Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

LIZZIE REFUSED TO LET Tess and Kevin help her wash up, even though they really meant it when they offered. So they sat beside the fire and watched the flames licking round the kettle as she clattered around behind them.

'Funny thing,' said Tess, emerging from her own thoughts, 'but I can still feel the place where Long Nose bit off my tail. Ridiculous, isn't it, when I haven't even got a tail.'

'Like a phantom limb, I suppose,' said Kevin. 'You were lucky it was only your tail, though. If it had been your hand or your nose or something you'd be in a bit of a mess now, wouldn't you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Didn't you realise that? If you get injured it doesn't just go away, you know.'

Tess did know. She had often noticed that scratches and bruises from her animal exploits stayed with her when she Switched back to herself. But it had never occurred to her that something more serious might happen.

Kevin was unlacing his shoe. 'You probably didn't notice but I only have three toes on this foot. I got the other two stuck in a crack in a drain pipe once, and there was no way to get out except to just keep pulling.'

'Yeucch!' said Tess.

Kevin took off his sock. It was dark and stiff with dirt, and Tess was about to pa.s.s a comment on it when she saw his foot, and forgot about it. The last two toes, the smallest ones, were missing. It was slightly grotesque. 'Doesn't matter what I am,' he said. 'If it has toes, those two are missing.'

Tess thought about what he had said, about how it would be if she had lost a hand, or even a whole arm or leg. Kevin had started rubbing at the dirt between his remaining toes. 'Put it away, will you?' she said. 'It's disgusting.'

He shrugged and pulled his sock back on. Behind them, Lizzie closed a cupboard door with an emphatic bang.

Tess leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She was suddenly very tired. Up until now it had all been a kind of a dream for her. While she was a rat, it had been difficult to think about human matters, and then there had been the meeting with Lizzie and the reckless, capricious delight of their goat afternoon. But the episode with the policeman, and now Kevin's foot, had brought her back to earth. All through her childhood her strange ability had been something that was private and carefully contained. It was safe, that other world, and it had always been tidily separate from her 'real' life. But suddenly, over the last few days, it seemed to have moved beyond her control. She was no longer at all certain of who she was and what she was doing. Kevin was elusive and confusing. At times she was so sure that she had at last found the companion that she had been looking for all her life, and then something would s.h.i.+ft and he seemed to be at odds with her, almost an enemy.

And then there was Lizzie. What was anyone to make of Lizzie? It had all seemed to make some kind of sense when they set out, as though there was a mission for them, but in the light of police searches and sleepless parents pacing the floor at home it seemed like madness. She didn't know what was real and what was not. She was suddenly, horribly afraid that they might all be mad.

'Tess?' said Kevin.

'Yes?'

He was looking at her carefully, and his concern was evident in his face. Here was yet another Kevin, one that she hadn't seen before now. But how did she know if she could trust him?

'Are you all right?' he said.

'I just don't really know what's going on.'

'I feel like that sometimes, too. But you know there's nothing to keep you here, don't you? You can go home right now if you want to.'

Tess looked across at Lizzie. She was drying the last of the cutlery with a grimy tea-towel, and Tess noticed that she was doing it rather quietly and thoughtfully, listening to their conversation. Her face was different, somehow, as though she were no longer trying to keep a distance between herself and the youngsters. The games were over. All three of them were ready, it seemed, to be serious.

'Maybe we should just hear what Lizzie has to say,' said Kevin, 'and then we can decide what to do. What do you say?'

Tess relaxed. She nodded and sighed, and settled more comfortably into her chair. As if in approval of her decision, a tabby cat hopped lightly up beside her and curled itself up on her lap.

Back at the Garda barracks, John Maloney carried his dinner tray over to a free table in the cafeteria. It was more usual for him to go home when his s.h.i.+ft was over, because he preferred to cook for himself and was quite good at it. But today he was too exhausted to even think about it. His mind was littered with images of goats which did improbable things, and he couldn't shut them out, no matter what he did. He sat down and began to eat, but he couldn't taste the food. However hard he tried, he found he couldn't be concerned about whatever public menace those goats were causing. There were far more serious matters in police duty. But what irritated him was the feeling of having been defeated by a pair of dumb beasts.

Out of the corner of his eye, John spotted Garda Griffin leaving the check-out with his tray. He looked away quickly, but he knew he had been seen and that Griffin was coming to join him. Now he was in for a ragging. Oliver Griffin was one of those people who can never take anything seriously in life, or at least, pretend that they can't. John had worked with him for a while in a different part of town, and they had spent many a night on patrol together. In a crisis, Oliver was about the finest person he had ever worked with, because nothing, not even the most tense of situations, could deprive him of his sense of the ridiculous. There were times when John had found knots in his stomach being dissolved by unexpected laughter. But in the normal run of things, Oliver's eternal quipping was intolerable.

'Tough day, eh?' he said now, as he unloaded his tray. This was his breakfast. He had just arrived for the night s.h.i.+ft. 'Job getting your goat?'

'Don't start, Olly,' said John. 'I'm not in the mood.'

'Ah, come on. It can't be that bad. Bit of sport for a change. Headline news. Big game hunting in Tibradden, County Dublin.'

'I wouldn't care if I never saw another goat in my life. If you'd had to deal with them you wouldn't be laughing.'

'Want to bet?'

John laughed despite himself and felt a lot better. 'The worst of it was,' he said, 'the little sods seemed to be enjoying themselves. You'd swear they were taking the mickey out of us.'

'Probably were,' said Griffin. 'And I hear you had an encounter with the Lady of the Manor.'

'Who?'

'Old Lizzie.'

'Oh, her. Do you know her, then? Some character, eh?'

'Yes. Sitting on a fortune and still living like a gypsy.'

'A fortune? What makes you think that?'

'All that land. All those fields around there. They all belong to her. About eighty acres, I think. Imagine what that's worth.'

'Phew!' said John.

Oliver finished his pudding and went on to his main course. John had seen it enough times now not to be surprised, but it still made him feel slightly queasy. 'Yes,' Oliver said. 'The developers are hovering round her like flies, but she won't sell. ”I has all I needs,”' he mimicked, '”and I needs all I has.”'

The accuracy of the imitation had John laughing again. 'You must have been trying to buy the place yourself.'

'Na. I've known Lizzie for years. She's a great old character, really. There's more to her than meets the eye. I often stop in there for a cup of tea when no one's looking.'

'Naughty, naughty.'

'Public relations, John, public relations. And she's lonely out there on her own. Where's the harm in it?'

'I suppose so.' John put down his knife and fork and started peeling an orange, trying not to look at the red puddles of ketchup on his friend's plate.

'Besides,' Oliver went on, 'I feel sorry for her in a way, with half of Dublin's biggest speculators waiting around for her to die. Imagine thinking that the only thing the world wants from you is your death, eh? And like I said, she's not bad company once you get to know her. She still tells me to clear off whenever she sees me, but if you ignore her she gets quite friendly sometimes.'

'Hardly my idea of fun,' said John.

'Ah, don't be so cynical.' Oliver paused to slurp at his mug of tea, then went on: 'You can't get fun out of life unless you give it a chance, you know. I'll be sorry when Lizzie does snuff it, but I'll get a great laugh out of it, too. Can you imagine the faces of those b.a.l.l.sbridge dudes when they find out she's left the lot to a home for retired donkeys?'

'Donkeys?'