Wild Blood (7 page)

She chose the kestrel again to find Kevin. The last time, she had been in a rush to see what Bran and Sceolan were up to, but now she could afford to explore the sensations of flight and the nature of the bird. Kevin had told her that another Switcher he had known had chosen a hawk as her permanent form when she reached fifteen. As she climbed into the heights Tess could easily understand why. The hawk was strong and clear-sighted. Tess always found the basic nature of animals and birds much simpler and less muddled than the complicated business of being human, but the hawk, above all others, had a purity of essence that was thrilling. The bird knew neither doubt nor hesitation; neither empathy nor remorse. Its eyes were designed for daylight but its heart belonged to the moon. Tess relished its sharp simplicity of being, and the knowledge that she might never experience it again made the sensations all the keener.

She could see the ground beneath her in the minutest detail. It wasn’t at all like using binoculars; her sight didn’t magnify the ground and make it seem nearer than it was. She just saw. She saw blades of grass, distant and tiny, bending beneath the weight of a stag beetle. She saw a bird tugging a worm from beneath a stone. She saw a matchbox toy, lost by some child many years ago and rusted now, barely visible among the grasses that had grown up over it.

Missing nothing, she climbed higher, widening her field of vision, scanning the landscape. She flew east and west, hovering occasionally to stabilise her vision, covering two or three square miles before the smell of smoke reached her and narrowed the search area. Eventually she found what she was looking for. Alerted by movement, she banked and overflew a stand of ash trees beside the narrow little bridge that Kevin had mentioned. Through the trees she could see the stretched dome of the tent and the resting spokes of the bicycle wheels. Delighted with herself, she dropped out of the sky, dodging through the branches at breakneck speed and coming to a hovering halt in the air, right in front of Kevin’s nose.

Kevin jumped and took a step backwards, then realised who it was. He grinned and made a lunge at the bird, but she dodged out of his way and then Switched, judging the transition so perfectly that her feet met the ground as lightly as a feather.

‘I keep forgetting you can do that,’ said Kevin. ‘Not fair.’

‘Not for much longer, though,’ said Tess.

Kevin nodded. ‘Any plans?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Tess. ‘It’s driving me mad. What would you be if you had the decision ahead of you again?’

Kevin thought about it for a moment or two, then said, ‘A rat. I always felt … I don’t know … cheated, somehow. Because of being forced into a decision when it was time for me to choose. I’m sure that if I’d had a chance to think I would have decided on a rat.’

His words gave Tess an uncomfortable reminder of her dream, but she said nothing and Kevin went on, ‘Maybe it doesn’t make that much difference, in the end. I mean, the best thing was being able to Switch. Nothing could be as good as that, really, could it?’

Tess sighed. ‘It’s like having everything, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I can’t stand the idea of losing it.’

Kevin had a neat little campfire going in front of his tent, carefully confined inside a ring of stones. On top of it a billy of water was coming to the boil.

‘Tea?’ he asked.

Tess sat down on a stone. As though it saw her, the smoke changed direction and drifted into her face. She waved her hands at it and waited. Sure enough, it soon returned to its previous course.

‘Anyway,’ said Kevin, dropping a fistful of tea leaves into the billy, ‘what happened? How come you didn’t warn them that I was coming?’

Tess groaned and related the story of Uncle Maurice and the wild goats. As she told it Kevin nodded, understanding and approving in a way that no one else ever did or could. Their friendship warmed her heart as it so often had in the past. As time went on it became more valuable, not less, no matter how different their lives appeared to be.

In the silence that followed the end of Tess’s account, Kevin rooted around in his rucksack and found another cup. Tess watched him. He was still as tough and as scruffy as the town rats which had been his main companions during his Switcher days. He would never fit into normal human society, not in a million years. In a sudden, uninvited leap of imagination, Tess saw him as an old tramp, a bag man rummaging around on the edges of society; a human rat, unloved and unwanted. She had seen people like that, adrift on the city streets. They existed without the anchors that kept most people stable: family or education or job. Tess wondered whether their minds drifted in the same way, untethered, unfocussed, unaware of time.

‘Maybe it’s best to leave it that way,’ said Kevin.

Tess came back to reality with a jolt. ‘What?’

‘No need to tell them now that you know me, is there?’

‘No,’ said Tess. ‘In fact it would be a bit awkward, since I didn’t say anything yesterday.’

Kevin used a grimy T-shirt to protect his fingers from the heat of the billy as he poured the tea into two battered enamel mugs.

‘Trouble is, though,’ Tess went on, ‘I won’t be able to invite you to my birthday party.’

‘Are you having one?’

Tess shrugged. Kevin spooned milk powder into the cups. ‘We can have one,’ he said. ‘Just you and me. A midnight one.’

‘That would be good,’ said Tess. ‘That would make everything easier.’

‘It’s a date, then,’ said Kevin, then blushed. ‘I don’t mean that kind of a date. I mean …’

Tess laughed, but she could feel herself colouring as well. For a moment each of them struggled separately, trying to think of something normal to say. Tess got there first.

‘What do the rats think of the woods?’ she asked.

Kevin burst out laughing. ‘They were very funny,’ he said. ‘They were like a coach-load of middle-aged tourists who have been brought to the wrong hotel.’ He lapsed into fluent Rat as he continued. ‘Feed-shed, huh, huh? Soap? Cupboards?’

Tess laughed.

‘Usguys wet and cold,’ Kevin went on. ‘Usguys breaking our teeth on hazelnuts!’

If anyone had been watching through the trees they would have thought the two friends were quite mad, sitting in silence and laughing at nothing at all. But they understood each other perfectly.

‘Blackberries sour! Yeuch! Hard work hunting, hard work making new nests!’

Tess could visualise them; fat pampered house rats, amazed at the lives their forerunners led, returning with the utmost reluctance to their wild roots.

‘Will they stay, do you think?’ she asked, returning to human speech.

Kevin nodded confidently. ‘For a few generations at least. I painted a ferocious picture of Pestokill. They’ll be telling their children and grandchildren about it. Like the bogeyman.’

Tess finished her tea but declined the breakfast that Kevin offered, not because the bread was squashed and the butter was full of grit but because she felt it would be better politics to make an appearance at the house.

‘See you later,’ she said.

Kevin was trying to cut the bread with a blunt knife, but he looked up when, a minute later, Tess was still standing there, as if undecided.

‘You OK?’ he asked.

Tess nodded. ‘I was just wondering,’ she said.

‘Wondering what?’

‘Did you see anything in the woods? Anything strange?’

‘Not exactly. But there was a funny feeling about the place. I didn’t really want to go in. Just left the rats at the edge like you suggested. Why?’

Tess shook her head. ‘Just wondered.’

‘Did you?’ Kevin asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It was probably just my imagination. Maybe we could go there together some time?’

‘All right by me,’ said Kevin.

‘It’s a date, then,’ said Tess.

Then, before Kevin could question her more closely, she Switched into a hawk again and sprang away into the sky.

U
NCLE MAURICE WAS IN
much better humour that morning. He was so cheerful, in fact, that Tess was suspicious. Something had to be wrong.

She helped him, all the same, as he finished the milking.

‘You’re up early,’ he said. ‘Do you always get up so early? At home, I mean?’

‘Not usually,’ said Tess, pulling open the sliding door of the milking parlour to let the last of the cows go out. ‘Specially not at weekends. It’s different here, somehow.’

‘It is,’ said Uncle Maurice. ‘The light is different. It comes earlier in the country than it does in the town.’

It didn’t, but Tess knew what he meant. There was a clarity about the dawn and an urgency in it. Maybe it was the racket that the birds made, or the fact that no buildings or exhaust fumes obscured the sun. Maybe it was none of those things, but Tess’s own urgency; her knowledge that time was running out.

Her uncle’s voice disturbed her thoughts. ‘What do you make of that boy, then?’

‘Which boy?’

‘The lad that took the rats away. Did you see that?’

‘I did. It was amazing, wasn’t it?’

‘Amazing is right,’ said Uncle Maurice. ‘Would you say he could do it again? In another place, like?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Tess.

‘No. I don’t either.’ He took the pipe out of the creamery tank and connected the milking system up to the tap to be cleaned out. He was whistling as he worked, uncharacteristically happy. There was definitely something wrong.

After breakfast, Tess and Brian shared the washing-up. Orla sat in the corner of the kitchen wheezing, and reading the book with the deer-man on the cover.

‘Did you ever read this, Tess?’ she asked.

Tess shook her head. ‘We did a lot of that stuff in primary school,’ she said. ‘I’ve forgotten most of it now.’

‘You should read it,’ said Orla. ‘It’s all about the
Tuatha de Danaan.
’

The mention of the name of the old gods of Ireland sent one of those electric feelings up Tess’s spine, but before she could analyse it she was distracted by an excited yell from Colm outside. Brian ran to the front door and, when he didn’t come back, Tess and Orla followed.

The source of Colm’s excitement was Kevin, who was just arriving at the yard gate on his bicycle. Colm was there before him and had climbed up to the top bar when Uncle Maurice caught up and gathered him into his arms. It seemed that everyone was converging on Kevin.

‘Come in, come in,’ said Uncle Maurice, setting Colm down and opening the gate. Again his cheerful mood set alarm bells ringing in Tess’s mind.

‘Come in till we get a cup of tea,’ he went on, leading the way into the house. Everyone followed except for the ever dutiful Brian, who was left with the job of closing the heavy gate.

Aunt Deirdre had come in from the garden and the kettle was already on. Kevin sat down at the table or, more accurately, he slumped. Tess was so accustomed to seeing him that she hadn’t noticed the changes in his body, but all of a sudden they had become obvious. He was like a bag of bones, big bones, all loosely connected and not very well coordinated. His feet were enormous and his hands were long, with knuckles everywhere. He seemed acutely embarrassed by this strange body but it would, Tess realised, soon begin to make more sense. The hollows would flesh out and the shambling slackness would turn to smooth strength. Kevin was growing out of being a boy and would soon be a man.

The dawning truth was a shock to Tess. Kevin shifted uncomfortably and she realised that, while the rest of the family had been bustling about getting comfortable, she had been staring at him. She turned away quickly and helped her aunt to get out cups and biscuits. Uncle Maurice was settling himself into a chair opposite Kevin. As Tess poured milk into a jug and set it down on the table he began to speak.

‘Have you done much of it, then? This rat clearance?’

Kevin tapped his fingers on the table and watched them. ‘Not so much, really,’ he said.

‘You wouldn’t be well known, then? Around the place?’

‘No. I wouldn’t be, I suppose.’

Tess set out the cups. She didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Uncle Maurice nodded, absorbing what Kevin had said. In the brief silence, Colm climbed on to a chair beside Kevin and reached across the table for the best biscuit; the pink wafer.

‘Colm!’ said his mother, in a warning tone.

But if Colm heard her, he made no response. He continued with what he was doing and, to everyone’s surprise, handed the special biscuit to Kevin. His face was as pink as the biscuit, glowing with shy charm. When Kevin shook his head his face clouded over with disappointment.

‘He wants you to have it,’ said Brian. ‘He’ll be disappointed if you don’t.’

Kevin took the biscuit and ate it. Uncle Maurice began again.

‘Where do you live, then?’

‘Dublin,’ said Kevin.

‘On holiday down here, are you?’

‘Sort of,’ said Kevin. Tess made a point of not looking at him, but from the corner of her eye she could see that he was acutely embarrassed by the continued attention of the children. Colm was standing on the chair and gazing into his face with undisguised adoration. At a slightly more respectful distance, Orla and Brian were also staring with admiring expressions. It was clear that, as far as the younger members of the family were concerned, they were entertaining royalty. But Uncle Maurice was not of the same opinion.

‘Are your mother and father on holiday with you?’ he asked.

It was one question too many. Kevin stood up. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll take my money and get on my way.’

‘Ah, now,’ said Uncle Maurice, standing up as well. ‘No need to be hasty. I didn’t mean to pry. Sure, what does it matter, anyway?’

Aunt Deirdre spoke for the first time. ‘Have your tea, now. ’Tis made and all.’

She poured it out and Kevin sat down again, reluctantly. Colm handed him another biscuit, a jam one. The silence while he ate it threatened to be a long one, and Tess broke it before it became too awkward.

‘You have great weather, anyway. For your holiday.’

‘I have,’ said Kevin.

‘He has, he has,’ said Uncle Maurice and Aunt Deirdre together.

The silence fell again and Uncle Maurice finally got round to saying what was on his mind. ‘No,’ he began. ‘It’s only … Just … I thought you could make a great business out of that rat-catching game.’