“It’s for Maeve’s sake, Hettie,” Liam said. “I need to follow Ma’s wishes. After all, she’s the one taking care of the baby.”
While they were talking, Violet had lumbered into the far corner of the enclosure and folded her legs underneath her body.
“You take good care of Violet while we’re gone,” Liam said. “We’ll return soon.”
“All right,” Hettie said hesitantly. She kissed Maeve on the forehead, breathing in her scent of talcum powder and vanilla. And she returned Maeve to Liam’s arms.
“Say goodbye to your ma for us,” Liam said.
“I will,” Hettie said, her words caught in her throat. “I’ll tell her.”
She didn’t know what else to say. She leaned forward and gave both Liam and Maeve a hug together, and for a moment they were a trio. The baby chattered, blissfully unaware of what was going on around her. Liam lightly pecked Hettie on her cheek. Then they broke apart, and Liam walked away, with Maeve in his arms, through the winding pathways of the zoo, past the aviary and the flamingos and the penguins, past the ticket kiosk and down the steps of the grand staircase, through the front entrance and across the busy lanes of traffic of the Antrim Road, to the closest tram stop, where they would wait for the next tram that would eventually deliver them to the bottom of the Falls Road, a short walk away from the Keegans’ flat. Hettie felt paralyzed. Another part of her sister was gone, another part of herself was gone. Underneath all this grief, Hettie didn’t want to admit to the stirrings of affection that she felt toward Liam.
Violet lifted her trunk and released a trumpet cry, startling Hettie out of herself. Hettie walked back into the Elephant House and hung a bucket up by its handle. At the door of the structure, she ran right into Edward Baird.
“Oh,” Hettie said, stopping herself before bumping into his chest. “I didn’t see you.”
“I suppose Mr. Wright told you?”
“Yes . . . I’m sorry.”
“Hopefully, Churchill will take care of the Germans before I see any serious action,” he said, his bottom lip quivering.
Unsure what to do, Hettie took a step closer and gave Edward a hug.
“Father says it’s going to be grand,” Edward whispered into her shoulder. “He says a uniform can work miracles. I’ll return home a different man.”
“You’re just fine the way you are,” she said, taking a step back from Edward. “But your father’s right: Everything’s going to be all right.”
Edward wiped his tears away. “Thanks, Hettie.”
“I’ll take good care of Violet while you’re gone,” she said with a smile.
“I know you will,” Edward said. “Everyone knows you’re a fine zookeeper. Just like the rest of us.”
A tingling moved into her arms and hands.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for saying so.”
As she watched him walk away, Hettie realized that, just for a second, she had forgotten about Maeve and Liam, and how they were going away, too. Suddenly she felt another sweep of loneliness. The air, the ground, the light. It all held a slightly different quality, one that was more hollowed out and empty.
Two weeks into December, the sky took on a perpetual gray. Instead of an autumnal shimmer, the slopes of the Cavehill were largely barren, with the exception of the hunter-green huddles of pine trees here and there, and irregular patches of snow checkerboarding the knolls and hillsides. Snow fell and melted, and fell and melted again. The outlying roads were slushy and slick.
It was the end of the workday. Despite the fact that the zoo was still open, only a few visitors lingered. A handful of black umbrellas bloomed over strangers’ heads as the freezing precipitation began yet again. The sun set earlier, around half past four, and the visitors left the zoo as the diminishing daylight left the sky.
Mr. Wright was doing his best to enforce the blackout restrictions. The lampposts that dotted the pavements were no longer illuminated after dusk, and the large windows of the Floral Hall and other buildings around the zoo were properly fitted with standard-issue blackout shades. In the meantime, big bands from Northern Ireland, Ireland, and England still performed at the popular dance hall. Ferris had invited Hettie more than once to join him and the other zookeepers for a night of dancing and live music, but she had repeatedly declined, worried that her fellow workers might take her less seriously if they had a chance to see her in a frock and makeup, just like the other girls. And besides, she still didn’t know how she felt about Ferris, and she didn’t want to give him the wrong impression.
It had been only two weeks since Edward Baird’s departure, but Hettie had already fallen into an effortless routine with Violet, checking on the elephant several times a day in between her other responsibilities and chores. Hettie turned on the spigot of the rubber hose attached to the rear of the Elephant House, and a wet puddle pooled on the ground. Hettie lifted the hose up and an arc of water sprayed against Violet’s speckled forehead. The elephant shook her head and produced a soft whistle.
Hettie sprayed the stream into Violet’s mouth. Droplets of water fringed the fine whiskers on the elephant’s chin. The early-evening light broke through the gunmetal bank of clouds and lit up the curve of water. Violet lifted her trunk, and Hettie trained the bend of water a little higher. Violet shook her body, releasing a shower of wetness in all directions. Several drops landed on Hettie’s cheek. Tiny footprints of coldness against her skin. Hettie laughed with delight.
As she worked, the freezing rain turned to flurries. Snow accumulated on the bare limbs of beech and sycamore trees. A long-eared owl gave out its low, breathy call. The next time she looked up, Ferris was standing near the door to the Elephant House, and she smiled at him. The amber glow of his cigarette moved from his mouth to his side, and then up again, like the faint trail of a comet.
“Good evening, Hettie Quin,” he finally said. “How are you on this fine evening?”
“Just finishing up.”
Hettie clucked her tongue again, and Violet walked through the gate and found her usual spot in the Elephant House, settling into the far corner. The horizontal slits of the overhead vent threw shadowy stripes against the elephant’s skin. Ferris reached for Hettie’s cheek and wiped something away. A warm sensation filled in the spot that Ferris had just touched. Hettie turned around and took in one more glimpse of Violet, whose body was now almost completely obscured by the darkness of the Elephant House.
“Mr. Wright told me that he is pleased with your work with the animals so far,” Ferris said. “He’s happy that things are working out.”
“I’m pleased to hear he’s pleased,” Hettie said with a smile.
“Are you heading home?”
“In a minute.”
She secured the gate leading to the enclosure, and then together, Ferris and Hettie walked along the pathway that led to the zoo’s front entrance. But when they reached it, Hettie was dismayed to see that Mr. Clarke had already locked the gate for the night.
“Don’t worry, we can go over the wall,” Ferris said, leading Hettie to a spot that he assured her was easy to climb.
They both found effortless purchase and pulled themselves onto the wall’s flat ledge. Silently, Hettie and Ferris sat there, taking in the view of the Antrim Road, the grand staircase, the intricate network of paths and darkened enclosures, and the distant rounded facade of the Floral Hall that overlooked the zoo. The newly fallen snow left the surface of the Antrim Road and its cobblestones smooth and perfect, like the flawless frosting of an elegant cake on display in a bakery’s storefront. Amid the darkness, the zoo—and its numerous inhabitants—looked like a quiet, monastic refuge, where an inherent order and system guided its daily way of life. Then the roar of one of the lions broke the spell.
“It’s lovely,” Hettie said.
“It is lovely, Hettie Quin,” Ferris said, and Hettie turned to find his unflinching gaze on her face. She lowered her eyes to the snowy pavement below their dangling feet, glad
that he wouldn’t be able to see her flushed cheeks in the darkness. She looked up at him and took in his azure eyes, still fixed on her. She wondered what exactly Ferris saw: If he still considered her as the girl he’d met during their biology class or if he viewed her differently now—more grown-up, mature, and capable, with her time at the zoo, and all that had changed in her life since they first met as lab partners. And at the same time, she wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
“I have something for you.” Ferris reached into the pocket of his coat and pressed something small, round, and smooth into Hettie’s palm. She opened her hand. It was a snail, its inward concentric swirls spiraling to the middle of its pearly iridescent shell. Its body and rubbery antennae appeared to be tucked inside its carapace.
With a smile, Hettie recalled the Saturday morning several years ago when Ferris took her to visit the fishmonger at St. George’s Market. This had been one of Ferris’s favorite activities before he began work at the zoo: he would request the entrails of the gutted fish and dissect the innards for snails and other live organisms in the fish’s digestive tracts. At first, Hettie found Ferris’s recreational pursuit to be odd and eccentric, but then after she agreed to meet him one morning at the market, she began to understand the pure satisfaction of this kind of scrutiny. On the cracked pavement in front of Ferris’s building, they discovered a handful of shiny snails inside the intestines of the cod and tilefish. Each shell held a perfect spiral, and their rubbery antennae waved blindly in the air. Hettie remembered being amazed and delighted by the small creature’s remarkable resilience—how it could go from being swallowed, traveling through the fish’s digestive system, and eventually released from its bloody guts, and still be alive and breathing.
“From my special collection,” he said, sounding nervous at her silence.
“Thank you, Ferris Poole,” Hettie said finally, closing her fist around the shell and carefully stowing it in her coat pocket. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Remember everything that snail has been through,” Ferris said with a grin.
“I’ll take good care of him,” she said. “I promise.”
“I hope so,” he said.
Hettie heaved herself to the other side of the wall and landed on her feet. Ferris followed.
“I should be getting home,” Hettie said.
“Good night, Hettie Quin,” he said. “Cheers.”
Ferris gave her a soft peck on the cheek and Hettie watched as he made his way down the Antrim Road toward the tram stop. There was a subtle swagger in his step. A levity. An exultation. He tipped his tweed cap in her direction before he rounded the corner. Hettie chuckled to herself, as if she had just been told a good secret.
“Cheers,” she said softly. “See you.”
Hettie walked across the Antrim Road and then turned down the Whitewell Road. For the first time in a long time, she felt unburdened, light and buoyant as if her entire body might magically lift off the pavement and float above the neighbors’ rooftops. She noticed that the tips of her ears and fingers were cold, almost numb, but yet she felt warm, like a furnace, and strangely alive. Farther down the street, about a half dozen neighborhood children frolicked in the falling snow. From a distance, Hettie could identify many of the children by the sounds of their voices: There was Johnny Gibson and Albert O’Brien. And Martha Reynolds and her older sister, Lizzie, who lived on one side of the Quins. Rodney Dawkins and his older brother, Jack, who lived on the next street over. And Lily Brown, who lived with her grandfather on the other side of Hettie and her mother. (Her parents had died of tuberculosis within three months of each other.) The children weaved in and out along the street, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Their faces were aimed toward the slow-motion whirl of snow, their arms outstretched on either side of their bundled bodies, looking like an erratic formation of airplanes circling the night sky.
“I got one,” Lily Brown yelled, her long chestnut braids flying from the wool rim of her bright orange cap. “I got one.”
“Me too,” Johnny Gibson said.
“Me too,” two other children screamed in unison.
Their voices rose and fell, and rose and fell again. In her pocket, Hettie ran her finger over the smooth curve of the snail’s shell. It felt as if the snail contained a store of electricity, a tangible shock. Across the street, Mr. Brown called for Lily; apparently it was nearing her bath time. Lily ran toward her grandfather’s house. The other children loped through the snow. A car’s engine rumbled over the rise that led to the Antrim Road. Faint ringlets of smoke drifted up from several chimneys. Hettie unlocked the front door of her house. Its interior warmth mingled with the coldness outside.
“Hello,” Hettie called. “Mum?”
There was no answer. Hettie walked down the darkened hallway and peered through the crack of Rose’s bedroom door. There she found her mother asleep in bed, an Agatha Christie paperback splayed on her chest like a pitched tent. Rose hadn’t changed out of her clothes and still wore her lace-up shoes and woolen stockings. Hettie walked to the side of her mother’s bed and loosened the laces and slipped her shoes off. Then she untied the opaque floral scarf she was still wearing and gently slid it from Rose’s neck. As Hettie pulled the blanket over her mother, Rose stirred.
“Hettie,” she said. “Is that you?”
“Let’s get you to bed, Mum.”
“Where’s Anna?” Rose said, her voice weighed down by sleep. “We mustn’t be late for church. We can’t be late.”
“Shush,” Hettie whispered. “Sleep.”
“Write your father,” she said, a quiet urgency underneath her drowsy words. “Tell him to come home. Tell him we need him.”
Hettie folded the wool blanket over her mother and placed the tattered paperback on the bedside table. Rose’s feathery inhales and exhales filled the room. She deposited her mother’s shoes on the floor, next to her bed, and paused at the door and took in the melancholy sight of her sleeping mother, wondering how things could have unfolded to this moment where her father and Anna were no longer a part of their daily lives. How had things gone so wrong? Hettie soundlessly closed the door behind her and then sat in her usual spot at the kitchen table. Her mother’s half-empty teacup sat on the tabletop; a tannic ring stained its porcelain interior. Hettie would wash it up later.
She retrieved the snail from her coat pocket and placed it next to her mother’s cup. A bluish-gray iridescence reflected the overhead light. The swirl was perfect, one circle traveling seamlessly into another. The snail’s body was still hidden inside its shell. Hettie folded her arms on the table and laid her head on her arms. Her eyes felt heavy, her muscles stiff. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and stared at the shell and then closed her eyes again.
Outside, the children continued to play. Their lively voices supplied a sort of invisible embroidery to her half-dream state. Hettie’s eyelids fluttered. Violet was sleeping in the Elephant House. There was the cry of a monkey. Ferris’s steady gaze fell upon her. The swirl of snow spun down from the sky, a vortex of silver and darkness. And the smooth curve of the snail’s shell. It was all there—and then it wasn’t. The parrot in the aviary was calling again. Who is that? Where have you been? Where are you going?
Five
WHEN HETTIE RETURNED HOME FROM THE ZOO ONE EVENING in early March, her mother had laid out a single place setting at the kitchen table—an empty bowl, a cloth napkin, and a spoon. A note on the table read: Bingo at social club, cabbage stew on stove, bread in the bread box, be home by half past seven. Mum. Hettie was quietly pleased to see that Rose had gone out for the evening with a friend. It was a rare occurrence these days. On the kitchen table, her mother had also left a stamped letter for Hettie. The return address was Liam Keegan, Newcastle. It was the first letter he had sent since the Keegans moved there in early December. Hettie’s hands shook slightly as she tore the envelope open.
Dearest Hettie,
We arrived safely in Newcast
le, and we have been settling into the pace of life here. There is a beach that we hope to visit when the weather warms up in the late spring. My uncle’s farm sits on two acres and he keeps horses, goats, and chickens. Even Maeve is helping out with the morning egg collection. She loves the animals.
Pa stayed behind in Belfast because the foreman at the factory couldn’t guarantee that his job would be waiting if he left with us for a spell.
How’s the zoo? And how’s your brilliant charge? Is Violet staying out of trouble? Come & see us. We miss you. Particularly Maeve. Write soon.
Warmly,
Liam
A key jiggled in the front door before it pushed open. Rose stepped inside. Hettie folded up the letter, slipped it into the pocket of her cardigan, and flattened out the pages of the newspaper in front of her. Rose leaned through the kitchen door, still wearing her overcoat.
“You’re home,” her mother said.
“Did you win?” Hettie asked, glancing up from the newspaper.
“You know, a few games,” she answered. “Did you eat something?”
Hettie nodded. “How did Edith do?” she asked.
“She wasn’t there tonight,” Rose said. “Her son and his family are visiting from Cornwall. They were lucky to get travel permits to come north. Alistair’s working for his wife’s father down there, managing his mining company.”
Hettie remembered Alistair Curry from school. He had almost failed Latin and Anna had helped him with his translations of Caesar and his victories during the Gallic War. She remembered Anna talking about Alistair, how he had an acne problem that left his forehead a field of tiny scabs and how he had tried to kiss Anna during one lesson but she managed to push him away. This was long before Anna had begun dating Liam Keegan.
“How’s that elephant of yours?” asked Rose. “What’s her name again?”
“Violet. Her name is Violet,” Hettie said, surprised by Rose’s curiosity. It was the first time that she had expressed any interest in Violet. “She’s even gained a wee bit of weight, despite the rationing.”
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