Nicci French - Beneath The Skin

“Harry,” called a man with a small mustache and a bullet-shaped head with hair cut brutally short. Probably gay. “Harry Hintlesham, it’s your entrance. Come on! ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.’ You should be walking on as Roley says that.”

Harry struggled onto the stage, tripping over the dress. “ ‘What jealous Oberon,’ ” he muttered under his breath. His hair looked sticky with sweat. “ ‘Fairies, skip off, I have long-’ ”

“ ‘Skip hence,’ ” roared the mustache-man. “Not ‘off,’ boy, ‘hence’-and speak louder for goodness’ sake. Rehearsal’s over anyway, can’t have parents seeing it in this state. It won’t be ready till Christmas. And speaking of parents, your lovely lady mother has arrived, Titania. Skip hence. Good evening, Mrs. Hintlesham. You light up our dingy hall.”

“Jenny. Good evening.”

“Try and get your son to learn his lines.”

“I’ll try.”

“And get him to wear deodorant, will you?”

She’s dead. Of course. As I wanted. Of course. And I feel cheated of her. Of course. Forget it. Another one. Another she.

She wears too much makeup. It is like a mask, smoothed over her face. Everything about her face is glossy and cared for-shining lips, dark lashes, creamy skin, neat and glossy hair. She is a picture that is constantly being touched up and polished. An image presented to the world. She can’t hide from me. I imagine her face stripped down. There would be lines round her eyes, her nostrils, her mouth; her lips would be pale, soft, nervous.

Walking down a street, she glances constantly at her reflection in the shop windows, checking that everything is still in place. And it always is. Her clothes are ironed, her hair fits her like a cap. Her nails are manicured and painted a pale pink; her toenails are pink too, in their expensive sandals. Her legs are smooth. She holds herself straight, shoulders back and chin up. She is clean, neat, bright with energy and purpose.

Yet I have watched her. I see beyond her smile that is not a real smile, and her laugh that, if you listen carefully, very carefully, is forced and brittle. She is like a string on a violin that has been tightened to the thin screeching point. She is not happy. If she was happy, or wild with fear, or with desire, she would become beautiful. She would be liberated from her shell and become her true self. She does not realize she is not happy. Only I realize. Only I can see inside her and release her. She is waiting for me, sealed up inside herself, still untouched by the world.

Fate smiles on me. I see that now. At first I did not understand that I had become invisible. Nobody can see me. I can go on and on.

It’s very late, almost midnight, but it’s still almost indecently hot. Even though I’ve opened the windows upstairs, the wind that blows in is warm as well, as if it had blown across a desert. Clive isn’t back. His secretary, Jan, phoned and told Lena he wouldn’t be back until very late and now it’s very late and indeed he’s not back. As usual I left him some sandwiches in the fridge and had one of them myself, so that’s all right.

The house is quiet now. Lena’s out doing God knows what until God knows when. The boys are asleep. Just after eleven I went round and switched their lights out. Even Josh was asleep, exhausted by the rigors of an evening spent on the phone. Everything’s done. I’ve started to pack for Josh and Harry, who are catching the plane tomorrow. It’s going to be quiet in the house over the next few weeks, for various different reasons.

I’m not in general especially keen on alcoholic drinks. Clive’s terribly clever about wine, but it’s not something I would ever bother about if it were just me. But that night it was so incredibly stifling and I felt a bit on edge so that suddenly the idea of a gin and tonic came into my head as if it were in a magazine advertisement. I imagined a beautiful sultry woman, darkly tanned, in an exotic location with a drink that was so cold the glass was glistening with moisture. She would be sweating in a sexy way and in between sips she would press the cold glass to her forehead. She would be sitting alone but you would know that she was waiting for some pretty amazing man to arrive.

So I had to have one, of course. Unbelievably, there was no lemon in the house except for a rather dry leftover slice in the door of the fridge, which would just about do. I made the drink and I felt I needed a snack. All that I could find was one of the packets of cheese puffs that I put in Chris’s packed lunch. So I sat and nibbled my way through the packet, which took only a minute, and I was almost shocked to discover that the drink was finished. I had made it with very little gin, so I thought I could manage just one more to take upstairs to the bath.

I wasn’t sweating prettily and sexily like the girl in my magazine advertisement. My blouse was wet in the back. My bra was damp, there were dark patches of moisture around the edges of my knickers. My skin was clammy everywhere. I could smell myself. I thought I was going to rot.

The bath was warm and foamy and blurry. By the time I was halfway through the second drink, nothing seemed to matter as much as it had. For example, although I had mixed this rather pungent bath foam into the water, I then washed my hair as well and then rinsed it out in the bathroom without even showering separately. That’s not the normal way I behave. Did I mention that a second note had arrived?

Just after lunch today there was delivery after delivery: the right kind of paint, kick-space heaters that should have arrived a month ago. It was like a rugby team marching in and out, and at the end of it all, Lena found an envelope addressed to me lying on the doormat. She brought it to me. I knew what it was straight away but I opened it anyway.

Dear Jenny,

You’re a beautiful woman. But not when you’re with anyone. When you’re just alone, walking down the street. You bite your top lip sometimes when you’re thinking. You sing to yourself.

You look at yourself and I look at you. We’ve got that in common. But one day I’ll look at you when you’re dead.

It gave me the creeps a bit, naturally, but mainly I was cross. No, not cross: furious. I’d had days now, two days of Lynne hovering about, being nice enough in a statuary sort of way but always hovering, always being just a bit irritating, a bit ingratiating, a bit too determined not to be offended when I snap at her. And then the police car parked outside. People always watching me, keeping an eye on my day. And this was all the good it had done. So when I had read the letter I went off in search of her. She was on the phone. I stood in front of her, waiting until she got embarrassed and hung up.

“I’ve got something you might be interested in,” I said, handing her the letter.

That lit a rocket under her. It was barely ten minutes before Stadler was sitting in my kitchen, staring at me across the table.

“On the mat, you said?” he asked in a sort of mumble.

“That’s where Lena found it,” I said tartly. “Clearly he’s making private arrangements for his mail. To be honest, it makes me wonder what the point is of all this disruption if he can still walk up to the house and deliver a letter.”

“It’s disappointing,” Stadler said, pushing his hands through his hair. Handsome-and he knows it, my grandmother used to say with disapproval of men like that. “Did you see anybody approaching the house?”

“People have been approaching the house all day, tramping in and out.”

“Was anything else delivered?”

“Yes, lots of things.”

“Could you describe the people who delivered them?”