Beneath The Skin Episode 23

Walt dried his hands slowly on a towel. He had the picture in his head: Alys giving him the come-on, touching her mouth to his. Maybe he’d been on his own too long. Mouse was eyeing him as if she’d just found a stash of porn under his bed.

Turning away, she started rummaging through the cupboard under the sink, pulling out cloths and rubber gloves and bleach. He felt dismissed but something made him linger, a strong sense of injustice.

He’d drifted in here for his own reasons. The job had suited him, and the room. He could go to ground for a while, living with these two strange, distant sisters, each with their own stuff going on and not much caring what he did or didn’t do. Not asking about his past.

But he was getting fed up with the way they only gave away so much, though the irony was not lost on him. He was living with them – surely he was entitled to more than a few crumbs of information?

Mouse flushed hot water into a basin. Steam surrounded her like mist as she snapped on yellow Marigolds. He wasn’t going to let her blot away what had just happened like an inconvenient stain.

“So what’s Alys’s problem then? Bipolar? Autism? What?”

Mouse hefted the basin from the sink and made for the freezer, slopping water in her hurry to avoid the question. He followed her.

“If I’m working with her I need to know.” “I don’t know what it is.” She kneeled down and opened up the freezer drawers, releasing a faint whiff of death. “She’s always been like that. I suppose she’s on the spectrum, somewhere.

“When she was little she was just a handful, like most kids. She was wilful, disruptive.”

She sat back on her heels, pushing aside her hair with one clumsy yellow rubber hand. “She was always in trouble at school, for breaking things and fighting.”

Walt came to stand right behind her. “Maybe it’s that attention deficit thing.”

“Don’t know. Mum might have had her assessed, but Dad was a bit old-school. He didn’t want people coming around prying, so it just got left, like a lot of other things.”

He couldn’t see her face but the bitterness was unmistakable.

“So is that why you stick around? To look after her?”

“Can you imagine how she’d cope on her own?” He could hear the threat of tears in her voice. The sound hurt him, and he reached round and pulled her up by the elbows and folded her into his arms.

She stood there, not moving, like William had done, trying not to touch him with the wet rubber gloves.

He moved back to look into her face, but she wouldn’t catch his eye. She looked miserable, wet cheeks, red nose.

“You know what? I’m going to do what all good Brits do in a crisis.”

He moved her firmly to the table and made her sit down. She pulled off the gloves with an air of defeat. Walt went over to the worktop and switched on the kettle.

“I’ve made tea all over the globe and I have a theory.” He’d got her interest, albeit reluctantly. “All families have a tea triangle.”

“A tea triangle?” She looked at him like he was trying to sell her snake oil.

He demonstrated obligingly. “Look, kettle here. Along the worktop, mug rack. And above the kettle...” He flung open a cupboard. “Teabags. I rest my case.”

“It’s an isosceles.” She perked up a bit, resting her chin in her hands.

“Correct. Now my mother favours the obtuse triangle. Kettle here, teabags here, near the sink, and mugs overhead in this cupboard.” He flipped open a different door.

Mouse shook her head. “Yeah, but what about the sugar? And the milk?”

“Ee, now you’ re just making it complicated, like.”

She flashed her wide grin. “All this proves is that you’ve spent far too much time drinking tea.”

“True. Unless...” He opened the fridge with a flourish. “There is alcohol to hand. I see wine. Fancy a glass?”

She sat up straight, batted the idea away with a hand.

“No way. I’ve a kid upstairs and a sister who... No, I can’t. Just make tea.”

“So you have a packed Saturday night, do you?”

“No, not exactly.”

“You’ll be sitting watching The X Factor like everybody else. Have one glass.”

She sighed. “Just one. A small one.”

“I’ll stick on this pizza, to soak it up.” He laughed at her scowl. He didn’t know why he was suddenly in a good mood, not with the way the last couple of hours had gone.

He ripped open the pizza box and switched on the oven. The wine was a dry white, nice and chilled. He found two glasses and poured. The anticipation warmed him.

“So Alys was the wild one... when you were bairns?”

Mouse smiled. “We were both wild. We lived in a castle, back then, so we had plenty room to be wild.”

“A castle? I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. It was a dump. Crumbling about our ears. Mum hated it but it had been in Dad’s family for ages and I don’t think he saw what she saw – the damp and the mice and the endless cleaning. We didn’t see it either, as wee ones. We just enjoyed the space.”

“So tell me about it. I’ve never met anyone who lived in a castle before.”

He sat down and took a sip of his wine. She coloured a little, flattered by the attention.

“Oh God. There were draughts and leaks and it was dark everywhere, and most times when you put the light on, the bulbs would blow. Dad said it was the damp and the old wiring. Alys said it was the ghosts sucking up all the energy. She has a great imagination.

“I suppose my favourite place was down by the old cow byre that Dad used as a garage. I used to hide there, in amongst the weeds. I can still smell the crushed nettles and dock leaves... I loved the foxgloves.

“You could make the little purple bells pop if you squeezed them the right way, or you could wear them on your fingers like fairy thimbles.”

She looked suddenly very young. “I remember my mother pegging sheets out on the rope. She’d prop it up with a forked pole, and the laundry used to dance in the wind.”

More tomorrow.

The sound hurt him, and he reached round and pulled her up by the elbows and folded her into his arms

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