of slow, starving dance like a pair of stick insects doing a jig, round and round in circles, until we'd worn ourselves out and we fell down in a heap on the pile of rags where I fell straight to sleep.
I spent the next few hours sleeping on feathers – as much as I knew about it, anyway. Next thing I knew it was dark, and Melanie was shaking me awake and pushing a bowlful of hot thick, squelchy stew into my hands.
The good times were back!
For the next couple of weeks me and Mels lived like – well, like a pair of pigs. We gulped our way through bowls of stew and loaves of bread. We devoured potatoes by the bowlful. Well, I did, anyway. My appetite was like a lorry with no brakes, it wouldn't stop. She used to watch me stuff my face like I was something at an exhibition. I said, 'Eat up, eat up!' But she couldn't keep up with me. She ate tiny amounts. I wouldn't have fed my pet rat on so little in the old days.
I ate cheese by the pound. Eggs, I fell in love with eggs. I got sudden, violent hankerings for fruit, yoghurt, steak, apples, bread and butter, biscuits, fruit cake, stew, sausages, trifle…
'You'll make yourself ill,' she complained. I grinned at her and showed her the muscle on my leg.
'What's the problem? I got the money, didn't I?'
I was exercising, getting my strength back quick now that there was good food and plenty of it. I didn't let it all turn to fat. I was running up and down those stairs fifty, a hundred times a day. I started letting myself think about things again. Conor for instance. He had my knife. And my sister…
I was thinking, I'm gonna get my sister back and I'm gonna get my knife back. It was the first time I'd seriously thought I was capable of getting anything together beyond the next meal. Oh, yeah, I was on a roll! I was building up my health, putting the weight back on, getting my confidence back.
But of course it couldn't last.
Thing is, Melanie made such a fuss over that twenty quid. Like I say, I didn't have any idea how much things cost. I thought it'd last for ever. Well, maybe it could've lasted Melanie for ever, but Melanie lived off spuds and greens, tiny amounts like I say. She didn't eat cheese or butter or ham or steak. She didn't swallow four eggs one after the other. So the day came a lot sooner than I thought when Melanie put down a bowl of soup in front of me and said, 'Time t' get some more money, boy, if yer wanna eat tomorra,'
And I was amazed all over again! Stupid idiot – one minute I thought twenty quid was nothing, next I thought it'd last forever. But the money was gone all right. She made it last pretty well, I see now. I had to go out on the hunt again, and this time I knew it wasn't going to be so easy.
No gun. If you're weak you gotta have a gun. That's what they're for.
'I need a gun, Mels,' I told her. 'I can't go robbing without a gun.'
I found myself trying to convince her that she had a few quid left over, buried away somewhere, just enough for a small broken old handgun, surely?
But she hadn't, of course. We had an argument. She really riled me by telling me if I didn't want to rob, I could do something else instead, begging for instance.
'Me! Beg?' I was furious. But as Melanie pointed out, it wasn't any better expecting her to beg for me.
And then she said this…
She was lying on her back on a heap of rags, with her porky hands folded over her belly staring dreamily into the air and she says, 'Maybe King Val'll give me some more chops.'
I nearly choked. 'King Val?' I said.
'Those chops,' she said. And she went all dreamy eyed, like she was seventeen and thinking of her boyfriend.
'… King Val gave you those chops?' I licked my dry lips. It wasn't possible! Dad was dead, wasn't he? 'My father?' I croaked.
She looked at me and frowned. 'Nah, it was a girl.'
I almost seized her by the throat.
I was livid! Why on earth didn't she tell me? She knew all about my father, who didn't? But she was sure this was some agent of Conor's. To make matters really infuriating, she couldn't even really remember what the girl looked like. She remembered the chops well enough. How thick the fat was. That nice middle chunk of kidney stuck up against the rib. But the girl…
I couldn't work it out. First she said the girl was dressed a bit like a man. My heart leapt – it was Signy! Then the girl had red hair – it wasn't Signy. So who was it? Perhaps she was right. Conor's agents must know I was still alive and they were looking for me.
I kept at her and at her and at last I came across a clue. This girl apparently had strange eyes. Cat's eyes, in fact I thought, now, where have I seen something like that before?
I was down there by the market in Leytonstone the very next day. I walked about, I begged. It was all right to be begging if it was a disguise, you see, that didn't offend me. Actually I did all right I had the face for it. I made two quid in one day. I was there the next day, and the next, and the day after that. And then she came.
It had been such a brief glimpse that day in the halfman lands. She'd swung suddenly into view and I'd got an impression more than a sight of the thick red hair, the pointy little chin, and those wide, impossible eyes as she kissed me on the cheek. So when she came swinging through the market, shouting and making a fuss, I was scared to go up to her in case it was a trap after all. And she was older – much older. She was almost a woman already. How could she have got so much older in just a few months? I thought maybe she was that young girl's sister, but I didn't know then what I know now. Cats age differently from people.
And then, of course, I hardly looked like myself anymore. But she was- once again! – my only chance. I came close and begged spare change. Clever girl, clever girl, she knew at once. She took me by the arm and smiled. 'I know you,' she said.
BOOK II
1
When Signy knew that her brother was alive she held a grim celebration. So now she had to live. There was fish and cream for the cat and wine for her and the girl to toast the return of Siggy and the Volsons.
Cherry was in heaven. Her beloved mistress was going to live! She chased round and round the table, as a cat, as a girl, as a bird. She hung on Signy's neck and wept for the love of her, and swore she would never stop.
Signy banged her hands down on the table.
'And now we will destroy Conor,' she said. With that she put the darkness aside and began to make her plans.
The next morning, a small brown bird flew in through the window of a flat in Leytonstone, close to the edges of the Wall, where the shape-changer had hidden her find with the pig-woman, Melanie. Siggy had refused to move without her. She found them lying on piles of cushions in the middle of the floor, a huge fire blazing in the grate, blankets stuffed all around and under the door to keep out the draughts, duvets and eiderdowns piled up on top of them. All around were scattered paperbags stained with grease, crumbs, apple cores, empty bottles and small heaps of food. Cherry picked her way across the debris, her nose slightly wrinkled, and dropped a letter into Siggy's lap. Then she changed into a cat. The garbage was just too good to miss.
'Oh, God!' shouted Melanie from her heap of blankets. Cherry leapt into the air and turned back into a girl as she hit the ground. Melanie groaned; Siggy giggled. There was something sickening about seeing shape treated so lightly.
'Don't worry, Mels, she does it all the time,' said Siggy.
'Whow! One shape orta be enuff fer anyun,' grunted Melanie. She crept deeper under the blankets, but kept a sharp eye on the man and the girl. Melanie wanted to know everything that was going on.
Cherry stared at him, and Siggy smiled back as he opened the letter, then frowned and looked quickly away. She was a pretty girl. Just for a second he was flattered before he remembered the scabby wound that was his
