Beneath the Skin Read online

  He should call, ask for help, he thinks vaguely. But who would he call? Antonia or Charlie? Even Misty. He’s lost them all. So instead he closes his eyes and he drifts into an oblivion of sorts.

  A vibration at his chest eventually rouses him: the mobile in his inside pocket. He’d forgotten it was there. His fingertips white with cold, he squints at the bright screen full of received messages.

  But only one counts, Antonia (3)

  He takes a deep breath, blows life into his hands and reads.

  Everything OK? Dropping Rupert at the hospital. Sounds like Charlie’s stable, so that’s good.

  Assume you’re busy at work. Going to Sophie’s now. I’m very late. Wish me luck!

  Love you xxx PS Can we have a long talk later?

  David puts his hands to his face, then shakes his head, looks to the murky sky and smiles. Love you xxx, the message says.

  The grin pulls at the bruises on his face, but he doesn’t mind, not a bit. He needs to get home. There’s a garden nursery not far ahead. If he increases his pace, he can get there before it closes and buy a plant or a shrub or, if he’s blessed, the biggest bouquet of cut flowers they sell.

  He stands up, breathes deeply and walks on.

  Lucky, he remembers. They had named his collie dog Lucky.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The afternoon is fun and Sophie is on form, pulling out snaps from high school, pointing to various faces and reminding Antonia of memories and moments she’s all but forgotten.

  ‘Look at this one, Toni. Year Eleven prom. My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding or what! Oh, God, look at Shannon Rocketry’s hair. Can you believe those shoes? The chavs always made more of an effort than us.’

  ‘Us? You called me a council estate chav many a time.’

  ‘That was before I decided you were mine, all mine. Anyway, you say you can’t remember anything.’

  It’s true. There are enormous gaps in her memories of those secondary school years. Even when Sophie describes some events in detail, Antonia struggles to remember. Perhaps she was too successful in erasing that time, but it’s got to the point where it’s embarrassing.

  ‘I remember some stuff,’ she replies. ‘When we were older and went “upmarket”, as you like to put it.’

  ‘From Baa Baa to Panacea! Thank God we did. Pretty boys in the park were all very well but there comes a time when one needs men who can grow stubble. And have enough cash to pay for champagne!’

  Antonia smiles and thinks again of David. She’d met him on a Saturday night at Panacea, the place to be seen in Manchester, even then. The DJ had been playing soul and rare groove, the bar buzzing with energy. Beautiful people pouted and posed and there among them, sticking out like a sore thumb, was her future husband. Big, posh and boisterous David, sitting in a booth with other suited men, ordering brandy and champagne, his blue eyes sparkling, his wallet stuffed with notes. Not her usual type at all.

  ‘You are absolutely stunning!’ he’d said as she’d walked past to the loos. ‘No, no, don’t walk away, you’ll break my heart. Promise me now that you’ll marry me!’

  Later they’d had a slow dance but he hadn’t tried to kiss her. Instead he’d handed her a business card and she’d thought that was it, relieved, but a little disappointed too.

  He’d walked away, then come back. ‘By the way, where do you live?’

  She was no longer living in the council house, thank God; by then she was sharing a flat in West Didsbury with two girls from work.

  ‘West Didsbury …’

  David had grinned. ‘I might need more clues for tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘At noon? Not too early?’

  A date on a Sunday at noon. That was something new. She couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That day she does remember.

  Anticipating accusations of being ‘on another planet’, she turns her attention back to Sophie. ‘You’ve just got a bigger brain than me, Soph. That’s why you remember everything.’

  ‘And boobs.’

  ‘Yes, Sophie, you always beat me on the boobs front too.’

  Antonia looks at her watch. She’s stayed far longer than she intended. ‘Look at the time. I must go. David will be home from work soon and I want to make something nice for dinner.’

  Sophie doesn’t move. ‘Defrost something. You must have a hundred “little delicacies” you made earlier.’ Her feet are on Antonia’s lap and she presses them down. ‘Besides, the varnish on my toenails won’t be dry yet. You don’t want to be responsible for smudges.’

  ‘I haven’t seen David all day. He’ll want to talk about Charlie. I’m going.’

  She lifts Sophie’s heels and stands, trying not to let irritation get the better of her. They’ve had a fun afternoon, but Sophie always has to push it.

  Sophie stands too. ‘Just a bit longer, Toni. You know you want to.’ She places her body next to Antonia’s, so close that they’re almost touching. Pulling back Antonia’s dark hair, she places cheek next to cheek, like a smooch, her breath warm in Antonia’s ear.

  The irritation spreads, but it’s mixed with something else, a dark heat in the pit of her stomach, which Antonia recognises as lust. She’s making a pass at me, she thinks. She’s manipulating me and teasing me. She’ll do anything to get her own way. Yet the desire is still there. She supposes it always will be, her baby Achilles heel. So she remains motionless, impassive and breathless as Sophie places small kisses on her neck from her ear to her shoulder.

  Sophie pulls away after a moment, falls back on to the sofa, tugging Antonia down with her. She smiles, her face indolent, smug. ‘I take it you’re willing to stay. I’m sure that David can live without you just a little while longer.’

  Antonia sits back, exhales the breath she’s been holding and gazes at Sophie, wondering. Sophie’s auburn hair is still magnificent, but she makes no effort any more. She’s let herself go, and yet. What is it? Antonia muses inwardly. What is it that makes her so appealing? What is it that I want from her?

  As though sensing some uncertainty in Antonia’s face, Sophie leans forward, slips her hand under Antonia’s jumper and strokes her back with soft fingertips before inching them forward.

  ‘No, Sophie. No.’ She gazes solidly at Sophie, seeing the girl in the centre of the photographs, in the centre of everything. It’s your vitality, your confidence, your joy of life, she decides, wondering from the flash of surprise in Sophie’s eyes whether the words have escaped.

  ‘I really must go now, Soph. I’ll collect you for tomorrow’s appointment, I promise.’ She kisses Sophie on the cheek and scoops up her handbag. ‘Phone me if you need me,’ she says. ‘Love you lots.’

  As she indicates right for White Gables, Antonia is surprised to see David’s Land Rover in their drive. When she parks up the car next to his, she’s even more startled to see the damage to the wall. The events of this morning feel like they happened a week ago. She had such an easy few hours at Sophie’s it almost slipped her mind that she dropped David at the hospital in Macclesfield and that he went into work by train. They were in such a muddled rush to get to Charlie that she didn’t notice the garden wall or the skewed position of his car.

  She crouches down to inspect the damage to the wall. The dislodged bricks seem rather sad and pathetic, the soil around them saturated and spread. But it looks to Antonia as though the wall can be rebuilt fairly easily. She thinks she might try to do it herself, mixing a little cement can’t be so hard, surely?

  The wall tells the story as she stares. Drinking then driving. He’s done it before, only the once. They had angry words. ‘You’ll kill yourself, David. Even worse, you’ll kill someone else. Please don’t. Never again.’

  ‘I promise. Scout’s honour.’ A David smile. ‘I’ll never do it again, my darling Antonia. Promise.’

  It’s bad. Drink driving is very bad. David’s nose was bloody and swollen. Next time could
be so much worse. She’ll have to say something, she knows, but it can wait. It doesn’t seem important just now. After a disastrous start to the day, everything is fine. Charlie is stable in hospital, Sophie is settled at home and now it’s time for David, her David. She glances at her watch and feels a jolt of disappointment. She has so much to say, but adding on the train journey time from Manchester, David won’t be home for some time yet.

  After leaving Sophie’s house in Didsbury, she tried to hurry home in the car, driving as fast as she could within the speed limits. But the traffic lights conspired, each turning red as she approached. Still, it gave her an opportunity to practise the words out loud.

  ‘Last night, David. When I …’ How to put it? She still feels hot with shame when she thinks of the words she said. ‘When I pushed you away.’ Hardly the truth. She’d screamed at him, pummelled his head with her fists until she woke properly. Only then did she register it was David. Only then did she catch the look on his face, the crumpled sad face of a boy, before he covered it with trembling hands and cowered away.

  ‘I was dreaming about my father. I thought you were him.’ It’s the truth, but it sounds so pathetic.

  ‘He beat my mother.’ She can say that. She can say those words, but not explain why. How can she ever explain the reason when she doesn’t understand it herself?

  ‘He was a racist, my dad. My dad was racist. That’s why he beat her.’ A racist who lived with her African-Irish mother for twenty-five years. It didn’t make sense. She’d seen the photographs. He loved her then. And despite the beatings, they sometimes laughed, her mum and dad.

  Far simpler to say, ‘My father was a despicable drunk.’ That covers everything.

  She stands up and brushes the damp soil from her jeans. Dinner first, she has to focus. Her American-sized fridge is full as it always is. It’s just a question of what will go with what. Ready Steady Cook. And sweet Rupert. What an age ago that was. She puts her key in the latch and pushes the door open, careful not to put her dirty hands on the clean paint. She smells the flowers before she sees them. A huge bouquet. Simple, stunning scented flowers, just the way she likes them. ‘David!’ she calls with the hugest of smiles. ‘I’m home.’

  ‘A failure, I said. And that isn’t true. I was hard on David. Too hard,’ Charlie sighs from his hospital bed.

  Charlie has been sleeping on and off all day. He feels ill. For the first time since the whole diabetes debacle started he really feels ill, which is a good thing. He has no desire to pretend, to bustle about as though everything is fine and dandy. It’s a relief, if he’s honest, a relief to let go. He supposes this is how God designed illness, as a prelude to death. Not that he thinks he’s dying, particularly, but he can see the very ill might welcome the alleviation.

  ‘Mum says David’s like a kid who never grew up. Peter Pan, she says. You took me once to see the play and I was scared of Hook. And the hungry crocodile. Tick, tock! Do you remember?’ Rupert asks.

  ‘Did I really? That was jolly sporting of me.’ Charlie frowns for a moment. ‘Palace Theatre on Oxford Street. You were seven. Peter Pan looked like a girl.’

  ‘I think it was a girl, Dad.’

  Charlie closes his eyes. He was hard on David, definitely too hard.

  He opens his eyes again. A thought has just occurred to him. Rupert must have been sitting in that chair for hours. ‘Are you hungry, son?’ he asks.

  ‘Starving, Dad.’

  ‘Did Mum leave any money? Do you have any?’

  Rupert shakes his head.

  ‘Then we must call the nurse!’

  Rupert looks at the consternation on his father’s face and laughs. He laughs so hard that it’s infectious and Charlie starts laughing too.

  Antonia is still ‘in her head’, as Sophie would say, as she pulls off her boots and massages her tired feet. How can you know someone when you don’t really know yourself? she’s thinking. She heard an unmistakable note of surprise in Helen’s voice this morning on the telephone. As Rupert watched wide-eyed, she wanted to laugh at her own audacity and to say, ‘You may be surprised, Helen, but not half as much as I am.’

  She admires the flowers on the hall table and beams. It feels good to be someone who can make a difference, she thinks, however small that difference might be.

  Running up the stairs two by two, she’s careful not to slip on the limestone steps. Still smiling, she approaches the bathroom and knocks. Silly really, but knocking at any closed door is a habit from childhood. ‘Don’t you know how to fucking knock?’ That was the first time she witnessed it. Her mother on her knees, cowering. Her father’s open palm. She must have been nine or ten, older perhaps. Her mother had hidden it from her before then, had made excuses. ‘I’m just clumsy, love. You know me, I’d walk into anything.’

  The smile falling, she touches her arm as she waits for a moment, feels the scab, feels the irony. But that’s completely different, she thinks. I hurt no one but myself.

  ‘Only me!’ she calls as she opens the bathroom door. Condensation has filled the room like smoke. The window and tiles are dripping in gleaming pearls, the floor is slippery, sodden.

  ‘What happened to the extractor fan? Has it broken?’ she asks. She knows it’s odd. She knows David’s stillness is strange. Yet she opens the windows and continues to talk, her back turned from the inevitable. ‘What a day. Had a good soak? I’ll get some towels. I bet you’re hungry. I’ve got so much to tell you, love.’

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It takes a few minutes to call, to steady her thrashing heart, to quell the urgent need to vomit. She’s been here before. Seeing blood, pooling blood, her child’s hands shaking uncontrollably as she phones the police.

  ‘Ambulance, please. It’s David, my husband …’

  Paramedics and police arrive within minutes. Far more people than she expects, bringing in mud on their boots. And so impersonal, moving around her house and talking in low voices as though she isn’t there.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Stafford. There’s nothing we can do for your husband. He’s been dead for some time. Is there someone you can call?’

  Antonia longs to call Charlie, of course she does, he’s the closest thing she has to a father, but he and his calm steady presence are not available. So she calls Olivia, although goodness knows why as she hardly knows her really. She realises there’ll be trouble with Sophie once she finds out, but she can’t face how Sophie will somehow make this all about her. ‘This’ being about David, her husband, who is dead.

  They arrive soon after, Olivia and Mike, their faces pale and severe. She watches them park their car beside David’s, leaving room for the ambulance and the remaining police vehicle with its lights still strobing into the silent night.

  Olivia simply holds her at the open door. She puts her arms around her and grips tightly until the uncontrollable shivering calms down.

  ‘You’re still soaking wet,’ Olivia says eventually. ‘Let me find you some dry clothes – and a brandy.’

  Wet? Yes, she’s wet. She’d forgotten that. She looks down to her chest, expecting to see blood, but it’s water, just water. She’s wet from trying to pull him up. ‘David? Please, David. Open your eyes.’ But he was too limp and too heavy. A dead weight. Really dead?

  Olivia dresses her like a doll in the lounge, then leads her to sit down. ‘It’s cold in here. I’ll fetch Mike to make up the fire and I’ll find you a brandy.’ Then Mike comes in, sitting next to her on the sofa, opening his arms and just holding and holding, propping her up, saying nothing but preventing her body from dissolving. No digging, no questions, no probing, for which she’s so grateful.

  And then the police, a woman and a man, crouching down to meet her eyes. ‘We know this is a difficult time, Mrs Stafford, but there are questions we have to ask. Do you understand?’

  Questions, so many questions, one after another when she can barely breathe. Name, age, length of marriage, family. Work. Car. Today, yesterda
y. Illness. Broken wall. Broken nose. Texts. Charlie. And then more. The woman with such stony eyes: ‘Antonia? Are you listening? Did David have anything on his mind? The telephone was on the bedroom floor and the casing was badly cracked as though it had been thrown violently. Was that David or you? Do you know who he might have been on the phone to? Was anything worrying him? Did he say anything unusual or behave differently recently?’ Just a breath and then more. ‘Antonia? Are you still with me? Why were the contents of the bathroom cabinet scattered on the floor? Was David searching for something?’ And even as Antonia was trying to work out the puzzle. ‘Is this your diaphragm, Antonia? It was on the floor too, with the box. Did the electric shaver belong to him? Why would he have a razor blade?’

  Mike’s brewing up again, for Antonia, for Olivia, for the uniformed faces, coming and going through the open front door. He feels winded and helpless. He can’t imagine how Antonia must be feeling.

  The draught prickles his skin as Olivia comes through the kitchen door, closing it quietly behind her. ‘Mike, I don’t feel terribly well,’ she says in a low voice. ‘And I don’t suppose we can expect Lydia to sit with the girls all night. I feel really bad about it, but …’

  He studies Olivia’s face; they’ve been glancing at each other all evening in silent communication saying ‘shocking, tragic, unbelievable’, but he hasn’t been looking at her as such. She’s paler than usual and there are violet smudges beneath her eyes.

  ‘Sorry, love, you’re right. This is just bloody terrible, isn’t it? But it’s hard to know what to do. We can’t leave her alone. I don’t think she has any relatives. What about Sophie? Should we call her?’

  ‘God, no! If she’s not here now, my guess is that Antonia doesn’t want her.’ Olivia looks around the kitchen for a moment. ‘It seems huge without David in it. Busy with the drinks. Larger than life … You could stay, Mike. Would you mind?’

  Mike ruffles his hair. He’s surprised that Sophie isn’t here, he’s amazed at Olivia’s vehement response to his suggestion that they call her and he’s utterly astonished that David, of all people, has killed himself. He feels a sense of guilt. He’d always assumed David didn’t have a care in the world. All things to all men, with a smile on his face, taking life in his large stride. A successful career, a huge house and a beautiful young wife.