Perfect Skin

by Nick Earls

  But it is about the long term, I guess. Delaying my body’s fall, and its clunk. Piloting it to a soft landing. Staying well. What surprises me is the changes I can feel. I can feel my body working, and I used to take it for granted. Before, where I had the smoothed-out contours of skin, I’m now marked with the shapes of muscles. Muscles, working just under the surface, dense bundles of muscle, like the pictures in Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy.

  In our surface-anatomy tutes in first-year uni, I was all bony prominences and tendons. Now I’ve filled in the rest, given substance to it, at least in my legs. I could stand in one of those tutes demonstrating the different parts of the quadriceps femoris, or two clear heads of gastrocnemius, instead of being a fine example of the nobbliness of knees.

  When I started running, I felt like crap every time. Every wheezy, mucousy second. Now I can get a rhythm going, a sense of my own mechanics. Working parts, working like a machine, carrying me along, clearing my head. It’s as though I’ve never operated inside my body before, never understood it or known its signals, until now. Just got through the day in it, and paid it no regard.

  But I can’t tell George that. It’d be like an alien language, so I have to keep it to myself. George, it feels good. It’s endorphins, it’s physiology. I don’t know what it is, but it feels good. It’s like feeling more alive. And one day I’ll go further.

  So my belt’s in two notches, my thighs are half like runners’ thighs. I’m the same weight, but it’s better weight. I’ll make myself into some lean old runníng man forty-one years from now. I’ll shake that over-seventy-five record yet, if my knees last. I can see myself out there, a snowy-haired, ropey old codger, trotting along.

  Mel hated grey hair. Hated the thought of it, hated each one she found as grey hairs broke out all over her head.

  I don’t mind grey, and I told her I was fine about the grey bits at my temples, happy to leave them alone. It’s a better hair colour than people give it credit for, I said to her, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  I want it to look natural, she said, but not old. I told her it didn’t matter – not to me, anyway. It simply didn’t matter. And, if she wanted to know, I actually thought it looked pretty good. She experimented with dyes, tentatively with semi-permanents, then committed to permanents, every six weeks calling herself a skunk as grey appeared round her centre part. And then she’d dye again. I don’t want to look old.

  17

  Anyway, I remember George’s clunk in the middle of last year. The only clunk he had then was nothing to do with age and, at the time, he even tried to call it sports medicine.

  One day there’ll be Nintendo at the Olympics, he said defiantly, as he went off to a physio appointment. And who’ll be laughing then?

  He had four treatments before the frozen shoulder got much better, and he was instructed never to stay up playing video games till 3 a.m. again.

  But I was in the groove, he told the physio. In the zone. You don’t think I meant to stay up till 3 a.m., do you?

  At lunchtime on Thursday, Flag’s still hanging on, still racking up excellent cat ICU bills of hundreds of dollars a night. With Katie maintaining a vigil, reading him stories, playing him his favourite music. And, yes, Wendy used the word ‘vigil’. And said, I don’t have to tell you which decade it is that’s pulsing through the Walkman and into that little feline brain.

  George tells me Oscar’s got a lunch thing, when the two of us sit down to eat. So he won’t be joining us today. Probably just one of those lunch-friend events, not a date. It’s Justin, so not a date. Oz still wants to pretend there’s nothing going on there but poetry. So maybe it’s a poetry-friend thing. Is that a category?

  I don’t know. I’m not the category expert. Poetry and cake-making, maybe? All I know is that there’s no category where you should turn up in darkness to dump flowers. Where’s Nigel?

  Swimming.

  By himself?

  I’m having a day off.

  So how many times have you been now?

  In total?

  Yeah.

  Two. Or thereabouts. But I don’t think it helps to count. I’m sure I read that in a book about exercise. Hey, I liked your running buddy.

  I figured we’d get round to that.

  Well, why not? You will go bringing her along . . .

  She just turned up. She was bored. She doesn’t know a lot of people. Bringing her along doesn’t mean anything.

  Then don’t go crazy and make it look like it does. I was just saying I liked her. Smart kind of girl. Knew how to put shit on you about that swirly-tie phase. Even if it finished when she was about ten.

  Started when she was about ten, I correct him, and he laughs. Look, she’s in her twenties. Or around that. And you’re getting it wrong, anyway. This is not some Lolita thing.

  Well, no. Not that you’ve read Lolita, since it’d be slightly too big.

  Good point.

  You could at least have seen the film.

  I was busy.

  If you’d seen it you’d know there’s a critical difference, as far as the age issue goes. Yours is technically an adult. People might still think you’re a dirty old scumbag, but they’d be way out of line if they mentioned Nabokov.

  Thanks for the support. But it’s not like that anyway.

  Why not? You can’t say she’s not your type.

  I don’t have a type.

  Sure you do.

  The whole business of ‘type’ sucks. It’s discriminatory.

  So, what, you just pick anyone at random? Is that how it’s supposed to work? Raffle yourself? Give them all a turn?

  Yeah, right, and that’d take ages. You’re flattering me with the concept of ‘all’. And look at the women I’ve been involved with. There’s no type.

  There’s a type. It’s just bimodal in distribution. You’ve got the petite, dark-haired type, then you’ve got the taller, willowier, blonde type.

  Doesn’t that mean I don’t have a type?

  No, you’re just confusing people by having two. You look like someone without a type, but you’ve always had them both.

  Yeah, but it’s not as simple as type at the moment, anyway, is it? And you’ve got it wrong. It’s not happening. That’s actually the best thing about it. It’s not happening. There’s no pressure to make it happen.

  Don’t have to squish any of her pets . . .

  Hey, they’ve got to learn. If they keep emailing.

  Such a waste of a good fantasy if it’s not happening. Some young pony takes an interest and you let her down.

  This isn’t about an interest. You don’t get it, and don’t waste your time trying to. And her demographic isn’t even part of my fantasy landscape.

  Okay, so who’s there in the fantasy landscape?

  God, I don’t know. Helen Hunt, I suppose, if I’ve got to name someone. Yeah. She projects that kind of appealing vulnerability, she’s smart, very high babe coefficient, and she’s even my age. How respectable is that?

  It’s pretty respectable. And a type-two fantasy for you.

  Jodie Foster.

  Also type-two.

  Helen Hunt or Jodie Foster early on a bad-hair day in men’s flannel pyjamas . . . Or is that a bit more specific than you’d like?

  No. No, it’s good. It was slightly more specific than I was expecting, but it’s not bad at all. Of course, I’m assuming you wouldn’t actually enforce the dress code. I mean, I’d take either of them if they turned up dressed like a one-day cricket umpire.

  What about you, then? Fantasy-landscape-wise?

  We’re not sure where we stand at the moment at our place. Since Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow broke up, and that’s ages ago. The Oz Man and I had a double-date fantasy thing happening.

  I check my emails after lunch, for the first time today. The weasel stamps his foot, but all I can see of his complaints before I click LATER is, I’ve tried everything with you . . .

  Go away till later, I’m thinking, but more calmly
this time. Let me work you out later, when I can work out exactly what it is I get from a Window Weasel, and decide whether or not I want it. I’m too busy now to fit it into my head. To work out if I want the shloopy noise.

  I have three emails, one from George, one from my father, one about a web-site update. Am I on the website mailing lists because of George too? I don’t ever recall being interested enough to put myself on them.

  I open his email first because it has You’ll really have to do this in the subject column. Which I’m sure I won’t, but the others looked even less compelling.

  You must follow the rules on this one exactly, otherwise it won’t work. It’s really scary how this works out. NO CHEATING!!!!

  First, get a pen and paper.

  Second, write the numbers one through six, leaving some space in between the numbers.

  Next to number one, write any number . . .

  Next to number two, write the name of anyone you are really attracted to . . .

  Next to three, write down the first colour you can think of . . .

  Next to number four, write the name of your first pet . . .

  Next to numbers five and six, write down the name of a family member . . .

  Remember . . . no cheating . . .

  Keep scrolling down . . .

  Don’t cheat, or you’ll be upset . . .

  Here’s the answers . . .

  So why do I really have to do this one, after the trouble I’ve gone to not to do the last dozen or so?

  I open the email from my father, and it’s mainly about a particularly good unwooded chardonnay. As if I haven’t had more than enough trouble with those lately. He tells me they’ll be back tonight.

  Out of routine, I check again as I’m going off-line. There’s one from Ash that’s just come through.

  Hey Jon, thanks for including me last night. Had a great time. I think you’ve known your friends too long for your own good though. Particularly George.

  I’ve been – maybe you noticed this, maybe you didn’t – in a pretty bad mood sometimes the last couple of days. If I’m bugging you being around a lot, you have to tell me. I’m trying to meet more people down here, but it’s not working out yet. So most of the time it’s just me hanging round this big, old, crappy house. If I’ve pushed into your life you have to let me know.

  If I’m getting this wrong, let me know that too.

  A

  I call her right away but she’s still on-line, so I can’t get through.

  I take another look at the George email, the test I really have to do. I get a pen and paper and write the numbers one to six on it, and I keep hitting Redial. Eventually she answers.

  You’re getting it wrong, I tell her. As someone who spends a lot of his time hanging round a big, old, moderately crappy house, I know it’s not the most fun thing to do. And you’re not pushing in anywhere.

  Good. That’s good. I was just . . . hmmm, you know.

  Well, don’t worry. And don’t stop bugging me, whatever you do.

  Okay.

  What are you doing this evening?

  I’ve got lectures till six. I’m just about to go back to uni now.

  Well, how about I meet you after that? After your last lecture. I think I’ve got your timetable on my desktop, so I should be able to find you.

  There’s a short silence, and then she says, Yeah, that’d be nice.

  Once she’s hung up, I read through her email again. I want to be with her now, rather than wait till six. I click it shut, and George’s test is sitting open underneath.

  So I go to my piece of paper and I put six, Ash, red, Fish (I was very young then, and not good with names – if only Fish had been something other than a fish, the whole process would look much cleverer), Lily, Jim, and I check the answers.

  The number next to number one shows how many times you should be smashed over the head with a baseball bat for thinking that stupid emails like this actually mean anything.

  The person named next to number two is someone who will never sleep with you because you’re stupid enough to waste your time on something like this.

  The colour you picked means nothing. It’s a friggin’ colour, for Christ’s sake.

  Number four gives you the name of a dead animal.

  Numbers five and six represent family members who are embarrassed to be related to you.

  Pass this on to everyone you know, so they can feel like a gobshite too.

  Thanks very much, George.

  But it’s true enough, I suppose. At least in part. Fish didn’t end up doing so well. My parents already had a cat before I came along, and Fish’s tenure at our place was brief. Hubble was not a nice cat. He was tough and amoral and unfriendly, and could have worn the name ‘Motherfucker’ better than any pet I’ve known since.

  Okay, it’s answer number two I’m steering clear of. She was on my mind at the time, the obvious choice. And how could I not be drawn to her in some way? How could she not start to matter in some way?

  Fuck. It was like a secret, being kept from me until I wrote it down. I could tell myself I wasn’t thinking about her every day, because I was with her for part of every day, so it didn’t count. You have to think about people you’re with. George – I think about George practically every day.

  Mainly, I wonder why he keeps emailing me this shit. But George doesn’t cross my mind at night. George isn’t part of the turbulence, all this wondering what I’m supposed to feel, entitled to feel, going to feel. George isn’t someone whose happiness came to matter to me in three weeks. I am not, whatever happens, in any danger of falling for George at all.

  I go back on-line, get to a search engine and find my way to Halliday Tea. I order a kilo, I click the Express box, I give them my Visa card number.

  Then Sylvia’s at my door. Jon, you’ve been quite good all week.

  Just checking emails, I say quickly, like someone who’s been caught writing notes in class.

  Ash’s lecture is over when I get there.

  Hi, she says. We finished at five to. Hi, Bean. And she offers a finger for Lily’s waving hand to clutch. What am I doing? Am I getting anywhere with all this? She waves to the huge sandstone buildings around the Great Court. Do you have days when you wonder that?

  Plenty. Plenty of my days are the same as all my other days and therefore, by definition, get me nowhere. That ‘every day in every way I’m getting better and better’ thing? It’s not possible. You can’t even keep it up till you’re a month old. I’ve had, like, ten thousand days now, and I must have improved on twenty of them at most. Three or four of them while at this campus.

  And none in your first few weeks?

  Exactly. Let me show you my favourite thing here, I say to her, as though I’ll win the hand by playing an ace. Well, maybe that’s creating a bit much of an air of excitement, but come and see it anyway.

  I take her across the Great Court, to the Parnell Building, to the display case just inside the door. The pitch experiment set up in the twenties by the university’s first physics professor. He mixed the pitch and sealed it until it cooled and was apparently set, then he upturned the funnel and began a 170-year demonstration that pitch isn’t solid. That it looks completely hard, but it’s still viscous and flowing. In the experiment it drips out of the bottom of the funnel, but years pass between drips.

  I got my whole degree between the third last and the second last, I tell her. It often falls on weekends, and no-one’s ever seen one fall. For the last year or so, it’s been about to go.

  So what was he thinking? Ash says. He knew his physics. He must have known his great-grandchildren wouldn’t see the end of this experiment.

  I hold the Bean up to the glass, and she slaps it with her hands, and makes a noise that says she knows there’s something going on. Something in the case that I think’s worthy of attention.

  So was that to demonstrate the virtues of patience? Showing me this?

  No. I’m not a demonstrator of vir
tues. It was me showing you something I liked.

  Good. I like it. It’s sort of like a very slow black lava lamp.

  This was about the speed Professor Parnell liked his lava lamps, I hear. The sight of grass growing used to really trouble him.

  She laughs at this try-hard joke. Thanks. Thanks for coming out here. I’m going to sound like such a . . . I don’t know. I come from a pretty small place, so people know each other there. Automatically. Sometimes too well, but . . . Okay, Cairns wasn’t like that, but it wasn’t like this. And it wasn’t far from home, and I got to know people there. I come from a place with a couple of hundred people. Not even Atherton, which has a few thousand. And we didn’t have famous hippy craft markets, or anything. It was agricultural. And my weekend tours were pretty simple. The only souvenir we sold was tea. We’ve been debating for a year now about whether there’d be enough business to make it worth doing our own postcard. So all this, down here, is taking more adjusting to than I’d expected. That’s what I was trying to say earlier. Of course, now you’ve shown me the black blob thing, so . . .

  Okay, so it didn’t fix much.

  No, I’m kidding. I’m glad you showed me the black blob thing. I like it. Enough of my mood. What did you do today?

  I’ll show you. Let me show you.

  I take her to work. I take her to Toowong and I buy a large hand of bananas in Coles, and then I take her to work.

  Okay, she says. I’m guessing, but I think you played with a monkey today.

  No, I had my usual kind of day, and this is how it goes.

  I fit a new handpiece to the laser, give her glasses to wear and put mine on too, and I laser a banana.

  It’s what I started on, I tell her. This is what you get to do before they let you loose on humans.

  She asks me how I know how deep to go, how to set the machine, what pattern to make, how I handle skin when it’s a person rather than fruit at one ninety-nine a kilo.

  I drop dots of laser of different sizes onto the banana and it develops a sheen where I hit it, and then it starts to brown up. I resurface one side till it’s so smooth it’s almost shiny, and it feels like an old, smooth glove.