Under My Skin (22 page)

He lifts a strand of hair back from my face and kisses me. It is as if we are behind warm velvet curtains now and when we kiss – I want it to be slow – so when I inhale I just breathe him in.

Jonathan kisses my cheek and then he strokes it with his hand. Then he moves closer and his lips touch mine again. He puts his arms around me. The fire sparks and sends a red ember out on to the rug. And then it happens again. My eyes are filling up with tears and I am still kissing him and trying to swallow them back.

I close my eyes and when I do, I see the white scar. The Cupid bow laughing up from the pillows on a Sunday afternoon. Jonathan is kissing me but I am kissing someone else. I can never remember the hours without him. Only the time when he was near and that I have lost him for ever now.

So I cling to the man beside me.

He is the only man I have.

I have lost the one I want.

My whole world went crazy and sent him away from me.

Jonathan is breathing steadily at first and then he starts to kiss me harder, his hands running over my dress. He finds the zip and he is actually panting a little – and I never wanted my boss to get this out of control.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ he whispers into my ear and behind us Florence lets out a big sigh. Everything about him is powerful again. He is not afraid of taking a risk and he seems to have that sparkly aura again.

He takes my hand and pulls me gently to my feet and I follow him into the other bedroom like a little lamb.

The wallpaper is pale taupe and apple green. The cushions on the white bedspread are designed to match. They sit neatly side by side and then he lifts them and puts them on the chair. He pulls a cord and the blind drops down. He unties the tiebacks and the curtains begin to close.

And I am standing there and seeing the boardroom and wondering if the projector and laptop are turned on.

He begins to unbutton his shirt. His Filofax is open beside the bed.

Next to it his mobile phone.

His keys.

His Mont Blanc pen.

The flowers on the wallpaper turn into faces, creative teams and prospective clients sitting around the room.

‘Do you have an agenda?’

‘Of course I do.’

The first item on our agenda is called ‘Getting undressed’ and the second item is called ‘Going to bed’.

Jonathan smiles softly and moves towards me. He lets my shoulder straps down and puts the sheets back and we get in.

‘Lights on or off?’ he asks.

We will never win the business if he is going to say things like that.

In my mind the bed begins to lift off the ground and I lie back and think of
Star Trek
and Captain Kirk. Where are we
going? I would like to know. He begins to make love to me and the bed is setting sail. Up into the night sky and over the lake. I can feel nothing and hear nothing as we glide and fly up through white puffy clouds.

Somewhere down there is the blue house where Juna lives and over to the right, my pappy’s red shop.

Jonathan is breathing like a long-distance runner. I am quiet and very calm. My legs curl tightly around him and I feel his skin, taut and smooth, on his back. My nails go in and he stretches his neck and laughs.

Then I start to think about the time he told me off for being late… and I let them go in further now.

‘I like you, Jonathan, and you know I sort of hate you too.’

There was the time he cut across me at that meeting and my nails drag a little on his skin.

‘Easy, tiger,’ he says and then he begins to kiss my neck. He is leaning on his elbows and looking up to see where the bed is going now. He keeps a look out and steers the ship and all the time the headboard goes bump-bump-bump against the bedroom wall.

He has done this before.

Many times I think.

Sugar Daddy.

He can hurt me.

Sugar Boy.

Afterwards I wonder if he will say he loves me. He said he was ‘falling for me’ and now that it is over, he has fallen and crumbled in a heap. He dozes and there are words that need to come out like –

Darling

So special

Need

We

Love

To be

Meant

Care

So much

Watch over

Can’t live without

He turns on to his side and faces me. He looks like a sleepy little boy. We lie on our sides facing each other. He swallows and smiles and his eyes are still closed. Jonathan has the answers for everything. He can always find the right words. I am lying beside him, confused and feeling broken – and here they come. The words of love, spoken like a real lover and a man.

Sugar Boy.

‘We’ll need to be discreet,’ he says.

Juna stands on the first hill in the lower meadow. Her hair is like a stiff white cloud and her apron flaps in the wind. She stands here as if she is searching for something and she cannot see it from this meadow or this hilltop or anywhere in this world. What was she like when she was young? Smooth-skinned, dark-eyed… proud? On Tuesday Juna put her swim-suit on and walked around the house. It was the postman who found her. And now she cannot bear to be indoors. It is as if she is being led away by something and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. She is old now and moving to another place.

The worst part is that she knows she is leaving me. She has begun to map out her days with Post-it notes. The kitchen is
full of them. Juna who was always so organized and sharp. The Post-its on the fridge tell her own name and her date of birth – and then on another yellow sticker our names are written neatly together – ‘Larry’ first and then ‘My Hope’.

Through the window I watch as she turns from the hilltop and begins to walk back down. She is still agile and wearing a smile like any young girl. Wherever she is going she is happy about it and somehow looking forward to her trip. This is Juna who plaited my hair – and today when she looks at me she doesn’t know my name. When she stands up her stockings fall in circles around her ankles. Her cardigan is buttoned the wrong way up. When she walks around the kitchen she lets her heels make a little clip-clop clip-clop.

She stands inside the kitchen window and once again she is looking out. She is watching the door and I see now that she is still trying to escape.

Later, when I put her into bed, she sits up again and takes my wrist. ‘Elvis,’ she says, ‘let’s get off this island tonight.’

Email to Hope Swann 22 May 5 p.m.
From Matilda Vaughan
Hope,

Here’s the thing with men. First of all they never know what they want and it’s up to us to educate them. Your husband left you… so let him go. I left my boyfriend. That’sa completely different thing. I was the one who got up and left his apartment. I did it because I know he loves me – he just doesn’t know it himself yet. Now what I’m doing is making sure he doesn’t forget about me and it’s only a matter of time before he begs me to come back. You should have seen the way he looked at me yesterday. He’s just frightened that’s all. Jonathan is clearly besotted by you. The main thing is to make sure he sees you.
Men are very visual.
Matilda.

There is a red Georgian door and a small brass key. When I open my fingers it lies there, flat and warm in my hand. There is no address and no key ring. It was placed on my desk at the end of a busy day. The weather is hot. It is June.

The key slides into the lock and turns.

The key has been here before.

How many different turns?

He says, ‘I am the only one.’

Through the first doorway a girl with long black hair is practising the cello. Her hair hangs in a single braid over one shoulder. Because it is hot she has left her door open – so we get Beethoven and she gets air. A couple pass me on the stairs. They are wearing shorts and carrying bags of shopping. I can see cherry tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, a newspaper under one arm, and their keys fall with a jangle on the floor. Someone laughs on the next level and I climb up two more flights of stairs.

The flat is on Kildare Street. It is a simple square room. There are polished floorboards and a white bed against the wall. There is an antique wardrobe, an old chintz couch at an angle, a white marble fireplace, and more elephants… walking beside the wall. This time it is a father, a mother and a little child elephant at the end.

Over the mantelpiece another of Pappy’s paintings hangs, and underneath it Jonathan stands, looking cool and fresh in all this sticky heat. He is wearing his black jacket, a white t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans.

The flat – ‘the love place’ I call it – looks into the Shelbourne Hotel. There are chambermaids and room service waiters with white jackets and trays.

‘Shouldn’t we be over there?’ I ask. There is a bottle of wine and a corkscrew in the tiny kitchen and a red and white checkered floor. Two paper cups stand waiting. At least my pappy would have liked that.

The other room is a bathroom where the shower still drips and Jonathan’s towel hangs over the door. At work there are moments, a raised eyebrow in the corridor, a wink at the end of a meeting, a special little smile in the kitchen over the microwave.

He begins to undress me. Button by button and I am not used to this. The dress does not fall. He lifts it gently over my head and then puts it on a hanger on the wardrobe door. Inside I am sure there are only wooden hangers with all the hooks facing the same way. What now? A walk to the bed? Which way to happiness? Straight on, left or right? He is wearing his jeans when he kisses me. His t-shirt and jacket are on the chair.

Upstairs someone makes a sound like marbles being scattered on the floor.

The sheets are crisp and white. The same little blue stripe around the edge. The couple are on the stairs again. They are dragging out the rubbish bags. They meet someone else on the stairs and there is some chat then and a muffled laugh. Jonathan is on his way somewhere and I am trying to keep up. As soon as he kisses my lips, I am lost in the world and out of place. His skin tastes good, his hair smells like rosemary and mint shampoo, he is silent and like a cat burglar, he doesn’t make a sound. His aura is still blue and sparkling and when we make love I open my lips and try to swallow his aura
in. We are good like this, under the covers, the sex gets better and better, because neither one of us really cares. Downstairs the cellist practises scales, up and down, up and down. The heat is unbearable now. Outside there are faraway traffic sounds – on three levels of this building, three different lives – the cellist’s bow, the couple and the lovers at three o’clock.

Juna is in room 106. She is wearing the same dressing gown she has had all her life and crying. She has faded in here. She does not belong in a place like this. She needs to hear music and be surrounded by her family and the smell of home cooking and fresh green fields. I hold her hand now while she cries. I hug her. There is nothing else for it. She is smaller than me now and so broken up, and down – I want to pick her up and cover her in love.

She begins to list out the food she has been given.

‘Porridge, for breakfast. Tea. Brown bread and toast.’

She thinks she will never get home. She has never been in hospital before.

‘Potatoes… Chicken… and peas.’

A nurse with red hair comes in.

‘Yes. She has an appointment with a specialist,’ she says. ‘It is with a Mr Stafford and he will see you on Tuesday at nine o’clock.

‘They might keep her in and it is unlikely that they will operate straight away… but it is possible though.’

And I listen to my grandmother’s questions now.

‘How will she get to Mr Stafford?’

‘Can she wear her own clothes and when can she go home?’ More than anything she wants to go home.

‘No one wants to be in hospital,’ I tell her, ‘but you have to
be here to get well.’ I am trying to keep the ship afloat but when Juna becomes lonesome again I struggle not to cry.

We are facing it at last. The inevitability of it, and yet why does everyone have to get old and die? Did I not realize that this was coming? She was always the leader and when I see her fear and confusion now I am frightened and unhinged by it as well.