Skin Lane

by Neil Bartlett

  Going up the narrow stairs, with Mr Scheiner leading the way and the rest of the party right behind her — her boyfriend next, obviously, then that dreadful grim-looking Head Cutter person in the white coat, then Mrs whatever-her-name-was — oh, and that boy who couldn’t keep his eyes off her legs (not that she really minded) — it occurred to Maureen (the thought made her giggle out loud) that they were so bloody steep, these steps, it was just as well she’d got her new coat on, otherwise, in this outfit, somebody might have got themselves a free eyeful! Once they were up in the workroom, Mr Scheiner apologised again for the rather makeshift mirror — which he asked Mr F and Beauty to move over by the window if they wouldn’t mind, so they could all see what they were doing — and for the disarray of the room — but, as he said, Scheiner’s was really a manufacturer’s, and private fittings not their usual line. Being as how this was a family job, however (a quick glance here to his cousin again)… he was sure she appreciated. And now if madam wouldn’t mind standing in front of the mirror for a moment, Mr F would just check the fit for her.

  Maureen didn’t mind at all.

  Family, she thought, framing herself in the mirror, that’ll be the fucking day. She wondered whether to try a quick smile at her boyfriend — something suggestive but demure, just to see if he’d get the point — but decided against it. Besides, looking at him would mean stopping looking at her lovely new coat. At the way the flaming red skins looked next to her own pale one. At the way it made her look as if she knew exactly who she was, and where she was going.

  Mr F meanwhile, had moved in behind her and started work on the fitting. First, he quickly combed out the back. Then, in exactly the same way as he had done with Beauty the night before, he lifted and dropped and stroked the shoulders, settling the fur across the seams. As he did this, his hands hesitated, several times — something was clearly bothering him .Was it the fit, or embarrassment at being so close to this woman — or something else? The heat, perhaps? Whatever it was, he kept working, his eyes flicking expertly from seam to seam, from mirror to coat, front to back. Finally, when everything seemed to be hanging to his satisfaction, he asked if madam wouldn’t mind walking a few steps, just so he could see how it moved.

  If there was one thing that Maureen really knew about, it was how to be stared at. She shook out her hair, turned her back on the mirror and walked away from it with the kind of controlled flounce that suggested that it had just said something rather unfortunate to her; six kitten-heeled paces later, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder as if she was considering forgiving it; then turned front to face it again (all in one well-practised swivel), turned up the collar again and ran her hands down over the lapels of the coat a couple of times, stroking the luxurious fur where it lay across her breasts. As she did that, now she did make a point of catching her gentleman friend’s eye in the mirror. Just to make sure he was looking at her exactly how she wanted him to. He was. Then she looked back at herself. She had been right about the colours. Her eyes had never been this green.

  “Well I don’t know about anyone else,” said Maureen, “But I think it fits like a dream.”

  This was the point in the proceedings when Mrs Kesselman, who had not really been over-concerned about this particular customer’s reaction in the first place, and was now very definitely wishing they could just get on to the question of linings and have done with it, began to notice how rather unwell Mr F was looking this morning. Positively grey-faced, in fact; she really thought he looked like he might be about to faint. She waited until the coat had been gently peeled away from Maureen’s bare shoulders, and was back on the stand (she knew Mr F wouldn’t have wanted her to say anything right in front of other people), and then, when he was helping her to lay out her samples of lining silk on the workbench, discreetly asked him, in her best sotto voce,

  “Are you alright, Mr F?”

  She was not to know that this was his least favourite of all questions: he looked at her as if someone had just slapped him.

  What had happened was this; try as he might to concentrate on the task in hand, every time he looked up to check the hang of the coat in the mirror, it had been Beauty that Mr F could see standing there, framed by its dusty gilt. Each time it happened, he had glanced away, of course — but then he had had to look back, in order to carry on with the fitting. He couldn’t help it; the picture in the mirror kept on changing. It was Beauty, not Maureen, that he saw press the furs against his chest like that; Beauty, slightly raising one eyebrow. His memories of the scene that had been played out between the two of them the night before even came complete with the sight of himself fussing anxiously around the customer’s shoulders like some busy old attendant or nurse, and now, when he saw that, for the first time he realised that that was exactly what he must have looked like last night; like an old woman, fussing. And then, when Maureen had looked up at her boyfriend like that, looked him right in the eye, he could have sworn that that blasted kitchen clock had started ticking again somewhere in the room — and he’d suddenly become aware of just how warm the workroom was getting again, warmer, even, than it had been last night. Stifling, in fact. He’d managed to finish the fitting alright, but only just — he found himself swallowing, and becoming acutely conscious of how his mouth was both dry, and empty; he had no idea of where to look (in the mirror? At the floor? Down at his trembling hands?) — and all the time, the ticking was definitely getting louder, and his hands were starting to ache as well as tremble, and his fingers to disobey. And then, when the girl had said that thing about the dream, about it all being like something out of somebody’s dream, then — well, when Mrs Kesselman had seen fit to whisper that question of all questions right in his bloody ear, that really had been the last straw. He just couldn’t stand to be in that room a moment longer.

  “Yes. Yes of course I’m alright,” he hissed at her — perhaps louder and more furiously than he meant to — “Why shouldn’t I be?” Seeing Mr Scheiner shoot him a quizzical look, he remembered to keep his voice down. “But if you wouldn’t mind managing without me, I think perhaps I ought to go and get myself a glass of water from downstairs — really, it must be this heat.”

  With that, dropping the silks on the bench, he fled. Maureen, still hard at work in the mirror, appeared not to notice this whispered dispute going on behind her back; Mrs Kesselman, puzzled, made the best job she could of covering her colleague’s hasty exit by suggesting that Madam might like to join her at the bench now, if she wouldn’t mind. Of course, Mr F’s departure did mean that Mrs Kesselman then had to display her lining samples to the customer with only Beauty as an assistant — which didn’t best please her, since (as she had to point out to him) he apparently didn’t know his moire from his pongee, and barely seemed to have his mind on the job at all. However, after only a couple of minutes of picking up first one square of silk, then the next, Maureen did manage to finally choose a suitable lining with only a minimum of fuss - cinnamon, she fancied, would go best with the red, didn’t everyone think? — at which point Mrs Kesselman was able to gratefully relieve her of the coat and march it downstairs to start her girls working on the lining at once. Beauty, meanwhile, she told to get on with clearing away the samples as quick as he liked.

  Next Thursday afternoon at the latest, Mr Scheiner promised his cousin, by way of delivery, and they shook hands. Maureen’s hand, of course, he kissed. Like a lady’s.

  “And may I wish you well to wear it,” he said.

  So; everyone was happy — even Beauty, dutifully clearing away the samples. He thought Maureen had looked smashing in her new coat, and was actually quite proud of having helped make it. She was a bit old for him, obviously — but still, smashing. He hadn’t enjoyed Mrs Kessleman reprimanding him for getting the samples mixed up in front of everybody like that — but there was no point in getting worked up about that. Funny to think that one day quite soon he wouldn’t be coming up here every morning — he was quite going to miss it in a way.


  He did briefly wonder what was making Mr F look so poorly this morning — but only briefly.

  Mrs Kesselman, making her way downstairs, hoped that she might catch Mr F later in the morning, to see if he was feeling better — but what with checking her stock of cinnamon silk, and getting two of her girls started on cutting the lining for the coat straightaway, she never did.

  Which was probably just as well.

  What, he muttered to himself, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, is wrong with me this morning? (Locked in a cubicle in the Gents toilet, Mr F was having trouble rolling his cigarette; his hands were all over the shop.) Eh, what? What? Mrs Kesselman’s question had just been the wrong thing at the wrong time — that was it. Although he was surprised she hadn’t asked him earlier, actually, the way he was looking this morning — when he’d had this fag (damn his hands, shaking like this), he was going to have to splash his face before he went back upstairs. And then when that bloody girl had started flirting with Scheiner’s cousin like that in the mirror, and he could have sworn he’d heard his kitchen clock ticking again, same as last night — well it was enough to give anybody the bloody shakes. Which was not good, for a cutter. And on the subject of last night (he still hadn’t managed to roll his cigarette — his papers seemed to have got damp, somehow. Or perhaps it was the sweat; sweaty fingers, that was it), on the subject of last night, how come it was alright for everyone else in the world to look each other in the eye, put their hands over their breasts and make eyes in the mirror and let everyone in the room know exactly what they were thinking about, when he couldn’t manage it without starting to practically choke to death? And when they did it, there were no signs of shame at all so far as he could see; no blushing or blinking or shaking hands for them, thank you very much, oh no; nothing, actually, unless you counted the bloody giggling. The whole schemozzle was all as clear as bloody daylight, apparently -not that they had any reason to act ashamed, those two, because when you thought about it there wasn’t anything actually strictly speaking shameful about them carrying on at all, actually, was there? Was there? Alright, they weren’t married, and he was at least twenty years older than her, but who minded about that in this day and age? And how could anyone — mind — with Mr Scheiner standing there grinning like the Cheshire cat the whole bloody time and using the word family every chance he got, not to mention a boy, a sixteen-year-old boy if you don’t mind, being invited to stand and stare at the whole bloody business. It was vulgar, yes, coming into his workroom and parading themselves in front of everyone like that was vulgar, but you couldn’t say it was shameful. Only secret things can be shameful, everyone knows that (Christ, he wishes his hands would stop shaking now, there’s going to be tobacco all over the fucking linoleum). But why is that? Eh? Why was the way he looked at the boy any different to —

  “Jesus Christ — ” Mr F shouted, spraying Golden Virginia across the cubicle floor, forgetting entirely where he was. “What is wrong with me?”

  — but then the sound of his own voice made him remember that there might be other people nearby on the stairs. Pulling himself together, he gave up on his cigarette, and threw the mess of tobacco threads and limp papers into the toilet bowl. He pulled the chain, unlocked the cubicle, walked out, splashed his face in the washbasin, washed his hands (of course) and took a deep breath before he opened the Gents door and headed back upstairs. He could hardly hide in the toilet for the rest of the day.

  He came out through the door with his chin up. He started up the stairs, fully determined to put his bravest face on when he got back to his bench, but

  But.

  No peace for the wicked — wasn’t that what Mr F had once blurted out to Beauty as he squeezed past him on the stairs? Well, there was certainly none to be had this particular Friday. No sooner had he started climbing quietly back up to the workroom, carefully drying his hands on his handkerchief, than he became aware of something blocking the light from the window on the landing above him. He looked up, and saw Beauty turning the corner of the stairs, coming down two treads at a time, evidently in something of a hurry. There was no time to go back, so Mr F just stopped where he was and pressed his back against the wall.

  “Sorry,” the boy said, meaninglessly, as he bundled past him.

  Safe, Mr F breathed out again. But then — then, it all happened so fast. He just couldn’t help himself; without even thinking about it, he turned, and watched Beauty’s retreating back as the boy carried on down the stairs. Which was a mistake, because two steps before he reached the bottom of the flight of stairs, Beauty first slowed down, then seemed to hover for a moment, and then came to a halt.

  Mr F’s stomach turned over.

  Why is it that young men can always tell when they are being stared at, even from behind?

  As it happened, up until this point, Beauty had been having rather a good morning. As I said, he’d enjoyed seeing his handiwork finally on the customer (especially that particular customer) — and unlike Mr F’s, his enjoyment of the sight of Maureen framed in the mirror hadn’t been in any way complicated by memories of himself trying on her coat the night before. That had been a joke; she was very definitely the real thing. In fact, apart from a brief flicker of distaste as he’d run up the front steps at five to eight that morning — a distaste which had expressed itself in the quickly dismissed thought Here we go again — he hadn’t really thought about last night’s encounter much at all. True, the old man had seemed to be in a bit of a state this morning, right from the kick-off — but he’d be surprised if that was anything to do with him. Probably something about his precious coat — or just the heat. (Beauty, you see, was used to flirting with people to make his life easier, or indeed just to amuse himself; it wasn’t as if he had gone out of his way with Mr F in particular. And now that last night had happened — well, it was true that he’d never had another man look at him in quite such an obvious way before — not so far as he knew, anyway — but he was sure it was nothing he couldn’t turn to his advantage.) So he had had every intention of carrying on down the stairs without thinking twice about Mr F, or of stopping to talk to him — because his uncle had ended the brief chat they’d just been having by asking him to check with Mrs Kesselman downstairs and see whether she needed him to get on the phone for another piece of that cinnamon lining, quick as he liked — but then, as he squeezed past him on the stairs, Beauty somehow just knew — knew, by instinct or sixth sense or whatever — that those beady, ever-critical, prying, washed-out-looking pale blue goat’s-eyes of Mr F’s were going to follow him down the stairs, and when they did — he could feel the man’s eyes on his arse, swear he could, feel them burning a hole right between his shoulder blades — well, suddenly, he’d had just about enough of all this. First there was Mrs Kesselman ticking him off over the silk samples in front of a customer (and a very gorgeous customer she was too) making him look like some sort of an idiot, and now here was old goat-face giving him the eye again. No, really, he could get sick of this — he is the boss’s nephew, for Christ’s sake. And hadn’t his uncle just confirmed that one week from now he was moving him down into his office to start work in management? This was definitely something that needed putting a stop to. So he stopped, turned round, and said, in his best pointedly casual manner,

  “You alright, Mr F?”

  Cornered, every animal has to decide whether to fight or flee; Mr F chose the former. Bracing himself against the staircase wall, and staring straight ahead of him, he stood his ground — it was probably being asked that particular question for the second time that day that finally did it.

  He knew he had to say something, but of all the things he could have said, he managed to get it down to just the one, hoarse, stubborn word:

  “What?”

  “I just thought you were staring at me a bit funny this morning, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong again?”

  “Staring? Was I?”

  “Yes you were, Mr F.”

 
; Feeling that some kind of roaring wave was about to close over his head, and fighting the impulse to close his eyes until it had passed, Mr F took a deep breath, and turned to look at the boy — who was standing six feet below him at the bottom of the flight of stairs — full in the face. He had to keep his jaw clenched, but he still managed to speak his mind; Beauty wasn’t the only one who’d had enough, you see. Mr F’s voice was level, and quiet, but clear. If it shook, it was as much with anger as with fear.

  “My name is not Mr F. To you, sonny, it is Freeman: Mr Freeman. If you wouldn’t mind. Or you can call me sir, if you like. Is that alright?”

  The boy said nothing, so Mr F continued.

  “Staring, was I? — I’ll give you staring — ”

  Beauty came back up those stairs so quickly that Mr F had no time to do anything except instinctively jerk his head back against the wall as if to avoid some blow — and now he had to close his eyes. After quickly checking up and down the stairs that no one was coming, the boy had pinned Mr F back against the wall by placing one hand either side of his face; now he leant in right up close against him, so that their mouths were only inches apart. His face was twisted into a sneer, and his voice into a vicious whisper.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, you miserable old — I’ve seen you. Ever since I bloody started — looking me up and down like I was something nice on toast. Well let me tell you this, mate: you’re too fucking ugly and you’re too fucking old.”

  Beauty knew exactly what effect his being this close to the old man was having; he could see the sweat starting to break out on his forehead above his tightly screwed-up eyes. He loved how scared the man was. Unseen by the boy, the palms of Mr F’s hands were starting to press themselves against the wall behind his back, as if beginning their search for that elusive bathroom door-handle. The spite-filled whisper filled his head, and he could feel Beauty’s breath all over his face.