A Wrinkle in the Skin

by John Christopher

  He said, with difficulty, “Its O.K. He didn’t really hurt me.” He made an effort to smile. “It helped, your being sick. We’d better think about moving, too.”

  The group had left the two bags, the blanket, and the extra clothes, the knife and the enamel mug. There was also the butane lighter, in Matthew’s pocket. He put everything inside the big haversack and carried that by the straps. It was as easy as putting it on his back, and it enabled him to carry the boy pick-a-back when he was tired sometimes. Matthew was determined to get to the hermit’s hut that day. Once there, knowing Billy was in good hands, he could press on and find the others. Lawrence would come back with him and treat the boy. In a couple of days he would be well again. It was a pity about the gun, but it did not matter essentially. It could only have had a limited usefulness. They could make those steel rods into bows, as he had suggested, and cut arrows to go with them. Brute strength might be the temporary answer to chaos, but intelligence and ingenuity were bound to come out on top in the long run.

  This optimism and confidence helped him to keep going, and to make the effort to keep Billy’s spirits up as well. They would go with Lawrence and the others up into the hills, where there were fewer people and probably more animals, and find a place where they could live undisturbed and in peace. He explained about the bows and arrows. They could use them to defend themselves if anyone did attack them, and to kill game. There were bound to be some pigs that had survived, because the short-legged animals were much less likely to be crippled by shocks, and in the wild state they would multiply very fast, having no natural enemies. Except man, of course.

  Billy listened, not saying much but seeming to like hearing him talk. Matthew had a moments uncertainty when he was reminded of the similarity between what he was saying now and what he had been saying on the outward journey, about Jane, and the house in the woods, and being safe. But there was a big difference, he reassured himself. The other had been fantasy, based on nothing but his own refusal to accept the virtual certainty of Jane’s death. What he was talking about now was a practical proposition involving real people, not phantoms. There might be obstacles, but the idea was sound.

  He had thought, during the early part of the morning, that the sun might be coming through; the clouds were low and patchy. But they thickened instead of clearing, and a breeze freshened from the southwest. There was a hint of rain in the air. At midday he stopped and got a fire going. The yobbos had left them the potatoes, either because they thought they might have picked up germs from the bag or because they were not worth taking. There were plenty of potato fields about, presumably, and the women could always be put to digging. Matthew baked some of the smaller ones. He could not spare the time to cook them properly, and the insides were hard. But Billy, in any case, would not eat anything. Matthew swallowed some to stay his hunger and keep up his strength, and they started off again. He needed all the strength he had; in less than half an hour Billy was faltering, and he had to carry him.

  But unless something unexpected happened, they would reach the hut by nightfall. Matthew recognized landmarks—a coil of rusting wire, an oil drum half buried in sand, finally a two-pronged rock a hundred yards off shore. That had been no more than an hours trek from the hermit. The sun would be down, he thought—there was a glow behind the western clouds—but the light would last for a while. Billy, who had been walking, was beginning to lag again, and now stumbled.

  Matthew bent his shoulders beside a shelf of rock. “Come on,” he said. “Up we come. Were on the last lap.”

  The final stretch, across the rubble, was difficult, because it was now almost dark and the going was treacherous. Matthew thought he was lost, and was thinking of calling to the hermit, when he saw through the gloom what looked like level ground. He went toward it and saw it was, in fact, the courtyard the hermit had built, surrounding the hut. Then the hut would be … He saw it, and stopped. The sight of the bright sea barring his way had been sudden, too, but the shock it carried had been the realization of his own delusion. There had been an awakening too, and the beginning of a different and better kind of hope.

  This was an altogether savager blow. The hut had been fired; blackened timbers gaped roofless to the sky.

  17

  IT HAD NOT happened that day; the charred wood was quite cold to the touch. There were signs of wanton damage inside, apart from the burning. The altar had been smashed first, he thought; the lantern lay shattered on the floor. The cowl had been battered in and the basket of the stove tipped over; presumably that had started the fire. But the fire had not entirely gutted the place. The wall with the window and the end wall behind the altar were still standing and supporting a section of roof. The fire had burned out before consuming the lot, perhaps helped by a shower of rain.

  Matthew looked for the hermits body. There was no sign of it in the wreck of the hut or in the courtyard. Had he done this himself, he wondered, in a fit of religious mania, before setting off on some pilgrimage, God knew where? But he had smashed the altar. Then in revulsion against his God, an acknowledgment of despair and defeat? It was possible, he thought, but not likely. The damage had the look of ordinary human vileness, not of perverted inspiration.

  The bed was still there, against the relatively undamaged wall. It had been scorched by the heat, which had also blown out the plastic covering of the window frame, but it was in quite good shape. Matthew stripped the blankets back, and found them all right apart from the smell of singed wool. Billy was beside him, quiet and fearful.

  Matthew said, “We can get you to bed, anyway. I’ll help you get undressed/’

  Billy said, “Was it those who took the gun?”

  “It might have been. I don’t know. They’re not here now, that’s certain. And tomorrow we will go and find Lawrence. What you need is sleep.”

  He knelt beside the boy and removed his shoes. The soles were badly worn, in one place to paper-thinness. That was something else that would need seeing to, once they were back at the grotto.

  He eased Billy between the blankets and tucked them in round him. “How’s that?”

  “Like the bunk on the ship… . Where will you sleep, Mr. Cotter?”

  “I’ll find a place.”

  He was very tired, but he needed to get a fire going. Nothing edible had been left; the big black pot that the hermit had cooked the stew in was lying upside down in the courtyard. All he had was the potatoes he had brought as a gift. It was a question of making a fire or eating them raw. It helped that the tools had not been taken; part of the handle of the saw was burned, but it was usable. Matthew ripped down some of the charred planks and awkwardly sawed them into manageable lengths.

  Afterwards, he cut slivers of wood with his knife. It was even more laborious than the sawing, but in the end he had a little pile of chips. He propped pieces of wood across the pile and, after a couple of abortive attempts, set fire to it with the lighter. The flames rose, died down, and then, when he was beginning to despair, caught the bigger pieces. When we have a settled place, he thought, we’ll keep a fire going all the time, winter and summer. There were few sights more lovely, more comforting.

  He sat watching the fire and warming himself until his head nodded and he had to check himself from falling toward the flames. The heat scorched his forehead and roused him. He took the twisted metal that had been the cowl and bent it round still farther to form a distorted kind of Dutch oven. He put the potatoes inside, pushed it, open side out, against the fire, and built the fire up round it. Then he found some of the remaining planks and laid them side by side for a bed for himself. It would not be soft, but was preferable to lying on stone and bricks.

  Matthew pulled the potatoes out when they were cooked, and replaced them with others. Billy was sleeping exhaustedly, and it did not seem worth waking him. He ate several potatoes and put the others by. Those in the Dutch oven he prodded with his knife; they were not quite ready. Another ten minutes, perhaps. He lay down on his planks and sta
red at the blaze. The only sounds were the crackle of wood and Billy’s quiet breathing. In the fiery darkness and loneliness, he spoke to April.

  —You were right; but it was stupidity and ignorance, and one can change that. I am changed already and, learning from you, can change more. You understand a finer language, but if I listen to you long enough, perhaps I will know it, too. And until then I can make signs to you, loving signs.

  The rain in his face wakened him. It was coming down hard, hissing in the almost dead embers of the fire. The night was very black. He groped his way to Billy’s bed. Part of it was dry, protected by what remained of the roof, but rain was pelting against the bottom half. He found both their mackintoshes and tucked them round the blankets as protection. Beside the head of the bed there was a place where one could sit and stay reasonably dry. Matthew huddled there, waiting for the night to pass. After a time, Billy began crying out in delirium. Matthew talked to him, but the boy scarcely seemed aware of him. He was talking about Captain—a pet dog, Matthew thought. Captain was lost, and he could not find him. Matthew told him Captain would come back, but he took no notice.

  At last the rain slackened. Soon after that, the sky began to lighten with the approach of dawn.

  Both the potatoes he had put by and those he had left in the Dutch oven were wet and sodden, the latter having been burned to a crisp first. Even if he could spare the time, there was no hope of relighting the fire with wet wood. Billy was sleeping again, and Matthew went out to reconnoiter. The hermit had said that the source of his food supplies was not far away, so there might be a chance of finding it.

  He found it quite easily: The hermits body was a marker. He saw that first, but on coming closer realized there were two bodies. They lay together, the hermits fingers clenched round the other s throat, his body showing various wounds, including what looked like an ax blow against the side of his skull. The general picture was clear, but there was no way of reconstructing the details. Perhaps they had found him in the hut and forced him to lead them to his cache; or perhaps they had stumbled on him here and fired the hut afterwards. What was certain was that he had turned to violence in the end, and strangled one of them while the others cut him down. He had been an immensely strong man.

  The yobbos had taken what they could carry of the easily available stuff. Matthew did not have to dig far to find more. He took four tins of corned beef—more than enough for the day, and with Billy as weak as he was, it was essential to travel light.

  He looked at the bodies again. There was very little smell from them; it could not have happened more than a couple of days before. He saw something rucked under the body of the man who had been strangled, and recognized it: the altar cloth from the hut. That was probably what had cost him his life, a penalty for sacrilege.

  Matthew tugged at the cloth, and it came free. He looked at it for a moment. There were three scenes, all of martyrs. Stephen under his shower of stones, Catharine on her wheel; in the center, Sebastian with his arrows. Matthew draped the cloth over the hermits head and walked away.

  Billy was awake, but delirious again. His skin seemed to be hotter even than it had been earlier. Matthew realized he could not leave him here—it was essential, anyway, to get him to Lawrence without delay—but on the other hand he could neither walk nor be relied on to maintain his hold if Matthew carried him on his back. In the end, Matthew tore one of the blankets into strips, and from the strips rigged up something which would keep the boy in position on his back. It was not comfortable for either of them, but he hoped it would do. Billy again refused to eat. Matthew wolfed down the meat from one of the tins, along with a potato that was only partly wet, and then, after managing to hoist Billy into place, set out for the west.

  The boy was a weight, of whose heaviness and intractability he became more aware with every yard they covered. He alternated between moaning or crying wakefulness and periods of lying slumped forward against Matthews right shoulder, so leadenly and unresponsively that Matthew had moments of fear that he might be dead, and twisted his face round to feel the quiet breath on his cheek. He tried to settle into an automatism of walking, blotting out all considerations except the need to set one foot in front of the other, but although for a time he could believe he had achieved this, the strain accumulated and released itself at last in bursts of pain and weakness. Then there was nothing for it but to rest, to find as soft a stretch of ground as was possible, lower himself awkwardly to his knees, slide forward on his arms and so lie prone, the boy’s weight even heavier on his back. He could not, either for the boy or himself, face the job of undoing the harness for what must be no more than a short break.

  He did release him in the afternoon. They were crossing the dried mud of the Southampton estuary again. Matthew was conscious of his extreme weakness and decided that, although he did not feel hungry, he must eat. He opened one of the remaining tins and tried to get Billy to have some beef, but the boy was listless, almost comatose. He settled him as comfortably as possible, and ate the meat himself. The sun came out while he was eating, and afterwards he allowed himself to lie out, soaking in its warmth—for a few minutes, he thought, but his body betrayed him again. He had no idea how long he slept, but the sun seemed a lot lower in the sky. Billy was awake, watching him with empty heavy eyes. He coughed, and the coughing racked his body.

  Matthew got Billy back into position, and set off. His shame at his lapse made him try to walk faster, but that only brought on the fatigue more quickly. He had to rest, and go on at an easier pace. Time and distance had become distorted and out of phase; the bank of the farther shore came no nearer, but the sun seemed to be visibly slipping down the sky. He knew, with a certainty that twisted like pain, that they would not reach the grotto that day.

  In this realization, it was more and more difficult to defy the tiredness which seemed now to be coursing with his blood into every remote part of his body. Each step he took required an act of separate concentration. Somehow he climbed the hill of the shore and, after resting a while, staggered on. There was grass, long and lush, with two butterflies waltzing over it. He wanted to he down, to sink into the softness and freshness, but would not. That clump of trees—he would stop when he reached them. He got there, and summoned his strength again. That hedge … that bush … that heap of rubble … He went on from point to point, from objective to objective.

  As the sun fell below the horizon, the last of his stamina drained away. There was a dry ditch, with a thick thorn hedge over it. Matthew dropped to his knees and released the harness. He eased the boy to the ground and bent to look at him. His face was sweating, his mouth open and parched. Matthew took the water container which had also been tied to the harness, and put it to Billy’s lips. He drank thirstily. Matthew drank himself and then lay down, holding Billy in his arms. They fell asleep while it was still light.

  Matthew was awakened by Billy crying out and struggling. It was night, but there was a moon, quarter full. The air was fairly warm, and fresh; the sky was full of stars. He gave Billy another drink of water and talked to him, telling him it was nearly over; tomorrow, for sure, they would be there. After a time the boy fell asleep again, and Matthew watched the moonlight on his sleeping face. There was a snorting groaning noise not far away and quite loud—a hedgehog’s mating cry.

  He felt hungry and opened one of the two remaining tins of meat, saving half in case Billy would eat some in the morning. He drank some water, and heard the container gurgle emptily. It would need refilling when he found running water.

  He thought of the stream near the grotto, and of the sight of April kneeling there. He was conscious of a great loneliness, and of a sense of failure. There had been something offered which he had no right to expect or hope for, and he had rejected it. He had laiown that in doing so he had wounded her, but only now was he beginning to understand how deeply. And yet she had the strength and sanity to accept the wound, and to heal herself and him. He was sure of that, more sure than he could
remember being of anything.

  Billy was sleeping, apparently peacefully. Matthew lay down beside him and let his tiredness take over again. There was still the last stretch to do. But he felt confident once more.

  They encountered a group of people not long after they set out the following day. There were three men and two women, all quite young and looking fairly clean. When Matthew became aware of them, they had already seen him; they were resting near a ruin which, he judged from the objects laid out on the grass, they had been digging into. Something else about them was distinctive: They had a dog. It was an Alsatian, and it stood beside one of the men in the unmistakable stance of a dog with its master. There was no point, Matthew thought, in altering course, and anyway the burden of Billy’s weight made him reluctant to deviate from a straight line.

  The man with the dog called out to him when he was a few yards away: “Whats wrong with the boy? Broken a leg, or something?”

  Matthew stopped and stood, swaying a little from the involuntary spasm of his muscles. The dog bristled, and gave a low growl.

  “He’s sick,” he said.

  They stared at him in silence and then turned away in dismissal. One of the women, a plump Jewish-looking girl with her hair in a net, said something, and the other one laughed. Only the dog continued to pay attention to Matthew and Billy; it kept its eyes on them and snarled softly. Among the tins on the grass were some of evaporated milk.

  Matthew said, “Do you think you could spare a tin of milk? Or a little out of it? I’ve only got meat, and he can’t eat that. He might be able to manage milk.”

  The woman who had spoken before said, “Joe, don’t you think we could—”

  The man with the dog cut her off. “Shut up.” He turned to Matthew. “Bugger off. We’ve got enough to do looking after ourselves, without sick kids.”