Sally (8 page)

On her way home she stopped at a chemist. And bought a new toothbrush. She had not forgotten to take hers home, nor had she planned to leave it. She did not leave it accidentally-on-purpose, nor had she connived with herself in the bathroom mirror. She had done no grinning at the toothbrush. It was in the same beaker as Richard's but they were not touching. His was an angle-poised, hard bristle; hers was small-headed and soft. She had left it merely because it had looked just fine in the beaker with Richard's. Richard was not madly excited to find it there later, but certainly he was happy that it was there. That night, alone but not lonely in their respective beds, they did not think of each other but of themselves. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were to become an institution, not that they knew it then. If waves of contentment can travel, then the vibes from Highgate and those from Notting Hill would have met, crashed and fallen to earth somewhere around Regents Park. Which is precisely where, three days later, Sally and Richard next met.

W
ith the future of the Zoo uncertain, schools all over London chose it over Hatfield House or Madame Tussaud's for their annual school outings.

With the future of the Zoo uncertain, a team of architects was consulted over proposals for a building dedicated to research and conservation of endangered species. The idea was to promote the Zoo as a foundation, a trust dedicated to understanding and preserving and improving the future for threatened wildlife. It was to lose its image of merely housing bored tigers and sloping-shouldered eagles in cracked concrete. The hope was, that if seen as environmentally aware and ecologically sympathetic, funding from all sectors would be more readily available. In theory alone, the proposal had been met with great enthusiasm from the public and the government had given it a quiet nod or two already.

The Zoological Society, placed as it is in the outer circle of the Park, affords a sweeping vista. Especially from the wide window from which Richard gazed, plastic beaker of instant coffee in hand, waiting for the first, crucial meeting with his potential clients. He watched nostalgically as a human crocodile of ten-year-olds made its haphazard approach to the main gates, sections of its vertebrae frequently slipping out of alignment. He remembered well the joy of walking hand in hand with a best friend, the despair of having to hold hands tightly with an enemy, the humiliation of holding hands with the most unpopular boy in the class. The crocodile's nose was black and red, because those were the only colours Diana Lewis wore. Its body was a multicoloured jumble of school children in mufti. Its navy tail caught and captured Richard's attention.

The tail of the crocodile was Sally Lomax.

‘Good morning, Mr Stonehill, we are sorry to have kept you waiting. Shall we start?'

But I want to see the crocodile!

‘Mr Stonehill?'

I don't want to be in this stuffy building, I want to find the crocodile and watch its tail swish.

‘Gentlemen, lady, this is Richard Stonehill from Mendle-Brooke Associates.'

‘Good morning,' said Richard somewhat reluctantly, as he took the head of the table and began unravelling the roll of drawings, crocodiles still foremost in his mind. However, as soon as his design unfurled itself, Richard was totally focused. His personality, his gifted presentation and the skill of the design itself kept his audience rapt. An hour and a half shot by. Had they had the money there and then, they would have pressed cash into his hand and given him
carte blanche
to start immediately. Reality, however, would impose a minimum two-year wait.

‘I think I'll just have a wander,' Richard informed his hosts as everybody shook hands. ‘It's the crocodiles that fascinate me.'

The children were having a lovely time, especially Marsha and Rajiv who were still holding hands long after the crocodile had disintegrated. Sharp, sweet wafts of dung and straw were filtered by the chill air and were pleasing to the nose. The bellow of the camel was impersonated very well by Marcus who was offered a ride by the keeper. Squeals of delight filled the air as the dromedary lunged and lurched itself up. The children's zoo proved very popular too; little hands gently petted even littler furries and packed lunches were shared illicitly with the bleating, pleading, pocket-nuzzling deer and goats.

Around Miss Lewis, a band of keen young artists had gathered to sketch the elephants.

It was cold, cold, but clear. Everyone was in a thoroughly good mood.

‘Oh, children, the light's just
per
fect!
Sim
ply perfect. I've brought charcoal and 4B pencils and some waxy crayons. Who wants what?' The waxy crayons were the first to be snapped up followed sharply by the charcoal. The pencils were the last to go because Miss Lewis forbade erasers – ‘Work
through
your mistakes, make your errors a part of your de
sign
' was her oft-chanted dictum. Experience had taught Class Five that any child caught smuggling a rubber would have it ceremoniously confiscated and, worse, would have to contend with Miss Lewis's inconsolable hurt.

With not much more than an ear or tusk completed, the children began to complain of cold toes and numb fingers. Miss Lewis had overcome that problem by investing in a pair of red mittens, the tips of which could be folded back to reveal black, fingerless gloves. She sat on the bench surrounded by the hastily dumped materials of her protégés (off to see the
yeuch! spi
ders and
urgh! beet
les) and breathed in the coarse, sweet smell of elephant. Wielding a 4B as a conductor might his baton, she began to draw fervently, making any mistake a committed part of the overall design.

Sally, who had just finished a quick chat with the polar bear (he had winked at her, slowly and wisely), contemplated the scamper and flurry of her class, released from the greyness of school and its buildings. She felt a little sad, imagining how the animals too would kick up their heels and squeal with delight if they were turned out into pastures new, let alone to their native habitats. She thought it cruel how the children teased the rhino for being so ugly, the way they grimaced and growled at the motionless lion, chattered and jumped around in front of the chimps and tapped the glass of the aquarium to see if the fish would budge or the clam slam shut. She walked past birds of prey and couldn't associate the moth-eaten raptors with those she remembered from her childhood holidays, soaring in majestic abandon over the hills near Aunt Celia's.

Miss Lewis had a hushed audience about her. All over her scarf (black) and her jumper (red) were chunks and furls of wood and lead: ‘Never use a sharpener, gives a
gha
stly line. Scalpel. That's the answer.
Su
per edge. Absolutely not, Marcus, only I can use it.
Horribly
sharp. Trust me.' The children were wowed into silence by the skill with which Miss Lewis brandished her 4B, the verisimilitude of her drawing. The keeper recognized the sage old face immediately as Bertha. Richard Stonehill had glanced at the picture, greatly impressed. But he looked more intently at what had been the nose of the crocodile; he wondered what her name was and how well she knew Sally. Bertha, with unarguable dignity and grace, nevertheless answered the call of nature with an extremely ripe-smelling and resounding thud. The keeper didn't smell it at all any more but the children shrieked with delight and bolted away, proclaiming ‘Poo! Poo!' for the uninformed. Distracted, Miss Lewis looked up momentarily, caught Richard's eyes, smiled fleetingly and returned her undivided attention to Bertha who was, she decided, the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Richard wandered off in search of a sandwich.

Sally wandered over to Diana.

‘Lunch?'

‘Mmm? Nyet. Iniminit.' Sally wandered off in search of a sandwich.

Every corner Richard turned, every enclosure he went to see, he felt sure he would finally come across Sally. His adrenal glands were in overdrive and he had demolished the sandwich in seconds without tasting it. Now it sat in his throat in a stodgy lump and felt as if it further protruded his Adam's apple. Swallow as he might, he could not shift it an inch lower nor soften it at all. A drink was a possible solution.

The kiosk was a round structure with only one serving hatch. As Sally bought her cheese and pickle sandwich and carton of Ribena and walked away anticlockwise, Richard came from the other direction and exited clockwise. But there was no Chaplinesque crash and they each remained oblivious to the tantalizing proximity of the other. Sally had already disappeared behind the pandas and was wondering what bamboo tasted like.

Richard went to the reptile house to look at the crocodiles.

Are those Sally's kids?

‘What time did Miss Lomax say we were to meet at the penguins?'

Yes, they are.

‘Two o'clock. Ten minutes' time.'

The penguins, two o'clock, nine minutes' time. As he stared at the crocodile, it flickered its eye shut, opened it again and stared back at Richard. He found it rather disconcerting and decided to arrive early at the penguins to ensure the best possible view. As he approached he could see Sally from the back, a posse of children surrounding her. They held her hands and all hopped from foot to foot – whether this was a bid to keep warm or an imitation of the penguins was not altogether clear.

They seem to like her, she's probably their favourite teacher. Lenient, no doubt, but commanding respect and obedience.

Richard was puzzled at just how nervous he was, hands clammy and the sandwich had reappeared to pester his Adam's apple. The contents of the butterfly house had taken residence deep in his stomach and the sawdust of the possums' cage appeared to be in his mouth. As he approached he could hear her voice.

‘Ooh, wouldn't you love to take one home with you?' she cooed to her entourage. Richard was within a couple of yards of her. He could now see just how enthralled she was by her flippered friends. Up she was on tiptoes, bouncing, as she marvelled at their clumsy acrobatics.

She's quite wonderful. Enchanting.

He walked past and around the penguin pool and took position on the opposite side. He stared at Sally but Sally was rapt. And anyway, Richard was the last person she was expecting to see at London Zoo on a Thursday lunchtime.

The penguins seemed to like their enclosure. Richard did too. A hilly maze of steps and slopes in blue and white, just like the Arctic, surrounding a generous pool of cold water. He would make few changes to it. Perhaps a bridge. Deepen the pool. A few hidey-holes in the side. New surfacing. The penguins never seemed to tire of running up and down and around in a complicated and irrational route to the water into which they joyfully tumbled. Natural entertainers, the bigger their audience, the more comic their antics. An audience
and
feeding time was the best possible combination; clapping and laughter encouraged them to catch their fish in the most elaborate fashion. And there was a fair-sized audience at two o'clock. But Richard saw only Sally. And he soaked up what he saw.

She watched one penguin in particular, slightly smaller than the others, his tuxedo glossy, his shirt snowy, his walk pompous and assertive. A fish had been thrown into the centre of the pool and two penguins, positioned on a ridge above it, looked at the water and shifted from leg to leg. Sally's pal hurried along the ridge and barged into one who crashed into the other. Both fell in while he stood, shifting from side to side, proudly smacking himself with his flippers. He then belly-flopped into the water and surfaced almost immediately with the fish while his two comrades splashed about, thoroughly disoriented. Sally was thrilled and clapped energetically while jumping up and down on the spot, cheering. She had her hands splayed and ridged, bashing them together enthusiastically, her smile wide, her jaws well apart, her lips forced back to reveal every tooth in her mouth.

And then she saw Richard.

And she brought her hands together in one final clap. Her mouth was still open but the corners had dropped. She stood paralysed with her hands still rigid, as if in prayer. Richard beamed a broad grin in her direction. The penguins were satiated and dozed on their stomachs, heads and legs suspended. Richard waved his roll of drawings at Sally, Diana saw him and then turned to Sally who was still praying.
Ah ha!
she thought.
Here is the reason for the swagger, the new wardrobe, the infuriating evasiveness, The Glow. Introduce me, Sal – oops, Sally. Do!

Richard had begun to stroll around the pool. Sally remained transfixed by the space he left. Though rosy and alive, her face spoke a glimmer of slow panic too. Diana saw this and acted upon it immediately.

‘Okay, kids, one last look at the creepy crawlies and then back to the coach,' she more or less ordered, and though she was desperately intrigued by Sally's stunned immobility, she tore herself away and went off in search of tarantulas and stag beetles. Sally remained motionless, her pose and poise reminiscent of church sculpture. She did not, however, feel her exterior stillness within. She was lurching and churning, not knowing what to make of the situation.

I hadn't planned this. I don't quite know what to do. What shall I do? Think. He should not have seen me like this. Soft. Penguins. Clapping. That won't do. Think.

Richard was very near.

‘Wait!' Sally suddenly cried after Diana. But Richard was there and Diana was not. He was unaware of Sally's sudden crisis.

‘Hello, Sal!'

‘Hello, Richard. I must dash.'

‘Call me.'

The coach was a zoo in itself. Rubbery spiders careered through the air, jelly snakes and sugary polar bears littered the floor. The children were now chimps, charged with manic chattering, climbing all over the seats. Diana, still mittened, wasn't that bothered about enforcing order and silence. She was more concerned and extremely inquisitive about Sally's defiant silence. She nudged her with her elbow. Sally turned slowly towards her.