Isabel's Skin

by Peter Benson

  The house was at the top of the main street. I stood on the opposite side of the road and stared at its windows for a minute before crossing and knocking on the door. It was answered by a small woman who was exactly as I had imagined Isabel’s mother would look, except she was wearing glasses. She said, “Yes?”

  “I’m David,” I said. “David Morris.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Isabel’s friend.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How nice to meet you.”

  “Is she at home?”

  “Yes. She’s upstairs.” She turned and shouted, “Isabel!” then turned back to me and said, “Do come in.”

  I stepped inside and was shown into a large sitting room. There were pictures on the walls and the smell of baking in the air. A moment later, Isabel appeared. She smiled at me, and I knew I had not been wrong. I kissed her hand and she said, “Would you like to see the garden?”

  “Yes please.”

  We walked down the hall, past rows of pictures of famous people and beautiful places, and out through the back door. The garden was surrounded by high walls, and three steps led up to a small lawn. There was a small wooden bench there, a mimosa tree and climbing plants. We sat down. I saw her mother through the kitchen window. She was putting the kettle on the stove. I adjusted my laces and said, “So, how are you?”

  “Getting better every day.” She looked at the grass. “I was sick for a couple of weeks. Tired, listless, I couldn’t do much, but I’m fine now. Almost back to normal.” She pulled up her sleeve and showed me her arm. “Look.”

  The skin was clear and white, and although there was a patch of roughness near her elbow, the rest was smooth.

  “Wonderful,” I said, stupidly. I felt awkward, like I was the first man who had ever sat with her in this lovely place. “And your mother seems very nice.”

  “She is very nice.”

  We stared at each other, and I think we were thinking about the same things. I started with “When you left…” but did not know how to finish the sentence, so I left it there and listened while she told me an investigator had visited her and asked her if she knew a Professor Hunt, formally of Cambridge, who had disappeared from his rooms and had not been seen for over six months. She said she had told them she had been his assistant, but had not seen him for over a year, and she asked them if they had any idea where he was, and they had said, “He appears to have gone slightly mad, but no one we’ve spoken to has shown any sympathy for the man. In some cases, people have actually smiled at the news, and that’s normally the last thing you expect in these circumstances.”

  I nodded at the news, but did not say anything, and when she thought about it she did not say any more either.

  “And how is Charmouth?”

  “Quiet. Quiet, but I like it.”

  “What did you tell your parents?”

  She shrugged. “I just embellished the lie I wrote in the letter I sent about Scotland. I told them I was working on a dig in Helmsdale, looking for fossilized corals.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”

  “How could they believe the truth?”

  Her hair was starting to grow back, and her face was beautiful. The skin looked polished, and her eyes were shiny brown, like fresh conkers. I reached out and took her hand, put it to my lips, kissed it and let go. It left a vague scent in the air, like a passage. “Have you been fossiling here?”

  “Yes. Most days. I found a fish yesterday.” She went indoors, came back with it and showed it to me. She unwrapped it and said, “I’ve got some more work to do on it, but you can see its head, its back…” She licked her fingers and rubbed its grey scales. It was about the size of a plaice, and its mouth was curled up in what could have been a fish smile. I touched its dead eye and then we had one of those silences where the air turns heavy with expectation. I waited, she waited and we waited together, and then she said, “I love this garden.” She moved her hand towards mine, hesitated, took it and smiled. “It’s where I had my earliest memory.”

  “What was it?”

  “I had a kitten. He was called Max. He wasn’t very strong, he never had been, and one day he just faded away and died. I buried him over there.” She pointed to a pile of stones in the corner of the garden. “I was about four, and I remember lying in bed thinking that Max would grow into a tree and there’d be kittens on the tree. And when I fell asleep, I dreamt about the tree and that all the kittens were hanging from the branches by their tails, wanting me to pick them.”

  “Good Heavens.”

  “I know. Some of the kittens were black and some of them were tabbies, and the one at the top was ginger. They were wriggling and crying, and a few of them fell down and ran away.”

  “And did you have one?”

  “I don’t know. I think I woke up before I had the chance.” She reached down, picked up a fallen leaf, rolled it between her fingers and said, “What’s your earliest memory?”

  I remembered walking down the road to church with my mother, my hand in hers, the smell of her best coat wafting around me and my trousers scratching my legs. I do not know if this was earlier than one I had about picking some snowdrops and carrying them into the kitchen and being told I was a kind boy. I said, “I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask me another day.”

  “All right,” she said.

  We sat in silence for five minutes, and the wind started to blow. Her mother came out and asked if we wanted a cup of tea and a biscuit. We said we would, but before we went inside I said, “And you’re well?”

  “Yes, David. Every day in every way…”

  “What about the rest of your life?”

  “What about it?”

  “Is it back to normal?”

  “It could be,” she said.

  “Could be?”

  “Should be,” she said, and she held my hand. She lifted it to her mouth, kissed it and I kissed her, and when she smiled I thought back to the last time I had seen her, and how she had left me in Norfolk in the early morning with a half-burnt candle on the window sill and the smell of creosote in the air.

  I thought back to the time when the dawn snapped and lines of light dripped into the dark. When I straightened her arms and legs, washed the blood from her scales, removed the pillow from the bed and spread a fresh sheet over her. Here, when I kneeled and bowed my head so it touched her fingers, and I reached across her body and stroked her face. And here, I picked a strand of cotton from the top of her head. Then I stood up, blew out the candles and stood by the door. I looked at her and wished, but nothing happened. For a moment, even the marshes were silent, and the birds still. The curtains hung down and dust settled. I left her alone in the dark.

  I walked through the marshes. The light was milky and blue and pale together. I could feel the way. It was flat. I heard the reeds, and the sea came washing in after the storm. It came like a bride to the altar, arm in arm with the sky, breaking with a sigh, sinking slowly.

  When I reached the beach I walked towards the place where we had flown the kite and looked for it, but did not see it.

  I sat down and stared at the waves as the sun rose through a low hedge of cloud and light exploded across the sea. I blinked and shaded my eyes, and birds rose behind me and flew away. For a moment I wished I could make a sandcastle, a tall one with turrets, a moat and paper flags. I wanted to wait and count the minutes until the tide came in. So many wants, so many coulds. I could go for a long walk through the Americas. I could do good in a poor country. Or I could do exactly the same things I have always done, make no plans, work each day, sleep more than I should, and wait.

  I sat, and as the sun climbed, tiredness crept up and flooded my body. I stood up, turned my back on the sea and walked away, and when I reached the marshes I did not stop to listen to the bitterns as they crept through the reeds.

  When I reached my house and opened the door, silence seemed to blow out. I stepped inside and stood in the kitchen. The air still smelt fa
intly of the substance she had injected. I breathed it deeply, poured a glass of dark rum and sat down by the stove. I drank, leant back and closed my eyes.

  Make no plans. Clear thought. Reason, not magic. You are responsible. You have choices and you can make them. Nothing means nothing else. Move across the land and empty your head. Have another drink. Do not worry about trying to work out what anything means. Give all unessential books to friends. Keep the good volumes in a box no bigger than a small horse can carry.

  I was pouring another drink and thinking about boxes and what I would do with her body. Should I take it to the beach and burn it below the tide line, or steal a boat and burn it at sea? I was thinking in faster and faster circles when I heard a sound. It was sharp, like a door frame snapping, followed by a thud and a moan. I jumped up. I hit the table with my knee and the rum flew across the room. I heard the moan again. It came from behind me, from the bedroom. There was heavy breathing, feet banging against the walls and another sound, like paper tearing. I ran through and found Isabel on the floor between the bed and the wall. She was lying on her stomach. Her skin had split down the centre of her back and was hanging off her like cloth. The scales had lost their colour and turned translucent, her real skin was shining beneath a film of blood and other fluid. She was shivering all over and making little whining noises, like mice trapped in bottles.

  I turned her over, and as I did she groaned from the back of her throat, opened her eyes and smiled at me.

  “Isabel?”

  “Ah…”

  “Isabel!” I pulled her up. “What’s happening?”

  “I…” She concentrated, her eyes screwed tight shut, and as her lips moved, some scales rubbed onto my trousers.

  “Breathe,” I said, uselessly.

  “I’m…’

  “You’re?”

  “I’m moult…” she reached up and grabbed her shoulder.

  “You’re moulting?”

  “Yes,” and she nodded and started tugging at a hole in the skin. It was the size of a coin. She stuck her finger in and pulled gently. As she did, she winced and buckled, but did not stop. The skin crackled, and as it came away, dead scales flaked like confetti. They drifted in the air as she worked her way to her elbow, tugged, and the whole piece dropped off and lay on the floor.

  “You need anything?”

  She nodded, pointed to her mouth and licked her lips.

  I fetched two glasses of water, and when I got back to her she was sitting on the bed, the whole of her back was clear of scales and she was pulling them off her head. She moaned as she peeled them away from her eyes and ears, and wiped the blood and pus away. “Ah…” she said, and she dropped them on the floor, took the glass of water from me and drank it in one gulp. “Tha… thanks…”

  “More?”

  She nodded.

  I poured as she put her fingers underneath the rip beneath her chin and started to pull. Now she became shy, turned and waved me away. The snake skin was hanging over her breasts and, where she had stretched, a broken line appeared along her waist, like a huge laugh. I could see her navel.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” I said. “Call if you need me,” and I left her.

  I do not know how long I sat by the sink and stared at the marshes. It was probably about half an hour. I knew she had finished when she yelled and the house was quiet for a moment. Then she laughed and opened the bedroom door. Before I had a chance to turn and look at her she was in the bathroom, the door locked, and she laughed again. She started to wash and sing. I have no idea what song it was, but it went up and down. I fetched a fresh towel and waited for her to come out, and when I saw her I held it up for her and said “It’s clean.”

  She whispered, “Clean…”

  “Yes, Isabel.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And I’m clean…” she said, and she twisted herself into the towel, came to the kitchen and sat down. “I’m clean!”

  “I can see.”

  “Very clean!”

  “You look fine…”

  “I feel…” she started, but then she stopped.

  “What happened?”

  She shook her head and stared at me for a minute. Then another minute and another before she said, “I heard you leave. I heard everything but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was lying in there and I think I fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up I felt almost well. For a moment I thought I was dreaming or dead, and when I looked, there was a split on my arm. Here…” She touched the place. “And when I pushed my finger in, it started to come away…”

  “Amazing…”

  “And I remember something Hunt told me, something about how one day I’d moult, and when that happened it could make or break the experiment. I had to grow fresh skin or else it was a failure.”

  “It was a failure.”

  “I think you’re right,” she said, and she rubbed a place where the snake skin had left a mark. “I know you’re right,” and then I fetched a couple of clean glasses, poured some rum and we started to drink. We drank until the glasses were empty, and when I suggested more she said, “Yes please,” so we carried on. The more she drank the more she stared and stroked her skin, and by the time we were ready for bed, dawn was cracking over the house. “Strange days,” she said, and I agreed, but I was too tired to think. I lay back, closed my eyes and let the old day fold around me, like a towel your mother holds out as you climb out of the bath and you are polished with water.

  She stayed with me in Norfolk for a couple of days and then I took her to Norwich. She was going home to Dorset. I offered to travel with her, but she said she could manage, she was a grown woman. And she said she wanted to spend some time on her own, she wanted to think, sleep, read and sleep. So I kissed her on the cheek and left her on the railway-station platform, promised to see her soon, rode back to my place and sat on the veranda. When it started to drizzle, I carried my chair to the garden, sat by the statue of the dog and let the rain soak me. I did not feel the cold and did not feel the wind against my face, and I did not notice as the evening crept up and wrapped its arms around me. One more evening and one more night, and all the things I had thought came back and wished themselves into my head.

  I took stock and realized it was true. I did not want to be a book valuer any more. I wanted to tie my mind with twine and put it in a small box for a year, then take it out and pretend the last few months had not happened. I wanted to see my father and walk through the back streets of Canterbury with him, and I wanted to see Isabel again, Isabel with her own skin and her own hair. I fetched some paper and a pen, sat at the table and started to write. I wrote for an hour, then got up and did some tidying around the house. I found a blouse under the bed. It was Isabel’s, and when I held it to my nose her smell came back to me. It came in floods, and was easy enough – and later, after I had written ten pages, I took the blouse to bed with me and slept with my face to the window.

  Epilogue

  I wrote this story in my low house at the bottom of a small garden. Turn your back on the marshes, cross the lawn, go past the trees and flowers, and the pond with the reeds and frogs.

  The house sits on bricks and used sleepers. Climb some steps, watch out for a loose board and cross a veranda to get inside, and there you are, standing with the light pooling on the floor and the sound of birds singing in the marshes.

  The place has got a bedroom at the back, a sitting room and kitchen in front and a small bathroom. The walls are made of cedar with a felted pitched roof, two windows at the front, the door in the middle and two windows in the sides and back.

  The air smells of ripening apples, ink, a stuffed deer’s head someone bought, put in a wardrobe and forgot about. It has its own memories, of visitors and spilt tea and oil lamps burning on the sterns of sinking ships, and lost days. I say it has these memories, but I cannot tell what is hidden beneath the solid floors, or what the blank windows h
ave seen.

  I have some painted furniture, carpets and rugs, pictures of castles on cliffs and a stove in the corner of the sitting room. There is a table in the kitchen and in a cupboard a telescope that does not work. Three chairs that do not match, a bowl of fruit and some porridge crusted onto a bowl. A pepper mill and a note on the wall that reads “Please close down the stove before leaving”. A melted candle, some white pebbles we found on the beach, and puddles of hard wax on the sill. All the curtains have shrunk, so there is a gap around the bottom of the windows.

  When the wind blows the house moans, and when the sun shines it creaks, and when it rains it sighs like it wants the rain so much, and now here it is and here I am, listening all the time.

  Now I have finishing writing this story, I have decided to get away and do something I have never done before. With this in mind, I was going to read a book about a man who travelled through Asia to visit his Aunt. I read the first page. The man was standing outside a hotel in Glasgow, he had lost his pen and it was raining. I did not read any more.

  I did not read any more because here you can sit at the kitchen table, dab your fingers in a pool of spilt milk and look out at the garden. Or you can lie in bed and not read a book and listen to the curlews, or you can walk up the garden path, through the gate, across the road and into the marshes.

  The marshes whisper and the marshes cry and the marshes threaten. They are like someone you like but cannot trust. They never look you in the eye and they never offer to pay their share. They whisper behind their hands and walk with a sloping grin. If you leave the paths, the ground will look fine but will lead into a swamp and you will slip and fall and either spend your last night on earth face down in water or face up, and birds will eat your eyes. Some people say, “The marshes are so beautiful and lonely…” and they are right, but they do not know the whole story. It is too easy to say those sort of things about a place, as though beauty can hide a grave.