A Wrinkle in the Skin

by John Christopher

  They came to the wave line early in the afternoon. It was the same as before, the great scouring line running away in the distance. Beyond it lay the dried mud of the Solent, and past that the shadowy plateau of Wight. Looking out there, Matthew saw a group of moving figures. They were too far away for him to tell how many, but he judged there were at least a dozen. They were heading toward the island. One of the gangs, probably, looking for fresh plunder.

  Toward evening they crossed Southampton Water. There was a ship there, half buried in the mud. It had plainly been ransacked; there were empty tins and other objects strewn nearby. Matthew thought of camping for the night. They could see a long way and no one was in sight; and there had been a light shower of rain earlier which looked as though it might be the herald of more. The ship offered a possible shelter if it did rain again.

  In the end, though, he decided to go on. The uneasiness he had felt going down into the seabed from Guernsey had returned; relief from that was more important than physical shelter. He said to Billy, “Another mile or two won’t kill us, will it?”

  “No.”

  His ankle had stood up to the journey well; he hardly noticed it anymore. They climbed the long slope toward the dark barren horizon in the east. Where the cranes and chimneys of Portsmouth had been there was nothing but the same gray waste. From time to time there was evidence of the city’s destruction and scattering—bricks, boards, odd articles. And human debris. But these were reduced, by time and possibly scavengers, almost to the anonymity of skeletons, with just a few rags of flesh adhering to the bones. They lay cold and odorless and insignificant in the dusk.

  They found shelter after all, not far from the tidemark: a hut which had been swept from someone’s back garden, on the very edge of the wave perhaps, and dropped here almost in one piece. The door had been wrenched off and there were a few boards missing, but apart from that it was in good shape. Inside there was a drift of soft sand and, as they found during the night, sand fleas. They slept fitfully. Billy was tossing and turning a lot, and seemed to be having bad dreams. There was a little rain, which in the morning set in as a steady downpour. They had a cold breakfast from a tin, and stared out at the sopping gray sky.

  After an hour or so the rain slackened, but did not stop entirely. The light was not perceptibly better. They were both cold and bored, and Matthew decided it would be less unpleasant to go on than to stay. Billy had been given a small plastic mackintosh out of the stores, which would keep him from getting too wet. He seemed to be shivering more than usual, but walking might be the best answer to that. There was no way of warming him here.

  They kept in general to the tide line, and this in due course brought them to ruins which Matthew thought were probably Havant; looking south, he could see a bulge of land, with the stumps of a few trees sticking out of it, that might have been Hayling Island. There were stretches of paved road, some of them running for twenty or thirty yards before they broke up in sand and shingle, and in one place a telegraph pole stood up, almost vertical, out of the flatness. It was not long after that that Matthew heard a voice calling, and looked inland. A man stood there, waving his arm to attract attention.

  He was a tall man, Matthew saw, and powerfully built. He had some sort of fur across his back which, along with a beard of a much brighter red than Archie’s and far more luxuriant, gave him a wild savage look. Matthew pulled the shotgun out of his pack, and checked that it was ready.

  The man bounded toward them over the rubble, tremendously agile and sure-footed for his size. He said, “Where are you going, then?”

  “East,” Matthew said laconically.

  He nodded. At close quarters he looked more amiable, and there was nothing threatening in his manner. He pointed to the gun. “That thing loaded?”

  “Both barrels.”

  “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Matthew 26:52. You feel like some food, a drink maybe, before you go on east?”

  Matthew lowered the gun but kept a finger close to the trigger guard. He said, “That’s very kind of you.”

  “I like company. You can’t honor God without delighting in God’s creatures, and man is the crown of His creation. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. The boy looks cold. He could do with a sit by the fire, to warm his hands.”

  “Yes,” Matthew said. “We both could do with that.”

  “Come on, then. Follow after.”

  He went off at a great pace, stopping occasionally to encourage them as they climbed and stumbled over the shattered bricks and mortar. The ruins had looked level, but as they went farther in, they found the contours less even; there were hillocks and depressions and small valleys which probably marked past thoroughfares. They were led for about ten minutes, and came to a hollow where the prevailing chaos had been partly thrust back. It was about twenty-five yards across. The floor had been paved, with bricks and pieces of flagstone, and in the center there was a building.

  It was of boards, crudely but effectively nailed together, about twelve feet by eight, and seven or eight feet high. There was a flat roof, sloping slightly from one side to the other most of the way along, but at one end there was a pyramid which raised a wooden cross a few feet higher. The top section of the pyramid was covered with bits of broken glass which had been stuck on. At the nearer end a rusting chimney projected from the roof, with smoke issuing from it. The red-bearded man went ahead of them and pulled open a door.

  “Welcome, friends,” he said. “Come right in.”

  It was not as dark inside as Matthew had expected; although the wall they had first seen had been blank, that on the opposite side of the hut had a window in it. The frame had no glass but was covered with a more or less transparent heavy plastic material; it was closed at present, but looked as though it would open. There was a warm comfortable rug in the room and the acrid smell of woodsmoke. This came from the sawed sections of timber which crackled on top of the fire, but the main fuel, Matthew saw, was coal. Coal was heaped in the corner near the door, with a pile of billets beside it. The fire basket was of heavy iron—a garden-waste incinerator, distorted but retaining the chief part of its shape—and there was a metal plate underneath on which the ashes fell. Above, thinner metal had been beaten into a cowl, which was topped by the chimney. This, he saw, was made up of empty tins with both ends cut away, the ends having been made to fit together by careful crimping and stretching. It picked up quite a lot of the smoke from the fire but by no means all.

  There were shelves on the wall facing the window, one of them holding the tools which had presumably been used to make the cowl and chimney—pliers, pincers, a couple of hammers, nails and string and so on—and to make the furniture. This consisted of a low bed, a shaky-looking table, two chairs, and—where the roof rose to form the inside of the pyramid—a couple of steps and an altar. The bed was a frame with a close-mesh wire mattress, lifted just off the ground by blocks of wood at the four comers, and with blankets, folded and squared army fashion, at the top. The altar was a very simple affair, but covered by a cloth which had scenes worked in scarlet and gold. A homemade lantern hung above it from a chain, with a piece of candle flickering behind fragments of red glass.

  “Sit yourselves down,” he told them. “Til put the pot on, and we’ll have a bite to eat.” He took a piece of board off a big black pot, and lifted the pot onto the fire. After looking into it critically, he got some tins from a shelf—stewed steak and carrots and potatoes—opened them quickly, and emptied them in. He added water from a plastic watering can.

  “How do you manage for food?” Matthew asked him.

  ‘Well enough. There’s a place not far away that used to be a wholesaler’s. I don’t go short.”

  ‘What about competition?”

  “Competition?”

  “From other foragers.”

  He shook his red locks; his hair was long but clean and well combed.

  “Its a lonely part, th
is. I don’t get many visitors. Those that come are welcome to what there is. I bring the food up as I want it. And the coal. I know a place where there’s a regular mine of it. The old freight yards. They had a load in when the Almighty called time.”

  “Water?”

  “That, too. The Lord’s provided very well for His servant. Not more than five minutes away, just about where Wool-worth’s used to be, I found this stream gushing out of the earth. A good head of water, and it’s still flowing.”

  “Is it all right for drinking?”

  “You’re thinking about the bodies? I thought of that, too, but it was a weakness of faith. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. I Corinthians 15:42. If the Lord God preserves a man, in the day of the pale horse, shall he fear any evil? That was in the beginning, of course. Now I boil water before I drink it. The Lord does His part, but He expects us to do ours.”

  “So you lived here before,” Matthew said.

  “Yes,” he said comfortably. “I lived here—lived a little, and worked a little, and sinned a little. I had a wife until she left me. That was nearly a year ago. I came back from work sweating with the heat, and the house was cool and empty. She took the children with her. They went to her mother in Maidstone, and there, I suppose, the Lord took them all. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”

  “Do you know anything of what it’s like farther east?” Matthew asked.

  “No, brother, nor want to know. Except that He will be coming from there.”

  Matthew said unwarily, “Who?”

  “The risen Lord. For He comes out of the east, as the day after night. So I wait. I thought once of going out to meet Him, but I had a dream, and the Lord said, ‘Blessed are they that wait/ For He is gathering up His flocks, and the sheep must bide the coming of the Shepherd.” He went across and looked at the stewpot, stirring the stew with a tablespoon. “This wont be very long, friend. But a stew must boil every time you put it on the fire. Otherwise you run the risk of food poisoning. Do you have faith, brother?”

  “No,” Matthew said, “I wouldn’t say that I have.”

  “The time is short. When the Shepherd has gathered His sheep, all will have been accomplished.” He went to where Billy was sitting on the edge of the bed, and sat beside him and took his hands. In a much more gentle voice he said, “What’s your name, child?”

  “Billy.”

  He sounded puzzled but not uneasy. There was something in the man, Matthew guessed, which he accepted and in which he had confidence.

  The man said, “Well, now, Billy, do you believe in God?” Billy looked at him and then, very slowly, nodded.

  The man said gaily, “That’s fine! Not fine for God, but fine for you. The time will come when we’ll be wandering through the great heavenly meadows, and in the distance there will be the mountain of crystal, and on top of the mountain the palace of gold, studded with rubies and emeralds and diamonds, and the Great King sitting on a silver throne. And all your old friends will be there, and the angels singing like nightingales, and the loveliest lady that ever walked the world.” He slapped the boy’s cheek lightly, in affection. “The time will come, and not far off. You look out for the Lord, on your travels, and when you see Him, run to Him and say, ‘Lord, here I am!’ And when He lifts you up, say, ‘And this is my friend, who has no faith, but who looked after me when the pale horse rode by, and his name that sat on him was Death!”

  He straightened up, and went back to the fire. “Stew’s about ready. A bit more pepper needed.” He brought a tin of pepper from the shelf and sprinkled it liberally. “You need a right peppery stew on a wet day.”

  He ladled stew into a couple of plastic dishes, bright red and bright yellow, and sat smiling at them while they ate.

  “You should have bread, too,” he said. “Thick white bread to mop up the gravy. You’ll just have to drink it up. You, especially, Billy lad. You look as though you need nourishing.” He turned abruptly to Matthew. “So you don’t seek the Lord, friend? Then what do you seek?”

  “My daughter,” Matthew said. “She was in Sussex when it happened.”

  He shook his head. “Had you but asked and waited, the Lord would have brung her to you.”

  He made them have second helpings of stew, and afterwards brought out a tin of toffees. Matthew had not eaten sweets for years, but he had some now, and the red-haired man filled Billy’s pockets with them. He also insisted on putting food in their packs, entirely stripping his shelf. When Matthew demurred, he said, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. And I can get plenty more, friend. There is only the labor of digging and bringing, and I have nothing to do with my time but work and watch and pray. If you are rested, and warmed and fed, I imagine you will want to be on your way. I will come with you to the place where we met.”

  He talked rationally, of ordinary things, as they retraced their steps. Only when they came to the tide line did he break off, and after a pause he said abruptly, “I’ll pray for you, friend.”

  Matthew said, “Thank you. And thank you for the food.”

  “Man does not live by bread alone.” He grinned suddenly.

  “Or by tinned meats, dug out of the earth. I wish you good fortune.”

  “And I you.”

  “God guards.” He looked down over the fall and emptiness of the seabed. “For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away,” he said. “And there was no more sea.”

  15

  THEY found no shelter that night, but the rain had died away and their clothes had dried on them. They lay with the blanket wrapped tightly round them, the boys body in the hollow of Matthew’s. Billy was shivering for some time, and later Matthew woke to find him shivering again. Although the night was dry, it was not particularly warm. He spoke softly but got no answer, and concluded that the boy was shivering in his sleep. When they found Jane, everything would be simpler. He could set about making some sort of permanent habitation, as the red-haired hermit had done. He was not a handyman, but he felt sure he could make a job of it. And Jane would be able to look after Billy properly; she had always been good with children. There would be problems, of course, but here in the darkness at the hour that was usually the time of uncertainty and despair, he felt a glow of confidence and optimism. They would find Jane, and everything would be all right. He thought of April, and there was a moment’s coldness and sickness until he deliberately turned his mind away. They would find Jane, and all would be well. He fell asleep again in the security of this.

  In the morning Billy said he was not hungry when Matthew offered him food. It was not particularly appetizing—cold stewed steak—and Matthew said, “Maybe later in the day we’ll be able to get a fire going.” The clouds were high, and there were patches of clear sky directly overhead; there seemed a reasonable chance of sunshine during the morning. “But we can’t travel if you don’t eat, Billy.”

  He nodded. “I’ll try, then.”

  The sun did come out toward the middle of the day, and there was a long period of brightness and warmth. Matthew found some driftwood and got a fire going. He made a stew of sorts, with meat and condensed soup, and instant coffee. Billy was not keen on eating, but had some food at his urging. He stayed close to the fire, even though the sun was shining, holding his hands in front of the flames to warm them. He had probably got a slight chill, Matthew thought. What he needed was rest and warmth. He toyed with the notion of going back to the hermit’s hut, but rejected it. They could not be more than forty miles from Battle. By tomorrow evening, the day after tomorrow at the latest, they should be there.

  But the following morning the going became difficult. At first this was evidenced merely in a multiplication of the usual fissures and faults to which they had become accustomed: the minor bruises caused by the shocks. But there were more and more of them and they were bigger and more varied, interspersed with new raw hills of earth and rock, showing the twist and grind of fantastic pressures. At one spot the re
ar end of a sports car pointed at the sky, the bonnet being wedged in the earth which had closed round it and held it rigidly. There were two ragged remnants of humanity slumped together over the dashboard, one in a rotting dinner jacket and the other with skeletal shoulders and skull, trailing yellow hair, above a stained and faded red silk evening dress. The car and its occupants had plainly been under water. Presumably the earthquake had trapped them first, and the great wave flooded over them afterwards.

  There were other things wedged in the earth, so tightly embedded that the wave had been unable to carry them away. Stumps of wood, a section of iron railings, half of a metal garage door, a twisted television aerial, and a lettered plate: SHAKESPEARE ROAD. Matthew guessed this was the site of a seaside town. Littlehampton? Or perhaps Worthing. It was not easy to judge the distance they had traveled. Billy plodded on beside him, but did not talk much. He looked tired and flushed, and Matthew had to call halts at more frequent intervals.

  Eventually they came to a point of even greater upheaval. There was a ridge of scarred earth and stone, which, both inland and out into the seabed, was seemingly endless. They could not go round, and had to climb it. It was heavy going even for Matthew, and Billy was continually slipping and falling. At the top they were getting on for a hundred feet above their starting point, and could look back over the flat and desolate land through which they had come. There was a view out over the Channel bed, also, and in the distance a great hulk which looked to Matthew like one of the Queens.

  He pointed it out to Billy, who nodded and gazed out with lackluster eyes. Matthew said, “Have you got some of those toffees left?” Billy nodded. “It might cheer you up to have one.”

  “I don’t feel like it.” He looked up. ‘Would you like one, Mr. Cotter?”