Under My Skin Read Online Free PDF Page B

particularly good one for tired skin—i.e., mine. Either she was a consummate actress or I could cross her off my suspect list right now.
    To try and stop her talking I pretended to be interested in the decor. The walls sported a curious selection of posters advertising new and wondrous treatments designed to take on nature and stop the march of time. I thought back to my formidable wrinkly from Oxford. Not a lot of comfort here for her, although one picture showed somebody who seemed to have had the puffy bits of skin lifted from her eye sockets.
    In the forty-to-fifty age range there were apparently more drastic transformations to be had from face peels and collagen injections. Collagen: there had been a timewhen I had thought it a new term for Tory higher education. But even I have had enough contact with women’s magazines to know that what it really means is Barbara Hershey’s lips exploding into Mick Jagger’s. The woman in the photo I was looking at had not only puffed up her smile but also doctored her eyes. Not a laugh line to be seen. It was all so weird and alien that I could not resist asking Julie about it. Curiosity, after all, is meant to be one of the tricks of my trade.
    “Are they for real, those pictures?”
    “Of course,” said Julie, tearing a strip off the back of my right leg, a strip which may or may not have included the skin. “Sorry, did that hurt? You really ought to have them done more regularly, you know. Your hairs are just too long to lift off easily. Yes, I’ve met a number of ladies who’ve had collagen implants. It’s been a great success.”
    “How old do you have to be?”
    “Oh, any age. The skin starts to lose its elasticity from your mid-twenties on. You’d notice a difference if you did it, although you probably wouldn’t actually need it for a couple of years.”
    Well, that’s a relief. “So what would you recommend for someone like me then?” I said it half in jest. I should have known better.
    “Well, we do a collagen-based face mask. That’s marvelous. Really pumps up the skin. And a peel is always beneficial.”
    Good word, beneficial. Probably exactly the right word for a peel. “What does that do?”
    “It’s like a kind of chemical scrub. Takes a layer of skin off.”
    “Did they do it in the Gulf War?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Anything else?”
    She hesitated for a moment, and I could see she was a littleembarrassed. It answered my question, really. Not that I’m vain, it’s just that over the last year I’ve grown so used to seeing it in the mirror that I sometimes need to know how much other people notice it, too. I helped her out by winking the eye.
    “Well, you could always have something done about that little, er … scar.”
    “Do you think so?”
    “Oh, certainly. It’s marvelous what they can do nowadays. I could recommend a clinic if you’re interested.”
    “Thanks. Maybe. I’ll get back to you on that one.”
    She hesitated again, as if she was going to say something else, then decided to let it go. I let the conversation lapse. Just as well really, since a few minutes later she started in on the bikini line. I found myself digging my nails into the palms of my hand for a little light relief. It probably hurt less to have your stomach tucked.
    From Julie I moved to the gentler ministrations of Lola, who, from the brief glimpse I had of her before she smothered egg white over my eyelids, looked like a girl in need of what she was selling; she was a short, plump little chicken with a smattering of angry spots around her chin. Her fingers were deft enough, though—a nice line in temple massage and then flick-flick-flick with the face mask before leaving me alone to let it harden. After ten minutes the egg white felt as if it had been bonded with quick-drying cement. As my skin stretched tighter than God ever intended, I had a moment of pure panic that I might have inadvertently come across the saboteur. But then Lola returned and