Skin
Page 6
The rest of the village was in a similar state of disrepair. The houses either boarded up or broken into. Doors hung off their hinges. Windows were shattered. What few cars remained looked like they’d been abandoned, strewn along the side of the road. Some had been set on fire. One was on its roof.
We kept driving.
At last we reached the turning for the cottage. By now, both children were awake, sitting saucer-eyed in the back seat. Charlie was hungry. Amber needed the toilet.
Colin had finally started talking again, filling the air with fatally optimistic prognostications as we rattled down the long, chipped slate drive. ‘We can all relax when we get there. Charlie, you can help me build a fire. That’ll heat the place up nicely. Then maybe we’ll have hot dogs for tea. What do you say, guys? Indoor barbecue? And after that we can…’
As the cottage came into view, Colin fell abruptly silent. He gasped.
We all did.
The car slowed down as it approached the front gate, before juddering to a stop. Seconds later a robotic female voice rang out from the GPS system.
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
We all leaned forward. We all stared.
The car spoke again.
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
On the dashboard, a question blinked in blue letters:
Enter Park Mode Y/N?
We ignored it.
The cottage was gone.
Well, almost gone. There was a small section on one side where the wall was still standing. The rest, though, was unrecognisable. A blackened husk. A few timber frames reduced to charcoal. Roof beams bowed and collapsed in on themselves. A pile of ash and twisted metal.
At last, Charlie broke the silence, unbuckling his seat belt and squeezing between the front seats. Close enough that I could smell the faint trace of bubble gum-scented shampoo on his hair, sweet and artificial. ‘Is this the place we’re supposed to be staying? Do you think we should go and find a hotel instead?’
Neither of us answered. What was there to say? We just kept staring at the burnt-out ruin, while the car droned on, over and over again.
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
EIGHT
NOW, I’M AWARE I should probably be acting as some sort of role model for you, Egg. Teaching you right from wrong. Providing you with a moral barometer which you can tap on in later life and all the rest of it. But the fact is, it’s not always that simple. Sometimes the truth is just more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why sometimes it’s easier just to pause the video camera and pretend you stuck to the route you were supposed to be on. And that’s why, in the end, I decided to leave Amber’s surprise cameo out of my report to Fatima altogether, blaming the lack of accompanying footage on forgetting to charge the camera. I know, I know. The whole neighbourhood watch scheme is built on foundations of trust and transparency. But this was only a tiny deception really. A lie of omission. And, when you consider that I probably saved your big sister from being thrown into prison, I think you’ll agree that it was the best course of action for everyone involved. Besides, by excluding Amber from my report, it conveniently meant I could also leave out whatever – or whoever – it was I thought I’d seen lurking in the shadows.
And just imagine trying to explain that particular Rorschach-splodge of pixels.
No, it’s far simpler this way. Not to mention potentially less embarrassing. For having watched the video back somewhat obsessively this last week, I am now ninety-nine per cent sure I was mistaken. That the figure is nothing more than a figment of my overheated imagination. That there is absolutely nothing of interest to report to the powers-that-be.
Although I must admit, I haven’t simply erased the file from my desktop. No. I’ve decided I’d better hang on to it. Just for now. Just in case.
Anyway, you’ll be pleased to hear that Fatima – aside from castigating me for my failure to bring a spare battery pack – was as pleased as ever with my write-up. She praised my ‘vivid descriptions’ and ‘attention to detail’. I was surprised she didn’t go right ahead and give me a gold star. Since then, my focus has been on more mundane things. Mostly work, which for some reason has been even more of a slog than usual.
It occurs to me that I haven’t told you about my job yet. Not that there’s much to tell. Back in the old world, I worked in the marketing department for a multinational social media company. It was well paid, if not especially inspiring work. Not that I realised that at the time. Though I cringe about it now, back then I thought I was basically doing God’s own work.
Despite being valued at several dozen billion dollars, the company was still relatively young. No more than four or five years old when I joined. The people who worked there were young, too. In my early thirties, I was one of the oldest members of staff. Perhaps because of this, I made an extra show of my enthusiasm for the role. My white-hot passion for multimedia marketing. My fanatical fervour for company-client relations. I stayed later than anyone else. Talked louder. Worked harder. Or at least, more overtly. I’d buzz about the building like a Benzedrine-addled bumblebee, spewing worn-out idioms to anyone in earshot. Shooting from the hip. Thinking outside the box. I was such a fucking idiot. We all were. And the inflated sense of self-importance. My God. Because you see, we weren’t just there to make a salary. Or to pimp advertising space. Or to make our shareholders richer. Oh no. We were out there making a real difference to the world. We were shaping relationships . We were curating memories . We were facilitating meaningful connections in a noisy world . Jesus. It was like a cult. And I hadn’t just drunk the Kool-Aid. I’d filled a paddling pool and was doing backstroke in the stuff. To think we actually thought what we were doing mattered. In the way that food matters. Or shelter. Or water. Or clean air.
What a terrible joke we were.
Of course, once the outbreak happened, it quickly transpired we weren’t as essential as we’d assumed. The company folded. Too many dead. Or not enough people alive to make it worthwhile. Whatever. Once things had settled down and businesses began recruiting again, I eventually found myself a similar role, only at a smaller company. A start-up called MeetMee, which thankfully doesn’t take itself quite so seriously.
The idea is simple enough, if still fairly trivial. As you can imagine, loneliness is a pretty big issue these days, especially for those people who were unfortunate enough to be single when the virus hit. Meeting new people isn’t as simple as swiping right and heading to the nearest bar any more. That’s where MeetMee comes in. We provide a safe space for people to mingle and talk with like-minded strangers online, first as part of a group, before providing customers with the option of moving to a private chat if they find someone they like the sound of. Which they usually do. You see the clever thing about MeetMee is that, unlike traditional dating apps, which either force you to wade through mountains of questionnaires in an attempt to gauge your interests, or to simply place a blind bet on a heavily Photoshopped headshot, it automatically scans through your online search history, linking you with others with a shared set of interests. What films you like. What papers you read. Your most perverted fantasies. It’s all there, encoded in your search history, your digital genome.
The results are startlingly effective, with our ‘match rate’ running at above eighty-five per cent. This makes working for the PR department a doddle, our ‘Success Stories’ page populated with pictures of the latest happy couples, which helps to lure in eager new customers almost every day. Virtual weddings are not uncommon, which might sound insane, considering they’ll never actually get to live together, let alone physically consummate the marriage. But then again, some people actually seem to prefer it that way. There’s certainly less scope for disappointment. And you save a fortune on catering.
While my role at MeetMee isn’t radically different to what I was doing
before, I definitely have a more realistic perspective about my work. It really is just a means to an end, rather than a way of defining myself. Something I have to do to collect the money we need to maintain our relatively high standard of living. Having said that, I suppose if I try hard enough, on some days I can just about convince myself that the service we provide does have some small value. While we might not be changing the world, we are bringing a small spark of joy to people’s lives.
On other days, though, I’m less generous. Days when I like to look at all the beaming couples we’ve brought together and shake my head. The fools, I think. Kidding themselves that they’ve found true love with someone they’re never going to share a table with, let alone a bed. They’re no more really ‘together’ than the suckers queuing up to spend a fortune to frolic on Colin’s virtual beach. Although, when you think about it, there’s not much difference between their situation and mine. Not really. I mean, what practical difference would it really make if Colin was in Nicaragua, rather than next door? Hell, he could be sitting on the surface of the moon and it wouldn’t change a thing. For all I see him, he might as well not even exist.
Just like you, my sweet Egg.
THE DAYS FLUTTER by with a shrug, a flurry of indistinct moments.
Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
I text Amber and she ignores me.
I text Charlie and he ignores me.
Colin texts me and I ignore him.
In other words, life continues ad nauseam .
The only slight kink in my routine comes when it is time to pick up our weekly groceries from the designated drop-off point in the car park under our apartment building. Until I joined the neighbourhood watch scheme, this was the closest I’d ever get to going outside, and I looked forward to the change of scenery. Not that there was much to see down there. Low ceilings. Concrete pillars. An oil-spattered floor. Before you reach the drop-off point – a basic polythene tent situated near the exit – you have to walk through the old parking bays. Alongside our wrecked old car, there are around twenty or so other vehicles parked there, all of them in various states of disrepair. Tyres flat. Windows strung with spiderwebs. Sometimes I would sidle up to them and push my mask against the glass, like peeking into a time capsule from another century. There were colouring books and computer games scattered over back seats. Hiking boots and high heels lying in footwells. Coats and cushions stuffed onto parcel shelves. Mouldering cardboard coffee cups wedged into drinks holders. In one of the cars, a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan magazine lay on the passenger seat, the front cover adorned with a beaming swimwear model, her body recklessly exposed to whatever virulent toxins happened to be floating through the atmosphere that day. Screaming from the margins were the usual hysterical headlines. I’ve stared at that damn magazine so many times over the years, I can still recite them by heart:
Dress Like an A-Lister (on a Z-list Budget)
14 Sure-Fire Signs He’s Planning to Dump Yo’ Ass
Flat-Belly Secrets You Need to Know Right Now
Messy Hair, Don’t Care – 5 Reasons Fuzzy Is the New Fabulous .
Weirdly, even thinking about that copy of Cosmo lying there on the passenger seat leaves me feeling sad. I miss magazines. Sure, you can find a million identical articles on the Internet, but it’s not the same. The smell of the new paper. The free samples stuck to the pages. The ritual of sitting down with a cup of coffee and peeling open a new copy. As a teenage girl, magazines were my first window to the adult world. To fashion, body issues, relationships. Sex. And as easy as it is to sneer at their triviality, they remain a reminder of how much simpler our lives used to be back then. When a girl’s biggest concern was how to put the ‘O’ back in her love life, rather than wondering where to order the best value replacement filter cartridges for her personal respirator. Magazines are yet another reminder of the world that we had and lost.
When I set out for the supply tent a few days ago, however, I only got as far as our front door before I saw a pile of ready meals and toiletries stacked neatly in the corner of the quarantine tent, ready for each of us to collect. Colin had already beaten me to it. At the sight of the supplies, I felt a jab of fury in my gut, cursing my husband for thoughtlessly wasting my time. Why hadn’t he bothered to let me know?
As I trudged back to my bedroom, I realised it was actually acute disappointment I was feeling, rather than anger. Not about missing out on my trip to the basement. No. As ridiculous as it sounds, I’d been debating slipping out of the car park and into the outside world again. I wouldn’t have gone far. Just around the block. Just in case whoever it was I’d glimpsed crouching in the shadows last week still happened to be lurking nearby.
I laughed at how silly I was being. For days, I’d resisted the urge to rewatch the footage again. And yet here I was, sulking because I’d missed out on the chance to go hunting for bogeymen. It was pathetic. With a snort, I strode over to my computer and, without hesitation, dropped the video file into the little trash can on my desktop, then clicked to empty it. Satisfied, I picked up my phone and tapped out a short text message to Colin:
Hey. Thanks for picking up food. Really sweet of you.
I selected an emoji of a smiling face blushing with contentment and hit send.
There. That was the end of that.
All the same, I couldn’t help but look forward to my next patrol. In fact, it was all I could think about, a constant sizzle in the pit of my stomach, warm and uncomfortable, so that by the time a fortnight rolled around again I felt so sick I was worried I wouldn’t be able to go out at all. The night before the patrol, I hardly slept. I just lay there in a jittery, semi-conscious state, my whole body seeming to thrum with nervous energy. I was up and dressed in my suit and mask before dawn, staring at my phone and willing the clock to speed up until it reached my allotted patrol slot.
When I eventually got outside, I found it was even warmer than last time, the early morning sun instantly sticking my hazmat suit to my back. The plants didn’t seem to be enjoying the heat any more than I was, the crocuses and daffodils having wilted into crispy brown heaps, the grass limp and yellow. I squinted down and checked my camera. Satisfied it was recording, I headed straight towards the financial district. By then, I’d given up trying to lie to myself.
I knew exactly where I was going.
Even though my old office is less than a thirty-minute stroll from the apartment, in the old days, I’d never have dreamt of walking there. There was no time, you see. Never any time. Rather, I would take the train from the station around the corner from the apartment. At least, I did the first year I worked there. In the end I got sick of the terrible service. The inevitably over-stuffed carriages. The crush of bodies. My face mashed into a stranger’s armpit or crotch. The walls slick with condensation. The noise and the smell and the general sense of carnage. Looking back, it seems perverse that we were ever allowed to travel like that. Close enough to touch. To taste. Even now, I shudder at the things we must have caught from one another. I can feel my throat closing just thinking about it.
Anyway, I eventually leased my own car. A small, sterile, climate-controlled bubble. Tinted windows so no one could peek in at me. The radio turned up to drown out the growl of traffic on the road. A Magic Tree air freshener dangling from the ceiling, saturating the cabin with the scent of artificial pine. At the time, it felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. All that space to myself. All that privacy. Now, though, I’m not so sure. As gross as the train was, some weird part of me would love to experience that chaos one last time, to hell with the risks. To smell the other passengers in the carriage. To feel their textures and weight pressing and pushing, the heat from their bodies radiating out towards me.
Although right then, heat was the last thing I wanted. By the time I reached the financial district, my clothes were saturated with sweat and my mask had begun to fog up. I paused for a second to catch my breath and get my bearings. Squinting past the trickle of condensation, I rea
lised I was standing in almost exactly the same spot where Amber and I had first seen the fawn. Of course, there was no sign of it today. Still, I briefly found myself wondering what had become of it. Had it simply rejoined the herd? Or was Amber right to be worried. Was it still out there, lost and frightened? Was it even still alive? I’d never know.
I peered back down the road. Past my office. Off towards the distant alleyway where I mistakenly thought I’d seen a person crouching in the shadows. I checked the camera one last time. And then I started walking.
As I drew nearer, I saw that it wasn’t actually an alleyway at all, but rather a shallow recess between two buildings. If I remembered correctly, this was the back entrance to a mildly pretentious café that used to serve lunch to the local office workers in that area. Quinoa and crayfish frittata. Gluten-free granola bites. I used to see the chef taking deliveries round the back here sometimes. Or vaping on his break, belching great clouds of synthetic butterscotch onto the street.
Today, the whole place was overgrown with weeds, the steel shutter of the back door only just visible through an impenetrable tangle of nettles. I felt deflated. There was no space for anyone to hide there. I’d been mistaken after all.
With a heavy sigh, I decided to call it a day. Before I left, however, I decided to quickly investigate the other side of the café. Unlike most of the shops around there, the building seemed to have survived relatively unscathed, its front window still intact, having apparently been missed by the gangs of desperate looters who’d rampaged through the city following the collapse. I could make out the tables through the filthy glass, cutlery and condiments still laid out, ready for customers who will never come. Beside the till, a specials board was propped up on a small easel, though only the word vegan was still legible, the rest reduced to a vague smudge of chalk.
I kept walking, past the café, on towards the next row of offices. Call centres. Banks. Insurance companies. Everything shuttered. Crumbling. Abandoned. Instinctively, I glanced up, scanning the upper floors for signs of life. I’d read stories online about poorer families who had moved into commercial buildings during the outbreak, taking advantage of the chaos and confusion to bag a bigger place. Staring up at the blackened windows, many of them fringed with shattered glass, I struggled to believe it was true. The government keeps a necessarily tight watch on our living arrangements in order to provide basic supplies, water, medical assistance, Internet, education and everything else. To attempt to live outside of that system was unthinkable.