Gary McMahon: In the Skin

I pause to take off my coat; this is heavy work and sweat runs down the middle of my spine. When I resume, the mask seems to have latched back onto the bone of his weird skull and I have to fight to regain leverage.

The sound it makes as it comes away is rather pleasant, like rubber gloves as they are peeled from the hands of surgeons or kitchen staff. I think I am smiling — it certainly feels as if my face is creating at least some kind of smirk — but I cannot be sure.

Dark blood stains the floor; thick strings of gore attach themselves to the furniture. The mask slips, finally, and begins to come away more easily, showing me what was there, in the skin, all along. Soon I have the mask in my hand, and lying under me is a wet form with hardly any recognisable features beyond the mathematical symbols carved deeply into the black bone of his skull. He seems smaller than before, as if I have deflated him. His body is tiny, childlike.

Struggling to my feet and putting on my coat, I slip the mask into my pocket, patting the material once it is safely hidden away inside. I lurch outside into the disturbing redness of a haunted dawn, feeling peculiarly hungry. If I weren’t so doused in blood, I might consider stopping off at a drive-thru fried chicken place on the way home.

The house has the sense of a battlefield when I return. The doors and windows are all open; and Adi is pacing the kitchen floor like a prisoner of war. When she sees me, I notice a slight glint of relief in her eyes, but immediately it gives way to an expression of almost awestruck horror.

“He’s gone.”

At first I am unable to understand what she is telling me.

“Max. He’s not in his room…”

I walk over to the sink and pour myself a glass of water. The liquid is cool and cleansing and I think it may be the first time in my life I have truly tasted anything.

“Did you hear me, Dan?”

I nod my head, still unable to speak.

“The police have been. They’re out searching, but they told me to wait here in case you came back with him. Do you know where he is? Did you take him somewhere?” Her voice is strained and sounds as if it is rising up through great depths of an emotion I cannot even identify. I realise she is forcing herself not to appear panicked.

I no longer fear for the boy’s safety. He was in great danger, but I have saved him. Me: his father. His rightful protector.

“Well?” Her voice is a decibel away from being a shriek. The illusion of control is slipping.

“Wherever Max is, he’s safe now. I’ve taken care of everything.”

Adi takes a single step away from me, unsure of how to pursue this line of enquiry. She blinks her eyes, licks her lips. Never a conventionally beautiful woman, right now she looks ugly and exposed. “What…what do you mean? What have you taken care of?”

The smile I show her is real, like the prostitute in New York was real, and the mutilated bodies of birds and cats were real, and the… the … My mind goes blank, but I hang onto the grin as I take hold of another similar grin in my hand.

The mask slides easily out of my pocket. I unfold it carefully, delicately, and spread it out on my open palms.

Adi backs away, her face now empty; a tall glass drained of whatever coloured fluid it once contained.

“I’ve taken care of it.” My voice is booming, confident, and I remember the man I used to be before everything started to go wrong. That man remains distant, but he is getting closer, and I am certain a reunion cannot be far away.

Adi begins to make a strange high-pitched whining sound. Her lips have gone white and her eyes are bulging from her head. She is clawing at her face with long nails, drawing blood from the thin lines on her cheeks.

She is staring at my hands.

I look down, raising the mask to eye level.

Then I stare helplessly into the ragged, empty eye sockets of my son.

Blood on my clothes. Terror in my heart. Something ancient and unknowable roaring in my blood, under the skin.

Max’s papery face stares up at me, imploring, begging me to explain what has happened and why his daddy can no longer protect him.

Realisation, if not true understanding, flares darkly behind my eyes and reality creases, turning in on itself like an origami figure, a collapsing Möbius strip made out of material thin as skin.

By now Adi is flat-out on the kitchen floor, unmoving, barely even breathing. I kneel down beside her and touch her face, feeling for the familiar lines and contours I once adored. They are no longer there; this is not my wife.

I take off my jacket and lay it down next to Adi, placing the mask on top of the folded garment so my son has a good view as I reveal the true nature of his mother.

This time I have no knife close to hand and I am reluctant to break off and go hunting for one in drawers and cupboards, so instead I use my teeth and my fingernails. It is hard going at first, but I am a patient man. I have to be.

Laughing now at the sheer absurdity of it all, I dig into the deceitful softness in one final attempt to uncover whatever is lurking there, in the skin.