The Zoo (29 page)

‘Oh, is that all? I'll get onto them. Can you do without it for a while?'

I nod and say, 'Be a bit of a relief to be honest.'

She smiles at me. A smile laced with pity and concern. I have to turn away. In my office I curl up under the desk and laugh with my fist in my mouth until I gag. Tiny feet dance on the desk above my head and the air is filled with the sound of gunfire. I stick both my fingers in my ears and hum ‘Long way to Tipperary' and when I take them out the air is thick with sulphur and the room thankfully quiet. At my desk my attention wanders and when it returns I find that I've filled my pad with skull and crossbones. I start to laugh again. My skin itches under the plaster as insects crawl up and down my arm. I bite on my knuckle until it bleeds and swallow the hysteria. I can't stay in here on my own anymore, so go and talk about the weather at Ruth's desk. Over her shoulder her screensaver shows a pile of severed hands.

I'm grateful Jessica avoids me. If I think about what happened I am engulfed with a heavy wave of shameguiltregretselfdisgust. We caught eyes once and she couldn't maintain it. It occurs to me that aside from being extremely unprofessional, me running off like that probably humiliated her too.

At 2pm I tap Collins on the shoulder. He silently rises and follows me out of the office. Neither of us sign out. Surprisingly no-one seems to notice us go. Or care. On the stairs I ask him, ‘You got everything?' and he pats his briefcase.

‘Laptop, mini-projector, printouts, set of business cards. All there.'

‘Good work,' I say.

We drive there in silence, listening to the news on the radio. The whole world is rotten with war and swimming with natural disasters. Inside I'm screaming, barely holding it together. Craving cocaine.

 

A couple of hours later I've pulled in at a shitty chain pub and we're at the bar with a bottle of cheap shit champagne. Collins is all smiles. Literally shining. I can see the pride through the seams on his cheap shit suit. Despite myself I am pleased. Pleased with him. He seems to have opened up to me again. I know I'm going to regret it, will look back to the days of frosty silence with fondness, but for now I'm trying to enjoy the moment. He tops my glass up. Fills his own until the bubbles fizz on the laminated bar top. I tap my plaster on the bar and it sounds hollow.

‘I can't believe she said yes there and then,' he says.

‘Unusual, for sure.'

‘Unusual? It's fucking brilliant isn't it?'

I consider raining on his parade, but not now, not today, so I let him have his moment.

‘Yes, yes it is fucking brilliant,' I say, and then with gritted teeth add, ‘you did well in there.'

Ear to ear smile.

‘I did? Thanks. You were brilliant. They were eating out of your hand. Don't know how you do it.'

‘Practice. Years of practice. Knowing what buttons to push. And, believe it or not, there aren't that many. People are pretty simple things.'

I'm sweating. I need something. The grip of cramp on my calf and a pain lancing through my chest. I grit my teeth. The cramp is bearable. I can get through this.

I wave the empty bottle in front of Collins' face, water running down my forearm, say,‘this is shit, let's celebrate properly.'

His face is built around a cheesy smile, all the surliness gone, he is compliant acceptance.

Weaving into town I text Alan and Hilary, tell them to meet us in our local Italian restaurant.

Hours later, in the fog of booze and food and cigarette smoke, Hilary is leaning in close, brandy and cigar on his breath. Telling me that he was right about Collins and that he needed to do it for himself, that if we'd have given him the bank he wouldn't have appreciated it, would have coasted. I don't want to agree. Stubbornness and pride make me want to deny it. Hilary spits on my face when he talks. Alan and Collins are together at the bar. Collins looks over his shoulder, beams at me and it occurs to me that I can't deny Hilary was right to not put him on the bank. Anger flares up in me. Anger at his arrogance. I excuse myself, go to the toilet. My face is stark in the mirror. White with dark rings under my eyes. Eyes which stare right through the mirror, right through the reflection. Veteran eyes with a thousand yard stare. Bamidele is behind me, hand on my shoulder, muttering words I don't understand into my ear. His stomach cut open, the purple of his intestines visible underneath the peeled back skin of his torso. He sees me looking at them and pulls at them, unravelling them and looping them about my neck like a scarf.

Back in the restaurant I remember the chop in my inside pocket and then it is as good as over again.

Janet is trying not to judge me. She's trying to keep her face neutral. I can see that she's overflowing with questions.

I am naked and shamed.

Everything is in the open. I've worked my way through the whole Zoo, she knows who they all are now.

‘I would like to try something,' she says.

She's waiting for me to reply, so I say, ‘Okay.'

She takes a packet of post-it notes and places it on the desk before me, then adds a marker pen.

‘This is a just a hunch, so I want you to just go with it and trust me. But I think you're ready now.'

The sentence rises at the end in a question, so I nod at her, my eyes on the post-its.

‘If you feel uncomfortable at any point just let me know and we'll stop. I think this will help. Okay?'

Again I nod.

‘Right. I want you to take the post-its and I want you to write the name of everyone who is important to you. Everybody who means something to you. Is that okay?'

I nod and reach out for the pad. Hold it in my hand and strum the edge of it like a flick book.

‘When you're ready,' she says, soft and reassuring.

I grasp the pen and place the end in my mouth. Search. Choose where to start. Glance at The Zoo.

‘Do I have to like them?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Do you want to me to choose the people who are most important to me because I like them?'

She considers it.

‘No. People can be important because they are a negative influence as well as positive. Go with the people who have had the most impact on you. Who have driven the direction of your life. For better or worse.'

It's my turn to consider. Chew the end of the pen.

‘In here or out there?' I say eventually.

‘Up to you. But I think it should for the most part be people from before you began your stay with us.'

I chew the pen again. Then write HILARY in block capitals on the first post-it.

‘Good,' says Janet. She tears it off and sticks it on the far left of the desk in front of me. ‘Who's next?'

I write SALLY. Janet examines me over her glasses as if to say
interesting
. I scrawl HARRY on the next post-it, my hand shaking as I do so. Then ALAN on the one below. I hand them all to Janet who lays them out. I'm struggling now.

‘Go on,' she says.

Write BAXTER. Hand it to her. COLLINS on another.

‘Good. Any more?'

I think of the bank. Think of the effect it has had on my life. The damage it has caused. Momentarily consider writing Bamidele, before I realise I could never explain it, so instead scribble BEN. Push the pad back to Janet. Then grab it back. Write BERKSHIRE, then JESSICA, sit back and fold my arms. Lean back in the chair.

Lou? Should I include Lou? Yes. Write her name. What about Dan? No. Dan is always there, but not important. I feel a flash of guilt even as I think this, but know it's true. Good old Dan. Dependable Dan. Ineffectual Dan. An appendage to a stronger personality. No, he doesn't need to be there.

They're all there.

‘Now what?' I ask her.

She takes the post-its, writes my name in an elegant hand and sticks it to the desk, then lines The Zoo up above the post-its.

‘Now we choose which is which,' she says.

I'm cowering in my office when I hear the smash of glass and something heavy hit the floor.

I've been looking over the creative we've produced for an energy company we work for. The words and images swim before my tired eyes, out of focus and then reforming into something threatening and hostile. Rub my eyes and pull them back to the images of wind farms and sunsets and warm reassuring copy. Then, as soon as I allow myself to drift, they twist and turn, becoming fire and skulls and the words tell me things I don't want to know.

When I hear the furore it comes as a relief.

I open my door to a room full of scared faces. Ruth points towards Hilary's office. I mouth, ‘What's happening?' and she shrugs.

Another smash. Something hits the inside of the door of Hilary's office, which shudders in the frame. I knock and Hilary shouts ‘fuck off' from inside. Open the door a fraction. He growls at me and launches a book at the gap. It hits the wall instead.

‘What's going on?' I ask and he tells me to fuck off again.

‘I'm coming in,' I say, ease myself into the room, close the door and press my back against it. Hilary's eyes are cold as he weighs up a picture frame in his right hand.

‘Don't,' I say, trying to sound firm.

Hilary looks at the picture as if it's the first time he's seen it and replaces it on the desk.

‘Sorry, old boy,' he says.

The office is a mess. The glass top of his desk is crazed with cracks, the bookcase tipped over, folders and textbooks spilled from it, the tide nearly reaching my feet. Pictures have been pulled from the wall and shredded into confetti. The glass in the picture frame Hilary was holding is shattered. It's his wedding photo.

‘What happened?' I ask him, although I already know.

He takes an envelope from the desk and holds it out to me.

I know what is inside before I open it. Before I read the words.

‘I'm really sorry,' I say and it has more than one meaning.

‘Irreconcilable differences. What does that mean anyway?'

I shrug. But I know. Even now I can see my family falling away into blackness.

‘I always treated her well,' his voice choked, ‘she never wanted for anything. Fair enough, we argued, but who doesn't?'

‘I'm not really in any position to talk.'

Hilary pulls a bottle of whisky from under his desk, takes a huge swig from it, winces, then passes it to me. The liquid is a razor on its way down.

‘I've tried talking to the old biddy, but she won't have it. She won't take my calls. I'm too old for this.'

‘You don't need to be here. Let's take you home.'

I hold my unbroken arm out to him. Help him clamber over the wreck of his office. He clutches the bottle to his chest.

In the car on the way to his house, as I struggle to change gear with the weight of my plaster, he drinks continuously, chuntering about how he loves Angie, how he'd never hurt her, how she knows that, and I agree with him, nod and smile, all the while thinking about condoms in a pocket and hoping against hope this isn't my fault, my heart plummeting with every mile unravelling beneath the car.

‘I think I'm losing my mind,' I say, ‘I'm seeing things, things that aren't there.'

Hilary doesn't acknowledge me, carries on talking.

‘I know I'm a man and I shouldn't be worried about this, but I haven't been on my own for my entire adult life. I just don't have the skills that she does, never thought I'd need them. Pathetic, isn't it?'

‘Violent things. Awful things. I don't know how to tell anyone. I'm going insane and I can't stop it.'

Hilary sighs and drums his fingers on the dashboard.

‘I think I might hurt someone,' I say, ‘I nearly hurt my son. I don't trust myself anymore. I think I'm dangerous.'

Hilary shows no sign of having heard me. He turns the radio on. The car is full of classical music. It should calm me; instead it's like blades over my skin.

‘Don't let this happen to you, old boy. It's not too late for you. We'll go home. Get you cleaned up and then you need to go and see them. Beg and plead. Do whatever it takes to get them back.'

‘It's possible I'll hurt them.'

Hilary nods sagely. ‘Yes, it's too late for me, but we can save your marriage before it all goes to shit. I'm going to make it my mission to put things right. It's time for you to give it a whirl. Last chance saloon, old fellow.'

I trace the vein on the inside of my wrist with a numb fingertip.

Sitting in my car outside my house I'm so cold my hands are numb. My neck is sore where I scraped at it with one of Hilary's blunt razors.

There's movement inside the lounge.

Swallowing my nerves I get out of the car and creep up the drive, open the gate at the side of the house and shimmy down the alleyway. In the back garden winter has taken hold of the grass, all the green has leached from it and it looks like a monochrome photograph. Framed by the window the kitchen is an oasis of warmth. It looks like the archetypal home in the tripe I pump out to sell stuff. Half expecting it to be locked, I try the back door and am shocked when it swings open. I slide my shoes off at the door. The sound of the TV wafts into the kitchen, welcome as the smell of freshly baked bread. The lounge door is slightly open. Through it I can see the back of Harry's head, bobbing along with the theme tune of a kids' programme.

I step into the lounge.

Sandra jumps up from the sofa.

‘What the f- . James. What happened to you? What are you doing here?' Her plummy accent is sharpened by hysteria.

‘I've come to see my son.' I say.

‘D-d-d-d-dad,' says Harry, moving towards Sandra, who puts her arm across his chest.

I kneel, so I am at his head height.

‘I missed you, Harry. I love you. I wanted to see you. Don't worry about this,' I say, waving my arm in front of him, ‘Daddy had a little accident.'