Free Under the Skin by Michel Faber Page B

stepped into the ochre-streaked bathtub. Screwed into the wall above her head, there was a shower nozzle which she instructed by means of a Bakelite dial to spurt pressurized water down over her. Even as the torrent sputtered out, she was taking off her clothes and letting them fall into the tub around her feet.
    On the rust-mottled ledge of the bath, three different bottles of shampoo stood ready. Together, they had cost exactly five pounds at the Arabella Service Station. Isserley picked up her favourite and squirted the pale green syrup over her hair. Then she squirted more of the stuff over her naked body and, lavishly, down into the sodden heap of clothing at her feet. With one foot she pushed the squelching pile over the plughole to allow the water level in the tub to rise.
    She washed her hair carefully, rinsing it over and over. Her hair had always been her best feature, back home. A member of the Elite had once told her that with hair like hers it was out of the question she could possibly be destined for the New Estates: a cheap and fatuous compliment, in retrospect, but thrillingly encouraging at the time. She’d felt as if her passage into a bright future was a matter of physical inevitability, a lush and glossy birthright everyone could see at a glance, and a lucky few could stroke admiringly.
    So little of it was left now that she couldn’t bear to cherish it anymore. Most of it would never grow back again, the rest was just a nuisance.
    She stroked the skin of her shoulders and arms, checking if she needed to shave again just yet. Her palms, slippery with lather, detected the soft stubble, but she decided she could get away with leaving it for one more day. Lots of females had a bit of hair on them, she’d discovered. Real life wasn’t at all like the smooth images celebrated by magazines and television. Anyway, nobody would see it.
    She lathered up her breasts and rinsed them, with distaste. The only good thing about them was that they prevented her seeing what had been done to her down below.
    Redirecting the shower nozzle, she turned her attention to the clothes, which now swirled in a shallow pool of sudsy grey water. She trampled them, rinsed them, trampled them some more, then wrung them out in her powerful claws. They would dry out, eventually, in a square of sunlight shining through her bedroom window, or, if that failed, on the back seat of her car.
    It was after midday when Isserley finally drove out of the farm. The sun which had been so golden in the morning was barely visible now; the sky had turned slate-grey and hung swollen with undischarged snow. The likelihood of finding any hitch-hikers on the roads, let alone suitable ones, was slim. Yet she was in the mood to do some work, or at least get away from all the fuss she knew was still going on below ground.
    On her way past the main steading, she noticed a most unusual sight: Esswis perched on a large wooden stepladder, a tin in one hand and a brush in the other, painting the stone walls white.
    Isserley slowed the car to a stop near the foot of the ladder and looked up at Esswis. She was already wearing her glasses and so he wasn’t all that clear, distorted by the glare of the sun. It occurred to her to take her glasses off for a moment, but that seemed impolite, given that Esswis was wearing his.
    ‘Ahl,’ she said, squinting up, not knowing if she’d done the right thing in stopping.
    ‘Ahl,’ he replied, as taciturn as the farmer he was supposed to be. Perhaps he was wary of their native language being spoken out in the open, even though there was no-one else around to hear it. Paint dribbled off the end of the brush he was holding, but, apart from frowning, he did nothing about it, as if Isserley’s greeting were some sort of mishap which must be stoically endured. He was wearing overalls and a cap, and paint-spattered green Wellingtons whose secret interiors had taken almost as long to design as Isserley’s shoes.
    All things