Beneath The Skin Episode 28

On impulse he followed Mouse back to the house and caught up with her in the hallway. She stood in the shadow of Shackleton and turned on him, eyes spitting fire. “When did my son see your leg?” He’d been rehearsing what to say about Alys – I was fighting her off, honest – but he wasn’t expecting that.

“Um, couple of nights ago, came into my room.”

“Into your room?” Her e yebrows disappeared into her hairline. Above her the polar bear looked down his lofty nose and snarled.

“He thought he heard something. It was late, I’d been sleeping... I took him back up to bed.”

“And he saw your leg.”

“He was curious. Look, let’s stick to the problem.”

“You are the problem!”

He flinched. Her hair was wild, her face in shadow. He didn’t know this person any more. She was a cornered bear.

“We were fine until you rolled up,” she spat.

“You weren’t fine!” he shouted back. “You’re trapped here playing nurse, cleaner and God knows what else to a woman who needs some kind of diagnosis.

“You’re bringing up a child in a place where there are so many secrets he thinks he can uncover them by turning the place over like a cat burglar. All I did was switch on the light!”

He was breathing hard and so was she, like they’d been for a hard sprint together. Her eyes glittered like ice chips.

“Stay away from Alys,” she said. “Oh, I intend to. You heard what she said about my leg?”

Mouse shook her head slowly.

“I thought she was going to ask for the blown-off foot so she could stuff it and add it to her little shop of horrors.”

“Don’t.” Mouse slipped a hand across her stomach.

“Don’t? If you distrust anyone around William, it should be her, not me.” “That’s a horrible thing to say!” “Don’t tell me it’s not at the back of your mind every single day – what is she going to do next?”

The ice chips were melting. He didn’t want to see her cry.

I think. He

He took himself off up the stairs, but he could feel her gaze on his back.

Dead face

The next morning, Walt popped out for a cigarette break to find that someone had left a Tesco bag tied to the railings.

Lighting up slowly, he gazed at it for several seconds, as if expecting it to move.

Eventually, clamping the cigarette in his lips, he untied the handles. The bag was heavy, and he let it bump to the ground before peering in.

A rabbit’s dead face stared back at him. There was blood around the creature’s nose; the delicate pink insides of its ears were mashed against the skull.

He ground out the cigarette, retied the bag with shaking fingers, and carried it, at arm’s length, into the kitchen.

There seemed no other place for it than the bottom drawer of the freezer. He squashed it in, giving the door a hefty slam for good measure.

He lingered way too long in the kitchen, brewing coffee he didn’t want, anything to avoid going back to the basement.

When the doorbell rang it gave him a start. What now? Another loony with another carcase?

It was Mrs Petrauska. When he opened the door she was standing in some kind of ballet pose, bearing a dish wrapped in a checked tea towel.

Please don’t let it be rabbit stew. “Ah, Valter! I have for you balandeliai, a dish from my home in Lithuania. I make too much.”

She glided in as he was searching for a suitable reply. A quick stab of her feet on the welcome mat and she was heading straight for the kitchen.

He followed in her wake, inhaling the scent of cabbage and onions and pepper, mixed with the sickly perfume she always wore.

She placed the dish on the worktop as if she were laying a wreath, making a performance of it, backing away, poppypainted fingers extended, and then the daintiest of pirouettes and she was facing him, eyes black as raisins.

“So tell me – how is she, Alys?” “Um... fine, I think.”

“You know, Valter...” She came up close to him, placed a be-ringed hand upon his arm.

The scent of roses wafted up from her bodice and he held his breath.

“This is not the first time she go like zis. Oh no.”

She moved back, wagging her finger. “At Christmas, I found her drunk in ze back garden with a man.

“They were outside my kitchen window, making noise, and when I say to her move on, she fly at me with a hammer! A hammer!

“I was going to call ze police, but Maura was so upset I could not.”

“Well, everyone can get drunk, Mrs P.” He wondered how long this was going to take. Though finding out about the hammer was a new twist.

“And the cats!”

“The what?”

“Cats! Breeding all over ze place. Apart from ze old white one, she past it.

“But all the other cats, they always hanging around the bins, having kittens in my shed...”

“Kittens?”

“Breeding everywhere! I say to her you need to get zem snipped.”

“What happens to the kittens?” “Who knows?” She made an extravagant gesture.

“Maybe the rats eat them! Zis is where I go now, to scrub ze bins.

“I came out yesterday and here is a rat, a dead one, lying on my bin and out comes ze Lady Alys and scoops ‘ im up.

“I say: ‘ What you do wiz ‘ im? You crazy.’ And she jest smile and say: ‘I put ‘im in an Elvis suit.’ An Elvis suit!”

“Jesus Christ. She’s going to stuff it.” He ruffled his hair in agitation. The woman raised beetle-brows at his outburst.

“I told you.” Mrs Petrauska did the circling crazy sign again with her fingertip.

“Anyway, you enjoy my balandeliai. It is cabbage rolls, wiz pork. The name means ‘ little doves.’ Enjoy!”

Little doves? They’d come to the wrong house. He suddenly didn’t feel hungry.

He was breathing hard and so was she, like they’d been for a hard sprint together. Her eyes glittered like ice chips

More on Monday.

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