Idiopathy

tied round its neck?’
    Sebastian nodded, taking a moment to gather his thoughts, then held up the fingers of his left hand and counted off his answers in turn.
    ‘One, I was able to coax it into a horsebox by virtue of the fact that it understood me spiritually and sensed my desire to bring it to safety. Two, I’m going to liberate it. Three, I brought it here because I need a hand. Four, that’s our protest slogan. Where’s Angelica?’
    ‘Never you mind where Angelica is. You need to take your cow and get out of here.’
    ‘Right,’ said Sebastian, nodding seriously and taking a moment to cinch his ponytail a fraction tighter. ‘I get it. I get it. You’re threatened.’
    ‘I’m not threatened.’
    ‘You’re threatened by the fact that you’ve always … no, let me finish … you’ve always looked down on me. Let me finish. You’ve always looked down on me, and … Don’t try and deny it, OK? I know. I know how it is. You’re all Mr Superior. I’ve seen you. Looking out your window at us. Having a good old laugh. But now the boot’s on the other foot. You look at me and you think, hold on, he’s got a
cow
.’
    The cow was chewing the cud, blinking gently, apparently unconcerned by her graceless arrival in an urban environment. Sebastian reached up and offered her his fist, which she sniffed, licked briefly, and then ignored.
    ‘Should you be doing that?’ said Daniel.
    ‘What?’ said Sebastian, wiping his hand on his jumper.
    ‘What if that cow’s infected?’
    ‘It’s a government conspiracy. Propaganda. There’s no infection.’
    Daniel took a long breath. ‘Sebastian,’ he said. ‘You need to get that cow out of here.’
    At this point, perhaps sensing that the conversation was likely to continue for some time, or perhaps simply wishing to stretch her legs, the cow stepped surprisingly gracefully from the horsebox and ambled out into the road to urinate.
    ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Daniel. ‘Get that fucking cow out of the street.’
    ‘How?’ said Sebastian.
    ‘However you got it in there in the first place,’ said Daniel. ‘Do that again.’
    ‘Might be a bit of a problem there,’ said Sebastian.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Well, I might have lied a bit about coaxing her in.’
    ‘I thought you had a bond.’
    ‘Oh, we do, but if I’m being really honest it was mainly forged during the drive up here.’
    ‘So how did you get this cow?’
    ‘Found it.’
    ‘You
found it?
Where did you
find it?
’
    ‘Well, I infiltrated the farm, and there she was, so I just hot-wired the car, and …’
    ‘Right, whatever. You need to get the cow back in the box.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sebastian vaguely. ‘Natch.’
    Daniel stared at him. Sebastian sighed and held out his hand in a limp gesture towards the animal.
    ‘Here Mavis,’ he said. ‘Here girl.’
    ‘Mavis?’
    ‘After Mavis Staples. Here Mavis. Here girl.’
    ‘Look,’ said Daniel, mustering epic levels of patience. ‘It’s not a trained cow. You can’t just say come here and expect it to come here.’
    ‘So what are you proposing, Mr Omniscient Knowledge? That I pick her up and carry her over?’
    ‘You need to flick her gently in order to encourage her back into the box.’
    ‘Flick her? What do you mean, flick her?’
    ‘Tap her on the flank.’
    ‘I don’t think I can do that.’
    ‘Why can’t you do that?’
    ‘Seems cruel.’
    ‘Whereas leaving a cow in the middle of a suburban street is the height of kindness?’
    They were both quiet a moment. Mavis lowed softly, and began to move off up the road.
    ‘I can’t be involved in this,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m going inside. All the best.’
    ‘Hey,’ said Sebastian.
    Daniel ignored him.
    ‘Oh there he is,’ came a familiar and oddly cheerful voice from the doorway. ‘Hello cunt.’
    ‘Katherine,’ said Daniel. ‘Hello.’
    ‘Don’t come near me, you cheating piece of shit,’ she snarled.
    Daniel looked at her face, at her streaked makeup, at the bubble of snot from her nostril. For some time, he had not believed it would have been possible to dislike himself any more than he already did. He now saw he was wrong. It was possible. There were whole continents of self-hatred and shame waiting to be explored.

    F ond though she was of confrontation, and better though she always felt after the first sting of anger had been transmogrified into the happy relief of open hostility, Katherine had not, on this particular occasion, been looking for a