Snakeskins

by Tim Major

  It was Ian who answered. “If you want. There aren’t any rules about that.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Caitlin noticed Ms Blaine writing something on her clipboard form.

  “All right?” Tobe said, addressing the Snakeskin.

  The new Tobe looked a little shell-shocked. The licks of green halo carried on shimmering around him for a few moments more, before dissipating.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You know what’s happening? You know you’re a Skin?”

  “Yeah.”

  Caitlin hadn’t considered beforehand what the Skin might say. It made sense that it might not be particularly interesting. She remembered a phrase from IT class about computer coding in BASIC: Garbage in, garbage out. Not that Uncle Tobe was garbage, but he had never been the sparkiest conversationalist either.

  Caitlin edged forwards. Ian put his hand on her arm: no closer.

  She felt a sudden determination. She couldn’t let the moment pass without participating. Surely it was her right to ask a question. She was next in line.

  The wind picked up again. Caitlin had to raise her voice to speak to the Skin. “Are you scared?”

  “Yeah.” The Skin gazed at her. Even at that distance, she saw something different there, something she had never seen before in Tobe’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said again. “I fucking am.”

  Ms Blaine checked her watch. Caitlin felt like hitting her, as her dad had hit Tobe.

  Ian clucked his tongue, then turned his attention to the notebook. “We honour you,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “And with your arrival we acknowledge this important milestone in the life of Toby Richard Hext. With your passing, he will learn and grow. You are the instrument of his maturation. We thank you.”

  He closed the book. Nobody said anything. The only sound Caitlin could hear was the chattering of teeth – the Skin’s, this time. Beside him, Tobe hugged himself tight, only sneaking quick looks at his twin.

  “Any second now,” Ms Blaine said.

  The Skin looked down at his hands. The green halo reappeared, rippling around his fingers. The aurora snuck underneath the cloak, then reappeared at his neck.

  Abruptly, the light disappeared. Caitlin squinted, forcing her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  “Oh shit,” the Snakeskin said. “I don’t—”

  The cape dropped to the ground. It was almost too fast for Caitlin to process what had happened, exactly, but she was certain that it had started at his feet, then crept upwards. In her alarm, Caitlin fixated on a trivial detail: what was holding him up for those few seconds or milliseconds, when the lower part of his body had disappeared?

  Then ash, or smoke, or perhaps skin cells, drifted away. It floated northwards away from the Idol.

  Caitlin replayed the scene in her mind. It was impossible to be sure whether the Skin’s face really had lasted longer than the rest of him, or whether it was only that the look in his eyes had imprinted on her retina. But she found that if she closed her eyes, she could still picture his expression with absolute clarity. The look on his face suggested that he felt no sense of acceptance about what was happening. Just terror.

  After nearly a minute of silence, Ms Blaine said, “Right, then.”

  “Can we go now?” Tobe said.

  Ian nodded. Caitlin followed the rest of the group along the gravel track, past the looming rocks, back to the car. Nobody said a word.

  TWO

  Gerry Chafik fidgeted within the curves of the soft leather chair, trying to find a posture that was comfortable but that kept her feet on the floor. The chair seemed to have been designed to lull people into drowsiness. She hooked her ankles around the chair legs and perched on the tip of the seat. It hurt her calves, but that would keep her alert.

  The door to the office crashed open. “Geraldine!”

  Gerry scowled. The only people who called her Geraldine were those who didn’t know her, or those who were trying to needle her. Zemma Finch had been her editor for eight years.

  She stood, wiped her hand on her skirt and held it out. “Zemma. Good to see you. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to visit the new place.”

  Zemma looked around, as if she too were seeing her surroundings for the first time. She was as immaculate as ever. Her honey-coloured hair fell in loose waves, a straight-from-the-salon appearance, like in the ads. Gerry resisted the urge to tug at her own tight braids.

  “It’ll do,” Zemma said.

  Beyond the glass wall of Zemma’s corner office, heads bobbed in a sea of bulbous CRT screens and low partition walls. Most of these people were project managers and editorial assistants, Gerry knew. The real journalists were all out in the field. She snorted even as she thought the phrase. In the field. Out to pasture, more like.

  Zemma sauntered to her desk. Behind it was a low counter, the walls decorated with a mosaic of computer keyboards. During her long wait, Gerry had checked that the keys really could be pressed. Zemma pushed the Enter key on one of the keyboards and a hidden door swung open. She retrieved a bottle of tonic and two glasses and placed them on the desk. Then she sat in an oversized armchair, more like a throne than an office chair. Gerry noticed for the first time that there was no desktop computer upon Zemma’s vast desk. This was an office for displaying authority rather than for performing actual work.

  Zemma poured tonic into the glasses. “I’d add gin, but it’s rather…”

  Gerry eased herself into her ludicrous chair. She nodded. Clearly the time of day wasn’t an issue – Zemma’s long delay in showing up meant that it was already well after five. Alcoholic drinks were reserved for more important people.

  Zemma pushed a glass towards Gerry, leant back and steepled her fingers. Her manicured nails tapped together.

  “So.”

  Gerry took a breath. “So. Thanks for agreeing to this meeting, Zemma.”

  “It’s always a pleasure. You’re the wheels that keep this newspaper running. All of you are, I mean.”

  Gerry’s buttocks tensed. She was in danger of slipping into the cup of the chair, at the precise moment she needed to remain in control.

  “I need to know where I stand,” she said.

  Zemma arched an eyebrow. Her eyes flicked down to Gerry’s chair.

  “The takeover,” Gerry continued, speaking more quickly. “The changes. It’s all been far more profound than we were led to believe – more than just a new owner and a new tabloid format. I need to know… Is Folk still Folk, beneath the flashy new red-top banner? I need to know that we’re still about news. It doesn’t matter than it’s given out for free at tube stations. It doesn’t matter that it’s rammed full of adverts. People still want news when they read a newspaper. Right?”

  Zemma sipped her drink. “That’s a lot of questions, Geraldine. Perhaps you should pick just one.”

  “I’ll pick a different one, then. Where do I fit in?”

  “I’d say… current affairs.”

  “That could be anything.”

  “Current affairs with a lifestyle hook.”

  “What does that even mean?” Gerry paused, then shook her head. “No. That’s not my question, after all. My question is, why haven’t my last five stories been printed anywhere in the newspaper? And the one before, the only one you’ve actually published since the Cormorant buyout, why did you bury it just before the sport?”

  Zemma offered a sickening smile. “We don’t care.”

  “You—” Gerry blinked. “You don’t care? You, meaning Zemma Finch, or you, meaning Folk?”

  “Neither. Both. I mean the readers, Geraldine. And I still class myself as one, an avid one, regardless of my exalted position. We readers simply don’t care about the stories you’ve written.”

  Gerry leapt to her feet; her chair spun slowly across the carpet. She leant on Zemma’s desk. Its marble surface was ice cold.

  “Gerry,” she hissed. “My name is Gerry.”

  Zemma’s eyelashes fluttered in a display
of surprise. Even so, she appeared more amused than alarmed.

  “Our readers,” she said in a slow voice, as though speaking to a child, “want short, sharp stories. For their dreary commute, you see. This isn’t an issue of the takeover, or the new format. It’s a matter of entertainment, Geraldine. Gerry.”

  “It’s not supposed to be entertainment.”

  “It isn’t? So it’s supposed to be about the dry facts, is that right? That’s all well and good, but put it this way: if there’s a factual article in the woods and there’s nobody there to read it…”

  Gerry stared at her. She wished she had the nerve to hold her tongue, to force Zemma to complete the idiotic analogy. She lasted only a few seconds. “I’ve been doing important work. These are stories that people would read, if only you actually published them. More to the point, they’re stories that people need to know about.”

  “You’ve become rather a specialist.”

  “That’s what journalists do, Zemma. They find a subject and they follow it.”

  “Some might say obsessively.”

  Gerry gave an exasperated sigh. “We’re talking about Snakeskins, Zemma. Charmers and Snakeskins. The most important and least understood development of the last two hundred years, eclipsing the Industrial Revolution, world peace, the founding of Great British Prosperity. It would be a crime not to investigate further, to try and comprehend. People want that.”

  “Oh, people want it, all right.”

  “I have a new report,” Gerry said, aware that she was gabbling. “I wanted to bring it to you personally. A first-hand account by a Charmer. He talks about the psychological discomfort involved in shedding. Wait, that’s not all. He’s outraged by the levels of secrecy in Charmer society. He has family members in the Party, and if I could follow up on those leads… I swear, Zemma, people don’t know a fraction of the ways in which Charmers wield power. We could serialise this thing for weeks.”

  Zemma opened a desk drawer and produced a purple cardboard folder. “It all sounds terribly conspiratorial. My assessment would be that this source of yours is overstating his hand in order to be noticed. As for the report you have written… it’s simply the angle that you’re getting wrong. This is 2020, not the Victorian era. People don’t want dry ‘accounts’ of sheddings. I assume this source of yours is pretty average, is that right? Just a ‘bloke’, like you and me and our readers?”

  Gerry’s lips tightened. She nodded.

  “Now these are what people want.” Zemma opened the folder and spread a handful of documents across the gleaming surface of the desk.

  They were photos. The images were almost entirely black, with only faint sources of light that illuminated the handful of figures. In the first photos the people were all in one corner, as if the photographer had been far away, or as if he or she hadn’t known quite where to point the camera. The people were arranged in a semicircle.

  Despite herself, Gerry bent closer. In each successive picture, the figures grew in size. The photographer must have been sneaking towards them, hidden in the darkness.

  All but one of the figures had their backs to the camera. Gerry realised that she recognised the woman facing the camera, standing before a fire in an ornate iron brazier. Her build was slighter than the people around her. Her shoulder-length hair shone white.

  “That’s Rebecca Verne,” Gerry said.

  Zemma nodded.

  “And she’s a—”

  Another nod.

  “She turned fifty-two last week,” Zemma said. “You’d never know it, would you?”

  “Seriously? Rebecca Verne’s a Charmer?” Gerry already felt foolish for caring. “How has she kept it secret all this time?”

  “You know what that industry’s like. Ever since she began as a Pinewood starlet – at a more advanced age than you might expect – she’s been surrounded by an entourage, protected from the real world. Who’s going to let on?”

  Throughout Rebecca Verne’s acting career, and despite her glamorous red carpet appearances at premieres and awards ceremonies, she had specialised in down-to-earth roles. She was loved for her empathy and her ability to hold a mirror to people in all strata of society. And all this time, she had been a Charmer. The British public would be outraged. But any sense of unfairness would be overwhelmed by fascination.

  “It gets better,” Zemma said. She pushed a few photos aside to reveal the ones at the bottom of the pile.

  Now the photographer had reached a position close enough to be able to frame Rebecca Verne perfectly. She wore a long, loose, grey gown studded with pinpricks of bright white – probably sequins, but the effect was that it looked as though her own body were the source of illumination, rather than the fire. Her face was that of somebody half her age. There were no creases or any hint of looseness to the skin.

  In the next photo Rebecca was looking up at the sky. Her mouth was open, perhaps in speech.

  “Why did she do it outside?” Gerry wondered aloud.

  “Basic hygiene, darling,” Zemma replied. “All that dust.”

  Gerry glanced at the next picture. Now Rebecca’s body really was glowing, but with a greenish light rather than the white of her sequins or the yellow of the fire. The photographer kept her framed within the left-hand side of the image. The right-hand side was empty and black.

  Zemma pulled another photo from the pile.

  Gerry couldn’t stop herself from gasping.

  Rebecca Verne stood beside Rebecca Verne. The originator still faced the sky. The newcomer looked to her right, at the first woman.

  And, of course, the Snakeskin Rebecca was naked. Either she was unashamed, or she hadn’t yet the presence of mind to care, but her arms hung at her sides, displaying a taut, pale body. She was beautiful. They were both beautiful.

  In the next photo, one of the entourage had already placed a cape around the Snakeskin’s shoulders. The cape still revealed a wide V of the Snakeskin’s flesh, as though it were a designer gown.

  “This is the one,” Zemma said, pointing at the next image.

  The man with the cloak had retreated again. Now the original Rebecca Verne, the Charmer, had turned to face the newcomer. They regarded each other levelly. Though one wore a shimmering gown and the other a plain black cape, in every other respect they were identical. Even their blond hair was styled in exactly the same manner. Gerry peered at the two faces. If there was a difference, it was in their expressions. The Charmer’s nose tilted upwards very slightly, making her look a touch imperious. The Skin held her head fractionally further back, as if mid-flinch. It was only a faint hint, but she appeared afraid.

  “Tomorrow’s front page,” Zemma said.

  “Not that one, then?” Gerry pointed at the photo of the naked Rebecca.

  “It’s glorious, isn’t it? But no. We couldn’t afford the court battle. Never fear, the picture won’t be wasted. Miss Verne will pay for that one herself.”

  Gerry pushed the front-page image to one side. In the next photo, the framing of the two Rebeccas had gone askew. By the next one, they were barely visible at the corner of the image. The photographer must have turned and run.

  No matter how illicitly the photos had been gained, they were undeniably fascinating. Gerry hated herself for what she was about to say. “Zemma, if you want I could—”

  Zemma shook her head. “We have all the details we need. The story writes itself, or at least a junior assistant will write it, which amounts to the same thing. Frankly, the photos speak for themselves.”

  Gerry scolded herself for the distraction. “So we’re back to my first question, then. Where do I fit in, Zemma?”

  The editor gazed up, her chair swaying slightly.

  “I’m not going to beg,” Gerry said, though she felt on the cusp of doing exactly that.

  Zemma turned to look through the floor-to-ceiling window into the main office. Gerry suddenly realised what had been alien about the newsroom when she had passed through it earlier – the lack of pho
nes ringing or any voices in discussion.

  “I think I can answer the question myself,” Gerry said.

  Resisting a last look at the photos on Zemma’s desk, she turned and left.

  ***

  Despite his hurry, Russell Handler forced himself to walk at a steady pace, checking and rechecking the heavy box to ensure it didn’t tip. He staggered past the stone steps of the overgrown botanic gardens and across Magdalen Bridge, which divided the town centre, with its ancient college buildings emblazoned with Great British Prosperity Party banners, from the grubby East Oxford suburbs. The dawn sunlight skidded across the surface of the river and through the gaps between the stone balustrades, blinding him intermittently.

  He scowled at an express supermarket. The shelves were only half-full of stock, but even so the shop could have provided equivalents of everything in the cardboard box he was carrying. But his boss had his particular tastes. Ellis insisted that Russell buy groceries from the St Giles delicatessen in North Oxford – a shop that Ellis himself passed on his journey to work each day. Still, perhaps it was this kind of choosiness that marked somebody out as suitable for the highest ranks of politics. Perhaps, if and when Russell reached the higher levels of the GBP, he would demand such things from his subordinates.

  “Hey, chum!”

  Russell saw the man lurch out of the doorway of a boarded-up shop. Russell veered away, staggering with the momentum produced by the heavy box.

  “Anything in there for me, chum?”

  The man hadn’t blocked Russell’s way, not quite. His expression was good-natured enough and his dark stubble emphasised his smile. Still, there was no telling whether he might suddenly become dangerous. One of his front teeth was missing. Beneath his duffel coat Russell glimpsed a black shirt emblazoned with the red bull of the Morris Motors logo. Perhaps the man had worked at the Cowley plant before he fell on hard times. Or perhaps he still worked there.

  “It’s just paperwork,” Russell said. He shuddered involuntarily as something within the box clinked loudly. He thought of the six glass jars of chutney, the two bottles of freshly squeezed apple juice, the horrendously expensive jar of boiled sweets. He winced.