The Zoo (26 page)

 

Sometime later I find myself outside the bank. The sweat is dry on me. I can smell myself. I've stopped shaking and I'm calm now. Everything is clear. I know what I must do.

Through the automatic revolving doors, the interior stretched by the glass, ugly, contorted. I'm in the foyer and there is a wall of warmth, stifling, and I loosen my scarf, gulp, then I'm through it, at the huge curved desk. The mahogany is cold on my palms, I'm looking into the smiling face and cold dead eyes of the beautiful girl and she is saying ‘Can I help you?'

I tell her my name and she's on the phone, saying my name, looking at me under worried eyelids, her hand covering her mouth. She's smiling at me again, but I can tell it's false and a lie.

She's asking me to take a seat, pointing at a sofa.

I sit and wait.

Music in the air, smell of perfume.

I try to work out the music, no vocals, just guitar, but I can't place it. I can taste his blood.

A man comes in, leans over the desk, talks to the receptionist, only his toes touching the floor, and they look at me, talk again, huddled and conspiratorial.

Then the man is standing in front of me, saying, ‘How can I help you?'

My voice is taut, calm, I know what I must do.

‘I'd like to see Ben Jones please.'

He surveys me, makes a decision, says, ‘Wait here please,' returns to the desk, to the phone and makes another hidden call. When he comes back his demeanour has changed. He is ruthless efficiency.

‘I'm sorry sir, but there isn't a Ben Jones here.'

‘When will he be back?' I ask.

‘No sir, I don't think you understand. There isn't anyone of that name here.'

‘Has he left?'

Stay calm.

‘No sir. There is no-one of that name that works here.'

‘I think you must be mistaken, I spoke to him the other day. Ben Jones. He works in the marketing department.'

‘Sorry sir. I think it's you that is mistaken. There is no-one called Ben Jones who works here.'

My anger is rising. I'm barely strong enough to hold it back as I say, ‘Can you check again please? I work for your advertising agency. He's my contact. I need to speak to him. It's important.'

His look is incredulous. I glance down at my chest. The blood is gone. The tears have gone. There is dirt on the knee of my trousers where I fell, but the rest is gone. He isn't writing me off as a mental tramp, he just doesn't believe me.

‘It's really important that I speak to him,' I repeat, ‘or Mr Berkshire, can I speak to Mr Berkshire?'

‘No sir. That isn't going to happen. Now I'm very busy, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'

His hand is on my shoulder. I shrug it off. It finds its way back. Harder, more insistent, I am turned. I grasp his knuckles, try to move them. Nothing. Iron. Solid. As he turns me to the door I twist and turn, break away, run back towards the lifts, shouting ‘Ben, Ben Jones.'

The receptionist reaches out a manicured hand towards me, but I bat it aside, press all the buttons on the lift, the numbers impossibly high and I'm still shouting ‘Ben' as I'm hauled out of the doors, my arm high behind my back. He punches me hard in the kidney so I drop to my knees, then he kicks me in the back of the head, it meets concrete and as I fade away I feel him lifting me, dragging me across the car park and dumping me on the pavement, where I lie listening to the thrum of cars as they pass me, huge spots of rain drumming unhindered on my upturned face.

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

It is true that dog is man's best friend. However, the cold authority of The Cowboy has pushed him down to a lowlier position. In a time of war The Cowboy has no time for The Dog. He has no time for friends, only the order of The Zoo. 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, reducing him to fashion.

He is Lassie telling us a relative has fallen down a well.

With three heads he guards the gates to the underworld.

He is Greyfriars Bobby standing guard over his deceased master for 14 wasted years.

He is Toto following Dorothy into the unknown.

He carries a barrel of brandy to stricken climbers, pulls a sledge across the tundra.

He is doting and mindless, and this weakness means he sits at the bottom while The Cowboy ignores him.

The only Animal below The Dog is The Chicken and he has no worth other than fodder. They are the last of The Plastics. They are well thumbed. Like The Rhino's horn The Dog's tail has been chewed and flattened with teeth marks. Without the rule of The Cowboy they would simply be wild and aimless. They are after all the beasts and this is what they do. They are the brainless, the followers, the masses.

Without the structure of The Zoo I would have found them concerning. There seems to be a propensity to violence under their plastic shells, an implicit threat which, through the taming and structure put in place by The Cowboy, The Knight and The Pirate, has been suppressed. Their primal instincts have been calmed into something altogether more settled and subservient. They needed to be contained. This, I have learned, is the nature of The Zoo.

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

And that is the totality: The Zoo.

 

After lunch I traipse back to my room. Lethargy slows my legs, dragging them through weary treacle. No-one is really talking to me. It's amazing how much I miss them now I'm on my own, when I thought of them as irritating and wearisome. I tried to begin a conversation with Beard at lunch, but he simply raised a hairy finger to his lips and ssssh-ed at me. I reached out to Mark for conversation but he turned a shy face away from me.

In the corridor the orderlies brush past me, Beth is a back turned on me. I long for my meeting with Janet, even though I know it'll be probing and prying more than a conversation.

In my room I sit next to Bamidele on the bed and sigh.

‘You're here now then?' I ask.

He nods towards The Zoo.

‘It asked me to come.' His accent is less thick here and easier to understand.

‘You're not going to hurt me? It didn't ask that?'

He shakes his head. ‘We're past all that. I'm here to help you.'

‘The Zoo wants to help me?'

‘Why wouldn't it?'

He puts his arm around my shoulder. It weighs nothing at all, it may as well not be there.

It always tries to hurt me, that's what it does. The Zoo is there to hurt me, I know that. I try to tell him. He stops me talking by squeezing my shoulder.

‘It's time you understood. It wants you to understand.'

‘Understand what?'

I am aware I sound like a child.

‘You know what it all means. You've just forgotten. It's time for you to remember.'

In my memory there is nothing apart from pain and confusion. I shake my head.

‘I can't,' I say.

‘You can. You have to. There's no need to be afraid anymore. I told you, we're past all that. Things are different now you know what The Zoo is and what it means. You just need to work out your position in it and the rest will fall into place.'

He gets to his feet. Bare feet on cold tiles. He is taller than I expect. He towers over me. I want to know more. He needs to tell me more. I open my mouth to ask him questions, lots of questions, but he is already padding away from me. At the door he turns and nods at me, then he is gone. After a pause I jump to my feet and run to the door, open it and glance up and down an empty corridor.

He is just fading footprints in the dust.

I face The Zoo.

It shivers, seems to pulsate, the room is filled with a low hum that permeates my skin and bones, the hair stands up on the back of neck, on the back of my hands, my arms alive with electricity.

‘What do you want me to do?' I ask and I swear it smiles back at me. It wants answers. I need to go back to get them.

I'm in a bar in the centre of the city, nursing my bruises. My face is swollen where it struck the pavement. There's a mountain range of lumps on the back of my head, a head coated in hair matted with blood. I am surprised they served me. Guess they were scared not to. A pint is going flat on the table in front of me. I spin my phone on the wood, take a gulp of my flat pint. Scroll through the names on the phone until I reach Leary and click dial. It rings and rings long enough for me to assume he's not going to answer, then as I'm putting it back down onto the table I hear him say, ‘Wotcha.'

I consider hanging up. But I know what I must do. I am calm and rational. I am on a path.

‘Leary,' I say.

‘Hello mate. How's it going?'

‘Good,' I say, even though I couldn't mean anything less. I am definitely not good.

‘How can I be of assistance, sir?'

I take another gulp of my pint. Then another. The penultimate one in the glass. I wave a hand at the barman, point at my drink. He tuts, but begins to pour another anyway.

‘Have all the ads gone?'

‘Yes mate. All gone. TV, digital, radio and press. All of them sent out and ready to air. All done and all on time. An excellent job on both parts even if I say so myself sir,' he says, his voice full of pride.

The barman places my pint on the table. I rummage in my inside pocket and pass him a fiver.

‘Is it too late to pull them all?'

Silence on the other end of the line. My hands shake. I take another drink.

‘You're kidding, right?'

‘No. Afraid not. I need to pull them.'

Silence again. I can almost hear his mind working on the other end of the phone, trying to work out why I would want to do this, whether he's done something wrong.

‘Something wrong with the ads?' he asks.

‘No. The ads themselves are fine. I mean, they're fine.'

‘Something wrong with the schedule?'

‘No. The schedule was fine. More than fine. You did a really good job.'

There is palpable relief on the other end of the phone. He knows he hasn't made a mistake with a multi-million pound campaign. Even while I can understand it annoys me that he is more concerned with covering his own arse.

‘I just need to pull all the ads,' I say, ‘every single one of them.'

Silence again while he considers it. A group of middle aged woman at the table to my right bursts into laughter.

‘Want or need?' Leary says eventually.

‘What difference does it make?' I ask.

‘A huge one. The deadline has passed for pretty much all of them. We may be able to pull some but it's going to cost and there's a fair chance they'll have to run blank space instead, it's going to be too late to resell the slots. They won't be happy if we pull. It won't make either one of us look very good.'

‘Need then,' I say, ‘I need you to stop them all.'

‘James. We've worked together for a long time. I have to trust your judgement.'

I mutter thanks through my pint even while I sense a
but
.

‘I've got to ask you why? I'll do my best to pull them, but it may help me if I know why. Is it something to do with the Advertising Standards Authority? I can work with that.'

‘No. I'm afraid not. They just need to be pulled. And I'm asking you to do it. I can't give you any more than that. Can you do it?'

Silence again. My hands shake around my pint glass. The phone is getting hot against my ear.

‘I'll see what I can do. I'll give you a bell later.'

He hangs up and I am left with an empty phone. I drop it back on the table and spin it with my forefinger again. It has barely made a revolution before it rings again.

Hilary.

I answer, holding it away from my head.

‘What the fuck are you doing?' He's screaming at me, his voice oscillating with anger.

‘How do you mean, Hilary?' I ask. I have to swallow a sardonic smile. It turns into a thin-lipped sneer.

‘Don't play dumb with me, you little prick. You know exactly what I mean. What the hell are you playing at? Is this some kind of sick joke?'

Of course I know what he means. You'd have to be an idiot not to. And I'm not an idiot. I am clear. I am calm. I know exactly what I must do.

‘No, Hilary. I'm deadly serious.'

‘Then explain to me, please. Because it seems to me that you're trying to pull the biggest campaign we've worked on for years.'

I can literally hear the spit leaving his voice as he talks. I am getting a perverse pleasure from upsetting him this much. I have to remind myself what I am doing. And why.

‘It needs to be done. It needs to be stopped.'

‘What the fuck are you talking about? It doesn't need to be stopped. It definitely needs to
not
be stopped. Are you trying to wind me up? Tell me you and Leary are playing some sort of prank on me? Fucking with an old man? It's sick, especially as my marriage lies in tatters, but I'd rather have that than you trying to sabotage our campaign.'

‘It's all a lie.'

I know this won't cut it, that he'll never understand, not even if I explained the whole thing. That's it's so far beyond his understanding that even if I held the body of a dead child in front of him he would raise an eyebrow as if waiting for the punchline.