A Wrinkle in the Skin

by John Christopher

  Ashton took Matthew on one side before they set out. His face, naturally weak and flabby, looked a good deal worse with the addition of a two-day beard, though Matthew did not suppose that he himself looked much better, if at all. Ashton said, “Would you have a look for a pair for me, Matthew? Ten and a half, if you can manage it. Broad fitting.”

  His querulousness, and the way he added the last two words, tempted Matthew to ask him, “Brogue or suede?” He said, “I’ll see what I can do. It’s not the easiest size, though.” “I’ve always had difficult feet,” Ashton said gloomily, “even as a boy.”

  The great tide had plunged through the Charroterie, and sucked back out again. They crossed a drying riverbed, littered with the by now familiar semirings, and with the bodies of people and domestic animals, swelling and putrefying in the sun. It was a relief to climb the hill on the other side, and to be surrounded by the more normal forms of destruction. The going was not easy. Litter from the houses formed a land of scree which gave way beneath their feet. They made their way up slowly, sweating and cursing and from time to time slipping back. At last they came to more open ground and were able to make better progress. The sun was very hot again, and the stink of death seemed stronger here.

  There was quite a severe shock, lasting about ten seconds, and to their horror a stretch of rubble immediately in front of them collapsed in on itself, leaving a gaping depression from which dust drifted up like smoke. After the tremor had died away, they stayed where they were, unwilling to risk advancing from the relatively safe ground on which they stood. Matthew was not sure whether the fear was in himself or whether it was communicated from the others, but he felt a reluctance to move which was, for a time, almost a paralysis. His muscles ached with the strain of his immobility.

  Eventually Miller said, “Seems all right now. We can get moving again.”

  Harry and De Porthos objected. De Porthos said, “The only way I want to move is back. We’ve done enough looking. There’s no one alive up here. The place looks as though it’s been through a mincer. Were wasting our time.”

  “Come on!” Miller said. “Move when I tell you.”

  They were still reluctant.

  He said, appealing, to Matthew, “We can turn back at the top of the Grange. There’s a repository down the Rohais which we ought to have a look at—should have plenty of tinned food in it. And we can head back through the Foulon.”

  Matthew nodded. “That’s sensible. It’s hardly any farther, is it?” He began walking forward, and the others followed.

  Miller came up beside him. He said, “How dangerous is it, do you think?”

  “Because of that last quake? It looked worse than it was.”

  “I was thinking of the bodies.” He sniffed the air. “They’re bloody ripe now, aren’t they? What about disease?”

  “I suppose it’s a risk. But we’re more likely to get things like typhoid from our drinking water than from this sort of jaunt, I should think. It ought to be boiled.”

  Miller said, “I’ll get the women on that. All the same, I don’t sec we’re doing a lot of good. Not much hope of finding anyone alive.”

  The part they were traversing did give the impression of having been even more severely mangled than the others they had seen; in the immediate vicinity Matthew could not see one brick still standing on another. In the distance a dog stood and silently watched them for a few moments before loping away. It looked like an Alsatian cross.

  Matthew said, “The dogs will need thinking about, won’t they? If we don’t do something, they’re likely to go wild, and if they do they might be dangerous.”

  “I hate bloody dogs,” Miller said. “Always have done. If I had a gun, I’d settle the buggers.”

  “You can borrow mine.”

  “With one cartridge? We’ll hang on to that. In case there’s a mutiny.”

  They failed to find the repository Miller had mentioned. There were no landmarks left, no signs of anything but splintered ruin. From time to time they called out, as they had been doing all along, but the calls were increasingly perfunctory as they became discouraged.

  They were on the point of turning away toward St. Andrew’s, when De Porthos said, ‘What was that?”

  “What?” Miller asked.

  “Thought I heard something. Listen.”

  They listened, and heard it. It was feeble and muffled but unmistakably human. Miller called again, bellowing, “Who’s there?” and the response was immediate. A girl’s voice. At a signal from Miller they fanned out and started covering the ground in the direction from which it had come. Matthew found himself at the right-hand end of the line. He advanced cautiously, feeling his way. It would not do the person trapped any good to walk over her.

  Miller found the point at which to begin digging, and they got to work. It was not easy; the wreckage here was matted, impacted on itself. Matthew did not see how the girl or woman could have survived. The answer lay in a stoutly built cellar, with a particularly strong wooden floor protecting it. It had buckled in one place, but it had held. The stairs leading down to it were, of course, choked with rubbish, and that took further clearing. The sun was quite low by the time they got through it. Miller did the final burrowing, breaking a hole through. It was only then, in the confused outcry of relief and gratitude, that Matthew understood what had been troubling him about the voice from inside all along. It was not just one voice. There were two girls down there.

  They staggered out with Millers help, blinking and shading their eyes against the sun. They were dirty and disheveled and looked exhausted, but otherwise seemed to be all right. Miller gave the first girl water from the plastic bottle Harry had been carrying, and had to take it from her to prevent her drinking it all. She watched, gasping, as the other girl gulped down the rest.

  The first girl was called Irene, the second Hilda. They had a flat, ground floor and basement, and had been sleeping in the basement when the shock came. It was an odd and unhealthy design for living, but it had saved their lives. The ceiling of the basement had collapsed on them, but that was only plaster, and one wall had collapsed. Hilda was clutching a broken pair of spectacles and crying continuously. Both girls were in their middle twenties. Irene, Matthew saw, would be attractive once she had a chance to clean and tidy herself.

  He thought of Jane, bedraggled like these, being rescued perhaps from similar imprisonment, and felt a wave of sickness and miseiy. For a moment he hated them for being alive.

  They found things chaotic at the camp. As a result of the fairly heavy shock, Mother Lutron had retreated again into delusions and babbling; she was staring at the sky and seeing, she proclaimed in a loud flat monotone, angels marching with spears of fire and shields brighter than diamonds. Andy was complaining that he had been thrown—that his splints had shifted and his leg was hurting badly. Billy had got the fire going, but nothing had been done about supper.

  Miller said to Ashton, “Why the hell haven’t things been got ready?”

  “I’ve been making that run for the hens. You told me to do that.”

  Miller looked angrily at the ramshackle arrangement of wire and bits of wood. He kicked the nearest post and it fell over. “And a bloody fine job you’ve done on it, too. Anyway, where’s Shirley?”

  “In the tent.”

  Miller yelled for her, and she came out. She had been crying and looked even less attractive than usual. Miller said, “What about supper?”

  She pointed at Mother Lutron. “She wouldn’t help. And I was frightened by the quake.”

  Miller hit her with the back of his hand, and she cried out and started sobbing again. It had not been a hard blow but delivered, Matthew thought, with a more conscious arrogance. It was meant to impress the two newcomers, who watched in silence.

  “Now,” Miller said, “get on with it.” He turned on Ashton. “And you can help her, you useless old bugger. We’ll fix up this chicken run you were supposed to have done.”

  While the men
were working on the run and Shirley and Ashton were preparing supper, Irene and Hilda went down with Mandy to the douit. They came back tidier and considerably cleaner. Irene was a very good-looking girl, with thick dark hair that was pretty now the dust had been brushed or combed out of it, large brown eyes, and regular open features. In a normal world she would have been a girl most men would have given a second glance, and her effect on them here, even on Harry and old Ashton, was unmistakable. Hilda, although nothing like as attractive—she had slightly protruding teeth and the blind stare of the myopic deprived of spectacles—was also wholesome and seemed pleasant. Shirley was a very ordinary little slut against either of them, and from her depressed look and sniffling whimpers appeared to be aware of it.

  De Porthos, in particular, was very attentive to both girls during supper. Miller, on the other hand, after an initial show of interest, was abstracted. He gave the impression of being engaged in working out a problem. Matthew guessed what the problem was and wondered how he would go about solving it—or rather, how he would go about presenting his solution to the rest.

  At the end of the meal, Miller stood up abruptly. He said to Irene, in a clipped voice, “I’d like to have a chat with you.” She looked up from the grass and nodded. ‘We’ll have a little walk.”

  She stared at him without answering, and did not get up.

  With a gesture compounded of impatience and anger, he turned to Matthew. “You come along, too, Matty.”

  Matthew was amused by his apparent role of chaperon, but the girl seemed satisfied. They walked along the cliff top in the direction of Jerbourg. It was a blue glimmering evening, and there was a hum of midges in the air; the catastrophe, plainly, had not harmed them. Miller did not say anything, but there was a brooding quality to his silence which communicated itself to the girl—she started talking, rapidly and nervously, about the earthquake, and being trapped: the compulsive retelling of disaster which had affected almost all the survivors.

  She broke off abruptly when Miller said, “It’s all new. You realize that? Laws, and everything else—all gone. So there’s got to be someone who decides what’s going to happen.”

  She said, with a touch of defiance, “Oughtn’t we to decide things among ourselves—I mean, all of us decide?”

  “Listen,” Miller said, “you’re an intelligent girl. You know better than that. If it hadn’t been for Matty and me organizing things, you’d still be down in that cellar. You don’t think the rest of them would have bothered, do you?”

  He was nervous, more nervous than Matthew had seen him before. The girl was much more self-possessed. Whatever the immediate outcome, Matthew had an idea she was going to be an important figure in the group.

  She said, with a touch of coldness, “We’re very grateful for being rescued. I wouldn’t like you to think anything else.” Miller said, “It’s just that things have got to be done quickly now. And we can’t have—well, loose ends. There’s got to be someone in charge, and it happens to be me. The others have got to do as I say because it’s the only way things will work.” Irene said, “I’m sure Hilda and I won’t cause you any difficulties.”

  “Hilda won’t, but you might.” She looked at him inquiringly. “You’re a girl.” He looked away in embarrassment. “A very pretty girl, too. You’re likely to have trouble with De Porthos, and maybe Harry—and Andy as soon as his leg’s better.”

  “I can handle any trouble there is.”

  “No, you can’t,” Miller said flatly. “You don’t realize yet, the way it’s all changed. And I can’t risk there being trouble in the camp. So I’m telling them, when we go back, that you’re my girl.” ‘

  She gave him a cool look. She was someone who would be unlikely to make a wrong step out of rashness. She said, “Hilda and I are going to fix up a tent to share.”

  Miller said quickly, eager for the compromise, “We’ll fix up living quarters for you. I know the sort of girl you are. I’m not rushing anything. But you’ve got to be under my protection— the rest of them have got to understand that.”

  “And Hilda?”

  “She can do as she likes. As you like.”

  There was a pause before she said, “What about Shirley? I got the idea she was under your protection, too.”

  “She’s a slut. You can forget about her.”

  Irene stopped. She said, ‘Tm very tired. I’d like to go back now.”

  It was a tacit and provisional acquiescence, which intrinsically left her free, even dominant. She was a strong-minded person. Were they heading, Matthew wondered, for a matriarchy? It could depend on this moment.

  Miller talked forcefully, laughing a lot, on the way back. He was plainly relieved to have come through a delicate situation. His own role, Matthew saw, had not been merely that of chaperon, but also of validating authority. He hoped Miller was not coming to depend on him too much.

  Halfway back to camp, he said, “Listen.”

  They all stood still, and Miller broke off what he was saying. It came out of the deepening blue, and Matthew wondered how such a sound could ever have been taken for granted, scarcely listened to. So one, at least, had survived. The bird sang a few more notes, and then was quiet.

  6

  FIVE DAYS after the first shock, the good weather broke. Clouds gathered during the morning, and rain poured down torrentially in the afternoon and evening. They had a damp night of it—the tents leaked and in due course became almost useless as protection against the elements. In the early hours the wind began to rise, and dawn broke over a wet and windy and generally wretched scene.

  By ten o’clock they had abandoned their attempts to do anything with the tents and retreated from the campsite to a less exposed spot. This was found a quarter of a mile away, in the shape of an escarpment covered with the stubs of uprooted trees, whose position offered some defense against the wind and a little against the rain. Matthew made the tentative suggestion of taking to the caves at the foot of the cliffs, but this was not received well. It would be a difficult climb down, especially with Andy’s broken leg, and an even more difficult climb back—one could not set up a permanent camp in so inaccessible a place, so why bother?—and it would be dark there, and the smell of rotting weed … The real objection, Matthew thought, was not stated: their intense fear of being surrounded and covered by anything more substantial than a tent. He felt it himself, a chill paralyzing anxiety at the idea.

  So they huddled miserably together for the rest of that day and the following night. Efforts to build a fire failed, and they were made more depressed by having to eat food cold out of the tins. Mother Lutron relapsed into mania and from time to time went stalking off, shouting prayers and curses to the tattered streaming sky; but she did not go far and came back soon. First Shirley and then Hilda had crying fits, which died away into sniffling sobs only to break out with greater violence. Little Mandy cried, too, but more quietly. Billy did not, but Matthew saw his lip trembling now and then. He tried to keep the children cheerful by talking to them and getting them to play games like “I Spy,” but, Jane apart, he had never been particularly good with the young. It was a woman’s job, really, but three of them were plainly worse than the children, while Irene had withdrawn into a prickly, noncommunicative moroseness on which Miller danced an unavailing attendance. They slept fitfully through the long hours of darkness, and woke to a day as cold and blustery as the previous one. It was not actually raining, but obviously would rain again soon.

  Mullivant joined them in the late afternoon of that day. He had been seen, after his rescue, when one of the last search parties passed close to the ruins of the house; he was standing near three newly dug graves. Miller had called to him not to be a fool, to come with them, and he had shaken his head in silence and looked away. Now he came to them, gaunt and soaking, and although he hardly spoke at all he accepted food from them, and as evening turned into a third squally night, he lay down shivering with the others.

  In the morning they were all
cramped and cold and unhappy, and Harry and Mandy appeared to be running temperatures, but the wind had slackened and the clouds showed signs of breaking. They managed to get a fire going, and cooked tinned sausages and heated up beans with them. The invalids were dosed with codeine, and the rest set to work to reorganize things. They worked better—more purposefully and more willingly—than they had done in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. It was as though the rain and privation had washed away some of the marks left by the shock. They accepted Miller’s orders more readily, too, Matthew noticed. They had come together for mutual help and comfort, but it had been in a spirit of desperation. Now there was something else: the beginning of hope, perhaps.

  When they resumed foraging again, they found the repository Miller had spoken of. They made panniers for the donkey, and she and the men carried load after load of tinned foods back to the camp. A lot had been damaged in the collapse of the building, but what remained would see them comfortably through the winter and well into the following year. They also found, on the same site, several tarpaulins in good condition, measuring twelve feet by eight. With these they made two large community tents, one for dining and one for general purposes. They were constructed and erected with more care than the earlier tents had been, and on the new site which afforded some protection from the northeasterly winds. It was tempting, Matthew thought, to imagine that history was beginning here, that the years ahead might bring to this spot a council hall, a palace, perhaps a temple to strange gods, but he did not think it likely. Even though it was no longer an island, he doubted that the trails of the world s commerce would lead here. And even on a local scale, when it came to building towns they would look for a more sheltered and more convenient place than this.

  The small tents went up alongside the bigger ones, and patterns of relationship were established, or re-established. Part of the acceptance of Millers position as leader lay in the acceptance of Irene as being outside the reach of the other men. She did not allow Miller any familiarities, and slept in a tent with Hilda, but she took the general deference for granted. Hilda was courted by De Porthos and Harry and Andy—most assiduously by the first but with more probability of success, Matthew thought, by the last. He was still crippled by his leg, and she spent a lot of time looking after him. There was also the fact that both De Porthos and Harry had resorted to Shirley for sexual release. The former had made no secret of this. Harry had been more furtive, but everyone knew about it. They did not go to her tent, which she shared with Mother Lutron and Mandy, but took her out along the cliffs. She seemed contented enough, in her sluttish way.