Beneath the Skin by Sandra Ireland Page A

a guy he didn’t know from Adam. ‘I’m just saying Alys has the label of being an artist, which means she can get away with murder.’
    Moodie started flinging things about with more purpose, anger in every line of his spare frame. ‘You’re out of fuckin’ order, pal. Where did she pick you up anyway? There’s plenty youngsters wanting jobs.’ He opened the drawer, grabbed something and brandished it in Walt’s direction, like a weapon. ‘I hope she knows what she’s taken on.’
    And when Walt realised what the object was, he whispered, ‘So do I.’

11
    He had to get out of the sawdust Tardis and away from this man who was looking at him as if he’d kicked a kitten. Alys was the one who did things to kittens. Moodie wasn’t best pleased but he stuffed the thing into a Tesco bag and Walt stumbled off, following the river back to the bridge and trudging on, bending himself around afternoon shoppers. The day had turned dismal, threatening rain, and the old ladies had their brollies to hand, just in case. He was aware that he was walking in the opposite direction to Alys’s doll’s house. She’d be waiting for Moodie’s masterpiece, but he needed to find some space, some lightness, away from elbows and voices and accusing stares.
    He found the park. He’d known it was there, from his one recce when, after a few late-night beers in his room, he’d decided to go walkabout. He hadn’t gone into the park, that time, not trusting himself. Just stood at the gate breathing in the cool dark and thinking of his mam’s garden, and the scent of damp flowers and the leftover teatime smells. There was a pizza place nearby. He could smell garlic and pepperoni and it had seemed so ordinary, so life-goes-on; he’d turned round and gone back to his single room.
    Now he went into the park, marched in, his steps jerky, and made for the nearest tree, an oak, wanting to lay his brow against it, feel the patchy roughness of its touch. But instead he did the civilised thing and sat down on a bench with a brass plaque to someone long dead and watched the squirrels and the ducks on the pond like a regular person.
    He’d shoved the Tesco bag under the seat first, not wanting to be reminded of it.
    It was the kind of park you’d call mature, a city oasis of big trees and gravel paths, formal shrubberies clipped back by council workmen in hi-vis jackets. The place was big enough to put some distance between you and your fellow man; the benches were widely spaced, the pond some way off. There were shiny black bins for litter and red ones for dog poo but there was still shit on the grass and Irn-Bru cans in the flowerbeds.
    A watery sun had made an appearance for the kids coming out of school; there were a few of them in the park, running wild with their coats tied round their waists, and mothers with double buggies and the odd dog. The pond looked sluggish, a bit out of its comfort zone amid the tenements and the traffic, the sweet wrappers and the lager cans. Even the ducks lacked enthusiasm.
    He spotted a couple with two under-fives, looking so like Stephen and Natalie that he almost got up. They had that obliviousness about them, cocooned in their own little world, their own family unit. The kids looked about the same age as his niece and nephew, although he couldn’t exactly remember the numbers. Ella was just starting school in September and what would Jack be now – three? Down by the water’s edge, the little lad kicked his football and was toddling after it in that stiff-legged, no-knees way you do when you’re learning to walk.
    Walt shivered. Someone walking over your grave, his mother would have said. Another little boy kicked the football gently back to the toddler. This lad was taller, thinner, with a mop of blond hair and a bright blue backpack. It was William, with his mother watching from a distance.
    Walt