Free Original Skin by David Mark Page B

tray on his knees, and the mud-caked mobile phone and an assortment of screwdrivers, cotton buds, and brushes laid out on the arm of the chair. He moves them all to one side and stands, padding barefoot to Roisin’s side. He retrieves the buttons and hands them to her. She takes them gratefully, but does not yet change the channel.
    “How’s it going?” she asks, nodding at his tools.
    McAvoy pulls a face. “I don’t know. It’s almost clean. I’ve got an adaptor and I can charge it through the laptop. The battery from my old Nokia should fit it if that one’s fried. SIM’s clean, so maybe. I don’t know. Wish I’d never found it.”
    Roisin laughs. “No, you don’t.”
    McAvoy returns to his chair, and Roisin, careful not to dislodge Lilah, fumbles with the controls. Before she can change the channel, Wanchorman introduces a story about changes to the makeup of the Police Authority.
    “How did it go?” asks Roisin, remembering.
    “It went,” says McAvoy. “The new chairman has some interesting ideas. He could go far.”
    “Sounds like you would like to throw him there.”
    McAvoy shakes his head. “I can’t make my mind up. I guess it makes no difference what I think.”
    Roisin laughs. “You don’t mean that, either.”
    McAvoy pokes his tongue out at her and turns his attention back to the broken phone, tuning himself out again as his wife makes herself comfortable and settles into her soap opera. He vaguely remembers that he has a cup of tea on the go, but figures that wherever he left it while bathing Fin and telling him his story, it will be too cold to bother about retrieving.
    Ten minutes later, satisfied that the phone is as clean as he can make it, he disappears through to the kitchen and out of the back door to the shed. It stands on the nine-slab patio, next to the sandbox and mini-trampoline, and its mingled scent of sawdust and poster paints, linseed oil and solder, reminds him of his father. He has to cling to such links. The two do not speak.
    McAvoy’s tools are neatly arranged on the wall, each piece of kit outlined in black marker so he can know instantly when something is not in its proper place. He pulls open a plastic drawer and roots through the collection of wires and leads. He has a habit of collecting random things too interesting to be thrown away, and a testament to the hardship of his youth.
    He picks up a handful of wires and carries them back to the living room, stopping on his way to retrieve his laptop from where it is charging in the kitchen. Were his hands not so full he would scoop out another handful of lemon meringue pie from the foil tray that sits next to the microwave, but before he can consider sticking his face in the dessert, Roisin’s voice cuts through from the living room.
    “Leave it. You’ve had two slices.”
    He comes back to the living room, his head bowed: busted.
    “I wasn’t going to have any more . . .”
    “Fibber.” She raises an eyebrow, catlike. “Am I not feeding you?”
    McAvoy looks down at his barrel torso, his chunky thighs and calves, bulging against his cutoff denim shorts and rugby shirt as if he were halfway through a metamorphosis into the Hulk.
    “It’s soooo good . . . ,” he says, a child demanding more cake.
    “I’ll make another one at the weekend. You can’t have everything you want all the time.”
    The way she says it is enough to make them both laugh without need for a reply.
    Some time later, after some gentle cursing and a skewered thumb, McAvoy has managed to create a makeshift adaptor out of an old phone cable and is plugging the phone into his laptop.
    “Here we go,” he says and holds down the ON switch on the keypad.
    Roisin, who is yawning and trying to keep her eyes open for the final credits of her program, can barely find the strength to pretend she is interested. “Working?” she asks as she shifts Lilah into a more comfortable position on her lap.
    McAvoy is too engrossed in fiddling with