You know what they’re made off,’ I insist as firmly as I can manage. I think my voice might be quivering a little, due to the strange situation I’ve found myself in. ‘I want you to take them back; now!’
‘Would you like to step into the back?’ he says, in the manner a normal shop owner would ask someone if they wanted to discuss favourable financial terms.
‘The back!’ I shake my head. ‘No way am I stepping in there with you!’
The girl next to me sighs, giving me the disparaging look a department store assistant gives an over-reacting, completely unpleasable customer.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Freak gently touches the side of his own face. ‘Isn’t there some more important matter to discuss other than the return of a pair of gloves?’
‘I…I sort of hoped returning the gloves would, you know, tend to make everything else all right.’
Both Freak and the girl have the same kind of smile, smiles usually reserved for tolerating a child’s amusing naivety.
Freak opens the door to his back room.
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ he assures me. He turns to the girl. ‘Has any woman I’ve invited into my back room ever come to any harm, Miss Dorent?’
The girl, of course, shakes her head.
‘No sir; quite the contrary, I would say.’
She says it with an oddly dreamy expression.
‘On the contrary? What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask suspiciously.
‘I mean they always come out incredibly happy.’
‘Er, that sounds even weirder.’
‘I simply help them understand how truly beautiful they are,’ Freak says with a touch of exasperation. ‘Or, rather, how beautiful they could be, under my direction and with my help.’
He gently touches the side of his face again, making me unconsciously reach for the disfigured side of my own face.
‘You – you caused this?’
‘Oh no no; you did. If I may explain?’
Once again, he invites me to step through the door.
What choice do I have? It’s not as if I’m much safer out here anyway, as this Miss Dorent’s obviously an accomplice.
*
Chapter 22
Stepping through the doorway into the back of Freak’s shop isn’t the massive change of atmosphere I was expecting it to be.
Far from being a back room, this room’s every bit as large and brightly illuminated as the room we’ve just left behind.
It’s still full of gracefully posed mannequins too, although the dresses being worn here stretch farther back in time than the ones out front. Otherwise, the mannequins are all just as impossibly beautiful, just as incredibly detailed and realistic. There are even a few men here, wearing everything from slick modern suits to the type of costume Shakespeare would have felt at home wearing.
‘Is it the operation?’ I ask, stroking my face worriedly once more. ‘Or is what’s happening to me the same thing that’s happening to Jackie?’
‘Yes, yes to both your questions; although really, it all comes down to you both suffering my displeasure.’
‘Displeasure? Why, what have I done? I didn’t ask to be operated on!’
‘As we both realise, Miss Paxton, if you hadn’t had the operation, you’d be in a far worse state than you’re in now. What’s more, at the time you were hardly in a fit state to be asked permission, or to refuse. The operation was a complete success, with absolutely no complications.’
‘No complications! Look at me!’
I pull the veil of hair away from the disfigured side of my face.
‘As I say, the operation – which was not by any means a normal operation – was a complete success. An essential element of the operation is that it allows you a certain degree of control over how you look.’
‘I can change it back?’ I ask hopefully. ‘I can go back to how I looked before?’
‘Ah, that depends, of course…’
‘Depends on what?’ I think I’m slowly beginning to work out what he means. ‘Depends on ensuring I don’t earn your displeasure?’
He nods, smiles.
‘And how hard is that, Jill? All I want you to do is to keep the gloves; they’re a gift! A fabulous gift, as I’m sure you’re aware.’
‘But they’re disgusting! They’re made of human skin! Poor Hezzy’s skin!’
Freak shakes his head sadly.
‘Jackie told you? That girl certainly knows how to earn my displeasure, doesn’t she?’
‘It wasn’t Jackie; I saw Hezzy committing suicide.’
Freak’s eyes open wide, but not just with surprise; there’s also a wild sparkle of delight.
‘I saw you there too,’ I continue, feeling that at last I have the upper hand; I’m the one surprising him. ‘You tried to stop her – and that’s the only reason why I still have some small residue of trust in you, I suppose. I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here, or how you managed to be there about a hundred years ago; but if you tried to stop her, there must be some good in you!’
For a moment, he looks a little ashamed, perhaps even bashful.
‘Yes, yes; she drove off – I was too late.’
‘So – can you explain the gloves? How they come to be made out of Hezzy’s skin? You might have been too late to save her, but you didn’t seem to mind mutilating her just to get a nice pair of gloves out of her hands!’
He looks up once more, his face creased in shock as if hurt by my comment.
‘But don’t you see? She lives on through those gloves! Just as you live on because I had the chance of rescuing you. I would have rescued Hezzy in the same way too, if I could; but even I couldn’t perform the miracle required to piece her together after that crash.’
Now his eyes are pleading for understanding.
‘You’ve seen how the gloves work, Jill; she’s still alive in those gloves. All her emotions and sensations, all there for you and anybody else to experience and learn from.’
‘I tried to commit suicide, just like she did!’ I protest.
‘Only you Jill; you were the only one to see her suicide, to even know she committed suicide. And that’s because there’s something special about you, something I sort of recognised earlier. Which is why I knew I had to save you. And Hezzy, she was special too, but in a different way; she had this wealth of experience that so many other less confident women can learn from, can experience for themselves. For all these other women, Jill, the gloves are what they were for you the first time you wore them – a means of bringing out their own inner beauty and seductive powers.’
‘Oh and a lot of good these seductive powers did Hezzy, right? This boyfriend of hers dumped her just like Jase dumped me.’
‘But Jill, there will always be one man, one woman, who remains immune to our allure. Both you and Hezzy were just incredibly unfortunate, that’s all.’
With a casual wave of his hand, he indicates the room of mannequins surrounding us.
‘Look at my business, Jill; an incredibly thriving business. Do you think everyone who comes through here ends up suicidal?’
With a nod of his head, he next draws my attention to a wall full of framed pictures, old photographs and drawings of the shop in earlier periods. Its exterior still looks much the same as it does now, with only the adjacent buildings being different. The interiors of the shop change, the types of lighting – gas lamps, candles set against mirrors – being different for one thing, the dresses adorning the ranged mannequins being another. The styles go back through the ages, but many are dressed in the fashion of the period; Edwardian, Victorian, and, I think, even Georgian.
‘You heard Miss Dorent,’ Freak continues proudly, ‘they leave here ecstatic! And they come back time and time again for more and more. In every other case but yours, my gloves are an astounding success!’
‘Gloves? Plural? So there
are many more gloves like Hezzy’s?’
He nods, but unapologetically.
‘Of course! As I say, in some cases they’re all that’s retrievable after the sad loss of some great and ravishing beauty in our past; someone whose early passing would be a great and tragic loss to the world of experience and sensuality! Is it really right that all those wonderful experiences they’ve accumulated over their short lives should be lost to us all forever? How much would we mourn the loss, say, of the great thinkers, if they weren’t able to put their thoughts down in books?’
‘Books and gloves made of their skin are a completely different thing!’
‘But what if we didn’t have books? Would we really suffer the loss of their accumulated thoughts, if we had the opportunity to recover their discoveries in, say, sections of their DNA, or their cells, of their brains, which we could somehow store and read?’
He draws my attention to my shoes.
‘Leather, right? Have you any idea of the processing that goes into transforming a living animal into those gay little shoes of yours? And how about those quaint little purses you see made of calves’ leather – or, even worse, unborn calves? All that, too, for nothing more than some pretty adornment you’re going to tire of one day and throw away. My gloves, on the other hand – what pleasure, what incredible knowledge and help, do they bring with them? Who’s going to tire of them and throw them away?’
Before I can avoid it, he reaches out and gently touches my face. His touch creates a slight tingle, as if a small electric charge has just coursed through us. I feel my skin tighten, the sensation you get when you’ve used a strongly astringent cream.
I pull my hair back and glance at myself in one of the many large mirrors set around the room.
My face! Everything’s back to how it should be!
The angrily frozen side’s now just like the other side of my face. When I smile, my whole mouth, my whole face, smiles once more.
‘How’d you…’
Freak interrupts my question with a modest grin, a slightly raised hand.
‘Was it me? Or was it you? Because we both know now, I presume, that you’re not going to throw those remarkable gloves away. Think about it; wasn’t one of the very reasons you didn’t want to dispose of them because you know that they’re still an indelible part of Hezzy and her life? Through them, she still lives; and destroying them is like destroying the very last of her. You become the one who finally kills her.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose…’
I’m still not quite sure what to think. Am I really on the point of accepting back a pair of gloves made of Hezzy’s skin?
Then again, if he’s not going to take them back anyway, and if my refusal to keep them means I end up looking more and more like poor Jackie…
‘Those gloves can help your friends, just like they originally helped you,’ Freak confidently declares, as if he’s actually read the doubt on my face. ‘What about your friend Cath? Isn’t there someone she’s longing to be asked out by? Wouldn’t you like to see her be as happy as you were?’
‘Hah, until someone like Fiona comes along again, and spoils everything!’
‘What’s the chances of that?’ Freak shrugs, like we’re talking a million to one chance here. ‘Besides, I have it on good authority that Fiona at least is no longer around.’
‘You do?’
He nods, smiles.
‘Would you have Jase back though, now you know how he’s treated you?’
I shake my head.
‘No way would I have him back! I’d only ever feel like I was second best; like he was just making do with me till another Fiona came along.’
‘See?’ he says proudly. ‘You’ve picked up some of Hezzy’s fighting spirit along the way!’
‘What was she like? The real Hezzy, I mean? You knew her well, right?’
‘Very well!’ His face takes on an almost dreamy expression, as if he’s thinking back to how she used to be. ‘Some of the things she got up to! You’d be amazed, impressed!’
He comes out of his semi-dream state, looks back towards me.
‘But that was then; a time I’ll tell you about some other time! Now we’re talking about letting Hezzy help your friend Cath. And if I know Hezzy, I know she’d be excited about that!’
I chuckle.
‘Cath? Cath doesn’t need any help to feel good about herself! Or to get boyfriends; she can get just about who she wants with a smile and a flip of her fingers.’
‘Just about who she wants? Boyfriend-s? But what about the boyfriend she really wants? The boy who doesn’t come under the “just about” range? Come on, Jill; you know what I’m talking about! Wouldn’t Cath have said exactly the same about you a few months back? That you could get just about who you wanted? But there’s always somebody special who seems just out of our reach, doesn’t there? Making them all the more irresistible and desirable for that?’
Damn him! Isn’t there anything this bloody Freak doesn’t know?
‘Well, okay, you’re right; there is one guy. Someone she wouldn’t even tell me about – but I sort of guessed anyway, recognising the longing looks she was always giving him. The way she’d talk about him, too.’
‘Well there you are then! You can help Cath win the boyfriend of her dreams!’
‘Hmn, it’s just a little more complicated than that…’
‘Oh, Hezzy’s expertise will help her overcome any complications,’ he says with an airily dismissive wave of his hands.
‘But there were particular reasons why Cath wouldn’t tell me. She was embarrassed. She didn’t want to hurt me.’
‘Oh oh; let me guess. She was in love with your boyfriend? With Jase?’
I nod.
He frowns thoughtfully.
‘Ah, yes; that is a complication.’
He looks at me like, for once, he’s expecting me to arrive at an answer.
‘I’m over Jase; there no complication really,’ I say resolutely.
Am I over Jase? No, probably not. But I can’t accept being second best.
‘It’s agreed then!’ Freak pronounces triumphantly. ‘You’re going to help your friend Cath get the boyfriend of her dreams – Jase Withers!’
*
Chapter 23
God, am I stupid, or what?
So after all that, I end up leaving with the bloody gloves – made of human skin! – after all!
I mean, it wasn’t even as if I’d had the sense to at least ask Freak why he was doing this. I mean, why is he wanting to help Cath?
It’s not as if he exactly strikes me as having any socially-aware tendencies!
He’s obviously making a fortune out of his gloves and what-have-you. So why hand out freebies to people like me and Cath?
A marketing ploy? Is that all it is?
You know, showing off to his wealthy customers that his company’s all signed up to the better-world agenda, helping the less fortunate in society. Or maybe it’s a way of showing that even dumb, hormone-raging teens can benefit from the use of his products.
Whatever it is, it seems to be working.
As I’d left the shop, I’d noticed that Miss Dorent had managed to sell one of those if-you-have–to-ask-you-can’t-afford-it dresses in the short time I’d been talking to Freak. Where an Elizabeth Taylor lookalike mannequin had been wearing a flouncy, fifties’ style dress, there was now a bare, regular mannequin in the same pose, raising an arm as if haling a cab or calling out to someone. I’d thought it odd that Miss Dorent had also removed the lookalike mannequin, but then again, going by how realistic these things are, I’m not sure a naked version wouldn’t be breaking any number of laws, if you get where I’m coming from here.
‘Jill!’
The shout jolts me out of the little maze of thoughts and problems I’ve made for myself. Turning around, I see someone running across our front lawn, h
eading my way. I can’t tell who it is as they’ve got the hood of their jacket up.
‘I’ve been waiting ages for you!’
It’s Jackie’s voice. She snaps it out like I’ve let her down, turning up unexpectedly late for an appointment we’d made earlier. I’m tempted to snap angrily back at her, seeing as how she’s the one who’s got me into all this trouble.
Then I see her face.
If I ever wanted to try and guess what Medusa must have looked like, I don’t have to do any guessing anymore. Because here she is, the only difference being she hasn’t got hair made of serpents, she’s got hair that simply looks like a mass of writhing snakes. Otherwise, the face is as haggard and warped as I’d ever imagined a Gorgon could look like.
‘Are you going to…’
Her eyes fall on the boxed gloves in my hand. Something that’s supposed to be a smile seems to cross her face.
‘Good, good, yes you are!’ she says joyfully.
‘Yes, I am; but wait a minute, Jackie! What’s going on? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do!’
I can’t help but stare at her ravaged face. She reaches up, touches her face with a trembling hand. The hand is every bit as wasted as her face, with shreds of skin hanging off like a used paper tissue.
‘This you mean?’ Again, she gives me what passes for a resigned smile. ‘Look, all you’ve got to do–’
‘I know why you look like that, Jackie; I mean what the heck did you think you were doing dragging me into all this?’
‘Dragging you?’ She laughs bitterly. ‘I can’t remember any dragging going on! You were the one asking to use the gloves again and again! I was trying to stop you; or have you conveniently forgotten that?’
She’s right; I had forgotten that! Even so, she was the one who introduced me to the gloves in the first place.
‘But you knew what the gloves do to you!’
‘Sure, Jill; they give you what you were dying to know! How to seduce the gorgeous, irresistible Jase! How was I supposed to know you’d react to them the way you did? Okay, I admit it that I should’ve stopped you using the gloves so much. But look at me, Jill! Do I deserve this?’
She throws her hood back, turns her head back and forth, all so I can get a good luck at how terrifying she looks. It’s especially frightening to see her like this as I can’t help but wonder how close I came to looking like that myself. Could this be what I’d be looking like now if I’d refused to do what Freak wants?