Michel Faber: Under the Skin

Comfortable now, he settled back in his seat and flashed her a smile seasoned by a lifetime of foul Scottish fodder.

She smiled back, wondering how much the teeth really mattered.

She could sense herself moving closer to deciding. In fact, to be honest, she was more than half-way already, and her breathing was quickening.

She made an effort to forestall the adrenaline as it leaked from her glands, by sending calming messages into herself, swallowing them down. All right, yes, he was good: all right, yes, she wanted him: but she must know a little more about him first. She must avoid the humiliation of committing herself, of allowing herself to believe he would be coming with her, and then finding out he had a wife or a girlfriend waiting.

If only he would make some conversation. Why was it always the desirable ones that sat in silence, and the misshapen rejects that prattled away unprompted? She’d had one miserable creature who’d removed a voluminous parka to reveal spindly arms and a pigeon chest: within minutes he was telling her his whole life’s story. The brawny ones were more likely to stare into space, or make pronouncements about the world in general, deflecting personal questions with the reflex skill of athletes.

Minutes flashed by and her hitcher seemed content to say nothing. Yet at least he was taking the trouble to peek at her body – in particular at her breasts. In fact, as far as she could tell from glancing sideways and meeting his own furtive eyes, he was keen for her to face front so he could ogle her undetected. OK, then: she would let him have a good stare, to see what difference it might make. The Evanton turn-off was coming soon, anyhow, and she needed to concentrate on her driving. She craned forward a little, exaggerating her concentration on the road, and allowed herself to be examined in earnest.

Immediately she felt his gaze beaming all over her like another kind of ultraviolet ray, and no less intense.

Isserley wondered, oh how she wondered, what she looked like to him, in his alien innocence. Did he notice the trouble she had gone to for him? She straightened her back against the seat, pushing her chest out.

The hitcher noticed all right.

Fantastic tits on this one, but God, there wasn’t much of her otherwise. Tiny – like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. How tall would she be? Five foot one, maybe, standing up. Funny how a lot of women with the best tits were really really short. This girl obviously knew she had a couple of ripe ones, the way she had them sitting pretty on the scoop of a low-cut top. That’s why this car was heated like an oven, of course: so she could wear a skimpy black top and air her boobs for all to see – for him to see.

The rest of her was a funny shape, though. Long skinny arms with big knobbly elbows – no wonder her top was long sleeved. Knobbly wrists too, and big hands. Still, with tits like that…

They were really odd, actually, those hands. Bigger than you’d think they’d be, to look at the rest of her, but narrow too, like… chicken feet. And tough, like she’d done hard labour with them, maybe worked in a factory. He couldn’t see her legs properly, she was wearing those horrible flared seventies trousers that were back in fashion – shiny green, for Christ’s sake – and what looked like Doc Martens, but there was no disguising how short her legs were. Still, those tits… They were… like… they were like… He didn’t know what to compare them to. They looked pretty fucking good, nestled next to one another there, with the sun shining on them through the windscreen.

Never mind the tits, though: what about the face? Well, he couldn’t see it just now; she had to actually turn towards him for him to see it, because of her haircut. She had thick, fluffy hair, mouse-brown, hanging down straight so he couldn’t even see her cheeks when she was facing front. It was tempting to imagine a beautiful face hidden behind that hair, a face like a pop singer or an actress, but he knew different. In fact, when she’d turned towards him, her face had kind of shocked him. It was small and heart-shaped, like an elf in a kiddie’s book, with a perfect little nose and a fantastic big-lipped curvy mouth like a supermodel. But she had puffy cheeks and was also wearing the thickest glasses he’d seen in his life: they magnified her eyes so much they looked about twice normal size.

She was a weird one all right. Half Baywatch babe, half little old lady.

She drove like a little old lady. Fifty miles an hour, absolute max. And that shoddy old anorak of hers on the back seat – what was that all about? She had a screw loose, probably. Nutter, probably. And she talked funny – foreign, definitely.

Would he like to fuck her?

Probably, if he got the chance. She’d probably be a much better fuck than Janine, that was for sure.

Janine. Christ, it was amazing how just thinking of her could bring him right down. He’d been in a great mood until now. Good old Janine. If ever your spirits are getting too up, just think of Janine. Jesus… couldn’t… he just forget it? Just look at this girl’s tits, blazing in the sun, like… He knew what they looked like now: they looked like the moon. Well, two moons.

‘So, what are you doing in Inverness?’ he said suddenly.

‘Business,’ she said.

‘What do you do?’

Isserley thought for a moment. It was so long since anything had been said, she’d forgotten what she’d decided to be this time.

‘I’m a lawyer.’

‘No kidding?’

‘No kidding.’

‘Like on TV?’

‘I don’t watch TV.’ This was true, more or less. She’d watched it almost constantly when she’d first come to Scotland, but nowadays she only watched the news and occasionally a snatch of whatever happened to be on while she was exercising.

‘Criminal cases?’ he suggested.

She looked him briefly in the eyes. There was a spark there that might be worth fanning.

‘Sometimes,’ she shrugged. Or tried to. Shrugging while driving was a surprisingly difficult physical trick, especially with breasts like hers.

‘Anything juicy?’ he pushed.

She squinted into her rear-view mirror, slowing the car to allow a Volkswagen pulling a caravan to overtake.

‘What would you think was juicy?’ she enquired as the manoeuvre slipped gently into place.

‘I don’t know…’ he sighed, sounding doleful and playful at the same time. ‘A man kills his wife ’cause she’s playing around with another guy.’

‘I may have had one of those,’ Isserley said noncommittally.

‘And did you nail him?’

‘Nail him?’

‘Did you get him sent down for life?’

‘What makes you think I wouldn’t be defending him?’ she smirked.

‘Oh, you know: women together against men.’

His tone had grown distinctly odd: despondent, even bitter, and yet flirtatious. She had to think hard how best to respond.

‘Oh, I’m not against men,’ she said at last, changing lanes reflectively. ‘Especially men who get a raw deal from their women.’

She hoped that would open him up.

But instead he was silent and slumped a little in his seat. She looked aside at him, but he didn’t allow eye contact, as if she’d failed to respect some limit. She settled for reading the inscription on his T-shirt, AC/DC, it said, and in large embossed letters, BALLBREAKER. She had no idea what on earth this might mean, and felt suddenly out of her depth with him.

Experience had taught her there was nothing to do about that but try to go deeper.

‘Are you married?’ she asked.

‘Was,’ he stated flatly. Sweat was glistening beneath the hairline of his big prickly head; he ran his thumb under the seatbelt as if it were smothering him.