Beneath The Skin Episode 13

Walt leaned forward. The music came on, loud and important – cut to a female presenter in a yellow blazer.“Good afternoon. In today’s news: Northumbria Police have asked for help in tracing...”

Suddenly, he was grappling with the remote control, pressing buttons wildly, willing the newsreader to disappear. Words punctuated his panic: Missing, Extremely concerned, Any information, call this . . .

William returned at the very moment the channel changed. Walt flung away the remote, his heart banging in his chest.

“Hey!” William placed two shoeboxes carefully on the easy chair. “David Dickinson is coming on!”

“But this is The Simpsons. Who like The Simpsons?”

“Me.”

“Look, kid, show me stick Dick on again.”

“It’s David.” William had dropped grumpily to the floor and prised open the first box.

Moodie’s

your wares doesn’t and

I’ll

Moodie’s workshop was like a Tardis that had landed on the banks of the Water of Leith. As soon as Walt entered, the pithy stink of sawdust transported him back to his father’s shed; his dad, methodical, silent, sanding something on the workbench. Pain twisted in his gut like a living thing.

Moodie appeared from somewhere out the back. An art student by the look of him, got up in army fatigues although the worst action he’d ever faced was probably Edinburgh on a Saturday night. His pallor spoke of a heavy night on the ale, and Walt felt an unexpected flare of resentment.

He missed that, the easy fug of his local, mates around him. Moodie’s dreadlocks were bundled into an oversized knitted beanie, powdered with sawdust like an 18th Century wig. He wore those weird chunky spikes through his earlobes and his nose was pierced about five times. Walt found himself staring at the nose, and at the spider tattooed on the back of his hand.

“Alys sent me,” Walt muttered. It was like a bad spy movie. That first emotive sawdust rush had evaporated and the shop appeared squalid, with a sleeping bag in the corner and empty pizza boxes carpeting the concrete floor. A couple of twisted sculptures sat around, but not much other evidence of work. His dad’s shed had been piled high with lovingly turned cherrywood bowls and trinket boxes; more than he could ever give away as birthday presents.

“So you’re the assistant?” The guy’s accent was London; chirpy. He even had a chirpy grin, which made Walt want to punch him. His temper was rising, he could feel the heat of it tightening on the back of his neck, tensing his fists. “Alys sent me to collect... whatever.” The carpenter wiped his hands on his combat pants and set about rifling through the junk piled high on an old chest of drawers. “Ah, Alys”, he said. “Quite a character, ain’t she?”

“Aye.” Moodie glanced at him. “whatever” had wiped away the grin.

“But she’s a powerful artist, man. Powerful.” A pile of magazines waterfalled to the floor and he kicked them away with a well aimed boot. Ex-army boots. Walt’s gaze stabbed into his back, but the youth continued to chatter, regardless.

“She could give Damien Hirst a run for his money. I keep telling her – you need to go large. Forget the kittens, go for a giraffe. A giraffe embryo in a glass tank. Where did I put the thing?”

Army boots? You’ve got to be kidding, Walt thought, gazing down at his own feather-light trainers. Comfortable and practical, the physio had said. And this goon was wearing army boots.

“If that’s what you call art.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue and the carpenter turned round as if they’d scalded him.

“What, mate?”

“Modern art is all new clothes for me.”

Moodie’s lip curled. He looked vaguely ridiculous, standing there with a box of pop tarts in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the o t h e r. “It ’s all about interpretation, mate.”

“So how do you interpret a bed, or a tent, or a cow pickled in aspic?”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t aspic – and anyway, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not good.” “Hiding in plain sight.”

“What? What do you mean by that?” Moodie slapped the things he was holding a bit too

The

Emperor’s back onto the chest of drawers. The tape rolled off to join the magazines. Walt wanted to get out. The sawdust smell had lodged in his throat like smoke and he hadn’t realised how cramped it was in here, how dark, but he couldn’t stop the words spilling out, loaded words.

“It’s what they say about people who are up to no good and joking around,” said Walt.

“Who says?”

“Anybody. The papers. They said it about those celebrities who were abusing kids.” “What are you saying about Alys?” Walt had lit a fuse now, and he waited, watching it ignite, not quite sure how he’d got there, how he’d come in off the street and picked a fight with a guy he didn’t know from Adam.

“I’m just saying Alys has the label of being an artist, which means she can get away with murder.”

Moodie started flinging things about with more purpose, anger in every line of his spare frame. “You’re out of order, pal. Where did she pick you up anyway? There’s plenty youngsters wanting jobs.”

He opened the d r awe r, grabbed something and brandished it in Walt’s direction, like a weapon. “I hope she knows what she’s taken on.”

And when Walt realised what was, he whispered, “So do I.”

He had to get out of the sawdust Tardis and away from this man who was looking at him as if he’d kicked a kitten. Alys was the one who did things to kittens. Moodie wasn’t best pleased but he stuffed the thing into a Tesco bag and Walt stumbled off, following the river back to the bridge and trudging on, bending himself around afternoon shoppers.

The day had turned dismal, threatening rain, and the old ladies had their brollies to hand, just in case. He was aware that he was walking in the opposite direction to Alys’s doll’s house. She’d be waiting for Moodie’s masterpiece, but he needed to find some space, some lightness, away from elbows and voices and accusing stares.

More tomorrow. the object

If that’s what you call art.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue and the carpenter turned round as if they’d scalded him

Beneath The Skin, by Sandra Ireland, is published by Polygon, £8.99. Her latest book, Sight Unseen, is out now.