Skin Lane

by Neil Bartlett

  Standing there on the stairs, Mr F remembered his instructions, which until that moment had gone completely out of his mind. So after he’d got his breath back, calmed himself down, had his cigarette and told himself for the twentieth time that morning that he had no option but to go back upstairs and pretend that this particular Monday of his life was just like any other, that’s what Mr F found himself doing; getting things ready for somebody else to stage a seduction. He went upstairs, and started hooking a selection of pelts down from their rails in the ceiling and throwing them down to Beauty to catch — all the while still trying not to look too directly into his face.

  The mechanics (I almost said, the economics) of the scene which took place in Mr Scheiner’s office that Monday lunchtime were brutally simple. Everyone knew their place, and their allotted role; everyone knew the rules, and nobody was saying anything.

  The office was a small room at the best of times, and by the time all the principal players were gathered, it began to be a warm one. When the girl arrived, she was already excited; however, she knew better than to let it show. As she was handed out from his car by Mr Scheiner’s cousin (a well-preserved forty-five-year-old; his money’s in handbags and belts), she swung her heels onto the cobbles of Skin Lane in conscious imitation of her film-actress idols. As she removed a stray hair from her mouth and looked up and down the Lane, her studied air of glamorous condescension was almost convincing, but not quite; although she behaved as if she just had been driven straight from Pinewood, Mr Scheiner was not all that surprised to be told that no, they hadn’t had to drive far really, just from her parents’ house. Once the introductions had been made, and Mr Scheiner had offered the girl his chair (she made a very good show of squeezing round behind the desk; that dress was tight) and Mr F had laid out his first few samples, the bluffing continued. Leaning over her (he knew his cousin wouldn’t mind), Mr Scheiner talked a blue streak at the girl, spreading his expertise before her like a peacock would its well-practised tail. He rattled on about the varying attractions of the different species he had selected for her to consider from the point of view of value for money, wearability and, of course, (a brief glance here over her head at his cousin) suitability as an investment. Mr Scheiner’s act was skilfully pitched; he would never have talked in quite this way to a middle-class woman — to a woman with a husband in the City and two good-quality coats in her wardrobe already, for instance. In that case, he wouldn’t have presumed to stand quite so close, and his manner would have respectfully implied that madam already knew all about value for money — madam’s mother, after all, would have been sure to advise her daughter on the importance of quality when it came to choosing one’s furs. But he knows that Maureen (that’s the girl’s name; she’s a strikingly green-eyed red-head, and twenty-four) doesn’t know about any of all that. To state the obvious, as you can see from her slightly overdone make-up and the would-be elegance of the way she’s perched on the edge of that chair, she’s making up this whole thing of being a lady as she goes along.

  She does it, it must be said, pretty well. She lets herself be flattered, rather than patronised, by Mr Scheiner’s attentions, and then she graciously takes off her gloves and gets down to the business of making her choice. Like a lady should, she flinches rather at some of the more outlandish pelts she is shown, and won’t even touch them. The small shriek of dismay she produces at the sight of anything too obviously animal — the stiff black hairs of a colobus pelt, the dangling feet and claws on a bundle of untrimmed martens—has its desired effect, which is to make her boyfriend smile approvingly. He lights a cigar. The white foxes, which Mr Scheiner had thought she might well fall for when he had seen how she was dressed, are toyed with for a moment, but then rejected as being too old-fashioned — a bit too common, is how she puts it. She is momentarily intrigued by the names of the different shades of ranch mink as they are recited for her benefit — “Argenta”; “Royal Pastel”, very nice — and this is “Autumn Haze” madam, our newest line, purrs Mr Scheiner at her elbow — but none of their coffee, butterscotch or chocolate ice-cream colours seem to quite satisfy her. She picks up a long-haired red fox-skin — Kamchatka fox we call that, madam; Russian, very nice —strokes it, and giggles, and holds it close to her face and asks her boyfriend what he thinks. He of course would never dream of saying what he is actually thinking (he has half an erection — and besides, he has already agreed his discount with Mr Scheiner, and knows he can afford anything on the table); he merely shrugs, and indicates that he will consent to whatever makes her happy. There is a pause. Mr Scheiner and his cousin watch the girl with two distinct kinds of more or less well-disguised greed on their faces as she giggles and strokes her furs, but they are saying nothing. They let the girl have her moment; it’s only fair. As she dallies, smoothing her pale hands first across one fur and then another — fox, mink, chinchilla: fire, smoke, velvet — the belt and handbag manufacturer glances across at Mr Scheiner, and can’t resist blowing the thought Women, what are they like? out into the room with a mouthful of cigar-smoke. He’s enjoying himself, too. He especially likes the way Scheiner’s nephew or whoever he is can’t help but stare; the kid can’t be more than sixteen, but obviously already has a taste for the ladies. His eyes are like saucers. Generously, the older man takes these stares as a compliment on his own good taste in female merchandise, and at one point in the proceedings even gives the boy what he imagines to be an avuncular wink. Mr Scheiner, on his part, remembers the small explosions of dirty laughter the two men shared when this visit was first discussed on the telephone, and watches the way his cousin handles his cigar. He secretly enjoys the knowledge that the man isn’t going to get quite such a good deal as he thinks he is. When the red foxes are rejected, he optimistically raises one eyebrow — the girl seems to be hovering on the edge of choosing a pastel mink after all, the most expensive of her options. Will she? Won’t she? Women, Mr Scheiner thinks too.

  Mrs Kesselman, meanwhile, waits patiently in her corner, and lets the men get on with it. Although she appears to be paying very little attention — she’s only there, after all, to give some spurious respectability to the room before doing the measuring in private later — she sees everything. Personally, she rather admires the way the girl is letting the men think she is stupid. She does wish the boy wouldn’t gawp at the customer quite so obviously.

  Beauty, who wasn’t sure if he’d even be allowed to stay in the room, since his only official role was to help Mr F bring the armfuls of samples down from the workroom — Beauty, meanwhile, can’t quite believe his luck. He keeps himself quietly in the background — but makes sure that he has a clear view of everything. He is supposed to be learning the business, isn’t he? When the girl twists one of the red fox-skins round her neck and poses with it as if she was on a magazine cover, he watches the way Mr Scheiner and his cousin briefly swap glances over her head, and takes note. When the cousin then winks at him, he is caught off-guard for a moment — but going on instinct, risks returning an appropriately discreet grin of his own. He wasn’t sure if that was allowed, so is pleased to see that the older man apparently approves of his contribution. He thinks he’s starting to get the hang of this now; this is how men behave, when they’re all thinking about the same thing. In fact, as the scene draws towards its conclusion, he begins to feel that it is only right and proper that Maureen should include him in her appeals for judgement around the room. After all, it’s not just the one man she’s got to please with her choice, it’s all of them — so long as she realises that, then he’s happy to lend his approval. She certainly seems to; from where he’s standing, he’d have to say that the young lady has looked up at him and offered him her smile a good few times more often than she strictly needed to.

  Well, he is more her own age than any of the other men in the room. And let’s face it, that cousin of Mr Scheiner’s is no oil-painting, is he?

  No wonder the boy’s eyes are even brighter than usual.

  Finally,
Maureen asks to see the red foxes one last time. Mr F retrieves them from Beauty, and spreads them across the desk. One last little pantomime of hesitation, and Maureen announces her choice. It’s going to be the foxes after all. She thinks that red colour will do wonders for her eyes.

  Very good; the men approve. Mr Scheiner will send out a few telegrams and find out which of the brokers he knows has got the best Kamchatkas in stock this very afternoon — not always the easiest fur to find at this time of year, and not one so often requested these days (he commends madam on her distinctive taste) — but he’s sure he’ll manage. Meanwhile, once Mrs Kesselman has taken the measurements, perhaps a little lunch at that place on Queen Street where the fish is so good would be in order? Mr Scheiner’s cousin couldn’t agree more.

  And Mr F?

  If he had made any further plan for the day, it was only to keep the boy at a reasonable distance; he didn’t want any repetition of that unpleasant incident on the stairs. Trouble is, here in the office, there is nowhere else that Beauty can be except a couple of feet away — and to make matters worse, he has somehow ended up standing right behind Mr F. This means that he has to constantly worry that he might accidentally stumble back into him for some reason. Brush against him. He is also, because he is back in the room where Mrs Kesselman stitched it, unusually aware of the healing wound on his left hand. He remembers the slipping of the knife. The way the room went very quiet just before it happened. The incessant ticking of that distant clock. Whatever else happens, he has to make sure that nothing like that happens again.

  Mostly, he manages the scene by not looking at anything or anyone too directly. He waits, with his eyes lowered, and does as he is told, clearing and re-stocking the desk with samples as Mr Scheiner instructs him; a lot of the time, he simply looks down at the floor. Because of this, he is more or less oblivious to the cat’s-cradle of glances, signals and unspoken assumptions that is being woven above the girl’s head through the cigar-smoke-laden air. It’s not that he’s prudish, just that this particular game is not one that has ever had anything to do with him; as always, he absents himself — and on this particular morning, of course, even more purposefully than usual. It isn’t easy for a big man to efface himself, but he really works at it, and thinks he has almost succeeded, but then, just at the last minute, the girl asks him if she might just look at those three red Russian foxes one final time, and he has to turn to the boy to retrieve the armful of heavy, flaming pelts. At this point in the proceedings, Mr F suddenly finds that he can’t keep himself or his eyes to himself any longer. Beauty, evidently not expecting him to turn round quite that suddenly, must have been slowly inching himself closer and closer in, so as to be in the best possible position for getting a good look at everything, because when Mr F turns, he discovers that the boy’s face — the boy’s bright eyes, and the boy’s half-open mouth — is right there, only inches away from his.

  To make matters worse — much worse — instead of immediately recomposing his features into those of a dutiful junior, the boy flicks on a quick conspiratorial grin, and shares it. He clearly expects Mr F to grin right back, as if they were in possession of the same secret.

  As if that slight twisting of the lips was an agreed signal. As if they were thinking about the same thing.

  Mr F —

  Mr F can’t think.

  All of this happens very quickly — so quickly that only Mrs Kesselman sees it. She sees Mr F flinch, hesitate, blink, and then, clumsily, grab the armful of pelts from the boy and turn to lay them out on the desk with a dark cloud of disapproval spreading across his face. She thinks, of course, that Mr F is annoyed with the boy for staring at the customer like that, and Quite right too, she thinks — she didn’t quite see why Mr Scheiner had seen fit to have him in the room in the first place.

  But Mrs Kesselman misunderstood the moment entirely.

  Remember, the young man’s face was the one part of the body in his dream that Mr F had never really seen; in a way, it was the one part of it that he didn’t yet know off by heart. And there it now was, suddenly right up close — closer to him than that of a fellow passenger on a crowded, standing-room-only, five-forty-nine train. Bright-eyed, slightly flushed, and freshly shaved. Lips coming together in an almost-invisible but unmistakably knowledgeable smile. Very sure of itself. Very entitled.

  It was the face of a complete stranger.

  No wonder Mr F flinched.

  As he recovered himself, and as he laid the three beautiful fox pelts one after another down on the table like a fairy-tale promise in three parts (Beauty, Luxury, Wealth), Mr F was almost overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of not knowing anything. Of being the only person in the room who didn’t know how he was supposed to behave. Almost, of being underwater. Was this how he was going to have to live now?

  Was it?

  Once Maureen had made her choice, and the attention of the room had been diverted to the subject of measurements, and lunch, Mr F busied himself with gathering up the furs, wanting to get out of the room as quickly as he reasonably could. But while he was doing it (avoiding so much as even glancing at Beauty, never mind asking him to help) he realised that even after being that close — being face to face — he still couldn’t for the life of him remember what colour the boy’s eyes were. Dark, certainly. And a bit fiery — except that that was probably just the effect of how hot the room had become, what with all these people in it. Black. Was that possible? Do men really ever have black eyes?

  He needs to take another look.

  (Plenty of time for that later. Just take the furs upstairs.)

  He’s sweating now. He hates that.

  When she gave her detailed report on Maureen’s hair-colour, make-up, dress-sense and demeanour to her colleagues downstairs in the machine-room, Mrs Kesselman couldn’t help but express some reservations. Part of her wanted to applaud the girl for her nerve — Well listen, at least a decent coat she gets, was how she put it — but eventually, she had to concur with the generally uncharitable mood. Despite her attempts to play the lady, this Maureen customer was clearly no better than she ought to be — and as Mrs Kesselman always said, No woman ever gets given a fur coat for good reasons; if it’s not to keep her on her back, it’s to get her off his. One of the two new girls, who’d stood on a chair to watch her get out of the car through one of the downstairs windows, summed up the final verdict of the room with a quick, derisive laugh:

  “Russian foxes, is it? I think someone’s been to see that Doctor fucking Zhivago a few too many times.”

  Of course, there was nothing particularly personal about this animosity; it was a point of principle with the machinists that no woman who ever put on a Scheiner’s coat was as special as she thought she was. They could all tell you exactly what the expression on Maureen’s face would be once her coat was ready; when her once-in-a-lifetime bribe was finally lifted onto her shoulders by her gentleman friend. These women knew all about the reasons why, and the special occasions when, a man buys his woman a fur. Oh yes; every time they nipped two skins together, ready for the needle, they knew.

  two

  It never occurred to Mr F at any point in that first week that he ought to do anything about his feelings for the boy. Even that string of words — my feelings for him — wouldn’t have been one he would have known how to use at this point. As far as he was concerned, that was the sort of thing that belonged in other people’s mouths. No; what he did instead was to think. He thought about him all the time.

  Ever since that moment when he’d been so close to him in the downstairs office, Mr F hadn’t been able to get the expression on Beauty’s face out of his mind. It worried at him every time he came to rest. Try as he might, he just couldn’t get used to the idea that Beauty knew nothing at all about what he inevitably saw as being their situation. You might’ve thought that he would have worked out by now how to distribute the weight of the boy’s presence efficiently across his daily routine, but no; the extra physical effort req
uired now that the body of his dreams was actually in the same room as him for eight and a half hours every working day took him completely by surprise. Two completely contradictory waves of sensation would regularly pick him up and tumble him in their surf. On the one hand, he felt the boy’s presence in the room as something so intimate that he was in constant danger of blushing and sweating; on the other, he felt completely estranged from him, as if he was watching him from across some great distance — the width of the Thames, at least. Sometimes, he would hear these two sensations; his head would pound with the agitated thumping of his blood and breath and half-formed thoughts — but the whole dismal cacophony would be echoing inside an absolute and resounding silence. These feelings bewildered him; they crashed over him, leaving him bruised and floundering. Sometimes, he thought the battering would wear him out.

  Nothing of this showed; for a man who was drowning, he kept remarkably calm. As he bent his big strong back over the cutting bench, he would match the movement of his hands to the rhythm of his breathing; one breath, one sweep of the blade. Instinctively, he became even more of a stickler than ever for the angle of the knife, the precision of a ruled line; when he nailed a cut skin, each pin would be exactly half an inch from the next. He concentrated until his hands ached. Sometimes, he would set himself the task of not looking up at the boy for an entire two hours, by the clock. The phrase keeping your head down could have been invented for Mr F, that week.