Perfect Skin by Nick Earls Page A

became a parent?
    Look, I might still buy her Monopoly. In a few years, admittedly, but it could still happen. Is that a problem?
    Well, we’ll see. That Christmas is probably many fads away, and classic might be in that year.
    This isn’t sounding easy.
    Surely you weren’t expecting it to be easy.
She takes a mouthful of coffee.
But enough about me and Elmo. What do you do? Other than the bits I got from the card, the laser company name and the medical degree.
    Laser surgery. Skin laser surgery. And, by the way, I’m not sure we’ve had anything like enough about you and Elmo. I think you were just warming up.
    Maybe. But maybe I stopped just in time. So, what’s the company you work for?
    It’s a group practice, a group medical practice. Dermatologists – or, at the moment, one dermatologist – and GPs with special training in laser surgery. It’s mainly medical stuff that we do, though – treating disease, skin lesions – not generally all the cosmetic things you see advertised.
    Our lunch comes, and I tell her more. How we thought we’d do more cosmetic work until the patients started coming in, and so many of the people interested in it wanted the impossible, or just wanted an expert opinion that would help them sue their last doctor.
    It works for fine wrinkles, I tell her, thinking all the time that Tickle-Me-Elmo had far less capacity to bore than this. But it’s not so good for expression lines. Like here, between your nose and mouth. But they’re normal. You’d look weird without them. If they get pronounced some people want to do something about them. Some people want to do something about them anyway. But we mainly end up treating skin cancers and sun damage and acne scarring. And then we’ve got another laser that does blood vessel lesions, spidery veins, things like that.
    What about tattoos?
    Not as easy as they should be. It’s a strange thing, really. Tattoos were designed to be permanent, and now that people are getting kind of excited about lasers there’s this idea that they aren’t any more. As though you just get them wiped off, or something. And it’s not that straightforward.
    Do you want another coffee?
she says, picking up her cup to drink and seeing that it’s empty.
I thought I might have another.
    I’m being boring, aren’t I?
    No. No, if you were being boring I’d just sit here and suffer. I thought I might have another coffee. And then I expect you to tell me why tattoos aren’t that straightforward.
    I am boring you. It’s fine. You won’t hear another word about tattoos. So how about that one-day cricket?
    She shakes her head.
Tattoos. Lack of straightforwardness. I expect to hear more. In the meantime, and for the third and final time, do you want another long black?
    Thanks.
    She walks off to the counter. What am I doing? It’s been years since I cared if I was boring someone. I assume I bore people regularly, but I’m not used to minding. Most people bore me, so it’s only fair. Ash, I realise, doesn’t bore me. She could go on at length about Tickle-Me-Elmo and keep me interested.
    I hadn’t expected I’d like her. I thought she was too good a runner to have much of a personality. But I do rather compartmentalise the world, don’t I, and that’s a pretty ridiculous view to have about runners. And maybe it’s just all the talking with George lately, but this is operating more the way a date would than I’d expected it to. And I also think the idea of runners not having much of a personality is a George opinion, some big-guy defence for that sedentary life of his. I wonder what he thinks about swimmers. I wonder if he went yesterday.
    I’d braced myself for something brief today, awkward silences, little common ground. I was going to try not to rant about my mother, or fireplaces – whatever Ash did to the paper – but I