Read Online Beneath the Skin by Sandra Ireland - Free Book Online Page A

which is why many service personnel can’t vocalise their emotions. Art therapy helps to translate feelings of loss, grief and pain to the verbal part of the brain, freeing them from the subconscious.’ And it had. He has a sense of achievement, like he’s been given a task and completed it, on time and to spec. It’s a good feeling. And then Melissa, with her wide smile and her kind eyes, says, ‘I can see what you’ve done, but let’s see if we can unpick this.’
    Unpick it? It’s taken him almost the whole class to piece together his outside treasures, the bark and the leaves and the moss. He’d arranged them on the desk first, let the chill, musty smell waft him back to his mam’s garden, to the pine tree where he’d hidden as a boy. Like most kids he’d taken safety for granted and that pine tree was the last place on earth where he’d been truly safe, anchored in its branches.
    Painstakingly he’d transferred that feeling to the mask. It has thick furrows of bark for eyebrows, brittle scales of mulch and leaves for skin. It is a true mask, a camouflage of natural materials to hide behind, the merest of slits for eyes. He will be invisible behind that mask: Invisible Tree Man. Safe.
    Melissa has spotted his expression and rushes on. ‘When I say unpick it, I mean let’s take a look at the emotions behind the mask, Robert.’
    He waits. He wants to pick up the mask but it’s on the table between them, and they’re both leaning on the table, arms braced, as if it’s a map of something, or a puzzle. He wants to hold the mask up to his face so Melissa can’t see him.
    â€˜So let’s have a think about this,’ she’s saying, slowly, as if she’s laying out her own thoughts alongside his. ‘What this says to me, Robert, is that you’re still hiding. Where is the mouth?’
    â€˜I forgot about the mouth.’
    â€˜But it’s important, the mouth.’
    He can feel the tension ratcheting up inside him. This is the problem. This is why he’s here, because he can’t get a grip on the rage.
    Melissa changes tack. ‘What we have here is a depiction of something. We don’t really see what’s going on inside. Inside you.’
    He thinks of the gallery, all the other guys’ masks with the livid strokes and the burning colours and the awful blackness. He realises then that the tree couldn’t save him. His mam’s tree is no longer safe and he has nowhere left to go.

13
    Walt blinked and refocused his gaze on Alys, the studio, the gallows, feeling the pliers still in his hand, reminding himself of his reality.
    â€˜I’m sorry, pet. You’re the one with the vision. Tell me about it.’
    Alys’s face broke into a grin and he knew he was forgiven. She hugged the gallows to her chest. ‘I’m inspired by the Irish legend of Clíona. She was otherworldly, dangerous. She lured young men to the seashore and watched them drown. A spell was cast to protect them, turning Clíona into a wren, and every Christmas Day she was fated to die by human hand for her treachery. Of course, that’s the Pagan version. The Christians say it was the wren that betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane but either way the wren doesn’t come out of it well.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜Nope. In Ireland they have the wrenboy tradition where wrens are hunted down and killed and hung on a holly branch and paraded from house to house on Boxing Day, although they’re probably not allowed to do that now.’
    â€˜Where are you going to get a wren?’
    She ignored him, holding aloft the gallows. ‘Moodie made this out of holly wood. I’m going to create a tableau with the hanged wren at the centre of a rabble of small birds and animals. I might even have an old-lady hamster knitting at the foot of the scaffold!’
    She giggled. Walt’s face felt tight with