Skin Read online

  People, people, people.

  A confluence of life. A huddle of humanity. Everyone shuffling along the polished channels of the mall, like some weird, multi-headed, thousand-limbed organism.

  Wriggling. Writhing. Rushing.

  Together.

  As soon as we arrived, I realised I had made a terrible error of judgement. This was a thousand times worse than being home. Nevertheless, I doubled down, insisting we make the most of it as we fought our way through the hordes, traipsing from shop to shop to shop. After a miserable hour, in which the children bickered constantly and I mostly ended up buying clothes for myself, I decided there was nothing for it but to pacify them with sugar.

  As we stood in the food court on the top floor, the kids finally silenced by ice cream sundaes, a scream rang out nearby, cutting through the chatter of the nearby diners. One by one, the crowd turned their heads. Seconds later another cry echoed off the polished marble floors. Louder this time. Female, and filled with panic.

  Instinctively, I reached for the children, pulling them close to me. Preposterous as it seems now, my first thought was terrorism. Back in those days, our timelines were regularly filled with news of atrocities. There were 24-hour streaming bulletins showing the aftermath of attacks. Tearful interviews with the families of victims. Wreaths of flowers strung around lamp posts and the balustrades of bridges and the railings of school gates. Earnest warnings from politicians that another attack was inevitable. Imminent. That it would be bigger and bloodier than the last. It’s funny to think we used to expend so much energy butchering and bombing one another. If only we knew that Mother Nature would turn out to be so much more efficient at finishing us off.

  Holding on to Charlie’s hood, I took a step backwards. It was no good, though. Already the crowd had swollen behind us. Everyone jostling, pushing, shoving, straining. Craning their necks to see what was going on.

  I tried again, excusing myself, trying to force my way through the cage of bodies. As I did, though, there was another cry. This time, a man.

  ‘Move back! For God’s sake, give her some space. She can’t breathe!’

  There was a ripple of movement around us, and suddenly the crowd parted, affording me a clear view of the terrifying tableau playing out close by. On the floor of the dining area, a man in a blue shirt was kneeling over a middle-aged woman. At least I think she was middle-aged. Her face was swollen up so badly it was difficult to tell. Her lips like pink balloons. Her eyelids so fat and puffy they had closed over completely. It looked as if she had toppled backwards off her bench, a tray of food left untouched on the table above her. Now she lay sprawled on her back, clawing at her throat, her face purple, her skirt ridden up around her waist, just one more indignity to add to a catalogue of miseries.

  Embarrassing as it is to admit, I can clearly recall a wave of relief sweeping over me. We were not under attack after all. While this poor woman had clearly suffered some kind of medical emergency, a serious allergic reaction from the looks of it, we were going to be just fine. This was not something that would affect me or my children in any meaningful way. Sure, we might discuss it in the car on the way home. Charlie might bring up the boy in his class who was allergic to peanuts and so had to take his lunch break alone. But by the time dinner was served tonight, the drama would be forgotten, replaced by other, more immediate concerns. In other words, everything was going to be okay.

  There was another scream, and for the first time I noticed a teenage girl wailing above the ill woman.

  ‘Mum? Mum? Somebody do something. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…’

  I watched as the woman on the floor began to fit violently, her body shaking, a thick white froth seething between the grotesque pillows of her lips. The man in the blue shirt was attempting CPR now, thrusting down on her chest with both hands, pressing his face to hers as he attempted to administer the kiss of life.

  Somewhere by my side I felt a small hand reach for my own, pumping it anxiously. I looked down to see Charlie, his eyes wide with terror.

  ‘I’m scared, Mummy.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I lied. ‘She’s going to be fine.’

  Still, we’d seen enough.

  Taking them both by the hand, I dragged them away, squeezing through the tight circle of bystanders. As we headed towards the escalators, I turned to steal one final glimpse of the woman. She was motionless now. Her face drained white. Then the crowd shifted again and I lost sight of her.

  As we made our way towards the ground floor, I saw a flash of green on the opposite escalators. A pair of young paramedics fighting their way up towards the food court, a portable defibrillator slung over one of their shoulders.

  ‘You see?’ I smiled. ‘They’re going to take her to hospital now and make her better.’

  Charlie gave a small nod. He didn’t look convinced.

  As we reached the ground floor, I stopped and glanced behind me. Already, the screams from the top floor had faded away, drowned out by the drone of the crowd. Down here, it was like nothing had happened. People went about their business, utterly oblivious to the woman dying fifty feet above their heads.

  ‘Mummy, what was wrong with that lady?’

  I turned to Charlie. To them both. They each looked pale and impossibly small.

  As the shoppers weaved and bobbed around us, I knelt down and put my arms around the two of them, squeezing them tight to me, chest to chest, cheek to cheek, as if trying to absorb them.

  ‘It’s okay. I know it was upsetting to watch. It was horrible. But it’s over now. Really, there’s nothing to worry about. I promise.’

  Of course, back then I had no idea how wrong I was.

  There was everything to worry about. Everything.

  And as for it being over?

  It hadn’t even begun.

  THREE

  YOU MIGHT FIND it hard to believe, but in the old world Friday night actually used to stand for something. Back when I was in my early twenties, it was all we lived for. We’d drink until we were half blind. Laugh until our bellies ached. Dance until our feet hurt and our heels cracked. And even when we were eventually thrown out of the pubs and the clubs, staggering blinking onto the filthy streets, it didn’t stop there. No. We simply kept going, chasing the moment. Desperate not to squander a single second. We’d bundle into a taxi and head back to someone’s house. We’d light a fire to keep warm and someone would bring out a stereo or a guitar. There’d be more drink. A joint might go around. Powders and pills. Perhaps we might even meet a nice boy or a girl to cuddle up to and fall in love with. At least until the sun came up and the spell was finally broken…

  Even when I was a little older, once I’d settled down with Colin, Friday night was still the finish line we hurled ourselves at. Though my partying days were long behind me, Friday was still a chance for us to relax and reconnect. To open a bottle of wine and argue over what to watch on Netflix. To curl up on the sofa and eat a takeaway, before collapsing into bed, too exhausted to do anything but hold each other in the darkness.

  These days, though, Friday is indistinguishable from any other night of the week. And so tonight, just like every other night, I’m sitting in front of my computer with the remains of my ready meal for one. Tonight, it’s just you and me, Egg.

  And you don’t even exist.

  The evening started promisingly enough I suppose. For the last few months or so, Colin has been on a crusade to bring us ‘closer’ as a family and, as laughable as I might find this exercise, I have nevertheless made an effort to support him. To present a united front. Part of his strategy involves us eating together again in the evenings. Of course, to physically get together around a table would be illegal – not to mention suicidal – and so in practice we have agreed to switch our webcams on during mealtimes, our screens divided into four equal squares. A sort of culinary conference call.

  Naturally, the kids are less than enthused with this arrangement. I guess they’re so used to doing what they want,
when they want, that any attempt to cajole them into an artificial social situation was always doomed to fail. During meals, they each sit looking off screen, distracted. Watching something else, maybe. Or playing a game. Staring at their phones. Most days, Charlie refused to take his headphones off at all. Still, Colin persists, seemingly blind to their resentment. He sits there smiling, relentlessly cracking jokes and asking open questions until his attempts to force a conversation eventually unravel, leaving only the sounds of us chewing our decontaminated food. It would almost be sweet if it wasn’t so futile.

  After the first few weeks, Charlie stopped logging on altogether, his quarter of the screen remaining a deep, impenetrable black. While I have sent him a couple of half-hearted messages explaining the importance of participating, emphasising how much they mean to his father, my pleas have so far been met with a wall of silence. What else can I do? It’s not like I can force him to come to dinner. I guess this is the reality of remote parenting. I have no idea what he gets up to beyond what he tells me. I don’t know if his room’s tidy or if he’s done his homework, let alone what he gets up to online. Not that I’d want to know. I have friends who have taken extreme measures to keep tabs on their children, even going so far as to pay hackers to secretly install spyware on their kids’ computers. I have no interest in going down that route. As far as I’m concerned, ignorance is bliss. Besides, even if I did discover he was up to mischief, what could I do about it? Ground him? There is no realistic threat I can make. Nothing I can cut off that hasn’t already been denied to him by the circumstances of our lives.

  Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when I logged on for dinner this evening to find Charlie’s square lit up. Seeing him for the first time in weeks, I was once again struck by how rapidly he seems to be changing these days. A fresh spray of wiry hairs along his top lip. His eyebrows thicker and darker than ever before, almost meeting in the middle now. Hard as it is to admit, he is fatter, too. Though food is still technically rationed, it is not exactly in short supply, and without an Amber-style exercise regime in place, the heavily processed ready meals make it easy to pile on the pounds. Charlie, though, is bordering on obese. Meaty rings of flesh bunch up around his chin, as if his head is sinking into his neck, while a too tight T-shirt strains to contain the swollen mounds of his bosom. The pale little boy I used to scoop up and press to my own chest, whose heart I could feel fluttering like a baby bird beneath the delicate nest of his ribs, has long gone. Still, at least he seemed to be in a good mood for once.

  ‘Oh hey, Mum. Nice day?’

  I nodded, instantly suspicious. ‘Um… sure?’

  Glancing over at Amber, I found myself weirdly relieved to find her looking as unhappy as ever, her shoulders hunched around her ears, her expression barely masking her deep contempt for the world. At least she was acting normal.

  Colin on the other hand was predictably delighted, beaming into the camera as he spoke. ‘Charlie! So glad that you could join us. Hey, now that you’re here, would you mind passing the salt?’

  I stifled a groan. This is one of Colin’s favourite jokes. It wasn’t funny the first time he made it. Hearing it again for the hundredth time was enough to make me want to smash my face into my computer screen. Judging by Amber’s expression, she felt the same way.

  To my disbelief, however, Charlie splayed his lips into a gummy grin. ‘Good one, Dad.’

  Encouraged by this response, Colin moved on to the next gag in his comedy routine, reaching for a napkin and pretending to polish his webcam. ‘Gosh, I must have a word with that window cleaner of ours. These things are filthy!’

  This time Charlie actually laughed out loud. The kind of yelp a dog might make if you were to accidentally tread on its paw. A shiver ran down my spine. Something was very wrong here. Charlie was evidently relishing some cruel private joke, of which I suspected we were all the punchline.

  ‘So, how was your day, Dad?’ Charlie continued, his smile stretching, becoming a smirk.

  Oblivious to the sarcasm in his tone, Colin prattled on, telling Charlie about his latest triumphs at work, about the struggles he’s facing, about a new project he’s working on.

  When we first started dating, Colin was a computer engineer for a car company. Obviously, there isn’t much call for that line of work since the collapse of the automotive industry. While we do still technically have our car – one of those boxy, first generation self-driving models – it lies rusting in the parking bay beneath our apartment building with all the other abandoned vehicles. A grim monument to a simpler time, when the only safety equipment you needed to worry about was a seat belt.

  Fortunately for us, however, Colin’s skills proved to be eminently transferable in the new economic landscape that rose from the rubble of the old world. For a year or so, he found work with a drone manufacturer, before he settled in his current role at a company that specialised in virtual reality.

  Even before the virus, VR had been booming. Now it’s everywhere. I have friends – grown men and women – who spend entire days online in virtual chat rooms, talking and flirting with strangers who seem close enough to touch. The project Colin is currently working on seeks to take this a step further. His company have been working on a sort of virtual vacation spot people can visit. Digital beaches and pixelated palm trees or something. But apparently that’s not the exciting bit. According to Colin, they’ve developed some kind of new technology to create the illusion of touch. You simply put on a pair of special gloves that are fitted with sensors and then pop on your VR headset. Then, when the computer detects you touching something on the screen, a series of air-filled sacks mimic the sensation of actually holding something in your hands, while a series of targeted vibrations, pulses and pinches trick the brain into being able to feel its texture. The effect, Colin assures me, is mind-blowing. You can run your fingers through an imaginary child’s hair. Or walk hand in hand with a loved one along a virtual beach. And that’s not all. The gloves are only the first stage. Colin has said they’re working on a new prototype, full body suits that can simulate the feeling of being hugged or massaged.

  ‘Just imagine the possibilities,’ I’ve heard him gush more times than I care to remember. ‘A mother could feel her child curled up on her lap for the first time in half a decade. You could put your arms around Charlie and Amber again and they’d actually feel it. We could hold hands again.’

  Whether or not this is anything other than wishful thinking, I have no idea. Still, the work is well paid, especially compared to my meagre contributions to the family budget. This is important. The things we need to survive in this environment are eye-wateringly expensive. Just the bare minimum modifications we’ve had to make to our home – hiring professionals to insulate each room and fitting them with their own independent air filtration system – cost almost double what we originally paid for the whole apartment. Add to that our day-to-day expenses, such as medical bills, food, water, Internet and electricity, all of which have spiralled outrageously in recent years, and we find ourselves struggling just to stay afloat.

  Well, relatively speaking.

  I’m aware of course that we’re still obscenely more comfortable than most.

  I have seen a few documentaries online about poorer communities who have created improvised quarantine stations using sheets of tarpaulin to divide their homes. Adapting old desk fans to create makeshift air purifiers. Drilling wells. Powering their lights with diesel generators. I suspect these people, however, are the exception rather than the rule. That for every family who has successfully filmed their own DIY house conversions, there are ten thousand more who didn’t make it.

  No, as much as things have changed, the paradigm still remains. The more money you have, the better and longer your life.

  To be poor is to be miserable.

  To be poor is to be dead.

  And so, as much as I might privately mock my husband’s dull work anecdotes, I am nevertheless grateful for the money he brings in
and, by extension, for our continued survival.

  Charlie, on the other hand, looked less impressed. By the time Colin finally broke off from his monologue about the finer points of hydraulic pressure pads, I was pleased to see that his enthusiasm had visibly waned. His smirk frozen in a pained rictus. His eyes glazed over.

  ‘And how about you?’ Colin asked at last. ‘How was your day, buddy?’

  This seemed to be just the moment Charlie had been waiting for. His eyes swam back into focus. He licked his lips. ‘Oh, my day was just swell. But why don’t you ask Amber what she’s been up to? I bet she’s got loads to share with us all. Isn’t that right, Sis?’

  Amber looked up sharply.

  ‘That’s a good point,’ Colin blundered on. ‘How was your day, sweetie? I feel like I haven’t caught up with you in ages. Are you well?’

  Amber’s scowl darkened, her teeth clenched so tight I was amazed she could get any words out at all. ‘I’m fine,’ she spat.

  ‘Well that’s great new s , honey. And you’re staying on top of your college work?’

  For the thousandth time that night, I marvelled at my husband’s capacity to completely miss the subtext of a situation. How liberating it must be to be that oblivious. That insulated from the emotions of others.

  Amber shook her head once, violently, as if jerking her head from a bee. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated.

  There was an awkward pause, before Charlie spoke again, his voice a teasing sing-song. ‘Hey, Sis. Why don’t you tell Dad about Jamal? I’m sure he’d love to hear all about him.’

  For a single beat, Charlie’s words seemed to hang in the air, like smoke after a gunshot.

  And then Amber exploded.

  ‘You little shit! You’ve been into my machine, haven’t you? You and your ratty little hacker friends. I swear to God, I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking KILL you—’

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘That’s enough. I know you’re angry, but there’s no need to talk to your brother like that. And Charlie, how many times have I told you about respecting your sister’s privacy?’