Under My Skin (7 page)

Then Matilda said that her third place was his apartment and he said he knew that and she asked where his third place was and he said he was still trying to find it.

And that night he went to bed before her and he read the words he had written, in a long thin row, reading downwards like a Chinese poem.

hope
anticipate
wish
look forward to
ridiculous
unachievable
inconceivable
unbearable
feel
touch
hurt
need
search
find
romantic
can’t live without
Love.

Honeymoon n. – 1. A period of time spent alone together, especially by a newly married couple. 2. A short period of harmony or goodwill at the beginning of a relationship.

The flat is freezing again. It is Poland, Moscow and Siberia in here. The gas cooker is on in the kitchen and Doreen is wearing her coat to keep warm. Jack Frost is making flowers on the window and outside there are Russians doing a Cossack dance up and down the hall.

‘Will you be home soon?’ I asked the telephone in the hallway and when Larry answered I knew he was looking across the counter at Vertigo and into a very crowded room.

‘I’ve just closed up,’ he said and he sounded really tired. ‘I’ll bring some dinner home.’

Doreen is carving out a heart in the frost with a teaspoon. ‘What do you think of this coat?’ she asks. She keeps looking at the heart and does not turn around. Someone left the coat in the restaurant last night and it walked home with her, along with all of our hats and gloves and every umbrella we have ever owned. We play ‘I Wish’ which is our version of ‘I Spy’ until we hear the front door open and bang shut again.

‘I wish Larry was at home.’

‘I wish the Indians would give me free food.’

‘I wish we could go on a honeymoon to the Waldorf Astoria.’

‘I wish the Indians closed on Sundays.’

‘I wish Larry was at home.’

When the kitchen door opens my husband’s eyes reach mine from the narrow hallway. He has been working all day and most of the night and now when he looks at me, we are together and safe and warm. He is carrying our dinner in a brown paper bag and the new blue plaster on his finger means he has burnt his hand on the oven door again.

He hands the first parcel to Doreen.

‘Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and sage stuffing,’ he says, and she begins to laugh.

‘And for you,’ he says, and here he kisses my cheek, ‘Dover sole, dauphine potatoes and a selection of Mediterranean vegetables.’

We turn up the gas and begin to eat our hotdogs and fries.

When Larry sits at the table he opens his coat and pulls me inside.

‘That was the nicest roast chicken I have ever had,’ Doreen says and she winks at Larry and goes off smiling down the hall.

‘Any plans for the weekend?’ he asks and when he speaks he looks away and scratches his eyebrow.

I reach for the ketchup and say, ‘Hanging around with you?’

‘Better pack a bag then,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you. First I want you to meet my parents and then… we’re going on our honeymoon.’

Bandhu calls and asks if Doreen is at home. She stands beside me shaking her head and waving her arms and then he calls at the door and I’m still saying, ‘Can I take a message?’ and he is still talking into his phone.

‘We’re going on our honeymoon,’ I tell him, and he smiles and bows low but all the time his eyes are watching Doreen. She stands back and he walks up the stairs ahead of her.

‘I don’t see why I can’t come,’ she says and she watches as we put our coats on. ‘We could have got a good family rate – two adults and one child for free.’

Bandhu smiles and puts both hands on her shoulders. ‘Doreen,’ he says and his voice is low and gentle, ‘you are not a family.’

Outside Larry scrapes the morning frost from the window and when he starts the car the kitchen window slides up.

‘Bring me back something,’ Doreen shouts and then she waves and waves until we can no longer hear her calling out, ‘Goodbye.’ Larry drives the car down the main street and in between changing gears he holds my hand.

Wig n. – 1. A covering of hair or something resembling hair worn on the head for adornment, ceremony, or to cover baldness. 2. A toupee (informal).

‘Good-looking,’ his father says, except he cannot speak and so he writes his words on a notepad and hands it to Larry. He is a tall man with a wig and a neat orange tie. He is a gentleman farmer in shining brown brogues.

‘She has small hands,’ his mother says. Her grey hair is twisted into a thin knot at the back of her head. There are bare country feet in Birkenstocks and she is crooning at the fire. The Matriarch in all her glory and this house rotates around her. Larry’s house is Georgian and it looks as though it is sinking into the ground.

I eat apple pie and it is too dry and I know it is trying to choke me.

‘Made with buttermilk,’ his mother says and everyone looks at my hands.

The kitchen is untidy. There is a dead plant on the fridge,
sets of keys, a clock, several ornaments. There are bridles hanging from pegs on the wall. A saddle on the table. A carton of milk. The window seat is piled high with cardboard boxes and there are footprints on the black and white tiled floor. They are walking in one door and then, understandably, out another.

Now that I am here I want to go back to our flat. Back into the dark. Back to make tea and light the gas fire and watch something stupid and comforting with Larry on TV. I know I don’t belong in a place like this but somewhere along the line I knew I belonged with Larry. I was already in love, with him.

Another face appears and looks me up and down.

‘This is my brother John,’ Larry says.

‘The Doctor,’ his mother says, and we shake hands. He has hands like Larry’s. Wide, long-fingered, and they have already touched every part of me.

‘Small one,’ the Doctor says and then with a backward glance as he also leaves the room, ‘You won’t need a bale of hay at the end of her bed,’ and everyone laughs, the soft reluctant laugh that country people have. It starts low and becomes louder as if they are all somehow put out by it. Larry winks at me and smokes a cigarette with his back to the fire.

I wonder if we will make love tonight, if we will sleep together under the same roof where all of these other people were made. He tells me that his parents still share the same bed, eleven children and fifty years of marriage later, the wig on the dressing table, the Birkenstocks under the bed.

The house is three miles outside Ballina. An old country estate with broken-down gate piers and only one stag’s head to welcome us in. There are no gardens. Not even a shrub or
a hedge. Just muck and sheds and several cars parked up around the door. Grown-up children still pulled magnetically back to the family home.

I was worried about my clothes and what his parents would think of me. ‘Believe me you needn’t worry,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’m more worried what you’ll think of them.’

We crossed a mucky yard and he started laughing again when I stopped and scraped my shoes carefully at the door.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ and then, ‘Left,’ and he steered me through an arch.

‘This is Hope,’ he said to his mother and as he spoke he was already taking a cigarette out. When I looked at his fingers I saw them give a little shake. His eyes looked into mine though and they said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s OK.’ His mother studied me inside out. Her small dark eyes took in my face, my small frame, my small hands. Inside I think she was saying, ‘This girl does not belong in a family like this.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you…’ I heard myself say and so far there was nothing lovely about it but I used a word she would never use, and that told her she was right.

What I thought was a cupboard door opens and Larry’s sister Patricia comes in. ‘Well,’ she says in a stout mannish voice. She has been walking with their dog through wet fields in the rain. She comes in shaking the rain from her hair and stamping her Wellingtons. She is wearing the vintage-leather jacket I bought Larry for Christmas. I spent hours picking it out. Asking complete strangers to try it on. Asking bewildered shop assistants which colour would be better and there was only a choice of black or brown. He loves that jacket. Now whenever I smell an old leather jacket I think of him. She takes it off and throws it on to the stack of newspapers and then takes the dog’s face in her hands and kisses it. Then she
begins to pile eggs into a saucepan and puts it on to an electric ring.

Larry carries our bag upstairs. The carpet is threadbare and dangerous and there are children’s toys scattered here and there.

‘In here,’ he says and as soon as the door closes behind us we are laughing and kissing each other. Congratulating ourselves on surviving the experience of being in his family home.

‘She says you’d be no good at carrying buckets of water,’ and he is laughing himself sick about this.

When he kisses me his arms are wrapped around me. He moves his fingers through my hair and down my spine and under my skirt again. This bare room with the mahogany bed and the plain white linen spread makes us want each other but he turns then and puts his hand on the doorknob instead.

In this house people increase and multiply. Children appear at corners unexpectedly. A little girl with brown hair spoke to us in Irish when we came in. There are strange smells of talcum powder, urine, child and dog. But he is gone. Leaving our bag on the bed and jogging lightly back down the stairs. Whistling softly. There are two white matching pillows, a white bedspread, a nun’s bed, and I am expected to lie here with him tonight.

I change into a pink dress and comb my hair and then there is a gentle hand on my back.

Patricia’s voice comes suddenly. ‘You missed a button,’ and she buttons it gently and says, ‘There.’

When I look in the mirror I am amazed my hair is not standing on end.

The kitchen window looks out across a bleak wet yard. I sit and have dinner with his family and no one speaks. So far there is only brown bread and hard-boiled eggs and a pot of very strong tea. When Larry tells his mother about Vertigo she will not meet his eyes and finds the middle distance instead.

‘It’s going really well,’ he tells her.

‘A university education,’ she replies.

He looks at me and I look back. Both of us feeling hurt.

‘And what do you do?’ she asks then and when she turns and faces me it is as if there is an Alsatian in the room.

‘I work at a record shop – but I’ve just got a new job in an advertising agency.’

His mother looks back at me as if I am speaking Dutch.

‘What university did you go to?’

‘I didn’t go to university,’ and I can feel my cheeks going red.

‘What does your father do?’ she asks.

‘He used to own a shop.’

‘And your mother…?’

And all the time her eyes are boring into me and I can feel some sort of tears moving up from my toes.

And then Larry suddenly begins to speak.

‘Mum…’ he says and his voice is low and calm, ‘Hope is my wife. I don’t care what you think of her. I don’t care what you think of me. But I expect you to treat her with respect.’

‘We…’ she says and her mouth is in a straight stiff line, ‘… are your family.’

And Larry looks over at me and takes my hand.

‘Hope is my family now.’

Larry’s father comes in and pulls up a chair at the head of the table. He takes off the wig and puts it on a plate near the bread. In my mind are the words ‘Holy Mary Mother of God’ and I haven’t wanted to say them for years.

Then from nowhere I want to say it – and it is just because it is the one thing I am not supposed to say.

‘Who owns the rug? Who owns the rug? Who owns the rug?’

‘Another egg?’ Larry asks and now we are trying not to laugh at his father’s bald head.

‘Pass me the bread, please,’ his mother says and Larry lifts up the plate and passes her the wig instead.

A dog wanders through the yard and sniffs. When I turn I find a little blond boy smiling up at me.

‘What age are you?’ I ask kindly.

‘Four,’ he replies but his cherub face stares sadly out the window instead. When the dog lifts his leg the boy keeps on staring and then both of us look.