The Zoo Read online

  Since they began the building work I am struggling to sleep. I am irritable and tired. I think about my son constantly. I wonder what he is doing and whether he is thinking of me too.

  The speech from the radio is with me at all times. I stretch for the words, but the harder I try the further away they retreat. Asian Radio Lady won’t let me touch her radio again. The last time I tried she hollered so loud the orderlies came running and I backed away with raised palms, struggling to convince them I wasn’t doing anything. I imagine a note on a form somewhere, about me attacking fellow inmates and there never seemed so far away.

  Numbness. A plastic tray on a plastic table in a bright canteen. My teeth clenched under a spasming jaw.

  Beaker sits opposite me. Slides his tray onto the table and huffs his way into the seat. His knees touch mine under the table and I angrily shift mine away, stare at him, but his attention is focused on cleaning the lens of his camera. He blows onto it and then polishes the glass with his shirt sleeve. When he’s satisfied he raises it to his eyes and examines me through the viewfinder. I put my hand up over my face like a cheap celebrity stumbling out of a bar in the early hours.

  ‘Stop it, will you?’

  He ignores me. Clicks the shutter. Again.

  I lash out, hitting only his hands.

  ‘I said, stop it.’

  He whispers something.

  ‘What did you say?’ I demand.

  He whispers it again.

  I lurch over the table and repeat myself.

  ‘I said, I need to,’ he replies.

  ‘Need to? Why would you need to?’

  I sit back down, the anger gone and now looking at the hurt on his face I feel selfish and stupid and aware of myself. The canteen is too quiet, just the clash of cutlery on plastic plates and the low chatter of the dining staff.

  His tone is conspiratorial as he gestures for me to lean in close and says, ’I’m not crazy, you see.’

  ‘Well, none of us are, are we? We’re just having difficulties with living in our high pressure modern society.’

  ‘It’s all an act.’

  Someone drops a tray, an explosion of metal against tiles, the smash of crockery breaking. A cheer builds around the canteen, like in school. Beaker looks as if he is going to stop talking. I put my hand on his forearm. Nod encouragement at him.

  ‘I work for a paper. A major paper. I’m doing an article on the mental health system.’

  I can’t stop my look from being incredulous.

  ‘Really,’ he says, patting his invisible camera, ‘And these are going to go with the article. With your permission, of course. We wouldn’t publish your photo without your permission. Unethical.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘How did you get in here then?’

  ‘Faked it. An undercover reporter has to be an excellent actor.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to end up stuck in here?’

  He taps his nose. His eyes magnified by his glasses.

  ‘I wrote down my intentions before I came. I just have to say the words and,’ he mimes taking off with his hands, forces a whizzing noise between his teeth and says, ‘don’t tell anyone though. I’m trusting you. You’re the only person I’ve told in here.’

  As he leaves the table he winks at me and grins.

  I lay my head on the table, cheek against the surface and look at the world down its expanse. I can see my breath steam momentarily on the plastic and when I try to raise my head I find I can’t.

  Then there are hands on my face pushing it into the table, pushing my nose against the table until I feel it crack under the pressure of hands on the back of my head. I can feel ragged breath on the back of my neck, heat, screams. The smell of sulphur harsh in my nose.

  I gag.

  Something is pushing me harder into the table as I struggle, trying to wriggle from the grasp. It’s holding me tight, a weight on my back, rancid breath moving the hairs on the back of my neck.

  My own panicked breath lifts the dust off the table in snorts of white. The touch of lips on my ear and a voice in my ear, in my head.

  ‘I am coming for you.’

  I’m screaming, but my mouth is held shut against the table and I feel as if I’m going to explode.

  Then the weight is gone. The voice is gone. The breath is gone.

  I’m on my own, spinning my head round and round looking for the perpetrator. The canteen is as it was – groups of people huddled over trays, scooping colourless food into mouths, the chatter of the dining staff, no-one near me.

  I look down at the imprint of my face in the dust of the table and see my cheekbones, the flat of my forehead. The pout of my lips and the wet ellipses of my eye sockets.

  Eventually the shaking stops and when I stand to leave I realise I have pissed myself.

  32.

  A slapping fight between Beard and Asian Radio Lady causes the staff to run into the day room and, seeing my chance, I slip away to the plastic sheet. Some instinctual respect for authority nearly stops me, then I force my hands through and pull it apart.

  On the other side the corridor is unrecognisable.

  The plaster has been stripped from the walls, revealing pockmarked breeze blocks. Most of the floor tiles have been ripped up and the concrete underneath is water-stained and chipped. The fluorescent tube lights are smashed and hanging down from the ceiling. The doors to all the rooms have been removed, in their place gaping black maws into darkened rooms. Scaffolding runs alongside the left hand wall, a bucket of bricks still swinging from the lower planks. The air is thick with plaster dust. There is a sense of recent desertion.

  I take one step through. Leave a trailing foot on the ward.

  Above the scaffolding I am sure I can see daylight. The feet of a ladder sitting on the top planks, even when the top of it must be above where the ceiling level is. A stack of corrugated metal leans against the other wall and over the top of it a piece of material. Gold, red and black stripes in an order I recognise. I strain my eyes into the gloom and think I can see the outline of a gold crown in a white circle.

  I shudder.

  Noise behind me in the corridor.

  Beard shouting.

  I pull myself back onto the ward, brush the dust from my shoulders and, scuffing at my footprints on the floor, turn straight into the face of Janet Armitage. She looks concerned. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks. Her voice is soft as lambswool.

  I stutter, nod and try to push past her.

  ‘I just wanted to know what they’re doing in there.’

  She peers over my shoulder.

  ‘Same as they always are I would say.’

  She has a grip of my arm, steering me back towards the day room.

  I want to ask her what she means, what she means by same as always, but she is talking to a doctor, at the same time easing me through the doorway into the day room so I stand there, nullified, impotent and I am sure I hear her say my name.

  I sit at the table in the day room. Dust is covering everything like snow. Someone has written my name in it with their fingertip. It isn’t my writing.

  I can’t stay here. I go to the sofa area and lump into a seat. The dust puffs up around me with the force of my body. Mark is in one of the other seats, the dust heavy in his hair like dandruff. I smile at him. He returns a weak smile then turns away. The hair at the back of his neck is spiky and aggressive in the place of his pony tail.

  Later.

  I am sat at the computer. The internet is ponderous. I watch the blue bar creep across the screen. Most pages I try to look at are blocked. Instead I open Wikipedia and type in Nghosa. On the right of the screen I see those colours again. Stripes of gold, red and black in an order I recognise. The outline of a gold crown in a white circle. Nghosa – officially the Republic of Nghos, a country in East Africa, the Indian ocean to its south east and bordered by The Islamic Republic of Nerjeru to the north.

  I feel someone sit next to me. Without looking I know it�
�s Beth.

  ‘What you looking at?’ she asks.

  ‘My past,’ I say.

  She squints at the screen and then looks at me quizzically.

  ‘You lived there?’

  ‘No. It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘Okay, I don’t want to pry.’

  ‘You’re not prying. It really is hard to explain.’

  I scan the screen again. I know everything that’s on there. It’s telling me nothing new. The keys are cold on my fingertips. I trace my name out on the keyboard, touching the keys lightly. Lose myself for a moment and when I come back I see that Beth is staring at the scars on my left hand. At the gap where my thumb used to be. At the criss-crossed scar tissue, white and tight. I instinctively pull my hand away, then acknowledge the concern on her face and put it back. She rests her hand on top of mine. Then turns it over so I can see the recently healed scar running vertically up her wrist.

  I want to tell her, to explain everything, instead I say,

  ‘We did it to ourselves.’

  She nods.

  33.

  I’m walking back from a meeting at a new recording studio in a digital cinema to see if we can use it to record the voice-over for the new Dutch bank commercial. We’ve got a well-known Shakespearian actor in to do it. A voice people can trust.

  I’m regretting not driving. There’s drizzle in the air. The scarf around my neck is already wet. Jessica is walking next to me, her heels clacking on the pavement. She’s wearing a long coat, so there’s only denier-clad legs showing underneath and shoes with tiny leather straps around the ankle. A rut in the pavement causes her heel to turn over and she falls into me, grabbing my arm. When she rights herself she doesn’t let go, just loops her hand through my arm. I can smell her perfume.

  The studio wasn’t good enough. They spent more money on the plush green leather sofas in reception than they did on the equipment. I only went to look at it because Alan asked me to. Friend of a friend or something. I’m looking forward to telling him it was shite.

  We stop at the ring road. Jessica unlinks my arm and presses the zebra crossing button.

  I look up at the building which houses the regional newspaper. Grey plastic and stark black glass against an apathetic sky. On the tower a digital clock displays the time, then flips to the temperature.

  We wait for the lights.

  I glance back up to the clock. It says ‘wait’ instead of the time. W. A. 1. T.

  Jessica tugs my arm and we cross the road. At the other side I glance back at the clock. 7 degrees.

  As soon as I get back into work Collins knocks on the open door of my office. I ignore him and turn on my computer. As the Apple logo appears in the middle of the screen I gesture him in. He closes the door behind him.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I don’t know if you know this, but my father is head of security at a technology company?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  He starts to talk again. I raise my hand. Pick up the phone and dial my PA. Ask her to bring me a coffee. I’m cold. My knuckles hurt.

  ‘Do you want anything?’ I ask Collins. He shakes his head.

  ‘I spoke to my father last night and he told me there had been a big shake up in the office. The marketing director walked out,’ he says conspiratorially.

  ‘Okay. And you’re telling me this why?’

  ‘They’re bringing in the marketing director from Diamond Homes.’

  We worked with Diamond Homes for years. For a long time they were our biggest account, we looked after all their advertising for the Midlands region. We lost the account when they pretended to take all the marketing in-house and then pimped the creative to a big London agency.

  ‘I texted her and congratulated her on getting the job.’

  My coffee arrives. It’s scolding hot. I blow onto it. Watch the ripples on its surface.

  ‘She asked me to put together a creds pitch,’ says Collins.

  ‘And you want my help?’

  ‘I want you to help and I want it to be my account.’

  I take a sip of the coffee. Feel it burning down my throat right down into my stomach.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘Good work. Get a date and we’ll put something together. Keep this between us for now, yes?’

  Selfish, wanting to claim the win, not wanting it in my pipeline.

  ‘That’s what I wanted,’ he says and I understand how he can swallow his pride and come to me for help. Hilary may have been right.

  When he leaves I follow my mouse around my screen and feel empty. The coffee doesn’t warm me up. I turn the air conditioning up in my office. It has no effect and I shiver, clasping my arms around myself and stare at the back of my door until I notice that all the lights have been turned off outside. I get up and open my door. Everyone else has left. The office is black and quiet and lifeless. As I’m locking my door I think I hear somebody moving about in the corridor. Turning the lights back on I search all the conference rooms, then the board room. Nothing. As I lock the outer door of the office and make my way down the stairs I am sure I see movement on the stairs below. I shout out. No-one replies. I pick my pace up and half run, half tumble down the stairs. As I hit the bottom the main door is swinging shut and there’s a blur of a small leg bursting through it.

  The car park is empty. I can hear the groan of the city. Nothing else.

  As I’m driving home I pass a poster for Lou’s exhibition and experience a crushing pang of guilt. I pull the car over and dial her number. She doesn’t answer. I light a cigarette and the car fills with smoke. After a while I notice the phone flashing. When I answer it Lou just says, ‘well’, and waits for me to speak. Now that I’m faced with the reality of talking to her I don’t know what to say.

  ‘Look Lou, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about what happened,’ I spit out eventually. It sounds false, hollow and not even close to near enough.

  ‘That’s it?’

  A lorry rushes by, close enough to buffet my car. It continues to rock for a minute, like a pedalo in the wake of a tanker.

  ‘Nothing I can say will make it better. I was an asshole. I know I was.’

  ‘You were more than an asshole. You were a childish, stupid, violent asshole.’

  ‘I know. I’m ashamed of myself.’

  She falls quiet. I listen to the echo of my breathing through the phone.

  ‘I don’t know how to say what I want to say. It’s not my place to have to say this but you made it my place when you ruined my party and wrecked my sculpture. My fucking sculpture, James. You of all people should know what that means.’

  ‘I’m really fucking sorry. I was off my tits. I know it’s not an excuse . . .’

  ‘You’re right. It’s not an excuse. But it is always your excuse,’ her breathing is quick and angular, ‘You’ve changed. That sounds clichéd and horrible and is nowhere near strong enough for what I mean. But you have. I barely recognise you anymore.’

  ‘Lou . . .’

  The anger is rising in her voice. I can imagine the face she is pulling, blotches of red rising on her cheeks.

  ‘We’ve known you for a long time. Even Dan says he doesn’t recognise you anymore.’

  This hurts more than it should, hurts more than her thinking I’ve changed. Ridiculous, but I don’t want Dan to think ill of me. I can handle Lou being pissed off with me. Dan is somehow different. I stammer another apology.

  ‘You need to take a long look at yourself. Look at what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. I know you don’t believe in karma, but what goes around comes around and you’re racking up a huge debt.’

  ‘You’re talking about the bank aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m talking about the bank.’

  ‘What do you think they’ve done.’

  ‘Watch the fucking TV James. I’m not your teacher.’

  The tone of her voice has changed. Softer. Still angry, but
there seems a way forward.

  ‘Are we going to be okay?’ I ask.

  ‘We’re going to have to be okay because you’re married to my best friend. This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you. I’ll be polite to you for Sally’s sake, but I want you to stay away from me as much as is possible. And know this, I’m watching you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘I am sorry Lou.’

  She hangs up. I open the window and the smoke spills out into the night.

  34.

  The thing that gets you in here, the thing that makes it unbearable, is the boredom. Human beings aren’t supposed to be kept locked in the same place day after day. We’re not supposed to repeat the same actions over and over.

  Get up. Eat breakfast. Go outside for a cigarette. Sit at the table in the day room. Art therapy. Once a week go down into the gym to swim twenty lengths in a pool full of piss. Weekly doctor’s rounds. Eat dinner. Watch TV for a couple of hours. Go to bed. Get up. Repeat.

  Then there’s group therapy. Sit in a group and share your most private thoughts. Spill out the reasons why you’re so fucked up, so a group of strangers in the same position can nod and sympathise and applaud your misery. Led by another stranger in a white coat and dirty trainers who will cajole and prod and push you and try and make you give everything up in the name of your recovery. So you can get from in here to out there.

  ‘Mr Marlowe.’ The surname, always the surname. Formal and respectful.

  I move my gaze from the tiles to the voice coming from a coat and a jumper, a face that is too young to talk to me with authority, a face kissed with a hint of stubble and eyes that are free of lines. Eyes that hold mine and will me to talk.

  I return to the tiles. Count the number between my foot and Beaker’s sock to my right. One. Two. Three. Study the dirt in the grout, the dust over everything, the curl and twitch of Beaker’s toe in his threadbare sock.

  ‘Mr Marlowe.’

  Again.

  ‘Mr Marlowe?’

  I raise my head.

  ‘Have you anything you’d like to share?’