Under Her Skin Read online

  UNDER

  HER

  SKIN

  UNDER

  HER

  SKIN

  STEPHEN LAW

  ROSEWAY PUBLISHING

  AN IMPRINT OF FERNWOOD PUBLISHING

  HALIFAX & WINNIPEG

  Copyright © 2017 Stephen Law

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Editing: Sandra McIntyre

  Design: Tania Craan

  Printed and bound in Canada

  eBook: tikaebooks.com

  Published by Roseway Publishing

  an imprint of Fernwood Publishing

  32 Oceanvista Lane, Black Point, Nova Scotia, B0J 1B0

  and 748 Broadway Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 0X3

  www.fernwoodpublishing.ca/roseway

  Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of Manitoba, the Province of Nova Scotia and Arts Nova Scotia.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Law, Stephen, 1969-, author

  Under her skin / Stephen Law.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55266-847-4 (softcover). — ISBN 978-1-55266-848-1

  (EPUB). — ISBN 978-1-55266-849-8 (Kindle)

  I. Title.

  PS8623.A922U63 2017

  C813’.6

  C2017-903108-2

  C2017-903109-0

  To Jade, Mady, and Evelyn

  1

  WEB OF HAND

  flower

  VIBRATIONS COURSED UP AND down her arm. It happened sometimes — occupational hazard. She shifted the gun she was cleaning from left hand to right and gave her tingling arm a rest. She was shaking it out when the door chimed and a man crossed the threshold from the street, busy at the end of the day, into the studio.

  At first glance she thought it was Desmond: same age, same size, same black hair shorn close to the skull. But dropping in was not her brother’s style.

  “You Shaz?”

  She placed the gun on the work table and peeled off her gloves. “Yup.” She tossed the bundle of latex into the open mouth of the garbage bin.

  “You do tats then?”

  Shaz gestured to the space around them — clean white walls adorned with colourful flash art and photos of her work, black leather couch, tattoo magazines strewn across the coffee table.

  He ignored her and bent his head, like he was going to show her a mole on his neck.

  “Initials.” He jabbed at his skin. “NPF, right here.”

  Shaz gave him a once over, then walked toward him, passing close enough to take in his scent: cheap cologne, doused not dabbed. It was the same trick her father used to mask the stench of rum and invite courage. She felt his eyes follow her as she edged around him.

  “I don’t do gangs.” She pushed the door open.

  He hesitated and she felt his flush of anger. His eyes darted around the studio. Part of her wanted him to try something, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Tension grappled with fatigue as she held the door open against the wind. She just wanted him to leave so she could clean up the mess and go home.

  “Thanks for shit,” he said, knocking past.

  “Have a nice day now.”

  Drunks, frat boys, corporate types, regular folk, even gangbangers — they’d all walked in at some point. Back when she was gutting it out to get established, the drop-in traffic was a lifeline. She’d gone from scratcher to full-fledged artist in this studio. It was as much her home as the one she retreated to each night to binge on tea and Netflix. But at times like these, she thought she should move. Find a nice, out-of-the-way house where only customers who really knew her and her work would venture.

  Shaz waited, then stole a glance down the street to make sure he had moved along. She returned to the lounge to clean up.

  Books closed. Magazines stacked. Chairs pushed to the wall. Rotary machine turned off and unplugged. Everything wiped down, tidy and sterile and ready for tomorrow.

  ***

  THE IMAGE OF A black and white orca pounding out of the surf came to her on the walk home. Working on some white dude from the South End would be different than inking up the guy who popped in at the end of the day. On Mr. NFP, she’d have to shade the undertones, make it bold. A challenge she’d welcome. Black and grey ink would work, though black and blue might be more deserving.

  Approaching the cracked steps to her shared bungalow took her out of her head. It took Shaz a moment to understand what she was seeing when she stepped inside.

  Cotton flurries blanketed the living room floor. Books everywhere, shelves empty.

  The string bag holding the litre of chocolate milk fell from her hand to the floor and she felt for the door behind her, edging her way out. Hand to her back pocket, she checked for her phone. She stood on the sidewalk, immobile and tuned to any sound or movement. Muscles tense, she waited. A breeze shuffled leaves in the wind.

  Clouds rolled over the sun and shadows glided along the patchwork lawns of the neighbourhood. A strand of light crept its way back up the steps.

  She went back in. “Hello?” She collected the string bag and called out two more times as she moved deeper into the house, clutching the bag ready to swing.

  The kitchen was empty. The back door swayed in a lazy two-step with the breeze. A woody scent reached her nose as she closed the door — oak? sandalwood? — but by the time she righted the garbage can it was gone.

  She put the milk away and found some vinegar in the cupboard. With scrunched up newspaper she worked on the window above the sink, a spot they hadn’t been able to get to during their spring cleaning. A thick black grime had built up over winter from the shoddy caulking. Once it shone, Shaz hustled over to the bathroom. The more she scrubbed the less her hands shook.

  Sounds at the front door. Flipping the plunger around in her hand she held it like a bat.

  Someone swore.

  Shaz let out her breath.

  Sophie found her in the bathroom, back at the scrubbing. “What the hell happened here?”

  “I don’t know.” Shaz barely looked up.

  Sophie stormed out. Shaz could hear her shouting out to the others, about the damage, probably tallying costs.

  When the bathroom sparkled, Shaz scurried to her bedroom. She hesitated before entering, then barged in. Unlikely though it was, she took a quick look around to make sure no one was there, ready to pounce,

  Drawers and closet stood open, contents scattered asunder. She pushed her way through the things on the floor. Her salmon bra was hooked on a wing of the ceiling fan and her best black panties hung on the window latch, a hole cut into the crotch.

  Shaz shivered as her mind raced through a list of possible suspects: Kids messing around? A thief? The gang-banger she’d thrown out of the studio? He’d asked for her by name. But the scent was wrong. A pervert? Or someone with a grudge?

  “Fucking lucky they didn’t touch anything in my room,” Sophie yelled from down the hall.

  Shaz’s drawings had been tossed about, some ripped and others crumpled. She swept clean a place on her desk. Reaching with a shaky hand for a pencil and sketchpad from the jumble of stuff on the floor, she began to sketch.

  ***


  AT FOURTEEN SHE INKED her first tattoo. Still the most primitive piece on her body, the star-shaped flower sat on the web of her left hand between thumb and forefinger, surrounding the pressure point. It never bothered her that her clients saw it when she worked. She liked its simplicity. Its raw feel. Its provenance.

  Unlike other artists, Shaz wasn’t covered in a bodysuit of tats. The skin she saw as canvas and frame. The uncovered skin made the art stand out. Full body tats felt more like wallpaper, or armour, and less like a gallery.

  Tattooing had begun as a whim after she watched a TV show about convicts who fashioned their own tattoos in jail. Inspired, she used a needle from her mom’s sewing kit and ink leaked from a cheap ballpoint pen poured into a cereal bowl.

  With her hand bandaged to hide the evidence, she told her mom she’d cut it when she broke the bowl that had been stained with her efforts. Her mom raised a brow. When the bandage fell off, she implored Shaz to do no more.

  Shaz complied. For a while.

  Somehow word that she was doing tattoos spread; pretty soon people she’d never talked to before were approaching her with requests. She bought multi-coloured pens and experimented with styles and colours on willing ninth graders.

  Since then, she’d done hundreds, maybe thousands, of tattoos on every body part imaginable.

  ***

  THE STAR FLOWER DANCED as she texted.

  can you come over?

  Not waiting for a reply, she returned the phone to the back pocket of her jeans and pulled the bra down from the fan. Gathering up her art supplies, she glanced at the drawing on her desk. Finding an eraser, she expunged the bra from the picture. She then surveyed the books thrown to the ground. She carefully returned them to the shelf, arranging them according to size, shape and complementary colours. Back at the desk, she sketched heavy, cross-hatched lines across the floor. She continued this way, cleaning up the picture as she cleaned up the room.

  The bra and any other clothes that had been sullied in the invasion, she mounted into a pile.

  “Are you okay?”

  Shaz jumped. She hadn’t heard the doorbell.

  With a flick of the wrist, she flipped the picture over as Frank crossed the room. He took her in his arms. She flinched, her body taut. Frank held her close. Like a wolf meeting a member of the pack, she breathed in his familiar scent, letting it relax her.

  Since high school, Shaz and Frank had shared benefits, on and off, according to their needs. Along the way, other partners entered and exited their lives. They were the exception to each other.

  Frank was the one who led her to the book in the library: Tattoo Art through Time. He was the one who suggested they visit the Blue Sailor on Wyse Road, where the two of them camped out at the window while Sal inked art onto bodies, never once shooing them off.

  They experimented over the years with drugs, politics, philosophy, religion. They bonded in the art room at school — it was a refuge to them, like the theatre was to the drama geeks, the football field to the jocks, the parking lot to the stoners. Frank had taken to architecture and Shaz to tattoos. Art drew them together. It remained their constant. Frank was in her circle, always.

  Assessing the damage, his eyes scanned the room. Shaz wanted to stand in his way, keep him at bay, keep him from seeing, as though she were responsible for this violence. He straightened the Jacci Gresham reproduction on her wall.

  She sat down on the bed and used her foot to push the clothes out of the way. With her right thumb she rubbed the star flower. The pile of clothes on the floor, her art supplies in disarray — she’d not been able to reassemble the room. To erase what had happened.

  Frank grabbed her hand and pulled her up. “Come on. Let’s get you some new clothes.”

  ***

  THEY WENT TO HIS place after shopping. Frank swung by Salvatore’s on their way and picked up a pizza: baby clams and mozzarella. Frank even let her add black olives, though he complained about how it “unbalanced the flavours.”

  Shaz liked them for the contrast they brought.

  “Wine? Beer? Shots?”

  Declining the offer, she watched as Frank went and carefully locked the door. She resisted going over to make sure. With her back to the couch, her eye on the entrance, she pulled her knees to her chest.

  Steam rose from the tea he brought out on a tray. They settled in front of the TV to watch Jeopardy while they ate. Frank was better at some categories than others, but she got three in a row: “What is the Nile?”, “Who is Julius Nyerere?”, and “Where is Cape Town?”

  “Did you ever notice Jeopardy questions never begin with ‘why’?” Frank handed her a napkin. “You’ve got a little bit on your chin.”

  Shaz dabbed off the sauce and kept the napkin scrunched in her hand. The TV distracted her from thinking about why someone had broken into her home.

  “Stay here tonight,” Frank offered, his voice calm but insistent.

  ***

  SHE WOKE TO FRANK shaking her gently. She’d nodded off in front of the television, all her energy draining from her body onto the floor. Frank had cleared the dishes. All she wanted to do was go to sleep, but she hesitated. In what had been more of a slow drift than a decision, they hadn’t slept together in a while. Frank got to his feet and went into his bedroom, returning a moment later with a large t-shirt.

  “If it were me, I’d want someone to hold me all night and tell me happy fairy tales.” He threw her the shirt. She caught it in one hand and eked out a grin.

  In the middle of a funny, twisted tale about a misunderstanding between frogs and toads, he was the one to drift off. Shaz stared at the ceiling and around the room: immaculate dresser, perfectly aligned blinds that let in just the right amount of light in the morning, neatly hung clothes in the closet, scarlet quilt with matching accent pillows. Orderly, clean, tasteful. She resented not being in her own bed, at home. She resented that Frank was taking care of her, that he felt somehow she needed to be taken care of, and that she even wanted his help.

  Crawling out from under the covers, careful not to disturb him, she went back to the living room. Plopping herself on the couch, she studied the apartment. Every item had a place and a function, everything matched and flowed. From the white canvas of the walls and the sky blue furniture to the set of black and white prints of workers sitting on steel beams high above city skylines, everything was arranged to declare Frank’s sense of taste and style. Even the view fit the scheme: the large windows overlooking the darkened harbour showed lights flickering off the water across the shore.

  The books on the shelf were neatly arranged. None were stuffed into place. Shaz wondered if he measured them first.

  Removing Le Corbusier’s Toward an Architecture and Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution from the shelf, Shaz thought she would transpose them, just to see if he noticed. But pulling the books down suddenly felt wrong. Back they went.

  An amber spiral on a crimson spine caught her eye. She tipped it towards her, then removed it from the shelf, saw it was a textbook: The Intersection of Psychology and Design. A book to explain both the structure and the function of people’s actions, to fill in the “why” of missing Jeopardy questions. She almost threw it down, afraid of another failed attempt to explain the complexity of human behaviour. But she felt restless, unable to settle. If Frank’s fairytales didn’t help her fall asleep, maybe a psychology lesson would.

  Evolutionary theory. Cognitive systems. It was dry stuff, nothing calling her to attention, not until she came to a chapter explaining bonding mechanisms between children and their parents.

  Listening for the sounds of Frank sleeping, she placed her feet on the coffee table and began to read a section on attachment, which conjured a design, an octopus suctioned to the side of her mother’s head.

  The chapter that followed, “Emotional Detachment,” expanded the de
sign, incorporating more family members into the image, including a baby octopus — Desmond, her brother.

  She recalled the time when she and Frank were teenagers, all hands, legs and arms, sucking and kissing, half-dressed in the basement, and her mom called down to them. “Come help me with your brother.”

  Frank knocked over an ink bottle in his efforts to cover up. The closest thing at hand had been her bra, which she grabbed and used to mop up the spill so it wouldn’t stain the floor. Not knowing what to do with the evidence, she stowed bra and ink in the trash underneath some Joe Louis wrappers. But she hadn’t been able to get all the dye off her hand and ended up using the new diaper to wipe her hand clean. She paid close attention to her little brother, carefully watching for the next diaper change so she could stuff the diaper in the trash and rid the house of all the evidence. Or so she’d thought.

  Shaz curled her feet into the chair, settling in to the random images of octopus, ink, psychology, Frank, and her family.

  ***

  SHAZ WOKE TO THE comforting heaviness of a blanket over her shoulders and the smell of coffee. Her eyes adjusted to the white walls and the view of George’s Island in the harbour. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

  “Hello?” She leaned her head back to take in the room. The apartment was empty. Frank had left for work.

  She stretched a big stretch, then moved the book off her lap and placed it back on the shelf. Making her way over to the kitchen, she found two things: a chocolate croissant on a dinner plate beside a neatly rolled linen napkin and a note from Frank. Stay as long as you like.

  She fixed her coffee, dressed, folded the blanket back onto his bed, cleaned the kitchen and straightened the living room. She left him a note of thanks, grabbed the croissant, and headed for the studio.

  How many times had she walked from Lower Water Street to Quinpool or back to her place off Agricola? Her back to the harbour, she headed up Bishop Street just down from the old Brewery market, and along Barrington, past Government House and the Old Burying Ground, where an arch paid homage to the Crimean war and a lion guarded the graves of the early British settlers. The grounds marked the division of the downtown core and the tony South End. If she had gone up Morris Street, it would have led her through the university catchment area and the medical corridor, where buildings were known as much by their initialisms as by their function: VG, IWK, and QEII. The area was a mini-village with hospital employees and patients on one end, and undergrads on the other.