Nicci French - Beneath The Skin

Had they thought about dying? What had they done? I didn’t mean what precautions they had taken. Had they lived their lives in a different way? What do you do when you may have a day or a week to live? It was supposed to make life more precious. I should think clearly, read great books. I wasn’t sure I had any great books. After I got up and made myself some coffee, I looked along the shelves and found a book of poems someone had given me for a birthday present. They were supposed to be particularly suited to learning by heart but I couldn’t even read them off the page. Something seemed to be wrong with my brain. I couldn’t follow the sense of the poems. Their meaning was a song playing in the next house too faintly to make out. I put it back in the shelf and switched on the television.

Just a day earlier I’d been thinking about constructive ways to use the rest of my life. Now I was watching a talk show involving women who’d had affairs with their sister’s boyfriend and then a cooking program that was also a game show and then a repeat of a sitcom from the seventies and a rather old-looking documentary about a coral reef somewhere. The divers had sideburns. I saw lots of weather reports.

If I died at twenty-eight and somebody wrote an obituary of me, which they wouldn’t, what would they find to say? “In her later years she found her niche as a moderately successful children’s party entertainer.” Zoe had a job as a teacher, though she was hardly more than a child herself. Jenny had three children. She had Josh, a child who was almost a man.

I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up and watched the end of a western and some indoor bowling and a quiz program and another cookery program, and it was then that the doorbell rang. I opened the door. Josh and Morris were standing there. The damp, warm aroma of Indian food blew in. Morris was in discussion with a policewoman.

“Yes, she does know us. And the other woman who was here already has our names and addresses. I can give it to you again if you want.” He turned and saw me. “We bought a takeaway and we were nearby, so we thought we’d drop in.”

I looked blank. It wasn’t them. It was having spent an entire day in front of the TV screen. I felt tranquilized.

“It’s fine,” Morris continued. “Don’t worry. We can go off with our food and find a bench somewhere or a doorway. Somewhere under a street lamp. In the rain.”

I couldn’t help smiling. The day was still sunny and bright.

“Don’t be stupid. Come in.” The policewoman looked reluctant. “It’s all right. I know them.”

They came in bringing the lovely smell with them and dumped three carrier bags on the table.

“You’re probably going out to a dinner party,” said Morris.

“As it happens, I’m not,” I confessed.

They both took off their jackets and tossed them to one side. They looked very at home.

“I rescued Josh from a nightmarish soiree at home and we went out in search of a woman.”

Josh smiled so awkwardly that I almost felt I should give him a hug, except that that would have made things even worse. They started unloading tinfoil cartons.

“We didn’t know about your tolerance,” said Morris, peeling off the cardboard lids. “So we got everything from extremely mild cooked in cream to meat phal, which is marked dangerously hot, and various things in between and a couple of nans, papadums, dhal, and various veg. Beer for the grown-ups, whereas Josh will have to make do with lager.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Are you allowed to drink, Josh?”

“Of course,” he said truculently.

Oh well. I had enough to worry about. I got out plates, glasses, and knives.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t been in?” I asked.

“Morris was sure you’d be in,” Josh said.

“Oh yes?” I asked, turning to Morris with a mock-ironical expression.

He smiled.

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” he said. “I thought you might be a bit shaken up.”

“I was a bit,” I said. “It’s not been a good time.”

“I can see that,” he said. “So eat.”

And we did and it was good. I needed a good, messy, undignified meal in which lots of things were piled up together, and I ripped off bits of nan and dipped them in different sauces. We challenged each other to take mouthfuls of the phal with glasses of very cold beer standing by. I think Morris cheated and only took a tiny amount while pretending to be brave, but Josh took a few deep breaths and really did put a substantial spoonful of the fiery meat into his mouth and chewed and swallowed it. We stared at him and beads of sweat started to pop out of pores on his forehead.

“You’re going to erupt,” I said. “We’d better stand clear.”

“No, I’m fine,” Josh said in a strangled tone, and we all laughed. It was the first time I’d ever seen him with any expression more cheerful than an awkward self-conscious grimace, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last laughed helplessly. There hadn’t been anything to laugh about.

“Now you,” said Josh.

With exaggerated elegance I took a large spoonful and ate it. They stood looking as if I were a firework taking a long time to go off.

“How do you do it?” Morris asked finally.

“I love hot food,” I said. “And I can deal with it like a lady.”

“We’re impressed,” said Josh, awestruck.

I then hastily took a massive gulp of cold beer.

“You all right?” Josh asked.

“Just thirsty,” I said casually.

Surprisingly quickly, there was just the cooled wreckage of a meal. While I cleared the table, which meant putting the foil containers one inside the other, the boys wandered over to my notorious computer. They crouched over it and I heard occasional gasps and guffaws. I came back with another glass of beer, sipping it. I felt pleasantly dizzy.

“I know it’s comical.”

“No, it’s great,” Josh said, clicking away expertly with the mouse. “You’ve got all these primeval versions of programs, all these one-point-ones and one-point-twos. It’s like a software dinosaur park. Hang on-what’s this?”

It turned out that my computer had somewhere embedded in it a solitaire card game that I hadn’t even found. Did I know the rules? they shouted at me. No, I didn’t. So with much shouting and fighting over the controls, they began playing.

“This is like an evening with two thirteen-year-olds,” I said.

“So?” said Josh.

He seemed to be loosening up. He was certainly more relaxed with me . There was no longer any of that agonized, embarrassed respectfulness. They shouted for more beer and I brought them two cans, cold from the fridge.

“I feel like I’ve become the Princess Leia in this scenario,” I said.

Josh turned from the screen, looking at me thoughtfully.

“More like Chewbacca, I think,” he said.

“Who?”

“Forget it.”

Maybe too much fuzziness wasn’t entirely a good thing. I went and made a pot of coffee. I poured myself a mug. Very black, very hot.

“There’s coffee,” I shouted.

Josh was absolutely engrossed. For the moment he didn’t know I existed. But Morris wandered over and poured himself a coffee.

“Is there any milk?”

“I’ll get it.”

“You stay there. I’ll find it.”

Morris went off to the kitchen and I looked across at Josh, who was staring into the screen with fierce attention. His arms looked surprisingly thin and white. He was still a little boy. While being very big. Morris came back.

“Nice flat,” he said. “Very quiet.”

“Are you flat hunting?” I asked. “In which case you should take a look at the one I saw yesterday. Not very quiet, though.”

“How did that go?”