The Zoo (31 page)

I search the house and find all the transmitting devices, pile them up, full of horror at the amount of them. At the ways that the insidious little words and slogans and propaganda seep into our lives. At the drip, drip, drip of all this poison. Even there, in the mound, I can hear them whispering to me, telling me secrets and making me promises. From the garden shed I get a crowbar and an axe and set about them. Even when they are reduced to an electronic graveyard the words are there.

Once there are no transmitters left, Bamidele tells me to go outside. I'd forgotten there was such a thing. We stand on the threshold and wait for the world to slow down before stepping out onto it. The pavement is cold to my bare feet. The wind stings as I breathe it in.

The sound is almost unbearable. The air crackles with it. The hum of electricity in the overhead wires. The voices coursing down the phone lines. The megabytes screaming through the cables under my feet. I spread my fingers wide and force them through the viscous mobile conversations about me. I can see the traces left by my hand amongst the words. Amongst the breakups and the arguments and the laughter and teasing and emotional confessions, through the day to day chatter, through the confusion and collusion, through the monotone and through the diatribe.

I stumble past a string of 6-sheets, each one with my face on them. Each one taunting me. My face. Grimacing at me. Saying, you know. You know.

As I get nearer to the city centre it's worse. People walk around me, avoid my gaze and there is always the noise of the messages. They increase, and I'm washed along in them. My feet no longer need to move. I am swept along in the river of messages. It washes me up in front of an electronics shop, where I press lacerated palms against the glass.

An ambulance tears past me, the siren rattling me, the screech scraping my bones, blue light throwing dancing shadows about me.

A stray dog stands next to me, baleful and shy. I shoo it, shove it with my leg. It doesn't move, just pushes itself against my leg, showing no sign of hearing me, understanding or caring.

On the TV screens are repeated images of an ape sucking its multitude of teeth at me.

My reflection in the glass as I look into dark chimp eyes. A foot hanging over the edge of a hammock. The swirl of fingerprints, calloused and grey. A lip curled over human teeth. It picks at its nose and the gesture is so familiar. The blink of an eye and in it I can see recognition, understanding, empathy.

Harry showed me the sign language for chimp.

I call at the chimp, call its name at the glass and the chimp turns, looks at me and I am screaming, ‘it heard me, it heard me, it knows its name'.

I look at its hand on the screen then my own pressed against the glass and I see the comparison, grasp the link between us. I look down at the dog, blissfully unaware of the noise all around it and then up at the chimp, see how the chimp understands, again the link between us, and I wiggle my thumb and the ape wiggles its thumb too, back again at the dog, at its stationary paw.

In that moment I understand, understand the difference between us and the animals, how the chimp understands it all too, but the dog doesn't. Then in an explosion of clarity I know absolutely know how I can make the noise stop, what I must do and where I must do it.

JESSICA.

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, 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 mongs, the spackers, the retards. They are the brainless, the followers, the masses.

I push Jessica underneath The Chicken. There is no doubt. I look at the gap where The Ape should be.

He is a spy in the camp of The Animals. He is one of them, but not of them. He is a surreptitious link between The Cowboy and his mindless followers in The Animals. And now he is the missing link.

He is like us. But not.

He is a Chimpanzee. He squats with his knuckles down, touching the ground. He is looking up under sad eyebrows. His eyes are just black dots, but within them is sadness and knowledge and when he looks at me I see a reflection of myself. He lived in a society that is structured like ours, then he lived in The Zoo, in a society that is also structured, just not in the same way. From the way he is bowed, the way his head is lowered, eyes looking up, it is obvious to me that he is not the alpha male. I could tell this even if I didn't know his position within The Zoo.

Like us he can laugh, but there are no laughter lines around his eyes. Just a smooth pink face ringed in plastic fur that doesn't move in the wind, stays frozen for all time, moulded and immobile.

He is our closest relative, regal and dignified, collected by Solomon, important to Darwin. He is dressed as Man, laughed at and pointed at and ridiculed. He is a comic sidekick. We can laugh at him because he is us, but can't complain at our jibes.

He tried to stop Charlton Heston from discovering the truth. He is Tarzan's faithful companion. He is a reminder to us of our superiority and how far we can fall. He is a group of chimps drinking tea while lip-synching to northern stereotypes. He is learning to use tools in front of a black monolith. He is a character in a book that Beth is reading.

 

I put my name under the gap.

And for now it is done.

I collapse back in the seat, exhausted, exposed. Afraid of what The Zoo might do.

‘Well done,' Janet says, ‘Really well done.'

I nod. Squeeze out a flat smile.

‘I'm proud of you, I think we've made real progress.'

In that moment I realise it's been a very, very long time since anyone said that to me and it is a struggle to stop myself being overcome with emotion.

‘I think that's enough for today.' She waves a hand over The Zoo. ‘We'll leave this here for now, okay?'

I surprise myself by agreeing and return to my room hollowed out and rattling.

Back home I ignore Bamidele, force myself to imagine he is not there, as I shower and watch weeks of disgust spiral away down the plughole.

I am determined now. Lucid.

I take out pen and paper. My hand has to remember how to write.

Dear Baxter,
I write at the top of the paper,
you are too good for this business. It
will eat you up and spit you out. Take this
, use it to marry your girl, and get out. Go
somewhere else and do something else.

I write him a cheque. Worry about how many zeros to put on it. Stick it in the envelope and seal it before I can change my mind.

On another sheet of paper I write the name of Hilary's wife at the top and then tell her the truth.

Next I call Sally. Her phone goes straight to answerphone, so I tell her the truth too. All of it. Every last little bit.

I pull a shirt from the wash basket, press it flat with a lukewarm iron and force myself into a suit. All the time I'm pushing Bamidele away, brushing aside his pleas, his questions about what I am doing. I cannot be stopped now. I must not be stopped.

Outside the world spins.

Behind the wheel of the car I remember how to start it and roll it out into the street.

When I enter the office Ruth smiles warmly, squeezes my arm and tells me she is glad to see me. Baxter isn't in yet, so I push the envelope under his keyboard until just the corner is showing. As I cross the open space I see Collins, who says, ‘Sorry to hear about your wife.'

I try to decipher what his smirk/smile means, wonder about the phone, assume it must have been him, he must have taken my phone, my temper threatens but then remember why I am here and what I must do, so lock myself in the office.

Then I wait until it's the monthly board meeting.

I've got a pad in front of me and I've written
fuck you
, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you
next to the names of the other Directors. There's all these words floating around us: Hilary is looking at me with his veiny face and bulbous drink nose, he is saying something about forward-loading and I think I'm supposed to reply so I pretend to check something on my pad and say something back about Media Spend Analysis and Return On Investment, about Tangible Measurable Results that will lead us into the Next Quarter, and from the way they are all looking at me I realise it wasn't a sentence so I excuse myself and go to the kitchen. I splash water onto my face. I try and breathe, but the same thought keeps coming back to me – now is the time, do not stray.

I open the drawer under the sink to get some painkillers and find the cleaver. I take it out, hold the cold metal to my forehead and everything feels a little better. I tuck it into the back of my suit trousers and go back into the meeting,

They look up at me briefly as I enter, the conversation continues, but I don't want to understand the words, I want it to be somewhere between the fuzz of the un-tuned television and animals. And it's clear.

A chimp's hand on the glass. How the chimp understood, the link between us, the opposable thumb and the dog, its paw, and the difference between us and the animals and how the chimp understands too. It's all about the opposable thumb. The animals don't have it, so they are separate and they don't hear or have to understand the noise.

No going back.

I have to give up my humanity. I have to lose the understanding. Become an animal. So I take the cleaver out and watch them recoil, scuttle about the room like cockroaches, trying to flatten themselves against the skirting boards. I lay my left hand flat on the glass table and swing the blade down onto the joint of my left thumb, struggling to hold the cleaver even as the bulk of my plaster gives the arc weight , and it goes about halfway through, so I drop the blade again, but this time it goes all the way, severing it, hitting the glass underneath, shattering the table. I look at Hilary, his face speckled with my blood, he is speaking and already I can only just understand him. The words are going. Thankfully, they're all going. So I swop the cleaver, clenching it with difficulty in my remaining fingers, shove my other thumb out of the plaster, my blood pumping onto the table as I try to raise the cleaver but Alan has hold of my arm, then Hilary is up too and they're wrestling me down, my face flat against the frame of the table and one of them smashes my hand against the table leg, my grip loosening, smashes it again, the handle of the cleaver impossible to hold in my blood-slick fingers, and it's now that the pain hits me, searing pain, shooting up and down my arm. Someone is screaming, Me. I am screaming. Someone else is hollering for help. More people now. My arm is behind my back and I'm forced onto the ground. All the fight gone from me. The harsh carpet against my face. Then there are medics and police and painkillers and I drift away.

Back in the office. Janet is waiting for me. Waiting for The Zoo. So I address it again. Grab The Lion and put it in place.

He sits like the Sphinx and there seems to be a trace of a smile on his face.

He is the endangered species that is also the top of the food chain. He is losing his fight with Man the species and paradoxically is individually more powerful, more instinctual and more deadly.

I take SALLY from where I left her and slide her under The Lion. Feels right. Feels perfect.

Two more names. BERKSHIRE and HARRY. Sitting opposite The Soldier and The Rhino.

The Rhino.

He is an automaton. A tank. He is bullish and instinctual. He is prehistoric. The past in the present.

He is thick skin.

He is point and go. A machine. Trampling. Squashing. Barging.

Berkshire. No doubt about it.

That just leaves . . .

HARRY and The Soldier.

He doesn't stand, he can't stand, he leans and rocks on his ridge like a weeble and for this reason, despite the sensory pleasure I derive from him, he is lower in the ranking than you would immediately think he should be.

Harry the boy soldier. Seeing things he shouldn't. A pawn in other people's games. Lower in the ranking than he should be. It is so pertinent I nearly cry. He should always have been number one.

When I can bring myself to look at Janet the horror on my face is reflected in her eyes.

‘Well done,' she says, ‘well done.'

Later my room seems empty. I stare at the lumps in the ceiling, at the indentations I made with my thumbnail and I wait.

Eventually I fall asleep.

 

I dream I am in the corridor, the floor is chequered and I am walking the hall using the moves of a Knight and I can't make it back to my room, I keep missing the door because making his move doesn't allow me to reach it and I can feel a scream growing inside me, growing and growing until it's too big. I'm trying to keep it in, but I can't, then it's out there and hands are on my shoulders and they find my room, because they don't need to use his move. The door is slammed shut after me. There are childlike words scrawled on it,
the
truth
.

Then it is morning and I am lying in a noose of the sheet. It's rapped tight around my body and it looks like sinew. I feel calmer but the sheets are wet and they cling to me and I thrash about trying to get free as they tighten and tighten. When I am free I perch on the edge of the bed, shaking, my knee twitching up and down with the exertion and I think of The Zoo and I remember the way a Knight moves.

The move.

I run through it in my head. It is important to remember it, so I run through it.

Two squares horizontally and one square vertically.

Or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. Think. Think, Think. Two and one. One and Two.

The move means The Knight can jump over other pieces. The Knight is not stopped by a bank of other pieces. The move means that The Knight is at its most powerful in closed positions. I realise that's fucking it and I'm through the door, hitting it hard, so it slams back against the wall, the noise fills the corridor and an orderly looks up from the desk with a face full of contempt, so I gently close it to and raise my hands in apology and surrender. I mouth ‘sorry' and she shakes her head and goes back to her magazine. I think of the ad space in between the pages and think ‘I fucking own you' and I feel a bit better about her.