The Zoo (5 page)

I look about the day room. Mark is sitting in an armchair, a magazine on his lap. I walk over, lift the cover of the magazine, try not to notice his flinch and ask, ‘What you reading?' He doesn't reply. It's a copy of Hello magazine with the Beckhams on the cover. At least three years old.

‘Not a lot to be learned from that, mate,' I say.

He shrugs.

I pat my pockets for cigarettes, find them empty, so return to my room. I pause at the door and count to ten. Nothing, so I push the door open and tense in readiness. Light streams into the room. The window is open and it smells cold and fresh and safe. I pull the window shut and as I do my elbow catches The Pirate and sends him tumbling from the shelf, bouncing off the radiator and skidding across the floor.

I freeze.

I swallow my heartbeats.

Outside a siren rips the day in two.

Nothing happens.

I pick The Pirate up.

Still nothing happens.

I put him back in place in The Zoo.

The adrenalin surges through me like mercury. I run to the bathroom, fall to my knees in front of the toilet and vomit stomach lining into the bowl. When it stops I wipe my eyes, fill a plastic cup with water and swill my mouth out. Fetching my cigarettes out of my bedside table I study The Zoo.

‘I don't understand,' I say to it and get the impression that it doesn't want me to.

Later I look about for Beth. When I catch Mark's eye he hurriedly looks back into his magazine.

Outside in the courtyard I spark up my fag and squat on the bench. In the corridor I catch a glimpse of blond hair and there's Sally again. The night we met. Student halls. The first Friday. I'm young, drunk, cocky and stupid. She's a couple of years older. Wiser. Sexy. Distant. She holds everyone off. It means we all want her.

The whole hall goes into town. A grey Nottingham. Stumbling into pubs, unsure of which are student friendly. I'm laughing at the way they talk. The northern-ness of it all. A barman calls me ‘duck' and I dive into Stella laughter. Later, a club, a Ritzy or a Park Lane or Dazzle or Razzle or Glitzy or fuck knows. She passes a pill from her mouth to mine, electric shocks as our tongues touch and I fall in love.

Following day we're all coming down and the reality of the world frays the edges. I knock on her door and she tells me to come in. It's cold. I get under the duvet with her. She's naked. She's so tiny and skinny. My heart bounces off every one of her ribs.

She says, ‘You've caught me on a come down, it's not fair, I'm horny as hell,' and pulls me in for a kiss that tastes of cigarettes and last night.

She teaches me how to go down on her properly with tuts and guiding hands.

I fall in love again.

Inside the ward a door slams and I look at the cigarette, which is just a filter between burned fingers.

When the call comes I'm talking to Baxter in the kitchen. He's hungover and trying to hide it so I'm forcing him to explain the complexities of a direct mail campaign he's organising for a local university.

‘How can you be so targeted?' I ask.

‘Because there's only 100 targets.'

‘What do you mean there's only 100 targets? Surely what they offer can apply to everyone who wants to go to university?'

He gets a cup out of the cupboard and drops it hard onto the work surface, where it bounces and rights itself. He looks at me with startled deer eyes.

‘No, no. It's not the students. It's businesses. Didn't I explain this?' he asks.

My phone rings. I recognise the number.

‘Need to take this, Baxter,' I say, and watch the relief wash across his face in a tide.

I step out into the corridor, take a couple of deep breaths and when I answer the phone I am calmness and professionalism and nonchalance.

‘Mr Berkshire,' I say.

There's a pause. He's making me sweat. This can be good or bad. Like the judge of some cheap talent show on Saturday night TV, the audience waiting for him with bated breath. Then he tells me we've got the work, asks me when I can come in to sign the contract and begin the creative process. He calls it this: the creative process. I pretend to consult a diary, tell him next Wednesday and that I'll get my PA to confirm with his, but really I'll cancel anything that's already booked for that time. He tells me he's looking forward to it. I thank him and hang up. Shout ‘Fuck yeah' in an echoing corridor.

I manage to keep a straight face as I walk back through the office and knock on Managing Director's door. There's a muffled response through thick wood, so I open it and peer round, ‘Hilary?'.

‘Yes?' he looks up from the pink pages of the FT.

‘You got a moment?' I ask.

‘Of course.' He folds the paper and puts it aside. I close the door behind me.

‘Bank?' He asks. I nod. ‘Well?'

I don't say anything, make a show of not meeting his eye.

‘Don't be a prick, son. Come on, spit it out.'

‘How much do you love me?'

‘More than Mrs Perkins herself, although Lord knows she doesn't love me too much right now. Now, stop being a bloody Prima Donna and tell me. Did we get it? I assume that's why you're in here?'

‘We got it,' I say, ‘We got it. Got to go in next week for immersion.'

He gets up from behind his desk and gives me an awkward, bony hug. I keep my arms by my side. Can taste his aftershave.

‘Good work. Good work. You told the others?'

‘Not yet. Came straight in here.'

‘You told Collins?'

I shake my head.

‘You're the first.'

As he sits back in his chair it welcomes him with a leather fart. I sit opposite him. Hilary makes a triangle with his fingertips, elbows on the desk, and peers through the gap. He closes his eyes and I look at the picture on his desk, the picture of him, his wife and his spoiled daughter. I scan the books on the shelves, see the patina of dust that coats them, read the mug that says ‘Trust me, I'm an ad man' and wait while he murmurs to himself.

‘I don't want Collins on this,' he says after some time.

‘What?' I splutter.

‘I don't want Collins to manage this account.'

‘I know I'm not his biggest fan, but he is at least partly responsible for winning this account. He worked hard on it.'

‘Which is why I don't want him to have it. I want to keep him hungry. We've seen it happen time and time again. One big win and then stagnate on it for years. He's an ambitious little prick. I want to keep him that way.'

‘Fuck me. He isn't going to like that one little bit.'

‘That's the point.'

I consider it. Hilary's eyes are on me. Beady, intense, full of plans and schemes and intelligence. It occurs to me this could be more a test of me than Collins.

‘I've got concerns,' I say.

‘Okay, what worries you?' The triangle is now flat palms on a big desk, shoulders down, leaning forward.

‘That it'll have the opposite effect. That it'll backfire on us. And anyway shouldn't it be his decision?' I tip my head sideways at the office next to Hilary's.

‘I'll deal with him. You go and speak to Collins.'

‘Oh come on. Me?'

‘He respects you.'

‘He's going to fucking hate me. What do you want me to say?'

‘I'll leave that to you. You're a charming swine when you want to be.'

He stands and ushers me to the door, puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezes it, says, ‘Well done. I mean it. Really well done.'

He knocks on Client Service Director's door. As I cross the office to find Collins I hear him say, ‘Alan, can I have a word? We've got some good news.' He takes a confident, bow-legged stride into the room and then the door closes behind him.

As I walk through the office I'm aware of a commotion in the studio. Collins is leaning over one of the designer's shoulders gesticulating at the Mac screen with one hand, the other pressing his iPhone to his ear. I sidle over and stand behind him listening to his half of the telephone conversation. He is dictating changes to a press ad. I read the ad on the screen. He's changing the offer amounts and with it the lengthy caveat at the bottom of the ad. When he hangs up he realises I'm there. His face is flustered and evasive.

‘What's going on?' I ask.

He shrugs. ‘You know how it is, last minute changes.'

The designer snorts.

‘Last minute?'

‘Just past deadline.'

The designer snorts again. I realise I don't know his name.

‘Quite a bit past the deadline,' Collins admits.

I lead him away from the designer and talk to him in a lowered voice.

‘I'm not interested in how far past the deadline it is. I've got enough faith in you to assume you need to make this change, I just need to know what are you doing about it?'

He glances back over at the designer.

‘He's making the changes. I've told the client they don't get another proof, then I'm sending it back to the paper on the same reference number. I've emailed them to tell them to expect it and to use the latest version.'

‘Phone them for fuck's sake. You know as well as I do they never check the ads. You could send them a picture of your cock on the right reference number and they'd print it. Phone them and make sure they've picked up the new ad or you could end up looking pretty fucking stupid.'

He nods sagely and spins around, phone already to his ear.

‘When you've finished sorting that, Collins, I need a word, come to my office as soon as you're done.'

The silence is more disturbing than anything. This is not the contented silence of an early morning, not the calm of a snow-covered landscape, or the comfortable silence of an old couple deeply in love.

This is the silence in the eye of a storm.

The silence as the executioner raises his axe.

The silence as the explosion sucks all the air out of a room.

I pick The Pirate up again and hold him at eye level. There is the suspicion his silence is brooding, and picking him up somehow emasculates him.

That I will pay for this later. I always pay for it later. One thing I've learned about The Zoo is that it doesn't forget. It looks after its own. Hurt gets passed up the line. Dropping The Pirate doesn't mean I've just slighted The Pirate.

Because the order goes: The Cowboy, The Knight, then The Pirate.

The Pirate is the last of The Figurines and the first of The Plastics. His sheen and gloss is peerless amongst them. This is the reason he is first, because he is quite childlike in his rendering, certainly nowhere near as delicately drawn as The Knight. It is his sheen that saves him. As head of The Plastics he has his own subjects to lead, but he answers to The Metallics. The fact that there are only two of The Metallics must rankle with him. They are a pair. Confidantes. He has to control those below and report up to them. He is a Figurine, but he is more of a conduit between The Figurines and The Animals. In some ways he is more Animal than Figurine and the fact that he is a Plastic and not a Metallic can only exacerbate this.

He has black boots, a Tricorn, blue coat with yellow detailing. If he was a real pirate it would be gold, and a ruffled white shirt. I think of him as a brute enforcer; there is certainly not a hint of intelligence on his pink plastic face. His eyes are black dots, his lips as red as a harlot. He makes me uncomfortable with his brazen aggression and crimson lips, there is something almost sexually intimidating about him. I cannot deny his place because he comes third. I would like to remove him, but it is not up to me to do so. A parrot perches on his left shoulder, a smudge of badly formed yellow and blue and this represents his position in relation to The Animals.

He is a childhood of reading Treasure Island and all the mystery and romanticism that goes with it. He is hidden coves and smuggling. He is the Jolly Roger and scurvy. He is pieces of eight, plank walking and dancing the hempen jig.

He is William Kidd, Long John Silver and Blackbeard.

The camp of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.

He is Captain Hook and Johnny Depp doing an impression of Keith Richards.

Peg leg. Hook hand. Eye Patch. Cutlass. Gold earring.

He is about taking what is not yours by force, the lure of gold and the evil men will commit for it.

He is third in line to the throne and I dropped him on the floor.

 

I focus on the pay phone, becoming aware that I am holding the receiver in my hand. A string of drool from my bottom lip joins to it like a smile. I poke my head out from under the drug blanket for a second and I'm not where I was. Press the phone to my ear and the interrupted drone sounds like the accusatory twitch of a lie detector. I wonder who I called.

Look at the handset. Seven holes to hear from, shaped like a starburst, one lonely hole to speak into. I run my fingers over them, blocking them one at a time with the swirl of my fingerprint. More holes to listen through than to speak through.

We are told to talk here, to share, but by a simple ratio of numbers we spend more time listening than talking. This seems important to me, like the phone holes, so I need to save this for later.

 

Then.

Group. We sit and we talk and we listen. I mostly listen. I spoke with authority about things I knew very little about for so many years, I just can't any more. I feel I am always lying, even when I am telling the truth. I've told them this, but I don't think they believe me or think I'm saying it for effect. They want me to talk about what happened. They want me to talk about the drink and the drugs. They'd love it if I told them how every part of my body is screaming for a drink. But I know that even if I did it would sound like a lie and cheapen me further. In both their eyes and my own.

Beth is talking. I decide she is the saddest person I know.