Hair Side, Flesh Side

by Helen Marshall

  “So the wife then,” she said after a moment. He looked up from what he was doing, and Hanna ran a finger along his fashionably stubbled chin.

  “Or the editor if you’d like.”

  “That was very nice.”

  “My professional evaluation?” He asked playfully, kissing her finger.

  “The punctuation was very good.”

  “I think I read that review once. ‘The punctuation was very good.’”

  “Reviewers are terrible people. They don’t hold a candle to editors.”

  Hanna watched him pause over this, thought he would make another rejoined. Instead, he said, “You can stay the night.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You might.”

  She opened her mouth to speak again, to say something else, but then she closed it. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He kissed her again and then rolled onto his back with a sigh, as she untangled herself from the covers. She slipped around the corner, and then into the bathroom. She closed the door, locked it.

  Hanna let out a breath, and ran the tap. The slightest tremors of a hangover were starting to tighten the circumference of her skull, pushing on her brain. She pooled the water in her hand, and then rinsed out her mouth. She was bleary-eyed. Tempted by the idea of not needing to go home. Hanna spat out the water, and then looked up into the mirror. Something caught her eye, a smallish discoloured lump on the side of her neck, no bigger than a dime. She squinted, touched it with a finger. The skin was dried out, rough, but the space itself was numb, as if all the nerve endings had been disconnected.

  She shook her head, tried scratching it with a nail. A queer sensation ran through her body, as if the area was simultaneously hypersensitive and blanked out with Novocain.

  “Gavin?” she called uncertainly.

  “Yes, my darling?”

  There were sounds from outside the bathroom, but Hanna had to squeeze her eyes shut to remain steady on her feet. The handle jiggled but the door was still locked. He knocked softly. “Hanna?”

  She shook her head again to clear it, and then opened the door for him. Gavin was casually leaning against the frame, but there was something subtly wrong with the pose, a slight strain in the shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s . . .”

  He moved behind her, and slipped his arms around her waist, kissing the nape of her neck. “No regrets, I hope?”

  “No, it’s not that. There’s something here—” Her finger brushed the spot. Numbness. Tingling. “—can you see anything?”

  Hanna was a bit scared. She had read numerous accounts of women discovering small lumps on their breasts, had a friend at college who got cancer, and had to take a year off for chemo and recovery. There had been a list of people who had signed up to go with him, visit the hospital and keep him company. Hanna hadn’t been one of those people. She had liked him well enough, but the whole thing was a bit grotesque, and then he had lost his hair and his face had swelled until his head looked like an egg balanced on his neck.

  Gavin reached up and took her hand in his, moving it away from the spot, then leaned in close to look. “Do you have a tattoo?” he asked after a moment.

  “A tattoo?” she asked, couldn’t understand the word. It’s cancer, she thought, not a tattoo. Something that wasn’t part of her yesterday.

  “It says something here: Sanditon. Is that Greek?”

  “Why the hell would I have Greek tattooed on my neck? Do I look like I grew up in fucking Oxbridge?” she asked, and her hand trembled in his. She could see his face again in the mirror, and he was looking at her, face a bit tense as if he could feel their relationship going strange, growing real. The eyes were colder, and the smile had slipped away.

  “Look, I’ll get your things. You don’t have to stay the night.”

  “I—” she said helplessly, wanting something from him, seeing he wasn’t going to give it to her. She tried for a smile. “I don’t think I should. I’m not the wife.” A pause, and then the barest hint of a question. “Only the wife stays the night.”

  He looked her over, nodded carefully and kissed the back of her neck, ran a finger down her spine, and Hanna felt it like a chill.

  “You’re more fun than the wife. And the editor, for that matter.” He went from the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror, the dark spot, but she didn’t want to touch it again. Gavin brought her clothes to the bathroom entranceway, and she put them on as fast as she could, trying not to let her shirt touch her neck as she buttoned it up. She couldn’t figure out the jacket so she just slung it over one arm, and then she was out of the door, and standing in the hallway with the pale gold fleurs-de-lys, chest tight, feeling the fear for real now that she was by herself.

  Carcinos. Carcinoma. The Greek words for cancer, she thought, and then, Screw Gavin and his books and his beautiful voice and his cat’s smile and his wife, damn them all to hell and chemo and let him be the one. He has a family, and that’s why you have families, so you don’t need anyone to sign up to sit with you while you die.

  And then she caught her breath, and she got in the elevator, and she went home.

  Home was not really home. Home was a tiny room she was renting at the edge of Cowley, just outside Oxford, while she conducted research and met with potential authors for Belletristic, Inc. It was approximately five feet across, eight feet wide, with a recessed nook holding a desk, carelessly painted, makeshift shelves, and a window incapable of closing. The bed had no sheets, but tight, stabbing springs that she had to learn to weave her body around when she first arrived.

  Hanna’s own suitcase was large, black, filled with tightly rolled t-shirts and a few nicer things for professional use, Gavin’s neatly typed manuscript handed over for her editorial inspection and a somewhat smaller sheaf of paper, her own unfinished notes on a novel. As she unpacked, she stowed the t-shirts in a rickety chest of drawers and spent five minutes wedging the suitcase between the uppermost bookshelf and the ceiling. It was too big to fit anywhere else, and if it wasn’t stowed she would have had less than a hand’s span of room to stand in.

  When she lay on the bed, springs pressed sharply against her legs, the suitcase stuck out a full foot and a half over edge of the shelf. Hanna worried that it might fall on her while she slept, so she checked it again, but it held firm, and did not budge. It just loomed over her, disproportionately large against the cramped, cracked ceiling.

  At first, she didn’t think about Gavin, about the darkened mass on her neck. But then she did, and she rooted around in the top drawer, amidst the power adaptors, her passport, and other paraphernalia, until she found a hand mirror. She tried positioning it at different angles, and with her shirt off she could just about find a clean line of sight, her hand shaky, awkward.

  But it was there, and it was slightly larger than she remembered it being. Hanna breathed deeply, her shoulders rising and sinking, the bed creaking beneath her. She put the mirror away. Then she reached up, fingers snaking along her collarbone, exploring the side of her neck. She could feel the roughness, a slight sponginess as she put pressure against it, that same feeling of simultaneous tingling and numbness. A hard scarab shell, scab-like. She forced her nail into it. The tingling intensified, but it didn’t feel bad—just very, very strange. Slowly, she dug the nail in until she could feel the edge of the thing against her finger. She dug a little bit more, scratching, getting the other fingernails involved. Then something peeled away, flaking off between her forefinger and thumb. She brought it around for inspection, leaning down on the pillow, the dark shadow of the suitcase in the background of her vision, in the foreground a paper-thin scraping of something—she didn’t know what—with the word “Sanditon” in a kind of languished, cursive scrawl.

  Hanna picked up the mirror, repositioned it, but as she gazed at the spot she could see—something, the spot was dark but not as if it were bruised or discoloured or some kind of dysplastic nevus, b
ut more like a shadow, like there was no surface at all, a hole in her neck—yes, when she moved the mirror she could make out the edges, not tears or scratches but a thin bank of skin around—nothing. Nothing.

  Hanna didn’t know what to do, she had never seen anything like that. She sat on her bed, the phone receiver heavy in her hand. She thought about calling her doctor back home, but she didn’t know what to say, and she couldn’t go to a doctor here, she couldn’t remember what her health plan was and if it covered overseas medical. Probably not. Her publishers were cheap, and cut corners where they could. Like this room. Like the standby plane tickets from Toronto.

  In the end, she called Gavin, his number written on a business card he had given her when they met yesterday before the conference. He hadn’t looked like his author photo; somehow the photographer hadn’t captured the energy, the expressiveness of his face, the charisma that came only in movement and animation. But she was alone in a city where she didn’t know a single soul.

  The phone rang several times. A woman answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Hanna started, suddenly unsure of herself. “It’s Hanna Greeson. I work for Belletristic, Inc.” She paused. Considered hanging up the phone.

  “I’ll just get Gavin on the phone, love.”

  A voice distantly called. Hanna could make out the sound of a dog barking. Maybe children in the background. Or a television. Some sort of extra noise that her room didn’t have.

  And then Gavin’s voice came over the line: “Hanna.”

  “Gavin,” she replied. “So that’s the wife.”

  “And you’re the editor.”

  “Right,” she said. “That’s right.” She could feel that the phone call was unwelcome, but she didn’t want to hang up. She couldn’t remember exactly where he lived, somewhere near Holland Park, maybe. “Look, Gavin, I’m going to be in London tomorrow and I wanted to talk to you.”

  She heard a door closing at the other end, and then the noises were muffled away. Then Gavin’s voice, reserved, querying: “Talk.”

  “Yes, talk. There’s something—something I need help with.”

  “I’m not much good in the helping department. Ask around. Ask anyone. I’m bloody useless.”

  “Gavin, I—”

  “Really, Hanna, it was very lovely to meet you at the conference, but—you know how these things go, when the cat’s away . . . There’s really nothing I can help you with.” His voice sounded final. Hanna could hear the click coming.

  “Listen to me, Gavin,” she said softly, intensely. The kind of whisper you don’t ignore. “I said I’m going to be in London tomorrow and you can meet me at the Euston Flyer at three, or you can put the wife back on the line, and I can stop being fucking professional.”

  Hanna took a morning bus into London. She had wanted to shower but she was afraid of what might happen with the water dripping off the edges of the opening in her neck. She had stolen some saran wrap from the communal kitchen and tried taping it like a band-aid in place. But the tape kept peeling and wouldn’t hold properly, so eventually she gave up on the whole thing and did her hair in the sink. She put on makeup, dressed nicely, wanted to look good for him, for Gavin Fucking Hale. She didn’t know why, but she did it anyway.

  She couldn’t sleep on the bus. She kept wedging her neck between the window and the seat to hold it steady, but then she was worried that she was pulling too much at the skin. At last she just settled her head back, and read the book that Gavin had given her. It was clean writing, serviceable prose with just the right amount of pathos, the perfect, quirky dialogue—all up to snuff; her publisher would be proud. An old woman with pinkish-dyed hair caught her eye, smiled, nodded at the book. Hanna pretended not to see.

  When she arrived in London, she picked out a seat near the back where she had a good vantage point. She didn’t know if Gavin would come. She didn’t know if she’d make good on the threat, and was half-curious to find out.

  Hanna spotted him, eighteen minutes late, a few minutes before she had decided to take out her cell phone to see if she could goad herself into calling. He made his way over, face looking dull, more like the author photo.

  “Well,” he said, “I’m here so you can call off the charge and put down your weapon. I’ll come in peaceably if you only ask politely.”

  “Gavin.” She put away the phone, waiting as he took his seat. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Ah, my dear editor. What shall it be, business or pleasure?” And then to the waiter who had wandered within distance: “We’ll have two scotches. On me. Neat, no ice.” The waiter nodded, and disappeared the way that good waiters do when they can sense an awkward situation. “Neat and tidy,” Gavin continued, meaningfully, but this time to Hanna.

  “I didn’t know who else to call.” Now that Gavin had come, Hanna realized she didn’t have any idea what to say next, how to begin the conversation.

  “Let me start. An autograph, maybe?” A little mean, snarky. “No, something else then. A second draft on the new manuscript? Notes and first impressions?”

  “What about a second fuck?” Just to break his stride. He was making her angry.

  “And then a third and a fourth and when would it end? We might as well be married at that point and then who the hell would edit my books? The wife can’t do it.” His stride unbroken, and even charming in spite of himself. “It’ll be dogs and cats in the street. The lion and the lamb all cuddled up. The end of freedom, democracy, and Her Majesty out of work, pumping gas for a Paki kebab seller.” He leaned back in his chair, took a sip from the scotch that had appeared magically on the table.

  “Fine,” she said

  They were in the bathroom, Hanna with her skirt up around her waist and Gavin holding her up, pinned against the side of the stall as he machine-gun thrust into her. A door opened, and then Hanna heard it closing again quickly, barely, over the sound of her panting and Gavin’s deep-throated grunts.

  Then they were finished, and Gavin was slumped down on the toilet, a happy, sweaty smile on his face, running a hand over her bare buttocks, pulling Hanna close until she was resting on his knee.

  “Aren’t you quite the surprise?” he said hoarsely, a little smugly too. “Fancy a second turn?”

  This time Gavin spun Hanna around, her breasts pressed flat against the door. Hanna was afraid that the lock might give, the problem with ladies’ bathrooms in old pubs where the doors didn’t seem to fit the frame. Gavin pounded away behind, and his hands were at her waist, and then one cupping a breast, and then the other at her neck. Then she could feel something tearing along her shoulder, and warm numbness filled her so fast she thought she had already released.

  But Gavin had stopped, she realized. His hand touched lightly upon her shoulder. He was saying something, softly, almost scared.

  “A gentleman and a lady travelling from Tunbridge towards that part of the Sussex coast which lies between Hastings and Eastbourne, being induced by business to quit the high road and attempt a very rough lane, were overturned in toiling up its long ascent, half rock, half sand.” Hanna didn’t know what it meant, was almost lured by the unknitting of her thoughts, the pulse of pleasure still having built to a nice warmness, mingling with the numbness starting at her shoulder. She felt happy for a moment, but Gavin was still speaking. “There is something wrong here, said he, but never mind, my dear, looking up at her with a smile, it could not have happened, you know, in a better place, good out of evil. The very thing perhaps to be wished for. We shall soon get relief—”

  “What’s that?” Hanna murmured drowsily, forgetting she was leaning half-cocked against a mildly graffitied bathroom door.

  “What do you mean, what’s that?” Gavin asked.

  “That—a gentleman and a lady travelling . . .”

  “How the hell should I know?” He tugged on her arm, simultaneously pushing and pulling away from her. Then he was tugging up his pants, buckling
his belt, as Hanna leaned against the side of the stall, trying to get her breath, not really enough room for the more elaborate elements of Gavin’s attempts to put his clothes back on.

  “Gavin, what’s wrong?” The numbness fading away. Panic returning, fear. The sense of inevitable breakup, people drifting apart. “Did I—?”

  “No,” he answered. “Look.” He unlatched the door, and there was that push-pull as he took her wrist, guided her to the bathroom mirror. She tried to hitch her skirt back down, and almost tripped.

  Then she was in front of the mirror, and Gavin was running a finger along her shoulder, but there was no warmth to the gesture. Hanna looked, and at first she couldn’t see it, but then she noticed the fault line running several inches to her clavicle. The edges of her skin had puckered up like old paper and there seemed to be nothing on the other side. Gavin reached up to where the fissure began, where a strip of something onion-thin, almost translucent, had curled up. He bent his head closer, tugging very gently on it. “There, I fancy, lies my cure, pointing to the neat-looking end of a cottage, which was seen romantically situated among wood on a high eminence at some little distance, does not that promise to be the very place?” He was reading, she realized, and then she could see that on the underside of the flap was a very tiny scrawl.

  She pulled away from him without even thinking, her heart a misfiring jackhammer, and there was an awful tearing sound as the strip came away in his hand. She knelt down, grabbed the jacket she had left behind in the stall and wrapped in protectively around her shoulders.