Алия Уайтли: The Loosening Skin

‘No, it’s about you.’

Here it comes, she thought. The conversation she had been expecting for months, since it became obvious to her that she was no good at this life. She’d have to find a new place to live, new friends, a new person to be.

‘Have you heard of EMS?’

That was a surprise. She shook her head.

Phin coughed. ‘Look, it’s— I don’t do personal, okay, but I was reading about this EMS thing and I thought, that’s Rose. Extreme Moult Syndrome. We all know some people have a bad time with it, but doctors are saying if you have to dump it all every single time then maybe it’s a medical condition.’

Petra said, ‘Bloody hell, they give everything a name now.’

‘Look it up, that’s all I wanted to tell you,’ said Phin. ‘Right, I’m done. Give me weekly updates on that one, it’s sensitive.’ He pointed at the file, then left them behind, returning to his usual seat at the bar where three men in white shirts with rolled sleeves – cardboard cutout gangsters – were waiting for him.

‘I swear I don’t understand him,’ said Rose.

‘What’s to understand?’

‘I just mean—’

‘I reckon,’ Petra said, very slowly, leaning in, ‘that he has a wife somewhere in suburbia. That she calls him Graham or Keith, and he has a lawnmower and hanging baskets.’

‘Really?’

‘You think Phineas Spice could be his actual name?’

‘But married?’

Petra shook her head. ‘I’m just kidding. No, he’s not married.’ A change came over her expression – a decision to let the margarita move her into a confessional frame of mind. ‘Listen, when I was on the Starguard books I – I had this thing with the celebrity couple I was guarding. I got attached. They didn’t. He got me out of there when the time came. Sometimes I wonder if, once upon a time, he got hurt so bad that he told himself he’d never go through it again. And that’s how he lives. But when he sees someone else going through it, that nearly hurts as bad, for him.’

‘You think?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s my personal theory.’

‘Is that why he took me on as a trainee investigator, after the Max thing?’

Petra winked. ‘Nope. That was my idea. You think you have this EMS then? Look it up.’

‘Now?’

‘Come on, let’s hear all about it.’

Rose checked it on her phone. There had been a documentary about it on television, a few days ago, and a website had been set up. She found a long checklist, filled with questions about behaviours: did she find it impossible to stay in contact with people after a moult? Had she ever experienced a moult after a personal trauma? Had she ever lost consciousness during a moulting? Petra replied for her as she read them aloud, saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ until they reached the bottom, when she said, ‘Well, shit,’ with an air of finality.

‘Yeah,’ said Rose, feeling it sink into her. She had a condition. She had an explanation.

‘So what’s the cure?’ said Petra.

‘I don’t think there is one. It’s just an awareness thing.’

Petra raised a fist of solidarity. ‘Well now we’re aware.’

‘I’ll go see a doctor.’

‘You never saw a doctor about it before?’

‘Of course I did. But I don’t have much luck with doctors.’

‘It’s not their fault being grumpy if they can’t cure it. Imagine having to face a patient that you really can’t help.’

‘It’s not my fault either. It’s the way I’m made.’

‘It sure is. I’m drunk.’ She stated it as a fact.

‘Drink less, then!’

‘But that’s the way I’m made,’ she said, and laughed.

‘I can’t help you,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not a proper private investigator. I never have been.’

He’s reserved the whole restaurant, of course. The waitress tiptoes around me, her eyes on Max as she deposits a wicker breadbasket on the table. It’s an old-fashioned bistro with a candle in a green bottle, and a padded menu with a tassle. It offers comfort food, lasagne and lamb shanks, and the promise of a dessert that won’t be deconstructed. Max always did prefer this kind of food, the cheaper places with checked tablecloths, and I’m glad to see in this, at least, his tastes haven’t changed.

But I haven’t changed either: I always did hate eating out with him.

‘I thought we’d had this conversation,’ he says.

I wait until the waitress reluctantly leaves, then tell him, ‘I thought I could make it work, but I can’t. I was never like Petra. I wanted to be, and I suppose I thought… this time…’

‘You were in love with her? Petra?’

Why would he jump to that conclusion? ‘No, that’s not it. It’s too difficult to explain.’ Impossible to explain, certainly to him.

He shakes his head and takes a white roll, dotted with little black seeds, from the basket. ‘Research shows the only thing that goes with the skin is that form of sexually based attraction we call love. Nothing else. Look at the Stuck Six. They manage to all get along, still. It’s beautiful to witness.’

‘Yeah, I heard about them. Not in my case.’

‘No, with you it’s everything, isn’t it? Everything gets left behind when that skin comes off. Left behind, or thrown away. Other people manage to stay friends, help each other through those dark patches. They even stay together. Why not? We don’t all have to be in love.’

I’ve heard this before, had this argument before. ‘I do. I’ve been diagnosed with EMS. It’s who I am.’

‘It is,’ he says again, but this time with such quiet affection, such meaning, that I can’t bear it. ‘Rosie, you’re unique. You think the EMS is you, and you are it. But that’s not true. There’s so much more to you.’

The wine is good, probably the best bottle in the whole place. I look around the room – an old habit, unnecessary, since Max has a team of three with him tonight courtesy of Starguard – and see a man standing in the alcove behind the bar behind a red curtain, half-closed. For a second I’m tense, and then I see his posture, and I know he’s no threat. The manager, possibly, in deferential mode. He lifts a hand and gives me a thumbs up.

He thinks we’re on a date. Everyone likes to make their own stories, for telling. For reeling out like fishing line.

Soft jazz music arrives through the speakers over the bar. The saxophone grates on my nerves.

‘The Stuck Six,’ I say. ‘You’re basing your film on the autobiography one of them wrote? I bet the rights cost a fortune.’

‘It’s fascinating, though, isn’t it? Six people, all in love with each other at once. A miracle, some might say. You should meet Mikhael; he’s the one that’s been helping me with the adaptation.’

‘The one that wrote the book?’

‘No. The last one to fall in love.’

‘The young good-looking one.’ Why do I sound bitter?

‘They were all young. They were all very much in love.’

‘Until one of them wrote a book about it and they fell out over his version of events.’

He grimaces. ‘They haven’t fallen out. That was just the media talking. They’re just living their own lives now. It was real, though it was different for each of them. Have you read Howard Stuck’s autobiography? It’s a revelation. None of us experience love in the same way, do we? I want to concentrate on that. You know their skins are in the British Museum? You can go visit them. Even touch one, if you arrange an appointment. You should. I did. It’s overwhelming.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t buy the bloody skins and keep them in that uncrackable safe room of yours.’

The starters arrive, just as I was gearing up to getting it all off my chest. We’re sharing a wooden platter of antipasti, with gleaming meats laid next to bowls of olives, peppers, oil and vinegar. Everything on the table must be rearranged to make room for it. The candle in the bottle is moved to the next table along, so the food is in semi-darkness. It makes the music seem louder.