Beneath the Skin (7 page)

Walt drained his coffee, suddenly thoughtful. He felt for the button in his pocket. Rain was beginning to collect on the window, and he sat for a few minutes, watching the passers-by trudging along, bundled up in coats and hats. Eventually, he got up from the table and wandered across the lobby to the flea market. Edging past a middle-aged guy in black biker leathers who was sorting through a box of vinyl LPs, Walt spotted William and his mother at the far end of the shop. On impulse, Walt flipped the button from his pocket and approached the counter, where Mr Flea 'n' Tea was leafing through an old theatre programme. He looked up when Walt approached.

‘Can you identify this?'

The guy didn't really fit the shop. He had the look of the outdoors about him, slightly weathered, with a sturdy physique. His hair was strangely brassy, like the wedding ring on his third finger; both looked fake. Walt offered the button on his palm, like a sugar cube, and the man gazed at it. ‘I don't buy one-offs any more. If you had a set I might . . .'

‘I'm not selling,' said Walt. ‘I just want to know what it is. Quickly.' He was conscious that the kid could appear at any moment and that he had, in effect, stolen the thing. He still didn't know why he was being so secretive about it. The man was raking behind the till for a pair of cheap reading glasses. He put them on and held the button up to the light.

‘Mmm.' He checked the reverse. ‘I see.'

‘What?' Walt could feel irritation storming in from somewhere. ‘What is it?'

‘That's the Imperial Eagle. German. World War Two. Probably from a tunic or a greatcoat. You don't have the greatcoat?'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Pity. I would have taken that off you. Very collectible. Nazi memorabilia is very sellable just now.'

Walt took the button back. Mouse was on her phone and she didn't look very happy. ‘Okay, thanks, mate. Just wondered.'

Mouse was coming towards him, towing William along behind her. ‘Walt! We have to go.'

‘What's wrong?'

She was clearly distressed. ‘Mrs Petrauska just called. Alys is sitting on the pavement crying.'

17

Alys was sitting on the pavement with her back to the railings, hugging her knees. Her hair hung forward and he couldn't see much of her face, but the sobs were raw and hoarse, like she'd been at it for a while. Mrs Petrauska was standing guard. Her face bore two camouflage streaks of mascara, and her palms were pressed together as if she was thinking about praying. Her relief at seeing back-up was explosive. She started gabbling, seizing Walt's arm as Mouse went into some kind of smooth choreography, handing the key to William and scooping an arm around her sister's heaving shoulders. It all looked too well rehearsed.

‘This the second time this month, Maura!' Mrs Petrauska said. ‘That poor girl, she need the
gydytojas
!'

‘Doctor,' William translated. He'd developed a sudden air of confidence, racing up the steps, flashing the keys, swinging open the big heavy door.

Mouse was thanking Mrs Petrauska, bundling Alys towards the house. ‘She hasn't been sleeping.'

‘But you must get help!'

Walt detached himself, patted the woman's shoulder. ‘We will. Thank you. Good night.'

And then they were in the hall and he was closing the door, with a last glance at Mrs Petrauska's mascara stains, like the shadows of the basement railings.

Alys had stopped sobbing. Her voice was now a nasally whine. ‘You weren't there. You left me to do it all by myself.'

Mouse was looking at him pointedly. He realised the remarks were aimed at him. He stood with his back to the closed door and lifted his hand to his chest in an exaggerated gesture. ‘Me?'

‘I needed you, Walt!' The sobbing started again.

Walt hated women crying. He'd grown up around boys; when tears cropped up it was for a good reason – a fist fight, someone giving you a wedgie or stealing your new bike – and always the result of anger or frustration. As men the tears were quiet, hidden. Female tears were deeper, darker.

He appealed to Mouse. ‘She said she wanted to be alone, to get on with her stuff!'

‘When was this?' Mouse hugged Alys to her, smoothed her hair.

‘Wednesday or Thursday, I guess. That's why I suggested we go out this morning. I've been bored off me tits for days. I can't stand having nothing to do, I . . .'

But Mouse wasn't listening. ‘When did you last sleep, Alys? Have you eaten anything?'

Alys pulled away from her and staggered up the hall. ‘I can't! It's all going wrong. I had this vision in my head but I can't make it work!' The backside of her jeans and her white sweater were snagged with the outside: dust and twigs and tiny leaves.

Mouse was biting her lower lip, the way William did. ‘You can't work without any sleep. You're burned out, Alys. You need to go to bed.'

‘I
can't
sleep, you idiot! You don't understand. The ideas won't let go of me! They're in my head
all
the time . . .' There began a fresh storm of weeping. Alys collapsed against the great polar bear, dissolving into his yellowy fur. William peered out from behind the kitchen door.

‘Why don't you just go and have a little lie down.' Mouse followed Alys and took her by the thin shoulders. ‘Come on. I'll change your pillowcases, that always helps you sleep. I'll sprinkle lavender oil on them, like Mum used to do. And I'll bring you up some hot milk.'

‘No, no, no! The birds are all out! The birds are all out and I need to sort them!' She flung Mouse off violently. There was a noise like a slap, but Walt was guiding William back into the kitchen and didn't see what had happened. He could hear Mouse repeating her sister's words: ‘The birds are all out? The birds are all
out
?'

‘They are. Look.' The kid was pulling at Walt's sleeve. ‘Look.'

‘Shit.'

Alys kept all her roadkill in an upright freezer in the back corner of the kitchen. She'd given him the guided tour early on, explaining her filing system, demonstrating how each plastic drawer held different creatures: birds in the top, then rodents, then small furries such as rabbits and guinea pigs (maybe even kittens). Each specimen was bagged and tagged, her own personal morgue. Walt had felt physically sick. Now, the door of the freezer was standing open.

‘Christ, is it empty? It is. It's empty. How much stuff did she have in here?' He crossed the room in a few strides and checked all the drawers.

Mouse spoke, right behind him. She sounded weary. ‘It's always full, because people keep handing stuff in, like we're a bloody charity shop or something. She can't have stuffed them all. How big is this thing she's working on?'

Walt slammed the freezer door and turned around. ‘Coffin-sized.'

‘Oh God. I'll get her settled. You go down to the basement, Walt. See what she's done. William, get yourself some supper.'

‘Can I have biscuits?'

‘Yes.'

‘Chocolate ones?'

‘William!'

Walt made the short downward spiral to the basement. It meant going outside, of course, and it was still raining. It was a bad design flaw, not including an inside staircase. He tried to make the two-minute journey last, filling his lungs with fresh air, like a prisoner waiting for the cell door to clang shut. His heart was already racing, anticipating the dark.

It was the weeping, Mrs Petrauska's mascara stripes, the violence of Alys's reactions. It could all be superimposed on some other time, some other land. His base instincts refused to give up on him.
Re-experiencing is the most typical symptom of PTSD. This is when a person involuntarily and vividly relives the traumatic event in the form of flashbacks, nightmares or repetitive and distressing images or sensations. This can even include physical sensations such as pain, sweating and trembling.
NHS website, memorised.

The stench hit him when he opened the door. The little shop was clogged with it. Glassy eyes looked on in horror as he went behind the till and brushed aside the curtain. The only light was from the huge display case; it fanned out across the slate floor, interrupted by a hundred little speed bumps.

A hundred little bird corpses, laid out in neat rows like herring on a dock, and smelling just as bad. Defrosted, they were beginning to rot, tiny pools of liquid congealing under each one.

He started to shake. It began in his knees and travelled upwards, grabbing his guts. He was still rooted to the spot when Mouse came in.

‘Oh my God.' She pressed the back of her hand to her nose. ‘They must have been defrosting for days. Some of them are half rotten when we get them. What do we do? Can you refreeze them?' When he didn't speak she nudged his arm. ‘Walt? It's not like meat, is it? Maybe we can refreeze them? Walt, what's wrong?'

‘I need to get out of here.' His voice came out weird, strangled.

‘You can't leave me with this! Look.' She seemed to sense his panic, hauled over a stool and pushed him down onto it. ‘Breathe slowly. You look like you've seen a ghost . . .' She bit her lip and swung her gaze back to the corpses. ‘Actually, I can sort this out myself. I've seen it all before. Why don't you go up and–'

‘No. I'm okay.' He shook his head. ‘I'm fine. You get a black bag. The best thing we can do is just sweep 'em up and put them in the bin. I'll get the dustpan.'

Mouse flipped on the main light. The place flooded with an awful certainty. All those fragile victims, concave under cold feathers and stiff claws. There was something horrifying about the way they were arranged in those neat rows. It was like the aftermath of an execution.

Not knowing where to start, Walt set to with the brush.

‘Wait!' Mouse grabbed his arm. ‘Which one's the wren?'

He glared at her. ‘You're winding me up. You want me to check every one to find a fuckin' wren?'

‘It's what she was working on. If we chuck them out, she'll go mental.'

They stood looking at the mess, trying not to breathe in the stink. Mouse's eyelashes were wet.

‘Honestly,' she whispered, ‘if she comes down and finds them all gone, she'll trash the place. You have no idea what it's like.'

Walt put down the brush. He wanted to loop his arm around her, offer a bit of comfort, but he was afraid she might take it the wrong way, so he just said, ‘I do, bonny lass. I know what it's like.'

Mouse nodded. ‘Oh God, we'll just have to dump them. Can't stand that smell.'

They worked in silence, Mouse holding the bag and Walt scooping up the corpses. He took the bag and knotted it. Mouse told him to stick it in the bin, but to make sure it was the right bin and not Mrs Petrauska's. The thought of Mrs Petrauska's reaction to finding dozens of rotting birds didn't bear thinking about. Walt found a red baseball cap lying on top of the bins. Was it William's? He held it up. It was grubby, well worn, with a peak that had once been white underneath but was now mushroom-coloured. He didn't think Mouse would let the boy wear such a thing, but he decided to take it with him, just in case. As he was about to walk away, a glimmer of something caught his eye. The funny little window, the one he'd noticed the time he'd come out to inspect the pipework, was ominously dark, and yet . . . He could have sworn he'd seen movement, or the ghost of a movement, like the flitting of a moth across a beam of light. He peered closer, but the grimy square remained stubbornly blank. Imagination plays tricks on you all the time; he knew that firsthand. Still . . . Whirling the dirty red cap around his index finger, he walked uncertainly back to the house.

18

In the kitchen, Mouse was hugging the kid. Smothered in her jumper, he was standing patiently, one eye visible between his fringe and her sleeve.

‘The birds are gone,' Walt announced. ‘Extinct.'

She didn't get the joke. ‘You definitely put them in our bin?'

‘I put them in the one marked “Dance Studio”.'

‘What?' She swung around, realised he was trying to lighten the mood and rolled her eyes. William escaped. ‘Where are you going?'

‘Just up to my room,' he said.

‘Don't go near Auntie Alys's room. She needs to rest.'

‘Here, kid. Is this yours?' Walt held up the cap by its grubby peak.

‘It is not,' Mouse said straight away. ‘Look at the state of it!'

William gazed at it with interest, but knew better than to touch it. ‘I could keep it though. For my collection.'

‘No!' Mouse glared at Walt. ‘You should have put that in the bin too.'

Walt shrugged and hooked the offending article onto the back of a chair. As William scurried off, Walt went over to wash his hands at the sink.

‘Is she sleeping?' He turned on the tap and scrubbed his hands with liquid soap.

Mouse folded her now-empty arms and hugged herself. ‘No. She's lying quietly though, staring at the ceiling.'

‘Should I go up?'

‘Why should you?' She looked at him sharply.

He shrugged. ‘Because she's my boss? I feel responsible.'

‘Don't.'

‘You heard what she said to me. I shouldn't have left her.'

‘You don't need to feel responsible, and Walt . . .' She looked him full in the face, sternly, as if she were scolding William. ‘Don't get too close to her.'

‘I wasn't. I'm not.'

‘Good. Alys is very vulnerable. She may look all flirty and confident, but underneath, she's her own worst enemy.'

‘I get the picture.' He dried his hands slowly on a towel. He had the picture in his head: Alys giving him the come-on, touching her mouth to his. Maybe he'd been on his own too long. Mouse was eyeing him as if she'd just found a stash of porn under his bed. Turning away, she started rummaging through the cupboard under the sink, pulling out cloths and rubber gloves and bleach. He felt dismissed but something made him linger, a strong sense of injustice. He'd drifted in here for his own reasons. The job had suited him, and the room. He could go to ground for a while, living with these two strange, distant sisters, each with their own stuff going on and not much caring what he did or didn't do. Not asking about his past.

But he was getting pissed off with the way they only gave away so much, though the irony was not lost on him. He was
living
with them – surely he was entitled to more than a few crumbs of information?

Mouse flushed hot water into a basin. Steam surrounded her like mist as she snapped on yellow Marigolds. He wasn't going to let her blot away what had just happened like an inconvenient stain.

‘So what's Alys's problem then? Bipolar? Autism? What?'

Mouse hefted the basin from the sink and made for the freezer, slopping water in her hurry to avoid the question. He followed her.

‘If I'm working with her I need to know.'

‘I don't know what it is.' She kneeled down and opened up the freezer drawers, releasing a faint whiff of death. ‘She's always been like that. I suppose she's on the spectrum, somewhere. When she was little she was just a handful, like most kids. She was wilful, disruptive.' She sat back on her heels, pushing aside her hair with one clumsy yellow rubber hand. ‘She was always in trouble at school, for breaking things and fighting.'

Walt came to stand right behind her. ‘Maybe it's that attention deficit thing.'

‘Don't know. Mum might have had her assessed, but Dad was a bit old-school. He didn't want people coming around prying, so it just got left, like a lot of other things.'

He couldn't see her face but the bitterness was unmistakeable.

‘So is that why you stick around? To look after her?'

‘Can you imagine how she'd cope on her own?' He could hear the threat of tears in her voice. The sound hurt him, and he reached round and pulled her up by the elbows and folded her into his arms. She stood there, not moving, like William had done, trying not to touch him with the wet rubber gloves. He moved back to look into her face, but she wouldn't catch his eye. She looked miserable, wet cheeks, red nose.

‘You know what? I'm going to do what all good Brits do in a crisis.' He moved her firmly to the table and made her sit down. She pulled off the gloves with an air of defeat. Walt went over to the worktop and switched on the kettle. ‘I've made tea all over the globe and I have a theory.' He'd got her interest, albeit reluctantly. ‘All families have a tea triangle.'

‘A tea triangle?' She looked at him like he was trying to sell her snake oil.

He demonstrated obligingly. ‘Look, kettle here. Along the worktop, mug rack. And above the kettle . . .' He flung open a cupboard. ‘Teabags. I rest my case.'

‘It's an isosceles.' She perked up a bit, resting her chin in her hands.

‘Correct. Now my mother favours the obtuse triangle. Kettle here, teabags here, near the sink, and mugs overhead in
this
cupboard.' He flipped open a different door.

Mouse shook her head. ‘Yeah, but what about the sugar? And the milk?'

‘Ee, now you're just making it complicated, like.'

She flashed her wide grin. ‘All this proves is that you've spent far too much time drinking tea.'

‘True. Unless . . .' He opened the fridge with a flourish. ‘There is alcohol to hand. I see wine. Fancy a glass?'

She sat up straight, batted the idea away with a hand. ‘No way. I've a kid upstairs and a sister who . . . No, I can't. Just make tea.'

‘So you have a packed Saturday night, do you?'

‘No, not exactly.'

‘You'll be sitting watching
The X Factor
like everybody else. Have one glass.'

She sighed. ‘Just one. A small one.'

‘I'll stick on this pizza, to soak it up.' He laughed at her scowl. He didn't know why he was suddenly in a good mood, not with the way the last couple of hours had gone. He ripped open the pizza box and switched on the oven. The wine was a dry white, nice and chilled. He found two glasses and poured. The anticipation warmed him.

‘So Alys was the wild one . . . when you were bairns?'

Mouse smiled. ‘We were both wild. We lived in a castle, back then, so we had plenty room to be wild.'

‘A castle? I'm impressed.'

‘Don't be. It was a dump. Crumbling about our ears. Mum hated it but it had been in Dad's family for ages and I don't think he saw what she saw – the damp and the mice and the endless cleaning. We didn't see it either, as wee ones. We just enjoyed the space.'

‘So tell me about it. I've never met anyone who lived in a castle before.' He sat down and took a sip of his wine. She coloured a little, flattered by the attention.

‘Oh God. There were draughts and leaks and it was dark everywhere, and most times when you put the light on, the bulbs would blow. Dad said it was the damp and the old wiring. Alys said it was the ghosts sucking up all the energy. She has a great imagination. I suppose my favourite place was down by the old cow byre that Dad used as a garage. I used to hide there, in amongst the weeds. I can still smell the crushed nettles and dock leaves . . . I loved the foxgloves. You could make the little purple bells pop if you squeezed them the right way, or you could wear them on your fingers like fairy thimbles.'

She looked suddenly very young. ‘I remember my mother pegging sheets out on the rope. She'd prop it up with a forked pole, and the laundry used to dance in the wind.'

Her eyes sparkled when she looked at him, but there must have been something in his face – she stopped and raised the glass to her lips, taking a cautious sip. ‘Sorry. I'm being boring.'

‘No, no. I was just thinking of my mother's washing line.'

‘Not your mother?' she teased.

‘Nope. Just the washing line.' He drained his glass in one gulp and got to his feet. The chair scraped harshly on the floor. ‘I'll check on the pizza.'