Skin Deep

by Liz Nugent

  No point in pretending any more that I love you. But my email is here, just in case you ever want to defend yourself. jmmyrssll@outlook.ie.

  I had been right not to get involved with my son. He was obviously a very damaged individual, full of hatred and anger, but now I was worried about two things: that my maintenance payments from Peter might cease, but worse, that my son would track me down and harm me. I considered contacting Harry, but after what the Corsicans did to him, I don’t think he would have wanted to intervene with James on my behalf. I was incredibly anxious about this, but when I received no further letters, I began to relax again.

  A year after Freddie died, it was time for me to leave Monaco. I decided that anyone who thought I had betrayed the Bairds by repairing my face was not worth my company. I was better than all of them, and more beautiful. Daddy was right all along.

  I still had some money saved, in case further surgery was required, but my face had settled well, my follow-up appointments found no signs of tissue rejection and I was free to spend the money. I still had Peter’s payments coming monthly, despite James’s threats. I spoke fluent French, I was beautiful, I was forty-five years old but would pass for ten years younger. I could start again, on my own terms.

  I moved all the way around the coast to the small town of Argelès-sur-Mer near the Catalonian border and found a flat. I rented a small shop two hundred yards back from the beach and imported leather goods from China and India. My experience in the gift shops of Nice stood to me, but now with the Internet it was so much easier. I could buy items that would pass easily as designer labels, though I was always at pains to point out the differences to customers. This time there would be no fraud. Well, not much. I sold two expensive briefcases to older, distinguished-looking men on my first day. One of them invited me for a drink.

  It felt like the old days again. I was in demand; people sought out my company. I went on dates, had boyfriends, drank cocktails and enjoyed all of the things I should have done as a teenager. The men were courteous and generous mostly, and I obliged, by sleeping with them. Why not give them what they want? It meant nothing to me.

  By the end of the summer season, though, there was no trade and I relinquished the lease on the shop.

  I thought perhaps that I could become a mistress to a rich man. I was divorced and single. All I wanted was somebody to support me, put me up in a nice apartment somewhere. I was not looking to be an entirely kept woman. I was determined to work but I needed somebody of means, and those men did not holiday in Argelès. I moved back to Antibes and took a job as a receptionist in a dental surgery under my Cordelia Russell name, but the job did not last because although the dentist liked to have sex with me in his lunch hour, he did not like the smell of cigarettes and alcohol on my breath or the shake in my hands first thing in the morning.

  The following year I went to Juan-les-Pins and hung out in the Belles Rives, but their clientele was older. There were no business customers, no unattached men looking for more than a one-night stand.

  I went back to Nice, got a job in an antiques store and rented a flat one street from the promenade. I did not run into any of the old crowd, and even if I had, they would not have recognized me. I stayed there for five years, moving from lover to lover, and job to job, but I never seemed to have enough money for wine.

  Age caught up with me and I could no longer defy gravity. Even though I ate less than ever, my flat stomach pooled at my belly and my breasts needed more upholstery than before. I couldn’t bear it. I got fired from a few jobs, for being late, disorganized, intoxicated. I had to go to the social welfare office. I did not declare my maintenance payments. How else could I pay for the wine?

  By 2017 I was living in a tiny bedsit with no air-conditioning and I didn’t bother walking the mile to the sea every day any more. And that made me sicker.

  One day, at the end of the tourist season, I was sitting in a café on the promenade, nursing a glass of cheap rosé, when I heard my name being called.

  ‘Delia! Delia Russell?’

  I turned and recognized her immediately. Isabelle. Older, grey hair cut short, pearl earrings, perfectly groomed in a silk dress and Chanel jacket, far from the tie-dyed kaftans of her youth. I hadn’t seen her since London, since …

  ‘My God, we thought you were dead! Everyone said you’d died, back in Ireland!’

  I let my eyes glaze over to a look of incomprehension and affected a French accent. ‘Excusez-moi? My English is no good. Perhaps you mistake me for somebody else?’

  She looked at me, aghast. ‘Delia, it’s me, Isabelle, for God’s sake …?’

  I continued to stare at her, refusing to acknowledge my recollection of her. She must have known about the fire. Had Peter told everyone that I’d died? Maybe it was better for him to say that in London than to admit he had divorced me when I was at my lowest.

  ‘Non,’ I said now.

  ‘Delia, come on! You don’t have to pretend. I’m not friends with Hannah now, we haven’t spoken in years. How is James?’

  I did not respond. I watched the doubt creep into her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps … I have the wrong person,’ she faltered now. ‘Vous regarde comme un ami qui est morte,’ she said in badly accented French.

  ‘Je suis désolée. Je ne suis pas morte.’ I smiled at her and turned back to my lunch.

  ‘The resemblance is so striking. Photograph?’ she said, taking out her phone.

  ‘Non.’ I rose quickly, threw some money on the table, nodded to Jean-René, the proprietor, and left.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ she called after me. ‘You look so like her, a blonde version. I could have sworn you were her!’

  I was rattled. I went to a supermarket and bought two bottles of vodka to stop myself remembering.

  In the morning, I was woken by my buzzer. I rarely had visitors, unless they were certain gentlemen callers with whom I had made an arrangement, and they usually came in their lunch hour or directly after work. I looked at my phone. It was 11.30. My mouth was dry and my make-up was caked around my eyes. I still wore the dress I’d put on yesterday morning. My hair was a mess. I stumbled to the kitchen tap and filled a tumbler with water. I got back into bed and pulled the duvet over my head. Still the buzzer rang out, and I knew my neighbours would be irritated. I ignored it and, mercifully, sleep took me again. Half an hour later, the buzzer sounded once more, waking me for a second time. It was incessant. The caller must have been leaning on the button. I heard doors open on the corridor outside and people shouting. I could not imagine who wanted to see me so urgently.

  The next noise was a hammering at my door. Somebody downstairs must have let them in. I heard a voice, a thick West of Ireland accented voice calling, ‘Delia? Delia! Open the door. I know you’re in there!’

  Delia! Nobody here knew me as Delia. Harry? Could it be Harry? I barely had time to think how he could have found me again, but I remembered that he once loved me, and even though I never understood it, I knew by now that love was something I needed.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I said, as I ran to splash water on my face, scrape a brush through my hair and tear off yesterday’s dress and throw on a robe. In my hungover state, I must have thought that I could seduce him. I threw open the door and was greeted by … a monster.

  Tall, and as broad as my father, most of his head was smothered by a hood but what I could see of his lower face was shocking and revolting. I leaped backwards, and his head shot up, dislodging the hood and revealing the full horror of his injuries. I tried to close the door on him, but he stopped it with his foot.

  ‘Delia, you don’t know me, but we’re family. I followed you yesterday.’ He entered and shut the door quietly behind him. James, my son who had sent me those desperate and hate-filled letters. My son who wanted to hurt me so badly. He lurched forward and I opened my mouth to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth. ‘Please don’t scream.’

  I bit down on his hand and he let go. He stumbled and grabbed at m
y throat. He was going to choke me. I leaped out of his way and grabbed the vodka bottle, smashed it on the table and, without thinking, plunged it into his neck.

  ‘Why?’ I’m pretty sure that’s what he tried to say. He gurgled as he collapsed on the floor, crumpled like an old newspaper. His arms flailed uselessly, as the blood spilled from his neck. He was trying to speak, but his tongue lolled in his mouth, and all the while I stood over him, frozen with fright and fear, watching him die.

  When it was over I went to lie on my bed and shut my eyes tightly, determined that this was one of those nightmares I could shake off. But I couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop the image of my hand on the broken bottle, the glass slicing into his warped neck. I got up again, remembering that there was another bottle of vodka. I drank until I could actually look at the corpse on my floor. I put a towel over his hideous head and heaved him towards the corner of the room, trailing darkening blood as I went. His clothes were cheap and smelled of sweat; his shoes were trainers. I stayed in the room with him and drank until I passed out.

  Part III

  *

  34

  The booze and cocaine hangover was bad enough, but I felt ill with horror and fear. I couldn’t see a way out. And I was too crippled with anxiety to run. Besides, where would I run? I had no options. There was only me and my dead son and I would go to prison and I would not survive prison. Of that, I was sure.

  I opened a window and wrapped a tea towel around my nose and mouth. I looked at the covered body in the corner of my room. How could a dead thing attract such activity, flies feasting on the corpse? Why could I not have stayed sober enough to raid the cloakroom at that party last night? There must have been so many bags and jackets containing wallets. It would have been easy. I looked at the buzzing heap again. I approached gingerly, lifted one heavy arm aside and slid my hand into the chest pocket of the cheap canvas jacket. A wallet, a phone, a passport and a letter addressed to ‘Mam’. In the other pocket, a hotel room key-card with its magnetized strip on one side. No marking, so I could not tell which hotel it was.

  I opened the wallet and saw banknotes. There must have been six or seven fifties, enough to get me on a flight out of Nice. I hurriedly threw his things together in a bag – to delay identification for as long as possible – along with my basic toiletries, my passport and a few items of my best clothing. Within twenty minutes, I had locked the door of the flat behind me and walked down to the Place Masséna to catch the bus to the airport. As I sat on the bus, I did not look at the sea. Instead, I nervously flipped the envelope marked ‘Mam’ in my lap. I opened the Irish passport and looked at the grotesque face. It was like a long, melted candle that spilled on to his shoulder, the eye sockets dragging downwards, tiny flaps where there should have been ears. And then I saw the name on the passport.

  Conor O’Flaherty.

  I turned the passport over again and looked for a different name, looked for James Russell, but there was only one name, Conor O’Flaherty. I was totally confused. Then I looked at the place of birth: Ireland. James had been born in London. Why would he have changed his name and birthplace? To torment me? The passport was newly issued. It was only when I saw the date of birth that the truth began to dawn.

  12 Feb 1973.

  James was born in 1984. I couldn’t help a little scream of shock.

  Conor O’Flaherty, with that date of birth, was my brother, not my son. But Conor was long dead. Hadn’t he died in the fire that killed the rest of my family? Who had I stabbed?

  The bus lurched into the airport and I noticed the other passengers looking at me. Tears were streaming down my face.

  ‘D’accord?’ said a pleasant young man, his hand on my shoulder.

  I shrugged him off. I could not speak. I walked into the airport and made my way towards the bar, but swerved at the last minute. I had to keep my head together. I looked at the row of ticket desks at the front wall of the terminal. I could fly directly to almost any city in Europe, but I knew that only the budget airlines were within my reach. I tried to concentrate on the destination I needed, but all I could think of was the dead man in my flat. It must have been James surely, but then I recalled that in one of the letters James had said that he had no fingers on one hand. Which hand? When the man reached out to choke me, I saw his two hands and all fingers were intact. Was one of the hands prosthetic? Peter had made prosthetic fingers for James, hadn’t he? I couldn’t remember. The hand I bit certainly felt real. Why did he have Conor’s passport? Conor was dead. I felt like my head might explode.

  I went into the toilets and locked myself into a cubicle. I took the letter out of my bag. ‘Mam’. I had to rip it open with my teeth because my hands were shaking so much.

  October 2017

  Dear Mam,

  I’m not giving you any warning because I like to imagine you getting the surprise of your life. I’m sending this letter with your brother, Conor. I only found out he existed a month ago. He is a miracle worker. Listen to his story, but I’ll tell you mine too.

  I am an addict. First alcohol, and then heroin. I’ve spent most of the last ten years out of my head. I started on heroin in prison about seven years ago. And then when I got out, I started dealing. Because of my reputation for violence, I was quite successful for a while. But because of all my scarring, I was easily identifiable and a sitting duck for the guards. Dad paid for me to go to various rehab places, but of course the other ‘patients’ would freak out when they saw my face, so group sessions were just humiliating, and gave me another reason to walk out the door and back to a needle full of smack.

  Inevitably, last year, I ended up back in prison, where I served eight months – a drugs charge this time. That’s where I met this chaplain who had told me about Inishcrann the first time I was there. I’d been curious about your island for a while. Everyone has always said that half the people of Inishcrann are inbred and the other half are just peculiar, and you were proof of that obviously, because if you’re not one, you’re the other. And maybe I inherited some of that peculiarity from you?

  When I got out of Mountjoy three months ago, I decided to pay a visit. Mostly to go cold turkey and try and change my ways. I didn’t like myself, but I liked the sound of a half-abandoned wild place where the people are crazy. Maybe that’s where I belong.

  I told nobody except Uncle Harry where I was going. He’s the only person in town who’ll give me the time of day now, and even his patience has worn thin. I packed a bag with a cheap tent and a few tins of food. I planned on staying, firstly to get over the worst of withdrawal, and then maybe to make a life for myself away from bad influences.

  It turns out that there is no regular ferry service any more. I had to pay some fellas to take me over on a fishing trawler. They were naturally suspicious and didn’t like the look of me (who does?). They said it would be a detour for them, but I paid them well enough. I injected for the last time on the boat on the way over and then I threw the syringe, the smack and the works into the sea. The lads dropped me off and carried on out into the Atlantic.

  The island was almost deserted. When I got off at the harbour, there was nobody in sight, and only a few houses are standing. I could see that just one or two were occupied. I realized as soon as I landed that I’d freeze to death if I tried camping, but some of the houses were open, and one on the very edge of the village still had an old bed and a mattress in it. An indoor toilet too that flushed, and running water. I don’t think it had been empty for that long, maybe a year. I didn’t need much else. So, for four days, I stayed inside that cottage, shivering and sweating with the horror and pain of it. It felt like I turned my body and soul inside out, and yes, I remember the pain of some of those operations I had but it was nothing like the pain of releasing that poison from my system. It didn’t want to go. It clung on to every cell of my body like a parasitic worm. But I refused to give in and eventually the sickness left me and I was left in a pool of my own filth.

  On the fifth day, I
left the cottage and walked the length of the island. God, it’s a stunning place. You were lucky to have a childhood there, even though it didn’t end well. Barren on one side and wild on the other and I’ve never felt cold like it, but the beauty of it would take the eye out of your head. I took off my clothes and got into the sea and I thought that the cold would take me then, or that I could just go under the surf and not come back. I thought about drowning myself, but the waves kept tossing me back on to the shore. I gave up, got dressed and sat on a freezing rock and cried. And then I headed back towards the pier. I saw just one or two people, who stared at me like I was an alien, but sure, I’m used to that.

  When I got back to the harbour, an old woman stopped me and asked what was my business on the island and why my head was scorched. I told her that my mother, Delia Walsh, was from Inishcrann, and that her people had died in a fire in 1975. She stared at me then as if she was seeing a ghost. She asked me where you were, and I told her you’d been in France for nearly thirty years and that I had no contact with you. Then she told me to follow her and led me to this broken-down old place that used to be a bar, I think. On the way, she said there were only twelve people left on the island, and that one of them was like me. I didn’t know what she meant, because there was no one like me, or so I thought. But then I met Conor O’Flaherty. When he walked through from a back room, it was a shock. I’d never met anyone with injuries worse than mine. It was like meeting a brother, instantly. Neither of us knew then that he was my uncle, but we soon pieced it together. He told me the most interesting story about his background.

  He told me his family were burned in a fire in 1975. His mother, father and two brothers all perished. He escaped with, as you can see now, severe facial damage. He thinks his mother or father pushed him out of the tiny window to spare him from the flames but the rest of them wouldn’t fit through the window, or else the two older boys wouldn’t leave their parents. I would love to know why you weren’t on the island that night.