Chapter III.15

'Ya can go, ya blind bastard, ya've got the green man!' shouted the kookaburra, and then made a high pitched beeping sound. Prodding uncertainly with his white stick, the old man stepped onto the crossing. The air was torn by the screech of air-brakes, punctuated a split second later by a sickening crunch. The lorry screamed to a halt as the white stick and dark glasses bounced across the tarmac, and the bird burst into hysterics, jumping up and down on the crossing's traffic light and flapping its wings with delight. An elderly woman standing next to Loofah shook her head, muttering crossly about its disgraceful behaviour. On the other side of the road the black and yellow shape glided along the pavement and turned into the open door of a newsagent shop.

The lorry driver leapt from his cab, bellowing a stream of imprecations at the broken scarecrow body under his bumper, while all over the little parade, shoppers cringed under the wincing racket of the bird's merriment.

'Hey!' Loofah called up to the bird, 'I've got a bone to pick with you.'

It looked down and the laughter stuttered to a halt.

'You again,' it sneered, 'What the bloody hell d'ya want?'

Still shouting obscenities, the lorry driver ran forward and landed a steel-capped kick in the old man's belly; the body flopped over like a rag-doll, with clotting blood spilling from its mouth and nostrils. A yellow bubble-car wobbled past, grinning with inane happiness.

'You just told me that you're from round here. But that's not true, is it?—you are an immigrant, aren't you?'

'No I bloody well am not. Loik I said, sport, I'm as pommy as you are.'

'That's rubbish. You're a kookaburra, and everybody knows that kookaburras aren't British.'

The bird started and twitched nervously. On the crossing, the raging lorry driver picked the little white cane from the gutter, snapped it half and threw the pieces onto the old man's body.

'I'm not a kookaburra,' said the kookaburra, quickly, 'I'm a, er, a robin. Now, ya can't much more pommy than a robin, can ya?'

'A robin?' Loofah exclaimed, 'You're not a robin—robins have got red breasts.'

The bird glanced down at its own drab grey chest.

'Yeah, well,' it said, 'sometimes our sheilas do stay out in the sun a bit too long without their tee-shirts, but we blokes—.'

'Male robins have the red breasts.'

'Chroist!' cried the kookaburra, nearly falling off its perch, its beady eyes round with surprise.

'So you're not a robin?'

'Did I say robin? Er, I meant thrush, um—I reckon.'

The driver swung back up into his cab and revved his engine into a bellowing diesel roar. The bird leaned down and lowered its voice to a confidential whisper.

'Listen, mate, there's nothing weird about bloke thrushes, is there? I mean, they don't have titties or wear frilly underwear or anything like that, do they?'

Loofah shook his head.

'Not as far as I'm aware.'

'Then that's what I am,' said the bird, with growing self-assurance, 'A thrush.'

As it flitted away across the road, the lorry lurched forward, pumping hot fumes at Loofah's knees as it passed. Three pairs of wheels bounced over the crumpled body, which spewed out a pool of lung froth and stomach contents in protest at this abuse.

'Loik a bit of chocky, do ya?'

The chubby schoolgirl stopped in the doorway of the shop and looked up from her confectionery.

'I reckon you do,' shouted the bird from its perch on the awning, 'Look at the arse on you—more like a baby hippo than a young sheila!'

Dropping her chocolate, the girl burst into tears and fled away down the pavement. A woman with a toddler in a push-chair shook her head, tutting with sympathy. Winding between parked cars, Loofah gritted his teeth against the jack-ass hysterics.

'What do you eat, then?' he asked, stepping up the kerb under the bird's perch. With a strangled cough, the laughter died.

'Me?' said the bird, with forced nonchalance, 'Why d'ya ask, mate?'

'Just curious, that's all. I've always had an interest in ornithology.'

The kookaburra eyed him suspiciously.

'Well, if ya must know,' it said, 'in the mornings I take a few lizards, and in the afternoons it's snakes—taipans and copperheads mainly—with maybe the odd funnel-web spider before bed, if I can manage to pick one up.'

'There! Got you!' cried Loofah, in triumph.

The bird looked around anxiously.

'Whad'ya mean?' it said, 'Whad'ya talking about?'

'Thrushes don't eat all that stuff.'

'They don't? Then what does?'

'Starlings,' said the amateur ornithologist, with supreme assurance.

'Loik I just said: I'm a starling, a good old-fashioned pommy starling, same as anyone else.'

Loofah sighed. 'So—first you're a robin, then a thrush, and now a starling. Whatever next, I wonder? An oyster catcher perhaps, or maybe a hoopoe?'

'Definitely not one of them, mate,' said the kookaburra, vigorously shaking its head, 'They're all bloody poofters, they are.'

'Why don't you just admit it? You're a kookaburra. An outsider, a foreigner—' Loofah paused for effect before adding emphatically '—an immigrant.'

The bird looked at him blankly. Its beak opened and closed, but no sound came.

'Right then' said Loofah, 'Now that we've finally got that straightened out there's one or two things—.'

He was interrupted by a squawk of delight.

'Hold on, cobber, not so fast there—here's yer bloody immigrant!'

Something moved in the shadow of the shop, gliding towards the open door.

'The New Zealand flatworm in poy-son!' cried the kookaburra, hopping up and down with unrestrained delight, 'G'day, Flattie. How'ya doin'?'

Loofah stared with blank incomprehension as the black and yellow shape slid smoothly through the shop door and turned left onto the pavement.

'That—thing—is who I'm looking for?'

'Listen, mate,' said the kookaburra, sternly, 'He may not be from round here, but that's no reason to take against him. He's a real good bloke is ol' Flattie, as decent a planarian as yer ever loikely to meet.'

A toddler squalled incessantly in its pushchair on the pavement ahead of them while its mother squeezed tomatoes on the greengrocer's display. Loofah ambled miserably behind the great worm, watching tiny ciliated ripples shimmer over its slimy integument. The kookaburra flapped from perch to perch beside him, squawking random abuse at passing shoppers.

'This can't be right,' said Loofah, 'There must be some mistake.'

'Yer always bloody whinging, you are. What the hell is wrong with ya now?'

The worm's diamond head twitched quickly and it altered its course, heading for the screaming infant.

'I'm sure your friend is a warm and very wonderful creature,' said Loofah, 'but I was hoping for somebody who could help me—give me advice and information, stuff like that.'

'Look here, mate, Flattie's a very obliging sort of a fellah. I'm sure he'll help ya out if he can.'

The great worm glided effortlessly towards the pushchair, as if floating on a cushion of air.

'I don't think he can. You see, I need to speak to an official.'

'There you go, cobber—this here's yer man.'

The toddler stopped screaming and watched the worm glide towards him with child-like fascination. Without turning round his mother reached for an avocado, while cooing softly to her now quietened infant.

'Your friend is an official?' asked Loofah, in a tone of frank disbelief.

'He's here on secondment—something to do with the Commonwealth, part of a Civil Service exchange programme, I think he said. We get rats and rabbits, you get flatworms.'

Without pausing the worm slid gently up the front of the pushchair, enveloping the puzzled toddler like a soft woolly blanket. Quite oblivious to the happenings behind her back, his mother began counting South African apples into a brown paper bag, muttering promises of ice cream and sweets if he was a good boy while she finished her shopping.

'But he doesn't even speak English.'

''Course he does.'

There was a muffled munching and a slight quiver rippled across the roll of jelly.

'He does?'

'Bit of an accent, I'll grant ya—but I can understand him, nah problem. Hey, Flattie, how'ya gettin' on with that little sheila I saw ya with last week?'

The worm reversed, gliding gently off the now vacant pushchair, and then started forward again.

'Yeah? Really?' exclaimed the kookaburra, bobbing up and down on the side mirror of a white BMW, 'You're an ol' dog, Flattie-Boy, and no kiddin'!'

The worm curved round the plastic wheels of the pushchair, brushing lightly against the woman's calves as she pondered the relative merits of Moroccan and Israeli oranges. Oh well, pondered Loofah, if a plastic doll and a peg can do government work, then why not an oversized platyhelminth?

Finally turning away from the fruit display, the child's mother seemed to notice the sticky red stain on his teddy bear cushion; as she headed into the shop to pay for her purchases, she was muttering crossly to herself about extra laundry.

'Are you sure he said that?'

'Positive.'

'I just can't believe it.'

'When's it due, mate?' shouted the bird at an overweight man, 'You expectin' twins?'

The great worm had just popped into the grocer's and they were waiting for it outside. Loofah stood under the awning, out of the hot glare of the sun—he covered his ears against the grating hilarity that now erupted.

'What's worrin' ya, mate?' sneered the kookaburra, as it recovered from its merriment, 'You not bin with a sheila before?'

A teenage boy emerged from the shop, holding the hand and severed fore-arm of his now absent little sister. Behind him, gliding past the till counter, came the invertebrate paragon of public service.

'Don't be ridiculous. I have plenty of experience with the opposite sex, if you must know. It's just that where I come from we usually find the lady first and enjoy intimacy with her afterwards—not the other way round.'

'Well, this'll be a change for ya, won't it? Bit of experimentation is good for relationships—or so I'm told,' added the bird, with a lecherous wink.

'This isn't experimentation, this is pure invention,' said Loofah, coldly, 'There must be some mistake. Ask him to clarify, will you?'

'Chroist!' groaned the kookaburra, and turned to the flatworm as it appeared at the open doorway. 'Sorry to be a pain, Flattie, but could ya repeat what ya just said? This bloke won't take it from me.'

The huge pad of the great invertebrate's body glided silently out onto the pavement.

'I agree with ya, mate, but he is a pommy—we've gotta make allowances.'

The diamond head twitched from side to side and then swung to the left; the body followed, turning smoothly like the carriages of a rubber train.

'Yeah, right,' said the kookaburra, 'Okay, thanks a lot, mate.'

'Well? What did he say?'

'Exactly what he said before—that to find the double sheila, you've gotta pork the slapper first.'

Loofah sighed and shook his head. 'I don't know how I'm supposed to manage that, I really don't.'

'I'd try the usual method if I were you. 'Cept that this time ya'll have ta make a choice—'cos from what I hear I reckon she'll have two—.'

'Funny,' interrupted Loofah, 'it's a bit like what the cow told me—that she won't exist until I've actually found her.' He sighed. 'And none of it makes any sense.'

'Strewth, lady, is that a kid—or a monkey in a tee-shirt?'

The insulted mother scowled at the laughing bird, while its flatworm friend glided inexorably towards her grizzling child.

'Tell you what though, mate,' said the kookaburra, through the tail-end of its giggles, 'it's a good job you're a bloke. 'Cos if you were a sheila, you wouldn't have a chance, would ya? Unless you were one of them laser-beam birds, that is.'

'Mm, but even being gay wouldn't be of any help if I was female,' mused Loofah, 'Because of the first thing your friend told me—you know, that she'll only help men to travel, not women.'

'Too true, cobber, I'd forgotten about that.'

'Oh dear, it's all so confusing.'

For few moments they both pondered the conundrum. It was the kookaburra who broke the silence.

'Listen, mate,' it said, in an uncharacteristically serious tone, 'I don't want to labour the point, but you're not a poofter, are ya? I know yer a big blouse pansy, 'cos all pommies are. But if you were a poofter—I mean a proper straight-up, fudge-packing shirt lifter—then that'd really screw things up.'

The simian child watched the approaching worm with sulky disinterest, while his mother fumbled in her handbag.

'Or rather it wouldn't,' added the bird, 'If ya get my drift.'

Sometime later they had left the shopping area and were now back on the road beside the green; emerald waves lapped gaily against the tarmac shore and distant laughter trickled through the liquid air as a new set of children braved the perils of the play area.

'But I just know the cow's poem is important and your friend did seem to know about the other stuff she told me. Why can't he tell me what it means?'

Loofah's questioning had by now developed a tone of urgency, fired by increasing frustration.

'Don't get so wound up, will ya?' said the kookaburra irritably, 'You're starting to rack him off.'

'Perhaps if I just say it again for him: "To go from here to there, you really should be aware—".'

'Listen, mate,' interrupted the bird, 'he's telling you all he knows, so try and be a bit more grateful. I already told ya he hates bloody poetry and all that poncey crap, and whatever happens I don't want him getting upset. Don't get me wrong, he's a real pussycat, is Flattie, but if ya get him riled…'

They had paused under a laburnum tree whose corn-yellow blossoms drooped wantonly over the pavement like the tresses of an idling harlot. As an old-style navy pram rocked under the quivering weight of the pussycat planarian in question, the baby's teddy fell onto the pavement. The uniformed nanny picked up the toy and gazed with bovine puzzlement at the yellow and black mass that was sprawled across her charge.

Loofah looked on, squirming with frustration and silently cursing the gelatinous civil servant; he was sure that it was being deliberately obstructive, that it could enlighten him if it chose to do so. Very well, he thought to himself, if it was determined not to help with the poem, he would ask about some of the other things that the cow had told him. And so, struggling to ignore the kookaburra (which was now shouting abuse at an elderly lady on the other side of the road), he cast himself back into tiny washroom, trying to visualise each of the enigmatic scraps of graffiti. There'd been the poem, of course, and the strange little riddle about finding the double woman that the worm had already touched on, albeit with characteristic official abstruseness. But there had been something else, he was sure of it; a message about a young woman sucking something, then a paean to a football team rattled briefly in his ears. But then at last it came to him—a glistening diaphanous shape slithered unhurriedly into Loofah's skull, sending a warm chill rippling over his skin.

'Ask him about slugs, will you?' he said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.

The kookaburra choked on its last insult and burst into a fit of coughing.

'Wha—whad'ya say?' it managed to splutter.

'Slugs. I need you to ask him about slugs.'

But it just stared at him, open-beaked with horror.

'Go on then,' urged Loofah, impatiently.

At last recovering its composure, the bird shook its head vigorously.

'No way,' it said.

'But you must.'

'Well, I bloody well won't. He hates those bloody things, can't stand to even hear 'em mentioned.'

Loofah frowned, puzzled.

'Them things are molluscs, mate,' explained the bird, 'And flatworms can't abide molluscs. I thought everyone knew that.'

The worm had now slid itself off the pram and was gliding smoothly away up the pavement. After it had gone, the nanny replaced the teddy on the empty pillow, carefully smoothed out the rumpled and now rather sticky blankets, and set off towards the shops. Loofah and his avian companion followed the gelatinous official as it glided away in the opposite direction, the former walking a respectful ten paces behind while the bird kept pace by hopping from one convenient perch to the next.

'I don't think I understand,' said Loofah, after a few moments of pondering, 'Molluscs and platyhelminths are virtually the same, aren't they?'

'Chroist!' cried the kookaburra, wincing, 'I told you not to get him riled.'

'Have I said something wrong?'

'Bloody roit ya have. They're completely separate phyla—different as chalk and cheese.'

'But they look so similar—all slimy and rubbery and that.'

'May look similar to you, mate, but then you're not an invertebrate, are you?'

'I suppose you're right—I hadn't really thought of it like that.'

'Yeah, well, just be a bit careful, will ya? He's a very sensitive bloke is our Flattie.'

The worm now reached the entrance to a driveway and, without so much as a twitch, turned into it. 'Hollyoak Primary School' said a large, neat sign on the grassy verge.

'Look, I really don't want to upset your friend, but I know it's important for the quest because of what the cow said. I'm sure he won't mind—just this once.'

Lined by a pretty avenue of adolescent variegated maples, the drive lead to a pair of galvanised metal gates; these were open, presumably in welcome for the visiting official and his party. Perching on a low hanging branch of one of the maples, the kookaburra once again shook its head, although now with marginally less vigour.

'Please ask him,' begged Loofah, and this time the bird shrugged its wings.

'On your head be it, mate,' it said with a sigh, at last giving way, 'I'm takin' no responsibility for the consequences.'

Beyond the gates lay an asphalt playground with a net-ball court and hopscotch squares where packs of small children, laughing and shouting, milled around with the furious energy of youth. On the far side of the playground institutional buildings in red brick and glass squatted officiously. The kookaburra flew forward to catch up with its friend, landing on one of the open gates.

'Flattie, I know you're not going to like this and I'm real sorry—but this bloke wants to know if ya've got anything on, er, them other things.'

The worm glided through the gates and turned onto the playground. A lady teacher with wing-framed spectacles and a grey bun glanced at it without interest and then blew a whistle at two fighting boys.

'Look, I'm really sorry, mate,' the kookaburra called, 'Yeah, I know ya don't… not my idea, mate, I promise ya.' It paused briefly and cocked its head. 'Roit.' Another pause, longer this time. 'Yeah, I get ya… no, I wouldn't think of it, mate… okay I will—and like I say I'm sorry, I really am.'

After this little exchange, the bird turned back to Loofah.

'He's well racked off now, I can tell ya,' it said quietly, shaking its beak.

The enraged worm was gliding inscrutably away from them, heading straight for the hopscotch game.

'Did he say anything?'

'I'm glad I'm not in your shoes, mate.'

A rumpus had erupted among the hopscotch players; three little girls were shouting at a third, who now burst into tears. Then the biggest of the trio pushed her and she fell—right into the path of the inexorably advancing official.

'But what did he say?'

'He said that ol' Four Tits has a loikin' for the bloody things.'

There was more trouble at the far side of the playground: a group of boys were fighting over a cricket bat. The teacher shouted but was ignored. A fat boy with red hair seized the bat and swung it up over his head.

'She likes—slugs?' The kookaburra nodded in affirmation. 'What?—all slugs, or just some particular type?'

The satisfying thwack of willow on young bone—the victim went down like a felled tree, spilling blood and pink jelly onto the hot asphalt.

'Big black ones, mate,' said the bird, 'Also, she likes 'em arranged, all nice and tidy.'

Glistening shapes on the forest floor, an expanding ring of giant black teardrops: the memory shimmered like a mirage.

'In a circle?' asked Loofah.

'S'right, mate—I reckon ya know more about this double chick that you're letting on.'

At the near edge of the playground, close to where Loofah was standing, a little girl approached two larger ones, offering her bag of crisps. Her attempts to curry favour, however, were not a success; the big girls seized the bag and pushed her to the ground. Away across the asphalt the great worm moved off the hopscotch squares; its head twitched as it sensed the fallen cricket player.

'Can you ask if the big slugs can help me find her?'

'Not a chance, mate. Definitely no more mollusc stuff.'

Clutching grazed knees and palms, the little girl burst into tears. The teacher was now among the cricket players, remonstrating with the fat boy, and didn't notice this new outbreak of discord among her pupils.

'Please, you must—just one question.'

'Just look at him, will ya? I've never seen him this riled in all the years I've known him.'

The worm slid calmly across the playground, hiding his tempestuous emotions with Oriental self-control.

'But you must—I have simply have to find out more.'

'I'm tellin' ya, he's about to blow. In fact I think it's time you got going.'

Her tormentors were delighted with the little girl's plight, nearly choking on her crisps in their uncontrolled mirth. Across the playground, the gelatinous civil servant brushed between the teacher and the remnants of the cricket game, and rolled unnoticed over their prostrate comrade.

'Go?' exclaimed Loofah, 'I can't possibly go yet!'

'Look, mate, he's had enough.'

'This is ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere until he answers my questions. I want information.'

'You won't get it.'

'By hook or by crook I will!'

Under a barrage of ridicule, the little girl's tears changed from distress to fury; suddenly she was on feet, charging at her enemies with a wail of anger, tiny fists clenched.

'Yer getting no more from the New Zealand flatworm, and that's final. So why don't ya go and ask someone else?'

Sadly, one little girl is no match for two big ones, however just her cause; their hilarity stimulated to new peaks by her anger, the tormentors easily warded off her attack and then dragged her down onto the asphalt.

'That's not fair. I'm new in these parts—I don't know anyone else to ask.'

'Well as it happens, I do—and a real sad bastard he is, dull as a wallaby's wash-day; just the bloke to listen to your whinging.'

One of the bigger girls pinned her body to the floor, while the other wrenched at her head, gritting her teeth with effort.

'You're trying to fob me off, aren't you? Well I'm not having it. Your friend here's an official and he ought to do his duty.'

The victim's screams reached a crescendo, then stopped suddenly as the head came away. Twin jets of arterial blood sprayed across the asphalt; the front girl jumped to her feet with a cry of triumph, holding her dripping trophy aloft.

'Piss off, will ya?'

'Look, there's no need to take that attitude with me.'

'Let me put it like this, mate—I'm invitin' you to bite yer bum!'

The two victors now capered away across the playground, tossing the head from one to the other like a pair of rugby forwards. The worm glided off a sticky patch of asphalt among the cricket players and set a course directly for the decapitated body.

'Come on, Flattie, let's go,' called the kookaburra to the approaching official, 'I've had enough of this bloke and his pommy whinging.'

'You can't go yet!' cried Loofah.

'Just watch me, sport.' With this, the bird burst into laughter and flapped off the gate. Loofah leapt after it, waving his arms in protest.

'No—wait!'

The kookaburra dodged to avoid him, diving between two of the driveway maples with a staccato hail of hilarity.

'Stop! Just a minute! You haven't—.'

But as it flew between the trunks, it stopped suddenly, bouncing to and fro in the air, its wings spread wide as if nailed to an invisible crucifix.

'Chroist All-bloody-Moity!' cried the bird as a black cat appeared out of the dark copper foliage, its yellow eyes blazing death. With a wince Loofah turned away, covering his ears against the inevitable crunch splintering bone.

Back in the playground the great planarian was gliding towards the headless girl, inexorably and without haste. Suddenly, though, when it was just two yards away, the little limbs twitched into life, kicking and scrabbling on the asphalt, and a moment later the body was up on its feet, stumbling away from the rolling wave of jelly. After staggering about aimlessly for a few steps, spraying its twin scarlet fountains into the air like a spouting whale, the body was off across the playground, weaving unsteadily towards a pack of laughing girls who were crowded under a net-ball net, making vain attempts to score with a sobbing, pigtailed ball.

When Loofah turned back to the cat's web it was all over.

'Bugger everything,' he said, 'I wish you hadn't killed him, not just then.'

'Just doing a public service, old boy,' purred the cat, in patrician tones, 'I'll be the toast of the Parish Council for ridding the village of this foreign bounder.'

Loofah sighed with frustration. 'That's all very well, but I don't know what on earth I'm supposed to do now. I'm fairly sure that the flatworm knows a lot more than he's told me, but there's no way he'll agree to help me now, not after… this. The kookaburra did mention that there was someone else that I might ask—some dull person, I think he said—but he never told me who.'

The cat smoothed the feathers of the twitching body with its left forepaw.

'Actually, I think he was referring to the Great Bore of Today,' it said, 'Rather a decent chap, as a matter of fact. Lives just out of the village. Shall I tell you how to get there?'

'Excuse me, Mr Flatworm, I'd like a word, if I may.'

When Loofah caught up with it, the invertebrate official was gliding steadily across the playground. It did not reply.

'I'm terribly sorry about what happened to your colleague back there,' Loofah went on, 'But I'm sure you know that it really wasn't my fault. I do realise that you must be very upset and I don't like to intrude on your grief, but I understand that you work in the Secretariat and I really feel that I must register a complaint about the way the whole double woman project is being handled.'

Ahead of them, the kindly teacher was kneeling beside the sobbing little girl, taping her head back in place with pink Elastoplast and wiping away bloodstains with a spit-wetted handkerchief. Groups of children were still playing net-ball and hopscotch, whilst on the other side of the far perimeter fence a hunched figure in a shabby raincoat was wrenching at the starter rope of a recalcitrant chainsaw.

'I won't take up much of your time, but I would like to just go over one or two of the areas where I think things could be done better, particularly in relation to my part in the proceedings.'