The clothes, collected, rasped against the new skin. She cried as Petra tugged them into place. She never wanted to wear those clothes again.
Then Petra gathered up the old skin and flicked her silver lighter, touching the flame to it. It burned very quickly, down to a fine ash. The smell of smoke was so strong; Rose realised it couldn’t be from the skin alone. She turned her head, following the scent. Black smoke. The warehouse. But where were the women?
They made it back to the car and Petra drove. After a time Rose placed their direction; they were going to Wiltshire.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Petra.
2013. SNIPS.
Anna Mallory snips away with scissors, starting at my toes. I feel the blade inch up the outside of my knee to my thigh first on one leg, then the other. The skin sticks and has to be peeled back carefully in long strips. Finally that old skin is in pieces.
I concentrate on the sensitive new skin being exposed to the air, already beginning to harden. My stomach, my arms, my shoulders are all released. My face.
‘There,’ she says.
Max hovers. ‘Did it work?’
‘It looks good. No damage to the new layer.’
‘Right. Great. You can go then.’
She opens her mouth, as if to argue, and then departs, taking Taylor with her, leaving the door ajar.
I won’t forget her, or what’s she’s done here. I won’t forget either of them.
As if he can read my thoughts, Max says, ‘It worked. Imagine how many people these treatments can help.’
I don’t reply.
He goes to the wardrobe and chooses one of the dresses that hangs next to his remaining skins. It’s yellow. He brings it out and shows it to me.
‘You wore it in Paris,’ he says, but it doesn’t look familiar.
‘Untie me, then.’
Once the restraints are off, I try to stand but my legs are too weak. Max helps me lower the dress over my head.
‘I shouldn’t put anything harsh on your skin for a while,’ he says. ‘I want so much to hold you, but I’m afraid it will hurt.’
His tenderness reaches me. ‘It’s okay. Just be gentle.’
So he sits beside me on the bed and hugs me, and it does hurt. Old emotions on new skin, love and disgust and hatred and all of it together: it’s too much for one person to feel. But I want him to have this moment, to remember, to embellish it in his endlessly replaying memory after I go.
‘There.’ I push him away. ‘That’s long enough. Will you do something for me, Max?’
‘Anything.’
‘Stop taking pills. Any pills. Shed that skin. You’ve been in it too long. It’s changed you.’
‘But we love each other again.’
I miss the Max who would never have done a thing like this with a ferocity that cements my decision. ‘I won’t take any more pills. I won’t stay.’
‘You don’t want to stay cured? After all you’ve told me?’
‘You don’t know what a cure is,’ I say. ‘You don’t even know what the real illness is, here.’
He clenches his fists, and says, ‘I could make you stay.’
But I know this scene, this melodrama of ours, is played out, and he knows it too. ‘Don’t make it any worse than it needs to be.’
‘No.’ He sighs. ‘Well, it was worth a shot.’
And, with that, he gets up from the bed and turns on all his charm to become a movie star with a hint of Little Boy Lost underneath. ‘It was madness, I guess, but it came from a good place. Do you believe that? And it will help millions of sufferers. I just need your word—’
‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘You’re very kind. You know, I think you’re right. You’re not the girl I fell in love with. My Rosie would have had my balls for a stunt like this.’
Am I the forgiving sort, then, this time around? Can I finally forgive the very worst things? I should have him locked up. I want him locked up. But I’m out of interest in what should or shouldn’t happen. ‘Stop taking the pills, Max. We’re done. I don’t want to see you again.’
‘It’s probably for the best,’ he agrees.
‘I’m going now.’
‘I’ll get Taylor to call you a cab.’ He shrugs. ‘I’ve been here so long and I find myself calling it a cab. I guess I’m still American, deep down.’
So we go upstairs, and Taylor calls me a cab or a taxi or whatever we want to name it now, while all the time I feel my new skin hardening under the touch of that light summer dress.
‘Where do you want to be dropped?’ she asks, her tone all business. But she can’t look at me. Her hands are shaking. I wonder why she did it. Why she helped him hurt me.
‘The train station.’
‘No, Max will foot the bill. Take the taxi all the way.’
‘What day is it?’
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘Wiltshire, then.’
She nods, and we’re done.
2013. MUSEUM PIECE.
‘It’s on the local news,’ Petra says, and hands me her phone. There it is: the smoking pile of wreckage that was Mallory Peace Industries in Chichester. Three dead. The story beneath details the breakout of the blaze. Cause unknown.
‘Pretty,’ I say. I feel no blame. I was somewhere else entirely. A headline catches my eye, and I click on the link.
I check through the article. There are no updates. He’s still in intensive care after taking all those pills that caused a massive skin shed, at least three layers gone in twenty-four hours. He isn’t expected to live long.
I wondered if he might do something like that, one day. I could almost say he always had it in him.
And yet I miss my Max. I miss him so much; the treatment brought what I loved about him back to me. The Max who is now lying in intensive care, I’m not interested in. He deserves to die.
I hand back the phone. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘For your help.’
Paddington is business as usual. We stand under the row of boards and I find the next one to Bristol Temple Meads. Platform eight, ten minutes to go.
‘I’ve cleared it with Phin,’ she says. ‘He’ll deal directly with Taylor. When he finds her.’
Phineas Spice – the man who diagnosed me in his spare time, and whom I would never want to get on the wrong side of. I would pity Taylor if I didn’t hate her so much. I can’t understand how she could help him. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. It’s a question that will follow me.
‘It was so good to see you,’ I say, and it’s not a lie. Maybe Aunt Alice is right; maybe friendship, above all things, can be kept, when it’s not based on something else. Envy, could we call it? My desire to be her, stronger than my desire to know her, is gone.
‘Did you enjoy the museum, this morning?’
I shrugged. ‘Actually, the Stuck Six were less impressive than I thought they would be. Those skins felt more like a novelty act than something deep and meaningful. I think perhaps love is overrated.’
‘You turning into a cynic?’
‘Maybe. Yeah. Yep, I’m a cynic now.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘So what’s a cynic going to do in Bristol?’
‘Don’t laugh.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I’m going to take a course in interior design,’ I tell her.
‘Or you could come back and work with me?’ Her mouth quirks. ‘No, I know, I know, go on then, get on the train.’
‘You’re so much stronger than me. But that’s okay.’
She looks older, for a moment, as she thinks about it. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not stronger. Just happier to burn it all down. I make the worst things burn so that I feel better. I’ve only ever been trying to teach you that trick, because we’re the same in so many ways. Don’t you get it? That’s why I gave you a job, and kept you close. We saw the high life, the dream, and left it behind for reality. We’re the same.’