Nothing is impossible, I say, not if you want it badly enough (this is a terrible cliché and a lie, to boot). Father Hugh shows no sign of buying this, but still I persist with it, I fly with it. I find myself waxing lyrical, emboldened by the Kim scenario (poor Franklin D.! The grieving widower!). I don’t have too much success with this approach, however. Father Hugh seems quite stern, quite determined. I cast my mind around … uh … uh … What would Bran do, I wonder, what would that over-stated, under-stated, sneaky bastard Cleary do?

If you won’t see me then I’ll … I’ll walk to you, I say (yes! Suddenly quite the Irish Lothario!). I’m coming to Douai on foot. Forty-odd miles. Like a pilgrim. I’m leaving now. This very minute. Would you turn away a man who had walked to see you, Father Hugh? Yes. I am coming on foot. I’m going to put down the phone and then I’m walking out of the cottage. No. First I’m gathering up the remaining photographs and placing them into an envelope in order to bring them over to you. I’m writing the monastery’s full address into my jotter. I’m grabbing a map, a compass. I’m putting on a coat, feeding two carrots to the rabbit, uh … a quick note for Mrs Barrow … is the oven off? And then I’m … I’m …

I’m running at high speed towards – or … or away – from heaven only knows what.

26

Teobaldo

It has been twenty-four long hours since Teobaldo has moved from his fixed position on his perch or made a single sound. Teobaldo is transfixed. Teobaldo is transfixed by King. Teobaldo is transfixed by the sheer evil of King. And not a little impressed, by it (the sheer evil. The evil genius of King).

Teobaldo perceives that the sending of King (the arrival of King) into Baldo ‘space’, Baldo ‘home’, Baldo ‘sun’, Baldo ‘sitting room’, Baldo ‘Bitch’s affections’ is a marker of Baldo’s prestige as true owner-occupier of ‘space’, ‘home’, ‘sun’, ‘sitting room’ and ‘Bitch’s affections’. Yes. Baldo perceives that King is a great – perhaps one of the all-time great – adversaries. And this is a marker of Teobaldo’s own greatness.

Because King has been sent simply to meet his match in Baldo, surely? Why else would he have been sent but to engage with his equal, and then be vanquished?

Teobaldo longs to indulge in a pre-emptive WAAAAAAAAAH! of victory. But he cannot. The WAAAAAAAH! has been temporarily stolen – appropriated – by the master-thief, King. And anyway Teobaldo is transfixed (remember?). Teobaldo is studying his enemy. Teobaldo is deceptively placid (not even a sneeze, no! Not even a brief raising of the crest!). Teobaldo is biding his time. Soon, soon, too soon (but not too soon), he will strike.

[Fast-forward.]

YARRAHHHH!

But not quite yet.

Teobaldo isn’t much given to analysis, in general (in fact, at all), but as he watches King he wonders at how a bird can be so cheerful and yet so profoundly evil. Both impulses operating in perfect unison. The one not apparently contradicting the other. Because, well, Teobaldo is evil, too, on occasion (a parrot must be evil, on occasion, it’s mandatory – it’s genetic) but not nearly so evil and not nearly so cheerful as King.