“I LOVE YOU,” Freddy said. “Can I have a kiss?”
“Away and shite, Freckles,” Karen said, the sole of one foot planted against the wall she was leaning against as she stared at the other kids in the playground.
Freddy bowed his head. “Why not?” he said, into his chest.
“You what?”
He looked up, whispered, “Why not?”
She breathed hard. “Cause you’re an ugly fucker.”
Freddy held back his tears. “I’m not,” he said. “Mum says—”
“Aye, you are,” Karen told him, turning her head to face him. “Those freckles. Dead fuckin’ ugly, man.”
He wanted to ask her why it didn’t bother her that she didn’t have any friends. But she’d turned away again and was looking straight ahead.
When he got home, he told his mum. Didn’t use the words Karen had used, though. He’d have got smacked.
His mum laughed.
He went to his room and punched the stuffing out of Clown. When he was hot and sweaty he shoved the stuffing back in Clown and threw him out of sight under the bed where he couldn’t see the bastard’s smile. Freddy walked in front of his mirror, stood there and looked at his reflection.
He counted his freckles. Last time he checked, there were four hundred and thirty-seven. He didn’t know many other kids his age who’d ever counted that high. Most of them didn’t need to.
The knock at the door made him jump.
His mum walked in. “What’s the matter?”
He shook his head.
“Freddy? Are you counting again?”
He looked at his feet.
“Don’t listen to Karen,” she said. “She’s nothing but trouble, that one.”
He didn’t look up.
“You’ll grow out of the freckles,” his mum said. “When you get older, they’ll disappear.”
He looked at her. “Promise?”
She nodded.
Liar.
Ten years later, hundreds of the fucking things still dotted his face. They were worse in the summer, but they were pretty bad all year round.
Last summer, he’d taken to wearing make-up. You could tell he was wearing make-up but you couldn’t tell he had freckles. At least, that’s what he hoped. He was all set to pay Karen a visit with his new face, but his confidence had left him as he got off the bus. He was sure she’d be able to see through the make-up.
This summer, he’d felt braver. Or so he thought. But the summer passed, and he’d stayed at home. By autumn, though, he felt ready. No doubt about it. His freckles weren’t so bad, and with the make-up, well, Karen would see an improvement. And that had to be good.
He knew where she lived. She’d moved into a flat with her big sister, Edie.
Twice he went to see her, but both times he turned back before he got there. His stomach played up when he was nervous.
Third time, he made it up the garden path. He stared at the door, practising what he was going to say. He fought back a rush of nausea, knocked, but she didn’t answer.
No one home.
He ran back down the path and threw up by the side of the road.
Fourth time, he got lucky.
The door opened and he stared at her, blood rushing to his head, his ears ringing.
Part of him had hoped her sister would answer and he could just make his apologies and leave.
“Yeah?” she said.
He opened his mouth.
“What?”
He licked his lips. They were so dry they hurt his tongue. “It’s me,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Fuckin’ Freckles. I can see that. Well?”
“I don’t have freckles,” he said.
“Aye, you fuckin’ do,” she said. “Under all that foundation, you fuckin’ poof.”
He shook his head slowly. He turned.
“The fuck did you want anyway?” she shouted after him.
He carried on walking till it started to rain. It was dark by then and he had no idea where he was.
Time passed. He heard she got pregnant. Then he heard she was getting married.
He celebrated by trying to kill himself with sleeping pills and whisky. Woke up to the stench of vomit and shit, and felt more revolting than ever.
Six months in a psychiatric hospital helped, though.
When he got out, first thing he did was to try various bleaching creams. He spent a fortune, and the cream did help lighten the freckles. Or so he thought until he bumped into her one night in a pub. An accident.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”
For a moment, he allowed himself to get excited. She remembered him. She was interested in him. She wanted to have a conversation. She hadn’t called him Freckles.
But she turned to the guy sitting next to her, a man hardly five foot tall with large ears and a scarred bald head. “Ain’t that the freckliest fuckin’ face you’ve ever seen, Babe?”
She got pregnant again. Then she got divorced from the dwarf.
Freddy tried to persuade his doctor to prescribe tretinoin, even though he knew by now that freckles couldn’t be treated on the NHS. He claimed it would help with his depression. No joy. So he got hold of some himself. It certainly helped lighten his freckles, but at a cost. His skin turned red, itched, flaked and became painful to the touch.
Substituting one blemish for another, that’s all he was doing. Made him feel even uglier. He looked around for another option. Chemical peel. Cryosurgery. Laser treatment.
The chemical peel was likely to cause scarring, so that was easily dismissed.
It seemed that cryosurgery was considered inferior to laser treatment, so that was the way to go.
He paid for two treatments, eight weeks apart.
When he went back to see her again a year later, a guy he’d never seen before answered the door.
“Is Karen in?” Freddy asked.
“Fuck’s it to you?” he said.
“I’m an old friend.”
The guy nodded. “She’s gone,” he said after bit. “Fucked off with her brats.”
“Do you know where?”
“Didn’t ask.”
Freddy shuffled his feet. “You think you might see her again?”
“Doubt it.”
“If you do, could you tell her Freddy called by?”
“Freddy?” the guy said, and peered at Freddy. “Freckles? Fuck, aye,” he said. “Heard about you. That’s a fuckin’ faceful of freckles, right enough.”
Next time he saw her was almost two years later. She was walking down the street with her kids; one, a boy, running ahead, throwing punches at an invisible victim, the other in a pram. Karen didn’t notice Freddy.
He followed her for the length of the street, sorely tempted to follow her further. But he stopped himself. He knew how it would look. Especially with tears running down his face.
Anyway, he had to get back to work. He was saving up for a new laser treatment, one that was guaranteed to remove all but the most stubborn of his blemishes.
And that’s what it did. The new treatment resulted in minimal scarring, massive freckle reduction, and the few little bastards that remained were so light in colour that his mum said they really weren’t noticeable. He was desperate to track Karen down and show her.
Took him five months. She’d moved, but that wasn’t the reason. Just took him that long to get himself together.
Her ex-husband, the dwarf, opened the door. “Fuck’s sake,” he said. “Fuck you doing here, Freckles?”
Freddy hadn’t known the dwarf was back on the scene. Freddy should have left, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Is Karen in?”
“Fuckin’ aye, she is,” the dwarf said. “What’s it to you?”
“I want to see her.”
“Fuck for?”
“Because,” Freddy said. He indicated his face. “Cause of my freckles.”
The dwarf looked at him, shook his scarred head. He turned, shouted into the house, “Karen. That Freckles dickhead for you.”
She came to the door, barefoot, dress hanging off her rail-thin torso. Her arms looked snappable. Her glazed-over eyes bulged in her shrunken face. “Eh?” she said.
Freddy wasn’t surprised. “It’s me,” he said. “Freddy.”
“And?” she said.
He forced a grin. “What do you think?”
“Eh?” she said.
He indicated his face. “The freckles,” he said. “All gone.”
“Oh,” she said. “Aye.”
The three of them stood in the doorway glancing at each other until the dwarf said, “That it?”
Freddy shrugged.
“You came here to show her your freckles?”
“I don’t have any. Well, hardly any.”
“And that’s it?”
Freddy looked at his feet. “Well, no.”
“What, then?”
About time he went for it. He had to. He might never get another chance. And he was bubbling with confidence. He could feel it pressing behind his eyes. “Do you love her?” he asked the dwarf.
The dwarf looked up at her, then looked up at Freddy. “Mind your own fuckin’ business,” he said.
“Well I do,” Freddy said. “I love her with all my heart and soul.” He turned to Karen. “I love you,” he said.
The dwarf leapt at him and smacked him on the mouth. Freddy fell to the ground. His face felt wet and, curiously, it burned. The dwarf jumped on top of him, swinging at him.
Another blow struck Freddy on the cheek.
And another.
He tasted blood. Warm, salty, thick.
Then he saw the blade glistening in the dwarf’s hand, and his tongue caught the loose flap of skin and the air in his mouth felt cool where it slipped through the ripped skin of his cheek.
He caught Karen’s gaze. She hadn’t moved. She was staring at him from the doorway.
He swallowed blood, choked, spat.
The dwarf was on him again, thrusting at his face with the blade.
Ten years passed before Freddy saw Karen again.
He’d left the city, but the memory of her never faded. He knew he’d have to come back eventually.
And here he was. Ten years older. Ten years more afraid.
He adjusted his cap, shielded his face like he always did, even though it was night-time. There were streetlights, though. He’d have preferred total darkness for this.
Maybe then, though, she’d have recognized his voice. She might do that anyway. Maybe she’d run away. His heart speeded up as he got closer.
She noticed his approach, clipped towards him on her heels.
“You looking for some fun, big boy?” she asked him.
“That … yes.”
She grabbed his arm, linked hers in his.
No sign of recognition. The contact made him want to cry.
“You got a car?” she asked.
“I’d like to kiss you.”
She stopped. “I don’t do kissing.”
“Never mind,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Forget it.”
“I don’t kiss.”
“Okay.”
“Anything else, though. Within reason.”
“What’s within reason?”
“Hand-job, blow-job, full sex – straight, full service. Greek, maybe, if you’re not too big. Golden shower, if you like, but not reverse. No hardsports. And absolutely nothing without.”
“Without what?”
“You done this before?”
“No kissing?”
“No chance.”
“I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you.”
She tugged her arm away. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Freddy,” he said.
She peered at him. “Freckles?”
“Yeah.” He reached up, grabbed the peak of his cap. “But I got rid of my freckles. You know that.” He took off the cap.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth but keeping her eyes fixed on him. “That’s fuckin’ hideous.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“I didn’t mean …”
“I was sorry to hear about your husband.”
“You were?”
He nodded.
“He was my ex.”
“But you’d got back together.”
“Yeah, but we’d split up again by then,” she said.
“After what he did to you … It was hard to keep things going when he was inside.”
“Must have hurt, though.”
“They said it was instant. The car hit him—”
“I meant, must have hurt you. The loss of a loved one.”
She turned her head away. “I didn’t love him.”
“But you once did.”
“No,” she said. “Never.”
He paused. “Did they ever catch the driver?” He waited long enough for her to answer. She didn’t, her eyes remaining fixed on the mess he called his face. “Did they?”
He knew the answer, of course.
Even in the dim light he could see her eyes sparkle.
He’d have liked to thank her for doing that for him.
“Oh my fuck,” she said. “It never occurred to me.”
He put on a puzzled expression, hoped she could see past the scarring enough to make it out.
“You did it, you fucker.”
“No,” he said. “God, no, I wouldn’t—”
“I’m not blaming you,” she said.
“Well,” he said, and waited.
“He asked for it.”
“Well,” he said.
“I wish I’d had the balls to do it myself.”
Freddy put his cap back on, angled it so that it hid the bad side of his face. “Can I buy you a drink? Somewhere quiet. Somewhere dark?”
Freddy married Karen two years later. Six weeks after their marriage he discovered a freckle on her shoulder one night when they were sharing a bath. The freckle grew rapidly over the next couple of days. By the time she went to see her doctor, it was dark and hard and the size of her thumbnail.
She lasted just under a month.
Neither of her children made it to the funeral. Her sister, Edie, turned up late, drunk. That was the only way she could be in the same room as Freddy without freaking out at the sight of him. So she told him.
Freddy spent that summer sunbathing, something he’d never done before. He went to the south of France, lay around on the beaches soaking up the sun, not giving a fuck how many kids he scared. His freckles returned, though, and with them, his depression.
He went back home, stared at the walls for a week and a bit. One night he went out, bought a bottle of whisky and some paracetamol, and booked himself into a top-floor room in a high-rise hotel.
Couple of hours later, full of drink and pills, he walked out on to the balcony.
One hundred and fifty-five. One hundred and fifty-six …
Freddy sits in his wheelchair and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He gets angry if the nurses try to move him. He can’t help it. Not even his mother can interrupt him while he’s counting his freckles.
One hundred and fifty seven.
When he’s done, he’ll start over again. Got to keep checking, Karen says.
Not that he’s got anything else to do. Everything below his neck is dead. But that doesn’t matter.
Sometimes he feels Karen touch his cheek, her fingertips outlining his old wounds. When he closes his eyes he feels her lips on his brow. Sometimes she whispers to him. “Keep counting,” she says. “I think they’re fading, Freddy.”