Cursed Read online

  She continued to open the door slowly, edging in. “You’ve made me a what?” His words made no sense. “I haven’t seen you for six months and you turn up now and… I’m sorry, what? A present? What are you talking about?”

  “Please…”

  Another gust of wind tugged at them, momentarily pulling his hood away from his face. He snatched it back, but not before she’d caught a glimpse of his features that made her gasp in shock and reel backwards through her doorway. He looked like he’d been ravaged by some kind of flesh-eating disease, patches of his skin pocked and cratered and shiny with scar tissue, unless that was – dear God, was that bone?

  “Oh my God, Rob, what’s happened to you?”

  He lurched away, tugging the edge of the hood as far down over his face as it would go, and now she noticed that he was wearing gloves, as if whatever had happened to him had affected not just his face but his entire body. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake.” He started to go, and she really should have let him, but there was something so pathetic about him compared to the arrogance of the man she’d known that she found herself feeling sorry for him, and despite her better judgement she called out, “Wait!”

  He paused, hunched against the chill.

  “I can’t let you in,” she said. “It’s too late and I’ve had a long day, and it’s just… No, not tonight.”

  “I understand.” A car drove past and he flinched in the glare of its headlights.

  “But come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk.”

  He nodded.

  “I need to know—” She stopped suddenly. It was too much to go into, here on the doorstep. “We need to talk.” It was lame, but all she could offer.

  “Thanks, Hannah,” he mumbled, and left.

  She went inside, locked the door, then immediately went into the front room and peered through a crack in the curtains to see if he was still lurking out there on the street, maybe hiding in the shadows of next door’s hedge. But he seemed to have genuinely disappeared. Expelling a huge sigh of relief, she dumped her bag in the hall and went through to the narrow galley kitchen where she knew there was a half-finished bottle of red wine on the counter. She poured herself a generous glass, took it and the bottle back into the living room, plonked herself down on the sofa and then just sat there, staring into the sane, orderly silence of her empty home.

  “Fuck,” she said quietly.

  Sipping her wine, she took out her phone and started scrolling back through the history of her Instagram feed. A week might be a long time in politics, so it was said, but six months was virtually a geological age in social media. She’d deleted all her pictures of him and the two of them together – they’d only had a few dates so there weren’t that many to begin with – but there they were in the feeds of her friends, along with their congratulatory comments like “Girl he’s GORGEOUS you done GOOD”, “Oh come on, he must be gay”, and “Does he have any brothers?” He was (or had been, at any rate) fantastically good-looking, it had to be admitted: hazel eyes, stylishly careless dark hair, flawless skin the colour of lightly toasted cinnamon, and a body that was toned but not overly muscular. Her last few dates before Rob had been with men whose idea of dinner conversation seemed to consist of talking entirely about themselves and what they hated about their jobs, football teams, or favourite television programmes she’d never heard of. She’d been so surprised to find herself in the company of a man who actually paid attention to her and seemed to want to make an effort that she’d mistaken his vanity for self-confidence, and ignored the alarm bells until it was almost too late.

  As she scrolled through the images, feeling that same mixture of confusion and self-blame, she became aware of an itching on her left knee, and that she’d been unconsciously scratching at it for some time. The skin was red and flaking, and a drift of silvery bits littered the sofa cushion underneath.

  “Ugh, pratt,” she scolded herself. Falling into old bad habits again. She brushed the bits away and went upstairs to the bathroom to find her pot of Dermalex.

  She’d first met Rob at a private dermatologist’s clinic on the Hagley Road, where she was having a check-up for her psoriasis – not that she told him that, of course. It was embarrassing and ugly and only localised to a few places like her knees and elbows, which were easily hidden, and why would you tell the gorgeous man sitting next to you in the waiting room that you were there because bits of you were flaking off like some kind of disgusting troll-like creature? She’d made up something about having a suspicious-looking mole examined, and he’d shown her a picture on his phone of that old cartoon of the guy in the doctor’s surgery with a small furry critter in sunglasses and a trench coat sitting on his shoulder, and they’d laughed. As it happened he actually was there to have a mole removed himself, he explained, and showed her an almost invisible blemish on the left side of his chin. To her mind it didn’t seem serious enough to need attention, but then she wasn’t the doctor and it was Rob’s money to spend and who was she to judge? When he asked her if she was doing anything afterwards and could he buy her a coffee, she almost refused because he was so obviously out of her league – but then she found that a small, brave part of her had taken control and was nodding yes, that would be lovely, thanks.

  So there was coffee, and a week after that there was dinner, and three dinners after that there was a concert at the Symphony Hall. He was a senior credit analyst for a large multinational which had relocated its British headquarters from London to the Midlands, and she fantasised about taking him to meet her parents, because he was exactly the sort of handsome and successful young man that her mother aspired to seeing take her wallflower of a daughter down the aisle, and exactly the sort of prospective son-in-law who would take her father to task for his right-wing, Daily Mail-inflamed politics and still be respected for it.

  The photographs of their dates were still there like ghosts in her friends’ timelines. They haunted her with fragments of forgotten conversations, and her skin tingled at recalling the light touch of his hand on her arm as he helped her out of a taxi, or his leg brushing hers as they sat in their seats for the concert. He was never less than respectful and attentive, but looking at the images now she saw the hints of what had been hiding there, like blemishes on the smooth façade of his charm. The way he dipped his head slightly down and to one side in every picture, as if he knew which was his best angle and presented it instinctively. The way he had, at the end of one taxi ride home with her head resting on his shoulder, plucked fastidiously and with a tiny frown of distaste at the single stray hair she’d left on his jacket.

  He hid it well, but he was a vain man. She didn’t appreciate exactly how vain until the first and only time she went back to his apartment.

  They were kissing even as they made it into the hall, one of his hands in the small of her back and the other tugging at her dress zip, but she broke from him long enough to ask him where his bathroom was; Feminine Mysteries and all that, she said, hoping that it sounded humorously arch but fearing that she just came across as pompous. He smiled, showed her and said that he’d be in the living room making them a drink.

  The bathroom, like the rest of the apartment and the man who owned it, was tastefully and expensively decorated. It was more of a wet-room, with a shower head the size of a dinner plate and a natural slate floor, chromed fittings and a huge mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink. She took care of her own business and then, out of no impulse more noble than naked curiosity, had a quick snoop in the cabinet. She refused to tell herself that she was looking for evidence of another woman in his life, but all the same felt a swift shiver of relief when she found none. What she did find, on the other hand, was an Aladdin’s cave of male skincare products. There were moisturisers, wipes, balms and exfoliants, chemical peels and oil control serums, depilatory creams, anti-shine lotions, charcoal purifying daily face washes, and something called a hydra-energetic anti-fatigue system. There was a whole shelf
glittering with stainless steel implements that would have shamed a dentist’s surgery: scissors, tweezers, clippers, cuticle trimmers, blackhead extractors, razors (safety and disposable), and on the topmost shelf something that looked like a Hallowe’en mask for a robot costume, complete with wires and a battery pack. Presumably he wore that at night, though hopefully not every night – she thought that if she woke up next to that she’d scream the place down.

  Then the thought of being in his bed took over and she went back out to pick up from where they’d left off.

  Ten minutes later, they were on the sofa and she had her fingers clenched in his hair and her mouth locked on his as he slipped a hand up under the hem of her dress and around the back of her thigh. She crooked her knee up onto his leg and his hand slipped behind her knee before she realised where it was going and what it would find, and her bright spark of panic coincided exactly with his exclamation of shock as he pulled away sharply.

  “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

  Confused and red-faced with embarrassment, she pulled away to her own end of the sofa, tugging the hem of her dress back down. “It’s just a patch of dry skin,” she murmured. “Thanks for mentioning it.”

  As exciting as it had been to be dating again after such a long time, it had the unfortunate side-effect of making her psoriasis flare up again. The Dermalex was mostly keeping it under control, but there was no disguising the scaliness that his fingers had met. Her skin itched, but it was nothing compared to the burning mortification she felt.

  “That’s more than just dry skin,” he replied, staring in accusation at a single silvery flake which lay between them on the dark leather of the sofa cushion. He stared at his hand, muttered “Ohmigod”, then dashed into the bathroom, from where she heard the sound of running water.

  Her humiliation flared into anger. “It’s not contagious, you know!” she yelled. “Jesus, Rob, what’s your problem?”

  “My problem?!” he yelled back from the other room. “What about your problem? What is it, Hannah? What have you got?”

  By this time she had grabbed her things together and was heading for the hallway, but she stopped by the open bathroom door. He was at the sink, scrubbing furiously at his hand. “It’s psoriasis, okay?” she said. “I’ve got fucking psoriasis. Happy now?”

  He moaned and scrubbed harder. “How could you not tell me you had something so grotesque?” he demanded. “How could you lie to me like this?” All the charm and erudition had fled his voice; he sounded just like any other drunken dickhead standing outside a club bellowing about what he thought he was entitled to.

  “Lie to you?” Anger tipped over into humiliated outrage, and she felt the heat start to rise inside her. The condition, mild as her own case was, had still been a nightmare for her since as early as she could remember. School had been especially bad, and physical education lessons most of all. She’d endured all manner of bullying and name-calling – “Scabbers” had been the most popular one. Cornflakes had been tipped in her hair, and pencil shavings in her food. Rumours had been started that it was a sexually transmitted disease she’d caught by being a slut. Online it was even worse. She thought she’d left it behind with childhood, but here it was again: the same ugly face of petty cruelty, just dressed up more smartly. Now the rage burned hotter, directly behind her navel, spreading and growing through her belly as she started to sweat.

  “You have no idea what grotesque is!” she shot back. “You have no idea what it’s like, feeling bits of yourself falling off. Well I hope it is fucking contagious. I hope that every time you look in the mirror you see how grotesque you are. I hope that you see every little spot and freckle and that they drive you mad until you have to cut them out of your own fucking skin!”

  At that, the fire inside her exploded in a tsunami that roared up to her scalp and down to her feet, only to flash outwards and into him, leaving her empty, dazed and breathless. She didn’t wait for Rob’s response but staggered out of his apartment, more confused now than angry and embarrassed.

  That had been the last she’d seen or heard of Rob until this evening. She finished her wine and took herself to bed, but lay awake in the darkness, wondering if he was out there on the street again, watching. She stared at the images on her phone, seeing only the ruin of his face, half-lit by streetlights. Dear God, had he taken her at her word? Her grandmother used to tell stories about the women in her family and the things that they could do, but of course Hannah hadn’t believed them. Who would? The notion that she might actually have cursed him was ridiculous.

  Because as monstrous as Rob had become, what did that then make her?

  She went back through the photographs again, re-reading the comments and her own replies, squirming at the smug, self-congratulatory tone with which she’d bragged to her friends about the gorgeous man she’d caught. Look at me! See? I’m popular! If he’d been a vain man obsessed with his own appearance, what had she done but feed that? The least she could offer him now was a chance to explain himself.

  * * *

  The next morning she called in sick at work and waited.

  She didn’t realise how much on edge she was until a tentative knock on her front door, faint though it was, jolted her like an electric shock. Through the door’s frosted glass pane she saw a blurred shape shuffling back and forth, and she hesitated with her hand on the lock. She could ignore him, pretend she wasn’t in, and hope that whatever revelations he brought disappeared with him. But she needed to know what had happened. She needed to know if it was somehow her fault. Hannah unlocked the door and opened it.

  Rob still had his hood up, but there was no disguising his mutilations in the clear morning light – indeed, from the defiant way that he held his jaw it seemed that he had no intention of hiding from her.

  But oh, what damage had been wrought to that jaw, and the face above it.

  What little skin was left sat uneasily beside patches of exposed muscle and tendon, yellow gristle marbling the red, and the glimpses of naked bone at his forehead and cheeks last night hadn’t been her imagination. He had no eyelids; his eyeballs were naked and staring, and she couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t completely blind. His lips (she remembered the touch of them and shuddered) resembled thick rubber bands, and his nose was little more than a cavity with a few scraps of cartilage. The scarring extended down his throat and below the collar of his stained t-shirt; was his whole body like this? It explained why his voice had sounded so nasal and muffled last night. He looked like a crude imitation of one of those plastinated “Bodyworlds” exhibits, made by an amateur with palsied hands and the rusty lid of a tin can instead of a scalpel. With such injuries he should have been in intensive care, but here he was all the same. His lips thinned in something which might have been intended as a smile, and when she saw the workings of his anatomy pull that smile into existence she nearly slammed the door shut again.

  “Hi Hannah,” he said.

  “Rob-Robin,” she managed.

  “I know.” He gestured at himself. He was wearing lavender-coloured surgical gloves. Presumably his hands were just as bad. She tried not to recall the touch of those fingers cupping her face, stroking her skin. “I can’t imagine how this must look to you.”

  She grimaced.

  “Thank you for letting me come back,” he continued. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d told me to piss off.”

  That was still very much on the cards as far as she was concerned. He clearly wasn’t in his right mind. The door was still on its chain.

  “What—” She faltered, swallowed, tried again. “Oh Rob, what have you done to yourself?”

  “What have I done? Nothing I didn’t have coming to me, I know that now. But it was your words, Hannah, that made me do this.”

  “Oh no.” She shook her head vehemently and started to close the door. “This isn’t my fault.”

  “No, of course not! I know that! That’s not what I’m saying! Please!” She tried to shut
the door on him but he got a foot in the gap to prevent her. She slammed it anyway and he grunted in pain but didn’t budge.

  “I’ll call the police,” she warned.

  “Hannah,” he begged, and the pleading in his voice was more naked than his ruined flesh. “You were right! Absolutely right to say what you did! After you went I took a good hard look at myself – I mean literally – and all I could see was the ugliness. Every mole, every blocked pore, every wrinkle. They were all I could see, and they were everywhere, and I knew that I had to cut them out of me, so that’s what I did. I did it because you told me to! I couldn’t stop myself! I kept cutting and cutting until it was all gone. Please, you have to understand – you have to see!”

  “Oh, I can see well enough,” she said. “Get your foot out or I swear to God—”

  “NO!” He shoved the gap wider, snapping the chain, and then he was over the threshold and in her hallway, advancing on her with his mutilated hands in their surgical gloves. She screamed and tried to run, but even in his condition he was too fast. He caught her by the staircase and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, his breath fervid in her ear. “But I’m not going to let you ignore this, either.

  “You did it, deep down you know you did. You made me do this to myself. Don’t get me wrong!” he added hastily. “It was a good thing, a right thing, but you know you have to see all of it. You can run and call the police if you want, but I’ll be long gone by the time they get here, and you’ll never know. Or you can come with me and let me show you. I’m only asking for an hour of your time. Then you’ll never see me again, I swear.”

  He was as good as his word, and let her go.

  She ran.

  But she only got as far as the kitchen, her hand on the back door.

  She stopped, paused, and looked back. He wasn’t chasing her. It seemed that his efforts to break in and restrain her had cost him because he was leaning against the wall, shuddering and gasping in pain. She could easily escape and call the police, or pick up a knife and drive him out of her home. She did neither. She edged back towards him warily.