Under My Skin (38 page)

On that last night in his apartment he stood in the doorway of his own kitchen and stared as she picked up a Stanley knife. He watched as she began to cut herself, not a nick or a mark – and had he not stopped her, she was going to saw off her hand.

He ran his fingers back through his hair at the thought of it. And now here was this new girl because that is what she was. And he wanted to hold her and protect her and never let her go. He had seen her cross the street from the library and he had begun to dream about her and the hope of being able to feel love and lust again. She was very young but he needed this last chance at happiness and he needed her.

Glassman could not see her – not as she was that day in the hardware store – and then look away and just carry on. He
had seen her on the street in Wellfleet before that and then again at the library and then he saw her sitting quietly at the red stove.

He had wanted to talk to her and tell her – confide in her – about everything – and Jake in that silly hat and Huck with his dour face, and even the log that spat in the fire, grew into mountains and got in his way.

She was different to the New Englanders. She had soft smooth skin, high pretty cheekbones – where did they come from? – and such beautiful – Matilda would call it – ‘angel hair’. But her real beauty and what made her precious and somehow more breakable was that he could see she was feeling sad and broken deep inside – and she was consumed by it – and completely unaware that for someone else she had become a ray of light. And his illness suddenly shifted and became smaller around her and it gave way to boyish ideas of how to impress and convince her that he was great.

When the sun came out – even Huck was surprised by it – it lasted only an instant and just long enough to make a perfect round circle of light on her head. It was as if she was blessed or had an aura or was an angel and sent by someone else.

Anyone except Glassman would have been taken aback by it, but he felt something click and release inside his chest and he began to feel – what? He did not know – but it was like a vessel in his heart opening and a fresh narrow river of blood feeding him something bright and new. ‘The feeling of life… that is how life feels,’ he would tell her later. And anyone else would have been surprised by a girl like that in Wellfleet, but not him, not really – Glassman was romantic and he had hoped and prayed and longed her here.

In the dark afternoon when she was gone, his mind returned to the scar on her stomach and he spanned his fingers in front
of his eyes and against the fading light and reminded himself that he had touched her – and right there and then he wanted to get out of bed and walk over hundreds of dunes to find her at the beach house and bring her here.

He loved her and he wanted to keep her – that was all. In his mind his endorphins were like coloured butterflies now. They had escaped from him and went fluttering away and now because of her, he could catch them and try out a different one each day.

There were suddenly so many things in the city that he wanted to show her. He wanted to re-present the city, tired and grey as it was, and smelling of warm rubber and gasoline and garbage all year long. He would take her to Angelika and they would watch documentaries about the First World War and the next night they would go to Times Square and eat popcorn and watch some silly movie with Meg Ryan.

From now on when he woke in the mornings he wanted to turn over and always see the crease between her shoulder blades or the tiny line between her eyebrows because he already knew that she frowned in her sleep – or at least he wanted to wake and hear her rattling in the kitchen or running downstairs to collect the newspapers or cursing his shower curtain that had a tendency to fall.

But he did not want to frighten her off and so he went to the studio and thought about Matilda a little and then to numb out the memory of her he took a hit of pot. He could wait until after six o clock to call over; he would have her for ever after that.

And he still collected words – ones that he had learned from her.

Rashers

Feck

and

Bollux
– and he wrote these with pride on his whitewashed studio wall.

‘See ya later, Arthur,’ Hope had said and he watched her leave his house and walk in minutes over the first sand dune. And at the highest point she turned and he was standing, waiting as she gave a big dramatic wave.

Missing adj. – 1. Not present in an expected place, absent, or lost. 2. Not yet traced and not known for certain to be alive, but not confirmed as dead.

Matilda is sitting on the front porch. She is wearing a light cotton dress and rocking in the white wicker chair. The wind from the sea blasts into her face – and her hair which is very white now stands on end. Her arms and legs are turning blue from the cold and when she sees me she turns her head slowly, and her eyes are red and streaming, from crying or from the cold. There is a small yellow suitcase beside her, an old-fashioned green vanity case and a white straw hat. The sand has moved up on to the porch again. It is getting dark on the beach now and the wind is full of rain and seaweed and salt.

‘Matilda…’ and I say her name very quietly and in my mind the letters are blowing apart and beginning to make new three-letter words in the sand.

She breaks into an easy smile and when she blinks slowly her face seems to transform itself. She walks across the wooden porch and hugs me. She is wearing red shoes with very high heels and peep-toes. She feels cold and thin in my arms and her skin is rippling in goose bumps.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask and she shrugs. I am thinking about the night she took me in, when the first snow was falling and Thanksgiving in New York began to feel like the end of the world.

‘Sometimes the city is too much for me,’ she says quietly.
‘This morning I woke up feeling… so alone,’ and we wrap our arms around each other again in a hug. She has been crying. I can hear the tears in her voice.

‘May I come in?’ she says and she is smiling again.

The gulls are circling and crying and they swoop down low over the roof. It is as if they are expecting a picnic of breadcrumbs and sprats but there is no food here.

Inside the stove is still alight. I put some more logs on and begin to make tea. Matilda looks around. She picks up a pink conch and then puts it back in its place.

She walks then to the pirate chest and picks up a book Arthur gave me last night.

‘Walt Whitman,’ she says quietly.

‘Here,’ I say to her and I hand her a mug of tea.

‘ “I Hear America Singing”,’ she says.

‘Pardon?’ I reply and she looks away again.

Upstairs I find one of Arthur’s sweaters and I bring it down to keep her warm. It is a red burgundy colour and I bring it to her and smile.

‘Put this on,’ I tell her. ‘People used to die of cold down here.’

She turns and faces me, her pretty face creasing a little into a frown. She stares down at the sweater and her arms fold themselves now.

‘Here…’ I tell her again and my voice is gentle and low.

She takes it, both hands held out flat for it, and then she just looks at it lying across her bare skin. Last night we ate fillet steak. We left it to thaw in the kitchen sink and it made a small thin river of blood. It was the same colour as his favourite sweater. I wore it in bed last night. She sits down on the sofa and then presses her face into it and I can hear her inhale. She just sits there really quietly, breathing deeply, with her face pressed into the wool.

‘Matilda, are you sure you’re OK?’

‘You spent the night with him,’ she says and here each word comes out with a smile and in a tiny childlike voice.

And I can feel myself blush.

‘I guess I did,’ and I’m frowning and trying to look away from her and around the room.

‘You really like him… don’t you?’

‘I guess so.’

In the background the whistling kettle is beginning to rattle and boil.

‘He’s coming over for dinner, so you can tell me what you think.’

‘Why would it matter what I think?’ and here her voice seems to change a little and she lights a cigarette and blows smoke to extinguish the match.

There is silence now and I ask her if she would like some more tea and she shakes her head to say ‘No’. And when I try to talk to her about Truro she lights another cigarette and gets up and stands at the window looking out over the beach.

On the Cape we are different and without New York, she seems to have run out of things to say.

‘What time is he coming?’ she asks and her words come out as she faces the window and they bump a little into the glass.

‘Around six.’ It is getting dark now, the sun is happy to slip away quickly and dip down into the icy sea.

‘I’m going to have a bath,’ I tell her. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘You better have your bath,’ she says and still she will not turn around. Outside the gulls are bouncing in the wind and dark clouds begin to move in from the sea.

‘Come back to New York with me,’ Arthur said. We were curled up in his bed, under a bright patchwork quilt and a red cashmere rug. His fire flickered and crackled and when he lifted his hands from under the covers he made more long shadows on the stone wall.

‘I want to show you the city,’ he said and when his voice came out into the darkness it sounded young and proud and strong.

‘I’m feeling better,’ he said quietly but he still seemed a little frightened by these words.

‘The New England air,’ I told him, and he replied, ‘New England and you.’

This morning we had breakfast on his back porch. The sun was up and we ate bagels and cream cheese wrapped in a rug. In between drinking coffee and talking about New York, he was throwing pieces of food at the gulls.

‘We can spend the holidays there,’ he says. ‘You’ll get to see Central Park in the snow and Macy’s tied up in a big red bow.’

And then he just looked at me and said, ‘I would hate to lose you, Hope.’

And I said laughing, ‘I’m not going to get lost,’ and then he laughed too and kissed my hand.

The bathroom is at the top of the narrow wooden stairs. There is a tiny landing with a bedroom on either side. The tub is heavy and old, painted green with small pink flowers on the inside. It is like an old boat, one with a flat bottom, and if there was a sudden gust of wind or a secret current, it would give three sudden twirls and sink. There is a bar of lemon-scented soap. A white soap dish. Camomile shampoo. One rough white towel on an old mahogany towel rail.

The taps are heavy and old. I need two hands to turn each one around. There is a slight delay and then a hiss and the hot water begins to gurgle and splash down. I sit on the side of the tub and watch as the water fills in and grows. I dip my fingers into it and the mirror becomes white with steam.

Lately I’ve been thinking about something Matilda said.

‘One big love,’ and I am wondering if there could be more than one big love in life. If there is room for several big loves inside every woman and every man.

I take off my sweater and hang it on the doorknob. My jeans are folded over the back of the little wooden chair. My underwear falls in two white cotton crumples on the tiled floor. I turn the radio on and they’re playing REM.

And when I look up Matilda is standing on the landing.

She has taken her shoes off and I notice that her toenails are painted red. It is the same colour as the little line over the dado rail and the same colour as her lips. She is carrying a blue mug of tea which she holds out towards me. Some steams lifts from it and I smile and hold out my hand. She stands for a moment and I pull the towel around my waist. She does not move and I sit down a little awkwardly on the side of the tub. She just stands there watching me and I sip my tea and frown and look away.

‘There’s a mark on your neck,’ she says and I put one hand quickly towards it as if trying to cover up a sin.

Last night Arthur left a bruise on my neck and another on my right breast. I found them there this morning and stood and looked at their pretty colours and touched them with my hands. Matilda stands over me and I can hear her breathing and I can smell her perfume – which stays behind her – when she turns and moves back towards the stairs.