Second Skin
The blood was bright against the brilliant white of the fresh snow. Just a few drops here and there, but enough for Nina to find the slippery body of the lamb, its coat yolky and slick with afterbirth. A coppery scent permeated the air – a familiar smell that was not unpleasant.
It was lying in a dip where the snow had been rutted and turned over by the ewe’s worrying. The steam rising from it told her the lamb was fresh. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since the poor thing had been discharged from the warm embrace of its mother’s womb.
Kneeling, Nina rubbed her gloved hand across the lamb’s chest, watching its muzzle closely for movement. It had been twenty-two years since she had first come to the farm, and it never got any easier seeing how frivolously life was given and taken away.
“We are the midwives and the undertakers,” Sarah McCarthy had warned her back in the early days. “No point getting attached.” Sarah had never lived by her own words. When the trucks arrived at the end of a good season, she could be found leaning against the wooden slats of the loading bay, her chin resting on thick, stiffly crossed arms. Stoically, she’d watch as Peter and Sean whistled their commands, and the dogs drove the plump, bleating flock up the ramp and towards slaughter.
Afterwards, she’d retreat to the garden, snapping the decaying heads of dahlia and chrysanthemum as though stimulating new growth might relieve her of some guilt.
Everyone knew not to disturb her on transport day.
Nina leaned back and looked across the white sepulchre field. It was the cold that had killed this lamb. In a few days, the clover would come back with vehemence, renewed by the nourishment of the spring snowfall. But, with lambing season just beginning, this wouldn’t be the only life erased by winter’s spontaneous encore. She picked the dead lamb up by its hind legs and waded through the knee-deep snow to the idling quad bike.
From somewhere to the west, the mechanical whine of the ATV could be heard struggling across the fields, a heavy load of hay and feed on the back. Sean had been busy since daybreak, rushing to separate the ewes with young from the flock.
Gripping the lamb’s front and back hooves, Nina hoisted it onto the tray of the bike, then climbed onto the seat and kicked it into gear. The last time they’d had spring snow, they had taken shifts to check on the lambing ewes. With Peter and Sarah gone, they didn’t have the hands anymore.
Moving through the field, Nina spied the stock sheltering under the line of pines that bordered the road, the barrel-legged ewe hobbling at the back. The empty birthing sack hung limp from her rear.
She took in the surrounding mountains with their soft peaks and lingering canopies of cloud. Just yesterday, their serrated ridges had stretched towards the sky like cathedral spires, separated by remnants of winter snow and crumbling banks of black schist.
In the summers of their youth, she and Sean would go schist skiing, hiking up the mountains in their too-big gumboots with their too-big rucksacks stuffed with a cornucopia of supplies. They always went to the same spot, a small gully where the river pooled as though to catch its breath, before it tumbled down the cliff and turned to mist and foam. In that place above the falls, they would spread out a picnic blanket and feast on their stash of poorly wrapped sandwiches and dry scones. They sipped water from old whiskey bottles, pretending to be drunk. As they got older, they would learn one another’s bodies there too.
Afterwards, they would run across the schist slopes and slide down the mountainside to the farm. The black stone would suck at their boots and, if they weren’t careful, throw them off balance until they were buried in a small avalanche of their own making.
For Nina, those days with Sean were all she had to look forward to during the school year in the city. She missed who he had been back then, when life and love were simple, uncomplicated things. Before he had built a wall with his grief and shut her out.
Pulling up to the house, Nina unloaded her cargo and walked around the back to the woodshed, glancing through the kitchen window for signs that Eddie might be awake. Despite being raised on the farm, he was a lot like Sarah – sensitive to the macabre aspects of farming. Nina would do anything to preserve the softness of her son’s heart. She didn’t want him to see what she was about to do.
The woodshed was almost empty after a long winter. A few cubes of cut pine lay in the far corner. Needles carpeted the floor, softening Nina’s steps. She moved behind the door where a thick macrocarpa slab created a makeshift workbench. It had once been used for Peter’s carpentry; now, it was where Sean filleted the trout he brought home from the river. The surface was notched with scars from both father and son.
Nina placed the lamb on top of the bench and reached above her head to yank the chain. Fluorescent light flickered and then held, illuminating the body. It was a ewe lamb, and on the large side. The coat was mostly white, except for a few dark patches that covered the belly and rump. The tip of its pink tongue stuck out between pale gums and rubbery black lips. She was grateful that its eyes were closed.
Pulling the filleting knife from where it had been jammed between the corrugated iron and wooden beams of the shed, Nina rested her left hand on the chest of the lamb, checking.
It was a fear of hers that she might skin a lamb whilst it was still alive.
She made the first cut tentatively, gauging how deep she needed to press the blade into the skin before it reached muscle. A thin slice at the base of the throat. She could see the silvery sinew stretching across the rosy, red flesh.
From under the bench, Nina pulled out the rusted air-compressor, plugged it into the socket and flicked the switch. With a roar, it spluttered to life, the black hose stiffening under the pressure.
Slipping her finger under the skin, Nina separated the subcutaneous tissue from the tender flesh, loosening the skin until she had made a small tunnel into which she stuck the compressor’s needle. Pressing the tips of her index and middle fingers down to seal the incision, she pulled the trigger. The compressor thrummed by her feet. The lamb’s fleece lifted to meet her calloused palm as the air snapped the connective tissue, carving out a cavity and swelling the small ewe like a balloon. A miasma of stale air mixed with the tang of raw flesh, like warm coins held in a sweaty fist, rose from the carcass.
“It seems inhumane,” she had told Peter the first time she had seen him skinning a possum.
“Aye, it does. But it’s long dead, you know. Doesn’ feel a thing,” he replied, bumping her lightly with his shoulder. He smelt simultaneously clean and dirty: toothpaste and wood smoke, Dove soap and diesel. Peter’s contradictory scent carried the essence of who he was; despite the dirty work, he was a gentle soul. She felt comfortable with him in a way she didn’t with her own father, a dentist who owned a practice in Riccarton. Most of the time, he was as cold and sterile as his workplace. She had vague memories of sitting on her father’s lap, his voice drawling and soft – soothing even – as he read Hairy Maclary aloud. But that was back when he and her mum were still together, before he had remarried and started another family, and before her mother had died.
Nina removed the nozzle and picked up the filleting knife again, carefully slipping it into the gap of loosened flesh. It glided smoothly through the oily layer of skin as she made a cut from the throat to the back of the neck. She had to lift the head to cut around the underside, and something in the lolling floppiness of it reminded her of Eddie when he was a newborn. It had frightened her at the time, holding this delicate creature and realising how his life was entirely in her hands. She pushed the thought out before it sprouted roots and put her off the task.
Around the front legs, Nina cut two identical bands halfway between the knee and shoulder, then rolled the lamb onto its back, exposing the soft belly. The pearly umbilical cord hung flaccid from its navel, purple veins coiled inside the soft tube like vines, serpentine and dark. She punctured the skin at the base of the lamb’s chest and slipped the steel through the pale pink belly, allowing her mind to drift back to her first lesson in skinning.
It was the summer before she was supposed to start her Veterinary degree at Massey in Palmerston North. She had been going to fill up the wood basket for Sarah, but had stumbled upon Peter working in the shed. He had called her over to watch as he skinned a lamb.
“You’ve got to mind yourself on the parts where there’s less hair,” Peter had told her, cutting the lamb’s centre in one quick motion. “That’s where the skin’s thinner.”
“Hopefully I won’t be cutting up too many dead animals when I’m a vet,” Nina had joked, picking up the wood basket and trying to end the impromptu lesson.
Peter had stopped then. He put the knife down on the bench and turned to look at her curiously. “Well, course you will. Vet or not. You don’t think I’m teachin’ you for a craic, do yah?”
“A craic?” she’d asked.
“A laugh,” he said. “I’m not teachin’ you for a laugh. You’ve been comin’ here since you were a babe –”
“I was ten,” Nina corrected.
“Aye, near enough. Anyhow, I suspect you’re gonna be stickin’ round for a wee while more. You’re gonna need to know all the ropes.” He nodded towards the small black Arapawa ram that lay prostrate on the bench. “Includin’ the dirty ones.”
Nina was confused. “I don’t think you’ll have enough work for me at the farm, if that’s what you’re saying.”
Peter wiped his hands down the front of his flannel shirt, then leaned back against the bench and cleared his throat. “Listen. Your ma, bless her soul, might’ve asked us to take you on just to get you out the house while she was sick. But Sarah and I, well, we don’t getcha up here just ’cause we feel obligated to continue. It’s ’cause we love havin’ you here.” His face softened, and a slow smile lifted the corner of his lips. “And our Sean, well . . .” He gave an exaggerated wink. “He really loves havin’ you here.”
With that, he picked up the knife and handed it to Nina, who shuffled towards the bench with flushed cheeks and a pulse that threatened to drown out his instructions.
Thinking back to that conversation, Nina felt a mix of pleasure and pain. The McCarthys had basically raised her after her mum had passed, even though, technically, she had lived with her dad. They’d filled the short weeks between terms and the slightly longer summers with enough love to compensate for her physically and emotionally absent parents. Peter couldn’t have known the things she and Sean were doing in the mountains, but he’d known enough to see their future together – the good parts, at least. Nina and Sean had married in the summer of her third year at Massey, and, after graduating, she had moved to the farm full-time. Peter and Sarah had been overjoyed.
Back then, she had romanticised the simplicity of their life, the progression from childhood friends to lovers, the sacrificing of career for family. There was something beautiful in the predictability of it all.
What would Peter and Sarah have made of their marriage now?
Having made the final cut around the lamb’s rump, Nina set the knife aside and picked it up by its hind legs. Tying them securely with the length of rope that hung from the rafters, she tucked her fingers under the flaps of skin on either side of the tail and, in one swift motion, pulled the skin clean from the flesh.
As she hung the shiny, inverted coat on a nail, she heard the high, excited yapping of the dogs. Sean would be heading to the big hay barn. Nina stepped outside and swished her bloodied hands around in the snow, then made her way up the drive to join him.
As she walked, a cold breeze pushed its way into the folds of her clothes. She pulled her hood tight against her cheeks. Even with the thick wool muffling her ears, she could hear the bleating of the ewes and lambs well before she could see the barn’s red iron flashing through the pines. The pitch and regularity of their cries told her they were still disgruntled. Nina felt a stab of irritation in her belly. When he was younger, Sean was scrupulous with his shepherding, his eyes constantly scanning, assessing the stock for upset or agitation. These days, he was far less patient.
The ATV was parked outside the open barn doors. Cleo and Pilot wined excitedly from the tray, their pupils dilated, hot breath puffing clouds into the crisp air.
“Hello, stinky,” Nina said, scratching Pilot under his ear as she made her way inside.
Sean was closing the metal gate on one of the collapsible pens when he caught sight of her. His handsome face was flushed from the chill, and she could see his nose was dripping above his stubbled moustache.
“How’d ya get on in the hillside paddocks?” he asked, brushing his hands down his shirt as he walked towards her. The action reminded her of Peter.
“Lost a lamb. Probably missed the birth by a few minutes.”
Sean scratched at his hairline, dark strands falling out from underneath his beanie. “Alright, well, I suppose it’s to be expected. You take the coat?”
“Yeah, just need to get the ewe from the eastern field. You should spot her easy enough,” Nina replied, tucking her cold hands up under her armpits.
Sean stepped closer and rubbed the top of her arms awkwardly, as though he had forgotten how. The gesture surprised her, and Nina felt her body lean in slightly. “I’ll head that way now,” he said, releasing her and moving towards the doors. “We’ll give her the bummer from pen three. She’s got triplets.”
Nina followed him out into the swirling wind and climbed up into the passenger seat of the ATV.
“Drop me at home. I’ll just check on Eddie quick,” she told Sean. He gave a brief nod and started the engine.
The house was toasty inside, and Nina shivered in delight as she stripped off her Swandri and hung it on the hook. From down the hall, she could hear the squeaking characters of Paw Patrol on the TV. She walked towards the lounge, past the drooping Ficus and the wall of picture frames, the smiling faces of McCarthy descendants staring back at her. Her favourite was a photo of her and Sarah sitting on the garden bench between the roses, a muslin-wrapped babe nestled in Sarah’s frail arms.
“He’s got Peter’s nose, don’t you think? A little McCarthy through and through,” Sarah had said to Nina and Sean, smiling at the wrinkled week-old baby.
“He does, doesn’t he?” Nina said, not wanting to spoil the moment. Sarah had received her diagnosis exactly six months after Peter passed away from a stroke. It had come as a shock to everyone except Sarah herself, who had retreated inwards after the funeral, refusing to eat or bathe, and reanimated only when the word ‘terminal’ slipped solemnly through the doctor’s thin lips. The cancer returned her to her old self.
Nina suspected she had willed herself sick.
“Let’s get a picture of the three of you,” Sean had said, lifting the small point-and-shoot up to his face.
“No, no. You don’t want this old bag of bones ruining the photo album,” Sarah objected, running her hand self-consciously over her thinning hair. She had looked down at Eddie and dropped her hand on to his tiny chest.
Poking her head around the door frame, Nina saw Eddie curled up on the sofa in his pyjamas. The ache of Peter and Sarah’s absence mingled with the certainty that they would have loved the sweet boy he had become.
He was fixated on the screen, blue eyes wide and unblinking, peach lips parted. His tongue roved absently in the back of his left cheek. Nina wanted to curl around him, to brush his sleep-tangled curls and breathe in his honeyed morning breath, but she knew she wouldn’t get back up. Light-footed, she moved down the hallway and slipped unseen out into the snow.
In pen three, a docile-looking ewe stood patiently as three young lambs pushed against each other, grappling and greedy, vying for their mother’s teats. The largest pair sucked ferociously whilst the bummer runt butted at their hungry mouths, too weak to loosen their grips.
Nina leaned against the bars of the pen, waiting for the right time to remove the runt. With three lambs and only two teats, it would never get enough milk to survive. It’s animal instinct that leads the stronger lambs to take what they can – what is made easy to them. There’s no cruelty in it, it’s survival.
Humans do the same thing.
Their relationship had lost its lustre soon after the wedding, though neither of them admitted it. When Peter died, their fragile union completely disassembled. Having spent all his 27 years following his father around the farm, Sean became withdrawn and inattentive. Unkind. He threw himself into work, meeting her offers of help with derision. The more she tried to move close, the more cutting his rejections became.
In attempting to fill his father’s shoes, he somehow resembled him less.
It hurt Nina. But, more than that, it made her resentful.
At first, she had flirted with the contractors just to see if Sean would react. To see that he still cared. It was easy enough; she simply had to engage where before she had ignored.
“You gotta join us for a couple cold ones when we wrap up,” one of the shearing contractors had shouted at her across the sound of whizzing blades and bleating Merinos.
Nina released the ewe she’d been hunched over and stood up, wiping her sweaty forehead against her arm. There was something like hope in the young shearer’s eyes. It thrilled her.
She smiled. “Maybe just one. I’m a bit of a cheap date these days.”
She had hung back even after Sean called it a night, her coquettish efforts unnoticed. After that, the attention of other men became something vital and necessary. She fed on their compliments and longing glances, those fleeting moments sustaining her just enough that she didn’t starve.
Though Nina understood the greed of the fat, suckling lambs, her heart broke for the little runt. She knew that desperate hunger.
She glanced at the far corner of the barn, the memory of a wet mouth that had tasted smoky and bitter flashing through her mind. Hot breath. Hands that were not her husband’s.
Nina turned her back to the dark, hay-filled corner and opened the gate to the third pen. Shuffling inside, she plucked the bummer lamb from the fray, tucking it under her left arm as she made her way out.
Taking the skin of the dead lamb from the railing where she’d dropped it, she moved over to the stack of bales and rested the bleating runt on her knees. She slipped its head through the folds of skin, her hands slipping under the slimy flesh to guide its limbs into place. The runt had quieted now, seemingly resigned to its fate. Taking a string of yarn, she knotted it into the flapping fleece and secured the skin close against the lamb.
Through the open door, she could hear the rising hum of the ATV as Sean neared the barn. Looking down at the lamb in its new coat, Nina felt a sudden nervousness.
Sometimes, no matter what you did, the ewe just wasn’t fooled.
Nina stood up and made her way to the barn doors. The ATV was moving slowly up the drive, Cleo and Pilot slinking and scurrying in a criss-cross pattern ahead of it, driving the confused ewe on. Nina could see a small head of curly blond hair low on the passenger seat.
With her free arm she pushed the door of the barn wider, making space for the skittish ewe as it scurried in, away from the yapping hounds. She closed the gap quickly. Sean killed the ATV and Eddie jumped out, his rubber boots completely swallowed by the snow.
“Found this little menace waiting on the porch,” Sean said, tussling Eddie’s hair as he tried to run, unsuccessfully, through the dense snow. Sean scooped him up and, walking past Nina, dropped him inside the barn.
Cleo and Pilot quickly had the rampant ewe secured in a pen, where she strutted restlessly until Sean sent the dogs back outside.
“Can I give her the lamb, Mummy? Can I please?” Eddie asked, hopping from foot to foot in excitement. At six years old, her son was already fully immersed in the farm work. He knew how to start the quad, could tell the signs of foot rot, and had reared a dozen lambs in their front room.
Nina smiled and, gently, placed the lamb in his outstretched arms. “Remember not to get too close,” she warned as Eddie walked into the pen, face scrunched in concentration.
About a metre from the ewe, Eddie placed the lamb carefully onto the hay, walking backwards out of the gate. “Ohhhh,” he whispered. “I didn’t notice the lamb’s wearing a little coat.”
Nina could tell from his voice that he was more fascinated than repulsed. She felt her shoulders, which she hadn’t realised were tensed, relax.
Sean pulled Eddie in towards him and hoisted him up onto the metal bars of the pen, bracing his arms on either side to catch him if he fell. They all watched as the small lamb walked confidently towards the ewe, drawn by the scent of lactating teats. Its tail flicked left and right, then shimmied in excitement as it skipped the last step to the ewe.
Nina leaned in closer as the foster mother sniffed uncertainly at the intruder. The small lamb was already bumping against her hanging breast.
The ewe’s muzzle worked across the yolky shoulders of the woollen coat, nostrils flaring, then pushed gently at the lamb’s ribs and nudged it away from her teat.
Ewes and lambs recognise each other by sight and sound. But it is the smell that is most important. It is that undercurrent of familiarity, that resemblance between the oils and aromas, that tells a ewe whether or not the lamb is hers. The ewe’s nose moved slowly along the lamb’s spine and down towards its rump, sniffing urgently at the coat.
Nina noticed the moment that the ewe was fooled by the second skin.
With a snort, the ewe lifted her head slightly, allowing the foster to move in close against her breast.
Glancing over at Sean, whose chin rested lightly on top of Eddie’s golden crown, Nina wondered whether, one day, he might notice something different in Eddie’s scent. Whether he might see the clean cuts of her blade, and the soft folds of someone else’s skin, and realise that Eddie, too, was wearing a coat.
Holly Ann Miller has won £2,500 as winner of the Pacific region of the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and will compete for overall winner, announced on June 30, worth £5,000. Her story, and the winning story in the Africa region, are the only two winning stories in five regions which have not been suspected of use of AI. The full story of the AI scandal at this year’s Commonwealth Prize is told in the Saturday newsletter sent out to ReadingRoom subscribers. The five winners of the regional prizes are published online at Granta, with a warning: “Granta editors were not involved with these stories or their selection beyond copy-editing them upon receipt. This year, there has been speculation that some of the stories may have been at least partially AI-generated. The suggestion that writers have submitted material not authentically their own is a charge we take seriously, but until definite evidence comes to light we will keep these stories on our website.” The published stories include the story that has attracted the most vitriol, “The Serpent in the Grove” by Jamir Nazir, which won the Caribbean region prize. It’s a wildly metaphorical story featuring an incredible sentence which has been mocked around the world: “She had the kind of walking that made benches become men.”
