Under My Skin

by Alison Jameson

  Every day Pappy gets up at seven and he puts a low side parting into his hair. He does this with a new brown plastic comb and then he drops the new brown plastic comb into the bin. The bin is beside his bed and because it is made from metal there is an odd rattling sound. It is the first sound we hear every morning. Except on Sundays when Pappy stays in bed. There is a picture of four white horses pulling a carriage on the bin and every weekday morning when he drops the comb the horses pull it and some of his stray hairs away. They take them away to Comb Mountain and then they make a giant haystack with his hair. He runs a bath at 7.15 and when he sits down in the steaming water, he holds his wet knees and talks quietly to himself. Through the thin walls, his voice travels up and down, light and soft, in and out, on and on. Pappy is persuading, he is coaxing, he is laughing, he is teasing, and he is praying my mother will come back home. I know this because he sounds so kind and sweet and gentle about it and now and then he will say her name.

  ‘Leonora,’ he says and the sigh hangs in the air with the steam – but she could be in the water with him. She could be sunbathing on the flat kitchen roof. She could be standing on the wardrobe – wearing a yellow ballgown with a diamond tiara. She could be flying. She could be gliding. She could be driving a red bubble car around his bed. She can be anything she wants to be now. My mother is invisible. She is a spirit. Since last summer, she is with the angels – also known as ‘Dead’.

  Pappy puts on a fresh cotton vest. He does not say any prayers. Every week he buys a new white shirt and these are the sounds that wake us. The comb in the bin, the squeak of the bath taps, the cellophane wrapping – and lastly his footsteps and a little fart on the stairs. Even though he has the depression Pappy still makes farts. And they sound like Noddy’s car – ‘parp-parp’.

  His room is at the end of the back landing, a long narrow stretch of dusty oak, and there is a rose-covered rug and a brass fruit bowl on the windowsill. We also have a jar in the kitchen that still has Mum’s handwriting on it. ‘Lemon Marmalade’ it says. Pappy eats his All Bran at ten minutes to eight. After that he makes his tea and has one slice of wholewheat toast. His braces make a snapping sound on his shoulders and then he puts on a long white apron and he opens up the shop.

  On Saturdays we help him. Standing in a row and waiting for the first customer to come in. Only Pappy wears the white apron, Daniel wears his lumberjack hat and this year we are twelve. We were born on 2 March – but Daniel is fifteen minutes older than me. We have a grandmother too who lives in the country. She lives thirty miles from us in a place called Devlin in Westmeath. So far we have never met but we know her name is Djuna, which she spells with a ‘J’. She’s my pappy’s mother and he says she has snow-white hair now and that she was a famous swimmer ‘in her day’.

  Pappy keeps the notes in a box under the counter. The loose change goes into an old red OXO tin. I ask him if we can have an ice cream for breakfast and he says, ‘Go ahead.’

  Daniel has an Orange Split and I have a Gollywog. Then we sit on the front step eating them and making fingerprints on the soft tar in the sun.

  Mrs Deegan crosses the street. She is old and does not have to look left and right. She always walks with her chin stuck out in front of her, like she’s being led on a rope. She lives in the blue house on the corner. When she opens her front door she steps right on to the street. Her only son, Martin, is now called Martina. He had a ‘S-e-x C-h-a-n-g-e’ but no one is supposed to know this. Everyone has a secret, Pappy says, something they keep inside – something that they stay really quiet about and still everyone else seems to know. Mrs Deegan steps over us and goes into the shop. She buys tomatoes, four slices of cooked ham and a loaf of white bread. She speaks very slowly and chews over each word before it comes out.

  There is a white suit in Pappy’s wardrobe. It hangs on a wooden hanger and it is covered in a clear plastic sheet. It is a large one-piece outfit with long sleeves, and trousers with flares. There is also a wide pointed collar, high up at the back, and a beautiful sparkly belt. The suit has gold sequins all over the shoulders and silver glitter that runs down the legs. At night I think it comes out and stretches itself, and then it begins to dance and jive. I remember Pappy wearing it. He used to have long black sideburns and a big quiff in his hair. Before my mother went off with the angels, he ran the shop and he was an Elvis impersonator as well. And on summer evenings he would take down some paints and a brush and sit outside and paint. I can remember how Mum would stand at his shoulder and how he would say something and she would smile and they would have some private talk.

  Our secret is not the white suit – or the paints – everyone in the town knows about that – our secret is that the Elvis we know is always sad.

  From the shop window we can see Brady’s pub, the church, the doctor’s house, the chemist and the Presbyterian Hall. There are two old beech trees in the town square, and they are scaly and grey, like big elephant’s feet. Once, when my pappy was feeling well, we stood at the window and talked about those trees and then we tried to guess the number of leaves. And then he said something really nice to me – and he also said my name.

  ‘Hope,’ he said and his voice was quiet and smiling, ‘only God can make a tree.’

  When Pappy is having a bad day he looks at us strangely – it’s as if he can see we are children but he is not really sure who we are. Today he is having a bad day and that means he will never call us by our names. I am thinking about the angels again and there are questions I would like to ask. I am wondering where they took my mother first of all and if they are all living together now in a white mobile home. I am wondering if they play Scrabble the way we do and if they laugh when they come up with low-score words, like ‘cat’ or ‘God’. I am wondering if they have end-of-term discos like us. And if they like spaghetti with meatballs. Do they wear white wings and ski-pants? Do they like Joan Armatrading? Because I do. Do they ride around on white bicycles? Do they have big cloud dogs with muzzles? Do they crimp their hair?

  The paints are kept in the attic. There are worn-out brushes and a pallet with different daubs of colour. Before Mum died he used to sit inside the window and paint the different colours of the evening sky. Now he paints dark clouds over grey water or usually he just sits and stares. He picks up a brush and stirs the water until it turns grey too and then he puts the brush back down and looks at a picture that is just not there. I wish he would make something. I wish he would put red and yellow and blue on the canvas just so he can see that those colours can be out there too.

  Our kitchen table is covered in a plastic cloth. There are pictures of small bottles of wine on it and then some apples and pears. Pappy has no time for washing-up and so we use plastic cutlery and paper plates. There is no conversation and we each have different ways to amuse ourselves. Daniel eats his food alphabetically – first the broad beans, then the potatoes, and the smoky rasher last. I think about all the ads on TV that I like and my favourite is for Cadbury’s Flake.

  ‘Only the crumbliest, tastiest chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before’, and I think these are the most beautiful words I have ever heard. Pappy leans over and pours milk into Daniel’s glass and other than that he just eats and never says a word.

  ‘Pappy…’ I say, and he just keeps chewing and chewing and looking out over our heads. Another ad I like is for Ariel washing powder. I like that they always start out with stains like jam and chocolate and then the same clothes end up dazzling white. I am sure the angels use Ariel and now and then they also have a Cadbury’s Flake.

  Pappy finishes his lunch and dabs a paper serviette to his lips. He lifts the picnic ware and he glances at the clock.

  The shop needs to be opened again.

  Tick-tock-tick-tock.

  ‘The nun asked me if you would sing at the school concert again this year,’ and then I look down. There are three broad beans left on my plate.

  One – two – three.

  Three – two – one.


  Tick-tock.

  Tick-tock.

  Tick-tock.

  Pappy watches me.

  Oh please, and I say this down low and inside myself, but the word that comes back is ‘No’.

  The red history book shows a dead body being taken away in a wheelbarrow. There is also a woman in a green shawl and she is crying and waving her hands in the air. We are learning about the famine and thinking about all the people who died. Doreen draws a speech bubble from one of the people. ‘Can anyone tell me the way to McDonald’s?’ it says. Then there is a test and we are asked to list ‘the effects of the famine on Irish society’. We consult each other and Doreen writes her only answer in very faint pencil –

  a lot of people died

  I do not have any other answers so I write –

  Apple drops

  Fizzle sticks

  Marshmallows

  Bonbons (lemon, strawberry and white)

  Chocolate hearts

  Milky teeth

  Coconut mushrooms – and

  Flogs

  Bright patches. There are some. Today I am walking up the street with Daniel, and Pappy is standing smiling at the shop door. On a sunny day like this he might come out and meet us or sometimes he will sweep the dust from the step. On a bright-patch day he might stop and lean on the brush a little and then talk to the mechanic from the garage next door. He does not know that there is a notebook in my bag where I save all my questions for him and for this kind of day. They are mostly about ads on TV, men and women, love, angels and death.

  At lunch Daniel will not eat his potatoes.

  ‘I have the famine,’ he says.

  And today there are words everywhere. They fly out of Pappy’s mouth and run up the stairs. They fill the saucepans in the cupboard and fall out of paper cups and plates. On days like this he likes to talk and talk and sometimes I think he will never stop. He talks about my mother and how beautiful she was – and how romantic it was when they first met – and then he goes back to his schooldays and growing up in the countryside. He talks about his mother and the animals on her farm. He tells us about pigs and sheep and goats, and even rats and mice. He stands at the shop window and whenever anyone passes, he waves. And it is a big wave with two hands and sometimes they get a fright. He buys too much of everything at the Cash and Carry and there are boxes of Love Hearts and lemon bonbons under our beds.

  ‘He’s on a high today,’ Mrs Deegan says, and she sticks her head out and she is led back across the street.

  Daniel sits quietly in the barber’s chair. The double red doors are bolted and the blinds are down. When I walk inside with Doreen he does not look around. Instead he looks at our faces in the mirror and says, ‘Pappy told me to wait here, and not to go upstairs.’

  The house is quiet and when I walk down the landing to his bedroom the boards do not even creak. I turn the handle quietly and when I open the door Pappy is wearing the white glittery suit and standing on a white painted chair. The sequins from his suit catch the light and make small white spots on the bedroom walls. He looks just the way he did on the stage, except there is a leather belt around his neck and he is facing my mother’s picture on the shelf. His eyes are looking into my mother’s eyes and her eyes are sad and looking away.

  ‘What are you doing, Pappy?’ I ask, and he turns around very slowly. He looks at me as if he does not know me.

  Again.

  Again.

  ‘I’m changing the light bulb,’ he says

  Yesterday I made my first phone call to my grandmother. I called her and when she answered I read everything out from a copybook page.

  ‘This is Hope Swann calling,’ the first line said.

  ‘Pappy is not well,’ the second line said.

  ‘Please send help,’ and then without waiting for any answer I put the phone down and tried to imagine her setting off with her huskies and a sleigh.

  6 Is This What I Get for Loving You?

  Matilda said goodbye to Glassman and watched as he leaned down to open the cab door. She stood still and managed to smile when he kissed her cold cheek and when the cab moved away she turned and pressed a small red-gloved hand to the glass. Without noticing people or streets or shop fronts she found her way to her apartment and giving her keys a little shake, she quietly let herself in. Glassman did not understand that after he had told her the news she had felt her own breath slip away. That as her body seemed to curl and then stiffen on the sheets beside him, she felt something real and full of happiness and life just die inside. She had no way to tell him. No means to explain. There were no words big enough to show him that her life, all of it, every day marked out on the calendar, had been for and around him.

  Her cat Godot had not been fed for two days. Any longer and he would start chewing on his own tail. She opened the windows and a light snow shower came in and she sat there on the end of her bed and felt the cold wind on her face.

  When she got up she saw that she had creased the sheets and she was somehow glad of this. It was in her mind a sign of life she didn’t know she had. She had been let down before and she knew the mechanics of it. How she could begin to move on again after losing a love. It had happened only last year too and now she had a cat, knowing that there was an agreed limit on their love. She would feed Godot and in turn he would stay. He would live with her, asking for nothing, just a roof over his head, a handful of Go-Cat and a clean litter tray. Without Glassman she would have to go back to love in dry handfuls now.

  She closed the window and seemed to pause and watch her own every move. She had loved this apartment. The curved tongue-and-groove panelling. How the room curled and how her bed, a wide cream expanse with Egyptian cotton sheets and pillowcases covered in blue cornflowers, had kept her safe until now. The bathtub with the shining taps. The goldfish swimming on her shower curtains. The specially chosen walnut doorknobs and the French windows in the kitchen. The previous owner had left a red antique scales and Glassman had helped her to paint the kitchen door to match. Her crockery came from Denmark. In summer she grew sunflowers on her balcony. Until now, when she closed her door behind her, she moved to Europe and said goodbye to New York. But that was before she went swimming and forgot about loving water and instead seemed to fall into him. Her friends said she was crazy and then they saw it too and could only stand by and watch how her life began to turn and turn around his. How nothing mattered. How everything, her work, her home, her family, were all just things to be passed on a road that led to him. He had a way of making her feel cherished. That was it. He would lay one hand on her shoulder as he walked from the kitchen to the bathroom and she felt alive. He could look at her and smile over his small silver glasses and make her feel like a three-year-old.

  She was not beautiful in any conventional way. She knew that. But he had wanted to touch her from the start. He made her feel wanted and gave her a real sense of place. And now, without him, her whole life would become an irritation. The phone could not ring now unless it was him. The doorman could not give her any message unless it was from him. Even her parents who lived in Connecticut were in the way. Her friends, giant obstacles to her thoughts. At least if she could not have him, she could be alone with her thoughts of him. Perhaps she always knew it was all going to end. He did not want her to sublet her apartment. He had baulked at making promises. Told her about his illness. That in ten years he would be sixty, but nothing mattered to her. Matilda was in love with him. There were red hearts being puffed towards him and they kept coming even when he looked away.

  The first item was a piece of glass from his workshop. She had taken it on the first night he showed her around. She had turned it over and over in her hand and when he was not looking she did not put it back down. Then she took his black sweater and he knew about that. It was one of the regular transactions of love. Like the sock left in the bed. The undershorts on the radiator. Small symbols to reassure the other person that you intend to come back. Like all women, though, she mark
ed these things down, and truth be told, Glassman was just careless and tended to leave his things lying around and Matilda, because she wanted to, mistook his untidiness for love.

  Then she began to forage and collect.

  And everything went into an old suitcase in the closet in the hall. A band-aid taken from the trash can in his bathroom. She treasured it. And a black silk tie from his wardrobe, never worn but taken out once and run through his hands. His empty meds bottles. The plastic caps prised open so she could smell inside. It seemed sad – but she had begun to associate a pharmacy smell with him.

  The first photograph she took was of his hands. Strong, long fingers. Made to draw things and carve wood. They were not a doctor’s hands at all. Much less a doctor working in the ER. He would not know that one night she went there. That she got up and dressed at 3 a.m. and went out into the snow and walked twenty blocks until she found him, in green scrubs working on a traffic accident. She stood silently behind the glass and watched him give orders and move quickly and silently and all the time save lives and then she went home and masturbated to the thoughts of it. The next day she knew his patient had lived. He was always different when someone died. Not blaming himself but just looking puzzled and quiet and his eyes full of questions. It was always, ‘Why?’ With Glassman everything ended in ‘Why?’