Isabel's Skin

by Peter Benson

  On the far side of the road was a row of tall houses, all fronted with gardens – some smart, some overgrown. I approached the first, looked over the wall, and called his name. “Timothy?” There was no reply, so I walked to the next, and the next, and the next, calling all the time, parting the branches of the bushes and trees and peering down. At one house, curtains twitched and a man’s sleepy face appeared. He stared at me, opened the window and shouted out, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Looking for a friend.”

  “Well he’s not here,” said the man, “so get on with you,” and he slammed the window and watched as I made my way farther down the road to a small park.

  I strolled through the fallen leaves, around a couple of weedy flower beds and a pigeoned statue. I was beginning to experience the woolly feeling I get if I rise too early, and was thinking about returning home when I found him. He was sleeping on the grass beneath a bench, covered in a soiled coat, with a brown woollen hat on his head and a scarf around his neck. For a moment I thought I had simply found another tramp, but when I said his name, he stirred and I recognized his eyes. They were hidden in a face that had changed from the one I’d known in Edinburgh. He had a rough beard and a livid scar that disfigured his forehead, and his lips were rough and peeling, but his eyes were still blue and almost bright. I crouched down and put my hand to his shoulder. He flinched.

  “Timothy?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “David. David Morris.”

  He sat up, leant on the bench and squinted at me. I thought he was going to smile, but he did not. He simply shook his head and said, “Do I know you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’re friends.”

  He almost laughed. “I have no friends.”

  “Yes you do.”

  Now his eyes flared, and he scratched his beard and raised his voice. “No! I have none,” and he hauled himself to his feet, staggered, reached out and turned. I stood and tried to put my hand on his arm, but he brushed me off and started to walk away. He stopped and looked towards the theatre, and a terrible look swept across his face. I thought he was going to cry, to break down and confess something to me, but his mouth hardened and he said, “No friends, no one.”

  “Timothy?”

  He looked at me, and now I think he recognized me. I think he remembered how we had been friends, and I think he saw us in the streets and bars of Edinburgh, talking about fathers and futures and books, and he stopped. “David?” he said. “Maybe I do remember a David.”

  “Good,” I said, and I put my hand on his arm again, and said, “Can I buy you a cup of tea?”

  He thought about this, looked towards the theatre again and said, “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “I know you are,” I said, “but I’m sure you’ve got time for an old friend.”

  A half-smile crept onto his face, he looked down at my hand and said, “I would enjoy something hot.”

  “Then come with me,” I said, and we walked down towards Exmouth Market, and found a steamy café with little tables and a friendly woman who brought us our tea and some bacon rolls.

  Timothy ate as though he had not eaten for days, and when he had finished, I bought him another roll, and he ate that just as quickly. Then he took some tea, leant back, loosened his coat and said, “I was hungry.”

  I drank some of my tea. “What happened to you? What happened to the novel?”

  “What novel?”

  “The one you were writing.”

  “Oh, that one.” He looked at me, looked at the floor, looked towards the window and then looked back at me. “It’s over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I found another interest.”

  “A woman?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, “a woman,” and a mad splinter cut his right eye. “A beautiful woman.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Barbara. She’s an actress.”

  “And you think you’re going to impress her by sleeping under a park bench?”

  “I don’t want to impress her.”

  “No?”

  “I just want to love her.”

  “Of course you do,” I said.

  “And I want her to love me.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Wait for her. Wait for her to understand.”

  “And what would your father think about that?”

  “I don’t know. Nor do I care. He’s washed his hands of me.”

  I shook my head, drank some tea, watched him drink his and said, “You can’t give up.”

  “I know.”

  “Then go home, clean yourself up, find a fresh shirt…”

  He held his hand up. “Home? Shirt?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He almost smiled, and now I realized I was wasting my time. Friendship cannot be friendship without honesty. It crawls away, hides behind a rock and peeps out from behind its fingers. I said, “I think you’re a coward.”

  “I don’t care what you think.”

  “Admit it, Timothy. There was a time when you’d have agreed with me. Not that you’d remember.”

  “I remember,” he said, “and when I look at you, look at what you’ve done, I thank God I am who I am. I never wanted your sort of life. I mean to say, do you ever ask yourself what you really want? Do you ever look in the mirror and think, ‘I don’t want this grey face, this grey work, this grey place?’”

  “I…”

  “I’m free, David.”

  “Free to spend your days obsessing about a woman you’ll never have?”

  “At least I obsess about something.”

  “And you know I don’t?”

  “Now you’re contradicting yourself,” he said, and he swallowed the last of his tea, stood up, pushed his chair away and went for the door. I dropped some coins onto the table and followed him outside, and as we stood in the street he said, “Did you really think you could help me?”

  “I don’t know what I thought.”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Help yourself, David,” and he turned away and left me.

  Maybe I should have followed him and pleaded with him to come back with me, or I could have pressed money into his hand, but I watched him walk away and disappear, and although I might have thought I had failed a friend, I did not.

  I believe Timothy was a warning to me, and maybe he was right. He gave me a gift, a precious thing, one he could not open himself. We are all changed, some by events, others by our own nature, others by force of will. You choose your course, and only you can save yourself. No God, no words, no actress, no dance. It is not easy to alter fate, but it is possible. Once he had told me he was going to do good in the world, and maybe he would. And as I walked away from Exmouth Market and took the streets back to Highbury, I felt a new resolve come down upon me, like a spirit from heaven, or whatever paradise sparkled in the grey of the city and my slowly blooming mind.

  In the afternoon, I called on William at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He said he had been trying to find me. Where had I been? What had I be doing? I did not say, but I did say that he did not have to do any more work on the stuff I had given him. The time had passed.

  “You’re as mysterious as this,” he said, taking the phial from a glass cabinet, holding it to the light, shaking it and putting it on his desk. “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s a long story. Too long.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Not today.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s complicated. And you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Later,” I said.

  “I think you should tell me.”

  “I can’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Well…” he said, and he picked up the phial again and squinted at it. “It’s the strangest stuff I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some strange stuff.” He open
ed a drawer and pulled out a sheaf of notes. “I won’t confuse you – God knows I’m confused enough myself – but so far I’ve found a number of acids, irons” – he paused and shuffled some notes – “and a range of vitamins. These are easy to identify, but there are other things in there. Strange, unusual solutions. I found traces of Lubritol, and that gave me a clue…”

  “What’s Lubritol?”

  “Well…”

  “Tell me.”

  He looked at me and scratched his chin. “I assume you know what metastasis is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then put two and two together.”

  “And get what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not responding to any of the standard tests. Clues, hunches, they’re one thing. Empirical truth, that’s what I need.”

  “William?”

  I think he anticipated my question and interrupted before I could ask it. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m a scientist, David. I’ll need a few more days, but I can’t guarantee anything. As I said, it’s strange stuff.” He shuffled his notes again. “Can I ask; why does your friend take it?”

  “She had a skin complaint.”

  “Had?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she doesn’t have it any more?”

  “No.”

  “It cleared up on its own?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning…” I said, but I could not finish the sentence. The words stuck in my throat like thorns, the memories shattered and scattered, and when I looked at the floor I thought I could see them flapping at my feet like stranded fish. I stood up. “Thank you for your work, William. Keep it,” I said, pointing at the phial, “if you want.”

  “Well…” And now he gave me a look of the deepest concern and said, “You know, David, if you want to talk about this, I’d be happy to listen. More than happy.”

  “I don’t think happy comes into it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, and I took a ten-pound note from my pocket and put it on his desk, and before he could say anything else I said, “For your trouble.”

  “That’s very generous…”

  “Give it to your orphans,” I said, and an hour later I was on a railway train, travelling away from the city, a bag on the luggage rack and my eyes closed against the world.

  The fields and orchards were being harvested, and the smell of apples and hops filled the air. When I reached Canterbury, my father was waiting for me. We sat in his sitting room and watched the river beneath the window, talked about the books he had been reading, and when he went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea, he asked me what I had been doing. I told him about Ashbrittle and the Buff-Orpington collection, and I told him I had visited Norfolk, but I said nothing about Isabel. Then he said, “Would you like to hear my news?”

  “Yes please.”

  “It might surprise you.” His eyebrows went up and a twinkle appeared in his left eye.

  “Please, Father,” I said. “Surprise me,” expecting him to tell me he was learning German.

  “I’ve taken up archery.”

  I laughed. “You, Father? Bows and arrows?”

  “Yes, David. Me.”

  “And to think,” I said, “you used to hate games. You used to say they were the Devil’s work.”

  “There are games and there are games,” he said, “and archery is different.”

  “How?”

  He smiled, and his grey, drawn face was lighter than I had ever seen it. “Because it’s more than a game. It’s a battle with someone else and yourself, and it’s a punishment that can give you such a feeling of joy. When you draw the string and feel the bow strain, and the arrow flies away from you…” His eyes rolled back and he looked at the ceiling before looking back at me. “Yes. It’s more than a game. And of course, you meet so many interesting people.”

  “Good Lord!” I said, and then I stopped myself. When I was a child, using the creator’s name as an exclamation would have led to a severe punishment, but now he smiled as he poured the tea and asked me if I was courting. I was surprised again – he had never asked such a personal question – so I said I was seeing someone, and although we had only known each other for a few weeks we had already been through a great deal together.

  “When can I meet her?”

  “I don’t know, father.”

  “And where does she live?”

  “Dorset.”

  “Ah, Dorset. What a beautiful county. Sometimes I wonder if I should have moved to Dorset.” He smiled at the thought. “Anywhere we know?”

  “Charmouth.”

  “That’s on the coast, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does she do?”

  “She was an assistant to a scientist.”

  “She must be very clever.”

  “She was,” I said. “She was very clever.”

  “Was?”

  “Is, I mean,” I said, but before he could ask me where we met or what our plans were, I changed the subject and told him I was thinking about resigning from Mitchell’s but did not know what I wanted to do next.

  “But I thought you loved your work.”

  “I used to.”

  “So what has happened?”

  “Things.”

  “What kind of things, David? Explain.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  “But you will tell me when you’re ready?”

  “Of course, Father.”

  “Good,” he said, and he poured the tea.

  I had planned to take the train to Salisbury and stay the night in a hotel, but when my father suggested I stay with him I said I would. “Good boy,” he said. “This definitely calls for a glass of whisky.”

  “You drink whisky?”

  “Yes.”

  I shook my head. “What else do you do now?”

  “Ah...” he said, and he tapped the side of his nose. “We shall not all sleep…”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Yes. Whisky and archery,” and he pulled out two glasses and a bottle of Glenturret. “Do you remember Crieff?”

  How could I forget Crieff? A holiday when I was about nine, a year before my mother died. We stayed in the Hydro, and spent the time walking the hills between the lowlands and the highlands.

  If smell is the closest sense to memory, then my memories of Scotland are pine forests, wet grass and the distillery by a river, the woods and a bubbling stream. A famous cat lived there, and the smell of the stills and barrels and barley clung to my nostrils, and my mother’s dress blew around my face as I stood and listened to a woman talk about the water of life, and as we walked home Father explained that the true water of life came from God, and the ground was wet and the trees dripped.

  “I never realized,” he said, “that in moderation this could be such a fine drink.” He held the bottle up to the light, poured two glasses, raised his to mine and we drank until the sun went down and a cold wind picked up, blew down the river and rattled the windows

  We talked about things we had never talked about before – school, work, my mother, disappointments – but when his eyes started to droop and I started to feel a green mist in my blood, I said it was time for bed, and he agreed. As we stood at the bottom of the stairs, he reached out, patted my shoulder and said he was proud of me and the things I had done. Then he leant towards me and kissed my forehead. I had never felt his lips before, and as they touched my skin, I felt a flutter in my heart, the tremble of love. I think I had always loved him in the way a son loves his father, but this was different, unconditional and ready to battle.

  “Father…” I said, but that is all I could say.

  “It’s a miracle,” he slurred, and although I did not ask why he thought it was, I knew why I thought it was. And when I lay down to sleep on the day bed, tucked up with a blanke
t, my memories became my dreams.

  In the morning, I said goodbye to my father at his door and promised to see him the following month. We hesitated, but we put our arms around each other before parting, and then I walked the mile to the station and caught the train to Salisbury. I stopped in the old town to eat a pie and look at the cathedral. As I sat and ate, the flat noon light tried to diminish the stone, and I watched some masons working on the roof of the building. They were carrying sacks of tools, and stopped when they reached a corner. One of them pointed to a line of carvings and shouted something to the others. His voice carried to where I was sitting, but I did not hear what he said. I watched them for ten more minutes, the light failed and I walked back through the town. I stopped to look in a few shop windows, but I did not go in the second-hand bookshop I passed. I did not even give the dog-eared books in boxes a second look. Some old habits might die hard, but others have unexpected heart attacks and drop dead in old English cathedral cities, and even if you wanted to, there is nothing you can do about it. Habits cannot lose weight and they do not exercise, and they always spend too much time lying around with their feet up, smoking.

  I hired a gig, took the Shaftesbury road and stopped at the top of the drive to my old school. Term had not started, and the playing fields were green and pure. The buildings were quiet and closed. The leaves on the trees were turning. I remembered the corridors, the classrooms and Russeter. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning like it had always done, and I thought of how I had walked that drive and wondered how life would turn out.

  I drove on, through Dorset, over the hills and the glimpses of ocean until I saw the first signs for Charmouth. When I reached the village, I left the gig with a boy who said he loved horses and walked down to the sea. I stood and watched people walking along the beach, heads down, looking for fossils. I shivered at the sea, turned and headed back the way I had come.