong enough to cook for himself. Marjorie had been helping him to shower and dress. I could not bear the thought of more intimate tasks as he became sicker.

  Two weeks later, as I posed on the balcony yet again, I begged him to go home and have the chemotherapy.

  ‘I have had an extraordinarily good life, Cordelia. I have been lucky. I know the odds. With the treatment, I could go on for another few years, but the chances of the tumours returning are high. I do not want to spend my final months incarcerated in hospitals or hospices. I have access to the best of doctors and as much morphine as I need to keep the pain at bay. I will die here. With you.’

  I was startled.

  ‘With me? But surely you want Marjorie, and Audrey?’

  He sat up straight and I felt nervous.

  ‘Don’t you see? Are you that blind, Cordelia? I need to capture you before I go. There is no afterlife. There is only now. You have eluded me all this time, but I need you more than ever. I need to get it right.’ He stopped, as a coughing fit convulsed him. I did not move to help or comfort him. When it subsided, he continued, breathlessly, ‘The painting. Even unveiled, you are hidden from me. I have been trying to find your soul and to put it on these wretched canvases. I need to find you. You, you are my muse. Marjorie is my wife, but it is you that I need.’

  I thought back to the early days of our friendship, and Matisse and the nun. He thought that I could be like her. I had never seen him so needy, so desperate, and it disturbed me. I decided to ignore it.

  ‘Freddie, I have to go away, on Monday, to see a friend in Paris. I’ve already booked my time off from the gallery. I’ll be gone for a month or two at most.’

  ‘A friend? In Paris?’ He was jealous. I could see it in his eyes.

  ‘Not a boyfriend. Sylvie Morat, an art historian. It’s work-related.’

  ‘And you cannot postpone? I would refund the cost of your travel.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. You should go home, Freddie. At least let Marjorie take care of you?’

  ‘She fusses,’ he said irritably, ‘and I have already made my last journey, to you.’

  Another coughing fit ensued, and this time spots of blood appeared at the corners of his mouth. He reached for the box of tissues behind him, but could not grab them. I rose to help him. A spill of crimson pooled down his chin and dripped on to his lap. His body relaxed again, and he looked down at the splotches on his pale trousers. I reached behind his chair for the towel on the shelf behind him. He lifted his head again and his eyes followed me. As I hovered over him in the darkest corner of the room, his face lit up. He tried to spring up from his seat.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said, ‘stay exactly where you are. It’s perfect. I’ve been painting you in the sunshine, but you belong in the shadows. Do not move.’

  I passed him the towel, and he impatiently wiped his chin and neck and dabbed futilely at his trousers. I watched Freddie rifling through his box of pencils, and ripping the canvas off the easel with a vigour that had been missing since his return.

  ‘Stop. Please, Freddie. You have sketched and painted me in every conceivable light, you have marked out my scars in vivid relief and colour – it’s time to stop. Give it up.’

  H
is face darkened with anger. ‘How dare you tell me to stop? How dare you tell me what to do? I own you.’

  We barely spoke for the rest of the day. I maintained my pose and he sketched until the light faded, and then I prepared a simple rice dish that he could easily swallow. He ate half of it, but continued to work on the sketch. When he was too exhausted, he allowed me to take him by the arm to his bedroom. I left him for a while and then, when he had undressed, I took his discarded stained clothes and carried them to the washing machine. I brought him a glass of water and left his medicine beside the bed.

  I rang Marjorie and left a voicemail and then emailed her to say that I had to be out of Monaco for a month, and that I thought Freddie would need her.

  I got a reply later that night. She would take the next flight and arrive early the next morning. ‘I am glad,’ she wrote, ‘that you have decided to give us this time alone. I cannot bear to watch him die, but it is worse to think that he might die without me. I know it is silly of me to be jealous of you, but sometimes it has seemed that he preferred your company to mine.’ She thought my planned absence was altruism.

  Freddie was not unhappy to see her the next day but strongly objected to me leaving. He turned nasty. I had never seen him this way before. He behaved as if he were a spurned lover. ‘You’re an ungrateful, selfish brat.’

  Marjorie later apologized. ‘It must be the pain. I am so sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I know he’s not like this.’

  I caught the bus to Nice and then the train to Paris and put thoughts of Freddie out of my mind. My life was about to start over again. A new face. My old face. Restored.

  32

  Everybody in the clinic was extremely pleasant and efficient. I don’t think they had too many patients who were paying without health insurance, in cash. My surgeon, Madame Chernaux, put me at my ease and showed me several before and after photographs of recent operations. The results were excellent. I fasted that night, and slept fitfully until a kind nurse gave me a sedative which took the edge off my jangling nerves.