Hair Side, Flesh Side

by Helen Marshall

  Chloe looked at her dad, and his eyes were so sad, so she promised. And when she fell asleep, she dreamed of Lucia, bathed in golden light with her beautiful blank eye sockets, and she forgot the sadness in her father’s eyes and she didn’t think about what it would be like to go home.

  In the end, they let her take a finger—only a pinkie—from Lucia’s right hand where the sinews were weakest with age; it snapped off like a broken twig. She just had to promise, cross her heart and hope to die, that she would keep it secret. “Your mother—Clare—at home, she wouldn’t like it if she knew,” her other mum said as they packed her overnight things back into the little pink suitcase she had brought with her. Her other mum was tall and beautiful with soft, soft hair that she sometimes let Chloe brush; her mother back home didn’t like it when Chloe talked about her. “Your father said you were good, you’d be careful. And you’ll come back, won’t you, sweetheart? To see Lucia?”

  “She can’t see me, Mum,” Chloe replied as she folded her pyjamas, “she gave away her eyes.”

  “Even so,” her other mum said, and she kissed Chloe on the forehead.

  Lucia went with her, of course, but with only the little boney finger she appeared as the faintest of faint outlines, barely more than a whisper of a shadow. Chloe didn’t care though; Lucia filled her with a sense of light and warmth, and no matter how dark it was she never felt the night terrors with Lucia there. She kept the finger in her pocket when she went to school, and she only showed it to Melissa because Melissa had a finger too. “But you’re not supposed to have one yet!” Melissa squealed with wide eyes. “It’s not your birthday.”

  “It is too. My parents only see me once a month. It’s my special present.”

  But Melissa only muttered darkly, “You’re not supposed to. Now you’ll get two because you have two mums, and I’ll only have a lousy finger.” She wouldn’t look at Chloe for the rest of the day, and as Chloe sat in her desk, trying to figure out her multiplication homework, she could see the outline of red standing out darker on Lucia’s neck and she knew there would be trouble.

  Later that evening, her mother—her mum at home—received a call from Melissa’s mum and that was it, she demanded to see the finger. “This was a gift from them, wasn’t it? Well. That’s just like them. They know you aren’t properly seven yet and they’re trying to get a present in early.” She paced about the kitchen wielding a wooden spoon like Goliath’s club. “I won’t have any of that. I won’t have any second-class finger-bones in my house.” Chloe tried to tell her that they didn’t mean anything by it and that it was all right, she didn’t need a second saint, but her mother rounded on her fiercely. “That’s what you think, is it? You don’t want mine. Fine. You can make do without any.” Then her mum snatched the finger out of her hand and threw it into the garbage disposal; it disappeared in a terribly grinding of gears so loud that Chloe had to cover her ears. The little ghost-girl—just like that!—vanished like a burst soap bubble.

  “Oh, I bet you think you’re so clever,” Chloe overheard through her locked bedroom door that night as she hugged her covers to her chin. The dark seemed so much darker now, like it had all crowded into the room when her mother closed the door. “Saint Lucia—ha! What, because she’s got your eyes? She hasn’t, you know. They don’t look a thing like yours and if they did, well, I’d pluck them out myself and send them to you. You think she likes saints, do you? I’ll get her a saint. I’ll get her Joan of bloody Arc—there’s a saint for you, there’s someone who really counted, not one of those timid little virgin saints.”

  And she did: it might have cost a fortune but her mother—her mum at home—had the Seine dredged for ashes and three weeks later on her birthday, she presented Chloe with a heavy glass pickle jar filled with Parisian mud.

  “That’ll teach him,” she said, grinning sharply at Chloe. “You want to try martyrdom, try burnt at a stake.” And they sat side by side, a half-eaten slice of carrot cake between them, the candle licked clean of icing, and her mother glaring at the jar, waiting for something to happen.

  By ten thirty it was getting quite late, and Chloe was getting sleepy; it was past her bed time, but her mother gripped her wrist fiercely. “She’s there, it just takes longer, she was roasted alive for Chrissake. But she’ll come. She’ll come, and you and I are going to wait here until she does.”

  And they did. And ten-thirty became eleven. And eleven became eleven-thirty. And when the last chime sounded for midnight, with a harrumph, her mother pretended not to look when Chloe slipped her arm away and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, closing her door herself, even with all the darkness crammed into the little room.

  But in the morning when she wandered downstairs in her pyjamas for breakfast, there was a watery shape sitting at the table with close-cropped boy-hair and a chainmail shirt.

  “Good morning,” Chloe said shyly as she took her seat, but the French girl stuck up her nose and refused to make conversation.

  “Où sont mes ennemis?” she asked. Her mother made her carry a thermos full of mud to school that day, and all her friends wanted to know was it really Joan of Arc—all of her friends except Melissa, who made it quite clear that they weren’t friends at all anymore, not if Chloe had two saints. And Joan didn’t speak to Chloe, not even once, and she never smiled.

  Chloe didn’t like Joan very much. Oh, she tried to because here was another girl and she too was best beloved, but, well, Joan was fierce. She smacked Chloe’s fingers with the flat of her sword when she reached for a cookie, and whenever Chloe tried to put on a dress, Joan would shake her head and scowl at the hemline; worst yet, on days when she was particularly cross she would set herself afire. Then she would writhe about as her skin went black and crispy. She would look at Chloe accusingly, her eyes burning with righteousness, as the flames consumed her hair like a halo.

  Chloe tried to tell her mother—her mum at home—but she would only look on with approval. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Real martyrs have standards; real martyrs won’t put up with nonsense, no. It’s good for you to have a little discipline in your life, really, Chloe. I won’t be there all the time.” And Chloe supposed she was right. Even so. At night, when the room was dark with shadows and Chloe could feel the night terrors coming on, she still found herself wishing that the fire in Joan’s eyes helped just a little bit.

  On Friday morning, Chloe packed up her pink suitcase and waited by the door for her dad to pick her up. She had been looking forward to the visit all week: she had been extra good and extra kind, and Joan hadn’t had to immolate herself even once since Tuesday. Her mother, though, had taken to pacing in the kitchen: she was always like that the day of a visit, always tense and strange, prone to fits of tears followed by scolding followed by remorseful hugs that were always a bit too tight.

  “Come here, Chloe,” her mother said, and that thing—whatever it was that only came on visit days—was there in her eyes. She placed a glass of something black and sludgy in front of Chloe. “I want you to drink this, darling, I made it for you special.”

  “I’m not thirsty, Mum,” said Chloe, but even though she didn’t want to, she could see the tips of Joan’s hair starting to light up like little fuses and so she closed her eyes. She gagged and she coughed and she sputtered, but she managed to drink it all.

  “Good,” said Chloe’s mother, “there’s a dear.” And she hugged Chloe very tightly.

  Then her dad rang the doorbell and Chloe ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. Her mother said nothing, she never did, but Chloe didn’t mind because he was picking up her suitcase, and then they were out the door. But in the car Chloe began to feel quite ill. “Would you like something to drink, sweetheart?” her dad asked, but Chloe said no, she didn’t. “Are you hungry? Do you need to pee?” And Chloe still said no, but something strange was happening to her skin, first it started to itch and then it started to prickle with sweat and then it started to burn.<
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  “Dad,” she said.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie? Should I pull over?”

  “Dad,” she said again, but this time her voice sounded small and frightened and Chloe couldn’t recognize it because all she could hear was, “Mon père, mon père.”

  Chloe spent the weekend in bed with a fever of 105 degrees. Her mum—her other mum—laid washcloths on her forehead but nothing helped, nothing stopped that feeling of fire licking at her skin, of her hair shrivelling up. Sometimes, she would catch sight of Lucia by her window, shaking her head sadly, serene, the blank spaces of her eyes as dark and as cool as a well. And then she could only whisper, “Mon Dieu, aidez-moi, aidez-moi.” Then her parents would exchange glances between them and they looked so scared and small beside the bed. Chloe wanted to reach out to touch her mum’s hair, but she was afraid the flames that licked her fingers like birthday candles might devour her all up.

  Chloe could hear bits of the phone conversation floating up to her through the floorboards, not even words anymore, but just bits of anger and sadness and fear and fury all tied into one. They couldn’t take her home. They were afraid to move her. They didn’t know what was wrong. And so on Sunday her mother came, and when Chloe saw her she didn’t seem small like her parents. She seemed huge, hulking, massive; her legs were like two Ionic pillars, and her face seemed carved from marble, it was so firmly set. She glared until her other mum fled the room. “What have you done, Henry?” her mother said. And her dad hung his head miserably and he slunk out too. Chloe could feel the fire burning on her skin, searing flesh, blackening bone.

  Her mother sat down by the bed where her other mum had kept the washcloths. She touched her daughter’s hair the way she did when Chloe had been very young. “I love you,” she said. “My little girl, my darling, and I’m sorry this is so hard. But it’s not supposed to be easy, is it? Real love isn’t ever easy. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it hurts but if it’s real love then you don’t ever leave, you don’t, no matter how much it hurts. I want you to know that. I’m here with you now, my darling, and I won’t ever leave.” And her mother stroked her face lightly with fingers that were hard and sharp as broken bones. “This is their house and they want you to pretend that it is yours, they want you to pretend that you are their child, that you belong to them. But you don’t, love, you are my daughter. Your hands are my hands and your fingers are my fingers and your eyes, oh my darling girl, your eyes are my eyes.”

  And she cradled her daughter’s head gently in the crook of her arms, and the pain was bad, it was very bad. But Chloe loved her mother very much and she was willing to bear this pain for her mother, she was willing to let the fire devour her if that was what her mother wanted, because that was what love was: it was fire and it was torture and it was being hacked to pieces, and broken fingers and knives and hammers and pitchforks and spears, and it was being drowned and it was being suffocated and it was being locked up in dark, dark places. Chloe knew that, she knew that in the deepest bit of her. And she loved her mother enough to bear the pain, really she did, enough not to ask why or for how long she would suffer, for how long she must bear the weight of her love.

  But even so. Even so. Chloe looked up through the halo of fire into her mother’s eyes, wet with tears—real tears, because she hated seeing her daughter in pain. She reached up gently, shyly, and she felt the skin cool beneath her fingertips, and then—it was hard because she hated the darkness, and she was afraid, she was truly afraid, but she could see Lucia standing by the window, and Lucia looked so beautiful, calm, patient and kind, everything she had ever thought love was—and so Chloe plucked out the eyes from her skull, just like that, like a soap bubble popping, and it was done.

  [ veins ]

  SANDITON

  They were in the elevator, Gavin’s voice surprisingly deep and gruff, but his smile was so charming, it lit up his entire face. He touched her lightly on the arm, and she was happy for the warmth of him, but wryly wary. He was married. She knew that. He pressed the button for his floor, and Hanna felt the ground dropping away beneath her, again when he slipped his arm around her waist, not too firmly, gently really, and it was the warmth of it she loved.

  “I’ve had too much scotch,” she whispered.

  “Surely there’s no such thing when you’re among writers.”

  “We’re not among anybody now. They’re still downstairs.”

  “I know.”

  The door pinged open: the hallway decorated with bright yellow wallpaper with paler fleurs-de-lys in velvet; the carpet red, shaggy; sconces well-lit, almost as well-lit as Hanna felt. Her steps muddled a little bit, the carpet soft under her shoes, and Gavin’s arm steady around her. She leaned into him, closed her eyes, breathed out and moved away, unhooked her arm.

  “Coming in?” he said, his voice catching in the smallest way.

  “Of course not.”

  “Right,” he replied. And then: “Why not?”

  “Because you’re married.” Hanna paused. “And I’m not, at least not to you.”

  “Right.” But his hand was still hovering near her, and she didn’t move away from him or the door. “The thing is, you’re the most interesting person down there, and the rest of them are a bit of a mess right now. If you go back down, you’ll only end up playing mother to a bunch of old farts trying to figure out how to write for the BBC. Or get their novels published. Or get their published novels adapted for the BBC. Better to stay here and play the wife.”

  “You’re very charming, but no.”

  “Fine,” he said again, but he still hadn’t moved away from her, and in fact the distance between them was getting smaller, micro-inch by micro-inch. “It doesn’t have to be about sex.”

  “It doesn’t?” Hanna replied, and she enjoyed the startling vibration of the electrons between them, wondered about all that kinetic energy piling up; it had to go somewhere.

  “Sex is overrated.”

  “Not with me.”

  “Tea then?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “What, in your room, at four in the morning?”

  “I’ll put on the kettle. I saw tea bags in here earlier.” He used the space to take out a plastic key card and slide it into the surprisingly modern lock. At her last hotel, they gave her a three-pound key that she had to return whenever she left. It could only be retrieved when she handed over her passport for inspection.

  The lock whirred and clicked, and Gavin opened the door. The room was largish and decked out in the same colours as the hallway, but the lights were off, discarded luggage making muted shapes in the darkness. Gavin moved closer for a moment, and Hanna didn’t quite move away, letting him bump up against her as he slipped the key into a second slide. The lights flickered on, low for the first five seconds and then burning up to full illumination.

  His hand touched the small of her back, and Hanna took a step in, but didn’t quite move past the entrance hallway and into the body of the hotel room.

  There was a small round table with a tall plastic boiler—the kind Hanna had in undergrad for mac and cheese—a basket with assorted teas, sticks of dehydrated coffee, a biscuit wrapped in plastic. Gavin fitted the plug into the three-pronged socket.

  Hanna looked around at the now-illuminated luggage: a big brown suitcase, half-filled with books, clothes spilling out, socks; the smell of aftershave was slightly chemical.

  Gavin turned back to the kettle. “Shit,” he muttered, “the light’s not on.” He tapped on it half-heartedly. And then back to Hanna: “Did you really want tea?”

  “Coffee would have done.”

  “Right.” He collapsed into the chair and Hanna eyed him warily. The scotch was starting to kick in a little, and she realized she actually did want the coffee; the world was a bit unsteady. “What’s it going to be then? Mother or wife?” he asked, that charming smile of his.

  “Or editor?”

  “Editors are boring. Do you really wa
nt to correct my punctuation right now? You can go and join the lot down there, they love editors. Until they have them.”

  The jet lag was wearing Hanna’s good sense rather thin, and she liked the feeling of being in the room, watching him fumble with the kettle, and knowing that neither one of them needed that kettle to work. And the deep growl of his voice was . . .

  She finished the biscuit and sat down on the edge of the bed, next to the suitcase. She took out one of his books, admiring the cover, the beautiful French flaps. “Gavin Hale. A writer at the height of his craft. A book not to be missed. From Simon Hatch no less.” Flipped through the first chapter before laying it, carefully, beside her. Looked at him.

  “The punctuation really is quite bad. Even I couldn’t fix it.”

  “So don’t fix it.” He didn’t get up. He dragged the chair he’d been sitting on over with his legs until he faced her, and they were really quite close together. And then he reached out and touched her hand, very gently, opening up the fingers and sliding his hand in.

  “I can’t,” she protested.

  “You might.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I—” And then he leaned forward, stopping her breath, kissing her lightly on the lips. “—might.” Her eyes were mostly closed, and when she opened them, his head had moved away scant inches. He was watching her, waiting. There was a smile—that goddamn smile, Hanna thought—like the Cheshire cat’s, slipping onto his face and then off again.

  “It wouldn’t be professional,” she said, but this time she let herself smile back, just a little.

  “That’s mostly the point.”

  She let go of his hand. He waited. Then she reached out with both hands, took the front of his shirt, and slowly tugged it closer to her. “Good,” she said.

  Hanna lay back in bed, limbs tangled in damp covers, and Gavin was beside her, sheathed in polished sweat. The suitcase sat overturned on the floor, the books scattered out onto the carpet, but other clothes had joined the mix. A lacy pale blue bra, her conference jacket, the shirt Gavin had been wearing very recently. Hanna’s breathing was still a bit scattershot, and Gavin had that smile on his face again as he leaned over to kiss gently her collarbone, and then he moved a touch lower to the beginning of the swell of her breast, and then lower, and then to the nipple, which made Hanna lean back further into the pillows. She made a small noise.