Skin Deep

by Laura Wilkinson

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

It's what's inside that counts... Art student and former model Diana has always been admired for her beauty, but what use are good looks when you want to shine for your talent? Insecure and desperate for inspiration, Diana needs a muse. Facially disfigured four-year-old Cal lives a life largely hidden from the world. But he was born to be looked at and he needs love too. A chance encounter changes everything and Cal becomes Diana?s muse. But as Diana?s reputation develops and Cal grows up, their relationship implodes. Both struggle to be accepted for what lies within. Is it possible to find acceptance in a society where what's on the outside counts for so much?

Release date: September 7, 2017

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 320

Sample

Acknowledgements

 

I am extremely fortunate to have the support of a great number of smashing people. Thanks to you all. And you, lovely reader, for spending time with Diana and Cal, Alan and Linda. If I thanked everyone personally, these acknowledgements would amount to a novella. Here are those I must mention in relation to this particular novel.

Thanks to Helen Wilkinson who read the first draft and provided encouragement. Also, because you sat up with me late one night as I dissected the plot and characters in forensic (and possibly quite boring) detail. You never once told me to shut up. Thank you, you rock.

To Marian Williams for allowing me to steal a detail from your story and for, well, being my mum. Respect and love.

Everyone at Accent Press who work damn hard for me. Special mentions to Greg Rees – you are my champion and editor supremo, Karen Bultiauw, Kate Ellis and Anne Porter for wisdom and support, and inspirational head honcho Hazel Cushion. You are quite a team.

Thanks are due to early readers Becky Edmunds, Mark Sheerin, and Sarah Tanburn. Also to members of the Jubilee Writers group and Jenn Ashworth who read sections of the novel. My beta-reading besties: Norma Murray and SR for sage-like advice with this novel (and life). For keeping me going with the writing life more generally I send heartfelt thanks to a host of amazing, talented authors, most especially: JA Corrigan, Shirley Golden, Katy O’Dowd, Sarah Rayner, Kate Harrison, Sue Teddern, Erinna Mettler, Bridget Whelan and Araminta Hall.

To Wendy Jones for her time and advice on procedures and outcomes in Social Services in the late 80s and early 90s. To Sally Atkinson for similar on matters of adoption. I have stretched possibilities to suit the narrative but your advice was invaluable. Thank you both.

And where would authors be without the support and love of the blogging community? Your cheerleading for the industry is awesome; you are reading and reviewing superstars – of a great many books and authors. Huge thank yous. There are a great many of you but again I have to choose a few for special thanks: Anne Cater at Random Things Through my Letterbox and the Facebook group Book Connectors, Anne Williams at Being Anne Reading, Sonya Alford at A Lover of Books, Holly Kilminster at Bookaholic Holly, Jo Barton at Jaffa Reads Too, Tracy Terry at Pen and Paper, Tracy Fenton and Helen Boyce at THE Book Club, Wendy at Little Bookness Lane, Joanne Baird at Portobello Book Blog, Sandra Woodhead at Book Lover Worm, Sophie Hedley at Reviewed the Book, Rosie Amber and her team, Annette Hannah at Sincerely Book Angels, Vicki Bowles, Kaisha Holloway at The Writing Garnet and Linda Hill at Linda’s Book Bag.

Grovelling apologies if I’ve missed you: my publisher needs to limit the pagination!

And last but by no means least, my Gingers and the BigFella. I love you.

Diana

Autumn 1984

In the soft morning light Hulme looked beautiful – glorious, technicolour Hulme, also known as Beirut or bandit country.

Manchester city centre was forever red, and wet with rain, but Hulme erupted in great random dollops of colour: yellow, lime and blue municipal doors and window frames; scrubby grass; retina-aching walkway graffiti; old punks’ hair in cyan and magenta.

We’d arrived at the block with a key for number fifty-five and a van load of possessions. But the maisonette was boarded up, the front door covered in eviction notices, bailiffs’ cards crucified on the frame with rusting nails. Unsure what to do, we leant on the damp balcony wall and stared across the estate from our vantage point two storeys up. One of the other crescent-shaped blocks of flats faced us. Gigantic, it reminded me of the ruined Coliseum in Rome; black, foul-looking discharge dribbled from a window, snaking down the concrete. There were four crescents in total: jerry-built monstrosities; interlaced blocks inspired by the Georgian crescents in Bath and optimistically named after great architects and landscapers. Only drug dealers, dropouts and students lived there now. Rents were low, though most of Hulme’s inhabitants were squatting.

‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Linda said. ‘We can’t go back to Whalley Range. Landlord’ll skin us.’

A local boy who’d introduced himself when we’d parked the van, offering to ‘mind’ it for us, slipped alongside me. He elbowed me in the ribs and said, ‘Number fifty’s empty. No boards.’

‘And how will we get in without a key, soft lad?’ Linda said.

The urchin launched himself, shoulder first, at the door. It juddered but did not open. The door to number fifty-one did though.

Out stepped a tall, scrawny bloke, a parrot sitting on his shoulder. A demented scarecrow in a grubby, frilly shirt and torn pyjama bottoms, bloodshot eyes bulging. I jumped.

‘Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack,’ I said.

‘Sorry.’ He looked wounded and the bird squawked, making us all jump again.

The classy tones of Your Love is King poured from his flat. He didn’t strike me as a jazz man and Sade’s slick styling was at odds with his crazed appearance: a modern day, scummy Heathcliff.

‘What’s with the parrot?’ I said.

‘I found it.’ He pointed at the ramshackle play area between the crescents and the parrot lifted a scaly leg as if it were about to shit. ‘In a tree,’ he continued. I wondered where else a lost parrot might hang out and where all the trees were in Hulme. I’d not seen any.

‘So you took it home?’

‘I thought it might starve or something. Freeze. They’re tropical creatures; they don’t like the cold.’

‘Neither do I,’ Linda piped up. ‘And it’s friggin’ brass monkeys. Let’s get inside.’

‘What about the owner?’ I said.

‘Gone,’ Parrot man said.

‘What about you? Can yous get us in?’ Linda said.

The boy was attempting to stroke the bird. I shuddered.

‘I can try. Let me get my boots,’ Parrot man said.

He disappeared inside, reappearing within minutes, minus the parrot, incongruous in pyjama bottoms and sixteen-hole Dr Martens. He marched over, arms outstretched. ‘Move over, lad.’ He raised his arms above his head, wrists relaxed, lifted one leg, knee bent, like a praying mantis, then leapt at the lock, foot first. His feet were huge.

The door swung open. We were in.

‘Nice one, la. Ta very much,’ Linda said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Alan. Alan Gilbraith.’

‘Nice to meet you, Alan,’ I said, taking his outstretched hand. ‘Diana Brading, Linda Kelly. We’re going to be neighbours.’

‘Pleasure’s all mine, ladies.’ And he took a bow, dandy style. ‘If you need anything, I’m right here.’

I nodded and smiled. ‘You could help us unload the van?’

* * *

The boy earned a couple of quid, helping us up drag our stuff up four flights of stairs, and Alan helped out as a neighbourly gesture, or as a way of trying to get into our knickers. He had no chance but we didn’t let him know that. After we were done, the boy said his brother could fit a new lock, repair the frame, and then he asked if there was anything else he could get us. He meant to steal whatever we asked for, I was sure, so I replied that we had everything we needed. I would not receive stolen goods and no way would I squat. I was determined to pay rent no matter what Linda said. It would be next to nothing; the council were desperate to let properties here.

‘You’re different from the other students,’ he said.

‘How’s that?’

‘You look like someone famous; he’s weird; and she’s a scally,’ he said, pointing at Linda. ‘Got a fag?’

‘How old are you? Ten?’ said Linda, hands on hips.

‘Piss off,’ he said.

‘She’s a model,’ Linda said, tipping her head at me.

‘Former model,’ I said, emphasising former and wishing I’d not told her. I’d done so in a drunken moment at a party when I’d wanted to impress her, to gain her friendship. Almost two years older and with a seemingly glamorous history, I’d appeared worldly and sophisticated, and despite the differences between us – background, age, course – we became best friends, inseparable for over a year now.

‘I’m not a student,’ Alan said.

‘Dealer?’ the boy asked.

‘No.’ He sounded offended and I wondered what it was he did. On the dole, presumably.

‘What are you studying?’ the boy said, addressing Linda and me.

I touched my chest, ‘Art,’ then gesturing at Linda, ‘Art History and Literature, books and stuff.’

‘Pictures yours?’ He pointed at the bundle of canvases resting against the hall wall.

I laughed, throat tightening, stomach tumbling. ‘I wish. These are by famous artists. This one’s mine.’ I turned over a medium-sized canvas. An abstract piece created on my foundation course, the contents of my make-up bag, inspired by Matisse’s later works. It wasn’t good and I’d produced nothing of worth throughout my first year here either. It was why I was redoing the year, and if I didn’t come up with something soon I’d be kicked off for good. I was in the last chance saloon.

‘Me brother will be over in a bit.’ Shrugging, the boy stepped outside. I followed him and Alan out, and we said our goodbyes. ‘See yous around.’

Despite the cold I stood on the balcony and watched the boy shrink as he darted across a walkway and over the adjoining bridge to another block of flats.

Where in this body of concrete bones does he live? Will I see him again?

I gazed over to the play area. In between the broken swings was a pile of burnt-out sofas; a top-loading washing machine lay on its side at the bottom of the slide and torn-open bin bags spotted the grass. Even in the cold air I could smell the dog shit. Man-made ugliness, it was the antithesis of the pretty plastic life I’d led. And living in Hulme was cool. No doubt.

Mum would hate this.

I was fascinated and terrified and excited. I’d found my spiritual home. Here I would recover my mojo. This was where the freaks, the beautiful, and the damned hung out.

Diana

The flat was filthy, junk spattered about like a Pollock. We tiptoed round our new home, poking around, imagining who came before us and why they left so hurriedly. Upstairs, I pushed open the door to the windowless bathroom. The light from the landing was poor but as it trickled into the room I felt movement across the linoleum, dark shapes skittering into the crevices and cracks where the bath, basin and toilet met the floor.

Cockroaches?

I blinked, and looked again. There was nothing but the cheap white enamel of the suite and a London Calling poster peeling off the wall. I plodded downstairs.

‘Where do we start? It’s overwhelming,’ I said, draining the last of an instant coffee which Alan had made next door and brought through.

‘By getting rid of this crap,’ said Linda, pointing at the net curtains, the magazines in the corner of the living room, ‘and the fridge and the skanky mattress upstairs. After that we need to get the leccie sorted. I’ll bomb to the corner shop and put some cash on this.’ She held a key for the meter. Ever practical, she’d sussed out the basics, water, electricity and gas, while I’d mooched around upstairs.

We dragged the rubbish onto the balcony and left it piled up against the door of number fifty-five. I’d harboured fantasies that some of the magazines might be worth keeping, but they were mostly soft porn, Classic Cars, and Jackie. I’d not seen that mag since I was a kid. A copy with Donny Osmond on the cover was passed round a friend’s house shortly before I was transported to boarding school.

We took everything that wasn’t ours onto the balcony, except one box. It contained electrical goods and we thought they might be worth testing before we threw them out.

It was almost seven in the evening when there was a knock at the door. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the skirting boards. The door swung open and in stepped a tall, bleached blond. Rows of silver skulls shone out from his knuckles. He held a toolbox in one hand and a long piece of wood tucked under his arm. His eyes were dark and narrow, his cheekbones high and his lips full. He took my breath away.

He walked in, threw his jacket over the banister and stood over me, legs astride, hands in his pockets. ‘Jim. My brother said I’d come round?’ I stumbled to my feet, tugging away at my rubber gloves. He jerked his head back at the door, ‘To fix the frame, the lock?’

He worked efficiently, refusing all offers of hospitality, speaking only when spoken to. I wished I wasn’t so filthy, that my hair fell around my shoulders instead of being scraped into a bird’s nest of a bun, that I wore a smattering of make-up. Linda materialised in the kitchen doorway and though she was scruffily dressed she looked amazing: corkscrew curls bouncing out from the confines of a scarlet headscarf, her lean figure encased in a navy boiler suit. She reminded me of the iconic factory girl from the Second World War poster.

We lingered as he worked, making pathetic small talk; we sounded like idiots, especially me. Pampered, spoilt brats slumming it. Except that Linda wasn’t a posh girl, and she made this clear, battling for his attention. In the end I walked away and ran a bath. I wasn’t going to fall out with a friend over a bloke. He looked like one of those beautiful, cruel men who enmesh women, unravel them, grow bored then, without explanation or apology, move on, leaving the abandoned woman shapeless and without form. If she wanted him, he was hers.

When I came down the stairs wrapped in a towel, I thought he’d gone. I was looking for my hairbrush. He was packing his tools away and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. I stopped at the bottom of the first flight, on the landing. Before I retreated, I leant over the banister and a drop of water fell from my hair onto the top of his head. He looked up. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t. His eyes held me, sucking me in. I could almost feel my pupils dilating, my body humming. Linda came out of the kitchen and broke the atmosphere with a small, shocked ‘oh’. He left. Linda and I did not speak of his visit.

Space was important to me, important for my creativity. The right space. Airy, light, clean. So we scraped and scrubbed and painted. After six days the flat was altered beyond recognition. Alan had helped out and we’d thanked him with coffee, tea, biscuits and booze. We couldn’t have done it without him.

‘Let’s go out,’ Alan said, as we stood admiring our transformed living room, a bottle of cheap fizz on the coffee table. ‘You’ve been cooped up all week. I’ll roll a joint while you get your glad rags on.’

‘I’m knackered,’ Linda said, taking another slurp of wine.

But I agreed with Alan. We needed a change of scenery. ‘Come on. We’ll go to the Student Union for a quiet drink.’

Upstairs, I pulled on my spiky-heeled ankle boots and biker jacket, tied a bow in my hair with a strip of black lace. Linda swept some wax through her hair, clipped on a pair of saucer-sized earrings and changed from dungarees into a long-sleeved woollen dress: a sixties movie star, all heavy black eyeliner and pale lipstick.

It was freezing when we left the Union bar. Home was a twenty-minute walk away and Alan suggested we call a cab. At the taxi rank the queue was short, but there were no taxis about. I dug my hands into my pockets and stared at my feet and the oily pavement, stomping on the spot in an effort to stem the cold. I lifted my chin at the toot of a horn and saw an imposing figure emerging from the mist. Jim. He stopped.

‘Hey man, how’s it going?’ Alan said.

Jim nodded, looked at me and said, ‘Where you goin’?’

‘Home. We’re shattered,’ Alan said.

‘This early?’ Jim said, still looking at me.

‘You got a better offer?’ Linda was so brazen. I loved her for it.

‘Party, William Kent.’

A taxi pulled up and the group in front hopped in. I could see the orange ‘For hire’ light of a cab drawing closer. Alan protested that an early night was what we needed.

I’d woken up, and so, it seemed, had Linda. ‘Shut your cake hole, grandad.’

The cab slipped alongside us. ‘Share ours?’ she continued, and without replying Jim opened the door and slid onto the front seat. Alan wedged himself between me and Linda, reluctantly agreeing to come, as if he was doing Jim a favour rather than the other way round.

The party was heaving; the smell of sweat, skunk, and poppers overwhelming. The melancholy tones of New Order floated over the rumble of the crowd. Blinded by air thick with smoke I lost Jim, Alan and Linda to a swarming pride of dancers. I pushed on, acclimatising, moving in to the bowels of the flat.

On the lower level many of the interior walls had been torn down and those left had been stripped to expose the bare plaster boards. The wooden staircase had been replaced with a spiral metal construction, London street signs hung in different rooms.

I spotted Alan’s stick insect form as he weaved his way from the main dancing area, his head rising above the horizon of shadows like the funnel of a submarine. I followed him to the kitchen. All that was on offer, other than a glorious visual display on the walls, was a half-empty bottle of vodka and a couple of bottles of Blue Nun. A girl in leggings, a tutu, and an alarming array of piercings bumped into me.

‘You know where the beer is?’ she said, her pupils so dilated her irises were almost eclipsed.

I shook my head. ‘Not in here as far as I can tell.’

A punk with ebony spikes and badly applied lipstick leant over and pointed to the ceiling with his cigarette, and said, ‘Beer.’ He smelt of stale hops and sweat and the hide of his leather trousers.

I turned to Alan, my head spinning, but he was engaged in conversation with a dumpy girl in a peach cardigan, so I followed Piercings upstairs.

The bath was full of half-melted ice and bottles of Pilsner. I checked myself in the mirror above the basin, wetting my fingertips and brushing them over my brows.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Piercings said, reaching over, dipping her blue-white arm into the icy water. She pulled out two bottles and handed one to me.

‘Thanks.’ I turned back to the glass. ‘I was admiring the mirror actually,’ I said.

‘Bloody liar, though it is amazing, isn’t it?’

It was. The craftsman had picked a piece of shattered glass and built the wooden frame around it, or so I was told.

‘You know the artist?’

‘Sure. Anyone who’s anyone knows Pru and Michael. They’re like the coolest, you dig? You want some coke?’

I felt reduced. I did not know Pru or Michael. ‘Sure.’

She opened a cabinet and took out a razor blade. She spoke as she cut the powder into neat lines. ‘They’re like Mr and Mrs Hulme, though Michael would hate to be described as an artist. He doesn’t buy into all that capitalist shite. You know, labelling and that. He like collects stuff that other people think is rubbish, you know, broken, busted, and makes beautiful things from them.’

‘Are they from London?’

She looked blank.

‘The street signs... ’

‘They’re like people of the universe, you know. They don’t want to be shackled by fascist pretensions like class, national identity, possession.’

I nodded, though I didn’t know. I wanted to challenge her on the notion that art was capitalist shite, but she was so stoned I figured I’d be wasting my time and I wanted to keep the offer of the cocaine open. I kept my mouth shut and grunted at the appropriate intervals.

‘Michael and Pru, though mostly Michael ‘cos he’s the real genius, the creative energy behind what they are, likes things stripped to the essentials, you know, pared right back to their very essence, it’s the only way to discover true beauty, Michael says.’ He was starting to sound like an arsehole.

She rolled a pound note and handed it to me.

‘I didn’t know there were flats this big in the crescents,’ I said, rubbing the crumbs into my gums. She bent down, snorted loudly, took a gulp of beer.

‘There aren’t. This is two flats, knocked into one. You can’t tell from downstairs, it’s all an illusion, but there’s a doorway through to the next flat up here.’ A bloke stumbled in with his flies already open and staggered towards the john. I leapt away. We stepped out on to the landing.

‘Where?’ I said, intrigued. She pointed at one of the bedrooms before disappearing back down the stairs, shouting, ‘No one’s allowed in there other than by special invitation. I’m going to dance. I totally dig this track!’ I could hear a steady stream of piss hitting the bowl, a flush, then the bloke pushed past me fiddling with his flies. I felt an urge to wash and I wondered if Jim washed his hands after using the toilet.

Where is he? Where’s Linda?

I was sweating, my heart palpitating. Suspicion stole into me, mingling with the drug. Perhaps they were together. Linda fancied him.

But he likes me. I felt it. Am I wrong?

I finished the beer and raced back downstairs, my heels catching in the metalwork.

They were probably in the main room. Linda loved to dance. Jim would know loads of people; he’d be catching up with friends. I poked my head into the kitchen. Alan was still chatting up Cardie Girl. Unfamiliar faces flashed before me, hemming me in. I backed off, pushed my way through an arch to the open space, and surveyed the crowd. It was hot and dark, the air was heavy. People moved like spectres across the bright spotlights of the disco, which sat on a raised platform in the far corner. I fought my way over and clambered up. The DJ waved me away half-heartedly. The revellers appeared as one amorphous mass. There was no sign of either Linda or Jim. I pictured them kissing, leapt down, pushed my way through and climbed the staircase once more.

Does Jim know about the entrance to the other flat? Perhaps he’s there now. With Linda.

People poured from the bathroom; word had travelled about the beer. I forced my way in, the smell of sweaty bodies filling my nostrils, and collected another bottle before crossing the landing. I hovered in front of a bedroom door, uncertain if I could go in, unsure what I might find. Previously, I’d considered Linda’s promiscuity a peccadillo, but now it loomed threatening and inimical.

I pushed the door with my index finger. A dozen or so people were slouched on the floor, smoking, prostrate on the carpet. Ennui and addiction hung in the air. I closed the door. There was only one room left to investigate: the forbidden one. I felt the pull and thrill of the illicit. Michael and Pru were strangers, I felt no loyalty to them, but if caught, I would never be allowed into their hallowed circle and I feared Jim’s disapproval if I transgressed. He had invited us, they were his friends and an insult to them might be perceived as a personal slight. But I couldn’t help myself. The room sucked me in.

Other than the overspill from the hall, there was no light. I felt along the wall for the switch and flicked it down. Nothing. I could just about see a mountain of clothes on a bed, the outline of a small wardrobe and a bookcase. The curtains were drawn. I estimated that I could make it across the room to the window and open the curtains with the available hall light before the door closed behind me, casting me into absolute darkness. I went for it but tripped on a book, or item of clothing, on the way and I yelped in pain as my shin caught the edge of a sharp object. Rubbing my throbbing leg with one hand I tugged at the curtain with the other. The orange hue of the streetlights flooded the room, revealing its character.

It was ordinary, suburban in flavour, quite different from the rest of the flat. An enormous, tired cheese plant drooped in a corner. I looked for a doorway to the next flat. There it was, like an oversized safe door, cut out of the papered wall. Instead of a combination lock, a vertical handle made from Perspex jutted out. There was no keyhole, no lock.

I grasped the handle and tugged. It made a clicking sound, like cheap wardrobe doors, and swung open. I hesitated, my body like a tinder stick, ready to ignite, every synapse and nerve ending crackling. The thrill was unbearable, and I almost turned back when I heard a noise. Like a bark, or a howling. I peered forward and waited for another sound.

Nothing.

It must have been one of the many stray dogs that sloped around the estate, foraging. With the heat from my pounding heart bursting through my ribs, I ducked my head, stepped over the lip, and crossed into Pru and Michael’s private space.

˜

The tangerine of the street lamps lit the room just as they had its opposite number. The room resembled an elderly man’s shed-come-junk shop. Shelves stacked u. . .