Under My Skin. Zoe Markham
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stuff. I read The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk, and this one called Varney the Vampire which is fast becoming my favourite book of all time. The more I have to concentrate, the harder I have to work to follow the language and the plot, the less room there is in my head for anything else. The days blur outside the high windows of my attic, and I don’t even look up at the sky any more.
Drawing more and more into myself, the biggest change I notice is in my nightmares. Ever since it happened, there’s only ever really been one – the same scene playing out in the same way every night. There was a brief respite when we first moved in, but now it’s back, and it’s starting to feature a whole new opening scene that makes no sense. Dad and I have talked about the dreams, because it’s kind of hard not to when you wake up screaming most nights. I’ve been trying to get my sleep during the day, to keep the tears and the terror away from him. Sometimes it works, sometimes I can read all night and sleep up in the attic most of the day, but it seems more and more that the only place I can really settle to a book is up there, and sleep tends to find me after my bath and my meds no matter what.
There’s another reason I’d rather not wake him: when I wake up terrified, and he’s there beside me trying to comfort me – when I should feel safe and secure in his presence – I really don’t. I feel the exact opposite. He’s the last person I want to see; I’m scared that if there was anything dangerous in my room, or if I was stronger, or faster, I could really hurt him in that one, painfully clear moment when I remember what he did to us.
I never hear him have nightmares. I’ve always wondered why.
The dream has only ever starred me, Mum and Dad, but now a new character has found his way in, and I don’t really know what to make of him. He feels like some kind of doctor maybe, wearing a long, dark cloak with a hood that falls down low over a breathing mask with heavy ventilators to each side, and the combination of the two completely obscures his face. I don’t know who he is, or why he’s there, and it’s weird because everything else I dream about is so personal, and so real. He doesn’t speak, or even do anything. He’s just there. The only thing I hear is his breathing, rhythmic and ragged through the ventilator. I can’t see his eyes, but I can feel him watching me, and that’s all he does, watch, and breathe. He’s only ever there at the very start of my dream. He’s waiting for something, I think. I’m not sure I want to think about what.
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.
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.