Under My Skin (33 page)

That night I hear the sirens of New York inside my head and now and then the door opens and Matilda floats towards me wearing a pink negligee. She says I have flu and that my temperature is 103. She makes green tea and honey and she finds fresh cotton pyjamas. She makes toast and gets up in the middle of the night to find a deli that is open and selling chicken soup. And when she leaves I find myself repeating the names of all the buildings I know in New York. The Empire State – the Chrysler Building – America International – the Flatiron – the Woolworth Building – 53rd and 3rd – the Waldorf Astoria – and the next time she comes in I am hallucinating that there is an ostrich wearing glasses in my room. She takes the next day off work and we watch old movies in bed. My favourite is
The Odd Couple
and hers is
Some Like It Hot
.

On Tuesday Matilda takes me to the wall at St Vincent’s. We stand side by side and find Larry a space. And here he is now, in the middle of a thousand other smiling faces – Larry’s eyes, his smile, and when I lean in closer, I can see his faded-out scar. I miss him so much now that I can hardly breathe and
somehow Matilda instinctively puts one hand on the small of my back and I need her now, to protect me and to hold me up.

The photo was taken outside Vertigo. He is wearing his chalk-stripe apron and a reluctant smile. He liked that photo best. He has his hands in his pockets and there is some ketchup on his apron and a cigarette behind his ear. ‘Go on… get it over with,’ his face says. The day we took that photo there was an east wind coming up from the beach. I can remember the sound the camera made and how it felt cold against my cheek. How I wish for it now. Why did I not run towards him and give him a hug? Just one more, to have an extra memory now, and for luck.

‘Larry,’ the words say. ‘My husband. He might be wearing his wedding band. My name is inscribed inside, Hope.

He has a scar across his top lip.’

The girl is crying as she pins her flyer. ‘I spent my whole life looking for him,’ she says and she is crying harder now. ‘My whole life – and I just don’t know how to start again – without him and without our life.’ Her flyer shows a boy in a graduation cap and gown. His parents on either side, flanking him. And now I go here almost every evening. There is something about being here, in this quiet, sad, mourning space – where people feel what the bereaved feel and silently move on. I don’t know why I want to read the flyers. I only know that I do. When I see a face taped to a lamp-post or in a phone booth or in the subway window I stop and understand that this face is here because there is someone else behind it who is in an awful lot of pain.

‘Caesarean scar.’

‘Wedding band engraved “Nick”.’

A watch ‘Truly madly passionately T’.

That night my mobile rings at 4 a.m.

‘Is that Hope?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that Hope?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is Caitlin.’

‘Who?’

‘Caitlin.’

‘Caitlin who?’

‘Caitlin. I’m Franklin’s girlfriend.’

‘Who is Franklin?’

‘He’s a firefighter.’

‘A firefighter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why are you calling me?’

‘I’m calling you because I’ve just found out that my boyfriend is cheating on me and your number is in his phone.’

‘Who is your boyfriend?’

‘Franklin Gallagher – he’s a firefighter.’

And now I remember this is the man who wanted me to slide down the pole.

‘I’m really sorry to hear that he’s cheating – but he’s not cheating with me.’

‘OK.’

‘Do you know that it’s four in the morning?’

‘Yes. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

Then I hang up and lie back on my pillow and I think about
how things used to be before it all got this crazy on me. I turn on the light and take out my wallet but there are no pictures of Larry left. I work my way through it. There are till receipts. A subway ticket. Eighteen dollars. A photo of me and Juna and Daniel in the garden and it seems like a hundred years ago. And then I find something I didn’t even know I had. It is a note from Larry written with his favourite black fountain pen and hidden in there for me to find. He liked to sketch a little heart in pencil and put our names on either side. It was usually something like ‘Dinner is in the oven, xx Larry’. Or ‘I miss you, Larry’.

It was supposed to fall out in the supermarket. Or in our flat. Or at my desk. But this one didn’t work out like that.

Our days were long, I really believe that now. Bright bands of happiness stretched out smooth and sweet. And I can only remember the best of us and that the weather was always fine. The first regret is that I didn’t know what I had then. That I took him and me and what we had for granted, because I didn’t know then that he was – that we were – the one. It is a note that tells me how much he loves me – and because there is no date I have no way of knowing when.

Matilda sits in her green armchair and the air conditioner buzzes over her head. Outside the traffic is backed up on Broadway and the whole world has been shrunk down into this one warm place.

The summer has appeared again briefly and only the nights are cold. ‘An Indian summer,’ she says quietly, as if this should comfort me. But I want to say, ‘Let’s walk. Let’s run. Let’s take this problem outside.’

It is nearly three months now. And I don’t want to but I
have to ask someone when I should begin to let go. And how can I anyway? It is like slipping under water, fingers losing their grip on a raft. Sliding down into deep water and beginning to drown. And lastly, I remember and regret that I didn’t say ‘I love you’ to him that day he left – and because I was so sure he would be back again soon, I didn’t even say goodbye.

‘Where are you?’ I ask as I look out the window over Columbus but there is no response from the yellow taxis, and the leaves that are changing colour fall silently from the trees.

Hope
,

You know what’s great about being married to you?
… Being married to you.
Love you always.
Larry x.

It is noon when my mobile rings. It rings once and I look at it from across the room. The apartment is empty and Matilda has gone to work. It is the middle of the day and the sun is high over Broadway and today the cabs are flying and glowing on the Upper West Side. The phone rings and I sit on the red couch under the bay window and watch it. The phone rings and I know it is not Matilda or Jack or Marcia or anyone else I know.

The phone rings and in two steps my hand reaches for it and I can hear the voice of The Chief.

Today he has news and he says it out to me, one word holding the next word’s hand, so they are joined together and making sense, and the voice he uses is that of a tired old man.

He has seen everything before and still he waits quietly for the words to fall into place.

And inside my head, the building is suddenly tumbling
downwards and the top floor slides down into the next, and that floor slides down into the one below. There are rafters and floorboards and clouds of snow-white dust. People dropping downwards, floating, falling, gliding and without any noise at all. We are all floating and falling together and now and then I hold on to another word. The Chief tells me that they have found Larry’s wedding ring and that my name is inside and the date we got married – 4 January 2001.

Goodbye to New York City. I have one small rucksack and my husband’s ring on a chain around my neck. Jack sits with me on the steps and we wait for a cab. The house in Cape Cod is his idea. He bought it last year and he understands that I need to escape.

‘I’ll come down and check in on you,’ he says and I know he needs to escape sometimes too. ‘It’s going to be very quiet down there. No one goes to Truro at this time of the year – but there’s a phone – and email – so you’ll be fine.’

He puts one large hand around my shoulders and then he turns my face into his chest. A small dog starts to bark in the distance and a bum begins to work his way through the trash.

The bus leaves from 41st Street and 8th and the traffic holds us up. The city wants to hold on to me and it will not say goodbye. Soon there will be a freeway lined with red and gold trees. Then there will be small towns with white fences and porches and swings that move in the wind. ‘Goodbye,’ I whisper out to the yellow taxis, and the bus moves – one inch towards the coast and New England and one inch further away from New York. I am not ready to say goodbye to Larry. Everyone says I have to but maybe I never will. I take the notebook from my rucksack and I ask the lady beside me if
I can borrow her pen. There is a new word inside me and I have to write it down. I will never forget this one though and I know exactly what it means.

Heartbroken

And beside it I write his name.

Dawson Cottage was hidden by trees. It was built back near the forest away from the sand dunes and the lonely sound from the sea. Glassman would learn that as much as his mother loved the ocean she had also heard the stories about dangerous tides and New England winters and of children and sailors and even houses that were swept away by the sea. He would also learn that Dawson was the name of the man who had never been her husband but had fathered him and then went his own way. He was not hurt by either of these things. His mother and father lived apart but they had really loved each other once which was more than a lot of people could say.