Under My Skin (27 page)

‘No,’ he says again and this time he shrugs his shoulders, ‘I’m not – to be honest.’

And I can see that he is perplexed by it too. That Twenty-nine loved him and that he really didn’t care at all. He is just
as baffled as she is. All that sex. All that… love? Really. Honestly. It’s time to find another word.

‘Men and women,’ I say and I even sigh about it and here our eyes meet and now his eyes give me the soft burn. I will tell Doreen everything tomorrow and she can tell someone else. We all need to know how little men can care – and how kind and honest they are about it – but – just how little they can care.

‘That’s a very pretty dress you’re wearing,’ he says, then, ‘the colours…’ and here his words just trail off.

‘Men and women.’ His voice is soft and he shakes his head.

‘I am in wonderment,’ he says.

I call Doreen and say, ‘There is a Claddagh engagement ring in the window of Rhinestones.’

‘The bull should be alerted immediately,’ she replies.

The man from the TV Production Department slides into the taxi beside me and tonight we are both very drunk.

‘Do you or do you not,’ he asks and he is speaking in a highly confidential voice, ‘find me attractive?’

‘I don’t,’ I tell him and I have an urgent need to laugh.

‘Sorry,’ I whisper then to soften the blow. There is a new CD player from the raffle under my arm and so far this is the best thing about my night.

Pixilated adj. – 1. Behaving in a strange or whimsical way. 2. Feeling bewildered because unable to understand what is happening. 3. Drunk (slang).

‘I’m a twenty-nine-year-old man,’ the bull says. ‘Of course I’ve cheated. I’ve slept with women, used them, fallen for them and left quietly in the dark without saying goodbye.’

He tells me about his boat and how it feels to glide over deep water. I want to tell him that the worst sound in the world is the sound of your bedroom door closing too quietly. And yet, there is something about him that makes me feel free. He does not want to get married. He does not want to have children. He does not want to – keep me and there is something wonderful in this.

He tells me that he loves his boat. That he has never had a rat or a mink on board but that he has seen slugs. He has woken up in the early morning sunlight and smiled up at their silver trail.

‘What?’ he asks and he is laughing. ‘Would you have a problem with that?’ and then, ‘Slugs have to live somewhere too.’

‘Aren’t you worried that you will stand on them? Up on deck?’

‘What deck?’ he says. ‘They’re inside.’

He talks about his boat in the feminine and I know once again that it is a slug-out between her and me.

‘She was a big old lump,’ he says sadly, ‘and I wanted to make her better. It wasn’t that I wanted to give myself a better place to live. I would sleep on that…’ and here he holds up a butter knife and runs one finger along the blade.

‘I wanted to do it for her. I wanted her to feel better… to be better in herself.’

He describes her carefully, like an older woman he is in love with – where he was when he first met her, how he cared for her, how he loved her and brought her back to life. He chose each piece of furniture carefully – a red armchair, an art-deco couch, and a perfect kind of bed.

‘So how big is your bed?’ I venture for no good reason and I know in the split second that follows we will both see our bodies entwined in it. He gives me the slightest smile and then moves on to tell me how she is as long as Dante’s restaurant. I keep trying to catch his eye. I wonder if he notices my figure in this black dress, how my breasts rise and fall and the angles of my collarbones.

Instead he says, ‘She’s an old hulk,’ and there is pure love in his voice and I know I am down one point to her again.

He tells me about sailing her down the Shannon and how he wanted to give her some of what she had given to him.

‘There was mist and swans, you know… early grey morning light… 6 a.m.,’ and his eyes are becoming wet.

‘I leaned down and kissed her,’ he says. ‘Can you believe that? I kissed her iron back,’ and then he starts to blush and laugh. ‘I’m kissing my fucking boat.’

And once again the great old dame in all her ugliness moves between us, cutting us apart and taking him away to another place, and I know I can’t compete with that. The old bat gives him freedom in a way I cannot.

After dinner we walk to an old-fashioned bar. It’s the kind of place where old ladies and gentlemen line up against the wall and we are no different except that when he speaks he turns one knee towards me and I do the same – and so we touch, at last. I don’t love him but I want his warmth. The sensation of his corduroy moving against my dress. That is all. I want him to want me and no part of me can see that he just might not. He asks me about Doreen and Jack and other mutual friends and the little bells dotted behind us are there if we need to call for help.

‘Service bells,’ he says and then the barman comes over and I move my lips and say a silent ‘Help’. We are almost out of
time again. The night is slipping from me and he hasn’t found me yet.

‘Tell me about Larry,’ he says and here he introduces another person to keep me at bay.

He smiles slowly at my silence and this triggers a laugh.

‘I want to ask you something,’ I tell him and at last the words are out.

‘What?’ he asks and here our knees are still touching. He puts his chin in one hand and waits, never letting me go with his eyes. There is a long pause and he does nothing to hurry me.

‘How do you see me?’ I ask him slowly.

‘As a friend. A woman who is bright, and who is a very good listener as well.’

‘Oh,’ I reply.

His answer sounds like something he has already written down.

‘I need something more from you,’ and each word comes out very slowly. ‘I want to be with someone… but not for ever – and I know you don’t… can’t do that.’

He says nothing and looks away into the distance and my gin and tonic tastes like fear.

He leans in and takes my hand.

‘So…?’ he offers and he speaks very gently, unsure of his space.

‘I want a month of your time.’ He frowns for a second and then looks away and now he is thinking about what this month could mean. He is a man who says he loves all women. A man who has run from every solid space. A man who says he has… needs,
cravings
… to use his own words – so he can see the appeal and yet when he looks at me he sees – in the same brief moment – that I am offering myself to him and he knows that I could easily break.

He doesn’t speak.

‘I told you it wasn’t something small.’

‘It’s not small,’ he agrees.

My hand is warm now and safe inside his.

‘I want you to belong to me for a month – and in return I will give you myself – and then we can both just be free… again.’

I know he is capable of this and that he is also capable of being a cheat. I know somehow that he is capable of great kindness and love and freedom and that for one month of his year, of his life and mine, he is the only person I could ever ask for this.

‘I want to know you,’ I say simply, ‘and I promise to let you go – and you have to promise the same and nobody will ever say “I love you”,’ and I try to simplify it for us both.

The old ladies’ eyes stare straight ahead as if they can hear and are horrified by my every word.

He looks into my eyes for a moment and then gives the faintest flicker of a smile and then he looks down for a moment and seems to think.

He is going to say ‘No’ and my stomach is knotting inside.

He will refuse me and I will never be able to face him – or anyone – again.

He finishes his drink and I want to take him home with me.

We walk out on to the street and into the uncertain light of late August. I link his arm but his hand stays stiff in his pocket, not giving me any way in.

‘Let’s go out,’ I say suddenly and by now I am ashamed of myself but when you’re so far out of control, why stop now?

‘I would love to,’ he says, so much quieter in himself, ‘but it’s late.’

We stand and face each other and when he hugs me I keep
my arms folded across my chest. I am prepared to let him go now and he can sense it. He hails a taxi and watches me turn.

And all I know is that I hurt. From my stomach up and that is where my heart is now, I think.

He looks hurt when I turn towards the taxi. He is confused and watches me turn towards the car with a blurry cast-off goodbye. I am drunk and uncaring. I will go home to my flat and Doreen and he will go home to his boat on the canal. And we begin to leave each other now, in some sort of confusion, both hurt and in pain without really understanding why.

He watches me turn away and in the second before I start to walk he catches my hand.

‘Take September,’ he says and he smiles.

At the restaurant Frankie buys me a snow globe but he has to barter with the waitress first. There are high-backed Quaker chairs and rows of plates on every wall. I order corn on the cob and half a chicken.

He smiles up at the waitress. ‘I’ll have the snow globe,’ he says, ‘and the other half.’

He tells me that he has had his annual review from ‘Mr Angry’.

‘How was it?’

‘Angry,’ he replies.

Around us there are businessmen with their ties slung across their shoulders. There are lunch meetings and in the distance one of our clients is meeting a friend.

‘What did you do?’

‘I became Mr Humble,’ he replies.

‘And what did he do?’

‘He turned into Mr Helpless.’

I smile at him and tell him I have bought him a present for his birthday. It is a miniature lifeboat and when he unwraps it he puts one hand over his mouth and begins to giggle helplessly.

‘I will keep this on my desk,’ he says in a solemn voice. ‘And only you and I will know its meaning.’

He lifts his glass.

‘Here’s to freedom,’ he says.

The waitress arrives with the chicken in two halves. There is a joke to be made but neither one of us can think of it.

‘I would prefer to leave on a high,’ he says then. ‘You know, win a big account and then… exit gracefully… hand it to them… and say, “Now, go fuck yourselves.”’

And here we both start to laugh helplessly again.

‘We’re entitled to some anger,’ he says and he is shaking his head and wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

Behind him an Italian couple sit close together at the bar and I envy them. She is about thirty and he is older than Frankie and me. How lucky they are, to be inside, miles apart in years, and still close together and in love. She is bright-eyed and very pretty and he watches her, like an old tugboat guiding her to shore.