by Naomi Booth
When Barry gets to the corner, to the corrugated plastic sheeting secured against the embankment that forms the edge of the dump, he sees a pair of boots. At first this doesn’t strike him as so very strange. His mind has adapted to anomalous sights. Barry is in charge of covering operations, spreading soil across the rubbish each evening after compaction. He’s used to seeing odd things, half-compressed, disappearing under the dirt: a wedding dress, folding its own netting away; a sofa haemorrhaging its stuffing; a distorted doll’s head seeming, briefly, to reveal a child’s pained face, before it is turned under the earth. So the boots are not so strange to Barry, at first. What is odd is their being together. And what is even odder is their being upright, placed on top of the rubbish. Barry is right beside the plastic shack now, and he starts with the uppermost piece of plastic. It’s been secured somehow, but with a little pressure it comes away. The structure is not high: he’s looking down into it now, as though he’s taken off the top of a dog kennel. It’s not easy to see at first: the floor of the shack is made of rubbish, a mess of compressed plastic and polythene. He fleetingly sees a man’s face. It doesn’t register, not yet. It’s not a face, it can’t be a man’s face. He sees the sandy hair, dark with oil and filth. He sees the beard, frayed and yellowish at the edges. He sees the dark, creased places where the eyes are closed, the skin lucent with grease. There are flies buzzing, there are flies rising as he moves to peer in closer. As hard as he stares, he cannot make a mouth or nose appear. Instead, he sees whitish sinews, binding the lower lip up to the top lip, filling in the space where the man’s nostrils should be. The skin has made gristled, solid scars where a face’s features should be. The texture of them makes Barry think of suet, and then of maggots. Is this some kind of weird decomposition? Is it mangled plastic? Is it something caught on the man’s face? It must be. The strangeness of the scene draws him in, stops him turning away from the body in repulsion as he otherwise might. He reaches down with a gloved hand. He draws his thick, rubberised fingertips across the place the mouth should be. There’s no movement. It’s as though the man has had a bodged skin graft, fusing his lips together. It’s as though he’s wearing a breathing mask, Barry thinks, a mask made of… his own skin.
‘Don’t come over here,’ he shouts to Mike. ‘Do not come over here.’
* * *
I’m elaborating, of course, like I always do when I think about these things late at night. In the initial news report there were fewer details of this discovery; but there was a gory artist’s impression, a pencil sketch of a man’s face with sinewy flesh eating-up the lower portion. The angle of the man’s head in the picture even made it look as though he was struggling against his skin, chin tilted up, eyes locked shut in agony. It looked like a mock-up for a new comic-book mutant. The report included medical speculations as well as the dump-workers’ statements: one expert suggested that, if the men’s reports were true, the dead man’s appearance was likely to be the result of an extremely rare skin condition left untreated. A massive haemangioma, or even a very extreme case of warts, could cause it to look to the untrained eye as though the mouth and nose had been covered over in skin. Cutis laxa, a chronic lack of elastin in the skin, could cause a person’s skin to droop, which could, again, make it appear that the mouth and nose had been covered in skin. This was likely to be a tragic case of under-diagnosis or the sufferer avoiding medical treatment, according to one of the experts consulted for the piece. But another expert, a Professor at the School of Tropical Medicine, suggested a different possible cause. He was hearing of similar reports in several countries, he claimed: we could, in fact, be witnessing the emergence of a new condition. This condition might, he suggested, be similar in mechanism to an auto-immune disease: a potentially deadly, mis-directed defence response. The skin in these newly reported cases was acting in aberrant ways, knitting together in disastrous patterns: might it be, he speculated, that the skin was attempting to protect the body from dangerous environmental pollutants, sealing the body off in the process? The article finished by proposing that toxic substances in the rubbish tip may have triggered some kind of unprecedented defence-response in the man.
The story was going to be big local news. There’d been protests about the dump and its incinerator for months, and the smogs over the city were getting worse and worse. Local groups were already warning that the site was emitting dangerous levels of dioxins far too close to the city, that it was doing god knows what else to the air. ‘So,’ Kim shouted, when we’d just about had chance to scan the article, ‘we’ll be in the frigging firing line if we’re not careful. I don’t want any of you saying a word about this outside the Department. No little off-the-record quips or speculations to ANYONE, nearest and dearest included. They’ve not confirmed this man’s identity, but he’s homeless, obvs, so you can bet he’s crossed our path at some point. If we’ve refused him emergency housing, I don’t want the spotlight to shift from Waste Disposal to us. So let’s hope the press keep the focus on this poor bugger’s messed-up face.’
That afternoon, we searched the Department’s records for anyone we’d recently seen who might’ve ended up at the dump. And we identified him, eventually, the city’s first known cutis victim: a middle-aged, single man, who’d been out of work for a while and was staying with family. No urgent need for re-housing, his case notes told us. What had we missed when we assessed him? And what am I missing about cutis right now, back in the city and out here in Lakoomba?
The blue has finally burnt out of the sky, leaving it dark as a fire-pit. Something moves in the dark inside me, kicking me hard between my legs. It’s the last thing I feel before I sink into sleep.
III
WE wake with the dawn. The clock says 04:32. There are strange cries out at the edge of the forest: long, falling caws and the chatty clicks of bush crickets. We don’t have curtains yet and the morning light falls across the room, bleaching pale strips of the floor. It’s going to be another hot one. I can see that Pete is eying me from across the bed, trying to work out if I’m awake and safe to approach. We’re being careful with one another. I begin to roll towards him, but I hit my stomach hard against the mattress: I still forget, sometimes, in these first few moments of being awake, that the bump is there. I shuffle more carefully across the mattress until I’m close to him, close enough to smell his warm, salty just-awake scent.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about last night. I know you were trying to reassure me.’
He pushes his muzzle into my neck. ‘Nah, I’m sorry, babe,’ he says. ‘You’ve got so much to deal with right now. I get it. You’re being super vigilant.’ He lays his right arm over the bump and reaches round my back to hold my shoulder. ‘It’s probably hormonal. A mother tiger thing. We’re going to be just fine, Alice.’ He kisses me on both eyelids. He used to do this sort of thing and it felt precious: he’d kiss all the vulnerable places where blood and tendons rise too close to the surface, protecting them with the charm of his care; my throat, my wrists, the backs of my knees. But since I saw my mother’s body, Pete’s careful eyelid kisses feel morbid, like a death rite. His kisses make me think of that ancient Greek tradition of placing coins on the eyes of a corpse.
He takes my face in his hands. ‘I need you to stop worrying, Ali, and trust me that we’re somewhere safe. We came out here for a good reason. All this panicking, it’s not good for you, and it can’t be good for the baby.’ He kisses me again and then he casts the sheet off his body. He sleeps naked and his dark hair makes a soft, curled pattern, horizontal across his chest and then tapering downwards into a whorl around his cock. ‘Right, as we’re awake, I’m getting you some protected juice and I’m getting myself some old-fashioned filthy coffee. And then you’re going to tell me what happened at the doctors’.’ He strides across the room, scratches his right ear, and is gone.
I curl myself around the bump, holding it with both hands. It feels slightly different today. There’s a heavy ache around the bottom of
it, sharpening into little stabbing jolts, which move downwards into my thighs. Could be a touch of sciatica, I guess. Or the dreaded SPD: I remember a woman at our antenatal class who could barely walk – the bump had pushed her pelvis right apart. I straighten out, try to stretch the feeling away. There’s the sickness again, an acidic fizz at the bottom of my gullet. And, of course, I need to pee. I push my face against the pillow, searching for coolness. Then I give up and lumber out of the bed to the loo. The morning already feels close and humid.
When I come back, Pete is sitting up in bed with his coffee. I climb back in beside him.
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ I say. ‘We don’t know where that coffee was grown or what it’s been sprayed with.’
‘Alice,’ he says, patiently, ‘I’ve been drinking Greek coffee since I was three years old. There’s no problem with coffee.’
‘We don’t know that,’ I say. ‘We don’t know what’s causing it. It could be absolutely anything.’
‘Babe, I don’t want to argue,’ he says. ‘Tell me what happened at the doctors’ yesterday. Why didn’t they register you?’
We had barely spoken after the bird fiasco yesterday. Pete stormed away into the garden. I hyperventilated for a while in the living-room. He tried to make friends later on, coming back in, fixing us dinner. And I tried to eat, but the food tasted strange in my mouth. ‘Is this protected?’ I’d asked and Pete had sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened at the doctors’?’ The tomatoes tasted funny to me, metallic, so I got up and started looking for the packaging. ‘What happened at the doctors’, Alice? Are you listening to me?’ I was going through the bin by this point, convinced he’d not checked the labelling properly, that he’d gone for some cheap stuff and I was eating pesticides. ‘Couldn’t bloody register, could I? Said they were only dealing with emergencies. I know what that means. Cutis. You can bet on it. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near a doctor.’ I found the plastic wrapping, fished it out and smoothed it on the kitchen counter. The tomatoes did have protected status. Though what about the plastic itself? What if it was the plastic that was transferring chemicals to the fruit? There was no information about the composition of the wrapping itself, just details on the protection level of the tomatoes (organically grown with 5* protection). ‘Fucksake,’ Pete had shouted from the dining table. ‘You’re impossible when you get like this. You’re not the only one affected by this, you know. I’m going to bed.’
* * *
So I try to tell him about the doctors’ now, in a measured way, so that he won’t think I’m exaggerating.
‘The doctors’ was full,’ I say. ‘They’re not registering any new patients. There were signs all over the door, saying emergencies only. I went in anyway, thinking they might make an exception for pregnancies. But they were completely chocka. Loads of people waiting for surgery.’ I think of the little boy again, keening and covering his ears. ‘A nurse came and practically frog-marched me off the premises. I had a chat with her outside. She says the hospital will take us when we go into labour, but only if they’ve got beds. We have to ring ahead of time. There’s a hospital an hour away, and another half-an-hour further than that.’
‘Fucksake,’ Pete says, ‘you’re kidding?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Pete, the nurse said it’s a rapidly changing situation. What do you think that means?’
Pete scowls. ‘It means they’re bloody hicks and they can’t deliver a service properly.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m worried there might be cases out here, things that they’re not equipped for. Have you heard from anyone? Have you seen any news?’
‘No, babe,’ he says. ‘You know I can’t get reception anywhere around here. We’ll be connected soon, but.’
I decide not to say anything more. Nothing he could construe as hysteria. ‘I had an idea,’ I say, ‘yesterday, before all that stuff with the bird.’
‘Yeah?’ he says.
‘I know we get the phone-line in a few days, but it’d be good to know if there’s a phone close by. There’s a house, not too far down the road. I passed it yesterday. Maybe a half-an-hour walk. Could we go down there? See if they’ve got a phone? And while we’re there you could see if you can get reception. Give your mum a call. There’s a few things I’d like to ask her.’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Beaut of an idea. Let me do a few hours work and we’ll head down this avo. Be good to meet the neighbours! Babe,’ he says, ‘I know this is all unsettling. But we’ll be sorted in a week’s time and we’ll be absolutely ready for this little fella.’ He strokes my belly and puts his face close up to it. ‘Or little Sheila.’
* * *
Pete disappears into the makeshift office he’s set up in the spare room. He’s using a small trestle table, a camping chair, and piles of brochures to create a desk space. Pete’s day job is graphic design – wedding invites, brochures, logos, that sort of thing. It wasn’t exactly his dream to design bathroom catalogues, but I guess he gets to use some of his art skills and the company have been pretty accommodating about this whole thing, letting him try out remote working. He’ll need to go back to the city every so often but, once we’ve got the internet connection sorted, he’ll be all set up. Pete’s hoping that we might be able to stay here long term, longer than my maternity leave. He thinks we’ll fall in love with the mountains and want to stay our here; he thinks I’ll want to leave my job when the baby comes and do something less stressful. I lie in bed while Pete’s working and I can’t help thinking about my office. What will they be doing right now? It’s a Tuesday and it’s still early, but Kim will be in already. She’ll have been to her morning spin class and now she’ll be striding about the place, spritzing her plants with water from an old hairspray canister, deciding on the day’s case-loads, dropping piles of folders onto people’s desks. I work for the Department of Housing, heading up emergency applications. Please state your reason for leaving your previous residence, the emergency form asks. And then it allows one line for a response. One line. Those lines are masterworks of pith; messy, woeful, intergenerational dramas condensed into a few words in tiny handwriting. ‘Husband broke my collar bone now can’t work.’ ‘Boyfriend tried to drown my son in bath hes a drunk got to get away or he kill us.’ ‘Neighbour attacked my son with fighting dog and says Abos spread disease.’ We adopt a kind of gallows humour in the office. ‘This one doesn’t like the fungus in his flat,’ someone will call across the room, ‘fancies a stay at the Shangri-bloody-la.’ ‘Never mind that,’ someone will call back in response, ‘this one says her neighbours vacuum at “disturbing times” in the night. I wish my neighbours would vac the place anytime of the day or night.’ I suppose me and Pete have done an emergency flit of a kind: what would I state as my one-line reason for leaving previous residence?
* * *
Insufficient income to rent habitable accommodation in the city, with a baby on the way…
* * *
Morbid fear of developing cutis symptoms due to environmental factors in current locale…
* * *
Obsessive recording and blogging of public-health risks in the city causing risk to my own livelihood and sanity…
* * *
My mother’s dead eyes…
* * *
Everyone told us it was the right thing to do, to get out here while we had the chance. In fact, Kim practically pushed me out of the door. ‘You get on out there, love,’ she said. ‘Sounds picturesque. Really it does. Beautiful place to spend your Mat Leave. HR will approve it starting early, ’course they will. You’ve seen the new disaster plan – they don’t want a heavily-pregnant liability around the place!’ I know the real reason she wanted me gone. A couple of months before, she’d taken me into The Black Hole, the tiny, windowless office we save for client interviews and disciplinaries.
‘Babe,’ she said. ‘You know I’m your biggest fan.’
Kimmy recruited me fresh from college. She’d taken a ch
ance on me, treated me as a sort of protégé: another sharp kid from the estates who wasn’t part of the Old Boys’ network. But Kim’s no idiot: she’d spotted how keen I was to escape St Paul’s, she knew that, if she recruited me, I’d be so grateful for the break that I’d graft like a navvy and pledge her my undying allegiance.
‘Alice, you know I’d fight for you if it came to it. But I don’t want it to come to that. That’s why I’m giving you a heads-up. People are talking about you. Saying you’re recording things, taking notes on cases. Personal notes.’
She kept her voice casual, paused here, blew her fringe off her face. She was giving me a chance to respond, to deny it. I said nothing.
‘They’re saying you’re into some conspiracy stuff. Cutis related. They’re even saying you’re posting this stuff online.’
She pauses again. I keep my own counsel.
‘Now, babe, I don’t need to tell you that client confidentiality is a serious principle of this job, and that if HR got even a whiff of anything being put into the public domain relating to our clients– ’
That does is: that pushes me over the edge.
‘I’m not identifying anyone! And actually, what if confidentiality is putting our clients at risk? What if everyone is keeping quiet about something that’s disproportionately going to affect our clients? Kill them even? What if they’re leaving people untreated, leaving them with no proper care, leaving them to seal over, because they’re not worth treating?’
Kimmy stutters her head back on her shoulders; she makes her eyes real wide, in an OTT oh-no-you-didn’t gesture.
‘Now, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that. Because, just for a moment, Alice, that sounded like someone far less clever than you speaking. Someone, in fact, who was a fucking moron.’ She leans back, eyeballing me. ‘Ok. This is what we’re doing. I’m telling people that you’re not well. Pregnancy hormones, blah blah, death of your mother, blah blah. Everyone’s going to get to hear that. You, meanwhile, are going to see Occupational Health, yeah, and you’re requesting a session with the counsellor. Workplace stress, right? Grief counselling? And if any of this comes back to bite you on the fucking arse, you’ve got a paper trail of your derangement. Are you hearing me, Alice?’