Beneath the Skin (8 page)

19

Mam's washing line is wrapped so tight around a limb of the old tree that the rope has rubbed a gall in the bark. Robert isn't that good on trees; not like Steven who can name trees, garden birds and movie stars like he's eaten an encyclopaedia. The tree smells like the green disinfectant Mam puts down the bog and its bark . . . He loves its bark. It's thick and scabby, like a pine cone, with deep cracks you can stick your fingertips in. Sometimes it flakes away and the wood beneath is all smooth and dewy like new skin.

They're all up in the tree: Robert and Steven and Tom, perched in the lower branches like cats. Tom's a ginger tom, but you can't say that or he'll clout you. They've been watching a Western; the villain had been hoisted into a tree and hanged, his dusty spurred boots jerking in mid-air. Mam had come in and turned off the telly and they'd all groaned, and she'd snapped, ‘Get outside and play. Watching all that rubbish.'

So they'd fled to the back garden. Sitting up in the tree with legs wrapped around branches they eye the washing line and wonder what hanging is like. Robert is worried about how tight the rope is around the branch.

‘It's making it bleed, look.'

‘That's sap.' Steven peers at the wound over his glasses. ‘Tree blood.'

‘I think we should untie it.'

‘Mam'd kill you,' says Steven, screwing up his nose.

‘Do you bleed when they hang you?'

‘Man, Robert!' Tom groans as if everyone knows the answer to that. ‘You ask the dumbest things!'

‘You don't bleed but you pee yourself,' Steven replies gravely.

‘Oh, gross!' There's general fidgeting at the grossness of it.

Tom eyes Steven suspiciously. ‘They don't show that on the films.'

‘Our mam turned it off before the peeing part.'

‘We're going to see
The Goonies
tonight,' says Steven, changing the subject. ‘Wanna come?'

‘Awesome! I'll ask me da.' Tom slithers down from the tree and the others flex their elbows.

‘I'm fed up out here,' Steven huffs. ‘This tree don't do anything. I'm away in to play wi' me
Star Wars
stuff.' He hops down too, leaving Robert alone, lodged in a bum-bruising ‘V' between the branches.

It is so quiet without the others; it's like listening to the inside of a big seashell. He can hear tiny things: the shivering of the leaves, a hornet buzzing, the far-off bleating of a sheep. He presses his cheek against the rough bark and pretends to be Invisible Tree Man. He plays this game often, imagining his skin turning the colour of compost and the tree soaking him up until he is part of it, invisible, so well hidden that Mam will never find him at bedtime. He could stay out all night in the velvety midnight and take down the rope so the tree stops bleeding. Though Mam would be sure to find him at some point and if it meant she'd had to leave
Coronation Street
to come out after him in her slippers she'd throw a huge wobbler and they'd be in the bad books for days. Reluctantly, he peels himself away from the bark and jumps to the ground.

20

He'd gone to bed about nine, only because Mouse had made it plain she wouldn't sit downstairs arsing booze with him. Once William had come down to get his share of the pizza she'd determinedly washed up and wiped the surfaces down with something strong and lemony, leaving him feeling about as welcome as a ketchup smear. Fuck, did she ever stop cleaning? What was she trying to wash away? He'd retreated upstairs, taking the remainder of the bottle with him, but not the glass. She'd already washed it. He took off his things and lay on the bed in his T-shirt and boxers, necking wine from the bottle and wishing there was a telly in his room, or music, or anything that didn't require him to think.

He must have finished the bottle and drifted off with the light on, because one minute he was contemplating the shiny walnut wardrobe and the next he woke with a sick start, not knowing, in the way that you do, whether this was a dream or real. Corpses in neat regimental rows, like birds. They didn't die like that. They died untidily, with parts missing. Sometimes he could still see the parts, coated in sand, dangling from trees. He never saw his own foot, but he dreamed about it often.

He was suddenly aware he was being watched and every hair stood up on his body, every nerve stretched. He reached for his gun but found only the duvet bunched beneath his fists. By the time he'd realised it was William, his breathing was coming in shallow gasps and his heart was hammering in his ears.

‘For fuck's sake! What the hell are you doing?'

William's blue eyes widened. They were fixed on his legs, or at least on the space where his right foot should be. He'd taken off his prosthesis when he lay down.

‘Mum wouldn't want you saying the F-word in front of me.' The boy wandered to the end of the bed.

Walt lay there like a landed fish, still trapped in his own panic. ‘She wouldn't want you coming into a strange man's bedroom either. You shouldn't be here.'

‘You're not strange.' The kid peered at his stump and asked the obvious. ‘What happened to your leg?'

‘IED blast. I was one of the lucky ones. And it was just my foot. That was lucky too.'

‘You've still got your knee.' William looked solemnly at his stump, like a doctor. All he needed was the white coat and a pen to point out the damage to his students. He was close, head bent to examine the scar.

Walt sighed, lay back again and covered his eyes with his forearm, waiting for the questions.

‘Does it hurt?'

‘Not so much now.'

‘It looks like you never had a leg there, the skin is healed up so good.'

‘Yeah?' Walt lowered his arm. He'd stopped obsessing about the stump. It was there, deal with it. The physio had been tough, but it was something to pit himself against, and the lads in the centre . . . most had been worse off. The damage was colossal, but the comradeship, the black humour, had kept him going. It was only when he got home, when he realised he was on his own, that the hurting began.

‘It's kind of all stitched up neat like you never had a leg. Skin's amazing.'

Walt swallowed, half smiling at the ceiling. A tear had gathered in the corner of his eye and it slid a wet trail down his cheek to the pillow. ‘Skin hides a lot,' he whispered.

‘I'd better go back to bed. I thought I heard a noise. Did you hear it?'

Walt propped himself up on his elbow to check his watch on the bedside table. ‘What time is it? Jesus, it's nearly midnight. What are you doing out of your scratcher?' He registered that the kid was in his pyjamas, his hair sleep-ruffled.

‘I just told you – I heard a noise.'

‘Probably your mad auntie stuffing kittens.' He rolled over to the side of the bed, sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Forget that. I shouldn't have said that. Go on up to bed.'

William stood there, dumbly.

‘Scoot.' Walt made walking movements with his fingers.

‘I'm scared.'

‘Eh?'

‘I heard something. What if there's someone in the house?'

‘There's no one in the house, kid. I sleep like a tripwire, I would have heard them. Want me to take you upstairs?'

William nodded fiercely.

The attic staircase was a scaled-down, flimsier version of the main one. Though it began on the landing outside his own bedroom door, Walt had never had call to venture up there until now.

Walt sighed. He suspected this might be a ploy so the lad could witness the fitting of the prosthesis, something to tell his classmates.
We've got this guy staying and his leg got blown off and I've seen the stump and everything.

He strapped himself into the false leg. William was fascinated.

‘State of the art titanium that.' Walt gave it a slap. ‘Fifteen thousand quid's worth. Only the best for Her Maj's troops.'

‘Wouldn't it be cheaper if they sent you somewhere where there's no bombs?'

There was no answer to that. Walt got to his feet. ‘Look, kid. See my coat over there, on the chair? Go in the pocket and there's something there of yours. You left it behind when you were going through your stuff.'

William dived on the coat, rifled through the pockets and held the button aloft.

‘Wow! Can I keep it? It's awesome!'

Walt chuckled. Should he put on his jeans? Mouse would have a fit if she saw the two of them parading around the house and him in his boxers. ‘It's yours anyway, you clown!'

‘It's not mine.'

‘But it was on the chair, in the sitting room.'

William shrugged. ‘Definitely not mine. I know my collection.'

Walt seized the button. The Imperial Eagle winked at him in the light.

21

He went on his third tour without Tom.

The place was hotter, dustier and tenser than he remembered. Home seemed further away and the jokes were blacker than they'd ever been before. Into the gaping Tom-shaped hole wandered Scoff. The mongrel was the same shade as the desert, and in those first days, when he lay down in the shade, his ribs were sharp as coat hangers, his flanks concave. Half of one floppy ear had been torn off, his fox's nose was tattooed with bite marks, and when Walt picked him up to take him to the vet, he peed himself in fear.

The Afghanis had no love for dogs; dogs were unclean. The Taliban had banned dog fighting but the ban was seldom enforced. All the most powerful local officials were said to be involved in it. Out on foot patrol, Walt would see the big barrel-chested Kuchis, the native breed, growling at the end of their chains: a warrior dog for a warrior people. The matches were staged mainly in the winter months, when the dogs were more energetic and their wounds healed faster. It was about money and respect. But most of all, money. Even in the tiny villages, with the men crouched in a circle and the dogs locked together in battle, the stakes were high: money, cars, reputations. A village elder had told him once that the dogs were fed on sheep's feet and eggs to build them up and make them aggressive, while in the same tent sat three tiny children, thin as sparrows.

The dogs that lost were turned out to fend for themselves. He couldn't work out which was the better option.

In a land of no pets, Scoff, as the lads dubbed him, quickly figured out how to be one. He chose Walt's bunk to sleep on, stretching out like an electric blanket, and waited for him coming off patrol, eyes like chocolate, tail whipping up the dust. Every ten minutes spent with Scoff was ten minutes of not being on the front line. He felt his heart scab over one lick at a time.

Scoff took to going on routine patrols with the unit, riding in the Mastiff like he'd been born to it, his tongue lolling and eyes shining. The day it happened, there'd been a heavy fog. They didn't leave base until 1000 hours, sharing the usual banter as they got their kit together. They stopped not long after to do a vulnerable point check, assessing the threat of IEDS. Walt jumped out with his second in command; he went to the right, Mac to the left. The place, usually bustling with market traders and livestock, was quiet. Something cold fingered the back of Walt's neck. He walked carefully around the piles of rubble and garbage that littered the road, his hands sweating on his rifle. Something didn't feel right. He turned to Mac.

He may have got the words out before the bomb detonated, but he wasn't sure. He was still trying to speak when the others rushed to his side. Someone was doing something with a tourniquet. ‘You're all right, mate,' said Mac, ‘you've still got your crown jewels.' He wasn't in pain, not then, but he could feel something warm under his leg. His eyes were full of dust. It was much later, when they flew him back to England, that he found out Scoff had jumped out of the Mastiff after him and taken the full force of the blast.

22

Alys slept all the next day. Walt looked in on her once; she was curled up under the white cotton duvet like a princess. Her skin was waxy, lips parted as she breathed softly through her mouth. Mouse must have been in there: everything was neat, ordered in a way that Alys could never have achieved. Her clothes – the bloodstained sweater and skinny jeans – had been laundered and folded and placed on a chair. The long brown boots she always wore stood to attention, heels together, at the end of the bed. He could imagine Mouse pottering around in here, taking control because she could, with her sister sleeping like a baby. She could clean and tidy and make it all okay.

With Alys wounded in action, it fell to Walt to man the fort. He was never keen to be alone in the basement, but there was a delivery to be put away. He'd placed the order himself, according to Alys's instructions: tow and raffia for stuffing and fixing, preservative and artificial bird feet, almost as cutting-edge as his own. ‘Suitable for jays and magpies', the online description had said. Opening the studio door and flicking the light switch, he found himself daydreaming about rows of prosthetic human feet in some secret warehouse. Maybe they'd have labels attached to their big toes: ‘Suitable for lesser-spotted, dark-haired Aquarian.' The idea made him chuckle.

He'd left the boxes behind the till, and he was already rooting in the drawer for a Stanley blade when he realised the floor was clear. He was sure he'd left them there: six cardboard boxes.

Still gripping the knife he went through into the workshop, automatically sniffing the air. The whiff of dead bird had faded, but it had been replaced by something else: a sort of school-dinner-hall fustiness. The skin on the back of his neck crawled and his grip tightened on the knife. He remembered the boxes. How could six boxes disappear? Would Alys have moved them? She certainly wouldn't have emptied them and put them away. Then he noticed the pink invoice, flattened out on Alys's workbench and weighted down by a small pair of scissors. He scouted round the room, bent to look beneath the workbench. There they were. He counted to make sure: six boxes. He straightened up. Had Alys risen from her bed and moved them? It hardly seemed likely. He was suddenly afraid to touch anything. He needed to get up to the surface, to remain in the light.

Brain fizzing with the possibilities, he ended up in the kitchen, mechanically raiding the fridge. There were a few cans of beer left; he'd bought a load in specially, much to Mouse's disgust. Snagging them by the plastic tag, he slammed the door shut. It was only as he was passing the table that he smelled the coffee. Alys's place setting was, as usual, untouched, but the mug, her special mug, was filled with coffee.

His breathing went funny, became lodged high up in his throat. Alys
hated
coffee. She liked tea, milky, with two sugars. Baby tea, William called it; even he didn't drink tea that weak. So who was drinking black coffee from Alys's mug? He dipped in his pinkie. The liquid was stone cold, as if it had been hanging around for hours; a pre-dawn caffeine fix.

With the beers banging against his thigh, Walt exited the kitchen. Had Alys had another episode? Had she been up in the small hours, consumed by a mad notion for strong coffee? He dropped the beers at Shackleton's feet and jogged up the stairs. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar, and he paused to catch his breath. He always experienced this sick lurch of the stomach before entering Alys's vicinity. It was disturbing. He saw himself in her damaged eyes, and he knew he would leave here the worse for it. He'd brought back all sorts of shite from Afghanistan, stuff you couldn't pack in your kit bag, and he didn't have room for any more.

He pushed open the door. Alys was still out for the count. He couldn't imagine she'd had a mad midnight coffee break after moving six boxes of taxidermy supplies.

Creeping back downstairs, he collected his beer and shut himself in the cold green sitting room. There was rugby on TV. Mouse had taken William to the cinema, and the house was too quiet. He'd grown used to the sound of William jumping down the stairs two at a time, speaking to the great polar bear or the cats. Mouse sang along to the radio in the kitchen, when she thought no one was about. She liked Ed Sheeran, knew all the words. He wanted to ask her about the coffee (Mouse would
never
have used Alys's mug) and the boxes, to share this anomaly with her. He missed her, and the realisation hit him hard, like a punch to the abs.

He turned up the commentary and tried not to think.

Later, he went down to the basement again. He'd look at the date on the invoice; maybe it was an old one that hadn't been filed. He felt like a kid, scrabbling to slam on the lights before the bogeyman got there. The trouble was, he realised, the bogeyman had been there before him.

A sharp stink of something wild and musky alerted him to trouble. There was a dead fox lying on top of the glass display case in Alys's workroom. It was stretched out and moth-eaten, like a vintage stole. The little birds underneath looked haunted and trapped.

He couldn't see the fox's face. There was no way of knowing whether it was stuffed or simply deceased. The only thought that invaded his head was that it didn't walk there by itself. Someone had brought it in.

He went as close as he dared, trying to block out the smell. If he was looking for clues he could find only one. The red baseball cap was now on the workbench beside the invoice.