Lying Together by Gaynor Arnold

please?’ I wasn’t going all the way back advertising Dr White’s, even in the dark.
    The chemist slowly pulled out a brown paper bag, slipped the box inside it in rather a pointed way and slid it across the counter. I put the two shillings down and he took it, opened the till and, after a few minutes chinking about in the coin box, came up with the change, which he put on the counter with a smack. I stretched to pick it up, not thinking about my skin because the shop was so dark and the man so old – but the next minute he was gripping my wrist. His hand felt horrible and sweaty. My mother had always warned me to be careful of men like this, and there had been one or two at the hotel who had tried to grab me from behind. But now I was on my own in a dark and deserted shop. I couldn’t help thinking about the crazy scientist I’d read about in Her Present Danger who kidnapped young girls so they could extract the essence of their youth. This man was a chemist; he might know how to do it. ‘Let me go!’ I cried, my voice not bold at all, but high and wobbly.
    â€˜Don’t be such a silly little blighter! I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to take a look at your skin.’ He pushed up my cuff and ran his thumb roughly across the raised ridges of my arm, sending white scaly flakes drifting onto the counter.
    â€˜Please,’ I said, trying desperately to slip my wrist out of his grasp. But he ignored me, pulled my arm closer, and looked at it over the top of his glasses.
    â€˜You’ve been scratching, haven’t you, naughty girl? I can see – scratch, scratch, scratch.’ He looked at me crossly. ‘Don’t you ever put anything on it?’
    â€˜Nothing’s any good.’ I said, more sure of myself now – after all, I’d spent years putting calamine on it, getting myself stiff and powdery to no avail. ‘Ma says it’s incurable.’
    â€˜I know that ,’ he said tetchily. ‘I’m a medical man, for heaven’s sake. But there are treatments that can tone it down a bit. You’re a young girl; you don’t want to have to hide away under layers of clothes for the rest of your life. Let me have a proper look. Take your coat off.’
    I knew there was nothing that would persuade me to take off as much as a hair-ribbon in front of him, but he still had hold of my wrist. ‘No, thank you,’ I said, making another attempt at sounding self-possessed. ‘I’m in a hurry. People are waiting for me at the hotel.’
    â€˜Oh, hoity-toity! Well, it’s not my funeral,’ he said, suddenly losing interest. ‘Here you are, silly child. If you want to suffer, suffer.’ And he released my wrist with a flick of annoyance, as if my scaly arm was something useless he was throwing to the dogs.
    I pulled down my cuff, grabbed the Dr White’s and the change, and turned tail, almost throwing myself at the shop door. The doorbell jangled madly as I wrenched the handle up and down in a panic, all sorts of wild imaginings surging through my brain. I nearly fainted as I heard the chemist come up behind me. I thought he was about to drug me with chloroform and make me a prisoner in his cellar and no one would ever know. But the door suddenly opened, smooth as silk, and I fell out into the street.
    I began to run. I could see some people coming out of a building up ahead. Men and women laughing and talking, but not like people when they come out of a pub. Excited, I thought, but more serious. There was quite a group of them and they spilled over the pavement and into the road. In my panic I headed straight through the middle of them. Someone jostled my arm and the box slipped out of its paper bag onto the pavement. A man bent to pick it up. ‘Sorry about that! We’re a fearful lot when we get excited. Here you are.’ The speaker rose and looked at me. It was the young man with the lovely skin.