Beneath the Skin (5 page)

11

He had to get out of the sawdust Tardis and away from this man who was looking at him as if he'd kicked a kitten. Alys was the one who did things to kittens. Moodie wasn't best pleased but he stuffed the thing into a Tesco bag and Walt stumbled off, following the river back to the bridge and trudging on, bending himself around afternoon shoppers. The day had turned dismal, threatening rain, and the old ladies had their brollies to hand, just in case. He was aware that he was walking in the opposite direction to Alys's doll's house. She'd be waiting for Moodie's masterpiece, but he needed to find some space, some lightness, away from elbows and voices and accusing stares.

He found the park. He'd known it was there, from his one recce when, after a few late-night beers in his room, he'd decided to go walkabout. He hadn't gone into the park, that time, not trusting himself. Just stood at the gate breathing in the cool dark and thinking of his mam's garden, and the scent of damp flowers and the leftover teatime smells. There was a pizza place nearby. He could smell garlic and pepperoni and it had seemed so ordinary, so life-goes-on; he'd turned round and gone back to his single room.

Now he went into the park, marched in, his steps jerky, and made for the nearest tree, an oak, wanting to lay his brow against it, feel the patchy roughness of its touch. But instead he did the civilised thing and sat down on a bench with a brass plaque to someone long dead and watched the squirrels and the ducks on the pond like a regular person.

He'd shoved the Tesco bag under the seat first, not wanting to be reminded of it.

It was the kind of park you'd call mature, a city oasis of big trees and gravel paths, formal shrubberies clipped back by council workmen in hi-vis jackets. The place was big enough to put some distance between you and your fellow man; the benches were widely spaced, the pond some way off. There were shiny black bins for litter and red ones for dog poo but there was still shit on the grass and Irn-Bru cans in the flowerbeds.

A watery sun had made an appearance for the kids coming out of school; there were a few of them in the park, running wild with their coats tied round their waists, and mothers with double buggies and the odd dog. The pond looked sluggish, a bit out of its comfort zone amid the tenements and the traffic, the sweet wrappers and the lager cans. Even the ducks lacked enthusiasm.

He spotted a couple with two under-fives, looking so like Stephen and Natalie that he almost got up. They had that obliviousness about them, cocooned in their own little world, their own family unit. The kids looked about the same age as his niece and nephew, although he couldn't exactly remember the numbers. Ella was just starting school in September and what would Jack be now – three? Down by the water's edge, the little lad kicked his football and was toddling after it in that stiff-legged, no-knees way you do when you're learning to walk.

Walt shivered. Someone walking over your grave, his mother would have said. Another little boy kicked the football gently back to the toddler. This lad was taller, thinner, with a mop of blond hair and a bright blue backpack. It was William, with his mother watching from a distance.

Walt automatically felt in his pocket for the button that was lurking there. He must give it back to the kid. It was one of his collectibles, fallen out of the box when he packed them all away. Walt had found it on the easy chair, a heavy silver button with a distinctive crest, an eagle, the kind you'd see on a vintage overcoat of some kind. He didn't know why he'd slipped it into his pocket; it had a military feel about it, maybe that was why. He really should give it back, before it became a talisman for his fingers in the dark of his pocket.

Mother and son began to walk towards him, and William spotted him first. The kid had that hyperactive after-school look about him, with the shirt flying out of his pants and his tie round his head like something out of
Lord of the Flies
. Grubby-faced, he had picked up a tree branch and was wielding it like a weapon.

‘Walt! This is a sub-atomic space-alien vaporiser!
BOOM
!
RATATATAT
.
BOOOOSH
!'

Walt felt the blood drain from his face.

‘William!' Mouse's voice was shrill with annoyance. The space-alien vaporiser continued to rain ammunition down on him until Mouse confiscated the stick and William stalked off in a huff. Mouse was unsmiling. Walt could see the hem of her white uniform below the blue coat, the coat belted so tightly it nearly cut her in half. Her hair was tied back and there were insomniac smudges below her eyes. She looked forlorn, like she needed a hug. The thought shocked him. His girlfriend, Jo, used to look like that when the kids gave her a hard day. She was a maths teacher; kids hate maths. It had been a natural thing, to jump up and give Jo a bear hug. But now he was too used to the cold touch of trees.

‘Hi.' It was a safe enough greeting. He didn't get up and she paused in front of him. She had the height advantage and it made them both uncomfortable. William jumped onto the end of the bench, resuming his laser noises.

‘William, get
down
.'

‘He's grand.' Walt was glad, somehow, that the boy was doing boy things. He felt sad sometimes when he looked at William, without knowing why. It was the magpie thing maybe; all those treasures squirrelled away. Was that what kids did when they were insecure? It wasn't a great life for the kid, stuck in that house with an unstable aunt and loads of dead animals. He fingered the odd button in his pocket – but he didn't give it back. Instead he said, ‘Good day at school, son?'

‘It's school.' William shrugged and jumped down from the bench. ‘We did art, though. I like that.'

‘Taking after your auntie?' Walt smiled.

‘God forbid.' Mouse flopped down beside him on the hard seat, as if reluctantly obeying a stronger force. She sighed and lifted up her feet, rotating the stress from her ankles. ‘My boss is a plonker.'

Walt grinned; she glanced sideways and caught the grin, a small smile creeping in around the corners of her mouth.

‘He is,' she said. ‘He offered me a pay rise.'

‘The bastard.'

She giggled. It was a nice sound, unexpected. ‘He wants me to do more hours, be like a manager or something.'

‘And you can't because?'

She nodded towards William, now searching for God knows what in the long grass at the base of the oak tree. ‘I couldn't ask Mrs Petrauska to take him any more than she does. She already helps me out on school holidays and stuff. And you know he had the cheek to say to me, “Money must be tight, you being a single parent.”' She adopted a low, ponderous Galen tone. ‘“My offer might help you get your own place.” As if!'

‘Why do you live with Alys?' The words were out before Walt could stop them. ‘Why does she keep reminding you it's
her
house? Like you're the poor relation?'

Mouse looked at him with that tight mouth he'd seen before. She looked as though she wanted to tell him to bugger off, it's none of your business, but she didn't. She just got up and belted her coat even tighter and he was sorry then, because he'd been sort of enjoying the company. He missed conversation. You couldn't have a cosy chat with Alys.

‘We have to be getting back. William has homework to do. What are you doing here anyway?' Her foot nudged up against the Tesco bag and they both looked down as if there lay the answer to the question.

Walt reached down and hauled the bag onto his knee. ‘Your sister sent me to a charming man called Moodie to collect a prop for her latest
artwork
.' The last word lingered in his mouth. He ripped away the plastic bag with a flourish.

‘Christ,' said Mouse. ‘What next?'

12

‘One mini gallows.' Walt handed the package to Alys, pleased that his hand was as steady as his gaze. She'd been threading wire through the skull of a magpie with a tiny pair of pliers but when she saw the bag she dropped them on the bench, falling on the package like a child on sweets. The Tesco bag fluttered to the ground.

‘Amazing! Moodie is so
good!
'

‘Is that how he makes a living? Designing miniature instruments of death and destruction?' He was joking, but not quite.

Alys brushed the dead magpie to one side and set the thing up on the workbench. ‘Is it any worse than what you do for a living?'

‘Did.'

She'd stopped listening. He moved to stand beside her, watching her in profile. There was a gluttonous look about her, and he couldn't resist asking about her plans.

‘My piece will be called
The Death of the Wren
, my homage to Walter . . .'

‘Potter. I got that. So what poor creatures are you sacrificing for this?'

She turned to face him then. The light in her eye had frozen to pale silver and she held the gallows like a crucifix. He wondered who was the vampire. He picked up the pliers from the bench, tested them against his thumbnail. The swelling had subsided and the nail was still intact, although it felt weird down at the base.

‘Robert, I don't know if you're cut out for this job. I'm not sure you have an artistic temperament.'

The memory of the art therapy came back like a punch in the stomach. Traumatic memories can remain frozen in the body's central nervous system, the doctor had said. Was that why he felt so cold all the time, so cold inside? Like he'd eaten a block of ice.

A person will react to get through the experience, but the trauma remains unprocessed. The doctor had been an okay guy. Decent and earnest, just like Melissa the art therapist. They were all earnest, that was the thing. They all meant well, but they couldn't see inside his head, couldn't see the things he'd seen. Was still seeing. A person might get a sensory memory, like a sound or sight or smell, that is reminiscent of the trauma and all of a sudden they are experiencing it all over again. The past wasn't just with him, he was walking back through it, picking his way through a daily minefield of ‘unprocessed trauma'.

Alys was still talking, half to herself. Her words didn't make sense. They seemed to be coming from some place inside the magpie's skull. Echoing. She was threading a wire through his brain and he could feel the cauterising heat of it and he felt himself slipping away. He was back in the art therapy place, back with Melissa, and his soul was the colour of a bruise as she held it up, glistening, in the light.

The mask is a masterpiece. A work of art so good it lifts his heart, and for the briefest moment he thinks, it's working, art therapy works and all the claptrap professionals might really know their stuff.

Oh, he'd listened to the introduction: ‘Trauma often affects the non-verbal part of the brain, which is why many service personnel can't vocalise their emotions. Art therapy helps to translate feelings of loss, grief and pain to the verbal part of the brain, freeing them from the subconscious.' And it had. He has a sense of achievement, like he's been given a task and completed it, on time and to spec. It's a good feeling. And then Melissa, with her wide smile and her kind eyes, says, ‘I can see what you've done, but let's see if we can unpick this.'

Unpick it? It's taken him almost the whole class to piece together his outside treasures, the bark and the leaves and the moss. He'd arranged them on the desk first, let the chill, musty smell waft him back to his mam's garden, to the pine tree where he'd hidden as a boy. Like most kids he'd taken safety for granted and that pine tree was the last place on earth where he'd been truly safe, anchored in its branches.

Painstakingly he'd transferred that feeling to the mask. It has thick furrows of bark for eyebrows, brittle scales of mulch and leaves for skin. It is a true mask, a camouflage of natural materials to hide behind, the merest of slits for eyes. He will be invisible behind that mask: Invisible Tree Man. Safe.

Melissa has spotted his expression and rushes on. ‘When I say unpick it, I mean let's take a look at the emotions behind the mask, Robert.'

He waits. He wants to pick up the mask but it's on the table between them, and they're both leaning on the table, arms braced, as if it's a map of something, or a puzzle. He wants to hold the mask up to his face so Melissa can't see him.

‘So let's have a think about this,' she's saying, slowly, as if she's laying out her own thoughts alongside his. ‘What this says to me, Robert, is that you're still hiding. Where is the mouth?'

‘I forgot about the mouth.'

‘But it's important, the mouth.'

He can feel the tension ratcheting up inside him. This is the problem. This is why he's here, because he can't get a grip on the rage.

Melissa changes tack. ‘What we have here is a depiction of something. We don't really see what's going on inside. Inside you.'

He thinks of the gallery, all the other guys' masks with the livid strokes and the burning colours and the awful blackness. He realises then that the tree couldn't save him. His mam's tree is no longer safe and he has nowhere left to go.

13

Walt blinked and refocused his gaze on Alys, the studio, the gallows, feeling the pliers still in his hand, reminding himself of his reality.

‘I'm sorry, pet. You're the one with the vision. Tell me about it.'

Alys's face broke into a grin and he knew he was forgiven. She hugged the gallows to her chest. ‘I'm inspired by the Irish legend of Clíona. She was otherworldly, dangerous. She lured young men to the seashore and watched them drown. A spell was cast to protect them, turning Clíona into a wren, and every Christmas Day she was fated to die by human hand for her treachery. Of course, that's the Pagan version. The Christians say it was the wren that betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane but either way the wren doesn't come out of it well.'

‘No?'

‘Nope. In Ireland they have the wrenboy tradition where wrens are hunted down and killed and hung on a holly branch and paraded from house to house on Boxing Day, although they're probably not allowed to do that now.'

‘Where are you going to get a wren?'

She ignored him, holding aloft the gallows. ‘Moodie made this out of holly wood. I'm going to create a tableau with the hanged wren at the centre of a rabble of small birds and animals. I might even have an old-lady hamster knitting at the foot of the scaffold!'

She giggled. Walt's face felt tight with disgust, but she didn't even notice. Perhaps she was right: perhaps he wasn't the right person for the job. ‘It will symbolise cultural disdain for the innate Pagan power of the female.'

‘Right.' She'd lost him again. He was thinking a long, cool beer would be good right about now. He'd shut himself in a room far away from Alys's artistic craziness, but then she turned and looked at him in that way she did sometimes, the way that made the pit of his stomach smoulder like she'd thrown a lit flare down there.

He had to speak, to break the spell. ‘I went to the park.'

‘I don't pay you to go to the park.'

‘Mouse was there.'

‘And?'

‘She thought the gallows were a bit sick.'

Alys laughed, the sound strangely hollow. She snatched the little pliers from Walt's hand and tossed them at the magpie. They made contact with a flat
thunk
and the bird jerked as if galvanised back to life. A cold-water shiver dripped down Walt's spine.

‘Mouse never approves. She's always been the same, creeping around, waiting for me to fuck up. As a kid she spent most of her life curled up – curled up in bed, curled up in the corner, reading a book. Never speaking, but watching everything. Hiding.'

‘What was she hiding from?' The suggestion echoed in the dark basement.

Alys shrugged. ‘Mice can turn. They pack a nasty bite when cornered. They're also a pest and hard to get rid of.'

Walt hesitated, uncertain whether she was serious or not. She didn't look amused. ‘But you live together.'

‘Not by choice. She got pregnant and the father didn't stick around. I'm the only family she's got left. It was my duty to take her in.'

Something didn't add up about that. What about the grandfather? The one in the care home? Dutiful was not a word Walt would have used to describe Alys. He began to think of other words: sexy, wayward, eccentric.

She was looking at him now, her eyes cool, calculating, unpeeling something inside him. ‘Did you come here to talk about Mouse?'

‘I came here to deliver your gallows.'

‘Oh yes.' She picked up the wooden framework, caressed it with her artist's fingers. ‘I like it. Look at the grain of the wood, the way it's finished . . .' Her voice dropped, catching with excitement, and there was something about the tone of it that vibrated in his groin. ‘Ah, I have so much going on in my head . . . But you don't want to go there.'

It was the kind of thing he said to people, to keep them at arm's length, and for a moment he saw himself in Alys. She was like a mirror and he was drawing closer, close enough to see his reflection in her eyes, to mist her face with his breath, and when their mouths came together it seemed inevitable. It was tentative at first, a slow clinging of the lips, hands reaching out, finding. Alys dropped the gallows. It bounced off his leg but he didn't feel it; could only feel the soft, stained jumper, the narrow back. Her arms snaked around him, pulling him against her. She smelled of dead feathers and cigarettes. They pressed against the workbench and he was no longer sure who was instigating this, or who would be the first to draw away.

It was Walt, breaking the kiss but not the contact. They leaned together, lips damp, breathing hard. ‘This isn't a good idea,' he whispered.

‘It is.' She smiled and there was a new wickedness about her. Her eyes shone with it. ‘Just don't expect to get paid extra.'

He pulled away from her. He picked the gallows off the floor and set it upright on the workbench, still tasting her, feeling her bones beneath his hands. He knew he wanted more. He knew he had to get away from her.

‘I don't think we should go there again. And I really don't want to know what goes on in your head.'

Her smile was crooked. ‘I think you do.'