The Zoo Read online

  I freeze. Wait for my eyes to adjust. The rat is lying on the dead coals not moving, not blinking, just a dead rat. I laugh at myself, turn to leave and walk straight into someone. Again terror washes over me, I stumble back into the hut, catch my foot on one of the mats and fall onto my back, pull myself across the floor like a crab as the figure follows me. I put both hands over my face expecting a blow. Nothing comes. I remove my hands. The boy from the road, the boy from the zoo, is sitting cross-legged at my feet.

  He smiles. I smile back.

  ‘You,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ his voice is heavily accented, deeper than I expected it to be.

  He is holding something out to me. A bit of paper. I don’t move. He shakes it.

  ‘Take it. It’s yours.’

  I lean forward and snatch it from him.

  ‘I shouldn’t have to tell you this,’ he says, ‘you already know.’

  Then he unwinds himself and stands.

  ‘Wait,’ I say.

  He looks at me, expectation in big brown eyes. I don’t know what I wanted to say, so ask him his name instead.

  ‘You already know that too.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Bamidele.’

  I repeat it back. Roll it around my mouth.

  ‘Yes. Bamidele. You know what it means too,’ he says and then he is gone.

  In the empty hut I look at the paper in my hand. A scrunched up bit of paper, stained with the dust of a foreign land. Half a page ripped out of a magazine. On one side a picture of a Panther and text too small for me to read in this light. I don’t need light to know the words on the other side because I wrote them. Every single fucking one.

  It’s an advert for the bank.

  54.

  Ben and I are in our meeting room, the ads spread out in front of us on the table and we’ve just watched the commercial again for the hundredth time. I’m bored of it now and so is he. This is always the danger in launching any campaign – the client is sick of it before the public even gets to see it. It’s my job to get over this inertia, to make sure they don’t try to change it before it goes live or within weeks of its launch. I seem to have the same telephone conversation over and over again with various clients as they try to fiddle with campaigns just weeks into launch, about how we’ve got to let them run their course, explaining opportunities to see or hear, that they’re only sick of them because of the processes we go through, that we’ve got to give Joe Public a chance to at least see it before they butcher it. Sometimes I’m more successful than others. Hilary is the best at it. His arrogance, his unwavering conviction that he’s right and the client doesn’t know best is only really useful in these situations. God knows he doesn’t listen to what the clients want anymore. When I get the call, the inevitable call, asking for us to increase the size of the price, or add more text, or put a flash or a fucking banner on, this is the only time I really feel comfortable putting the call through to him. Otherwise it’s just a recipe for disaster.We’ve gone over the press ads. I’ve got Ben’s scrawl on most of them as a final sign off. There’s a knock at the door and Ruth comes in with printouts of the online ads. I hand them to Ben and, as he takes them, I sense a hesitation in him. An almost imperceptible pause, and a downturn of his eyes. I hope he’s not going to ask me to change something, because we’re past deadline on most of them and I asked Baxter to send them to the media house this morning. But Ben doesn’t. He signs the top one. Then, barely looking at them, applies his moniker to each of the remaining printouts.

  He’s very twitchy today. I want to write it off as the fact that he’s got final say on all this, all these millions of pounds worth of media bollocks arrayed in front of us like the plan of some mad Napoleonic general, but it’s something more than that. He seems worn down.

  ‘All done?’ I ask, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice, all too aware I sound forced.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies without looking up, ‘too late to stop it now.’

  I raise an eyebrow.

  He gives a little shrug. Puts the lid back on his pen and tucks it inside his jacket.

  ‘Can I go?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course. Whenever you want.’

  He nods, shakes my hand without meeting my eye and leaves.

  As I tidy the papers up into a pile, turn the monitor off and collect everything up, his attitude nags at me. I’d expect a sense of anti-climax at this stage, that’s normal, we’ve been working towards this for months. I could understand it if he felt a little lost. But not this. I question myself briefly as to whether this is my ego talking, whether I was expecting a big thanks, a professional pat on the back, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted it from Ben anyway. No disrespect to him, but he’s just a foot soldier, my ego demands approval from up high, not from the rank and file.

  I realise this bugs me enough to not let it slide, so I run out of the meeting room, through the office and down the stairs.

  In the car park Ben is taking his jacket off and hanging it up in the back of the car.

  ‘Ben, wait,’ I call out to him.

  He is visibly shocked to see me running like this, then he buries it behind a deadpan expression.

  ‘Did I forget something?’

  ‘No. No. It’s not that,’ I don’t know how to word this. I don’t know him well enough. It occurs to me again that I could be being hugely oversensitive, that my lifestyle is playing tricks on me. ‘Are you okay?’

  The merest hint of a smile on his lips. Then that too is stifled.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  Everything I say is going to make me sound like a neurotic girlfriend.

  ‘You just don’t seem right. There’s something wrong. Look, I don’t want to pry, I’m well aware I could be stepping over the client–agency boundaries here, but we’ve been working closely together for months now, and, well, I get the feeling that something is wrong. If it’s private and I’m being invasive then please tell me to fuck off.’

  The suggestion of a smile again, but the shoulders have sagged. I knew it. There is something.

  ‘Look. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. There’s nothing bad. I’ve not split up from my girlfriend or anything. Everything is fine.’

  Despite myself I’m relieved. At least I’ve not put my foot in it.

  ‘Then is it anything I can help with?’ I ask.

  He appears to be considering it. He closes the car door, leans his elbows on the roof and rests his chin on his fists. Takes a deep sigh and starts to say something. Stops.

  ‘Look,’ he says eventually, ’there’s nothing I can do about it, nothing you can do about it, so it’s not even worth talking about.’

  ‘Talking about what?’

  ‘Nothing. It will do no good. You’ll just feel as bad as I do and that’s not fair.’

  ‘Bad about what? You’re scaring me now, Ben. What’s happened?’

  He lowers his forehead onto his fist now. His shoulders shake. I think he’s crying, but when he spins round I see that he is angry, really angry.

  ‘Nothing has happened. It just is. There’s nothing any of us can do about it, so stop asking me questions. Don’t worry about it, just turn round and get on with the rest of your day.’

  ‘Fucking hell, mate, I can’t do that now. I need to know what’s got you so wound up. Especially if it affects me.’

  He’s shouting now, flecks of his spit hit my face.

  ‘Oh, it affects you. It affects me. It affects all of us. It’s not a matter of who it affects, it’s a matter of whether you notice whether it does or not. I think you’ll probably be alright.’ He makes a play of looking me up and down, ‘Yes, I think you’ll be just fine.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I’m worried about you now. You can talk to me. Come on, let’s go over the road and have a chat over a pint. Better than here in the car park. Come on, mate. Let’s go and set the world to rights.’

  He snorts with laughter. An edge of derision
to it. I’ve never seen him like this, never thought I would.

  ‘Too fucking late for that. Way too fucking late. We’re on a path now. We’ve just got to follow it and see where it takes us . . .’

  The shrill ring of his mobile cuts him short. He swears under his breath, pulls it from his pocket. As he looks at the display his face is engulfed with sheer panic, his skin suddenly as grey as the tarmac all about us.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says without answering.

  ‘Wait,’ I say, reaching for his arm, but he slaps my hand away.

  ‘No. I’ve got to go. Forget this. Everything is fine. I’m just tired. We’ve been working too hard. It’s done now though. We can all relax.’

  He slams the car door shut behind him and guns the ignition. He looks at me once before he wheel-spins out of the car park.

  I’m left with the image of his haunted face through the tinted glass etched on my mind.

  55.

  The order goes: The Cowboy, The Knight, The Pirate, The Soldier, The Lion, The Rhino, The Ape, The Horse, then The Zebra.

  The Horse is superior to The Zebra because of his usefulness to The Cowboy. There is an image filed in my head of The Cowboy and The Horse, silhouetted against a sky that is soaked in oranges and reds and they are so small against it, so small. The world fans out about them and they are just punctuation. This is before The Zoo, or maybe never at all. He is an Andalusian, purebred and Mediterranean, you can see the passion in the flare of his nostrils and the arrogant tilt of his head. I’ve never seen The Cowboy ride him of course, I believe though, that if he wanted to ride him then The Horse would allow it.

  He has been our friend and our mount for 3000 years. He is the outmoded transport that we keep about for nostalgia and to race for our entertainment. He used to be the car, the tractor, the train, the combine harvester, the tank, now he is there for our pleasure only.

  He is the bearer of the Apocalypse, bringing righteousness, war, famine and death to us all.

  He is My Little Pony, with pink bows and plastic comb for his mane.

  He was Dusty, then he became Silver.

  He is Red Rum, which is also murder backwards on a mirror.

  He is a hollow wooden horse let into an encampment so its occupants can surprise and slaughter their enemies, so he is trust and the betrayal of that trust.

  He is beloved of all teenage girls as Black Beauty, but he is also a severed head in a bed.

  He has always been with us, carrying us across the Earth, but just as The Cowboy stands on his own and abandons The Horse, so too do we and he is becoming forgotten and irrelevant.

  He is a beautiful accessory that is no longer tied to us by necessity.

  The Zebra by contrast is squatter, his flanks broader and less elegant. Although his markings go some way to compensate for his lack of finesse, they can only go so far. In those Rorschach stripes I see moths, a crow, a rictus smile, a betrayal and the end of days.

  The Zebra’s back is not strong enough to hold the weight of a man. He cannot carry us like The Horse can and he tries to make up for it with pretty patterns. It doesn’t work and so he is below The Horse and always will be. He is the younger brother, trying to catch up with his more successful sibling by misbehaving and drawing attention to himself. The Cowboy doesn’t take any notice, so neither will I.

  Beaker has gone. He’s nowhere to be found. No-one mentions it for a couple of days. The ward continues on as it always has, the steady momentum towards boredom. We get up. We eat breakfast. We spend time in the day room. We talk to people. We share. We eat our medicine. No one says anything about the fact that Beaker has gone. It disarms me. How easy it is for someone to vanish and we don’t even bat a collective eye. It could very easily be me and no-one would notice, no-one would say a word. One day I’d be there and the next I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t change the ward at all. One day Beaker was there. The next he wasn’t. No one so much as flinched.

  I ask Mark whether he has seen him and he squints at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language, before shuffling away.

  Beth sits next to me in group. Her leg is warm next to mine. I keep trying to catch her eye. She resists. I know I’ve hurt her, so I accept her shunning me. It has to be something I’m willing to do. I do want answers though. I want recognition from someone that Beaker was here, that someone at least remembers him. There is a pause in proceedings. Conversation breaks out between people. I nudge her and ask her whether she knows where he is.

  ‘People come and go,’ she says, ‘it’s just the way it is in here.’

  She’s right of course, the thing that bothers me though is he showed no signs of recovery at all, was just as mental as the day I got here, taking pictures with his imaginary camera right up to the moment he vanished.

  Unless.

  Unless he was telling the truth and he was a fake all along. I look about me. How many of the others here are faking it? To escape their lives maybe. To get a break from their everyday. Maybe to get away with a crime. It makes me feel alone. I could be the only one in here with anything wrong with me at all. The stump of my thumb throbs. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with any of them at all. I glance at Mark, at the dust settling on his shoulders. He won’t meet my eye. Look across at Beth, but she is gazing out of the window. The Beard alone will hold my eyes and his face is smeared with a knowing smile.

  I spend the rest of the day in my room, lying on the uncomfortable bed until my back hurts, then I stand on my tiptoes and write my name into the chip paper ceiling with my thumbnail and then write all the names of the people who could come and get me out of here, who would want to get me out of here and the list is so short and so fractured that I give up, bury my face in the pillow and listen to The Zoo laugh at me.

  56.

  On the way home I phone Lou. She doesn’t answer on the first ring. Or the second. Or the third. On the fourth she picks it up and barks ‘What do you want?’ down the phone at me.

  ‘Something you said at the party, Lou,’ I stammer.

  ‘Was that before or after you smashed up my work?’

  My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I couldn’t have expected anything else.

  The city is crawling back from work. Flat light. Blind spots everywhere. I know I shouldn’t be on my phone, but this is a conversation I have to have.

  ‘Before,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Look, I’m sorry Lou, I’ve said I’m sorry, I mean it, I’ll be sorry for ever.’

  ‘Whatever. What do you want? What did I say?’

  ‘About the bank. About genocide.’

  She tuts down the phone. ‘Still not looked into that, eh? Conscience not got the better of you yet then?’

  ‘I think it’s getting there,’ I swallow it down, pride, anger, self-disgust, the whole fucking lot, ‘I know you think I’m a bad man, Lou. I just need to know what you meant.’

  ‘It’s not a secret, James, everyone knows what is going on.’

  ‘Apart from me apparently.’

  A Mercedes cuts me up. I blare my horn and swerve past it, looking into the confused eyes of a tiny Asian lady as I speed past her.

  ‘Apart from you. Get The Guardian from last week. It’s all in there. How much do you know about Nghosa?’

  ‘About the minerals. Caster something,’ I say.

  ‘Cassiterite and Coltan.’

  ‘That’s it. And about phones.’

  ‘Not just phones, James. All electronic equipment. Everything you use on a day to day basis to peddle your bullshit is reliant on them. Everything.’

  ‘I get that. Bad electronics. Give us cancer and exploit people. Got it.’

  ‘You’re a bastard.’

  There is real hatred in her voice. If I want her to carry on I need to dial it back. I need to know.

  ‘Sorry, I was being flippant. This isn’t a joking matter. I get all that. I just need to know what it’s got to do with me.’

  ‘It always comes back to you, doesn’t it? Always has. A
lways will.’

  ‘Please, Lou.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. The Dutch bank, your bank, is funding the rebel army.’

  I pull off the road. Bump the car up the curb and put on my hazard warning lights. My hands are shaking.

  ‘They’re paying for it all? All the stuff I’ve seen on TV?’

  ‘Allegedly, yes. I can’t believe you don’t know this. Don’t you ever do any research into your clients before you take them on?’ she asks, words thick with scorn.

  ‘Not generally. Why would I?’

  ‘Ethics. Morals. I don’t know. Because it’s the decent thing to do.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘As far as I can tell the Rebels are pretty much solely funded by your cash cow. A couple of steps removed maybe, but it’s them – no doubt. The Government was intent on pushing up the price of the minerals and the majority of the bank’s investment is in electronics. It doesn’t take a genius to put it all together.’

  ‘No,’ I mutter, ‘no, it doesn’t.’

  ‘It’s not just a coup though. You say you’ve watched the programmes? You know about the raping, about the burning villages, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ my voice barely a whimper.

  ‘You know about the children in the Rebel army. That they’re training children to be ruthless killers? That they’re training boys that it’s okay to rape women?’

  My head is on the steering wheel. Reality is filling the car as if it’s plunged into an ice cold lake and the water is pouring in on me.