“Watch out! You’ll trip.
Who cared? If she fell again, there was nothing more to lose - no babies, and no husband. Both were lost already.
He pounded after her, letting out a flood of words, trying to excuse himself, trying to explain. He followed her into the kitchen and sat opposite, still jabbering away. She let the words wash over her, craning her neck to peer up at the SOLD sign through the window. The O was silent now - and rightly so. No point crying. No point speaking, either. She didn’t intend discussing things with Colin. Nor did she intend moving into the flat with him.
This was not the man she had married.
Thin Skin
It all started with toast - fingers of toast she’d been given as a child to eat with her boiled egg. Nanny used to tell her that every piece not finished might well feel unloved and cry buttery toast-tears. The thought had so distressed her, she never left a single crumb.
Things got worse at school. The other children detested food like Dead Man’s Leg and Frogspawn, but she could hear it weeping when left untouched on their plates, so of course she had no choice but to eat it. And the bits of fat and gristle, the bacon rinds and cheese parings. She never put on weight, though. All the surplus energy was burned off in constant worry - worry about mouldy apples discarded outside greengrocers’ shops, or cracked eggs thrown in waste-bins, or even fragments of chocolate trapped inside a wrapper. Did they cry chocolate tears?
Sometimes, it appeared, the whole world of food was weeping, especially in hot weather: milk on the turn, bananas turning black, ice-cream dripping tragically from cones.
In adolescence, her sympathies roved further to embrace ants, moths, beetles, spiders, flies - anything killed, swatted, trodden on, or flushed cruelly down a plug-hole by other, sterner people, deaf to their shrieks of pain.
“You’re too thin-skinned,” Aunt Freda had reproved.”If you want to exist in the adult world, you’ll have to toughen up.”
She had peered at her skin, which did indeed look thin: the veins too near the surface; knobs of bone, with barely any covering, making strange protuberances in her hands and wrists and feet. Then, when she’d fallen off her bike and had to have her arm stitched, the doctor had confirmed Aunt Freda’s words. “I’ve never seen such thin skin in my entire professional life. It’s like the skin of an old woman, which at your age is ridiculous. I’ll have to use special stitches to get them to hold at all.”
For the next few weeks, she’d been too scared to use the arm, constantly expecting the wound to gape apart. Why couldn’t skin be made of steel, she wondered, to prevent it ripping and tearing? Or people have lemonade pumping through their bodies instead of frighteningly scarlet blood?
And now, at twenty-seven, she still used her left arm in preference to her right, which could make things rather difficult - even minor matters like answering the doorbell. It was ringing at this very moment, insistently, aggressively.
Having picked her way between the piles of clutter, she tugged weakly at the door-handle with her scarred and shaky arm; the bell shrilling a second, louder blast, as if deploring the delay.
A dapper little man, with neatly cropped black hair and a matching toothbrush-moustache was standing on the doorstep. “Good afternoon,” he said.
Was it afternoon? Last time she’d checked the time, it had been only ten past ten - unless the clock had stopped.
“My name is Austin Beamish.” He held out his identity card, which showed his face in miniature, though looking slightly younger than the flesh-and-blood equivalent. “Environmental Health Officer.”
“Oh, do come in.” Anyone who took environmental issues seriously was welcome in her home. She often lay awake at night, worrying about climate change and holes in ozone layers. “I’m sorry about the mess,” she said, leading him a zigzag path between the various obstacles, towards the only chair. “Please sit down.”
“Aren’t you going to sit?’’
“I’m afraid I can’t.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I won’t go into details, but it’s best for me to stand.” That wretched bike again. After years of cycling, the skin at the base of her coccyx had finally worn through, leaving a raw red area, which was extremely painful if she put any pressure on it. Simply sitting on a chair could make it start to bleed. In fact, much the same had happened in the middle of her back, where pressure from the fastening of her bra had rubbed another raw place. Her body needed patching, like she patched the frayed knees of her jeans, but, alas, extra pieces of human skin weren’t as easy to come by as offcuts of blue denim. “Can I get you a coffee?” she offered, wincing as a pain shot through her arm. Neither she nor it had ever really recovered from the fall.
“No, thank you.” He cleared his throat. “This is not a social visit, Miss Mackenzie.”
“Do call me Daisy,” she urged, crouching down beside his chair, so they were on roughly the same level. A pity about the moustache. It made him look both sinister and comic, and the combination was just a shade unsettling.
He removed a large beige folder from his briefcase and sat tapping a pen against it. “I’m afraid there’s been a complaint from one of your neighbours.”
“A complaint?’ No one could make less noise than her. She didn’t own a radio or television, and, as for parties, the very idea was laughable. Her friends were so thin on the ground these days that, were she to drop down dead tomorrow, the only guests at her funeral would be the bats living in the bell-tower and the mournful crows that pecked around the churchyard - both (conveniently) black-garbed.
“I believe,” said Mr Beamish, glancing around the room with an expression of distaste, “you have an infestation of mice.”
“Oh, the mice! God love them. They’re no trouble.”
“Mice are vermin, Miss Mack … er, Daisy. And most definitely a health hazard.”
“No, mine aren’t.” She could hardly hear a sound from them at present - not a rustle, not the faintest scrabble - but then they were always scared by strangers, and Mr Beamish’s deep yet querulous voice would have had them all quivering in their lair behind the skirting board.
His frown intensified, cutting a ravine between his brows. “They carry diseases - serious diseases such as Leptospirosis, and Salmonellosis, which is transmitted onto food and drink in their excrement. And their continual dribble of urine causes contamination of food.”
Offended, she drew herself up to her full height again. The mice shared her life, for heaven’s sake, so to have this man revile them was, to say the least, insulting.
“They also constitute a fire hazard because they can gnaw through electric cables. I don’t know whether you realize, but their incisor teeth grow significantly each year.”
“Of course I realize. In fact, I’m quite concerned about it. If their teeth get too long, the poor things find it difficult to eat. But I give them stuff to chew on - blocks of wood and dog biscuits - and that keeps their teeth nicely short and sharp.”
He gave her a look that combined horror with incredulity. “But, that way, you encourage them, which is the last thing you should do. I have no wish to be rude, Miss Mackenzie, but the conditions in this room leave a lot to be desired.”
She tried to see the place through his eyes. Yes, it was dirty, but mice liked a bit of dirt; yes, it was dark, but mice were nocturnal creatures and, by keeping the curtains drawn, she was gradually giving them confidence to come out in the daytime as well as just at night. Besides, the late December weather was so depressingly cold and dank, she preferred to block it out.
“For one thing, it smells extremely bad.”
“Oh, you get used to that in time. In any case, the smell is probably nice to them. You know, like dogs who sniff round lamp-posts or roll in steaming cowpats. I don’t think it’s actually right for us to judge what’s good or bad for other species.”
As if she hadn’t spoken, he continued in his condemnatory tone. “And there are droppings everywhere.”
“They’re no
t all droppings.” She glanced down at the floor, where tiny moist black rod-things alternated with minuscule white scales. “Some of them are bits of my skin.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s started flaking off. It’s very thin, you see, and …” No, he didn’t see, judging by his expression. Most people failed to realize what peculiar stuff skin was - even normal skin that didn’t wear away. It had to be strong enough - resilient and waterproof - to provide a barrier against the outside world, yet on the other hand, it was agonisingly sensitive to the slightest sensation of touch. And it varied so dramatically from place to place on the body: gossamer-frail on the eyelids, sandpaper-rough on the heels, padded over the buttocks, wrinkly-loose on the elbows, taut across the shins. And wasn’t it rather extraordinary that hundreds of millions of skin cells died off every day, to be replaced by new cells, sneaking up behind them? Sometimes, when she tuned in to the process, she could hear the screech of the dying cells competing with the triumphant whoops of the new, and the din in her head became so overwhelming she lay sleepless for nights at a stretch.
“Miss Mackenzie!”
She started. He’d been saying something and she hadn’t heard a word.
“I’ve asked you - twice - if you would allow me to examine the premises. I need to make a detailed report.”
Hardly a question of ‘allowing’ him. He was already prowling around the bedsit, as if he owned the place, opening cupboards, peering under units.
“This kitchen area is particularly worrying. I can see teeth-marks on the cereal packets.”
“Of course you can - the cereal is theirs. I buy it for them specially. Their favourites are Cheerios and Grape Nuts. I can’t help it if they eat the boxes as well.”
“I’d appreciate it, Miss Mackenzie, if you could try to take this seriously. I’m endeavouring to do a job of work and your facetious attitude doesn’t help the process.”
“I am taking it seriously.” So seriously, in fact, she could feel his harsh words piercing through her body - poisoned arrows now sticking in her flesh.
“The more you feed the mice, the more you’ll be landed with.”
“Yes, that’s what Sudu found.”
“Sudu? Who’s Sudu?”
“A girl I met at work - last year, when I did work. She’s a Buddhist, so she’s forbidden to kill a single living creature - not so much as a house-fly or an ant. The problem is she’s terrified of mice, but her Buddhist teacher, the Venerable thingamajig, said she had to strive to love them rather than fear them. So she tried leaving them food, but of course more and more turned up, and she got into the most awful state, and was tempted to ditch her Buddhist principles and simply put down mouse-traps. In the end, I offered to swap flats with her, which we did three months ago. And the mice are miles happier, because now they’re truly loved.”
Mr Beamish paused in his examination of a hole in the skirting board to fix her with a reproving stare. “I cannot impress upon you too strongly, Miss Mackenzie, that mice are not, I repeat not, objects of affection. If you carry on like this, you’ll be completely overrun. Female house mice reach sexual maturity at forty-two days old, and can give birth as often as every month. They don’t even have to wait until they’ve weaned their young before they can conceive again. In fact, one breeding pair used in a research study produced over a million descendants in a period of just eighteen months.”
If he wanted to bandy statistics about, well, that was his prerogative, but personally she found it distressing that he should discuss such intimate matters without a trace of fellow feeling for the mice. It must be extremely hard on the females to be pregnant or lactating for so much of their short lives. She had no desire to give birth, having seen what it involved.
“Good God! There’s a nest right here.” He was now investigating her bottom dresser drawer, which she deliberately kept open a few inches, to provide air for Alexandra. The poor mouse leapt out in terror at the monster-man’s approach, and fled back behind the skirting board.
“Now look - you’ve upset her, and she’s about to give birth any second.”
He shut the drawer with a bang, then wiped his hands on his handkerchief, as if they’d been polluted. “This really is appallingly unhygienic. You’ll get ill, you know, if you live like this.”
She shrugged. There was little point in arguing with someone so completely blind to the beauty of a mouse’s nest. Alexandra had fashioned hers out of torn-up bits of newspaper, lined it with chewed and softened string, and spent considerable time and trouble making it a safe and cosy haven for her young. And the fact she’d chosen a sock drawer showed how intelligent she was - soft woolly stuff on hand to cushion her babies’ tender skin.
Mr Beamish made a note on his pad, wrinkling his nose against the smell again. Next he inspected her bed, and the crate she used as a bedside table. OK, neither was exactly pristine, but the needs of the mice must come first.
“‘You’ll have to call in Pest Control and arrange for these vermin to be exterminated.”
“Hitler,” she muttered, outraged. The moustache made perfect sense now. He was nothing more than a one-man death machine. Thank God he hadn’t brought himself to use her Christian name. She had no desire to be friendly with someone who consigned her tiny room-mates to the gas chamber.
“I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’ve no intention of phoning anyone.”
“Are you telling me you refuse to deal with the problem?”
“It’s not a problem, OK? The mice are perfectly happy, and I’m not complaining.”
“Yes, but all your neighbours are.”
“It’s nothing to do with them.”
“Yes, it most certainly is.” He put his pad down to wag a bony finger at her. “The mice are going under the floorboards from here to other flats. They can squeeze through a gap the size of a pen or pencil, and you have gaps much larger than that.”
“But why should they want to go to other flats, when I give them all they need? Not just lots of cereal, but treats like chocolate Hobknobs and boxes of Newberry Fruits. I know all their special favourites. And they need to eat a great deal. They have a very high metabolic rate.”
Mr Beamish pursed his lips. “I’m well aware of that. What you are not aware of, or perhaps refuse to take on board, is that you’re risking your health and safety, and that of other people who happen to live in this same block.” He strode back to his chair and began making more extensive notes, his pen ripping into the paper, as if it, too, were furious. At length, he bunged the folder back into his briefcase and snapped the briefcase shut. “I’m afraid I shall have to take this further. You’ll be hearing from the Council in due course.”
“I can’t wait,” she mumbled, sarcastically, finally closing the door on him. All the noise and upheaval would have seriously disturbed the mice. And she was literally shaking. The poisoned arrows had gone much deeper now, skewering her heart and lungs.
Too agitated to rest, she paced up and down the room, trying to work out what to do. If she decided to fight the Council, she’d need a proper action plan, and she’d have to clear the whole place up, as part of her general strategy. These people were so blinkered, they judged everything in terms of tidiness. In fact, while the mice were lying low, she could get rid of all the crates and boxes left over from the flat-swap. Then, if some officious type called, at least his first impression would be favourable.
She stacked half a dozen boxes together and carried them down to the wheely-bin in the back-yard of the flats. With difficulty, and using her left arm, she prised open the lid and stood peering at the contents: broken toys, old newspapers, empty cans and bottles - all classed as trash, discarded. How could she leave her own stuff here? Battered cardboard boxes probably suffered from feelings of rejection as much as did bruised fruit and mouldy cheese.
Plunging her arm inside the container, she retrieved a balding teddy bear. How miserable it looked, with its one remaining eye; its tattered, scruffy fu
r. And even the newspaper it was lying on aroused her sympathy - the once high-status Sunday Times now considered unworthy even of wrapping fish and chips. Her hand closed round a ketchup bottle weeping thick red tears. Easy to call it “empty”, consign it to oblivion, but if plants could suffer - and there was now scientific proof of that - then why not glass or paper? Most people refused to countenance the prospect that what they regarded as brute matter might actually be sensitive, and capable of feeling. Yet, at this very moment, she herself was actually tuning in to the low but keen lament of these unloved, unwanted objects: the heartache of a fishbone, too spiky to be swallowed; the humiliation of teabags, left damp and soggy on top of potato peelings still trembling from the insult of the knife; the pathos of a broken eggcup, regarded as too trivial to mend.
She sank down on to the concrete floor, knowing she must stay - all night, if necessary - hold a solemn vigil in honour of these things, share their pain, their sense of failure. The mice could manage on their own - they had plenty of supplies. Her first duty was down here.
Yet, after only half an hour, her bottom was so sore, she had to change position and, even then, the same problem of her thinning skin arose. If she tried to kneel, her knees bled; if she leant on her elbows, they, too, began to fray. Sighing, she got up again, to see what else might be retrieved. The clutter people tossed away contained their personal history, their past in tangible form. The shirt or dress, for instance, they were wearing at the time of their first kiss, or the books that traced their reading-arc from Peter Rabbit to Dostoyevsky.
Having salvaged a volume of poetry, badly torn and stained, she was further shocked to come across some old photos in gilt frames. These were someone’s relatives - mothers, fathers, spouses, siblings - real people who’d once lived and loved. Yet they’d been jettisoned with no concern for the soul or vital essence that might still live on in these likenesses.
Wendy Perriam Page 6