Tattoo

by J G Alva

  “Robin,” he said, surprised. He had not expected to see her again so soon; in fact, her being here probably meant that there had been no news in the search for Alden King.

  She looked at him briefly, and then over his shoulder.

  “Am I…disturbing you? I don’t-“

  “No, of course not,” he said, opening the door wider and bidding her to enter. “What can I do for you?”

  He immediately felt the formality was too dry for their relationship, but of course he could not now take it back.

  She entered and he shut the door.

  “Why do people say that?” She asked, passing down the long hall to the Lounge. “Do people only visit other people so that they can have something done for them? It’s ridiculous.”

  “Alright,” Sutton said. “Then what can I not do for you?”

  Robin stared at him, her gaze on him suspicious, for some reason he could not fathom.

  “Sean told me about what happened to the building. It was Alden King, wasn’t it?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “My God.”

  They were both silent a moment.

  Robin wandered to the patio doors and stared out at the night.

  “Don’t ask me why I’m here, because I don’t know. Except that I can’t sit around any longer, waiting for the police.”

  “They haven’t found him yet.” It wasn’t a question.

  Robin’s eyes looked heavy with disappointment.

  “They will,” Sutton said, trying to reassure her.

  “They better. If they don’t…I don’t know. It feels like I’m skating the edge of my sanity.”

  “Hardly a vote of confidence for your chosen profession.”

  She looked angry.

  “As if I care about that right now.”

  She looked around the room, and her attention came back to the portrait on the wall again.

  She asked, “is that…?”

  “Yeah. Fin.”

  She stared at it a moment.

  “It’s good,” she said finally.

  Sutton felt a burst of totally irrational pleasure.

  “I thought you didn’t like it,” he said suspiciously.

  She smiled blandly.

  “I just didn’t want to admit that you could be good at something,” she said. “At anything.” She looked at the portrait again. “He looks sad in it,” she remarked.

  “Did you know, when he was younger, Fin wanted to join the police.”

  “He did?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “He probably still does. But because of his epilepsy, he can’t pass the physical exam. You see, when he was about fourteen and in hospital because of a very bad seizure, a man broke in to his house, caved in his father’s head with a hammer and then raped and killed his mother. That man was never found, and although Fin doesn’t talk about it, I’m sure he’s still looking for him. Maybe he always will be.”

  “Poor Fin,” she said, turning to the portrait again.

  “He’s helped me before, many times,” Sutton said. “He’s a true crusader. And all because of what happened to his parents. Nobody would fail, given the chance, to go back and change things, to prevent such a disaster…but I’m not sure that I would.” Sutton paused, trying to think how best to get his point across. “You might spare him the pain, but what he does because of what happened to him…that’s irreplaceable. Do you understand what I am getting at?”

  Robin shook her head.

  “No.”

  Sutton thought again.

  “We need people like Fin. I need people like Fin. Someone who’s going to do what it takes, to do what’s right. Without that terrible event there would be no Fin the crusader. Do you understand? No matter how terrible the experience, there is always some validity to be had from it. There has to be.”

  “Another one of your rules?” She said.

  “Maybe,” Sutton admitted.

  Robin stared at the portrait but did not say anything for a while. Sutton had the suspicion that she knew exactly what he was getting at, but she did not speak, and neither did he.

  “I don’t know where it came from, but tonight I thought to myself: Sutton Mills is a Self-Actualised Person. Do you know what a Self-Actualised Person is?”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well. A Self-Actualised Person is someone who has accepted himself for who he – or she – is. Who has come to terms with his or herself. With their strengths, their limitations…their weaknesses. There are certain things all Self-Actualised People have in common. Do you know what they are?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Self-Actualised People are generally very private. They have what are known as Peak Experiences, whereby they experience wonder at the world and everything in it, are strongly affected by music, or art, or…having sex.” Robin seemed suddenly awkward, and looked away. “They’re usually very creative people. They form very strong interpersonal relationships, and have a tendency to fly against cultural influences.” She smiled blandly at him then. “Of course, it is something we must all aspire to. It is the standard to which I charge my clients; in order to enjoy life, and all its unselfconscious complexity, you need to understand yourself, to know what you can or cannot do, to accept certain truths. And once you have done that, well…” She spread her hands. “Then you can come to terms with your predicament, whatever that may be.” Again, a dark cloud of anger came down over Robin’s face. “What kind of Psychotherapist am I to my patients when even I can’t achieve this? I’m like a joke. A blind man trying to explain a colour to another blind man. I’m not alive. I don’t have a life. I’m just going through the motions of living. How can I help my patients if I can’t help myself?”

  “Robin,” Sutton said, and sighed.

  “What?”

  He stared at her a moment.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  Her eyes moved away from his.

  “Something is,” she said.

  “You’re smart. A very intelligent woman. You might even be funny, I don’t know; this is hardly the situation to highlight that in anyone. And you’re very beautiful. I don’t know in what way you think you’re…deficient.”

  She stared at him. There was some colour coming into her cheeks.

  “You think I’m beautiful?” She said, her voice pitched slightly higher than normal.

  “Yes. I do.”

  She looked away, unable to hide her embarrassment.

  “If I am beautiful, like you say I am, then why can’t I foster a healthy relationship with the opposite sex?”

  She seemed smug, as if she had won a victory. But if she was the victor, then she had also made herself the victim.

  She looked alarmed then, as if coming out of a dream to realize where she was, who she was talking to, and what she was talking about. An admission of failure, to the very thing she failed at.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying, I don’t know why I felt, I don’t…” She took a breath to calm herself, and then bestowing on him a cold and awkward smile said, “I think I better be going.”

  Sutton stood also.

  “Robin-“

  “No, I don’t know why I came here, I think I just-“

  Robin turned and in her agitation got tangled in her own feet; in any other situation, it would have been amusing; in this, she fell and caught the side of her head on the sideboard behind her, and it looked tragic and painful.

  “Jesus Christ, Robin-“

  Robin was curled into a ball on the floor, her hands cupping the side of her wounded head.

  “Robin…”

  Her mouth was open in silent agony, but it was not physical pain to which she was reacting, but acute misery.

  Sutton bent down and picked her up. She did not resist. Her misery was too great.

  Like the tumble down the steps the day before, this knock had seemed to shock her out of something, to loo
sen her control on her emotions…to bring her into alignment with her reality.

  And at that moment it was too terrible a reality to bear.

  She began to sob.

  “Shh,” Sutton said, carrying her out of the Lounge and down the hall to his bedroom. “Shh.”

  When he placed her carefully on the bed, Robin looked at him, perhaps afraid of his intentions.

  But he shook his head, and smoothed the side of her face. He checked her head where it had connected with the sideboard. There was a small lump there. Nothing serious though.

  “Just go to sleep,” he said. “Just sleep.”

  She held his hand to her face.

  He had rarely seen such misery on another human face. And certainly not on one so attractive.

  What he did next he did because, in some ineffectual human way it was all he had to offer: he bent down and kissed her.

  It was almost but not quite chaste.

  “Just sleep,” he whispered. “I’ll be in the other room if you need me. Okay? Just sleep.”

  As solemn as a child, she nodded, and as he left her, she curled into a ball, laying her hands together under her head, as if to muffle prayer.

  But her eyes watched him until he had left the room.

  *

  Twenty minutes later, he crept back into the room to check on her.

  She was still in a fetal ball, and had shucked her jeans at some point, pulling the sheets over her, but all the lines of stress had disappeared from her face.

  He had not lied when he had said she was beautiful. He could not fathom how such an attractive woman could have such little regard for herself…could not fathom how his fellow man had allowed her this disregard.

  She was like a Madonna.

  He crept back out of the room and retrieved his sketchpad, grabbed a 2B pencil, and carrying the chair from under the drawing board, returned to the bedroom.

  He placed the chair at the foot of the bed and, quietly, he began to mark out the lines that were hers, and hers alone.

  *

  He was staring at the map he had pinned to the wall in the Lounge when she tentatively exited the bedroom.

  “How are you feeling?” He asked.

  She answered almost shyly.

  “Better. Thank you.”

  They stared at each other for a moment; Sutton, on his part, thinking how animation gave her face a glow, increased her beauty…and worrying that he was getting a little too hooked on the sight of Dr. Robin Sails.

  Their relationship was in a strange place which he could not clearly define, and any pause in their conversation seemed to be charged with energy.

  “How’s your head?” He asked, nodding at the bruise; it was coming up nicely.

  She touched it tentatively.

  “A bit sore.”

  “We should put some ice on it.”

  “It’s not too bad.”

  More charged silence.

  Something seemed to change in Robin then, and, her mouth a grim line, she said, “do you usually roll out the Mother Hen routine for women that-“

  “Don’t,” Sutton said, disappointed with her.

  “What?”

  “Don’t try and put everything back to where it was before,” Sutton said. “You can’t. And it’s just insulting if you try.”

  She stared at him, caught between an attempt to regain control – which, if she continued to do so, would be awkward and uncomfortable for them both – and the more uncertain option of tentatively agreeing to trust him in this atmosphere of new intimacy.

  Thankfully, she decided on the latter, but although she accepted that he had stepped inside her private walls, she was uncomfortable with the intrusion.

  Suddenly, she seemed near tears, and turned her head away.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know. Like you might…”

  “Robin,” Sutton said, and wanted to say more, but stopped himself.

  He took a breath, but before he could continue she blurted out, “I can’t have children.”

  For a moment he couldn’t process this statement; it was as if he had missed lines of their conversation.

  “What?”

  Robin shrugged, but she was acutely embarrassed.

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  Sutton paused, and then said carefully, “why can’t you?”

  “It’s something called Endometriosis,” she said, and shrugged. “Apparently it’s something that occurs in five percent of women. I just happen to be one of the lucky few.” She shrugged again, staring at the floor.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  “They don’t really know, I don’t think. At least, it’s not medically certain how it happens.”

  “And there’s nothing they can do? An operation or…?”

  “There are operations, but there’s no guarantee. They can manage it, as there’s some pain, but…no. There’s nothing they can do.” She shrugged again.

  Understanding dawned on Sutton.

  “And this is why you think you’re not attractive to the opposite sex?”

  She made a face.

  “I may be attractive, like you say, but I can’t bring anything to a man. I can’t offer him anything. You know. If that was what he wanted.” She reached out and touched the back of the sofa. Her eyes avoided his.

  He moved toward her, and instinctively she backed away from him; she seemed afraid of him in that moment. He had to give her something, maybe even something he did not want to give, if he was to reach her.

  “I’m terrified of water,” he said.

  She stared suspiciously at him.

  “What?”

  “Water. I’m terrified of it. I can’t go out on a boat, I can’t go for a swim, even wading through something that’s knee high terrifies me. I just…lock up.”

  She looked confused.

  “But…but you live by it,” she said, pointing to the patio doors, to the river outside, so close. “It’s there, right outside your window.”

  Sutton smiled awkwardly and gave an uncomfortable shrug: this is the complicated me.

  She thought for a moment.

  “Your mother?” She said softly.

  He nodded.

  “You were there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Sutton…”

  He saw her features soften, and then harden with a sudden alarmed expression.

  “The moat…?”

  Sutton smiled awkwardly again.

  “Not the best thirty minutes of my life, I must admit.”

  “You must have been…you must have been terrified.”

  He nodded, and had trouble meeting her eyes.

  “Well,” she said, giving him a lopsided smile in return. “We’re both good at punishing ourselves, it seems.”

  He put a hand around her small waist and pulled her to him. She seemed suddenly shy and awkward. She was trembling.

  He leant forward and kissed her. He meant to be delicate, as in that moment she seemed so fragile, but her returning passion was anything but. Her hunger brought an electricity to the kiss, her mouth hard against him, moving, as if her sexual hunger was a physical one, and her body pressing against him was thrumming, as if a powerful current was running through it.

  Against this exciting and excited young woman, Sutton had a difficult time controlling himself.

  He felt her tears on his face, and this cooled his ardour somewhat, tempered it with compassion.

  She was a study in contrasts: she was fragile, but she was also incredibly tough.

  She pulled back, muttering, “no, no, we can’t-“

  “I know,” he said, wiping the tears from her face.

  “It’s not-“

  “I know, Robin. Sh. I know.”

  “Andrea, we…”

  “I know.”

  He held her then, and she buried her face in his chest, as if to protect herself from the wo
rld.

  And Sutton wished he had the power to do that for her.

  *

  Robin was staring at the map.

  “What?” Sutton said, noticing her scrutiny of it.

  “Is there something we missed?” She asked him. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, trying to work him out. I keep thinking, if we could understand him, we’d know where he was. All my training, all those years, and even with everything I know I still can’t get inside his head…”

  The diary, Sutton thought, and the guilt was like a painful thing; but to unveil it now would be more trouble than it was worth, would create more damage than he could ever undo.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Sutton said, turning to the map as well. “But I don’t think there is any understanding him. He’s gone so far over that he’s unfathomable.” He touched her arm. “Sean’ll find him.”

  “I know he will,” she said, but there was a desperate look in her eye. “But there’s no time.” She turned back to the map, angry, frustrated.

  “Okay,” Sutton said. “Let’s talk it through. What do we know?”

  “That he’s deeply disturbed?”

  “Definitely. But that’s not the be-all and end-all of him. Just like your attractiveness is not the be-all and end-all of you.”

  “Alright. Point taken. And so is the compliment. Okay. So. He likes history.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Sutton shrugged.

  “Why is anybody interested in anything? We know his grandfather was a local historian. So we can assume Alden was exposed to it at an early age. There was obviously some congruency between it and some part of him. Some connection.” Sutton thought again, trying to look at the whole thing as he would a puzzle, a working system that he knew he should be able to unravel, but nothing new was coming.

  “He’s bisexual,” Robin said. “The last victim…”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” she said, “what do we know about people with diversive sexuality? There’s a duality in them. They are very good at hiding their true selves. I suppose this man would have to be, in order to get away with what he’s been doing for so long.”

  “Which won’t help us find him.”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  “What about the last tattoo?” Robin asked.