A to Z of You and Me (19 page)

Skin

“The skin,” Kelvin reads from the textbook, “is the largest organ on the human body.” He looks at me. “Well,” he says, with his big stupid face, “it's not the largest organ on
my
body.”

“Gah!” I throw my pen down, and it bounces off the kitchen table and rolls across the floor. “I knew you were going to say that!”

“What? It's true!”

Watching Kelvin's mind at work is like watching an oil tanker trying to do a three-point turn. I reach down and retrieve my pen and try to get back into my notes. I've got to stop this jitteriness. I'm starting to get really panicky about this exam.

“It's such a stupid joke,” I say.

“So? All good jokes are stupid.”

“No, but it's
bad
stupid. It's the first thing anyone ever says—and it's just impossible. It doesn't work. Even if you had a cock the size of Ecuador, the skin would still be the size of Ecuador plus one human, wouldn't it?”

Kelvin ignores me and flips the page.

“Skin renews itself every twenty-eight days,” he reads.

“I know.”

“My cock renews itself every twenty-eight minutes.”

• • •

Laura is slumped, still in her dressing gown, in the middle of the sofa in the front room of her apartment, crying. The utter pitifulness of the expression on her face is almost funny. I feel bad for thinking it, because the state of her actual face isn't funny at all.

The skin looks badly scalded, angry red cheeks sweeping down to an almost bony yellowish color under her nose and around her mouth.

“I've got to go to a spa in three days,” she says, dabbing at her nose with a sopping tissue, “and I look like Freddy Krueger.”

“Well, why did you give yourself a chemical peel if you're going to a spa in three days, you dumb shit?” Mal says over-loudly. I reckon he's showing off to hide the embarrassment that they've had to drag us round to Laura's for your medical opinion.

You tentatively settle beside her on the sofa.

“What exactly was it that you put on your face?”

Laura pushes a box at you.

“Glycolic acid,” you read. “Did you follow the instructions?”

“Yeah.” She nods sadly. “I just pushed up the percentage a little bit. Just a
little
bit.”

You take up the minutely typed instruction leaflet and scan it. “Are you in any pain?”

“Not so much now.” She sniffs. “At first it felt like my whole face was on fire. Now it's really tight. But it's how it
looks
. I don't know how long it's going to
look
like this.”

Her tears well up again, and you tut sympathetically, flip the instruction leaflet over in your hand.

“It's stupid, I know,” says Laura, “but I'm going with Becca for a bring-a-friend-free weekend getaway and I didn't want to look like some sort of dried-up old hag next to her.”

“Oh, Laura, you've got lovely skin,” you say.

“Yeah, except it's not on her face anymore,” says Mal.

You glare at him.

“What?” he says. “I could have boiled the kettle and poured it over her head and had the same effect. Cheaper too.”

Laura picks up her compact mirror and lifts and dips her head to assess the damage once again. “Becca looks amazing without even trying,” she says, “and I spend ages—like when we went to that fetish club on her birthday?” She looks up at me, as if asking me to remember. “She didn't need to make any effort, and she was instant eye candy, and I stood there in a stupid catsuit and no one gave me a second look. And I thought, it'll be exactly like that at the spa.”

There's a momentary process in your eyes as you meet my gaze. Something begins to unsettle in my middle.
Fetish club? Some explanation required?

“It was her birthday, wasn't it? Ah, that was a top night,” says Mal, with forced wistfulness. “She did look good, though, didn't she?”

“Thanks a lot, Mal,” spits Laura. “That's exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“Well, come on. That body in just a bra? Nothing else? Hats off to her.”

“Were you there?” you say, looking across at me. “Where was I? I don't remember even hearing about this.”

I squint at Mal, pretending only to dimly remember, broadcasting all the negatives I can at him.

“She said her knickers and bra didn't match, and it was her best bra,” Laura explains dolefully.

“Oh no, I remember. That was when you were on your little break from each other,” says Mal.

“I can't remember,” I say.

“I'm not surprised, the state you were in,” Mal says, laughing.

“When was this?” you ask, almost as if you hadn't heard him.

“My lips are sealed,” says Mal. “I've said too much already.”

“You were in an
S&M
club?”

We're marching along at a furious rate now. I'm starting to get a bit out of breath.

“I was down,” I say. “We'd all trekked up north to a place Mal knew for a night out. I didn't want to go, but it was Becca's birthday, and…they all thought I should be having a good time. I didn't know that was their plan when we went out, but—when you're there, you're there.”

“And had you taken anything?”

I look across at you, and your eyes are blazing. My first instinct is to look away. I try to suppress that instinct, but by the time I do, it's already too late.

“I was really low,” I say.

The clock of our footsteps on the pavement echoes off the walls and parked cars as we square the slabs away behind us, off down the street. “I don't understand it,” you say. “I do not understand first why you can't just
stop
it. You're not addicted, you're not dependent; it's just a bad habit you will not kick. And I don't get how these people, these friends and family, can stand by and let you do this to yourself. And to us.”

“There was no us at the time. There was no us.”

I can see your eyes are stressed and weary. It's happening again. The whole thing is going to shit
again
.

“Just…tell me what happened,” you say.

“OK, look, you've got to try to remember how it was—it was a hard time. For us both. It was, wasn't it?”

You don't reply.

I sigh unsteadily.

Honesty. Full honesty.

Finally.

“We were in the club, and a woman was dancing with me, and I was feeling… I was upset over you.”

You frown deeply, processing.

“And we went into a back room, and…I don't know what happened. We kissed. I remember we kissed.”

“Do you know who it was?”

You're looking up at me with hard eyes, scanning, scanning, your irises moving minimally from left to right to left as you look in each of my eyes.

• • •

“Time for more bedsore meds, I'm afraid,” calls Sheila as she breezes through the door with a smile. She stops in her tracks. “Oh, lovey, what's the matter?”

I'm crying. What is it I'm doing, the grotesque dry twitch, voice, rasping awfulness. I cannot get it out. I want to shed tears, but I cannot drink enough water to make tears.

Sheila fixes the door shut and hurries around beside me, but she doesn't know what to say. She simply stands there and holds my cold hand, strokes the back of it.

“I should never have started this,” I say.

“Started what, my darling?”

“It's too painful to remember these things.”

“Oh, lovey, I'm so sorry. It was only supposed to be a silly game to keep you occupied.”

“No, no,” I say, steadily regaining some kind of equilibrium. “It's not you, it's not you. It's me.”

Am I imagining it? I'm shocked to see she seems a little choked. Double shine in her eyes.

“Sheila, could I…? Morphine?”

“Oh yes, yes, of course. Give me a sec.”

Tear Ducts

This is it: I cannot make the tears come. And anyway, boys don't cry, do they?

But if you don't cry, does it mean you don't care?

If I could just cry it out.

Maybe it's better I don't.

Maybe I haven't earned that.

Crying isn't about sadness. Crying is to sadness what cold is to a cold. Unrelated.

The stupid reasons I've cried.

I cried at my dad's funeral, but I remember absolutely that it wasn't for the reason everyone said it was. It was because everyone called me
poor little love
, and said
aw, bless
. And if enough different people say
aw, bless
to you in one day, it's going to make you freak out. A congregation of over one hundred fifty. Each and every one of them must have said
aw, bless
to me.

I finally broke down when my grandma offered me a cookie. I said I didn't want it. She said, “Come on, you can have it; it's yours.” But I said no, because I was feeling like I wanted to honor my dad by not having the cookie.

“Go on! You know you want it!”

Everyone looking at me.

Me, flushing hot and unable to stop the tears from coming.

“Aw, bless…”

Fuckers.

Where are they now, eh?

• • •

So here I am, once again. I thought I'd escaped. I was stupid enough to allow myself to think that maybe you and I had finally got it together. But I find myself back in my boyhood bedroom, in my boyhood bed with its collapsed mattress, dressed up in my dad's old pajamas. I'm pressing your blanket to my face. Its scent fills my nostrils, and I am awash with a renewed wave of sorrow. Deserved sorrow.

There's no coming back from this.

There's no coming back.

I hear my mum on the stairs. The slip-slap of her slippers. In a moment she'll appear at the door, break the spell of solitude. I look up. There she is. Never changing, always the same.

“Can I come in?”

I say nothing. She comes in. She's carrying a bowl of chicken soup and sets it down next to my alarm clock. She sits beside me on the bed, and we creak in closer to each other.

I take the crochet blanket up, pull it safely toward me. I look up at my mum. “The blanket smells of her.”

“Oh, kiddo.”

We are crying.

She cradles my head, places her palm on my hair, and gently, gently presses all over.

She wants to talk about it, but I can feel my anxiety burning within. I don't have anything to tell her. All there is to tell would break her heart. She doesn't even know I smoke. How would I tell her about…everything else?

I can't tell her anything, so we sit there in silence as the soup cools before me. I don't have any appetite. I only wanted her to make it so she would have something to do. Something away from me.

I'm sorry, Mum.

I don't mean to be mean.

I'm just sitting here, pushing the crochet to my nose and mouth and tightening for crying.

Mum kisses the top of my head, my hair.

“It was cruel,” she says now. “She was too cruel.”

“No,” I say. “No, she's not been cruel.”

“Do you want me to wash it for you? I'm sure I could put it on a delicates wash or something, if you want to keep it.” She starts examining a corner of the blanket to work out how best to wash it.

“No,” I say. “No, thanks.”

Mum leaves me.

I want this blanket to keep your scent. It will remind me. I can change. I can do this, and then you'll come back. And we will wrap ourselves in it.

Mum reappears at the door, holding a neatly folded blanket she's drawn from the airing cupboard.

“Here we are, kiddo. Why don't you take this one, eh? Have this blanket.”

• • •

Laura's all in my face, and the people at the other tables in the café are starting to get a whiff of scandal. I wish I wasn't still in my work shirt.

“Why aren't you talking to my boyfriend?”

“Laura, I'm just trying to eat my lunch, all right?”

“Why aren't you talking to Mal?”

Mal stands sheepishly behind her, trying not to catch my eye.

“I'm not.” I mean I'm not not talking to him.

“Yeah,” she says, “you aren't. And I want to know why.”

I consider my Cheeto-powdered fingers, at a loss as to what I'm supposed to say. She's giving me a soap opera, like this is how people are supposed to talk to each other.

“I think it's totally shitty, what you're doing,” she says.

I'm not engaging with this. I start to methodically depowder each finger with a deliberate lip smack.

Mal benignly pulls out a chair adjacent to mine and sits.

“How is it Mal's fault?” demands Laura.

“No. Laura…” says Mal. “He's all right, yeah? I never should have said anything. It was a mistake, OK? I thought she knew. You told me she knew.”

“No, I fucking didn't!”

“Laura! Keep your voice down,” I say, casting a glance across the café to see if any management is in the area.

“You said they were being open and honest with each other about everything,” says Mal. He looks awkward. Genuinely upset. Laura glares at me again.

“She and you weren't even together at the time anyway. I don't know why she thinks she can get all upset about it if she'd dumped you—”

I shake my head. No, no. I don't want her turning her fire on you.

Laura turns to Mal. “He's spent his whole life blaming other people for choices he's made. It's time he started taking a bit of responsibility.”

“Fuck
of
f
!” I surprise myself, feeling the shout coming out of me. I catch a tut from a customer at a nearby table. “Will you leave me alone? Do you think I want to sit here and listen to all your bullshit? Look at you! Look at your own life for a change and sort that out before you start doling out sage advice to me about mine.”

I think for a moment Laura's going to laugh as the words ring in the air around us. This is a game, right? Neither of us is really taking this seriously.

She fixes me a stare with her wonky face, and with typical extrovert silence, she suddenly gets up and sweeps off, leaving a big, stupid, empty space behind.

Making it all about her. Now she's the one who's been wronged. So typical.

So here's me and Mal.

Two bodies adjacent in the same space.

Not looking at each other.

I'm looking at the cart lined up waiting for customers' empty trays. I should maybe help the kitchen staff with that, perhaps wheel it through to them.

Mal's voice comes to me first.

“She's about to become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”

He's absolutely deadpan.

I snort, lightly.

“Don't I know it.”

We sit and just… I don't know. Here we are. Again.

“Listen, man,” he says. “She's only trying to defend me. You know what she's like.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm no good at all this, and I say the fucking—the wrong thing. But, I mean, it's coming from a good place, man. I'm just on the lookout for my mate. I just want to look after him when I see he's doing a lot of changing.”

I look at him now, and he flicks a nervous glance at me. I've never seen him quite like this before.

“We've been through a lot,” he says. “And I mean, it's true—I should have been a lot better of a mate about your health. You know what it's like; I like to look after my mates. But I didn't step up to the mark there. I didn't know you were having blackouts and all that. I didn't look after you. Diabetes and everything—it's serious news. You need to take care of that. Be a little bit strategic, like. But you're not an easy fucker to tell, you know what I mean?”

“No, I know. It's not that bad. I don't want to be treated any differently than anyone else. I'm not some like major special case.”

Mal nods reflectively.

“Just so you know, if I'd thought you'd even wanted telling, I would have told you and made sure you looked after yourself.”

“I'm fine, I'm fine. I can look after myself. I just need to…not do quite so much shit to my body, you know?”

“Yeah, of course, man.”

He stirs his feet and contemplates. Maybe he's waiting for something from me, but I've got nothing. I don't want a scene.

“There was a moment back there where I thought…you know. We could get a place, move in together. Be a laugh.”

I stare fixedly at my empty cup of Fanta. It sounds kind of pathetic, what's coming from him now.

“But you never got back to me when I said it. So I'm thinking, maybe he doesn't want to be friends anymore?”

It's true. I never did get back to him. But that's because—

“It gets pretty lonely when your best mate's vanished without a trace. That's no good, man, is it? Disappearing like that overnight.”

As I lie here now, going over that scene after all these years, the danger I think of is his clear eyes and honest intonation, and I think, maybe I had more of an effect than I thought by simply not being around. Maybe you can't just switch yourself off from people's lives. Maybe I could be persuaded that he was being reasonable.

But no. No way.

• • •

It makes all the difference to be sitting here by the window, looking out at the magnolia tree and the lawn beyond. The robin's back, flittering around. There's something deeply comforting about seeing her little eccentric moves.

“So,” I say, taking a small sip of water and swallowing it down with some effort, “how did it go? Your mum?”

Amber cannot keep the warm smile from spreading across her pale face.

“There was standing room only,” she says, with glittering eyes. “It was really, really moving. Mum would have been totally amazed at how it went.”

“Ah, Amber, I'm so pleased.”

“A whole load of people she used to work with came along, and all the people she went to church with, and all her drama friends. And there was this group of men from a place she used to work at like ten years ago, and they were saying to me,
Your mum was so proud of you, and she always used to talk about you when she was working with us
. People really loved her, you know?”

“How about your dad? How did he do?”

“Oh, he did brilliantly. He couldn't think of a reading, but he stood up there and he spoke in front of all of those people, and he was as brave as anything. He was telling them all about how he and Mum met, and how people didn't take to him because he was Japanese and she was English, but how she stood by him with all their friends and won them over, and how he was proud to call them all friends now, and it was just the warmest possible send-off.”

“Brilliant,” I say. More water. “I'm so chuffed. You made all that happen.”

“No, it was you. You got me to think about it differently. Thank you.”

“People can go through their whole lives without rethinking something.”

She goes a bit shy, and…well, so do I. It feels strange to tell someone you're proud of them. But I am proud. And I'm pleased she thinks I've helped.

She smiles coyly and begins to gather her things together.

“I think I'd better get going. We're planting a tree for Mum this afternoon. I think she would have liked that.”

“Well, that's lovely,” I say.

“Would you like me to do anything for you—for Mia?”

I look down at my blanket, turn a corner, and inspect the neat edging. Take a sip of water.

“If you want, you could get your crochet going. Do a yarn bomb.”

“Yeah?”

“Do it properly. That would make me really happy.”

Teeth, tongue, tonsils, taste buds, throat

Teeth.

Tongue.

It's all mouth. Teeth, tongue. It's taste. Taste and texture. Taste and touch. Taste buds. Teeth and tongue, taste buds, throat, tonsils. All in there together. All
T
.

So dry. My teeth and tongue now thirsty. They're tacky and clicking dry. I need a drink. I want to flood my mouth with an ocean of relief.

Grandma: old as her tongue, not as old as her teeth.

Your taste buds change, don't they? As you get older. They change. When I was a little boy, Granddad gave me a sip of his whiskey. Awful, awful. Couldn't conceive of why anyone would want to drink that. Stomach bile. Awful. I knew that when I grew up I would only eat sweets. When I was old enough to eat what I bloody well wanted. Sweets and cake mix. Couldn't stomach it now.

“Morning, lovey. How are you doing today?”

Sheila. Quiet voice. Gentle voice. She works the room, looks at me. Tries to judge how I'm feeling.

“Can I get you anything? A drink, or…?”

No food. Food no longer on the menu. I have had my last meal.

“Tea?” I say. “Please.”

“A cup of tea? All right, lovey, sit tight and I'll go get you some tea.”

Cup of tea. Floods the mouth. Floods the buds. That's something to say. Cup of tea. Forever the first thing to get me moving in the morning. It's my—what do they say?—my control. My control state.

Cup of tea floods the tongue, teeth, throat, tonsils.

All the
T
s.

Six sugars in my cup of tea, I used to have when I was little. Couldn't do that now. Spooning out the sludge in the bottom of the mug. Happy days.

Wh—?

Sheila plants a teacup and saucer on the cabinet beside my bed.

“Here we go, lovey. I've brought a fresh glass of water for you too in case you'd rather have that, all right?”

I smile up at her. Hope the smile reaches my face.

She sits awhile as the tea cools beside us.

“Jackie tells me you had a bit of trouble in the night.”