Under the Skin

by Michel Faber

  Thanks to Jeff and Fuggo

  and especially to my wife Eva,

  for bringing me back to earth

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  ISSERLEY ALWAYS DROVE straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up. She was looking for big muscles: a hunk on legs. Puny, scrawny specimens were no use to her.

  At first glance, though, it could be surprisingly difficult to tell the difference. You’d think a lone hitcher on a country road would stand out a mile, like a distant monument or a grain silo; you’d think you would be able to appraise him calmly as you drove, undress him and turn him over in your mind well in advance. But Isserley had found it didn’t happen that way.

  Driving through the Highlands of Scotland was an absorbing task in itself; there was always more going on than picture postcards allowed. Even in the nacreous hush of a winter dawn, when the mists were still dossed down in the fields on either side, the A9 could not be trusted to stay empty for long. Furry carcasses of unidentifiable forest creatures littered the asphalt, fresh every morning, each of them a frozen moment in time when some living thing had mistaken the road for its natural habitat.

  Isserley, too, often ventured out at hours of such prehistoric stillness that her vehicle might have been the first ever. It was as if she had been set down on a world so newly finished that the mountains might still have some shifting to do and the wooded valleys might yet be recast as seas.

  Nevertheless, once she’d launched her little car onto the deserted, faintly steaming road, it was often only a matter of minutes before there was southbound traffic coming up behind her. Nor was this traffic content to let her set the pace, like one sheep following another on a narrow path; she must drive faster, or be hooted off the single carriageway.

  Also, this being an arterial road, she must be alert to all the little capillary paths joining it. Only a few of the junctions were clearly signposted, as if singled out for this distinction by natural selection; the rest were camouflaged by trees. Ignoring junctions was not a good idea, even though Isserley had the right of way: any one of them could be spring-loaded with an impatiently shuddering tractor which, if it leapt into her path, would hardly suffer for its mistake, while she would be strewn across the bitumen.

  Most distracting of all, though, was not the threat of danger but the allure of beauty. A luminous moat of rainwater, a swarm of gulls following a seeder around a loamy field, a glimpse of rain two or three mountains away, even a lone oyster catcher flying overhead: any of these could make Isserley half forget what she was on the road for. She would be driving along as the sun rose fully, watching distant farmhouses turn golden, when something much nearer to her, drably shaded, would metamorphose suddenly from a tree-branch or a tangle of debris into a fleshy biped with its arm extended.

  Then she’d remember, but sometimes not until she was already sweeping by, narrowly missing the tip of the hitcher’s hand, as if the fingers might have been snapped off, twig-like, had they grown just a few centimetres longer.

  Stepping on the brake was out of the question. Instead, she’d leave her foot undisturbed on the accelerator, stay in line with the other cars, and do nothing more than take a mental photograph as she, too, zoomed past.

  Sometimes, examining this mental image as she drove on, she would note that the hitcher was a female. Isserley wasn’t interested in females, at least not in that way. Let them get picked up by someone else.

  If the hitcher was male, she usually went back for another look, unless he was an obvious weakling. Assuming he’d made a reasonable impression on her, she would execute a U-turn as soon as it was safe to do so – well out of sight, of course: she didn’t want him to know she was interested. Then, driving past on the other side of the road, as slowly as traffic allowed, she’d size him up a second time.

  Very occasionally she would fail to find him again: some other motorist, less cautious or less choosy, must have slewed to a halt and picked him up in the time it had taken her to double back. She would squint at where she thought he’d been standing, and see only a vacant hem of gravel. She’d look beyond the road’s edge, at the fields or the undergrowth, in case he was hidden in there somewhere, urinating. (They were prone to do that.) It would seem inconceivable to her that he should be gone so soon; his body had been so good – so excellent – so perfect – why had she thrown away her chance? Why hadn’t she just picked him up as soon as she saw him?

  Sometimes the loss would be so hard to accept that she just kept driving, for miles and miles, hoping that whoever had taken him from her would set him down again. Cows blinked at her innocently as she sped by in a haze of wasted petrol.

  Usually, however, the hitcher was standing exactly where she’d first passed him, his arm perhaps just marginally less erect, his clothing (if rain was setting in) just that little bit more piebald. Coming from the opposite direction, Isserley might catch a glimpse of his buttocks, or his thighs, or maybe how well-muscled his shoulders were. There was something in the stance, too, that could indicate the cocky self-awareness of a male in prime condition.

  Driving past, she’d stare straight at him, to verify her first impressions, making totally sure she wasn’t pumping him up in her imagination.

  If he really did make the grade, she stopped the car and took him.

  Isserley had been doing this for years. Scarcely a day went by when she didn’t drive her battered red Toyota Corolla to the A9 and start cruising. Even when she’d had a run of successful encounters and her self-esteem was high, she’d worry that the last hitcher she’d picked up might prove, with hindsight, to be her last truly satisfactory one: perhaps no-one in the future would measure up.

  In truth, there was for Isserley an addictive thrill about the challenge. She could have some magnificent brute sitting in her car, right next to her, knowing for sure that he was coming home with her, and she could already be thinking ahead to the next one. Even while she was admiring him, following the curves of his brawny shoulders or the swell of his chest under his T-shirt, savouring the thought of how superb he’d be once he was naked, she would keep one eye on the roadside, just in case an even better prospect was beckoning to her out there.

  Today hadn’t started well.

  Driving the car across the railway overpass near the comatose village of Fearn, before she’d even reached the highway, she became aware of a rattle somewhere above the wheel on the passenger side. She listened to it, holding her breath, wondering what it was trying to tell her in its quaint foreign language. Was the rattle a plea for help? A momentary grumble? A friendly warning? She listened some more, trying to imagine how a car might make itself understood.

  This red Corolla wasn’t the best car she’d ever had; she especially missed the grey Nissan estate she’d learned to drive in. It had responded smoothly and placidly, made almost no noise, and had lots of room in the back – enough to put a bed in, even. But she’d had to dump it, after only a year.

  Since then, she’d had a couple of vehicles, but they were smaller, and the customized bits, when transplanted from the Nissan, caused trouble. This red Corolla handled stiffly and could be temperamental. No doubt it wanted to be a good car, but it had its problems.

  Only a few hundred metres short
of the junction with the highway, a hairy youngster was ambling along the side of the narrow road, thumbing a lift. She accelerated past him, and he threw up his arm lazily, adding two fingers to the gesture. He knew her face, vaguely, and she knew his, vaguely. They were both locals, though they’d never met except at moments like this.

  Isserley had a policy of steering well clear of locals.

  Turning onto the A9 at Kildary, she checked the clock on the dashboard. The days were lengthening fast: only 8:24, and the sun was already off the ground. The sky was bruise blue and flesh pink behind a swaddling of pure white cumulus, hinting at the frigid clarity to come. There would be no snow, but frost would sparkle for hours yet and night would fall well before the air had a chance to get warm.

  For Isserley’s purposes, a clear raw day like this was good for safe driving, but wasn’t so good for assessing hitchers. Exceptionally hardy specimens might go short-sleeved, to show off their fitness, but most would be bundled up in overcoats and layers of wool to make things difficult for her. Even a starveling could look musclebound if he had enough gear on.

  There was no traffic in her rear-view mirror and she gave herself permission to pootle along at 40 miles an hour, partly to test out how the rattle was doing. It seemed to have fixed itself. That was wishful thinking, of course. But it was a cheering thing to think when setting out in the morning, after a night of nagging pain, bad dreams and fitful sleep.

  She sniffed deeply and laboriously through her narrow, barely patent little nostrils. The air was fresh and sharp, slightly intoxicating, like pure oxygen administered through a mask, or ether. Her consciousness was hesitating at a crossroads between hyperactive wakefulness and a return to sleep. If she didn’t get the stimulation of some action soon, she knew which way it was likely to go.

  Isserley drove past some of the usual spots where hitchers were set down, but there was no-one. Just the road and the wide world, empty.

  A few stray drops of rain spattered the windscreen, and the wipers smeared two filthy monochrome rainbows across her line of vision. She squirted bottled water from inside the bonnet, a seemingly endless stream of it against the glass, before she was able to get a clear view again. The manoeuvre left her more tired somehow, as if she’d had to give up vital fluids of her own.

  She tried to project herself forward in time, visualizing herself already parked somewhere with a hunky young hitch-hiker sitting next to her; she imagined herself breathing heavily against him as she smoothed his hair and grasped him round the waist to ease him into position. The fantasy was not enough, however, to keep her eyes from drooping shut.

  Just as Isserley was considering finding a place to pull in and doze for a while, she spotted a silhouetted figure just below the horizon. Instantly she roused herself and dilated her eyelids attentively, pushing her glasses on straight. She checked her face and hair in the rear-view mirror. Experimentally, she pouted her lips, which were red as lipstick.

  Driving past the hitcher the first time, she noted he was a male, quite tall, broad-shouldered, casually dressed. He was using both thumb and forefinger, rather slackly, as if he’d been waiting ages. Or maybe he didn’t want to appear too eager.

  On the way back, she noted he was quite young, with a very short haircut in the penal Scottish style. His clothing was drab as mud. What he had inside it filled up his jacket impressively, although whether with muscle or fat remained to be seen.

  Driving towards him the final time, Isserley realized he really was uncommonly tall. He was staring at her, possibly figuring out that he had already seen her a couple of minutes before, as there wasn’t much other traffic. Nevertheless, he didn’t beckon to her any more urgently, just kept his hand lazily extended. Begging was not his style.

  She slowed down and brought her car to a standstill right in front of him.

  ‘Hop in,’ she said.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said breezily as he swung into the passenger seat.

  Just from that one word, delivered without a smile despite the smiley facial muscles involved, Isserley already knew something about him. He was the type who needed to swerve round the saying of thanks, as if gratitude were a trap. In his world, there was nothing Isserley could do for him that would put him in her debt; everything was only natural. She had stopped to pick him up off the side of the road; fine. Why not? She was giving him, for free, something a taxi would have charged him a fortune for, and what he said to that was ‘Cheers’, as if she were a drinking pal and had just done him a trifling, perfunctory favour like sliding an ashtray into his reach.

  ‘No problem,’ responded Isserley, as if he’d thanked her anyway. ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘South,’ he said, looking south.

  A long second idled by, then he pulled the seatbelt across his torso as if reluctantly conceding this was the only way to get the two of them moving.

  ‘Just south?’ she enquired as she eased the car away from the kerb, careful, as always, to flip the toggle for the indicators rather than the headlights or the windscreen wipers or the icpathua.

  ‘Well … it depends,’ he said. ‘Where are you heading?’

  She made a calculation in her head, then looked at his face to judge where he might figure in it.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she said. ‘Inverness, to begin with.’

  ‘Inverness is fine with me.’

  ‘But you’d like to go further?’

  ‘I’ll go as far as I can get.’

  Another car had appeared suddenly in her rear-view mirror and she had to gauge its intentions; by the time she was able to turn back to the hitcher his face was impassive. Had his remark been impish arrogance? Sexual innuendo? Or just dull matter-of-fact?

  ‘Waiting long?’ she asked, to tease out more of his wit.

  ‘Pardon?’

  He blinked at her, interrupted in the act of unzipping his jacket. Was the challenge of pulling a zip and simultaneously listening to a simple question more than his intellect could manage? He had a thin black scab etched across his right eyebrow, almost healed – a drunken fall maybe? The whites of his eyes were clear, his hair had been washed in the not too distant past, he didn’t smell – was he just stupid?

  ‘Where I picked you up,’ she elaborated. ‘Had you been standing there long?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a watch.’

  She glanced down at his nearest wrist; it was big, with fine golden hairs, and two blueish veins passing over onto the backs of his hands.

  ‘Well, did it feel long?’

  He seemed to think this over for a moment.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He grinned. His teeth weren’t so good.

  In the world outside, the sun’s rays intensified abruptly as if some responsible agency had just noticed they were shining at half the recommended power. The windscreen lit up like a lamp and beamed ultraviolet rays onto Isserley and the hitcher, pure heat with the nip of breeze neatly filtered out. The car’s heater was on full as well, so the hitcher was soon squirming in his seat, taking his jacket off altogether. Isserley watched him surreptitiously, watched the mechanics of his biceps and triceps, the roll of his shoulders.

  ‘OK if I put this on the back seat?’ he presumed, bundling the jacket up in his big hands.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, noting the ripples of muscle momentarily expressing themselves through his T-shirt as he twisted round to toss the jacket on top of her own. His abdomen was a bit fatty – beer, not muscle – but nothing too gross. The bulge in his jeans was promising, although most of it was probably testicles.

  Comfortable now, he settled back in his seat and flashed her a smile seasoned by a lifetime of foul Scottish fodder.

  She smiled back, wondering how much the teeth really mattered.

  She could sense herself moving closer to deciding. In fact, to be honest, she was more than half-way already, and her breathing was quickening.

  She made an effort to forestall the adrenaline as it leaked f
rom her glands, by sending calming messages into herself, swallowing them down. All right, yes, he was good: all right, yes, she wanted him: but she must know a little more about him first. She must avoid the humiliation of committing herself, of allowing herself to believe he would be coming with her, and then finding out he had a wife or a girlfriend waiting.

  If only he would make some conversation. Why was it always the desirable ones that sat in silence, and the misshapen rejects that prattled away unprompted? She’d had one miserable creature who’d removed a voluminous parka to reveal spindly arms and a pigeon chest: within minutes he was telling her his whole life’s story. The brawny ones were more likely to stare into space, or make pronouncements about the world in general, deflecting personal questions with the reflex skill of athletes.

  Minutes flashed by and her hitcher seemed content to say nothing. Yet at least he was taking the trouble to peek at her body – in particular at her breasts. In fact, as far as she could tell from glancing sideways and meeting his own furtive eyes, he was keen for her to face front so he could ogle her undetected. OK, then: she would let him have a good stare, to see what difference it might make. The Evanton turn-off was coming soon, anyhow, and she needed to concentrate on her driving. She craned forward a little, exaggerating her concentration on the road, and allowed herself to be examined in earnest.

  Immediately she felt his gaze beaming all over her like another kind of ultraviolet ray, and no less intense.

  Isserley wondered, oh how she wondered, what she looked like to him, in his alien innocence. Did he notice the trouble she had gone to for him? She straightened her back against the seat, pushing her chest out.

  The hitcher noticed all right.

  Fantastic tits on this one, but God, there wasn’t much of her otherwise. Tiny – like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. How tall would she be? Five foot one, maybe, standing up. Funny how a lot of women with the best tits were really really short. This girl obviously knew she had a couple of ripe ones, the way she had them sitting pretty on the scoop of a low-cut top. That’s why this car was heated like an oven, of course: so she could wear a skimpy black top and air her boobs for all to see – for him to see.