The Zoo Read online

  In the morning the world is the colour of old chewing gum and I’m faced with a wall of depression that hems me in. I try to pass around it, but it envelops me completely until there is nothing else. I sit in the courtyard, smoke endless cigarettes and watch the hexagon of dull sky above me. A seagull flies across my view, far up. I think of its perception of the horizon and feel momentarily dizzy. I rest my face against the rough bricks and run it backwards and forwards. The texture against my skin, the noise of my stubble scratching against it, my nail under a piece of gum squashed onto the bench, the beaten down grey wood I sit on: these things are everything.

  4.

  Managing Director looks at me, expectant and eager. He’s waiting for me to say something, like he asked me a question, but I don’t recall him asking one. It’s hot in the presentation room, the floor to ceiling glass wall acting like a greenhouse. I can feel the warmth on my cheek and it is not altogether unpleasant, and I can’t help but think of car journeys with my parents and a summer English lesson.

  Managing Director peers at me over his glasses, his steely eyes seem to have sunk deeper into his wrinkled face. He’s small. A wave of salt and pepper hair drooping over one eye. Stack heels. A handkerchief in a blazer pocket. A mouth puckered from years of smoking.

  ‘Well?’ he asks, ‘What have you got for us?’

  ‘Dutch bank. Tenth biggest bank in the world. Recently re-located here, in London. Weren’t touched too badly by the downturn in the world finances.’

  I pause and look around the table at the supposed cream of our agency. They are gawping at me open-mouthed and empty-headed.

  Through the plate glass windows of the meeting room I watch a plane cross a blue sky, a powder puff trail spreading behind it. Opposite I count the windows on a tower block, become annoyed that there are more on the left side than the right, that they don’t line up properly. A magpie lands on the roof of the office block. One for sorrow.

  I realise I’ve been talking, and they’ve been taking notes, only when someone closes a pad and they begin to leave the table.

  The magpie explodes into the sky.

  Sometime later I’m sitting in the worn corner of our local. Managing Director is half soaked, his head rolling a bit. He’s muttering and his voice is all echoes and slurs in his pint glass. I would love to ram it in his face. Or smash it on the table and stick the jagged edge into his throat. I don’t even think he would bleed, cunt is so dried up. If you cut him, his insides would have the texture of a mushroom.

  We have one meeting and the reward is to come and sit here for the afternoon, in the dozy womb of a half empty pub.

  I need to piss again.

  It splashes on my feet as I focus on the yellow river lapping back and forth in the metal tray of the urinal. As I dry my hands I read the condom machine. Rooting around in my pocket I find a pound coin and choose ribbed for extra pleasure. For him and for her. When I get back to the table I slip the packet into the pocket of Managing Director’s overcoat, for his wife to find later. It makes the next pint taste that little bit sweeter.

  ‘This could be the making of you,’ he says to me, but it sounds like one long, gloopy word, the syllables running all over each other.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘The bank, this could be the making of you.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that I needed making?’

  He’s fumbling with a packet of crisps. Gives up. Throws them down onto the table.

  ‘We all need making. Every single one of us. Write your own history, son. This could be your Sergeant Pepper or Rattle and Hum.’

  I squint at him as I drain the last of my pint, his face distorted and rolling in the liquid. I’m unable to comprehend the juxtaposition of those two albums. In the car park back at work he fumbles with his car keys and drops them underneath the wheel. I pick them up, hand them to him, then lean against the wall and watch him trying to start it.

  5.

  The ward is quiet. Angel ladders fall through the skylights and kiss the floor at intervals. I dip my hand into one, expecting heat, but there is none.

  In the day room I sit opposite Mark. He’s drawing something, concentrating real hard, I can see it in his brow. He cocks his head from side to side like a bird. I look at the top of his head for a long time. His shoulder-length hair is tied back in a scraggly ponytail, starting from the middle of his head. I’ve never really noticed this before.

  ‘What are you drawing mate?’

  He glances up from his work, then pushes a finger hard onto the paper and pivots the drawing round it. I try to move it closer, but he holds it firm. The drawing is childlike and shows little talent, but I’ve asked so I look. It’s of him, I can tell from the hair. But it’s a disproportionate him, viewed from the back. He is at a doorway and above the door is an exit sign.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask him.

  ‘The doorway to wellbeing,’ he replies, his voice drowsy.

  I study his face for irony, but there’s none. One of his eyes is closing, as if his face is wrinkled in a smile, but it’s not. A giggly eye – full of medication.

  ‘Do you fancy a fag?’ I ask, putting the packet on top of his drawing.

  ‘Go on then,’ he says, sliding the cigarettes back to me, then, picking up the drawing, he folds it very deliberately into four, going over each crease again and again, and then pushes it into the pocket of his tight jeans.

  Outside I perch on the back of the bench, my feet on the seat. Mark circles the yard. On the other side of the wall someone shouts something I can’t decipher. I’m not even sure it is English.

  ‘Did you hear that? Mark? Did you hear that?’

  He either hasn’t heard me or chooses not to reply. I tap my feet on the bench and little puffs of dust rise about them.

  Somewhere in the past she puts her arm around my neck as I am sketching at my desk and I breathe in the vanilla perfume on her wrists.

  ‘I love it when you draw,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t get to do it so much anymore,’ I reply.

  ‘I know. Bloody computers.’

  She snorts with laughter.

  ‘You’re such a fucking Luddite,’ I say, craning my face back to try and kiss her, but she pulls away.

  ‘You’re working.’

  ‘You’ve distracted me now.’

  ‘I’ll just sit here and watch.’

  ‘It’s too late. You’ve broken the spell. You’re supposed to be my muse. Not distract me.’

  ‘Don’t sulk. You look like a petulant child when you pull that face. It’s not attractive.’

  She sits down on the sofa at the back of my office, crosses one leg over the other and rests her hands palm down on her knee. Like the teacher she is.

  ‘Go on. Carry on. I like watching you.’

  I raise an eyebrow at her then turn my attention back to the paper. It’s a campaign for a pest control company. I’ve run this over and over in my head for a couple of days now, but am no closer to a solution. I’m struggling to decide between two approaches. Either balls out declarations of being able to kill everything or softly-softly, makes your garden a nicer environment. I pop the lid off a marker pen and take an illicit sniff of it. I half-heartedly sketch out a facsimile of an ant, but the moment has gone.

  ‘It’s no good,’ I say, spinning in my chair, ‘You’ve ruined my concentration. Now you’re going to have to make up for it.’

  She laughs, a rich, clean, melodic sound that resonates about the office, and then she stands to meet me halfway across the room.

  Mark is hunched down over the work surface, waiting for the kettle to boil. Something is kicking off in the day room. The sound of a chair being kicked over. A scuffle. Then nothing. I roll my eyes at Mark and he smirks and rolls his back. The kettle clicks off, filling the small kitchen with steam. I take two stained mugs out of the cupboard and drop in a couple of tea bags. I run my finger around the rim of one.

  ‘This one’s chipped.’ I tell him. ‘Not
very hygienic. I’ll have this one.’

  ‘Cheers,’ he replies.

  On the fridge someone has written “suck my balls” with the magnetic letters. I push my hand through, scattering them out over the surface. Taking the milk out, I sniff, pour it into one mug, then the other.

  ‘Say when.’

  ‘When.’

  He holds his tea between his hands, blows into the top of it, then drinks it with a slurp. We go back through to the day room. It’s quieter now, everyone has left, the TV is on but silent, showing the local sports news. I look about for the remote control, but can’t find it. Mark comes up behind me.

  ‘They’re shit. City. They’re shit. I don’t know why I bother with them. They only ever piss me off. I swear I can count the times I’ve come out of that ground with a smile on my face on one hand.’

  I settle into one of the armchairs and balance my tea on a wooden arm. We sit in silence for a while, watching the TV screen, people mouthing words at us. There is something hypnotic about it. After a while I give up attempting to work out what they are saying and just gawp at the shapes their mouths make. Oval, circle, pout, oval, teeth, smile.

  ‘Mark?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘You from round here? Your accent’s not a Leicester accent is it?’

  ‘No, I’m from Derby originally.’

  He says it Darbeh. He’s lying back in the chair, his feet crossed in his hightop trainers with their scuffed toes and lolling tongues.

  ‘How did you end up here?’

  ‘What, in here?’

  ‘No, Leicester.’

  ‘We moved over here when I was a kid. Me Dad got work in a hosiery factory down Frog Island. Course, they’ve all gone. It’s a shithole down there now.’

  ‘Not for long. They want to turn all the old factories into apartments.’

  ‘Like we need more apartments. How many ponces do they think live in one city?’

  He’s grinning at me with a gap-tooth grin and I know I should have laughed so I squeeze one out for him. I hold my mug up to my face, push my chin into it and enjoy the heat rising against my skin. I don’t really know what else to say to him and after a bit he gets up and starts to leave.

  ‘I think I’m going to get an early night,’ he says.

  ‘Okay, ’night then.’

  He walks across the room, his slippers slapping on the tiles. When he reaches the door I call out to him ‘Mark?’.

  ‘Yes?’ he replies, but I realise I haven’t got a reason to stop him.

  ‘Nothing. ’Night.’

  ‘’Night.’

  I sit on my own until my tea is cold. I imagine that it’s a cool, illicit pint, sizzling on my tongue and insinuating its way down, and my psyche reaches out over the walls clamouring for it. I wait as long as I can before returning to my room. I pause outside it and put the palm of my hand flat against the door. I can feel The Zoo hum through the wood and know that it won’t let me be, so I turn away and attempt to delay it a bit longer.

  6.

  It always starts like this. Cramp in my calves.

  I try to massage it out, hoping it’s only cramp, but it’s not and I know it isn’t. This hope, that there is a natural explanation for all this, never really goes away, I cling onto it, even as I should dismiss it.

  I’m talking to the night porter when it starts. He’s behind the desk, telling me about his kids, two of them, a boy and a girl. Then the sound goes funny, like a wah wah pedal, and I know it’s on the way.

  Not now, not now, I silently plead, please not now.

  It doesn’t listen to me. It never listens.

  I bite my bottom lip as it tightens on my legs. I’m squeezing my fists, forcing nails into my palms, straining to keep a smile on my face, looking for a break in his speech so I can leave, but now he’s taken out photos and is holding them out to me. I know I’m supposed to take them, but my hands are shaking and there’s blood in my palm, so instead I smile and nod.

  Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.

  I concentrate on my breathing. Focus on it. Count it. In. Out. In. Out. The Zoo is shouting louder, drowning out the counting. Louder, always louder, so I try and concentrate on the porter, his face rippling like a reflection in a pond after someone has thrown a stone into it. Concentric circles across his face and onto the wall, the ceiling, then up over my head. I blink hard, shake my head, causing the ripples to change direction and I feel nausea rising, a warmth in my throat, try to focus on him, pick a point on his face and really drill into it. He’s talking about his children’s mother and how he loves her and the pain is so intense my vision is spotted with stars, explosions across each eye so I can hardly make out his features. Somewhere he’s asked me if I’ve got any children.

  ‘A son,’ I force the words out, a croak in a voice that doesn’t belong to me.

  Another wave of nausea hits me and my stomach tightens. I mumble something about having to go and he’s asking me ‘everything alright mate?’ as I back away from him, cannon into a wall, nodding, saying ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’. I double over and he puts a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off, saying ‘stomach cramps’.

  I’m away down the corridor, the walls curling in over me, the door to my room moving further away, perspective shrinking. My hand is big on the handle and the metal hot and heavy to my touch, then I’m inside, sliding down the door.

  The sensation grips my legs and I try and stretch my toes out. It feels as if a vice is being tightened on me so I scream out and roll myself up in the foetal position. It’s on my back now, pressing into my spine, I can feel it rattle off the vertebrae, one by one, slowly at first, then quicker, quicker, until I feel it throughout my body, my teeth against each other, clacking, and my vision is blurred by the movement. I squeeze my eyes shut, behind the lids there is an explosion of colours and I become dizzy. The weight of it presses me down into the bed and the material of the bedspread is in my mouth, choking me, forcing down my throat. I’m struggling to breathe, nose squashed against the bed, the material blocking my airway. I try to push back against the weight, enraging it further, and it pushes me harder. I can feel my bones creak, my skull feels like it is going to crack, my eyes bulging. The blood rushes to my head, pumping in my temple, my face burning red. I attempt to scream for help, my face in the bed, the words gone, muffled, useless, and this is happening to me and me on my own.

  When I think I can take no more, when I think I am actually going to die, the weight is off me and I can breathe again. It lets me take a few breaths, I’m reaching for them, snatching at them and then the noise starts.

  First the sound of waves on a shore, pebbles against pebbles, the clack of stones, the water itself, rolling over and over. This grows in intensity, tinnitus filling my head. Then a clanging: the clanging of bells, not church bells, not tuneful, more the sound of a ball being kicked against a garage door, a dull metallic ringing, discordant.

  In one ear, then through my head to the other ear. I press my palms onto my head, try to block the sound, but it is in me now, it is of me and it is too late.

  All the air is sucked out of the room and I exist momentarily in a vacuum. I panic and flail about. I always do this, even though I know it is temporary. My fingers scrape into the wallpaper, ripping it beneath my nails. It bunches up in furrows as I plough it.

  Then the air comes rushing back in and it smells of sulphur and burning and it is close and hot, scalding me as I breathe it in. I can taste it, feel it singeing the hair in my nostrils, prickling my eyelashes. I gasp.

  Then on top of that the noises return, the sound of static electricity in the air and in it are words I can’t make out, like a choir or the murmur of a discontented crowd. I can feel myself lifted, buoyed by it and I fight, struggling to keep myself grounded, my feet dangling, and I bob for a second on it, then it is a rough sea and I am thrown against one wall, then the other, each time with a thud that winds me, I try to stop myself with an outstretched hand but the
force of it snaps my wrist back and I cry out in pain. Then my face is pressed against the ceiling, the chipboard cutting into my cheek, my legs thrashing about for purchase where there is none. The noise of it fills everything. I can’t tell whether it is in my head or outside, or both. I can’t hear my own voice but know I am screaming out. The Zoo is speaking to me and it is a vengeful God.

  I wake on top of the sheets, half on the bed, half off. I run my hands over my body and look for injury. I find none, so I roll my body and test the floor with my feet.

  The Zoo is still.

  In the half-light of early morning it is safe. The outside is trying to force its way through the blinds in silver-blue slivers. I get up and cautiously avoiding making eye contact with The Zoo. I split the blinds with my fingers and find a world that is two-dimensional. In the trees above the chain mail fence a rook barks at me. From the main road I can hear the thrum of cars. They seem miles away. The sky is threatening morning, wisps of cloud light with the hint of day.

  I can feel the presence beneath me, so I kneel, let the blinds snap back into place and now I am eye level with The Zoo. I know I can do this now; it never comes for me twice in such quick succession. There is always a break, as if it has to recharge itself or regroup, or let me recover before it takes from me again.

  I look right at it.

  ‘What are you?’ I ask it.

  It says nothing. Why would it? It doesn’t need to say a thing.

  I clamber back into bed and doze fitfully.

  I wake again to the sound of screaming and a commotion in the hall. It takes a second to register this as real and, when it does, I jump upright, rush out of my room and into chaos. There are people everywhere, jostling and running about. A nurse passes me, head in hands, muttering to herself, ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it’.

  I attempt to halt an orderly. He brushes me aside and heads into the depths of the ward. Beaker comes out of the day room. I stop him with hands on his shoulders.