The Zoo Read online

  Crisp Packet smiles.

  ‘I like the sound of higher return on investment, young man. But what on earth do you mean by usual channels and targeted media planning? Excuse my ignorance, I’m just a bean counter.’

  Again the nervous laughter.

  ‘Assume you’re talking to someone who is completely stupid,’ says Crisp Packet.

  ‘Okay,’ says Baxter, ‘previously you’ve used high rotation television campaigns, a lot of national press, some cinema advertising. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, and we’ve retained elements of all of these in our campaign, but there is a lot of wastage and they’re expensive. Imagine a TV programme, that we advertise on either side of, is watched by 16 million people, then think about all the people who turn over for the adverts, all the people who go and make a cup of tea, all the people who’ve Sky-plussed it and fast forward through them, all the people who just aren’t interested and you begin to get the idea of the waste implicit in this sort of advertising.

  ‘Now, there is merit to it, particularly in a brand recognition capacity and to a degree that is what we are trying to do, but we primarily want to be talking to the people who are already looking at financial services and considering their financial futures carefully. These are the people we want to communicate with in order to increase your market share. And there are much cleverer ways of doing it nowadays than blanket media coverage.’

  Baxter stops. Takes a drink of his coffee. A sheen of sweat on his forehead. They’re hanging on his words. I can barely believe it.

  ‘You’ve got an amazing database. We intend to use that properly, with timely and relevant communications to the existing customer base, as well as looking for new customers. Retention is at least as important in this campaign as finding new revenue sources.

  ‘There are so many digital tools out there we can use to get to people without it costing you a fortune. We can run profiles based on your core products and send adverts directly to prospects through the websites they most often view. We set goals for each of these adverts; for example a potential customer to visit your website and fill in an enquiry form, then we put cookies on their computer and follow them across a network of websites displaying tailored display adverts until they complete that goal.’

  ‘Cookies?’ says Berkshire.

  ‘Think of them as electronic breadcrumbs,’ I say.

  ‘Is that legal?’ Crisp packet looks concerned. His face is even smaller and wrinklier.

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Baxter, ‘there’s an argument that it’s actually better for the consumer in that they’re receiving advertising for products that are related to them rather than the scattershot effect.’

  Someone snorts. Baxter looks at me. I nod at him and he continues.

  ‘We’re buying up advertising space on social media sites. People put so much information into them we can be really, really targeted with our content and change it depending on their demographic. We know where they live, what level of education they’ve got, age, sex, job, relationship status. You name it, we know it. So the message we display to them can differ depending on their circumstances.

  ‘We intend to buy a lot of data from Experian. This is more your territory so I don’t need to go into it too much, but again the level of profiling is very sophisticated. We’ll be supporting the traditional media and digital work with a hugely targeted direct mail campaign. We’ll streamline the application process using Behavioural Economics. The long and the short of it is that with this creative and a meticulously planned delivery strategy we’ll be able to give you much higher results with a smaller budget.’

  Baxter sits back in his chair. Crisp Packet smiles.

  The room is quiet.

  Again Berkshire takes control.

  ‘Well gentlemen, thank you for your time today. Can we have a few moments to discuss your presentation? Mr Jones, if you could take our guests to Australia?’

  Ben stands. I unplug the iPad and projector and follow him down the corridor. We sit quietly in a sand yellow room and wait. A few minutes later Ben’s mobile rings. He leaves the room to take the call. When he returns he’s beaming.

  ‘They loved it.’

  ‘I think I need to take you guys out for a spot of lunch to celebrate,’ I say.

  43.

  In the car I call Hilary to tell him the news. He sounds like he’s had a couple already. He’s going to meet us at the restaurant. As we pull into the city, work is over and everyone else is driving out. I park by the station and we cross the ring road to our favourite Indian. The waiter puts us on a table in the back, through a set of beaded curtains. I order 4 pints of Cobra and a couple of bottles of wine. As I slide into the booth Jessica eases in next to me, her hand ghosting mine. Ben and Baxter sit opposite. We chat about the restaurant. It’s a southern Indian restaurant, mostly seafood curries and actually really good as a restaurant not just a curry house. Baxter is telling us about his gap year, which he spent travelling in India, when Hilary bowls in.

  ‘One of these for me?’ he asks picking up the nearest bottle of wine.

  ‘It can be,’ I reply.

  Hilary grabs a chair from a neighbouring table and scuffs it onto the end of ours.

  ‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ he says. His mouth is already stained red with wine.

  ‘Indeed they are. And mostly due to Baxter I have to say. You were fucking excellent. Where did that come from?’ I ask.

  Baxter smiles and says, ‘I’ve been preparing it. I knew that bank people, no offence Ben, were more likely to be swayed by the technical side of things, so I made sure I swotted up on the planning strategy. All the hard work was done, I just regurgitated it.’

  ‘Didn’t know you had it in you.’

  I raise my pint into the centre of the table. The others clink theirs against it.

  ‘Told you it would be brilliant and they’d love you, Ben.’

  ‘Yes you did and yes they do. Now we just have to do it.’

  Hilary clicks his fingers at the waiter, then says to Ben, ‘that’s the easy bit, son. We’ve been doing this for years. The hard part is convincing the bloody clients that we’re doing the right thing. Once that’s in the bag it’s a turkey shoot. You just sit back and let the experts cover you in glory.’

  The waiter is next to Hilary, who hasn’t noticed, instead is fiddling with a wine menu. I nudge him.

  ‘Oh, sorry. We’re after a couple of bottles of champagne. And not the shit stuff either. Give us the bottles you save for your family. Best have three and make sure they’re cold. Right. Anyone know what they’re eating?’

  ‘I can’t really stay for much longer, Sally is waiting for me,’ I say and soak up Hilary’s best withering stare.

  ‘Fuck off. We need to celebrate. All work and no play makes James a dull boy.’

  I want to argue. I really do. I want to. Instead I text Sally: The bank approved the creative. Just going for dinner to celebrate. Won’t be too long x

  The curries arrive. Hilary takes drunken control, dishing them out, but spilling as much on the tablecloth as on the plates.

  The waiter lights candles on our table, the house lights dim. The music is acoustic, Indian, the wail of a sitar.

  We order more wine. It’s as inevitable as it is pathetic.

  I want to go home and I want to stay here. The wine wins. Just as it always has and right now I loathe myself.

  Over the table Hilary’s face is pits of shadow, his eyes vanished in the caves of their sockets. His skin is bone white in the candlelight. There is a manic edge to his voice.

  At one point in the evening Jessica asks, ‘how did you all get into the industry?’ and he laughs, loud, long and cruel.

  ‘James is a failed artist, aren’t you?’ he says.

  ‘I never wanted to be an artist. I went to Art College. Hilary thinks this makes me effeminate.’

  ‘Smocks and paint smeared berets. I bet all the girls made art based on their periods.’

&
nbsp; I want to argue, but he’s right, they did. I tell them about a piece one girl made – a medicine cabinet, filled with jars filled with her own menstruation. Jessica mimes vomiting into her hand. Baxter sniggers into a pint.

  ‘I hate my job,’ says Ben.

  ‘I don’t blame you.’ I’m relieved for a moment that Hilary’s scorn is away from me. He’s a nasty drunk when he wants to be and I can do without it. Then I remember that Ben’s a client and not one of our friends, go to step in, but Ben is warming to it.

  ‘Imagine knowing that everyone hates you because of what you do. They don’t actually care about whether I’m a nice guy, don’t wait to find out most of the time. As soon as I say I’m a banker I can see their faces turn. The inevitable wanker jokes come rolling out.’

  Hilary is leaning back in his chair, his head almost gone in the shadows, his fingers drum on the arm of his chair.

  ‘It makes a nice change some other industry taking the flack for a change,’ I say before he gets a chance to interject, ‘It’s normally all our fault. I was relieved when you guys fucked everything up. The accusatory gaze turned away from us for the first time since the sixties.’

  Ben smiles a sad smile and pushes his curry around on the plate. I notice he’s separated his rice from the meat, two completely disparate piles of food.

  I’m filling everyone’s champagne glasses when my phone vibrates on the table. A text message from Sally: what a fucking surprise. My hand hovers over the phone, mind searching for the words to reply. Then I see my wife, waiting at the other end for my carefully chosen words, words designed to do no more than placate her and I can’t do it.

  ‘Why did you get into advertising then, James?’ asks Jessica.

  Before I get a chance to answer Hilary has lurched forward, elbows on the table.

  ‘James has got a gift for seeing things from other people’s perspective.’

  ‘I don’t think my wife would agree with you, Hilary.’

  ‘Ah, I didn’t say you can empathise with them, just that you can see why they think in a particular way.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’ asks Baxter.

  ‘Oh yes, my boy. James here looks at things in a pragmatic, cold and calculating way. It’s why I made him director. He’s a ruthless bastard.’

  Jessica looks at me. Reaching out for reassurance. I can see questions in her gaze.

  ‘Fuck you very much, Hilary,’ I say, getting up from the table, my knees hitting the underside causing everything on it to jump.

  He guffaws again.

  ‘Only joking, old boy. You’re soft as shit on the inside. Honestly, folks. Like a teddy bear in a suit of armour.’

  I cross the restaurant, stepping in and out of the pools of light around the tables, I can hear him ordering more wine.

  In the cubicle I hoover up two generous lines of cocaine. It hits my head and everything is instantly flattened and simplified.

  As I piss I lean my head against the tiles above the urinal. Realise I’m drunker than I thought. My piss is dark yellow, nearly brown and lasts and lasts and lasts. I struggle to do my belt up, now I’m away from the group and the table and the candles I am really drunk. I have to hold onto the sink to accept the towel from the attendant.

  The lights flicker, fade quickly, come back up and then flicker off again. My head is heavy. The attendant gestures to the bottles of aftershave on the side, says something I can’t make out, his words liquid, flowing away from me.

  ‘What did you say?’ I ask, aware of the violence in my voice.

  ‘Freshen up?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No splash, no gash,’ he says and I half laugh, half baulk at the vulgarity, stumble backwards as the lights go down again and I catch sight of myself in the mirror, tie undone, shirt hanging loose, face ashen and the attendant is gone and the wall behind me is shimmering. In the mirror the boy from Monkey Kingdom stares back with black eyes and opens a bloody mouth, gaps for teeth and says in a voice made of broken bottles, ‘we’re dying so you can talk.’ I stumble back, push out at him, but he’s gone and the attendant falls into the bottles, sending them rolling and I realise what I’ve done, scoop them up, full of apologies, take a fiver from my wallet and put it on his tray, because money makes everything better, push the door open to the restaurant and am greeted by Hilary’s drunken singing.

  At the table I pull my seat in close, sit on my twitchy hands.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asks Jessica and I nod mutely, aware that she must think I’ve puked.

  They’re still wittering about work.

  Jessica’s hand is still on my leg.

  ‘Where do you see yourself in 5 years, Baxter?’ Hilary’s speech is a message in a bottle floating on a boozy sea.

  ‘Financially stable, with a healthy family,’ replies Baxter, puffed with pride.

  ‘Very admirable. Bloody boring, but admirable. How about you, young lady? What do you want?’

  Jessica pretends to be thinking, a manicured nail to pouting lips and then says, ‘I want your job, Mr Perkins,’ and the whole table is laughing.

  More wine. More wine. More wine. A predictable cycle. A weary predictable cycle which I give in to, all the while trying to suppress thoughts of my wife and son with wine after wine after wine after wine.

  Then outside. Leaning on a wall.

  So far so good. So far so good.

  Walking home with one eye shut – the only way to judge distance.

  Wrapped up in a half-formed memory of kissing Jessica goodbye, and I’m saying to myself, it was on the cheek, it was on the cheek and that was it, nothing more, nothing more, though I can’t be sure and the night is cold and the pavement wet and the reflections of the street lights are like rips in the earth. As I weave and stagger I’m aware I might topple into one at any misplaced step.

  44.

  Beth stops me in the corridor. I try to steer away from her into my room. She steps between me and the door.

  ‘Have I done something to upset you?’ she asks.

  I should tell her, ‘I need to stay away from you because it’s marked you’. I should tell her, ‘I’m doing this for your own safety’. I should tell her, ‘the last thing I want to do is avoid you’.

  How can I though? Whatever I say it’s going to sound like the rantings of a madman. Because whatever The Zoo is, whether it’s in me or from without, it does have the power to hurt people. I’ve seen it. There have been physical consequences, so I can’t dismiss it. I have to take its threats seriously. She’s waiting for me to reply. Her eyes are wet. I’m hurting her. I really don’t want to hurt her. I should tell her.

  ‘No, you’ve not done anything,’ is what I say instead. I pull short of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ but it’s implicit.

  ‘Well why then? Why are you avoiding me?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  She wipes tears from her face with the back of her cardigan sleeve.

  ‘I promise you,’ I say, ‘I’m not avoiding you. It’s just a place I’m in.’

  A cliché again. A crap relationship cliché and I hate myself all over and she looks like she hates me too. There is incredulous disgust on her face. She turns away. I grab her arm. She stares into my face, then looks at my hand. I remove it.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘I’m getting better. The doctors say I’m getting better. I feel better.’

  ‘That’s great. I mean it, that’s really good.’

  I reach for her hand. She lets me hold it for a second.

  ‘And that’s another reason why I should stay away from you. I’m damaged, Beth.’

  Anger in her. Red hot and deserved.

  ‘Aren’t we all, James? Aren’t we all?’

  She walks away. I throw futile words after her, about how it’s for her own good, about how I hurt people, about how damaged people need to hurt others to feel better about themselves. Until I am just a man on his own in the corridor shouting at a wall.

  In the dust at my f
eet someone has drawn an approximation of a monkey. It’s pointing down the corridor.

  I stand in front of the plastic sheeting, push my hand through the gap, then my arm, then my shoulder, then step through.

  The dust is deeper here, two or three inches maybe. I wade through it, down the dark corridor. Past work-scarred walls, shapes where pictures used to be. The light from the ward, filtered through the plastic, only reaches a few paces in and I’m soon stumbling along taking baby steps into the blackness. I reach about me and find nothing. I am the centre of a black void. Behind me I can only just make out the faint glow of the ward. I inch further forward. The heat is stifling and the beginnings of claustrophobia begin to grip me. I suppress an urge to turn and run back down the corridor, to emerge into the clinical light of the ward. Swallowing it, I press on.

  The temperature is rising. A thick, dry heat, it tastes warm in my throat and lungs. Sweat prickles my forehead. My legs become heavier. I want to sit and rest. I want my back against a cool wall. I have no idea how far above me the ceiling is, how far away the walls are from my outstretched arms.

  A smell too – sulphur. I gag, retch, hold my hand over my mouth and nose, but it finds its way around my fingers and fills me.

  This seems to drag on for hours, small steps forward as the pressure of the heat pushes down on me.

  Then there is a change of quality in the light ahead. A slight blue tinge. Then that grows. Develops into a patch of light, a patch of light that grows into a defined shape, into a jagged hole of brightness.

  I stumble into it, through a gap in a wall. Torn teeth edges where bricks have been punched through the wall. On the other side the light is too bright to define any shapes, a pure white light that hurts my eyes. I hold my hand up. The heat is intense. My palm bristles.

  I climb through.

  45.

  I know it’s wrong, but it pains me to watch Harry butcher GTA. It pains me the way he can’t control the bike. The way he makes the character walk into the wall and round in circles. I want to take the control back from him and continue with my game, but he’s perched on my knee and trying to snatch the controller off me.