A Wrinkle in the Skin

by John Christopher

  Matthew said, ‘‘Its an impressive collection. Do you think you ought to have shown it to me?”

  “You don’t think it goes with our excessive caution in other things? Well, of course, you’re right. In part, I suppose it’s due to simple recognition of someone who talks the same language. But in part it’s sheer carelessness, a failure in consistency. Our own little contribution to the anthill syndrome. Still and all, I don’t see you betraying our secret to the Southampton hordes, and leading them here to plunder.” He looked at Matthew, his face, in the candlelight, amiable and weak. “You’re going to find the road ahead something of a tricky one. Are you sure we shan’t be able to persuade you to settle here?”

  The others were occupied in sorting and stacking. Matthew told Lawrence briefly about Jane.

  Lawrence said, “You know what the chances are, I imagine? Against her having survived, in the first place, and then against your finding her even if she has? But of course you do. You’re a man of intelligence.”

  “Not in this,” Matthew said. “I realize that.”

  “No, not in this. But we’re none of us entirely rational any longer, as you’ve just pointed out.” He smiled. “We’re all waiting for a miracle. Yours is just that bit more miraculous, and at least you’re going out to look for it.”

  Matthew had noticed a roll of canvas next to the wheel assembly. When the distribution had been completed, George and the red-haired Archie got hold of this and carried it upstairs into the open. The others took bundles from the clothes section—they were tied with rope, some of them wrapped in a groundsheet. They carried these out, as well.

  April said, “You and Billy help yourself to blankets. The pile on the right are the good ones—the others need washing and drying. We haven’t got any spare groundsheets, I’m afraid.” “We’ve been sleeping rough,” he said. “But the blankets will help. You sleep out, too? In the open?”

  “More or less.”

  Along with the blanket rolls, items of food specified by April were brought outside, as was a large iron pot. Then the table top was replaced, and the jumble of timbers above it. Loose bricks and plaster were scattered on top, to give the whole an undisturbed disorganized look.

  Matthew asked, “Do you have to go through this performance every day?”

  “Every day and twice a day. And any day we may come back to find that some gang, picking over the ruins, have—as a whim, perhaps—shifted that table top and found the cellar. It gives life a spice of uncertainty, don’t you think?”

  They trekked from the house through the garden. There was a shrubbery and farther on an overhanging rock face. It had been an ornamental grotto; niches held one or two figures, too badly weathered to be identified as either saints or demons. George and Archie unrolled the canvas they had brought, and Matthew saw that there were poles inside. They set these up, with the canvas stretching from them to the rock face, where they tied the ends with rope to small upright spires of concrete through which reinforcing metal showed—part of the original adornment of the grotto. When they had finished, they had an awning which covered the width of the grotto, about twenty feet, and, taking the overhang into account, gave some protection outwards for eight or nine feet. It was about the same distance from the ground.

  “There you are,” Lawrence said. “There’s no place like it. Not entirely draft-free, but except when the wind is from the south you don’t get wet.”

  “And in the winter?” Matthew asked.

  “Yes, we ought to give that some thought, oughtn’t we? We will, Matthew. Tomorrow, or next week, or next month.” Matthew shrugged. “It’s not my business, of course. But I would have thought you could be keeping your eyes open for winter quarters.” Or, at least, he thought, that April would be. Yet if she had been, surely she would have organized them into it more thoroughly. With a quirk of curiosity, he added, “How did you come to settle here, anyway? By accident?” “Accident? Of a kind, I suppose. April lived here before the Bust. Her husband and the children are buried on the other side of the house. She dug them out and buried them herself.” She was supervising Sybil and Cathie, who were lighting a fire between bricks. There was strength in the way she stood and in the womanly firmness of her body.

  Matthew said, “I’m surprised she wanted to stay here.”

  “Are you? But surely she’s allowed her little irrationality, too?”

  “Yes,” Matthew said. “I can’t argue with that.”

  For supper they had a stew, cooked in the big iron pot. Apart from the tinned meats, there were potatoes in it and other more or less fresh vegetables. It tasted good and was probably nourishing. They ate in relays since there were not enough suitable dishes. Billy was served with the first batch, but Matthew waited and had his with April and Lawrence. Afterwards, they smoked cigarettes and talked. The night air was fresh but not cold.

  Lawrence, Matthew learned, had been in practice in this district, having a house and surgery less than ten miles away. He and April had known each other in the old days, but not very well—it had been a matter of meeting occasionally at other people’s parties. Cathie was local, too, the only child of a policeman and his wife. George and Sybil were both from Ringwood, where he had been a jobbing printer’s assistant and she had worked in Woolworth’s. They were already together when they joined up with the others, but had not known each other before the Bust. Charley had lived in Cadnam and had been working in the docks at Southampton. The last acquisition had been Archie, who had wandered in on them one day, and who talked vaguely about different places and different jobs.

  Lawrence said, “I thought at first that it was the effect of the Bust. I mean, we were all a bit unhinged at the start, and I thought in his case it might have become permanent. But I’m inclined to believe now that he’s always been mentally a bit subnormal. But at least he’s easygoing, and willing.”

  “You had no other survivors round here?” Matthew asked.

  “None that both lived and stayed,” April said.

  “We got an old woman out, who died the following day,” Lawrence said, “and a man who died the next week. Nothing I could do in either case. And there were two other chaps—one we dug out and one who joined on. They cleared off with the best part of our supplies one day. Fortunately that was when we were keeping things out in the open, before April thought of using the cellar.”

  Matthew looked toward the awning where the other members of the party were sitting together. Billy was talking to Cathie. She was a lively child and he seemed to be getting on better with her than he had done with Mandy on Guernsey.

  Following his gaze, April said, “It would be a much bigger tragedy if the same thing happened now, of course. But I don’t think it will.”

  “No,” Matthew said. ‘They’re all on the timid side, aren’t they? Who would protect them if you didn’t?” He looked at her, not at Lawrence.

  She said, in a suddenly tired voice, “They’re all right.”

  Lawrence said, “We aren’t up to Indian scout standards, I’m afraid, for courage and enterprise. We couldn’t even catch the bullock.”

  “The bullock?”

  “Something else that came through. It grazes in some fields, about a mile from here. We decided that a little fresh meat would be a nice change, and theres no question of saving the species after all. So we hunted it. We hunted it several times, in fact. But it’s gone wild and wary, and when it came to the point, none of us was keen on facing it. We tried digging a hole and driving the beast into it. It charged us instead, and we scattered like chaff. Our fresh meat is still merrily on the hoof, and likely to stay that way.”

  He was not paying a great deal of attention to what Lawrence was saying, but while he was talking about the bullock charging and scattering them, Matthew’s eyes happened on his pack, lying on the ground some yards away, with the shotgun still strapped to it. It was a vagrant idea at first, but it made more sense and became more attractive as he thought about it. Fresh meat … he
and the boy could take some with them, and it offered a good way of repaying hospitality. They might not have much future, but they were nice people.

  Matthew said, “What about another hunt, in the morning?” He saw them look at him, to see if he were serious. “Do you think we can get near enough to it for a shotgun to be any good?”

  “We might,” Lawrence said. “By God, I think we could! Just imagine it, April. Steak and chips!”

  She asked Matthew, “Are you a good shot?”

  “Not good. Fair average, I would say. I’ve shot duck and snipe, never livestock.”

  “We could salt it,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of salt.”

  “We could eat it,” Lawrence said. “On and on, and wind up cracking the bones. Have you ever had marrow on toast, Matthew? Wonderful stuff, if we had any toast.”

  “Let’s kill him first,” Matthew said. It was night now, but in the distance, in the direction of the shrubbery, there was a flickering of light, a green glow. “What’s that?”

  “The light?” April asked. “Glowworms.” She was silent for a moment. “They’ve always been here at this time of year, on this sort of night.”

  They watched the lambency, concerned with their private thoughts, and then Lawrence stood up, yawning.

  “Better turn in,” he said, “if we’re to make an early start.”

  The start they made, however, was not a particularly early one. The sun was well up when Matthew woke, and looking along the line of huddled figures, he saw only one place where the blankets had been left empty. That was at the far end, where April slept with Lawrence next to her. He got up himself and went out from under the awning. The canvas was damp when he touched it, and the grass outside was heavy with dew. He walked through the garden, and heard a few birds somewhere, at their morning orisons. He had been shown the stream the evening before, the place where they drew water, and told that they washed farther down. He found it and followed it. The cheerful sound of its running was pricked through by birdsong. It was a moment out of the incredible past, an evocation of happiness.

  He caught sight of her as he came past a line of rhododendrons and automatically stepped back. She was about twenty-five yards away. There was a place where the stream broadened and deepened, and she was kneeling on the far side. She was facing him, but she gave no sign of having heard or seen his approach. She was naked to the waist, soaping the upper part of her body and her neck. Her breasts were round and full, the heavy nipples dark-aureoled. She arched herself, washing the back of her neck, and her breasts were pulled up by the movement, richer and more lovely than before.

  He felt desire, the sharper for being unfamiliar, but what he was most conscious of was the awareness of beauty. A woman’s body, kneeling by a stream in a garden, with birds calling from the distant trees … he had not imagined that there could be such a thing again. lie watched with an ache of longing that was not physical. It was not a wish to pry on her nakedness, nor the fear of her or his own embarrassment if he went forward, that kept him standing motionless. It was the scene he did not want to lose. While he watched, the past was alive, the new world nothing but a bad dream, a nightmare, from which he had awakened with a glad heart.

  She bent lower, cupping water in her hands and splashing it over herself. Then she looked up, still kneeling. He knew that she could see him, that it was over. The present was real, and this had been the dream.

  She said, “Matthew.” Her voice was low, but it carried easily across the distance between them. “I didn’t know—”

  She broke off. He saw her smile first and only then become aware of her nakedness. She was surprised, confused perhaps, but not ashamed or embarrassed. There was an acknowledgment of vulnerability, but of safety also. She picked up a towel that was lying beside her, unhurriedly, and covered herself with it. She said, “I won’t be a moment,” and he nodded and turned away.

  He turned back as he heard her walking toward him, her feet brushing through the grass. She was dressed now, in the brown jersey she had worn the day before.

  She said, smiling again, “Hello, then.”

  He said, “I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

  April shook her head. “No, really. I usually have a good half hour before any of the others turn out. They’re good sleepers, even Lawrence.”

  Her simplicity and ease met a responding serenity in his own mind; the two fed on each other and grew with the feeding. The idyll was transmuted from fantasy into human terms. It was an episode into which each had stumbled and in which each, here and now, found contentment, for whatever private reasons. It was an escape, probably, but explanation did not alter it. They looked at each other, smiling, started to speak at the same time, stopped simultaneously, and laughed.

  April said, “I was saying I ought to start seeing to the breakfast.”

  “And I’ll go and have my wash.”

  “You have soap and a towel?”

  “Yes.” He showed her the towel. “It’s a bit grubby now.”

  She took it from him. “And damp. Use mine. It’s a little cleaner and drier. I’ll scrub this for you while you’re out on your bullock hunt.”

  “Thank you.”

  Their eyes held for a little longer, calmly, without any kind of strain. It was this, the comfort and cheerfulness, of which he was most conscious. He had no feeling of regret as she walked away. He went down to the stream to wash, the towel over his shoulders. He held his head on one side and felt its softness against his face.

  After breakfast there were things to be packed up and stowed away in the cellar. Eventually the party for the hunt was ready. Apart from Matthew and Billy, it consisted of Lawrence, George and Charley. Archie was staying behind with the women.

  Lawrence said, “He gets upset easily, by loud noises or the sight of blood. Anyway, there should be enough of us.”

  Matthew’s first idea had been that Billy should stay behind as well, but he had begged to be allowed to come with them, and Matthew had relented. He was nearly eleven after all, and this was a world in which, once again, puberty would mark the beginning of manhood. Overprotection of the young was possible only in a complex society.

  The morning was bright, the sunlight warm in open spaces through which they passed. There was a lighthearted feeling among them. It was a kind of game, with excitement whetted by appetite. They came to wooded country, enclosing a series of meadows, some adjoining, others separated by stretches of copse.

  Lawrence said, “This is his territory. He ranges round a bit, but within this area.”

  As he spoke, there was the sound of a fairly heavy body moving in the undergrowth ahead and on their left. Matthew had both barrels loaded and cocked. He slipped off the safety catch, hugging the gun under his arm.

  He brought the gun up as the body crashed through into the open, fifteen or twenty yards away. It was a dog, very large and shaggy and black. A Labrador cross, Matthew thought, but it was hard to imagine the other side of its ancestry; it seemed to stand a lot higher than any Labrador he could remember. It had stopped abruptly, and held its stance, looking at them. There was an impression of recognition, or recollection.

  Lawrence called to it, “Here, boy.” He whistled. “Come here.”

  It stayed still, and its tail moved slowly. Then it turned and ran, across the field and into the wood on the other side.

  Lawrence said, “It belonged to a local farmer. I used to see it round the lanes.” He shook his head, looldng old and unhappy, the lightheartedness gone. “It seems to be managing all right.”

  They moved on. They found the bullock in the fourth field. It was grazing near a corner that was enclosed on either side by metal fencing with a wood beyond; as good a position, Matthew thought, as one could have hoped for.

  On the far edge of the field, he spoke to the others. “I’ll take the center. George and Charley on my left; you, Lawrence, and Billy on my right. We’ll walk up to him slowly, and Til keep about five yards ahead of the rest of you
. Whichever way he goes, I’ll catch him from the flank as he comes past. I’ll try to get him in the neck. If I miss, or only wound him, dodge out of the way and let him run through. Have you got that, Billy?”

  They spread out, and walked across the field. The grass was tall—the animal was not likely to go short of grazing—and colored with the yellow of buttercups, the mauve of clover. Wasn’t clover bad for cattle? Matthew thought. This one looked in good shape. It raised its head once, surveyed the approaching figures, and put it down again. Perhaps it would be easier than had seemed likely. There were clumps of cow parsley near the center of the field. He remembered seeing them as a child. They had been called Mother-Die then—take them into the house and your mother will die. Then, too, the irrational had been given full rein, but there had always been an end to the day, a going home to a house, supper, a warm bed.

  Matthew was about ten yards from the bullock when it looked up for the second time. Small eyes stared at him along the narrow powerful brown-and-white muzzle. The head gave two small nods, like an old man sourly conceding a point in debate. Then the front right hoof pawed briefly and the animal charged. It headed neither left nor right but directly for Matthew.

  He brought the gun up quickly and fired. He did not have the butt seated properly, and the recoil threw him to one side. He was dazed by this, by the explosion, and by the thudding charge of the bullock. It passed a foot or two from him with an outraged bellow of pain. As Matthew got back to his feet, he saw that the others had scattered all right, and that the bullock was rushing on across the field. He lifted his gun for the second barrel, but at first George was in the fire path, and after that the range was too great to be effective.

  Lawrence, running across, said, “You hit him, Matthew.”

  “I didn’t stop him, though.”

  “He’s losing blood. We’d better keep after him.”