Rose Allington.
The crowd heave into action as my watch registers midday. As they stream from the graveyard she gets jostled. She bumps the white rose from its place upon the stone. I walk to it, retrieve it, replace it. The churchyard empties in a rush. They are off, striding, shouting, a sibilant mess of Suscutin-hating slogans, while through a loudspeaker I hear a man call for order.
Rose and I are alone.
‘Thanks,’ she says, but I can’t hear it over the crowd; I read it from the shape of her thin lips. She looks very tired and very angry, red-cheeked and bleary-eyed. Time has not been kind to her; her skin has sagged, and her hair is brittle, dry.
I nod, to show I’ve understood, then wait until the crowd is far away enough so that I can be heard if I raise my voice. ‘Petra would have hated this, wouldn’t she?’
Rose frowns, but nods back.
‘They’re using her as an excuse.’
‘You knew her?’ she asks.
‘No. I know what happens to people when they become famous. The way they have things hung upon them.’
I remove my sunglasses, and I see it – that familiar moment of realisation in their eyes. That recognition of who I am. Perhaps she’s placed me at Max’s estate that day, or from the Stuck Six stories, or even from that stupid skinny dip. I can’t tell.
She steps away from me and lifts her arms up in front of her; it’s a classic defensive position. Bodyguard training, perhaps.
‘We’ve met before,’ I say.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Well, we didn’t meet. We were in the same place at the same time. Max Black was a mutual friend.’
‘No, no, I’ve never, I didn’t know him.’
‘You’re not a very good liar.’
She’s breathing deeply. Dressed simply in jeans and a loose shirt, the straps of a small leather backpack pressing on her shoulders, she doesn’t look like she could defend herself, let alone another human being. ‘You’re Mickey Stuck.’
‘And you’re Rose Allington.’
‘My surname is Stacey, now,’ she says, eventually.
The crowd is a raucous background to our conversation, but they’re getting further away, and a measure of calm is returning to me now I’ve found her. ‘I’ve never been that close to an angry mob before.’
‘They’ve come every year since the fire. I shouldn’t turn up at the same time, but… I don’t want her to be alone with them, if that makes sense. They’re not all a bad bunch. I’ve met worse.’
‘People do strange things for causes they believe in.’
‘In Petra’s case, she just didn’t like people getting away with bad behaviour.’
‘Taking Suscutin leads to bad behaviour?’
‘You’re full of questions,’ she says. ‘And you tracked me down, right? What’s this for? The follow-up documentary about your film? Or just to find your own answers? You should be a private investigator. I could get you set up with a job interview.’
‘You were a detective?’ She looks wrong for that role, as well: too nervous, too honest.
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘Well, now I’m intrigued. You don’t know a thing about me, but here you are. Why is that?’
Here goes. ‘I have a request. On behalf of a close friend, who wants to apologise to you. In person.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘She’s dying. She just wants to say sorry. I don’t know any more than that. But I promised her I would find you and ask you.’
‘Who?’
‘Gwen Taylor.’
‘Who?’ Then the last name seems to stick, and she doesn’t even bother to say no; she simply walks away from me, taking a random path across the grass and around the back of the church, stepping around the gravestones.
I follow, keeping a little distance, as she circles the church to arrive at the entrance. I think she’ll go inside, but she turns away and strides from the graveyard instead. I keep my eyes on her bobbing backpack as she crosses the main road and squeezes between two parked police cars to take a side street that leads to a car park I didn’t know existed.
It’s full, every space taken by cars with stickers bearing the slogan
BAN SUSCUTIN
Love the skin you’re in
displayed in windows. She stops next to one of those new electric cars and produces the key from her pocket.
‘Hey!’ I call, and she freezes in place. She doesn’t look at me as I approach.
‘She’s my friend, and she’s dying,’ I say. ‘Wouldn’t you do the same?’
‘Just like Max was your friend, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I touched your skin,’ she says, and she looks me straight in the eye, with an intensity, a knowledge, that brings a prickle of shame to my skin. ‘In the British Museum. You helped get Max’s film finished, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘Is it truthful?’
I raise my chin and bear her stare. ‘More so than anything else people have said about me.’
‘I went to see it. It was nothing like the autobiography.’
‘No.’ Honesty compels me to add, ‘Howard is many things, but he’s not much of a writer.’
‘It was beautiful. I don’t understand how Max could have made it, at that time. He was so… damaged. By then.’
‘No, he wasn’t damaged.’
‘And then he just committed suicide out of the blue, is that what you’re saying?’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ My anger, my shame, she’s coaxing it out of me; fine, she can have it. ‘For fuck’s sake! Just tell me. Just tell me.’
She flinches. She’s scared of me. My voice reverberates, then dies away. The march of the protestors is background noise; they must be at the laboratory gates by now. I’m an idiot, a loud one, and this shame won’t go away.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I still don’t understand it,’ she says. ‘That wonderful film. Are you proud of it?’
‘Very.’ I could add, it feels like the only thing I’ve ever done entirely right.
‘And you think you know Max well? Knew him, I mean.’
That’s a much more difficult question. I tell her, ‘There are things that happened. Nobody will talk to me about it. I think I could have helped, if I had known. I could have been a better friend.’ My shame is so heavy now, I squirm under the weight of it, and under the weight of her even gaze. ‘Please, just come with me. Hear her apology, and be done with it.’
‘I can’t be done with it by listening to Taylor telling me she’s sorry. But I’ll make a deal with you. Come with me now, and talk to me. About the Max you knew, and your life. Then you can ask me whatever you want, and I’ll answer it. And if you really still want me to forgive Taylor then I’ll let you try and persuade me.’
This is what I wanted, isn’t it? This is what I’ve really been searching for. Somebody laying out all the things that were hidden.
Why, then, does it take such an effort of will to get into the passenger seat, and stay there while she sits in the driver’s seat and starts the car? The fear I felt in the graveyard returns, redoubles.
She is driving, and I don’t know where we’re going.
This is happening right now. This is out of my control.
Part Four
Saturday, 20 July 2022, 5:42pm.
Mik: This is your house?
Rose: It’s not far from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, actually. I have family near here. I run a design business.
Mik: Are you recording this? Is that why your phone’s on the table?
Rose: It’s nothing. It’s just for my memory. Things have a way of changing when I look back on them. I thought this might help me to keep it straight. In my head.
Mik: I’m not comfortable with it.
Rose: You don’t have to do this. This is entirely your choice.
Mik: I’m happy to talk to you, just not—
Rose: It’s for me
. I won’t sell it. I won’t play it to anyone else. You’ll have to trust me. Tell me about Taylor.
Mik: She has – uh – epidermal sclerosis.
Rose: The skin condition? The one that’s being linked to Suscutin?
Mik: There’s no proof of that yet.
Rose:
Mik: You think it’s funny?
Rose: It’s ironic, I’ll give it that.
Mik: She’s dying.
Rose: So you said. She’s dying, she’s your friend. Tell me something. Tell me about the first time you met her. Was it through Max?
Mik: Are you sure you need to record it?
Rose: You can walk away. There’s the door. I’ll even call you a taxi, if you like. Go back and tell her you didn’t find me, if it makes you feel better.
Mik: No, okay. Yeah. I met her and Max at the same time. It was about a year after we broke up. The Sixes, I mean.
Rose: Okay. Tell me. Tell me like it’s a story.
2012. Give the man a card.
He was the only other Stuck to make it to the party.
Howard was there, of course, in the centre of a group who were hanging on his words; he winked and waved when he caught sight of Mik, and Mik smiled back. He hadn’t objected to the autobiography, and certainly appreciated even more money. He had become a wealthy man, no longer reliant on his father’s generosity, and he was standing in the centre of an exclusive London venue, high above the city lights.
If he had a misgiving, it was about the way their lives had been presented in the book. The events had gained a sheen of romantic inevitability, every moment foreshadowing the moment of the first moult, rather like one might find in a fairy tale. It all made too much sense, at the cost of reality. But this was an easy objection to put aside, considering the benefits. Frankly, Mik was surprised the others hadn’t seen it that way too.
He suspected they would come around in their own time. They had all said yes to the donation of their old skins to the British Museum; that had been Sunetra’s idea. He thought it a vain, ridiculous gesture but didn’t have the heart to veto it with everyone else in rare agreement.
Living art, she had said down the phone to him.
If he had been in the mood to puncture her enthusiasm for her latest idea he would have pointed out it was merely dead skin, and irrelevant to the living.
He made his way to the free bar, a creation of chrome and spotlights close to the glass wall, and ordered a beer.
‘Not drinking champagne?’ said a voice, on his right, and he recognised the famous, very handsome, profile.
‘It gives me mood swings,’ he said, trying to sound cool and instantly hating what he had just said. He’d met quite a few famous people since becoming a celebrity himself, but this – this was stardom personified.
‘I thought maybe it was because you weren’t celebrating.’
‘You’ve read the book, then?’
‘I’ve done more than that,’ said Max Black. ‘I’ve already bought the rights.’
‘The rights?’ Mik said, then realised what it meant. ‘Fuck, really? A film?’
‘That’s the plan. I’m getting into directing.’
‘Fuck.’ Howard hadn’t even mentioned it. Maybe he thought there would be no objection from him; it was yet more money. Probably a vast amount of money. But it was uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t immediately process. It had something to do with the difference between words on a page and images on a screen; there was less room for interpretation of events, perhaps.
‘You’re not pleased,’ Max said. ‘Listen, I’m sorry. How come Howard holds all the rights?’
‘It was easier to give control to just one of us, back when it all kicked off. Plus – and I’m aware this is a trite line – we were in love.’
‘If it makes you feel any better, he’s making you rich.’
‘Actually, it does,’ said Mik. ‘Beats the hell out of not being rich.’
Max laughed. ‘I bet it does. This is Taylor. She’s a fan of yours.’
The tall blonde in a severe suit, standing just behind Max’s shoulder, said, ‘Shut up, Max,’ in an even tone, and went back to surveying the room.
‘She’s a keen bodyguard, but an even keener Stuck-Chick.’
‘I hate that phrase,’ Mik said. There were as many male fans as female fans of the Six phenomenon; Mik had no idea why only the women got that derogatory nickname, and seemed to revel in it.
‘Me too,’ said Taylor. ‘Use it again and I’ll break your nose.’
‘She’s new,’ said Max, ‘but I really like her already.’
‘Listen, the book is true, I mean, it’s correct about a lot of stuff that happened. But it’s from Howard’s point of view.’
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re saying it’s different from your point of view?’
‘Everything is different from every point of view, isn’t it?’
‘True. That’s difficult to film, though.’
Mik shrugged. ‘Isn’t it a perfect subject to try with?’ He finished his beer, and ordered another. ‘Drink?’
Max shook his head. ‘I have to get going. It was good to meet you, though.’
‘You too.’
‘Maybe – I’d like to get some thoughts about the direction the film will take – we could get together and talk it over?
If you’re interested in getting your point of view up there as well.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Taylor, give the man a card.’
The blonde reached into her suit pocket and produced a cream-coloured business card. Mik pocketed it, and she wrinkled her nose up at him, just for a moment; it was an endearing bunny-rabbit gesture at total odds with her persona.
‘See?’ said Max. ‘She only does that with the cute ones. Not with me.’
‘You’re not my type,’ she said to her employer.
‘You should talk to the others,’ said Mik. ‘Get their perspectives too. I can put you in touch, if you’d like.’
‘No thanks,’ said Max. ‘I’ve already tried them. They all said no.’
So it was a set-up, the whole thing; Max was there to meet him, to engineer a response in him, and he had the feeling Taylor was there for that reason too: to reel him in. And it had worked; it had flattered him, intrigued him. He had already made up his mind to phone the number, and get involved.
Later, after Max and Taylor had gone and Mik had given up trying to be social in favour of getting drunk and staring out over the lights of London, Howard came up behind him, and softly said, ‘Hey you.’
They hugged. Mik clung on to the familiar cushiony form of his old lover, feeling a deep nostalgia for that house they had shared on the edge of Grafham Water, and the way Howard had taken him, cherished him, managed him.
But after a brief, petulant conversation about the film rights it became obvious that everything they could say to each other would lead to disagreement at best and a shouting match at worst. If he was going to shout at any of them, it would be Howard, who always thought he was in control but cried easily and satisfyingly. Mik said goodbye, and left the party. It looked like it would happily go on all night without him.
Saturday, 20 July 2022, 6:57pm.
Mik: I should find a hotel or something.
Rose: I told you, stay here. Can you concentrate now, please, because I’m recording again.
Mik: You were his bodyguard? Max’s?
Rose: For a while.
Mik: You were lovers?
Rose: For a while.
Mik: He told me once you were the love of his life.
Rose: He told me that too.
Mik: You didn’t believe him? He didn’t seem to be a womaniser.
Rose: I don’t know what love is any more.
Rose: Tell me what love is. To you.
Mik: To me? That’s impossible.
Rose: Tell me how love starts. Can you do that? Ho
w does love between six people start? It was all for the papers, wasn’t it? It couldn’t have been real. I touched the skins. They felt… artificial.
Mik: Didn’t you read the information sheet before you went in? The museum had all the skins treated with a fixative, to preserve them. It can alter the way it feels.
Rose: No. I didn’t see that.
Mik: It was real. I promise you. It didn’t happen all at once, though. I fell for them one at a time, and they accepted me into their lives. Quite quickly, actually.
Rose: So which one was first for you?
2009. Fast learner.
‘Speak Russian to me,’ said Nicky.
They had grabbed the two seats just in front of the luggage rack, being quick to board the stopper train, and with the aisle now filled with standing students there was an illusion of privacy in their position. She had her hand on his knee; it was difficult to concentrate.
‘I think maybe I love you,’ Mik said, in his old language, enjoying that she wouldn’t understand it.
She shivered, an accentuated jostle of her shoulders, for effect. ‘It’s a beautiful language.’
‘You’re weird, did I tell you that?’
‘Do you miss speaking it?’
‘Not really. But I’m glad to speak it to you if it makes you happy.’
She held a fascination for him. It was the grace of her, the languid nature of her movements juxtaposed with that sharp brain, and her ability to win any verbal argument in minutes, particularly when it came to English literature. And yet, perhaps because of his Russian birth, she submitted to him when he spoke, and never contradicted him directly. If she did disagree with something he said, she did it with a light touch of humour. He felt such touches as marks upon his skin, and was beginning to think they were sinking through the layers to impregnate him.
‘I hope I like them,’ he said, in Russian. ‘And I hope they like me.’
‘More,’ she said.
The train slowed, and stopped at Five Ways. Students streamed from the aisle, down on to the platform. Five more stops to go.
‘Do you think they’ll like me? Isn’t this sort of an affair?’
‘Don’t be nervous. They’re fine about it. It’s not a possessive thing.’
The Loosening Skin Page 13