Under My Skin (8 page)

‘He’s taking a piss,’ he says.

Tonight we lie side by side without speaking. There are no curtains on the window and the stars are dotted across the night sky.

‘This was my room,’ he says softly. ‘I would sit up here, with the leaves at my window, and read and read and read.’

‘What did you read?’

‘Anything I could find, anything that took me to another place.’

We don’t speak for a little while.

‘And then?’

‘And then…’ he replies.

‘You met me,’ I answer.

Larry turns over and puts his arms around me.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I met you and I lived happily ever after.

The End.’

He sits up on his elbows and asks me what I think of his family.

‘They’re a bit like
The Munsters
,’ I tell him and we both start to laugh. Then he throws back the covers. It is cold now and it’s almost 3 a.m.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he says suddenly and he’s still laughing and pulling his jeans on.

‘Now…?’ and inside I’m thanking my lucky stars.

‘Hope,’ he says and he sits beside me on the bed, ‘I promise you will never have to come here again.’

‘Thank you, Larry,’ and now we are both packing our things and laughing as we begin to tiptoe down the stairs.

‘And if you ever lose your hair… Larry… I want you to know…’ And here he turns in the stairwell and says, ‘I know… you’ll still love me when I’m bald.’

The hotel is in Galway. It is a two-hour drive and it seems a little longer because there are two of us in the bubble car. Our heads are close together and we are like goldfish driving around in a goldfish bowl. There was no hot water for Larry’s shower and he still smells a bit like sausages and chips. We have all our things in one carrier bag. I have just brought underwear and Larry has brought his razor and an REM CD.

We stop and ask for directions in Galway.

‘Excuse me, please,’ Larry says, ‘we’re looking for the Clarinbridge Hotel.’

‘Oh,’ the woman says, ‘that used to be the Mental Hospital,’ and now there is silence from the car.

‘Do you know where it is?’ I ask.

‘Turn left,’ she says. ‘It’s on Mental Hospital Road.’

‘Of course it is,’ Larry says and he turns the Ladybird around on the street.

It is a tall grey stone building and there is a nice red and yellow creeper growing on one side. Larry manages the check-in and I wait in the foyer with our carrier bag. In the room, the windows seem to be very high and there are no sharp objects and no minibar.

At six o’clock there is a knock on our door and the manager comes in and stands with his back to the TV. We are lying on the bed watching some ice-dancing from Bulgaria.

He tells us that he is very sorry but he had no idea we were on our honeymoon. He says ‘a lady’ called Doreen rang and asked for a bottle of champagne to be delivered to our room. ‘The honeymoon suite is booked,’ he says but he would like us to take the penthouse and have a complimentary dinner and a bottle of wine. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again, ‘I hope this will help and that you will enjoy the rest of your stay at our hotel.’ I sit up and look at him. ‘It’s a bit like a hospital,’ I tell him, and he looks back at me and cannot think of any reply. Two chambermaids come to the door to help us to pack.

There are two white fluffy bathrobes. The heat is turned up and the bathroom is full of hot water and steam. Larry has a shower first and then we have a bath. This is the first time we have done this. In the bathroom we have a conversation about hotdogs and Larry says he ate his first hotdog ever after visiting the Empire State Building in New York. Then we have a chat about which is taller, the World Trade Center or Sears Tower, and he says, ‘The World Trade Center – it
measures 1,368 feet.’ Then we talk about our favourite cities and I already know Larry loves New York so I tell him my favourite city is Baghdad and he starts to laugh. We talk about memory and why we remember some things but there are others we completely forget.

‘It’s something to do with the hippocampus structure,’ Larry says and he is sponging soap on to my back.

‘I want to tell you something about me,’ I tell him and I am saying the words out into the steam.

‘Is it about your dad?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I tell him, and he kisses my shoulders and his arms move down into the warm water and around my waist.

‘It’s about Dad and Daniel – but I’m going to tell you about Elvis first.’

‘OK,’ he replies, and we stay there for a very long time, talking and talking together and Larry adding more hot water by turning the tap with his foot.

When we fall asleep under the white sheets we seem to melt into each other and when we speak again it is as if we are both in the same dream.

‘Larry?’ I ask and my voice comes out into the dark of the quiet hotel room.

‘Yes, Hope.’

‘What’s your favourite word?’

He pulls me closer.

He kisses my lips.

My cheeks.

My hair.

The moon casts a long white shadow across us.

‘Canoodle,’ he replies.

On Saturday morning Glassman walked down Park Avenue with Matilda. She put her hand into his coat pocket to warm it and together they saw the first tight green buds of spring. His friend, who was four years older than he was, had decided to marry the Parisian – who was only twenty-three. He had planned a springtime wedding for her. He had invited Glassman and The Chief. He had bought his black morning suit at Barneys. He believed he could turn the clock back for her and he had even dyed his hair.

‘He looks like a crow,’ Matilda whispered, and Glassman felt her lean closer and how her breath was warm on his ear. He smiled because he was enjoying the charade of a wedding and because The Chief had just lifted one eyebrow to say ‘Hello’. The two couples smiled at each other and when Matilda sat down again she took Glassman’s hand.

In the nave of St Bart’s they listened to Mozart and watched the young bride as she glided up the aisle.

‘What does he expect?’ Glassman wondered. ‘In five years’ time, making love to her will give him a heart attack… and waking up beside him will give
her
a heart attack.’

The bride had asked them to blow bubbles after the vows were exchanged and he tried not to laugh as he began to whip the mixture up. When the groom put his ring on the Parisian’s finger, Glassman looked up and saw the bride’s mother throw her head dramatically into her hands. And in celebration of the madness of this love and of love in general he scooped and blew a giant bubble up over their heads.
Both he and Matilda watched as it wilfully brushed over hair and clothing and seemed to grow and grow until it landed, elegantly and in complete silence, on the groom’s left shoulder, like a second glass head. And Glassman and Matilda and even The Chief, who sat on his other side, began to laugh helplessly over this.

On the way home they went to Zabars and bought smoked salmon and cream cheese and chocolate croissants and with every item she put into their basket he wanted to tell her it was over, and then he would see her eyes, and soften and think, not yet. And for a moment he stopped and saw that all of New York was there and shopping – one person to represent each member of their world – all moving in perfect time as if choreographed and on the ice-rink in Central Park.

And there was Matilda holding up a jar of pickles for him to see and she wore that look of eager anticipation on her face. She was also on the ice but she had stopped because he had, and he hated her for loving him in that puppy dog way and then another thought crashed right into this one – why would he hurt her and why would he break her heart?

The flour machine had pulled up at H&H Bagels across the street and they both stopped and wondered at it. ‘Look, the flour machine,’ she said and they watched the floating cloud of magical white dust, but when she said ‘flour’ he thought ‘flower’ and imagined a million pink petals falling into the street, and Glassman wondered if this was the beginning of his first real feeling or thought. They stood side by side on Broadway and 80th Street and she talked about H&H bagels and how they were shipped to San Francisco and Chicago and Seattle and she spoiled it so that his petals turned back to white, never-settling dust.

Matilda talked about her Irish friend over breakfast and how
her husband ran a diner and how she worked in advertising – and how funny she was – and Glassman listened with one ear as he usually did now when Matilda talked. He liked the idea of a young couple in love without knowing anything about the complications of it. He liked the idea of diapers flapping on a line and no money for food and how at night they had no radio or TV and got into bed to read books and keep each other warm. He liked the idea of a woman who could not spell but wanted to write anyway. Matilda told him that her friend had a scar in the shape of a star and even this fact could not sink into him and he did not understand why she could not see that he was really somewhere else.

He knew that she was taking things. And that for everything she took she left something of hers in its place. His pyjama top – lime-green silk – for a box of Tampax in the medical cabinet. His black sweater – for homemade meatballs made at her place and left in his refrigerator. Three pieces of glass from his studio – for a pair of socks left under the bed. His copy of
The Good Soldier
– for her copy of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. He let it all slide in and out like a game of checkers in his head – and he let it happen because as usual he did not want to hurt her. He did not want to hurt anyone at all. And he let her stay out of kindness, and allowed her to steal from him, and this he believed was the last remaining shred of his good self.