The women of the house held a meeting. They decided that some things had to go. My wife, her two sisters, and my two cousins decided that the house was becoming cramped. They were right, of course. Add a male partner and an average brood of three children to each of those five females, and you will begin to understand the problem - all crammed into one house. I must clarify that it is a big Georgian house in Leeson Street, three stories over basement, with high ornamented ceilings in every room; yet the concentration of so many people into it gave the effect of a tenement - it is probably the only tenement in modern Dublin!

I don't own the house and I don't know who does. It was, so to speak, dropped in my lap. When I first came to Dublin, to take up a menial clerical position - a position I have occupied to this day - I rented the room on the ground floor inside the front door. The rest of the house was similarly let to students and young professional people, as they were described in the letting advertisements, and the Landlord called every Friday evening between seven and eight o'clock to collect the rent. As I was so conveniently situated inside the front door and always about on a Friday evening, not having been a drinker in those days, a practice grew up whereby other tenants left their rent with me as they exited for their weekend carousals. I became an unofficial rent collector for the Landlord, who neither thanked me nor rewarded me for my services. We never engaged in conversation while he took the money and counted it. I never even knew his name.

Then he stopped coming. One Friday night he failed to arrive, and I never saw him again. The other tenants continued to leave their rent with me, something that worried me enormously, especially when the money began to overflow the drawer in my sideboard. In fear of a robbery, I opened a bank account and deposited all the money I had collected, including my own rent. For several years this continued. And, according as tenants left, they handed their keys to me. I was prepared to accept responsibility for minding the rent money, but not for re-letting, so eventually I was living alone in an empty Georgian house.

That was when I decided to get married, and took a wife. She moved in with me to my room and enjoyed the thrill of the empty old house for a while. Unfortunately, she soon grew lonely and prevailed upon me to allow her mother and two sisters join us. There were so many empty rooms at the time that I had no logical basis for an objection. So they joined us. In time the mother died and the two sisters got married. Their husbands moved in as well. With three couples breeding, the house began to fill with little ones. Then two of my cousins came to Dublin to work in the Civil Service and I let a room to them. I was glad of this little private income at the time because I had commenced the practice of drinking. However, when these two got married they persuaded me to give them a second room, and they stopped paying me rent altogether.

With the proliferation of human life in the house, it was not surprising that the women complained of cluttering. The council of war demanded that I consign to the dump all the junk that was lying around. To make it convenient for me, they produced a notice from the Corporation that its disposal teams would be making a special collection of Household Junk on the following Tuesday. This notice came once a year and it had always been used in attempts to pressurise me into getting rid of the many old artefacts that had come into my care along with the house, objects such as broken armchairs, a Victorian hall-stand with shattered mirror glass, and, particularly, the old bicycle that was parked on the landing of the first floor. My reluctance to dispose of these items did not stem from any sentimental streak in my nature nor from any attachment to the antique; it stemmed from my overwhelming sense of responsibility for all that I was holding in trust, and my overwhelming dread that one day the Landlord would return and expect to find the house exactly as he had left it. My anxiety to maintain the role of faithful custodian was even more acute, since I no longer had the accumulation of rent to hand over to the Landlord on his return. Ever since my two cousins had ceased paying me rent, I had been making withdrawals from the bank account to finance my custom of drinking ale in the evenings.

However, on this occasion the women made a more aggressive assault than usual on the old rusty bicycle. They claimed that the children were constantly crashing into it and gashing themselves; they claimed that some day one of the children would die of tetanus or another unspeakable disease, and that it would be my fault because I didn't shift the rusty old bike.

Convinced, partly by their argument and partly by the thought that I might be able to sell the crock for the price of a few pints of ale, I concluded an agreement with the women: I would dispose of the bike, on condition that they did not press me to interfere with any of the other items on their hit-list.

Bald William, the local grocer, obliged me by putting my "For Sale" notice in his window, and within a few days I had a response, a telephone enquiry, an interested customer. I had to give her precise detail of every part, from the size of the wheels to the shape of the mudguards, and she seemed in no way put off by my frequent mention of rust. When I described the extended height of the handlebars emerging from the long neck in the frame of the bike, she became quite breathless.

"A High Nellie! Is it really a High Nellie?"

I had never heard of such a model, but assured her that it was, since it seemed to be a good selling point.

She arrived the next morning to inspect the bike. She was pushing a buggy into which was strapped a tawdry but healthy-looking girl-child of one year or thereabouts. Following her was a slim nubile girl of nineteen or twenty. The woman herself was of indiscriminate age, but old enough to be an unlikely mother of the infant. The nubile girl sat on the granite steps pushing the buggy to-and-fro while I fetched the bike for inspection. In the glare of daylight it looked a sorry sight indeed, the prevailing rust having reduced the chrome parts and the once-painted frame to the one dirty brown colour and the same rough texture. I now despaired of striking a bargain, even though I had previously pumped the wheels and ensured that it was functioning in all the expected ways. I decided I would settle for the price of four pints, my usual night's quota, if she would be prepared to take it off my hands.

She went into rapture when she saw it.

"It is. It is. A genuine High Nellie," she exclaimed. I thought perhaps I might have a week's drinking after all.

She examined it, back and front, top and bottom, with as much reverence as if it had been ridden by St. Patrick when he was chasing the snakes, or by Brian Boru when he was routing the Norsemen. She certainly didn't play a cool hand when it came to bargaining.

"I never thought I'd see one again," she said earnestly. "My first bike was a High Nellie. It was my present for my fourteenth birthday. I went everywhere on it. When I came to Dublin I brought it with me. I cycled it for years. Then it was stolen. I could never bring myself to buy another bike."

“Would you like to take it for a spin, and try it out?"

"Could I? I'll just ride around the block. Lisa will keep an eye on Annmarie." She nodded in turn at the nubile girl and the infant.

I carried the bike down the stone steps, handed it to her, and held the gate open to allow her the liberty of the streets.

She mounted the bike as if she had never sat on one before, but when she had gained her legs she pedalled with confidence down the road.

I went back to make small talk with Lisa. She was very pretty with a delicately-cut oval face and tightly-cropped black hair. She was ornamented with a diamante stud in her nose. She was a student of theology, she told me, in from the country. She had been sent by her parents to the home of Phyllis and her husband, in reply to an advertisement in a local paper; the arrangement was that she performed a certain amount of child-minding and domestic duties in return for accommodation and meals. She spoke with a quiet but assured voice. Her choice of theology as a discipline was easily explained. She was not preparing for a church career, nor was she a devotee of any particular religion. She was sent by her family to study at the University, but when her academic qualifications were assessed she was offered a place only on the course for which there were few takers - theology.

Annmarie had begun to whinge a little and Lisa was pushing her gently to-and-fro, humming soothingly to her.

I was very taken with the girl, and enjoyed our little discussion very much, even if I was on edge looking up the street and down the street for Phyllis's return. The small talk was exhausted, and I tried out a few theological topics, the existence of angels and the usefulness of the Mandala for achieving spiritual enlightenment. When the second hour had passed and I had begun to feel out of my depth in our discussion of the phenomenology of the spirit, my patience expired, and I decided to go and look for Phyllis. I told my wife to take Lisa and Annmarie inside and give them some tea and bread. Afraid that they would take flight as soon as my back was turned, I was determined to hold them as hostages until I got my bike back, or the price of it.

I got her address from Lisa and set forth. My first worry was that she had met with an accident, caused perhaps by a mechanical failure of the bicycle, and I wondered what my liability would be in such circumstances. I called at the police station and at the hospital, but there was no report of an accident.

I then called at her own address, surmising that she had been unable to re-trace her steps to my house - an unlikely explanation, as I lived on one of the main thoroughfares of the city.

Her husband answered my knock. He stood squarely in the door, dressed in shirt and trousers, in stockinged feet. His stomach pouted above his taut belt. There was a strong suggestion in his contrary expression that he had been roused from a nap. I explained my predicament. He scratched at his bald head and down the back of his flabby neck as if he were searching for some elusive itch. He didn't appear concerned, just annoyed in an intensely petulant way.

"Damn the woman anyway. She's getting sillier by the day." He spat out the words in no particular direction. He offered no further comment on the situation. I grew uneasy. Anxious to withdraw from this confrontation, I decided to cut my losses.

"I suppose I had better send the child and Lisa back to you."

"Damn the child. If she gave it to you, then you keep it. But send Lisa back to me. I want Lisa back, do you hear?"

I muttered a goodnight and withdrew. This was certainly a dilemma.

Night had fallen by the time I returned home. I found Lisa and Annmarie still sitting in the kitchen waiting for their crux to be resolved. The hostages had become refugees. I explained to Lisa, as diplomatically as I could, that Phyllis had hijacked my bike and had abandoned the two of them; they were not wanted by her husband, either - I simplified this aspect of the crux, as I was certainly not going to surrender Lisa, unless I was ridding myself of the child as well.

I got ready the spare room in the basement, the only unoccupied space in the house, which I kept in reserve for the occasional visits by my relatives from the country. I installed Lisa and the baby. They would be comfortable there, and the women of the house would see to their needs. It would take me some days to decide on a course of action, as I seldom made a good decision in haste.

The following night I consulted a drunken judge who patronised the same pub as I did. He seemed to think that I had entered into a contract, had acquired some assets, and was entitled to liquidate them. When I asked him for some suggestions as to how I might liquidate my assets, he became totally incoherent, laid his head on the counter, and began to snore. I could sell the baby on the black market. There were stories of small fortunes changing hands in such deals. That was a real possibility. I wondered what she would fetch. What then would I do with Lisa? Sell her too? But then white slavery was so much out of fashion in Europe. Unless I did something quickly I would be at a considerable loss, as they both had healthy appetites.

The more I thought about the problem, the more muddled my mind became, the more my sense of grievance against Phyllis gnawed at my spleen. I was riled by the ever-present awareness that she had bested me. I imagined her gloating over her success, laughing in scorn at my gullibility. Her image haunted me night and day, so that I finally recognised I had only one course of action open to me, to track her down and force her to compensate me for the lodgings in addition to paying a substantial price for my bike.

Living in the centre of the city has its advantages. You strike up relationships with all kinds of interesting people, such as winos, newspaper sellers, the skinheads in Stephen's Green. It was to this network of friends that I now had recourse. I had difficulty in formulating a clear picture of Phyllis, but I had no problem describing the bike. And it was the bike that my friends succeeded in identifying. Within hours reports of sightings began to flow back to me. All over the city it was being spotted - fleeting glimpses of it careering down thoroughfares, disappearing around corners, emerging from side-streets, always being pedalled vigorously by a woman, sometimes described as middle-aged, sometimes as young, sometimes simply as a woman.

For two or three days I did nothing but try to correlate the information that was coming back to me through my network. No pattern was emerging, and I could only marvel at her energy and wonder how soon she would collapse.

She didn't collapse, but she certainly started to slow down. Sightings were now beginning to cluster and concentrate in the Temple Bar area, the new Bohemian quarter of the city. The bike was being spotted chained to a lamppost outside a public house or being walked up the cobbled streets after closing-time. It was time to move in for the kill.

Temple Bar was one area of the city that was unfamiliar to me, and I made my way slowly and cautiously from pub to pub. The patrons were invariably young, and casual looking, making it all the more difficult for me to be inconspicuous. I dressed like the natives, in blue jeans and plaid shirts, and usually slouched on a high stool by the bar conducting monosyllabic conversations with the barman.

My guile and perseverance eventually brought success. Lurking in a pub early one evening, I saw her tethering the bike to the railings outside. I was petrified. I felt like a hunter across whose path a magnificent deer has strutted so close as to make a mockery of shooting. She came in the open front door, exchanged a greeting with the burly bouncer who was picking up glasses and re-arranging the chairs where people had just left. She walked past me over to a corner of the lounge; three women welcomed her with animated voices. From the corner of my eye I watched her every move. She sat down with her back towards me and ordered a pint of Guinness when the lounge girl approached. After a few minutes I took my own pint and sauntered over to occupy a vacant seat behind her, between her and the door.

One of the women had just attended a lecture on Existentialist philosophy and she was filtering her newly acquired wisdom through to the others, pausing regularly to imbibe more Guinness.

"You can do whatever you want to do," she declared in a high-pitched voice that trembled from intoxication. "You can be whatever you want to be. It's a simple matter of choice."

"Absolutely true," agreed Phyllis taking a slurp from her pint. "You can do anything you want."

Not on my bike, you can't, thought I, and not while I'm feeding your child and your child-minder.

After a while her three companions got up to leave. In turn they embraced her.

"Good luck, Phyllis. Have a nice trip."

Where was she going? I was seized by panic. When she sat down again she re-located herself with her back to the wall. She was now sitting alongside me, and couldn't avoid noticing my stare as she watched her companions depart. She glanced at me in half-recognition as if I were some face from her distant past. I sensed that she did not associate me with an event that was not yet a fortnight old. Perhaps my clothes or the changed surroundings had dulled recognition. Or perhaps she had lost all control of her faculties!

I nodded at her and edged closer along the bench seat. She became slightly nervous, but held her ground. Whether it was because of her hair, which she now wore loose, or because of her heightened complexion induced by alcohol and all that physical exertion, she certainly appeared much younger than she did on our last encounter.

I passed a compliment on the pub, to which she nodded her agreement. I still could not determine whether she recognised me or not. There was silence once more.

Then she turned squarely and emphatically to me. "Isn't it marvellous what they're doing with Temple Bar?"

"Yes, marvellous, indeed," I agreed, without the remotest idea as to what marvellous things she was referring.

"It really has such character, and it's so alive now. It's marvellous."

"Yes, marvellous," I agreed again.

"We miss out on so much of life. It's so important to have a place like this at the heart of the city, pulsing with life, full of people, exploding with ideas."

"Yes, yes, absolutely essential."

"Everywhere you turn in Temple Bar you find people expressing themselves, in music, in art, in writing, or just in the sheer joy of living."

"Are you involved in the arts yourself?"

"No, unfortunately," she laughed, and took a deep swig out of her pint. "I'm involved in the joy of living."

"But you must do something. What about work? Family?"

"I'm finished with all of that," she declared, as if a cloud had appeared on the horizon, but a cloud she was not going to allow overshadow the sunshine in her mind. "I'm off on a long trip. I'm catching the boat tonight. Holyhead. I'm going to cycle from there to the south coast of England, down through the Wye Valley and Somerset, places like that, places I've always wanted to see. And it's so easy on a bike. You just sit up and keep pedalling. From the south coast I'll catch a ferry to France. Then down to Paris! I'll spend some time there, a week, maybe two. Off again down to the Alps, Italy, Florence, Rome. Were you ever in Rome?"

"No," I replied, and in truth had never experienced the slightest desire to go there, always associating the place with pilgrims and the Pope flapping his arms from his top window.

My reaction to her eulogy was one of vast and intense resentment, so vast and so intense that it took me by surprise. How dare she? The sheer effrontery of it! It wasn't just the bicycle she had stolen from me; it wasn't just her tricking me into assuming her responsibilities; it was the audacity of the woman. She had no right to do these things, no right even to think such thoughts. It was a threat, an insult to me in a way that was too deep to articulate, too deep even to fathom.

"Rome must be marvellous," she rambled on, patently unaware of my dark thoughts, unaware of the stool I had slowly edged across her direct path to the front door. " All those paintings, and sculptures, and buildings! Isn't it fascinating to think that, once you land on the coast of France, there is a road all the way to Rome. In the days of the Empire they used to say that all roads lead to Rome. Now there is at least one road that leads to Rome, and I intend to cycle every inch of it."

"Will you stop there? Will you come back then?" I asked, wondering at what stage she planned to resume her responsibility for her child.

"Not at all," she was quite peremptory. "From Rome I will go down to Brindisi, and there catch a boat for Greece. I believe the islands are marvellous, especially Crete. And there are very few cars, so it will be ideal for cycling."

"And I suppose from Greece you will go on to Turkey or Egypt."

"I hadn't thought of that. But you're quite right. A person should see Istanbul, and the Pyramids too."

"After that the Himalayas, and India!" She looked at me sharply when she detected the tone of cold mockery in my voice. I launched a direct assault.

"What about your daughter? Are you going to put a chair-seat on the back of the High Nellie and bring her with you? Are you going to pay me for my bike before you wear it out on the highways of Europe?"

She continued staring at me as if she were trying to make sense of my outburst. Then she stood up indignantly. I stood up just as indignantly, determined that she should not escape this time. My knee was firmly behind the stool that was blocking her flight-path. As the bike was chained to the railings, she had no hope of shaking me in any event.

"I am going to the toilet," she declared in an aggrieved tone, and planked her hand-bag down on the table. I slowly sat down again. She could hardly set out for Rome without her handbag. Nevertheless, I eyed her closely as she made her way to the toilet, and didn't take my eye off the toilet door while she was inside.

Eventually she emerged. She went straight over to the bouncer who was lounging at a table talking to patrons. She tapped him on the shoulder and I watched him bend his ear to her and then turn to stare at me while he listened to whatever tale she was telling him. He nodded seriously, his brows tightening around the glare he had directed on me.

Then she swaggered over, followed purposefully by the bouncer. She grabbed her bag from the table without saying a word. Her bearing, her swagger said everything, said that she had won the battles and the war without a single formidable engagement.

As she turned to leave, the bouncer put his hand roughly on my shoulder.

"You stay there," he snarled. "Or, if you insist on leaving, you and I will take a few steps down to the police station. It's a damn shame that a young lady can't enjoy the freedom of this town without being troubled by your likes."

I sat back in a state of dismay. The 'young lady' was quickly outside, unchaining the bike, mounting it, and cycling down the street so fast that her hair was blowing behind her. Somerset, the White Cliffs, Paris, Rome - how dare she? In the following minutes I made several attempts to rise, hoping to head her off at the ferry, but each time I was arrested by a threatening glance from the bouncer. Eventually it was too late. She had given me the slip. I lapsed into a night of heavy drinking.

When I finally drank my head clear, I spent several hours contemplating my predicament. My first instinct was to follow her without delay, on the next ferry, through England, through France, Italy, wherever she went, as a weasel follows a hare, never wavering, never losing determination, until I nailed her, devoting the rest of my life, if necessary, to the task of thwarting her.

But, a few pints later, my reasoning had come full circle. I decided to let her go, to let her away with the damned bike, and to forget her. There was no point in letting the injury fester. I would keep Lisa and the child. The house was big enough, the room was free, and my relatives never called anyway. I would give up drinking and take an interest in theology. I could have long discussions with Lisa in the evenings instead of going to the pub; that would save enough money to support her and the child. I might even marry her. Why not? In my house who would notice another wife, another family? If Lisa had any scruples we could both convert to one of those religions that allowed bigamy. Why not? Wasn't it Phyllis who said you could do anything you wanted to do?

From Birds and Other Tails