Under My Skin (41 page)

‘I never cared about fame… I just wanted to be wonderful.’ Marilyn

Later that day an old lady who lived in the subway visited the bathroom in Starbucks and found a nice black raincoat and a pair of Chuck trainers and smiled to herself as she wore them home. The city was almost ready for Christmas and in the middle of the noise and the carol singers and the lights, no one knew or cared that one more star was gone.

After they found her body they took a small room off the foyer and The Chief sat leaning against a table as the officers interviewed the hotel staff. They asked the receptionist how she checked in and took her credit card details. They questioned the concierge about any special requests. They interviewed the Room Service waiter and he owned up to drinking the vodka with her in her room. There were two porters standing side by side and one of them had just come in.

‘Did you see anything at all?’ he was asked.

‘No, sir,’ he replied. ‘My shift started after she checked in.’

‘How long have you worked here?’

‘One week,’ he replied and here he gave a smile.

‘So you’re working over the holidays?’

‘What holidays?’ the boy asked and The Chief grinned.

There was nothing else anyone could do, except tell again what had happened and what was said at the front desk or in her bedroom before she died.

Gallagher suddenly felt tired sitting there and he told the Lieutenant he was going home.

He called Glassman from his car on his way to Brooklyn.

He waited for him to answer and when Hope picked up the phone he spoke to her briefly and then said, ‘Put him on.’ Glassman listened and then said, ‘Thank you, John,’ and The Chief could not remember the last time he had heard Glassman use his name.

He knew that he had helped him at last and yet deep down something worried him and he began to wonder if he could also bear – if he had to – to take all that happiness back and away.

He had already seen them together.

He was old and she was so young.

There was nothing that surprised him in Manhattan and yet Glassman seemed to glow too much whenever she walked into a room. The Chief could not understand women but he could feel some sort of worry held back, as if his friend felt she was somehow too special for him or just on loan.

He drove his jeep through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and all the way out he thought about Matilda and listened to Christmas songs. As he drove his jeep up the small hill to his house he stopped at his garage and waited with the engine on. There was something about one of the porters that bothered him but he did not know what it was. He had only started at the Waldorf that week and still for some reason The Chief felt he already knew his face. It was Christmas Eve and his family was waiting. He could see his wife inside the kitchen window and as the garage door began to lift slowly and without turning his engine off, he turned the jeep around and headed into Manhattan again. On the way back he called the Precinct and told them to bring the boy in.

On the night before Christmas Eve Glassman wanted to stay at home. After three days they had begun to settle a little now and it became a gentle game between himself and Hope. He would cook dinner in the evenings and she would sit at the table in the kitchen, eating Saltines and reading things out to him from
Time Out
magazine. ‘The Rant Show’ at Mo Pikins or TJ Monkeys at the Red Room, or what about ‘Suddenly Stand-up’ on Christopher Street?

Whenever they did venture outside, she said they would both need something to make them laugh. But they thought about these options and then she would come and stand at his elbow and check that his pasta was not overdone. Then she would agree over mixing the tomatoes and anchovies that maybe they would just stay home. They thought about that while they had dinner. The snow building up on the windowsills and the fire crackling in his living-room grate. So far neither one could offer a good enough reason to be away from the open fire and outside in the cold. Later he worked in his studio and she made a jug of hot chocolate and then called him down to bed.

And it was that moment that he lived for – and when they were both safe under the duvet he knew for certain that he had never known such happiness as when Hope was near and curling herself towards him to keep warm.

He was surprised to hear from The Chief again and he had no idea what he was going to say. But he would not come upstairs to the apartment and so Glassman had no choice but to wrap his muffler around his neck three times and turn the pasta down. He noticed as he kissed her cheek when he passed her that the broccoli was making the kitchen window steam up. She had even convinced him that it was good for
him and he ate a little now as part of his daily homage to her.

‘Honey, open the air vent,’ he said and he told her that he wouldn’t be long.

They met at the deli at the end of Prince Street, where there were long open counters of salads and sausage and ham. When he saw The Chief eating a doughnut with his coffee at a small white table, his heart lifted a little and he wondered if maybe he was wrong.

The Chief talked about Matilda again and then he stopped for a moment and looked out on to the street. As the silence grew, one of them sighed and at this point The Chief felt he could begin.

He talked about illegals. Hotel staff and bus boys. People who were not documented anywhere – so after 9/11 it was difficult to know for sure where they were gone.

‘The truth is, if someone is not registered then it is as if they’re not here. So when a bunch of people go missing – it’s hard to know for sure – if that person is actually dead – or just hiding – or gone.’

The Chief said nothing for a little while and when Glassman lifted his coffee cup, he could not stop the shake in his left hand. The Chief’s words had begun to frighten him. They felt like stones and bricks that could break him right down. But The Chief looked into his eyes and he was suddenly steady and strong about it.

‘Arthur,’ he said, ‘they’re so young.’

Glassman swirled his coffee in his cup and turned his face to the dark window and only his ears paid attention to his friend’s voice now. She had already decided, and he believed that and this was not about choosing now. He knew that sometimes when she looked at him, it was with the slightest
hint of pity, and that she did not want to leave him because it would cause more pain. He remembered how she sat in the hair salon the day before and read a magazine while he saw his own hair, all grey now, fall like dry feathers on to the floor. She had watched as it landed on his shoulders and he had seen her eyes in the mirror – and how she looked away again.

‘He was mugged in early September,’ The Chief went on. ‘Some junkie took his watch, his wallet and his wedding ring.’

But Arthur would not listen or see him. Instead he looked out at people buying late stocking fillers from a stall on the street. The Chief ordered two more coffees and as he turned back from the man behind the counter, Arthur asked, ‘How can you be sure?’

‘He knows everything about her… and when I told him that she had been looking for him… you would want to have seen his face… Arthur…’ and here The Chief was almost begging.

‘They’re just a couple of kids,’ The Chief said.

‘And his family?’

‘Apparently there’s no love lost there.’

‘And he didn’t try to
call
her?’

The Chief put his bear-paw hands on his forehead for a second and he stroked the lines on his face gently as if this would somehow make them go away.

‘Of course he tried to call her,’ he said quietly and he watched his friend’s eyes now for some sign of recognition. And Glassman lifted his hands and finished the point.

‘And she was over here.’

The Chief took a sip from his coffee and looked away and then looked back into Arthur’s eyes again.

‘They’re just kids, Arthur,’ and his voice was almost pleading for him to understand.

‘Arthur…’

But Glassman held up his hand. He did not want to hear any more.

Angel n. – 1. A divine being who acts as a messenger of God. 2. Somebody who is beautiful and kind. 3. A picture of an angel as a human figure with wings. 4. A spirit that protects and offers guidance. 5. A member of the lowest order of angels in the medieval Christian celestial hierarchy, ranked below archangels.

She taps the white cane and sings on the subway. Her voice is beautiful and she says, ‘Bless you’ when a coin falls into her cup. The song rises up between Bleecker and Spring Street and at first it only comes through in patches, in between the bang and rattle of the underground train. Her voice is lifted up and when she comes closer to us her face is black and lined with worry and age. But when she sings it is like something from a gospel choir or a schoolgirl on a June holiday afternoon. She sounds like Billie Holiday, or as Jack would have said, the one that didn’t make it in New York. Outside the brothers stand in a circle around a sparking fire in a barrel and warm themselves in the snow – and inside she sings in the crowded subway because it is still the one thing she does better than anyone she knows.

The last words rise and seem to come from her small bursting heart and in the train people look away from her because she makes something inside all of us want to well up and cry – but she sings like a bird and there are no tears from her as she sings out the last line –

‘
Merry Christmas… Everyone
.’

Arthur is quiet today. He got up early and then pulled back the curtains and crept back into bed. He took me in his arms and outside it was still snowing and it had been snowing all night. I still have that feeling around a new snowfall and with it, the city is all clean and quiet and bright. He wants to be outside today. So we put on our parkas and our mittens and hats. He wants to show me his favourite New York – and all the things that make this city his home.

We call into Pips for breakfast and he orders pancakes and maple syrup and side orders of eggs and fries. I have never seen him eat food like that before. He is usually looking at labels and making sure everything is organic and free from pesticide. But today he has a real breakfast and then he buys a pretzel and we share it as we walk together on the street.