The Switchers Trilogy Part 8

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 shift 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 shift 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 shift. '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?'

'Well, she probably will, you know. Or goats. That'd be a good one. I wonder what the "Neighbourhood Residential Committee" would think of that?'

John smiled, despite himself. 'She couldn't do that, though,' he said. 'Her relatives would be ent.i.tled to collect, wouldn't they?'

'What relatives? Lizzie hasn't got any relatives.'

'Yes she has. I met her niece today, or her great-niece or something.'

Oliver was shaking his head with a certainty that infuriated John. 'Nope,' he said. 'Not Lizzie's, you didn't. She told me herself that she has no one left in England and she never had a family of her own here. "I's all alone in the world and I likes it that way. I's no time at all for people, I hasn't. They takes up too much s.p.a.ce."'

'Well, you're wrong this time, Olly. I-' He stopped abruptly. The gentle tapping of suspicion that he'd had when he first saw Tess had become a mighty hammering. 'Drink your tea, Olly,' he said as he stood up.

'Why? Where are you going?'

'We're going, Olly. Missing Persons.'

'I knowed it was going to happen,' said Lizzie. 'I knowed it as soon as I read about it in the newspaper.'

Kevin looked across at Tess and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Tess shrugged.

'I doesn't get newspapers to read,' Lizzie went on. 'I hasn't any interest in all them politics and wars all over the place. I gets the papers from Mr Quigley. That's the farmer who owns those cattle. He gives me his old ones to light the fire. I hasn't any time for fire-lighters. They smells like motor cars.'

Tess stroked the cat on her lap. She was relaxed now that she was sure she would soon be home. She didn't know what she was going to say to her parents, but she would think about that later.

'Sometimes I looks at them before I scrunches them up,' said Lizzie, 'and sometimes I doesn't. I always knows that if something's important it'll catch my eye. How can something be important if you has to go looking for it, that's what I says. So I wasn't surprised when I saw it.'

'Saw what?' said Kevin.

'About that drilling up there in the North Pole. I knew what would happen if they started all that carry-on. But people never thinks about what might happen. They wants oil and they wants money and cars and fire-lighters, and as soon as they's got them what does they do but want more of them? So I said to myself, I'll warn them. That's what I'll do.'

She got up a little stiffly and went over to the kitchen sink. The night had fallen, so she drew the curtains, and for a while the room was soft with firelight. Lizzie rummaged around in a drawer until she found what she was looking for, then turned on the light and came back to her seat.

'There,' she said, handing a piece of brown paper to Kevin. 'That's only a copy, mind. I always keeps a copy of letters. Not that I ever writes any these days. The real one was on good paper. The best you can buy, Mr Quigley said.'

Tess leant across and read the letter over Kevin's shoulder. At the top it said, 'To The Taoiseach And the Tanaiste of The Dail, KilDare Street, Dublin. From Mrs Elizabeth Larkin of TiBradden, Co. Dublin, OWNER of Much Land and VaLuable ProPerty.

'They has to know that you's someone,' said Lizzie, proudly, 'before they takes any notice of you. They doesn't pay no attention to commoners.'

Tess and Kevin read on. The writing was large and untidy, with small letters and capitals all jumbled up together.

'YoU Cant alloW ThoSe comPanY PeoPle to Go driLLing UP in the NorTh PoLe. OR elSe YoU WiLL LeT ouT The krooLs and Then YoU WiLL Be SoRRY.

YoURS finally, lizzie Larkin.

PS PLeaSe Send a coPY to The comPanY ThaT iS doing The dRiLLing becauSe I don'T have There adReSS.

Tess sat back in her chair. She knew without doubt where that letter would have ended its life, and she wondered how many similar letters from cranks pa.s.sed through government offices in the course of a year. She sighed and sat back. The cat made a tour of her lap and resettled itself.

'Well?' said Lizzie. 'What does you think?'

'It's a good letter, Lizzie,' said Tess. 'It's very good. But the trouble is, people don't ... I mean people in government don't very often take much notice of letters.'

'Whoever they're from,' Kevin added.

'You's right, there,' said Lizzie, 'and you knows why that is, doesn't you?'

'Why?'

'Because they thinks they knows it all, that's why.'

Tess's face was among the first that John Maloney saw in the room where the files on missing persons were kept. 'There she is,' he said to Oliver Griffin. 'I knew I'd seen her before.'

'Who?'

'Lizzie's niece.'

'But Lizzie hasn't got a niece,' said Oliver.

'I believe you, Olly,' said John. 'Now let's go.'

'People in general,' said Lizzie, 'thinks they knows it all. And if they doesn't know it then they puts it in front of a microscope or a periscope and makes it bigger, and there's things in this world should be left the same size they always was and not interfered with at all.'

Tess looked at her watch. She would be home before her parents went to bed.

'They doesn't use plain common sense,' Lizzie went on. 'They sees things that is plain and simple and they goes to great lengths to make them as difficult and complicated as they can. They sees that the world is cold at both ends so they comes up with a c.o.c.k and bull story about how we's all spinning around in the air like a football. But you can throw a football around all day and it never gets colder at the ends than it is in the middle.'

'I don't think it's the spinning that causes the Poles to be cold, Lizzie,' said Kevin. 'I think it's the way the earth tilts.'

'Tilts?'

'Yes. It's sort of leaning as it goes around, so some bits don't get as much sun.'

'And where did you find that out?'

'I read about it in the library.'

Lizzie got up angrily, spilling two cats on to the floor. 'That's exactly what I's talking about,' she said. 'What does a nice boy like you want to go poking around libraries for? Nosing out all kinds of nonsense you has no use for? Then when you gets a chance of learning what you needs to know, there's no room left in your head for it.' She strode over to the fire. 'And you get a move on!' she said to the kettle, giving it a poke.

'Why don't you tell us anyway, Lizzie?' said Tess. 'About your krools.'

'My krools?' said Lizzie. 'They isn't my krools. They isn't anybody's krools. They's just krools.'

'Well, tell us about them anyway, will you?'