Second Skin

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘God, Mum, you sound as if you’re still high!’

  She grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back to normal soon enough. I’m going on a junk-shop tour tomorrow to stock up for the stall, and I’ll need my wits about me then, to spot the best bargains.’

  ‘Heavens, Mum, I’ve just noticed the time. Your phone bill’s going to be astronomical. That’ll sober you up when it arrives!’

  Catherine laughed. In spite of the expense, she felt she could talk endlessly about the new astounding world she had glimpsed, and was reluctant to ring off. Poor Kate – she had phoned for reassurance and got a mother in full flood. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I went off at rather a tangent. We were talking about that poor cyclist. I only hope I haven’t added to the shock.’

  ‘No, I feel loads better, to tell the truth. It’s helped take my mind off death. Oh, and by the way, I’m afraid I won’t be able to phone you on Dad’s actual anniversary. We’re going on a camping trip that week.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘But I expect you’ll be with Andrew, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to the crematorium?’

  ‘Well that’s the plan, but I’m not awfully keen, to be honest. I hate the place. And I have a horrible feeling Daddy doesn’t like it either. It’s funny, I’m sitting here with his photo on my lap. I was just trying to decide what to do with it when you rang.’

  ‘Why, don’t you want it?’

  ‘It’s not that. We’re … just a bit short of space.’

  ‘Well, you can always bung him in a Jiffy-bag and send him to me. I’ve only got a few snapshots of him and they’re getting terribly faded.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll put it in the post first thing in the morning. Let’s hope it doesn’t take four months again.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Listen, before I say goodbye, how’s Grandma?’

  ‘Not quite so stiff, thank heavens. The new pills seem to be helping.’ Now they were back to reality: crematoria, arthritis.

  ‘Well, give her my love, won’t you. I take it she and Grandpa are going to the crematorium as well?’

  ‘Yes, all the tribe. I suppose it’ll become an annual pilgrimage. Poor Daddy. I wish now that I’d scattered his ashes on stage at some theatre or other.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a thought. Why not go to the theatre? For his anniversary.’

  ‘What do you mean? What theatre?’

  ‘Any one you like. Well, no – try and choose somewhere connected with Dad. Book seats for the seventeenth and celebrate his life instead of mourning him.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t, darling. The others would be horrified.’

  ‘Stuff the others. Go on your own. And make it a comedy, or at least something fairly light. I’m sure Dad would rather you spent the day laughing, not mooning around some morbid graveyard.’

  Catherine smiled. The idea was crazy – typical of Kate, though. ‘Oh, darling, I do love you. But you’re right – I must ring off.’ She dreaded to think what the call had cost. The last phone bill had been bad enough. ‘And don’t forget, take it easy for the rest of the day. No more tearing about on those dangerous roads.’

  ‘And don’t you forget, either, Mum, book that theatre ticket. And make it the front stalls – really go to town for once. I’ll be with you in spirit and give you a wave from my tent. ‘Bye. Good luck!’

  Catherine put the phone down, feeling almost light-headed again. Perhaps she would go to the theatre, crazy idea or no. It would do her good to spend Gerry’s second anniversary laughing instead of crying. She picked up his photo. He was laughing too, as if he approved of the proposal. She smiled back at him, surprised to realize how much less painful it was to look at his picture. Time did heal.

  As she hunted for a Jiffy-bag for the photo, she decided to enclose a copy of Will’s poem on death. It expressed things better than she could, and would also give Kate an idea of his work. Then she’d do nothing else all afternoon except lie on the bed and luxuriate, if not in ecstasy, then peace – peace with Will and Kate and God and all the world.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Catherine pushed the heavy glass doors and walked in with a frisson of excitement. It was so long since she’d been here, she had forgotten how fond she was of the place. More than just a theatre, it seemed a treasure-house full of entertainments. She stopped in the foyer to listen to a duet on flute and grand piano; the pianist an intense Byronic-looking fellow whose slender hands caressed the keys sensuously; the flautist a willowy girl in a waft of flower-sprigged silk. Their sprightly music followed her as she strolled across the foyer and up the stairs. After the free recital below, she found a free exhibition on the first floor: moody black and white photographs of writers of the twenties.

  While she stood admiring them, a man brushed her arm and apologized, holding her eye for longer than was necessary. Already she had attracted other glances, perhaps due to her clingy hot-pink dress, bought in Gerry’s honour – second-hand, of course, but striking, none the less.

  The clock said quarter to one – time to eat before the show began. The Terrace Cafe was one floor above and overlooked the river. It wasn’t cheap, but Kate had sent her a cheque, clipped to a scribbled note: ‘Mum, this is for the 17th. I’ll be thinking of you all day.’ The amount was considerably more than her daughter could afford and the gesture had touched her deeply.

  A waiter met her at the entrance to the cafe. ‘Just one, madam?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Just one’, maybe, but she didn’t feel alone – not when Kate was with her in spirit.

  ‘I’ll sit outside if I may,’ she said, noticing several picnic-style tables already occupied. It was perfect weather for eating on the terrace: the warm sun tempered by a skittish breeze. Besides, she wanted to look down at the spot where she and Gerry had sat twenty years ago. The National Theatre was new then, and famously controversial, and they had come from the north to see it for themselves, booking seats for a matinée. They had travelled by coach on a day-return – an unaccustomed break from work and children. Six months later they were back, this time to see a friend of Gerry’s playing Lucilius in Julius Caesar. A minor role, admittedly, but a tremendous achievement for Christopher. ‘Your turn next,’ she had said to Gerry, but in less than two years he was tethered to a desk, selling cut-price office furniture.

  The waiter seated her at an outside table and she looked eagerly over the balcony to the riverside below. Yes, there was the wooden bench – or one very similar. She could almost see herself and Gerry sitting side by side, munching their cheese sandwiches and drinking coffee from a flask. The whole trip was done on a shoestring: picnic lunch and seats up in the gods – but it had been a marvellous day. Travelling back on the coach, Gerry, elated by the performance, had poured out his hopes for the future; the parts he aimed to play; his refusal to give up even when those aims were thwarted. It was autumn then, the leaves on the plane trees beginning to fade and fall. Today they were luxuriantly green and rippling in the breeze. Beyond them lay the Thames, the colour of weak tea; above, a confidently blue sky and clouds like great white dollops of meringue. Motor launches were chugging past; red buses rumbling over the bridge; a lone seagull swooping low across the water.

  As the waiter returned she hurriedly scanned the menu for something Gerry would like – in other words, something rich and fattening. She sensed him here with her: an almost palpable presence; his voice animated as he waxed lyrical over sauces and desserts.

  ‘I’ll have the pasta in brandy cream sauce,’ she said, ‘and half a bottle of Sauvignon.’ Sometimes in their hard-up youth, they had shared a single glass of wine between them, but today she refused to feel guilty, either about splashing out, or about her family, or Will. They all disapproved of what she was doing, but she had decided to please herself – and Gerry.

  The people at the other tables were nearly all elderly, doubtless attracted by the special-offer matinée seats. Among the ranks of conventional grey perm
s, her own cropped head must stand out like a purple thistle in a field of shrivelled grass. How sad that Gerry would never make it to old age – although she couldn’t imagine his hair being anything but wildly black. Suddenly a siren wailed and she saw an ambulance speeding across the bridge. At once, she was back inside it, clutching Gerry’s cold hand. Had he been in pain at the moment of his death? Or terrified? Did he even know she was there? She had gone over it and over it in her mind, desperate to interpret his last choking sounds as some sort of message to her, a final word of love, perhaps. The harsh truth was, she would never know.

  ‘Your pasta, madam.’

  She started, wrenched herself back to the present.

  The waiter set down her bottle of wine and plate of sizzling pasta thatched with melted cheese and garnished with radicchio and roasted red and yellow peppers. ‘Enjoy,’ he said as he poured her wine.

  Yes, she thought, she would enjoy. But first, a toast. ‘To Kate,’ she murmured, picking up her glass. After all, it was her daughter who had saved her from that grisly crematorium.

  The attendant took her ticket. ‘Aisle two,’ he said. ‘Right down the front.’

  She smiled to herself. Following Kate’s advice, she had booked a seat in the front stalls, the very first row, in fact. Ironically, they were the cheapest seats in the house, so close to the stage they could give you a crick in the neck. But she had no objection. She liked the fact she could reach out and touch the stage. Also, she was sitting at the end of the row, which meant that the orchestra, too, were only a few feet away, positioned on raked seating above her, on the right. It gave her a sense of involvement, of belonging with the performers rather than the audience. Once you’d been married to an actor, you could never again sit through a play as a dispassionate observer. Not only were you conscious of the sheer hard graft that went into the production, but you actually got high on the players’ adrenalin or sweated blood with them.

  The orchestra started tuning up. She had a marvellous view of them: the portly clarinettist perspiring in his pink-striped shirt, the frail foreign-looking man dwarfed by his double bass. She had never seen A Little Night Music – she and Gerry rarely went to musicals – but it had been a matter of elimination. Of the three matinees at the National today, one was fully booked and the second some depressing thing about the conquest of the Incas, lasting four and three-quarter hours. This show boasted such adjectives as ‘sophisticated’, ‘sumptuous’ and ‘bitter-sweet’, and although it might be hype, she would still far rather be here than contemplating a mournful rosebush.

  The auditorium was filling and the murmur of conversation gradually increased in volume. An elderly couple settled themselves on her left, armed with programmes and a box of chocolates. They proceeded to read out snippets to each other, interspersed with comments on the relative merits of cream centres or nuts. The orchestra, still tuning, sounded like a multi-headed animal, bleating, growling, braying by turns, until suddenly the pianist raised his hand for silence, the house lights dimmed and the cast trooped on to the stage. Their costumes were, yes, sumptuous, and as they moved right down to the front she could see the intricate details of their make-up: elongated eyebrows, blue-mascara’d lashes, lipstick in cupid’s bows. Her palms were damp with nerves. She was back in her youth in her usual front-row seat, alert to every nuance of Gerry’s performance so that she could discuss it with him later; watching his every gesture and expression. But nerves gave way to excitement as the actors glided into a strange surrealistic waltz, continually changing partners, recoupling, pirouetting. The bewitching music soared and swirled, and she knew with absolute certainty that this was where she was meant to be today.

  The curtain calls were a feat of bravura in themselves: first the whole cast circling on a slowly revolving stage, then re-forming in two rows, then in pairs, then singly; the applause swelling with. each variation. And even after the house lights had come up, the orchestra continued playing a reprise of the main themes and were applauded in their turn.

  As the last clapping died away she remained motionless in her seat, not wanting to break the spell. People squeezed and jostled past, but only when the theatre was almost empty did she get up, and then reluctantly. She was on a high, too exhilarated to return tamely to the flat.

  She lingered in the foyer, drinking in the atmosphere, wishing she could afford to see more shows – toss aside her sewing, desert the market stall and enjoy a week of shameless indulgence. But no way could she spend more money – rather, she had to earn more, to make up for today. Just at present, though, she would continue with the illusion that she was a lady of leisure, like most of the women in the musical, whose main purpose in life seemed to be to titivate their hair and fall in love.

  She sauntered out of the main doors and walked towards the river. It was still a golden afternoon, the plane trees flecked with sunlight, the dark shadows of their dappled trunks criss-crossing the path. Skateboarders rattled by, lovers strolled arm in arm, children guzzled ice-cream cornets – everyone enjoying themselves. She stood by the railing and looked out at the water, its surface in constant shimmering motion, as if too excited to lie still. Across the river the skyline was a mishmash of architectural styles, from slender spires in sculpted stone to steel and concrete tower blocks. And here and there grey scaffolding and orange cranes signalled the embryo skyscrapers of the Millennium.

  She gazed at the scene, trying to regain that intensity of feeling she had experienced at the rave – a heightened perception of the present moment, the perfect astounding ‘now’. Today it wasn’t so difficult, released as she was from the demands of work and the distraction of other people. But during the past couple of weeks she had been, frankly, just too busy for any emotional or spiritual highs. Will’s resolve to turn over a new leaf had lasted all of three days. An urgent phone call from the Scrivener Press had sent him scurrying back to his desk: there wasn’t time for domestic trivia when Leonard Upjohn demanded still more poems.

  She watched a pigeon scavenging in the brown sludge at the river’s edge, pecking contentedly at every find; its very absorption in its task a demonstration of how to be. She shouldn’t even be thinking of Will – just luxuriating in this rare day off. Yet Will’s bad grace in agreeing to man the stall alone today had left her with a sour taste of resentment. He could write affecting poems about death in the abstract, but seemed unable to accept her need to mark the anniversary of one death in particular. And while he pursued his career as poet, she was marking time, fitting in with his needs rather than satisfying her own.

  She found herself humming one of the songs from the show, snatches of the words echoing in her head:

  Later,When is later?

  How can I wait around for later?

  Exactly what she was doing – postponing decisions, making no real effort to find another flat; merely working through the jobs each day, only to start again the next. Living in the ‘now’ was one thing, but not at the expense of her happiness and future.

  Though I’ve been born, I’ve never been.

  How can I wait around for later?

  I’ll be ninety on my death-bed.

  Or maybe forty-nine on her death-bed – like Gerry, who had never fulfilled his ambitions. If she kept waiting around for later she would never fulfil hers either. But it was so difficult without money, and if she took the line of least resistance and returned to an office job, it would leave her with still less freedom.

  On an impulse she turned and walked towards Gerry’s bench. Someone was already sitting there: a bespectacled young man, dressed entirely in black. He was engrossed in a book and didn’t so much as look up when she sat at the other end of the bench. She had no desire to read – it was enough simply to be for a while. Escaping from her duties today had made her realize how tired she was. Six months ago she had deliberately tried to change her life; now she wondered if she had merely exchanged one set of constraints for another. The rave had made her question things more deeply: fulfilm
ent, freedom, ‘reality’ – her own and other people’s.

  She jumped as a hooter brayed from the far bank. It was a motor launch, setting off from the quay, slicing a white furrow through the water. She watched until it vanished under the bridge, the choppy backwash gradually subsiding. It was like the process of mourning: the initial shock of grief cutting swift and deep, then continuing to churn, until little by little the ripples dwindled and the surface almost regained its lapping calm. Today, she realized, was a turning-point. In some way she couldn’t quite explain she had finally come to terms with Gerry’s loss. Of course it would always leave a scar, but she felt she had laid his ghost to rest. She hoped fervently that it would happen for Kate, too. Their last letters had crossed and, strangely, both of them had written on similar lines, expanding on their long phone call and the subjects of truth and death.

  She put her hands on her lap, palms uppermost, as if letting Gerry go; releasing him from the confines of that anonymous crematorium. Let him rest here instead, she thought – in death, if not in life – beside the theatre he loved.

  She gave a long, deep sigh – his final requiem.

  The man looked up from his book. ‘You English?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘Me Romanian.’

  ‘Oh … I see. Hello.’

  ‘Sergiu. My name.’

  She nodded, hoping he would resume his reading.

  ‘Your name?’ he asked, taking off his glasses to reveal lustrously dark eyes.