Under the Skin

by Michel Faber

  Isserley showered with care and patience, giving special attention to the scar-lines and alien clefts in which she had a dangerous lack of sensation: places where infections could grow and where wounds that had never quite healed could slyly venture open. Her hands smoothed great foams of lather back and forth across her body, spongy slathers of creamy detergent which she imagined as more copious than they probably were. She pictured herself wreathed and haloed in foam, little clouds of it like the frothy spume of pollution carried on the waves sometimes at Ablach Beach.

  Abstracted, she drifted away from consciousness, slowly revolving under the warm cascade of water. Her hands and arms continued to slither around on her flesh, slick with lather, settling into a regular rhythm, a regular route. She closed her eyes.

  Only when she realized that some of her fingers had strayed between her legs, searching blindly for what was no longer to be found there, did she come back to her senses and rinse herself with businesslike efficiency.

  Fully dressed as if for work, Isserley walked through a tunnel of trees towards the sea. Her boots made soft crackling sounds in the frozen mud; her wet hair steamed in the chill air. She moved carefully, measuring her steps in the dimness, her hands hovering away from her hips, ready to break a fall. At one point she turned, waiting a moment for her cloud of breath to clear so she could see how far she had come. Her cottage was a vague silhouette hunched against the night sky, with two upstairs windows reflecting moonlight like the eyes of an owl. She turned back to the firth and kept walking.

  After the avenue of trees, the land was opened up to the atmosphere; the size of Ablach Farm became obvious, and Isserley walked a long grassy path snaking between great fields of dormant barley and potatoes. The sea was already visible from here, and the sound of waves seemed all around her.

  The moon hung low over the firth, and countless tiny stars shone clearly from the darkest, furthest reaches of the universe; the time must be about two or three in the morning.

  Back in the steading, the men would most likely be loading the ship at last. That was a good thing. The sooner they finished, the sooner it could leave. The moment would arrive when Amlis Vess was sent back where he had come from. What a wonderful release of tension that would be!

  She breathed deeply, anticipating it, visualizing him being bundled off. The men would usher him into the hold of the ship, and he would saunter in arrogantly, showing off his pampered, glossy body, holding his head high in an attitude of adolescent disdain. He would probably turn, just at the moment before entering, and cast a piercing glance at whoever was in range, his amber eyes burning in the exquisite blackness of his fur. Then he would be gone. Gone.

  Isserley had reached the boundary of Ablach’s farmland, fenced off from the cliffs and the steep paths down to the water. The gate was a massive construction of cast iron, half-petrified planks and wire mesh, hingeing on a couple of posts as thick as tree-trunks. The locks and hinges resembled, especially in the moonlight, unwieldy chunks of car engine welded to the wood. Fortunately, the farm’s previous owners had built a little wooden stepladder on either side of the gate, to save trouble for two-legged passers-by. Isserley scaled these little steps, three on either side of the gate, with clownish difficulty, thankful no-one could see her struggling. Any normal human could have leapt over.

  On the other side of the fence, not far from the gate, a small herd of cows was camped on the narrow fringe of grassy earth between Ablach ‘s boundary and the cliff rim. They snorted nervously at Isserley ’s approach, the paler-coloured ones luminescing faintly in the gloom. A calf started to its feet, the glints in its eyes swirling like sparks off a fire. Then the entire herd roused itself, and retreated further along the boundary, making the utterly distinctive sound of countering hoofs and the heavy ploff of faeces.

  Isserley turned to look back at the farm. Her own cottage was hidden behind trees, but the farmhouse stood exposed. Its lights were off.

  Esswis was asleep, probably. Yesterday morning’s gruelling adventures had, she was sure, taken more out of him than he could have admitted to a woman. She pictured him stretched out on a bed just like hers, still wearing his ridiculous farmer clothes, snoring noisily. Tough man or not, he was much older than she was, and had toiled in the Estates for years before Vess Industries had fished him out; Isserley had been offered rescue after only three days. Also, he’d been operated on a whole year before her. Quite possibly the surgeons had done a worse job on him, experimenting with techniques they didn’t perfect until Isserley came under the knife. If so, she pitied Esswis. His nights could not be easy.

  Isserley walked down the cattle path towards the beach, choosing her footing carefully on the steep slope. She got half-way, almost to the point where the gradient became gentler, then she paused. Sheep were grazing at the bottom, and she didn’t want to scare them off. She liked sheep more than any other animal; they had an innocence and a serene intentness about them that was worlds away from the brutish cunning and manic excitability of, say, vodsels. Seen in poor light, they could almost be human children.

  So, Isserley stopped, half-way down the cliff, and finished her exercises there. With the cows dawdling uneasily somewhere above her head and the sheep grazing unperturbed below her, she assumed the correct positions, extending her arms towards the silvery horizon, then bending down to the shore of the Moray Firth, then tipping sideways, north towards Rockfield and the lighthouse, south towards Balintore and the denser populations beyond, then, finally, reaching up towards the stars.

  After a long time repeating these actions over and over, she achieved a state of half-consciousness, mesmerized by the moon and the monotony, and persisted far longer than usual, becoming so limber in the end that her movements became graceful and fluid.

  She might have been dancing.

  Back in her cottage, still hours before dawn, Isserley found her mood darkening again. She loitered in her bedroom, bored and irritable.

  She really would have to ask the men to fix up the wiring in this house, so she could have electric light. The steading had electric light, Esswis’s farmhouse had electric light; there was no reason why her cottage shouldn’t. In fact, come to think of it, it was quite amazing that her cottage didn’t – outrageous, even.

  She tried to recall the circumstances of her coming to live here. Not the journey, certainly not what had happened in the Estates, but what had happened immediately upon arrival at Ablach Farm. What arrangements had been made? Had the men expected her to live under the steading with them, in their fetid burrows? If so, she would have knocked that idea on the head pretty smartly.

  So where had she slept the first night? Her memories were as indistinct as the fused and blackened contents of an exhausted bonfire.

  Perhaps she’d chosen this cottage herself, or maybe it had been suggested by Esswis, who’d had a whole year, after all, to become familiar with what was on the farm. All Isserley knew was that, unlike Esswis’s farmhouse, her cottage had been derelict when she’d moved into it, and of course it was still more or less derelict now.

  But the electrical extension cord that snaked all the way through her house, connecting the television, the water heater and the outside lamp to a generator: who had organized that, and how grudgingly? Was this another example of her being exploited, used like a piece of brute equipment?

  She strained to remember, then was embarrassed and slightly bewildered when she did.

  The men – mainly Ensel, most likely, though she couldn’t recall any individuals – had fussed around her from the moment she arrived, offering to perform all kinds of miracles just for her. Ogling her in fascinated pity, they had ganged up to douche her with reassurance. Yes, they appreciated that what had been donngredients. ‘Sugar’, ‘milk powder’ ande to her by Vess Industries couldn’t be helped now, but it wasn’t the end of the world. They would make it up to her. They would make this cottage, this draughty near-ruin, a real home for her, a cosy little nest; she was a poor little t
hing, she must be so upset at how she had been … messed about with, yes, they understood all about that, I mean, look at Esswis, poor old bastard; but she was brave, yes, she was a plucky girl, and they would treat her as if there was nothing odd or ugly about her at all, for she and they were all the same under the skin, weren’t they?

  She’d told them she wanted nothing from them, nothing.

  She would do her job, they would do theirs.

  To do her job properly, she would need a bare minimum of things provided for her: a light in or near the shed where the car was kept, running hot water, and one electrical connection to power a radio or some similar apparatus. For the rest she would be fine. She would take care of herself.

  In fact, she’d spelled it out more crudely still, in case they were too stupid to take the hint: what she needed most was privacy. They were to leave her alone.

  But wouldn’t she get lonely? they’d asked her. No, she wouldn’t, she’d told them, she’d be too busy. She had to prepare for a job whose complications and subtleties they couldn’t hope to understand. She had a lot of brain work to do. She would have to learn everything from first principles, or this whole thing would come falling down on all their heads. The challenges she was about to tackle couldn’t be mastered quite so easily as carrying bales of straw into a barn or digging holes beneath the ground.

  Isserley paced her bedroom now, aware of the clock radio’s constant feeble flashing. Her footsteps rang loud and hollow against the bare floorboards; it was rare for her to be wearing shoes indoors unless she was on the point of leaving the house.

  Irritably, she switched the television on again, even though she’d tried it once already since returning to the cottage and given up in annoyance.

  Because it had been switched off so recently, the machine came back to life at once. The vodsel who, a few minutes ago, had been peering through binoculars at an assortment of brightly coloured underpants fluttering on a washing-line was now licking his lips and twitching his cheeks. Female vodsels had gathered under the line, reaching up to unpeg the garments. Inexplicably, the twine hung higher than they could easily reach, and they teetered on tiptoe, jumping like infants, their pink breasts quivering like jelly.

  On another channel, several very serious-looking vodsels of mixed gender were sitting behind a desk, shoulder to shoulder. Above their heads, a long narrow electronic sign, like a toy version of the one near Kessock Bridge, was displaying a sequence of letters and spaces:

  ‘R?’ ventured one of the vodsels.

  ‘No-o-o, I’m afraid not,’ purred an unseen voice.

  Isserley’s car stood idling next to the shed, lit up by the lone tungsten lamp. She was cleaning out the car’s cabin, slowly and contemplatively, making each small action last. The sun was still a long way from coming, hidden behind the curve of the planet.

  Isserley was kneeling beside her vehicle, leaning in through the open door. She was using the Ross-shire Journal as a groundsheet, to save the green velvety knees of her pants getting muddy. With the tips of her fingers she felt for the spilled chocolates and threw them one by one over her shoulder. Birds would eat them by and by, she was sure.

  Suddenly, reminded, she felt weak and sick with hunger. She’d eaten nothing since the potato crisps yesterday afternoon, a little snow, and about a litre of warm water she’d drunk this morning straight from the shower stream. It was not nearly enough to keep a human being fuelled.

  So strange, the way she never seemed to be aware she was hungry until she was ravenous, almost collapsing. An unfortunate idiosyncrasy, and a potentially dangerous one: she would have to be careful managing it. A routine was important, like eating breakfast with the men every morning before going out on the road – a routine which had been disturbed by Amlis Vess.

  Breathing deeply, as if a few good mouthfuls of air might tide her over for a while longer, Isserley continued cleaning out her car. There seemed no end to the spilled chocolates; they had found hiding places in every cranny like rotund beetles. She wondered if her body would let her get away with eating some of them.

  She picked up the box, which, along with the dog breeder’s gloves, she’d laid on the ground for burning later. Holding the cardboard rectangle up to the light, she squinted at its list of ingredients. ‘Sugar’, ‘milk powder’ and ‘Vegetable fats’ sounded safe enough, but ‘cocoa mass’, ‘emulsifier’, ‘lecithin’ and ‘artificial flavours’ had a chancy ring to them. In fact, ‘cocoa mass’ sounded positively lethal. Her gut-reflex queasiness was probably Nature’s way of telling her to stick to the foods that she knew.

  But if she went into the steading to eat with the men, she might run into Amlis Vess. That was the last thing she needed. How long could she hang on? How soon might he go? She gazed at the horizon, yearning for that first glimmer of light.

  Over the years, her reluctance to have more than the minimum necessary contact with men had made her very self-reliant, especially when it came to caring for her car. She’d already replaced the broken side-mirror, a job she would once have needed Ensel for. If she could just avoid trouble, she could keep this car forever without having to change it. It was made of steel and glass and plastic – why should it wear out? She put fuel in it whenever it needed it, oil, water, everything. She drove it slowly and gently, and kept it safe from police.

  She’d got the new side-mirror from the already much cannibalized grey Nissan estate. A sad-looking carcass it was now, but there was no point being sentimental. The mirror fitted perfectly into her little red Corolla; all sign of the accident was expunged.

  Isserley, still admiring the neatness of the surgery she’d performed, cleaned her little Corolla some more. Its engine was still idling, a well-oiled machine breathing aromatic gas into the raw air. She liked her car. It was a good car, really. If she took care of it, it wouldn’t let her down. Meticulously, Isserley wiped mud and grease off the foot pedals, tidied the glovebox, topped up the icpathua reservoir under the passenger seat with a sharp-nozzled flask.

  Perhaps she could drive out to find an all-night garage somewhere, and buy herself something to eat. Amlis Vess would be gone very soon, probably within a day or two. It wouldn’t kill her, surely, to eat vodsel food for a day or two. Then he would be gone, and she could get herself back to normal.

  She knew, however, that if she went out on the roads now there was a risk – remote but real – that some miserable lunatic of a hitcher would be out there too, thumbing a ride. And, knowing her, she would probably pick him up, and he would be totally unsuitable, and she would end up in the Cairngorms. She was like that.

  The men always had a big breakfast, high in protein and starch. A dish piled high, steaming. Meat pies, sausages, gravy. Bread fresh out of the oven, cut in slices as thick as you liked. She always cut hers thin, and made sure the slices were neat and of even width, not like the deformed clumps the men hacked off for themselves. She usually had two of these, three at most, with gushu or mussanta paste. But today …

  Isserley stood up and slammed the car’s door shut. There was no way she was going underground to be harangued by some pompous troublemaker while a bunch of Estate trash looked on, wondering if she would crack. Hunger was one thing, principles another.

  She walked round to the front of her car and opened the bonnet. Leaning in, she surveyed the warm, strong-smelling, gently trembling engine. She confirmed that she had replaced, in its correct groove, the slender antenna of stainless steel with which she’d recently penetrated the oil tank and checked the level. Now, with a canister of spray from Donny’s Garage, she tended to the spark-plugs and the ignition cables. With her fingers she exposed the gleaming cylinder of liquid aviir, the one imported modification to this vehicle’s indigenous motor. The metal of the cylinder was transparent, and Isserley could clearly see the aviir inside, its oily surface tension vibrating in sympathy with the engine. This, too, was as it should be, though with any luck she would never have to use it.

  She closed the bonnet
and, on an impulse, sat down on it. The warm, vibrating metal gave her a pleasant sensation through the thin fabric of her trousers, and distracted her from the insistent rumbling in her stomach. On the horizon, a glimmer of sunrise defined the contours of the mountains. Right in front of her nose, a single snowflake spiralled down.

  ‘Isserley,’ said Isserley into the intercom.

  The door of the steading rolled open immediately, and she hurried into the light. A whirl of snow, sharp as pine needles, followed her inside, as if sucked by a vacuum. Then the door rolled shut again, and she was out of the weather.

  As she had expected, work was well underway in the hangar; two men were busy loading the ship. One was perched inside the hull, waiting for more glistening cargo to be handed up. The other was with the trolleys, which were by now piled high with pinky-red packages. A fortune’s worth of raw meat, all neatly parcelled into portions, swathed in transparent viscose, packed into plastic pallets.

  ‘Hoi, Isserley!’ The workman pushing the trolleys was stopping to greet her. Hesitating on her way towards the lift, she waved back, as perfunctorily as she could manage. Encouraged, the man allowed his little wheeled tower of pallets to roll to a standstill and ambled over to her. Isserley had no idea who he was.

  No doubt she’d been introduced to each one of the men personally when she’d first arrived at the farm, but this one’s name escaped her now. He was stupid-looking, fat and squat – a full head shorter than Amlis Vess – and his fur reminded her of some dead thing drying out on the side of the A9, a wiry grey pelt made indistinct by car tyres and the elements. Into the bargain he had some sort of disgusting skin ailment that made half his face look like mouldy fruit. Isserley at first found it difficult to look at him directly, then, for fear of offending him and causing him to retaliate on her own disfigurement, she leaned closer to him and concentrated on his eyes.