Big eyes. Big wings. Big beaks. He'd feed them little chicks and small white mice. Their keeper, Derek, told Wesley all about them. 'See those big eyes,' he'd say. 'Well, that leads people into thinking that they're wise and all, but they aren't.'

'No?'

'No. Their eye sockets take up much of the s.p.a.ce in their skulls, so their brain is as tiny as a hazelnut, just about.'

Wesley would stare at the owls for hours on end, unblinking, but only during the week. At weekends he avoided the sanctuary because then it was crowded with tourists who whistled and screamed and pointed. Some of the cages had little notices which read: MIND FINGERS AND NOSES. THESE ARE WILD ANIMALS. DO NOT TOUCH WIRE MESH.

Wesley worked in the nursery. Sometimes he helped out in the cafeteria. Iris would trail around after him, trying to make him smile.

'Aren't you happy here?' she'd ask. 'Don't you love me?'

He did quite like her, actually.

'Do you resent me being pregnant?'

'Nope.'

'Will we ring your mother yet and tell her about it?'

'Nope.'

'Why not? Why not?' It had started to gall Iris, his inability to celebrate anything.

One owl especially. He'd stare and stare. It was as big as a spaniel. Grey feathered. Pop-eyed, crazy-looking. Like an emu. Like something unimaginable.

Wesley wondered what would happen if he set the bird free. When he was younger he'd dreamed about freedom, but now he was resigned to a life of drudgery. Free, he'd whisper, and then, die. Free. Die. Free. Die. Free. Die.

Derek had told him, you see, that if the owls were released they would starve to death or some of them would freeze. They were too b.l.o.o.d.y conspicuous, Wesley thought, for their own safety.

'Why don't you want me to meet your family? Are you ashamed of me? Am I too young?'

Wesley stood up, picked up his coat, as if to leave the room.

'Where are you going?'

'Outside.'

'Where? To look at those b.l.o.o.d.y owls again. I swear you spend more time looking at those owls than at me.'

He left her. She followed him, in her slippers, barely dressed. It was dark out. He ignored her. He went to the owl pens.

In the dark he could hardly see them, only the white ones. He made his way to the pen of his favourite. If he stared and he stared he could make out the pale moon-slip of her beak.

'What are you doing?' Iris whispered.

Wesley tried to see the owl more clearly but his eyes weren't yet adapted. He could hear the others, though. Ghostly trills. Occasional squeals.

'It's worse at night, don't you think?' he asked. 'To keep them here?'

'What?'

'People watch them during the day and they don't seem too bad, but at night, that's their time. That's when they wake and want to fly.'

Iris crossed her arms over her chest. It was cold out here.

'I'm haunted,' Wesley said, eventually, 'by things that happened in the past.'

'What things?' Iris asked. 'Why won't you tell me, Wes?'

'I lost my right hand,' Wesley said.

'What?' Iris was confused now.

'People kept leaving me. When I was a boy.'

'Your dad?' she said, trying to follow him.

'And all the time,' he said, 'I wanted to try and find the thing I'd lost. Searching. Searching. Punishing everyone.'

'What?' She was shivering now. It was cold. It was cold.

'But I'll tell you,' he said, 'that I've finally realized something.

All the time I thought I was punishing others I was actually only punishing myself, but not properly.'

He was trying to see the owl in the darkness. He could make out her shape now.

'Let's go in,' Iris said. 'Let's talk inside.'

He turned to face her. 'I must do something,' he said, 'to show you how much I love you.'

'What?' He had lost her, completely.

'For the baby,' he said.

He stretched open his right hand in front of her face. For a moment she was frightened that he might try to hurt her. He might hit her or smother her with that hand. But then he turned from her and slowly, deliberately, finger by finger, he pushed his hand into the wire mesh of that giant and wakeful emu-owl's cage.

He could see his white fingers in the darkness, and finally, too, he could see her. She could see him. She was still. She was silent. He heard one of the other birds calling and then she was on him. Ripping and tearing with her beak like a blade.

Iris screamed.

She couldn't forgive him. On his right hand was left only a thumb. She griped that she'd almost lost their child with the shock of it. He apologized. Over the following months he kept apologizing. He stopped pouting. He couldn't stop smiling now. Sometimes she'd catch him touching his spoiled hand with his good one, talking to himself, but so softly, like it was a child's face he was stroking.

On the night their baby was born he left her. An envelope lay on the bed. Her parents found it and brought it to her. Inside was a cheque for several hundred pounds and a note which said only: 'Heading Inland.' That was all.

Skin.

STEPHANIE WAS OVER FIFTEEN minutes late. Jane sat in a window-seat and read her paperback (bought for exactly this kind of occasion), intermittently sipping her half pint of lager.

They had arranged to meet in the Red Lion at seven o'clock. Jane hated sitting in pubs alone, she felt conspicuous, although in fact she was no more conspicuous than any woman who sat in a pub alone might be. She was reading an early Jilly Cooper which she had bought second-hand from a book stall outside the Festival Hall during the previous summer.

In general (since her 'A' levels) she had preferred to read magazines rather than novels, but in certain situations she felt that magazines created an unnecessarily promiscuous impression. Girls on the tube who read them often had long, painted fingernails, smart shoes and sheer tights. Magazines represented a disposable lifestyle; Jane preferred the idea of an indispensable lifestyle: at twenty-four, she worked in a bank and was rather conservative.

She looked up from her novel and stared momentarily out of the window-through a pair of yellowy nets-hoping to catch a glimpse of Stephanie trotting down the road towards her, but instead, all she saw was the reflection of a nearby street-light in the gla.s.s of the window, a bleary, streaky, visual sludge. Her eyes returned to the words on the page.

The pub was empty apart from two men slouching at the bar, a young couple, who seemed to be recovering from a recent argument, sitting in an alcove, and over towards the door a pensioner who was reading a late edition of the Evening Standard. Someone had put some money into the juke box, which was playing 'Suspicious Minds.' Jane imagined that it might have been the male half of the young couple.

As her eyes sped across the page, Jane thought for a moment about her boyfriend Mitch and Stephanie's boyfriend Chris. She wondered what they were doing. Maybe they were watching the football on television, or maybe they were playing snooker.

The pub's doors swung open. Everybody turned towards them. Jane had earlier been engaged in a heated debate with herself about how to react when the doors opened. Initially she had decided that it was best if she ignored the various comings and goings around her. She had endeavoured to create the impression of calculated indifference, preoccupation, oblivion. Later, however, she had decided that it might be appropriate to look up fleetingly from her book towards the door so that people who might be looking at her would know immediately that the only reason for her continuing presence in the pub was the fact that she was waiting for someone. She was expecting someone. It made her feel less vulnerable, also less approachable.

On this occasion she was glad she had looked up. Stephanie stood in the doorway, looking ruffled and indecisive. Jane waved at her and smiled. Stephanie caught her eye, smiled back, relieved, then pointed her finger towards the bar. Jane nodded. Stephanie then pointed a finger towards Jane's drink. Jane shook her head and placed a prim, flat hand over the top of her gla.s.s. Stephanie walked to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.

Jane watched her, at last relaxing in the pub's worn, red velvet environs, putting down her book and leaning back in her chair. She watched Stephanie as she waited for her drink and then paid for it. Stephanie was still wearing her uniform-she worked in John Lewis, the Oxford Street branch-and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked young for twenty-four. Jane thought it must be the way that she had tied back her hair. As Stephanie approached her Jane said ironically, 'I'm surprised the barman served you, Steph, you don't look eighteen with your hair tied back like that.'

Stephanie put her spirits gla.s.s down and squeezed in between the table and the seat. As she sat down she touched her hair with a free hand and looked unnecessarily self-conscious, then said, 'I think the barman'd serve a large squirrel if it appeared at the counter and asked for a pint of lager. He doesn't look too discriminating.'

Jane shrugged. Stephanie pointed towards Jane's book. 'Jilly Cooper. Good?'

Jane picked up the book and put it into her bag. 'Something to read. It's not like you to be late.'

Stephanie frowned, 'I know. I've had a bit of a strange day. Sorry.'

Jane raised her eyebrows, professionally interested. 'Busy?'

Stephanie shrugged. 'Not too bad. You?'

Jane shook her head. 'So so.'

They both picked up their drinks and took a sip. On returning her gla.s.s to the table Stephanie put her hands to the back of her head and pulled her hairband out. She then shook free her hair which fell about her shoulders in semi-curls. Jane watched her as she did this and couldn't help thinking that Stephanie was looking particularly well, strangely spruce, as though she had just had a shower, an odd post-swimming clean-washed look. She sniffed the air for a trace of chlorine but could smell none. 'You haven't been swimming, have you? Marshall Street pool?'

Stephanie looked guilty, 'No. Well, yes. Well, I had a shower, that's all.'

Jane frowned. 'Where's your towel? Why did you have a shower? That's odd. Are you wearing any make-up? Why did you have a shower?'

Stephanie looked overwhelmed, 'I ... I needed a shower. I hired a towel.'

Jane began to pull a fastidious expression.

'Honestly, it was perfectly clean.' Stephanie's face crumpled. Oh G.o.d! I feel ... I don't know. I was going to say I feel awful, but in fact I feel almost the opposite.' She thought for a moment. 'I feel rather, almost hysterical. Pent up. I've done the strangest thing.'

Jane was frowning. 'Is everything all right at work?'

Stephanie nodded wordlessly.

'Chris? Nothing's happened between you and Chris?'

Stephanie shook her head, 'No, Chris is fine.' She frowned. 'I don't feel as if I can tell you ...'

Jane clucked her tongue, exasperated. "What can't you tell me? You always tell me everything. What's going on?'

They had been best friends since primary school. Jane had always been dominant and Stephanie softer, better intentioned but easily swayed. She saw life as a set of rules which she obeyed. Jane saw life as a set of rules which she supported. She thought Stephanie's pa.s.sivity occasionally subversive, but knew her well enough to be sure of her back-up and understanding in most situations. They came from the same stock, a simmering, warm if unadventurous stew of suburban values; their schooling the same, parents the same, boyfriends the same, and their ambitions ...?

Jane stared at Stephanie across the table and wondered what it was that she had done. She shoved around a set of geometric boundaries in her mind, a variety of fully contained and containable possibilities. 'Pregnant?'

Stephanie grimaced. She looked up at Jane and felt almost helpless; she must tell her because who else could she tell? (G.o.d knows, not her mother.) And the notion of saying nothing was virtually inconceivable. She knew that all acts suffered in the doing because of the inevitability of the telling. She must tell her.

Jane watched, waiting. Stephanie took a further sip of her drink, laced her hands together on her lap and then took a deep breath. 'I'm downstairs in the Men's Knitwear Department this week, occasionally on the till, but mainly involved with stock, pricing, you know ...'

Jane nodded, she had a picture of the knitwear department in her mind, and a cardigan that she wanted to buy for Mitch. 'Knitwear Department. So?'

Stephanie looked down at her hands. 'Well, I was ... It was dead during the last hour, you know how it can be, hardly anyone about, and I was tidying up, straightening jumpers on hangers and refolding ... I don't know if it's the same in the bank, but the last hour is always the worst and the best, the way the minute-hand keeps you in but the hour-hand points towards the door ...'

Jane was nonplussed by Stephanie's attempts to wax lyrical. 'The last hour. Right.'

Stephanie took a deep breath. She knew this wasn't going to be easy. 'I was folding up some vests and socks when I noticed a man near by, well, I think that initially there were two of them, but the other one wandered off. They were skins, really tall in puffy green jackets and tight, short jeans and boots ...'

Jane frowned. 'White trash.'

Stephanie bit her lip and nodded. 'Really short hair, just like, just really short, soft, like a coloured shadow on the scalp. But smart, not like normal skins, with bleached trousers and tatoos on their necks, like ugly roosters, dirty. This one was smart ...'

Jane reiterated her earlier point, which made a cla.s.s distinction as opposed to a value judgement. 'White trash. Yuk. Shoplifting I bet. Pringle jumpers or long socks for under their boots.'

Stephanie nodded. 'Socks.'

She was silent for a moment. In her mind she outlined what she was going to say and felt her stomach contract with the extremity of it. She thought momentarily of not telling and then knew that she must tell. She tried a different approach. 'Do you ever have that feeling sometimes when everything feels sort of, strong, like soup or evaporated milk, sort of condensed, as though some things just must happen in a specific way, like a recipe ...?'

Jane looked uncomprehending. 'Like what? No, I don't think so.'

Stephanie frowned. 'Like when you first fell in love with Mitch, like when you first decided to have your hair cut, or the feeling you get when you want to dive into a pool but know that the water is cold, but you want to dive in anyway.'

Jane sipped her lager and watched as one of the men at the bar walked over and put some money into the juke box. Doris Day started singing 'Move Over Darling.' She tapped her foot in time and tried to respond appropriately to what Stephanie was saying.

'I don't know what you mean. Did you go swimming after all? Why all this talk about swimming all of a sudden?'

Stephanie looked crestfallen. She knew that she was already losing Jane's sympathy. 'That was a simile. Remember? Like Gerard Manley Hopkins or someone. I was trying to explain a feeling.'

Jane rolled her eyes. 'Just tell me what you mean. What about that skinhead, the shoplifter. Did you catch him?'

Stephanie nodded. 'Yes, I caught him.'

'And then?' Jane drained her gla.s.s of lager and placed it decisively down on a beermat. Stephanie studied her own gla.s.s, watched the condensation on the exterior of its bowl and around its base. The gla.s.s left a ring of moisture on the surface of the table when she picked it up. She took a sip and replaced it, but in a different place so that she could study the damp ring on the table's surface, moisten her finger in the dampness and then draw on the polished wood. She drew another circle. 'I walked over to him and told him that I knew he had placed some socks inside his jacket. I asked whether he intended to pay for them.'