Isabel's Skin

by Peter Benson

  Listen, I call through time, Grace. Grace. Can you hear me? Are you there? Could things have been different? Could you have changed the course of my life? Could you have taken my reservations and imaginings and turned them to the good? And where are you now? What has happened to you? Are you happy with a gentleman you met at a tea dance or as you walked along a windy strand? I hate asking or writing questions, though I have to and I do care, care more than you ever knew I could.

  I have these pictures.

  I have them framed.

  Look.

  I can say I met her in my last year at Edinburgh. She worked in the university library, and although I thought her lovely eyes and soft hair and whispered words were sent from heaven to be with me, I did not act upon my feelings for at least – I would say – a few months. But one evening I was working too hard at my books, and she was obliged to ask me to leave the library as she was locking up the building.

  “Locking up?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have to.” She touched her cheek.

  “Could you give me another five minutes?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have my orders.” And she looked over her shoulder towards the head librarian, a severe man with no hair and stains and crumbs on his jacket who stood by the main door and scowled at me.

  “Oh well,” I said – I think I said – and I closed my books, stacked them under my arm and, as she disappeared to I do not know where, left the library.

  Half an hour later, I called into a tea shop for some early-evening refreshment, and as I sat down, noticed her at the far end of the shop. She was alone, eating a small cake. I went over to say hello: she said she was waiting for a friend, and when I asked her if I could join her for a few minutes, she gestured at the empty chair, nodded, said “Please do”, and we shared a pot of Darjeeling.

  I asked her about the library, and as she talked about books, the tottering stacks and her work, I thought she had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I resolved to tell her, but lost my nerve. In those days, women and lost nerves walked hand in hand in my mind. They would look into each other’s eyes and smile, nod a nod of mutual understanding and move quickly on to something else. They were like the words I tried to put together – dropped, failed. I asked her about other things: her family, what books she had read and music. She said she loved Palestrina and Chaucer. I liked the way she spoke. She had a light voice and never put a word out of place, stringing them into her sentences like a jeweller would thread gems on a string. And there was something familiar about her eyes. Had I seen them in a picture? In a reflected window on a grey street? And when she touched her hair and flicked some strands away from her eyes, I felt the first twinge of an unfamiliar feeling.

  I think she felt it too, but before we had the chance to act on our feelings, her friend arrived and I gave up my seat, saying, “I hope we’ll meet again.”

  “I’m sure we will,” she said, and gave another smile.

  We met the next day at the library, and the next, and the next, and met for tea, and the following week we visited the National Gallery to look at the paintings. Another week passed, and another, and one Tuesday we attended a performance of Pierre de la Rue’s Missa Sancta Dei Genetrix and afterwards, as we walked across The Meadows, she turned to me, blinked her beautiful eyes and said, “Are we courting?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I think we should be,” and so it was. She smiled, said, “Then I think I might take your arm,” and she did as we walked, and I think I heard a flute somewhere, or the echo of indecision crashing onto a lonely beach somewhere, losing itself for ever.

  A month later, I travelled to Leith to meet her mother and father. She was a quiet woman who spoke – if I remember well – no more than a dozen words, but baked – and I do remember this well – a perfect fruit cake. He was a prosperous man, a Presbyterian corn merchant, proud of his only daughter, and anxious that any man who showed an interest in her came from a good, God-fearing family. I think he was pleased my father was a man of God, though something about the liberality of the Church of England rankled. He asked me a few questions about faith, and although I did not betray my true feelings, I did not lie. So when he smiled and shook my hand and said, “I trust your intentions are honourable,” I said, “Naturally, Mr Jackson.” And with that – I assumed – a blessing was bestowed.

  How did our lives develop? For six months, we spent every free moment together, and she showed me places I might never have seen without her. We walked the windy crags of Arthur’s Seat, explored the Closes of the Old Town, and – my favourite – the hidden secrets of the Botanic Gardens. One weekend we even travelled to the far north-west to her cousin’s house near Sandwood Bay, and as we walked along the shore, I felt myself falling in love, and I think she felt the same. We even expressed our desire in ways that would have shocked our parents, and as our relationship started to take the inevitable steps towards the moment when I would stand before her father and ask his permission, we talked about the future in serious, religious terms. Where would we live? What direction would my career take? What about hers? What sort of home would we choose? And would we have two children, or four?

  She had strong opinions about many things – art, literature, politics – and I put up with her occasional rants. In return she put up with my silences – my broods, she called them – and as the months passed, we settled into regular patterns, regular walks, regular conversations. In the end we agreed that Edinburgh would be a fine place to live, floral wallpaper would be perfect for a hallway, and the more window boxes the better. We started to look at rings in jewellery shops, but then, shockingly and for no apparent reason, the relationship cooled, like the day you know summer’s changed to autumn. It happened overnight, a chill wind, leaves that were not a pleasure to kick through, an overcast sky. And although we both asked each other what the trouble was, neither of us could understand the change, and before we knew it we were not seeing each other every day. Then we missed a weekend together, and when we tried to talk about plans, the plans had faded. One day she told me that she wanted some time alone – “How long?” “I don’t know.” “Why?” “I don’t know.” – and by the end of the year the relationship was over. There were no third parties, just cold winds. The separation was not acrimonious, and when we said goodbye for the last time we were both weeping, but there was no going back, no going forward and nowhere else to go. And as I settled back into a single life and avoided the university library, I began to wonder if the feelings other people described as love were either lies or feelings I would never understand or enjoy. It was impossible for me to tell, and at that time, as I nursed my wounds and thought my heart hurt, I did not bother to ask myself important questions. Maybe I lacked the capacity for big emotions. I do not know. Maybe my mother’s death had robbed me of something. Maybe, without thinking, my father had planted the seed of detachment in my head and it grew without my knowing. Or maybe I am leading blame out of its stable, taking it down to a stream and letting it whinny and drink. It is far too easy to do this sort of thing, as though blame really is a horse and all our campaigns depend on it.

  I would have loved to have taken Grace to Norfolk. We could have visited in the spring when the marshes are teeming with nesting birds and the sky bleeds its clearest light. We could have healed the wounds, but we did not. I remember thinking we could have had a perfect time there, and I thought about the perfect times we had in other places and how I looked for her for months after we parted. I did. I was more upset than I thought I would be, and even now I catch my breath when I see a particular hairstyle – straight and soft with a side parting, cut off the neck, full at the back – and a particular type of mouth. Grace had sweet lips, a cluster of beautiful birthmarks on her face and knew more about Chaucer than anyone I ever met. When I think about our time together, I think it was too fine, but maybe the lack of drama and power were the things that brought the relationship to an end. And then I think there w
as love there, but maybe I never believed it and thought it was bound to fail. Maybe I forced this, like a fool. Self-fulfilling prophecies are easy to believe, and when you doubt its existence, love is too difficult to hold.

  Isabel and I sat in silence for a few minutes until she suddenly said she wanted to go on holiday. She wanted to sit by a blue sea or walk over grass-topped cliffs where people could fly kites or lie behind hedges, and sometimes she wanted this so much she ached. She talked about Charmouth, and I told her I had been at school in Dorset. A faraway look came into her eyes, and I said we could go back. We could visit some places I knew and see her parents, but she said, “I can’t. Not until…”

  “Until what?”

  “Until… you know.” She rubbed the back of her hand.

  “I know somewhere else we could go.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s safe, in Norfolk.”

  “Norfolk? I like Norfolk. Is it by the sea?”

  “Yes. In the marshes. Hidden…”

  “It sounds lovely.”

  “It is,” I said, and as she nodded and lowered her scarf to take a sip of her sherry, I said, “When he did this… what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know… how did he do it?”

  She squinted at the memory. “I’d been with him for a couple of months. We’d been working well, and I suppose – I don’t know – maybe we were becoming more than simply colleagues. Not that we ever did anything improper, but every now and again he’d look at me in an odd way.”

  “What sort of odd way?”

  “An ‘odd’ odd way.”

  I nodded.

  “And then one day he told me about these ideas he’d been working on. I didn’t believe what he was talking about. Fooling cells? He said he’d had some success with mice but could only prove his theories if he had a human to work with. Would I be interested? He told me there’d be more money for me if I agreed, and I might need a few days’ rest, but I’d be up and around in no time at all. A few days’ rest…” She sipped her sherry.

  “So about six months ago, he started me on a course. Intravenous injections of some potion he’d developed. At first nothing happened, and he began to think he’d failed. That was a bad time. He’s got a short temper and he blamed me. I didn’t have the right biological make-up, and when I told him there was nothing wrong with my biological make-up, so why didn’t he use himself as a guinea pig, he told me that there were hundreds of people who’d give their right arm to work with him.

  “But then it started. I had no warning. At first, I thought I had a rash, but I knew. They were scales. They appeared on my stomach, and when I went to bed there was a cluster about this size.” She made a circle with her finger and thumb. “In the morning, they were the size of a plate, and half my hair had fallen out. I thought I was going mad. When he saw me, he was silent for a while, and then he started grinning. A mad, wild grin, and it didn’t take me long…”

  “To what?”

  “To ask the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Why was I so stupid?”

  “You weren’t.”

  “I should have seen through him. I should have seen it coming. That first morning. Every time I looked at myself there were more scales. By the evening I could see them growing. He’d locked me in – all I had was a mattress and a bucket. And once I’d got past the thought that I wasn’t dreaming, that this was real, all I could think about was trying to kill myself. That was something I’d never thought about before. Never. Kill myself? I love living. Loved…”

  I had nothing to say, so I drank.

  “About twenty-four hours after it started I was almost completely covered in scales. Now he was very happy. He gave me a sleeping draught, and when I woke up we were in that place.”

  “Ashbrittle?”

  “Yes.”

  “And during that time?”

  “It was hell. I had weeks of despair. I was scared of myself. What do people say about being scared of your own shadow? I’d look at my reflection in a window and scream. I slept all day and half the night. I couldn’t stand up for longer than five minutes without nodding off. My concentration went and the potion he dosed me with made me bleed pus.” She looked at her glass and pushed it away.

  “But one day he got the dose right and I began to feel better. Better inside, anyway. I’d still look at myself and want to throw up, but then I thought…”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought I’d beat him. I was still tired, but I promised myself I’d escape. I tried a couple of times, but never got further than the door. The door…” she said and she suddenly dropped her head. She took a deep heaving breath, but it sounded like the air would not go down. She rattled and gasped and gripped the table.

  “Isabel?”

  She shook her head, held her stomach and retched.

  “Are you sick?”

  “I can’t…” She took another huge breath.

  “Isabel?”

  “Can’t…”

  “Isabel?”

  “Aaah…” she gasped again, then stopped and doubled up.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She retched again, gulped and hissed, “I…”

  “What?”

  “I…”

  I reached across the table and touched her arm. She pulled it away.

  “Help…”

  “Isabel…”

  “Help me…”

  “What do you need?”

  “I need…” She gasped. “Need…”

  “Yes?”

  “Need to get out…”

  “What is it?”

  “I need my stuff…” she said and she doubled up again. Her head slumped forward and banged on the table. A couple of people looked towards us, but the place was busy and we were just another couple who might have had too much to drink. I put my arm around her shoulders, covered her face with the scarf, slapped the hat on her head and guided her through the crowds, out of the snug and into the street.

  As soon as we were outside, she started to panic and shake, and her hands flapped like wings in front of her face. I put my arms around her and helped her down the road, and although she managed to contain herself, by the time we reached Highbury Corner she was trembling, whimpering and rubbing her arms. People were staring at us and giving us plenty of room, and when we were across the road and onto the Fields I said, “Almost there.” She looked up, broke away and ran through the trees. I lost her behind them and saw her again as she dashed back across the road and through the gate to my building.

  She was sitting on her haunches, sobbing and slapping her knees. The light from the gas lamps was fanning through the bushes that surrounded the front door. She had taken the hat off, and the scales that covered her head and ran down her back were winking. I opened the door, put my hands under her arms, picked her up and carried her the two flights to my rooms.

  She weighed nothing. I could feel her bones through her clothes and her breath against my cheek. It was hot and smelt of eggs and sherry. I sat her on the floor outside my door, picked her up again, stumbled over the mat, slammed my knee against the hall table, laid her on the settle, fetched the bag from the kitchen and knelt down beside her.

  “Phial,” she said, “and I need a syringe.”

  I put one of the phials on the floor and took out a syringe. It was big and cold and bright, and the needle was long. I said, “You want me to fill it?”

  “I can’t.”

  “How much?”

  “Up to twenty-five.”

  “I haven’t done this before,” I said, and as I did, her legs stiffened and foam started to bubble from her mouth. Her eyes rolled back, the muscles in her neck bulged and then she screamed. I had heard her scream before, but never so close, and never like this. For a moment I thought it was going to burst my ears and pop my eyes, and as it carried on and would not stop I waited for her head to explode
and the neighbours to start banging on the door. “Be calm,” I said, and as she stopped to take a breath I pushed the needle into the phial. The stuff inside smelt of the sickly-sweet smell of Hunt’s house in Somerset, and as it rushed into the syringe I said, “It’s coming…”

  She screamed again. The pictures on my walls shook.

  Twenty-five. I held it up to the light.

  “Tap the air out…”

  I tapped the syringe.

  “Tap!”

  I tapped it again.

  “There.” She pulled up her coat and dress and pointed at her thigh. “Here…”

  I tapped the syringe again, and when she was still, I rubbed a spot on her thigh, about halfway between her waist and her knee. “Here?”

  She nodded, and I found a place between two scales. I looked at the spot and touched it. The scales there were like little flattened brown seeds. They shone when I rubbed them. I looked up at her face. It was glistening with tears, and as she opened her mouth and threw her head back, foam flew away and sprayed across the carpet. I pushed the needle against her.

  It took a moment’s pressure to break the skin, but then it was in. I pushed the plunger, and as the liquid disappeared the scream faded to a sigh, her head dropped and she began to relax. It took a minute, but then her arms went limp, her legs next and then the rest of her body. Her breathing began to slow to normal and she let out a series of long whimpering cries. Her eyes closed and her head tipped away; she gasped and then made a long, whistling sound. Gently, down and down and she was still.

  I sat beside her and stroked her hand. I whispered the first foolish words that came into my head, something like “Easy, easy…” and a couple of minutes later she opened her eyes, wiped the tears from her face and the spit from her mouth and pushed herself up. I said, “Hello…”

  “David.”

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Better?” she said.

  “That’s the wrong question. Sorry.”

  She smiled. “No. It’s a normal question. I’m not used to normal questions. I haven’t been asked many lately.” She took a deep, wheezing breath. “And I haven’t asked any.”