Part 22 (1/2)

Tess stood up and took Lizzie's elbow to help her back to Mr Quinn and his family. She seemed to move infuriatingly slowly, and Tess could see her mother nearing the gate as the crowd flowed forward.

Lizzie stopped abruptly. Mr Quinn was making towards them across the road.

'You get along now, Tessie,' she said. 'And mind you take care, you hear?'

'Are you sure you'll be all right?'

'I'll be all right, and so will you if you takes care. I trusts you, girl. If you trusts yourself half as much, you'll know what to do when the time comes.'

She shook herself free of Tess's grasp and latched on to Mr Quinn. Tess wanted to hear more, but it was too late. Her father was moving in another direction, and was just about to be swallowed up by the crowd.

'That all sounded very serious and profound,' he said, as she caught up with him. 'Far too obscure for an old dunce like me. What was it all about, anyway?'

'I haven't the faintest idea,' said Tess, 'but I wish I had.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

'IT MUST BE BECAUSE of all these people that they're opening early,' said Tess's mother as they approached the turnstiles. 'I'm sure the adverts said the zoo would open at ten.'

Tess looked back. The line stretched as far as she could see, back along the road between the zoo and the main gates of the park. A few gardai had arrived and were standing at intervals beside the queue, but so far there was no need for them; all was quiet and orderly.

Tess's father paid a hara.s.sed young woman in the nearest of the wooden kiosks at the gate, then grumbled about the price.

'Better be worth it. Awful lot of money just to look at one bird.'

'You can see all the rest of the animals as well if you want to,' said Tess.

'Leave him alone, Tess,' said her mother, good-naturedly. 'His life wouldn't be worth living if he couldn't find something to complain about.'

Once inside the zoo gates, there were several directions that a visitor could take, but not one person deviated from the line which dragged slowly on towards the centre of the compound. To Tess's surprise they pa.s.sed by the aviary where she had used the pine marten's sharp wits to get a look at the phoenix, and headed on towards another building beside the cafe. It was a huge grey warehouse of a place with nothing in the way of architectural imagination to recommend it. Tess had been inside it once before, when it had housed a rather boring exhibition of model whales and dolphins. Now it had clearly been given over to displaying the phoenix. As they drew near, a man was in the process of changing the queuing time notice beside the door from 'two hours' to 'three hours'.

'Glad we got here early,' said Tess's mother. 'We'd have been waiting all day if we'd got up an hour later.'

Inside the entrance to the building a pair of uniformed security guards were making cursory checks of everyone's hand luggage. The family's picnic basket got a slightly more thorough examination before they were allowed to move on, and Tess noticed two or three shooting sticks leaning against the wall, waiting for their owners to reclaim them as they left.

'They're not taking any chances, are they?' said Tess's father as they moved forward with the crowd.

'I suppose that bird must be fairly valuable,' said her mother. 'It seems to be the only one of its kind.'

'We don't know that,' said Tess. 'I think it's ridiculous. Why couldn't they leave it alone to get on with its life? For all they know it might have a family somewhere.'

She peered around the side of a heavily-built man in front of her, but the crowd was still too thick to see anything. For a long time they didn't move at all, and the guard at the door had stopped any more people from coming in behind them. Then, after what seemed an age, the line began to dribble forward again.

The phoenix's cage was in the corner diagonally opposite to the entrance door. A wall of hardboard part.i.tions ran down the centre of the building and prevented anyone seeing around the corner until they got there. The wait was infuriating; the long, slow crawl to that corner. But when they turned it, the endless queuing all seemed worthwhile.

The light hit them before they saw the bird itself, and it produced a powerful sensation. The gla.s.s-panelled cage was lit from above by a double row of fluorescent tubes, but the radiance that flooded out of that corner was far greater than what they could produce. Tess knew as soon as she saw the light that in some way or other, it was being produced by the bird itself. And its effect was extraordinary. The moment she came within its aura, and long before she saw the phoenix itself, Tess felt her mood s.h.i.+ft; elevate, as though she had received some wonderful news or been given an unexpected gift. When the phoenix first appeared at her window she had felt like that, but she had a.s.sumed her joy came from knowing that Kevin had survived. Now she knew it was more than that. The bird had some sort of mystical power of its own, and as Tess looked around her in wonder she could see that it was affecting everyone in the building in the same way. There was still a certain amount of shoving going on behind them, but all those who had stepped into the light were completely at ease; in no hurry at all despite their proximity to the source of the light. Even the zoo staff, there to keep the visitors moving, were relaxed and smiling, in no hurry to move people along.

Tess giggled to herself, imagining the sign outside the door being changed again from 'three hours' to 'four hours', then from four to five, and five to six, as progress slowed to a contented standstill inside the building. She could visualise the crusties getting out their Jews' harps and bongo drums as they settled in for the day, and the waxed jackets and pin-stripes sitting down among them, clapping their hands and chanting.

But the line did eventually move on, slowly but surely, and a few minutes later the golden bird came into view. It sat on a solid wooden perch, suspended above a lush forest of green and red foliage growing from large pots on the gravel floor of the cage. The sight of that gravel, laid down above the compacted earth floor on which she and the other onlookers were standing, meant something to Tess, though at that moment she couldn't understand what. It seemed absurd to be noticing such details when the phoenix was sitting there in front of her in all his glory.

She fought down a sudden urge to Switch and join him there and then, to become a part of that glorious radiance that shone through the gla.s.s panels of the enclosure. Instead, she tried to catch the bird's eye, to let him know that she was there and had not abandoned him.

It wasn't easy. His gaze moved slowly and evenly across the crowd, first one way and then the other. His expression was inscrutable and, when Tess did finally succeed in making contact with those calm, golden eyes, she could see no sign of recognition at all.

It disturbed her, and for a moment her buoyant mood deflated. Was she nothing to the phoenix? Was she just another pair of gawking eyes in the middle of this latest crop of uplifted faces? There was a certain arrogance about the bird's demeanour as he hung there above them all, pa.s.sing his benevolent eyes from one to another, as distant as a priest handing out communion. The fat man moved sideways, blocking her view, and at the same time a sullen anger tugged at the edge of Tess's mind. If he was so detached, why shouldn't she be, too? Why should she care about him being stuck there for all eternity if he didn't even bother to acknowledge her presence? She could turn away now and never turn back, just slip off into the darkness of that other existence, to hunt the city streets in the hours of darkness and never be bothered with him again.

The crowd shuffled forward and she was edged along with them. The fat man stepped aside to get a better view and the light fell directly on Tess's face once again. As it did so, all thoughts of darkness were washed out of her mind and she was swept back into the jubilant mood of the encompa.s.sing gathering. The gaze of the phoenix pa.s.sed over her again and she was perfect, glowing with an inner light as radiant as his own.

Outside the dull grey building, no one seemed in any hurry to move off towards their homes. If it hadn't been for the zoo officials who kept everyone moving along, people might have just sat down where they were, prepared to enjoy the weak winter suns.h.i.+ne for as long as it lasted. As it was, most people allowed themselves' to be guided back to the gates, where a cordon of posts and plastic chains separated the exit from the dense crowds still coming in.

The gra.s.s was green again now, except for those shadowy places beneath the trees and hedges where the sun couldn't reach. Tess kept an eye out for Lizzie, but when she eventually spotted her a few metres from the entrance to the exhibition building, she was too far away to call out. She noticed the puzzled expressions on the faces of the incoming visitors as they observed those who were coming out, beaming with pleasure. In sudden excitement, Tess realised that something extraordinary was happening here. Whatever power the phoenix held within itself was infectious. People were being changed by it. It was pulling them out of their dull, everyday lives and inspiring them with some sort of new spirit.

As though he were echoing her thoughts, Tess's father suddenly stretched his arms up above his head as if he was trying to reach the sun and said, 'Do you know what?'

'What?' said Tess.

'I don't think I'll bother going on into the office after all. They can manage without me for one day. Let's go home and get the frisbee, then find a quiet spot somewhere and have our breakfast.'

'Does that mean I can stay off school, then?'

Her mother laughed, her voice bubbling with the same inner excitement that everyone seemed to be feeling. 'We may be in a good mood,' she said, 'but we'd hardly go as far as playing frisbee without you!' 'Oh, wouldn't you?' Tess thought to herself as she sprawled luxuriously among the remains of their picnic breakfast an hour later. Her parents were playing frisbee some distance away, fooling about like young children in the sun. She was about to get up and join them when she noticed a familiar group of people making their way towards her across the park. It was Lizzie, with her escort of Mr Quinn and his children. As she stood up to go and meet them, Tess saw Lizzie turn to the others and give them some sort of command. They dropped back and sat down on the gra.s.s to wait for her, while she came on alone.

Tess bounced over to her, eager as a puppy, but something in Lizzie's expression made her hesitate. The old woman looked marvellous, as though she was twenty years younger. Even her stiffness had eased, and she hardly used her cane at all as she came forward to meet Tess. But there was something in her eyes apart from the reflected glow of the phoenix's radiance. It was clear to Tess that Lizzie had something on her mind.

'Well, young lady?' she said as Tess approached. 'What does you think of all that?'

'Oh, Lizzie. It's wonderful, isn't it?'

'Oh, it's wonderful, all right. Of course it's wonderful. Look at all these people all over the place, wonderfulling away the day.'

Tess looked round at the growing crowds enjoying the s.p.a.ce and the fresh air of the park. The gra.s.s was becoming almost crowded as people continued to file in and out of the zoo, and swelled the numbers lying about under the sun.

'Well? What's wrong with that?'

'There's nothing wrong with that, unless someone has work to do.'

'Oh, come on, Lizzie! I didn't think that you were the sort to get wound up over a few people taking a day off work!'

'I isn't talking about that lot!' said Lizzie, sounding exasperated. 'I's talking about you!'

'Me! But you're the one who goes on about young people filling their heads up with useless rubbish and having no room left for what they need to know. How can you turn round and object to me taking a day off school?'