Skin

(A picture of Girl in a wig- doing her 50s starlet face but not wearing mink.)

Soft cloud this evening, the sort that I want to pull down and wear as a cloud fur coat. This image bumps into another, swings it from shadow to conscious surprise. 1981: the full length beaver skin coat arrives in our house; the way I remember it, almost like it had come to stay, like it had brought its own monogrammed suitcase, arrived straight from the funeral of a relative. We couldn’t turn it away, because we were related, because it was bereaved. Fur was a huge taboo. To kill something you don’t eat, to plunder nature for callous profit? It definitely arrived with baggage. Inevitably, it was an object of wonder. When the house was empty, I took it from the wardrobe; it had a fine hanger, carved wood, maybe cedar wood. The lining was satin, smooth as a liquid. I put my hands on the rich opulent decadent fur. I understood why my Gran always said ‘fur coat no knickers.’ You would want to feel this against your skin. You could lie furled in this softness, the cold could not touch you. It was heavy on my shoulders, when I dressed in it, it made me think of story characters; the Snow Queen, Cruella De’vil; and it smelt of moth balls and oozed history, and most of all I thought of the tale of the Sealie Wife: seal folk come ashore and step out of their skins and if you take their skin they must keep their human form, but they pine for their seal skin and when they find it they will run to the sea, even leave their children behind, so strong the call, the connection.

(A picture of Lily Tequila, circa 1984, wearing fake pony skin.)