Beneath the Skin (11 page)

First I had a bath, much better than if I had taken it in the bathroom in my flat. I lay in the hot water and Louise sat on the toilet seat and drank tea and washed my back for me. She told me about her childhood in Swansea, her single mother and her grandmother, who was still alive; rain, gray slates, massed clouds, hills. She always knew she’d come and live in London, she said.

And I told her about the village I came from, which was more a straggle of houses with a post office. About my father driving cabs at night, sleeping in the day, dying in a quiet, modest kind of way, never wanting to draw attention to himself. And then I told her about my mother dying when I was twelve; how for the two years before she died she had drifted farther and farther away from me, in her own land of pain and fear. I used to stand by her bed and hold her cold, bony hand and feel that she’d become a stranger to me. I would tell her about the things I’d done during the day, or give her messages from friends, and all the time I’d be wanting to be out with my friends, or in my room reading and listening to music—or anywhere that wasn’t here, in this sick room that smelled odd, with this woman whose skull poked through her skin and whose eyes stared at me. But as soon as I’d left her I’d feel guilty and odd and dislocated. And then, when she died, all I wanted was to be back in her bedroom, holding her thin hand and telling her about my day. Sometimes, I said, I still couldn’t believe I would never see her again.

I said that after that I’d never really known what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be. Everything became vague, purposeless. I’d just ended up as a teacher in Hackney. But one day I’d leave, do something else. One day I’d have children of my own.

Louise phoned out for a pizza to be delivered. I borrowed her bright red dressing gown, and we sat on the sofa and ate dripping slices of pizza and drank cheap red wine and watched
Groundhog Day
on video. We’d both seen it before, of course, but it seemed a safe choice.

A couple of times, her phone rang and she answered it and spoke in a low voice, hand over the receiver, glancing at me occasionally. Once, it was for me: Detective Sergeant Aldham. For a stupid moment, I thought perhaps he was going to say that they had caught him. Desperate hope. He was just checking up on me. He reiterated that I shouldn’t go back to the flat unaccompanied, that I shouldn’t be on my own with any man I didn’t know well, and he told me that they would want to talk to me again on Monday, with Dr. Schilling. Extensive interviews, he said.

“Be alert, Miss Haratounian,” he said, and the fact that he’d managed to get my name right scared me almost as much as his earnest and respectful tone. I’d wanted them to take me seriously. Now they were serious.

Louise insisted on giving me her bed, while she rolled herself up in a sheet on the sofa. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and it is true that I lay for a while with thoughts whirring like bats that had lost their radar in my head. The night was hot and heavy and I couldn’t find a cool patch on the pillow. Louise’s flat was on a quiet street. There was a cat fight, a dustbin lid clanged, a solitary man went down the street singing “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.” But I must have gone to sleep quite soon, and the next thing I remember is the smell of burned toast, and day flooding in through the striped blue curtains, dust motes shimmying in the rays of light. The phone rang in the living room and then Louise poked her head round the bedroom door.

“Tea or coffee?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Toast or toast?”

“Nothing.”

“Toast then.”

She disappeared and I struggled out of bed. I didn’t feel too bad. I didn’t have anything to wear except for the clothes I’d taken off last night, so I pulled them on, feeling a bit grubby.

After I’d eaten toast and drunk coffee, I phoned Guy to find out if anything was happening with the flat. He sounded self-conscious and warily solicitous, not a bit like his usual chirpily ingratiating self.

“I hear you’ve been having a bad time,” he said. Of course, the police would have interviewed him by now.

“Not brilliant. Any news on the sale?”

“Mr. Shale wants to see the house again. Definitely serious. I think we’ve got him sniffing our hook. It’s just a matter of landing him.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked wearily.

“I think he’s ready to make an offer,” Guy said. “The point is, he wonders if today, midday, would be at all convenient.”

“Couldn’t you just show him round yourself?”

The irritating laugh again.

“I could, but there are some questions. I’ll be there as well.”

“Yes. No more strange men.”

So we arranged to meet at the real estate agent’s office at midday, Guy and me and Nick Shale. Safety in numbers. Then the three of us could walk up the road to my flat, whiz round it, and be gone in minutes. Louise insisted on calling a cab to take me there, and we sat for half an hour in traffic, cursing the heat, and arrived late. Both men were waiting for me, Guy in a thin blue suit and Nick in a white T-shirt and jeans. We shook hands formally.

When we reached the flat, Guy opened the door with his set of keys and went in first. Nick stood back to let me enter. There was a funny smell. Sweet but with just a touch of something unwholesome underneath it. Nick wrinkled up his nose and looked at me questioningly.

“I must have left something out,” I said. “I haven’t been here for a bit.”

It was coming from the kitchen. I pushed open the door. The smell was stronger but still nothing I could identify. I looked on the surfaces. Nothing. I looked in the bin but it was empty. I opened the fridge.

“Oh, God,” I said.

The light didn’t come on. It was warm. But it wasn’t too bad. The milk was sour but there wasn’t much else the matter. But I knew where the bad bit would be. I opened the small freezer on top of the fridge. All I could do was groan. It looked as if everything had got mixed with everything else. A tub of coffee ice cream lying on its side had spewed its contents out over an opened packet of prawns. The smell and sight of day-old prawns and melted ice cream in my hot kitchen almost made me gag.

“Fucking hell,” I said.

“Zoe.” Guy put his hand lightly on my shoulder and I jumped back from him. “It was just a stupid accident, Zoe.”

“Wait,” I said. “I’ve got to call the police.”

“What?” he asked, his expression puzzled, almost embarrassed.

I turned on him.

“Shut the fuck up. Just shut up. Don’t come near me, keep off.”

“Zoe—”

“Shut up.”

I was practically screaming at him now. He started to speak and then put up his hands in surrender.

“All right, all right.”

He glanced across at Nick with the apprehensive expression of a man watching a sale ooze away between the floorboards. It didn’t matter. All I cared about now was staying alive. I knew the number by heart. I dialed and asked for Carthy, and this time he came to the phone. No more messing about. He said he would be over right away. And he was there in less than ten minutes, with Aldham and another man who was carrying a large leather bag, and started pulling on thin gloves as soon as he got through the door. They stared at the mess, muttered things to each other in the corner. Carthy was asking me questions, but I couldn’t seem to understand them. He said something about police protection. The other two were in the kitchen. Guy said that they ought to leave and Carthy said no, could they wait out on the stairs.

“He’s been here again. I can’t bear it.”

Aldham came back into the room and looked over at me with concern.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

Aldham walked over to Carthy and muttered something in his ear. He looked a little shaken. Then he walked over to me, and when he spoke it was very calmly and quietly.

“Zoe,” he said. “There was no note, was there?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see one, but I didn’t look.”

“We’ve looked. We haven’t found one.”

“So?”

“We checked the fridge. It had been unplugged and the kettle had been plugged into the socket.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I think it was a mistake. It’s easy to do.”

“But I wouldn’t—” And then I stopped myself and remembered Louise making me tea, pulling out a cord to plug in the kettle. Oh fuck. I felt my face going red.

There was a silence. Aldham looked at the carpet, Carthy looked at me. I stared back.

“You told me to be alert,” I said eventually.

“Of course,” Aldham said gently.

“It’s easy for you,” I said. “I keep thinking I’m going to die.”

“I know,” said Aldham, his voice almost a whisper now. He put his hand tentatively on my shoulder.

I shook myself free.

“You. . . you. . .”

But I couldn’t think of anything rude enough. I turned and ran out, weirdly conscious as I did so that I was leaving them all in my flat.

Louise was waiting for me when I got back to her flat. She had a face pack on, so her skin was dead white, except for a naked pink ring round each eye, which gave her a surprised look. As I was telling her what had happened, I realized I was assuming she would let me stay with her. But she made it easy for me.

“Stay as long as you like.”

“I’m taking the sofa, though.”

“Whatever.”

“And paying rent.”

She raised her eyebrows at me, so the wrinkles on her forehead cracked the mask.

“If it makes you feel better. You don’t need to, though. Just water my plants. I always forget.”

I was feeling better. The gripping fear of yesterday was loosening. I never needed to sleep in my flat again, never needed to set eyes on Guy again or show strange men round the rooms, letting them poke in my drawers and stare at my breasts; never needed to lie there in the darkness, listening, waiting, trying to breathe normally. I never needed to see Fred again, either, or his laddish friends. I felt as if I’d shed a dirty, suffocating skin. I’d stay with Louise; we’d eat supper in front of the TV in the evening, paint each other’s toenails. On Monday, I’d see Dr. Schilling. She’d know what to do. She was an expert.

Louise insisted that she had no plans for the weekend, and although I suspected that she had actually canceled everything for me, I was too relieved to make any but the feeblest protest. We bought French baguettes filled with cheese and tomato and walked to the nearby park, where we sat on the dry, baked-yellow grass. The sun was fierce, the air hot and heavy, and the park was crowded. Groups of teenagers playing Frisbee or snuggling in the shade of the trees; families with picnic hampers and balls and skipping ropes; girls in halter tops sunbathing, people with cans of beer, dogs, cameras, kites, bikes, bread for the ducks. They all wore bright, light clothes, had smiles on their faces.

Louise tucked her shirt into her bra and lay back, arms pillowing her head. I sat beside her, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and watched the streams of people as they passed. I waited to glimpse a face I knew, or a face that was looking at me as if it knew me. But I saw no one like that.

“You know what?” I said.

“What?” she said dreamily.

“I’ve been passive,” I said.

“No you haven’t.”

“I have,” I said. “I’ve wanted other people to sort this out for me. I couldn’t be bothered.”

“Don’t be silly, Zoe.”

“It’s true. I think it was to do with being in London. I wanted to be lost. I didn’t want anyone to notice me. I’ve got to look at myself. That’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to look at myself and think why somebody would pick on me. Who would do it.”

“Tomorrow,” said Louise. “Look at yourself tomorrow. Today just look after yourself.”

I let the sun soak into my skin, under my grubby clothes. I was tired. More tired than I had ever been, with gritty, aching eyes, limbs that felt too heavy to move. I wanted to have deep baths, sleep for hours on clean sheets, eat healthy food, raw carrots, green apples, drink orange juice and herbal tea. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever want to go to a club again, get drunk or stoned again, be touched by a man again. The hot, sweaty, frantic life I had led in London filled me with vague, pervasive horror. All that noise and effort. Maybe, I thought, I’d even give up cigarettes. Not yet.

We passed a cheery shop selling things for children—bright cotton dungarees and stripy tops, bomber jackets in red and pink and yellow—and Louise dragged me in.

“You’re a child size,” she said, looking at me. “You’ve lost too much weight; we’ve got to fatten you up again. But in the meantime, let’s buy you a couple of things.” So, while the salesgirl looked on rather disapprovingly, I selected a few objects off the rack and took them into the changing room. I pulled the ribbed gray shift, aged thirteen, over my head and examined myself in the mirror. Fine. It made me look flat-chested and sexless. That would do me. Then I took it off and put on a lovely white T-shirt, decorated with tiny stitched flowers.

“Let’s have a look,” shouted Louise. “Come on, you can’t go shopping with a friend if you don’t make it into a fashion show.”

I pulled the curtains open, giggling, doing a turn for her.

“What do you think?”

“Take it,” she ordered me.

“Isn’t it too small for me?”

“It will be after you’ve been staying with me for a few days, and sharing my slobby habits. But now, no, it looks lovely on you.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Like a flower, sweetheart.”

Later, Louise and I went in her rattling car to the supermarket to stock up. I had gone for a long time living hand to mouth, chips here, a bar of chocolate there, ready-made sandwiches in the smoke-filled staff room. It had certainly been weeks, probably months, since I had actually cooked anything, with a recipe and real ingredients that you have to put together.

“I’ll make us a meal tonight,” I said boldly. I felt as if I was playing at domesticity. I put fresh pasta into our trolley, Spanish onions, large garlics and Italian plum tomatoes, a little screw-top jar of dried mixed herbs; lettuce hearts, cucumber, mangoes, and strawberries. A tub of single cream. A bottle of Chianti. I bought an economy pack of knickers, some deodorant, a washcloth, a toothbrush and toothpaste. I hadn’t cleaned my teeth since yesterday morning. I’d have to collect stuff from the flat.