Zoe Markham - Under My Skin

He makes me feel even more ‘unclean’, even more repulsive somehow. Like my body is such a perversion now that even the air around me has become dangerous. Like no one could ever be safe near me.

The point at which he melts into the blackness around him is when my dream begins in earnest, and from here it’s always the same. Back to normal. I have to live through the experience over and over, every time I fall into a deep sleep.

Don’t think .

I try not to think so much, for so long, that sometimes it feels like there’s nothing left of me.

CHAPTER FIVE

Going by the number of times I’ve re-read Jane Eyre, and by the thickness of Dad’s sweaters, I think we must have been here for about two months or so when it happens. Summer has left us, and autumn is moving in. I’m following my well-trodden path through the days like a compliant lab rat, and Dad’s becoming ever more the quietly mad scientist with each day that passes without a breakthrough.

I have an exercise bike now, so I can work more on my fitness – a new wheel for my cage – and I decide to watch some TV while I put in some time on it. I pedal hard for almost ten minutes before the shaking starts, which means I’m finally starting to see some improvement. The first day he brought it home, I couldn’t even manage five. When I ease myself off the saddle and make for the sofa, I start to shiver. The fire must have died awhile back without me noticing, and when I stop moving the coolness of the air hits me. I think of my ‘nest’ up in the attic, but don’t fancy a double dose of stairs, so I try and warm myself up with the thick blanket on the back of the sofa instead.

The woodpile is just outside the back door, and there are matches and plenty of old newspapers folded and stacked in the kitchen. I should get up and sweep the ashes, and relight the fire so I can slump in front of its crackling, cosy warmth – but a deep lethargy seems to have set into my limbs, and I can’t make myself move. I stretch out on the sofa and bundle myself as tightly into the blanket as I can manage. I know I shouldn’t sleep like this, because I’ll only wake up even colder; I should go and put another hoodie on at least, or grab my thick duvet and burrow under that, but the longer I think about it, the less capable of moving I feel. I stare into the grey emptiness of the fireplace, and my mind drifts. My eyelids become heavy, and before I can do a thing to stop myself, I slide down into a cold, uncomfortable sleep, and the cloaked stranger brings me my nightmare.

Everything leading up to the crash in the dream is exactly the same as it was for real, but it all feels different . Things are dark and blurred around the edges, almost a little out of focus in places, and all the fear and confusion I felt at the time gets replaced by this overwhelming feeling that everything is about to change. When the nightmare starts for real, I know what’s going to happen, and how it’s going to happen, but I still have to go through the whole process. There are no shortcuts. And this time there’s no hope at all that somehow things might turn out ok. Because I know that Mum and I are going to die.

It starts out right where everything began to go wrong, on the day that Mum found out what Dad really did for a living. I come home from school, only I’m not really me in the dream, I’m outside of me… watching. There’s heavy darkness around everything I see, like I’m watching things through a tunnel. And it’s cold; so cold.

I see myself unlocking the front door and I can’t shout at me not to go in, to turn around, to go to Tom’s, to the library, anywhere but there. I can never do anything to change it, I can only relive it. I hear Mum shouting before the door’s even open, her tone and her words are venomous ; raw anger and disdain drip from every syllable and she doesn’t sound anything like herself and I’m scared before I’ve even set foot in the house. I can’t make out everything she’s saying, some of the words fade in and out, but the me that’s watching already knows every argument, insult and counter-argument by heart, because I’ve been hearing them in my head since the day it happened. Because I don’t know how to make them stop.

‘…twenty years thinking I was married to someone decent, someone with morals and a bit of backbone – twenty years and I never realised what an evil, messed up Frankenstein you really are. You bastard, Martin. You complete and total bastard. “Project Rise”? How do you sleep at night? How do you live with yourself? You sick, twisted…’

‘The project was classified for a reason, Alma. What the hell do you expect?’

‘What do I expect? I expect you not to have anything to do with something so – ’

‘Medical research! You knew that, I never once lied to you – ’

‘You never once told me the truth either! You never once got anywhere near!’

‘How the hell could I? This is government work, MOD classified at the highest level. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me – ’

‘I don’t give a damn about what they’ll do to you, just like you don’t give a damn about the men you killed – or their families – or anyone other than your own precious self and your revolting little career. You can go straight to hell for all I care… the whole lot of you.’

‘What do you think has paid for all this? Eh? The house you wanted, the car you wanted – you can thank my revolting little career for that, you hypocritical, ungrateful…’

Around and around they go, the insults getting deeper and the point of no return becoming a tiny speck in the distance. And all I can do is watch.

‘Sick, twisted abomination…’ Those are the last words I hear from Mum before she flings the kitchen door open and storms through it. She’s white as a ghost, paler than I’ve ever seen her, but somehow she manages to go whiter still when she sees me there in the hallway.

I try to speak, but my throat’s too tight, and she grabs my arm and drags me up the stairs behind her before I can get a word out.

‘Quickly Chloe,’ she urges, pulling me into my room and grabbing clothes from my drawers. ‘We need to go. Now. Hurry.’

She leaves me piling clothes into a bag with no idea why. I hear Dad pounding up the stairs, and there’s more shouting, and crying. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to take; I don’t know where we’re going, or for how long. So I keep going until the bag is full, then I sit on the bed, and wait. Wait for the shouting to stop, wait for the footsteps to thunder back down the stairs, wait for the front door to slam, and for that final silence to descend. This is my last chance to stop it all, and there’s not a thing I can do.

I follow Mum down the stairs, dragging the heavy bag behind me, and then we’re on the driveway in the rain, getting into her car. Mum’s all raw, burning emotion, and I’m a ghost at her side. I let her shout, I let her tell me what an immoral, lying, evil monster my dad is. How medical research and military research are worlds apart, and how everything he’s ever told us is a lie. How what he was doing to those soldiers was unthinkable, unforgivable. And I stand there, not understanding, terrified, and try to defend him.

Then Mum’s driving too fast and the rain is getting heavier. The fear inside me is building. It won’t be long now. I still babble madly on, like it could make a difference. Maybe Dad was saving lives, in a way. He was saving others from having to give their lives in the first place. Surely that was a good thing? It only makes her angrier, and the angrier she gets, the harder she squeezes the accelerator.