The Zoo (28 page)

‘I've missed you at work,' she purrs and some of the strength goes from my legs. She's emboldened by drink and I'm weakened by it.

‘You have?' I say, smothering the hint of desperation with a sip of my drink. ‘You want one?'

‘How could I refuse you?'

Big moist eyes gaze at me from under perfectly curled eyelashes.

I order two glasses of champagne. We chink them together. Our fingertips touch.

‘So,' I say, bubbles filling my mouth and nose, ‘how are you enjoying the job?'

‘Great. It's very stimulating. And I've met such great people.'

She looks at me when she says this. I force myself to look away, when really I want to be swallowed by those eyes. To plunge right into them, to dive deep and not come up for air.

‘Yes. They're a great bunch.'

Great bunch? Great bunch? I don't even sound like myself.

‘Some more so than others.'

A pearly white smile. Perfect lips over perfect teeth.

My head swims in alcohol.

‘You staying around for the duration?' she asks.

‘Was planning to,' I reply.

‘Good.'

Then she's swaying away, my head following her arse like a metronome.

My phone beeps for a text message from an unknown number.
Selfish Cunt.
I delete it.

Sometime later I'm in a booth with Baxter, hedged in by glasses, a White Russian in my hand. I hold it cold to my cheek, the rattle of ice cubes against glass. Take a sip, crack one of the cubes between my teeth. I'm speaking earnestly, rolling each word out between my lips, saying, ‘Why did you get into advertising, Baxter?'

‘I don't know. I just fell into it, I guess. I wanted to do something creative. But I wanted to have enough money to live on.'

‘And you can't live on poetry.'

‘Too true.'

He holds his glass up and I smash mine into it, spilling White Russian onto the tabletop. I'm drunk now. Really drunk now. Baxter is too. I can see it in the roll of his head, the weight of his eyelids.

‘I didn't have enough skill to be a designer,' he slurs.

‘Don't do it,' I blurt out.

‘Do what?'

I wave my arms above my head, taking in everything, a demented helicopter.

‘All this. All this bullshit.'

A look of horror on his face. It takes a second to register in my soggy head, then I get what I think he means.

‘Shit, no, sorry, not your marriage. Do that. Definitely do that. Probably the best thing you'll ever do. Was the greatest day of my life. Before all this turned it to shit. The muck spreading we do for a living, Baxter. We're a disease. A parasite. We play on people's weaknesses. We're disgusting. You're a good guy. You don't deserve it. Get out now while you still can. You're young. You can find a new trade. Don't let it screw you up. Because I promise you it will. It ruined my life and I don't want you to ruin yours.'

I tap out the last sentence with my glass on the table.

Baxter is gawping at me mouth wide open, half full glass halfway up to it.

And then I am swallowed up by an empty space. Fall right into it.

When I surface I'm in a cupboard. Coats surrounding me. Coat hanger banging off the top of my head. Hand on flesh. On warm flesh. My mouth on Jessica's. Pressing hard against it. And she tastes so good. So warm. How the fuck did I get here? She's pushing back against me, the heat of her groin against mine, hands around my neck, nails against my skin, moaning in my ear. My other hand is on my back, pulling my shirt out, forcing her hand down the back. I'm fumbling up the back of her shirt, finding the clasp of her bra, undoing it, easier than I thought, all the time thinking, she doesn't smell like Sally, she doesn't taste like Sally, kissing her hard, our teeth clacking together. My hands back round to the front, pulling her breasts out from the cups of the bra, fingers finding her nipples, twisting them hard. She shudders, pulls away from me, so I loose them, hands back down to her trousers, undo the buttons at the front, push my hand down the front, feel the lace of her pants, then inside them smooth skin, then her wet warmth. She's moaning again and I'm pulling her trousers down, saying to myself ‘I want this, I want this, I want this.' Pushing down thoughts of my wife. Jessica's trousers are on the floor, she's stepping out of them. I yank my belt off, rip my flies open and she pulls my boxers down. Before I can stop myself I'm inside her and she screams out, so I put my hand over her mouth and I'm slamming into her really hard, her feet locked around my back and I'm so close, trying to stop myself as she's bucking against me and then something flashes behind me. The cupboard is lit up by a flashbulb. Then it is dark again. I pull out of her, spin round, reaching for my trousers with one hand, the door with the other. Horribly aware now of what I've done. My cock is already shrivelling as I bolt out into the corridor. No-one is there. Mutter apologies over my shoulder. Out of the bar, pushing past Alan, past Collins into the cold street and it hits me, the horror of it, of what I have just done. I raise my face up to the sky and beg the rain-filled sky for forgiveness. It laughs down at me and offers me nothing.

I knock on the door to Janet's office and wait. After a minute or so she asks me to come in.

‘Good morning,‘ she says, bursting with professional courtesy.

‘Good Morning, Janet.'

She gesticulates at the empty chair opposite her. I slump into it. Even though I have rehearsed this moment in my room, even though I know exactly what I want to say, I am struggling to get it out. I suddenly feel naked and tiny.

‘How can I help?'

‘I think I'm ready.'

‘Ready?' she asks.

‘To talk about the toys. I'm ready to talk to you about the toys.'

She smiles, then immediately hides it behind a manicured hand and by clearing her throat.

‘Good. That's really good news. How do you want to start?'

‘Can I go and fetch them?'

‘If you think that would help.'

I nod.

‘Go and get them then.'

Even as I am walking down the corridor I'm questioning whether this is the right thing to do. Whether this is what it wants me to do.

In my room I face it and ask, 'Is this what you want?'

I'm not surprised when nothing happens. I didn't expect it to. I am on my own now. It is inert and empty.

The Zoo.

For now it's just toys, so I scoop them up.

The Cowboy, The Knight, The Pirate, The Soldier, The Lion, The Horse, The Zebra, The Dog, The Chicken.

Scoop them all up and run back down the corridor, before I can change my mind. Back in Janet's office I sit down and drop The Zoo onto her desk. She looks up from my file. When she sees me she tries to slam it shut, but I catch words here and there, words that aren't a surprise to me, but words I would never want to see associated with me: sectioned, cocaine psychosis and a photo of me looking wild and shamed. She pushes it aside, says, ‘Okay, where do you want to begin?'

My mouth is dry.

I arrange them in chronological order, then look up at her and say, ‘I want you to help me find out what they all mean.'

‘The first step is to confront it and you've done that. Now we have to acknowledge each of them.'

She picks up The Cowboy.

‘Tell me what he means to you.'

I am all panic and full of betrayal. I am frozen and dumb.

‘It's okay,' she says, putting him back down, ‘take your time. Whenever you are ready.'

My vision blurs. I swallow hard, lick my lips and then say:

‘At the very top sits The Cowboy. He is crafted from metal, although his base is plastic. This seems to be the wrong way round. The metal is heavier and yet it is the plastic that does the supporting. In the past this has bothered me, I have tried to understand why he would be crafted this way, when the opposite is more logical, but the train of thought leads nowhere so I have buried it.'

I'm halfway home before I remember Sally won't let me in. She has barred me from the house. She hates me and now I've given her reason to. I'm crying. I hate myself. I'm scratching at my arms, punching myself in the head. Screaming out ‘no, no, no, no' until it becomes a wordless howl.

My wife.

My son.

I need them. More than anything.

I scrabble around in my pockets for my phone. Find only lint and receipts. It's gone. I must have left it in the bar. I had it when I bought drinks for Baxter. I search through them again. Not there.

Now I can't get hold of them and I can't go home.

A loneliness stronger than I could ever have imagined poleaxes me, forcing me to my knees, my face against the tarmac, pleading, begging.

Then I'm up and moving again, the world mixing with tears until it is a montage of blurred light and smears of pattern and I don't know where I'm going, just pushing on, one foot, then the other, staggering forward, perpetual motion.

Through the night, wild and incoherent. Words pouring from my mouth, speaking in tongues, spilling out into the night as it steals them away from me.

And then.

Everything pulls into focus.

I am standing in front of a billboard.

A 48-sheet poster site for a make-up company.

A perfect photoshopped face. Flawless. Smooth skin. Irridescent blue eyes. Diamond white teeth. The lie of perfection. A facsimile of feminine beauty. This false beauty we have forced on everyone. This is all you want to be, this is what we want you to be. The only way you can ever dream of attaining this is to buy these products. This skin cream. This make-up. This anti-ageing face mask. This moisturiser. This exfoliator. Buy all of this. All of this crap and even then you will fall short. Only photoshop can help you.

My eyes are filling up again. As I wipe them clear the image on the billboard changes. The features on the model change and become something I recognise. The woman in the advert is Sally.

It all hits home again and I'm telling her I'm sorry, shouting it up at her. Sorry for the drink and the drugs and abandoning our child and the way I treat her and the way I treat our friends and what I've just done about the job and the bank and the child soldiers. God. What I've just done. I'm climbing onto the roof of a car, jumping up to catch the bottom of the billboard, just my fingertips getting purchase, then the rest of my hands, managing to take my weight, pulling me up until my upper body is clear, then my knee on it, then the other and I'm standing and from here I can see the whole city. I can see it all and it's so big and so bright and I'm so small. I kiss the billboard, telling her I'm so, so sorry. I feel my balance going, arms flailing too late, then I'm in the air, falling backwards and for the time that I'm falling everything is lifted from my shoulders, until I hit the ground and the world is pain. Absolutely full of it. Then I pass out.

I wake up in hospital. White. Bright white. Lilies in front of a window through which I can see a stark bright day outside. Hilary is sitting in a plastic chair at the end of the bed, reading a newspaper over the top of his glasses. He notices I'm awake.

‘Fuck me,' he says, ‘look what the cat dragged in.'

I laugh. Something stabs me on the inside of my ribs and makes me cough, which hurts even more.

‘Easy there,' he says.

He drags his chair up to the head of the bed, pats me on the shoulder almost with tenderness.

‘What happened?' I ask.

‘Was kind of hoping you could tell me that. They found you in the road. Looks like you fell. God only knows what you were doing up there. Could have been a lot worse, they tell me. Should count yourself lucky.'

I try and raise myself up on my elbows, to look down at my body. Before I collapse back onto the bed I take in a bandaged torso and a plaster on my right arm.

‘Broken arm. A couple of broken ribs and a bloody massive lump on the back of your head. As I said, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.'

There's pain. Lots of it.

‘Have I got to stay in here?'

‘No. Apparently you can leave today.'

He must see my face change.

‘You're staying with me of course. Won't take no for an answer. We can look after each other. Lord knows I need the company.'

I am loose and ragged and can't say no.

Later I'm in Hilary's big car being driven to his big house, feeling every bump, being helped up his big drive to his big lounge and then helped into a big chair as he places a big glass of brandy in front of me.

‘That should work nicely with your painkillers,' he says.

And all I can say is, ‘Sally?'

‘Not just yet, old boy. I've spoken to her. She's very angry with you.'

I feel shame. Shame I've made her feel that way. Shame that she's spoken to my friend about it.

‘Harry?'

‘He's okay as far as I know. She certainly didn't say otherwise. Look. Things aren't irreparable. Let's get you cleaned up. Focused on what you need to do. Let's get you back to work and firing on all cylinders and then we'll go and see her. Believe me, if you go and see her now, it's all over. Not to put too fine a point on it, you're a fucking mess. Now drink up and get some rest. We've got lots of work to do.'

 

The following Monday he drives me into the office, papering over the cracks and wheeling me out. Ruth fusses over me, brings me coffee into my office and pats my plaster.

‘You can write on it if you want.'

She takes a pen from my desk and draws a big pair of lips.

‘Ruth, I've got a confession.'

‘Oh no,' she says, ‘what have you done?'

I consider being playful, but it's just not in me.

‘I think I've lost my phone.'

She is visibly relieved. It makes me wonder, not for the first time, what she thinks of me. For a long time I thought she considered me as a bit of a friendly scoundrel, but I'm not so sure any more.