The Zoo (30 page)

He looks up at Sandra and then me, confusion on his face.

‘Sandra, don't try and stop my son from coming to me.' Attempting to keep my voice calm, to stop it being threatening. I'm not succeeding. I know she's scared of me and despite myself I get a thrill from this.

‘Okay,' she says and lets go of Harry.

‘Harry, come and give me a cuddle, I've missed you.'

He's thinking about it. I can see the turmoil in his little head, see it register in flickers of his eyes, from his Gran to his Father.

‘Come on, Harry,' my arms reach out. He leaves me hanging there.

Sandra kneels too. Looks right in his face. Right in my son's face and says, ‘Harry darling, would you mind going into your room for a minute, Nanna and Daddy need some adult time.'

He looks at me, his eyes a question and right there I know I haven't lost him, that it's not too late, so I nod and he shuffles out of the room.

The minute the door is closed I turn on Sandra. ‘How fucking dare you try and stop my son coming to me. My fucking son.'

She's rattled. Her gaze rests on my clenched fists.

‘You did this. Don't try and turn the blame on me, young man.'

‘Fuck you,' I say, ‘you meddling old witch. You've never liked me. And now you see your chance. I won't let you though, I won't let you use my son as a wedge between Sally and me.'

‘She doesn't want you here. And she doesn't want you near Harry. Not at the moment.'

The red mist is descending, filling the lounge, I can hardly see through it. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I planned. Anger and hatred are coiled up in my stomach.

‘Do not think that you can speak for my wife and child.'

‘I'm only repeating what she has told me. I think you need to leave now. You're scaring me and you're scaring Harry.'

I slam myself down in the sofa, kick off my shoes.

‘You can't tell me to leave my own home. Now, why don't you fuck off and meddle in someone else's family and leave mine alone.'

Sandra is white. Her hands are shaking as she pulls her mobile phone out of her trouser pocket and goes out into the hall. I can catch odd words. Assume she is talking to Sally.

I want to speak to Harry. To calm him down, to tell him everything is going to be alright. In the hall Sandra is sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. I try to step over her but she stands and puts her arm across the stairs. I can't believe she's doing this, didn't think she'd have the balls. I peel her fingers off the bannister and lift her arm. She immediately puts the other one down. I peel that one away. The first one replaces it. Anger boils over. I raise my hand, anger encouraging me to backhand her across the face. The look on her face, horror, disgust, fear, pity, stops me.

As I make my way into the lounge she says, ‘Sally is on her way back to deal with this.'

‘Good,' I say and sit down on the sofa, my hands shaking so hard that I can't light an illicit cigarette.

The Zoo is lined up in front of me. In front of the line of yellow post-its. Above them both is Janet's face, expectant and eager.

Inside I am confused and terrified. Feel like this is a test, one orchestrated through the collusion of The Zoo and Janet. One that I don't want to fail.

Is this what The Zoo wants? Has it pushed me here? There certainly feels an inevitability about this. I've been hiding from it for so long, maybe it is time to confront it? But what if doing this angers it? What if by trying to define it like this I awaken it again? The damage it could inflict in here is terrible, it's already shown that, and I can't help thinking about the piece of paper with Beth's name on it. But then Bamidele pushed me this way too and he seems to know what it wants.

And there is Janet. She seems to have been wanting me to get to this moment too.

‘Shall I help you?' she asks.

My eyes pass over The Zoo.

The Cowboy.

The Knight.

The Pirate.

The Soldier.

The Lion.

The Rhino.

I push them aside to make a gap where The Ape should sit.

The Horse.

The Zebra.

The Dog.

The Chicken.

Then I look at the names.

JAMES.

BEN.

BAXTER.

COLLINS.

JESSICA.

SALLY.

LOU.

ALAN.

HILARY.

BERKSHIRE.

HARRY.

I can't. I can't equate my son with all this violence. I shake my head vigorously and mouth no.

She can sense my anguish. Pats my hand, says, ‘it's okay, don't worry. We can stop whenever you want. You can change it any time. Just try putting a name next to one of the toys. It doesn't matter if any are left over. It's just an exercise.'

I snatch up HILARY. Run through The Zoo. There is only one place he could sit.

He is at the top. He is the principal and takes his place as a leader of men with a stoic acceptance I respect. He knows this is his position, he expects it, but doesn't seek it, and this is why it is his.

I stick the HILARY post-it to the desk underneath The Cowboy.

Next I pick up BAXTER. This is harder. Much harder. I dial through the story of The Zoo. A flash of warm feeling that surprises me. I am genuinely fond of the boy. I am worried for him.

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.

I position BAXTER under The Horse.

‘Good,' says Janet, ‘you're doing great.'

‘More?'

‘Yes please,' she says. My hand hovers over the next post-it.

In the empty lounge I huddle around a small fire of photographs on a plate and my mind projects images of murder onto the wall. I light a cigarette from the flames and it burns until the ash falls onto my carpet.

Sally is gone.

Harry is gone.

My family leaking away from me like heat from a bleeding radiator.

Sometime in the night Bamidele appears on the other side of the flames.

‘The first time I went into the mine it was so hot that I could not breathe.' He sounds older. ‘It was like climbing down into hell. Now it takes me so long to get down there I stay for a week. Hundreds of us in there. Hot. Torches strapped to our heads. The bang of our tools against rock,' his voice drifts away, his face distorting in the flickering candlelight. Changing. Hints of Hilary. Skin turning white. Eyes sinking into black pits.

Thinking back about Sally, her arm around Harry. Pulling him away from me. Screaming in my face. Stopping herself from swearing, but full of venom. Sheer hatred. Refusing to allow me to speak. Screaming infidelity. Screaming cheater and I understand that she knows. She knows.

Denial and feigned hurt, my mind scurrying underneath, looking for excuses, for a way out.

Bamidele passes me a magazine. A finger on the advert. He hands me a pair of scissors. I hack it out, hack it and tear it. He points at the wall. Gesticulates at my hand, I hold it out. He takes the scissors from me and draws the blade across my palm. Presses the advert onto the wound and then crosses the room, sticks it to the wallpaper with the blood. I watch crimson seep through the image. Watch it stain the smiling face of the happy couple. He leaves the room. I can hear him clattering about in the kitchen. I pick up the bottle of red wine, push the cork through with my thumb and take a deep, bitter slug.

Thinking back.

Sally holding her phone out, stabbing at the screen. Taking it from her, knowing even then what it was. Looking at the text, seeing the image. Remembering the flash, remembering the chase. Seeing my number attached to it. Denial. Complete denial. All the while I'm scrabbling to unravel it. To understand it, how the text came from me. Her palm stinging my face. The tears on her face.

Bamidele is back with a pile of papers and magazines. He slams them down in front of me, then the scissors on top. He turns the TV on, and the images spill out of the screen onto the walls and fill the lounge. We are amongst them – figures and words about us, threatening us from the corners of the room. Then it is there. The advert. The smiling faces, the bone white teeth. Instinctively I reach for the remote. He snatches it away. I grab for it again. He skips away, too agile for me, I stumble to the TV, turn it off, but the images are still there on his face, dancing across his dark skin. He's laughing. I take another slug of the wine and squeeze my eyes shut.

Thinking back.

Sally shouting at me demanding that I leave. Me refusing. My home. My home. Our home. And her screaming no, no, this is no longer a home, you killed it. She's slapping me, stinging blows on my face and I take them, each one jolting my neck. Taking them, wanting them, welcoming each jarring blow.

Sally throwing the toys at me. The gifts I asked Ruth to buy. Shouting, ‘You can't buy him, you can't buy us.'

It's over.

Sally is gone.

Harry is gone.

And I am alone with Bamidele.

I pick up the scissors and take a magazine from the top of the pile. Flicking through, it doesn't take long to find the first advert.

The images dance across Bamidele's teeth as he laughs at me.

The name on the post-it is ALAN. I scroll through The Zoo and try them all for size, all along knowing where he should go.

The Pirate is the first of The Plastics and the last of The Figurines. His sheen and gloss is peerless amongst them. This is the reason that he is first, because he is quite childlike in his rendering, certainly nowhere near as delicately drawn as The Knight. It is his sheen that saves him. As Head of The Plastics he has his own subjects to lead, but answers to The Metallics.

Tipping up the base of The Pirate I slide ALAN'S name underneath. My fingers burn as I remember dropping him and I want to apologise.

Janet is all encouragement. All professional smile.

Next.

COLLINS.

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.

Collins through and through. No hesitation. Collins is The Zebra.

Janet taps her finger in the gap.

‘What is this for?' she asks.

She knows. I told her. I fucking told her.

‘I told you,' holding it down. Biting it back. The Ape will have to wait, so I scan the remaining names.

Mine. SALLY. LOU. JESSICA. BEN. HARRY. BERKSHIRE.

The Knight. The Ape. The Dog. The Chicken. The Soldier. The Rhino. The Lion.

I take the easy option and pick up BEN.

Put him straight under The Dog.

Maybe if The Dog was a Collie or a Husky then he would be higher, but he is a mongrel, the sort seen scavenging on the streets of a South American city. The sort seen trotting behind malnourished teenage gang members, being chased away from bins with a stick, only to return when the humans have left.

He came from the wolves, but he is tamed, broken and beaten. He runs alongside us, docile, friendly and not as intelligent as we like to think.

We train him to walk us when we are blind, but we also dress him in human clothes and carry him around in handbags as trophies to our ego. He is fashion and as such is utterly ridiculous.

Poor Ben. He knew and he tried to warn me. He gave me the opportunity to stop it.

Something smashes in the hallway. The sound of raised voices and running feet. I swivel my head round. When I look back at Janet she hasn't moved. She's used to it, immune to the noises of the ward.

‘Don't worry about it,' she says, ‘someone else will sort it. We don't need to worry about it. This time here is just for me and you. Carry on when you're ready.'

The Knight.

He is about fighting for an ideal, for a belief even if that means committing wrong in the process. He is the muscle behind a cause. The horrific violence that only unthinking loyalty can deliver.

LOU?

The Knight has a sword as his peacemaker, a long sword. And he leans nonchalantly on it as he looks off into the distance, the wind whipping his dark shoulder-length hair up around his face. It is this alertness that makes him The Cowboy's lieutenant; he is surveying the horizon, protecting The Cowboy's domain. But you have to ask whether he is happy with this position, whether that alertness is something more sinister.

SALLY?

It could be either. He could be either.

‘Can I put two names to this one and come back to it?'

‘Of course,' she says, ‘whatever feels right.'

I want to tell her that none of this feels right. That this could anger The Zoo.

The TV is off. The phone is off. Still, I am drowning in the messages. They fill my lungs and my throat until I am gasping and gagging and struggling for air, my broken ribs stabbing at me.My words makes up a blood stained montage on the wall of the lounge.

Days have gone by.

Time means nothing.

Bamidele brings me magazines and newspapers and fliers. I cut them out and stick them in my gallery with my own blood. He tells me of the success of the campaign. How my poisonous words have increased sales, the public impression of the bank has improved. I have been successful in my work. I can just imagine the smiles and the congratulations. In the past I would have been pleased with what I have done.

Instead I scream at a wall of print.

As I piss thick yellow urine into a stained bowl I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I am a ghost. Newspaper print spells out reversed threats on my white cheeks.