The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  Ben ignores him.

  After allowing the group sufficient time to eat, the truck then guides the lionesses back to the enclosure, and with some sadness Ben watches Lucy return to the rest of her pride. To her brother. She has found a way to have it all: her co-hunting lionesses, her sibling, and one day – no doubt – a mate. A lioness is the only feline who will mate for life. She will have to fight for him though, prove her worth by attacking and intimidating other females. But then he will accept her forever.

  ‘Coming for a beer?’ Simon asks Ben.

  ‘No. I need to find Esther.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Simon chuckles crudely. ‘I’m all fired up by today and got no one to let steam off with.’

  Ben ignores him and goes to find the woman who keeps him sane.

  18

  ZIMBABWE

  A Hello So Very Far Away

  The first time Ben met custard-haired Nancy, she was carrying a box of coloured rags. ‘We’re going to make elephants,’ she said. ‘In those colours?’ asked Ben. ‘Don’t you think checked, spotted and multicoloured elephants are the best?’ she asked him. After that, he always did.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Ben finds Esther in the communal area.

  In the month since the eclipse, they have been together. This relationship should be his hardest, being sexually the least natural, but in some strange way it has been easy. Ben has spent most of his life until now denying what he most wants. And then the man he finally met and wanted more than anything else is the one he can never have. If he remains with Esther, it will be simple. He will never love her so much that it’s agony if she leaves him. He will never get so attached to her that her departure kills him. Never live in fear of losing her.

  He is safe.

  And she is fun. Even if he is not driven by physical desire for her, he loves being with her. They talk for hours, laugh at similar things, and she is intelligent and fires his mind with her sharp observations. She stimulates his brain if not his body.

  She is waiting for him by the coffee machine, reading her journal. As Ben approaches, she is unaware. He is the lioness; she is the impala. For a moment, he feels queasy.

  Should he just tell her the truth now?

  But he still can’t say those three simple words.

  So he sits next to her.

  ‘How did it go?’ She smiles and kisses his mouth warmly.

  She always instigates any affection, leads into sex with a caress or a crude suggestion. Ben follows, never says no. He misses the fight; the yes and no game that he and Andrew so loved. They used to play it often, switching roles. It was dangerous, but they understood its power, and had a code word for when no really meant no. But the rest of the time no had meant make me. No had meant I’m scared how intense this is. No had meant I trust you.

  Ben doesn’t want to play it anymore. With anyone.

  ‘She killed,’ he says, not as excited as he had imagined he might be.

  ‘Wow. On her first hunt.’

  He nods. ‘A small impala.’

  ‘She is quite something.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Esther speaks gently.

  ‘It was brutal,’ Ben admits. ‘I knew it would be. But to see it … so bloody vicious.’

  ‘I love how sensitive you are,’ she grins.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s a good thing. I wasn’t criticising.’ Then after a moment Esther says, ‘Let’s go back to mine.’

  As they depart, Ben spots a pile of new postcards on the side. Different ones arrive each week and they are free to the volunteers. One is a beauty. It’s a picture of two lions next to a tree, side-by-side, manes thick and healthy, fur glossy and sunlit. He takes one.

  ‘Aren’t they gorgeous,’ says Esther. ‘The best ones yet. I sent one to my brother.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll send one to…’ Ben hesitates.

  ‘Your dad?’ suggests Esther.

  Ben will never be able to tell Esther the full truth about what his dad has done.

  ‘Maybe to him.’

  ‘A fling with your brother’s fiancé is horrible, it really is,’ she says.

  Ben still feels sick about it. He has told Esther some of the details, if only so that she doesn’t keep asking what it is that happened back home that makes him wake up in the night, covered in sweat. When they share a bed, she comforts him, begs him to tell her why he is so restless.

  ‘Do you still love your ex-girlfriend?’ she asked him one night.

  ‘No, it isn’t that. I’m getting over that,’ he lied.

  Then he told her it was his dad’s infidelity with Kimberley, how it ripped the family apart.

  ‘I’m really not trying to gloss over it,’ continues Esther now. ‘But I bet your dad would still like to know that you’re okay here. Have you written to him at all? Called him?’

  ‘No,’ admits Ben.

  ‘Do you think you should?’

  ‘Stop hassling me about it.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ She looks hurt.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Perhaps to appease her, he puts a postcard in his pocket and they head to her hut. In its privacy, she slowly undresses him, peeling off jeans and socks and shorts without a word.

  ‘Let’s turn off the lights,’ he says, as always.

  In the blackness, he can pretend Esther’s skin is that of a sweetly fragranced man. Her face that of a well-shaved male lover; her hands small and patient versions of Andrew’s.

  ‘Let’s keep them on this time,’ she says, kissing him.

  Perhaps he can just close his eyes. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Undress me,’ she whispers.

  Ben unbuttons her blouse, unfastens her shorts. He fumbles with her bra.

  ‘Didn’t they teach you at school how to unhook one?’ she laughs. ‘Thought it was part of the curriculum for teenage boys.’

  She undoes it herself and puts Ben’s hand over one breast, kissing him urgently. He shuts his eyes and kisses her back. When she puts her hand around his penis, he waits for his body to respond. Her greedy movement and his wandering mind finally cause the desired result. She leads him to the narrow bed. Here, in the full light, he turns Esther over onto her stomach. He has to have her that way. Andrew’s long-ago no haunts him. Fires him. He wishes now that she might say it. But this is not a game they should play. He might hurt her.

  Ben suddenly sees the tiny impala bloody and limp in Lucy’s death grip.

  ‘Kiss me.’ Esther looks over her shoulder. Her hair fans like a mane. He doesn’t want her to talk. If he can’t have the dark, he needs the quiet.

  ‘Shhhh.’ He bites her neck, hard.

  She moans but doesn’t speak.

  Ben closes his eyes and plunges into her. Esther cries out but doesn’t resist. Jodie Cartwright comes to him in a flash. A memory. A moment together. Her tears. His behaviour. Ben has always feared that what had happened the night of his brother Mike’s wedding might happen again. He pushes it away. Bites Esther again. Like Lucy’s kill earlier, it does not take long.

  Afterwards, he collapses against Esther’s sticky body. When he realises she is fidgeting, and he must be heavy, he sits up.

  ‘Wow,’ she says.

  ‘Wow good?’ he asks, nervous now that he was too rough.

  She smiles. ‘Wow good.’

  Ben studies her.

  ‘You usually treat me like I might break or something,’ she says. ‘Not tonight.’ She pauses. ‘You’re such a curious man, you know. What are your secrets, Ben Roberts?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘I love you,’ she says.

  ‘Do you?’ Ben doesn’t mean it to come out so bluntly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that so…’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She touches his face. ‘You don’t have to say it to me. Now or ever. But I had to say it. Because I do. I think I have since you first arrived here. Even though you were such a total pain in the arse. Still are, you moody so-and
-so. But I do. I love you.’

  Ben feels queasy. His chest is tight.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Esther touches his forehead.

  ‘I think … it was today. The heat. That kill. Lucy. I don’t feel like myself. I feel sick. Do you mind if I go back to mine? I need to lie down.’

  ‘Do you want me to walk with you?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Ben pulls on his jeans. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Is it what I said?’ Esther looks sad.

  ‘No. God, no.’ He touches her face, kisses her cheek. What a good liar he is. What a terrible, terrible person.

  Ben stumbles through the dark. Before heading for his hut, he drops back in at the communal area. It is deserted.

  Hand shaking, he picks up the phone on the wall and dials the England code and then Andrew’s home number. What is the time difference? Will he wake him? Ben can’t remember; can’t work it out. Andrew’s voice surprises him. Soft. Warm. So very far away. Ben realises it is a recording. Just a message.

  Should he leave one?

  He opens his mouth, not knowing what on earth he will say. Perhaps, I miss you. Perhaps, Ask me to come home.

  Ben hangs up.

  Is Andrew okay? Is he asleep? Out? Ignoring him?

  Or worse?

  No. If it were anything worse then surely the phone would have been disconnected altogether?

  Ben stands with the phone in his hand for a while. Wants to redial and hear Andrew’s voice again. His heart won’t stop pounding. As he replaces the receiver, he wonders if he should call his dad too? At least let him know that he is okay here?

  But that is one phone call he’s not ready for.

  Finally, he staggers back through the dark to his hut, hoping Simon is still drinking beer around the campfire. The room is empty. Ben drops into his hammock and puts his head in his hands. Tries to push away Andrew’s voice.

  And now Esther loves him. She loves him. This is huge. He should tell her they can’t be together. Is it fair to lie when she feels so strongly? But it will hurt her. He knows this, and he can’t bear to.

  Ben realises the postcard is still in his pocket. He takes it out, strokes the glossy lions. Then he finds a pen and bites the lid while he thinks. Finally, he prints Andrew’s address on the right. On the left, he simply writes, I saw it and thought of us. He does. Every day.

  Still.

  ‘Something must die so something can live,’ Stig said earlier.

  Though it irritated him, he can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe the only way to stop thinking about Andrew is to send the card, a kind of last communication before committing to Esther.

  But, as he drifts off into a restless sleep, his dad haunts him.

  Ben hears his voice. Hears clinking glasses. Sees a pub. A confrontation.

  The two of them.

  19

  ENGLAND

  A Suitcase Full of Truth

  Nancy thought there was a ghost in her wardrobe, a silver woman who jangled all the coat hangers when she was trying to sleep. Only Ben believed her. He did, after all, believe in most things that adult eyes overlooked.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Ye Olde Black Boy was Will’s favourite pub. Ben had brought him here to confront him. Andrew had been saying he shouldn’t keep suggesting his dad had slept with Kimberley unless he knew it for certain. Though this irked Ben, he knew Andrew was right.

  The pub by the river, with wood panelling and tobacco-stained fixtures, had only been updated to add space. Dusty beer bottles, period adverts, and slave-trade artefacts lined the walls, telling visitors it was proud of its history. Once a smuggling den connected to the River Hull by underground passages, and a brothel for a time, it was allegedly haunted.

  ‘Let’s sit in the back.’ Will nodded to the barman. ‘Wish Mike was here to celebrate Lola.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Ben, unthinkingly.

  Will ordered two pints. ‘You’d rather your brother was in some desert shit-hole riddled with Taliban than at home with his new baby? Can you imagine what it’s like there?’

  Ben doubted his dad could imagine, having never left the country for so much as a European city break. It was easier to sit with his cronies in a pub and bemoan the hardship of life, with a beer in one hand and an opinion in the other.

  ‘I meant … Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ Ben shook his head.

  A phone call from Mike the Friday before had emphasised Ben’s need to face their dad. Against an eerie silence that belied the war he was fighting, Mike had spoken of his sadness at missing Lola’s birth.

  Ben told his brother the baby was beautiful and that she looked like him. Mike talked about the lads sharing one bottle of beer to celebrate his fatherhood. Ben now wondered whether he’d tell Mike the truth if their dad admitted to the affair today. Could he be the one to ruin Mike’s new family? He wasn’t coming home for weeks and if Ben waited to tell him in person, he would have to carry it around like an overstuffed suitcase.

  Will found a table, calling ‘Afternoon!’ to those in the back. Ben downed half his beer in one glug. That he needed a drink to speak to his dad irritated him. Will joked that he was just like him.

  Will told Brackie, an old man with a wizened face, that he was a grandad now and they were wetting the little’un’s head. Ben wished Brackie would fuck off; eventually he did, joining a group arguing the policy of some local MP.

  Ben remembered Andrew’s suggestion: Tell your dad the truth about us. Was exposing what his dad had done cowardly when he could not share his own secret? Maybe. Ben stared at the frothing liquid.

  Finally, he said, ‘Tell me about you and Kim.’

  Will was momentarily at his best, having had one drink. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. Only his eyes moved, opening and shutting. The barman loaded glasses noisily into a washer.

  Will stood, bought another beer and came back.

  ‘Dunno what you mean, lad,’ he said eventually.

  ‘You do.’ Ben was fortified now. ‘You can bury the truth by pouring this stuff down your neck, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen the two of you together. Are you sleeping with her?’

  ‘For God’s sake, the girl just had a baby and you want to talk all sordid.’

  ‘Me talking about it is more sordid than you doing it?’ said Ben.

  ‘You think I’d sleep with my own son’s fiancé?’

  ‘You really want me to answer that?’

  The barman slammed shut the dishwasher.

  ‘I’m celebrating the birth of my first grandchild.’

  Will merged the remains of his drink with Ben’s as though to signal come sort of unity, like blood joined in a childhood game of true brothers.

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Have it, lad,’ said Will. ‘Look like you need it.’

  The amber frothed in Ben’s glass like the eye colour that had been passed down the generations. What had that word-of-the-day on the fridge in Andrew’s flat been? Patrocliny; the inheritance of traits from the father. Would young Lola inherit them? Would those little eyes glow? Would it be her dad’s or her grandad’s flame they mirrored?

  Will stared at his now-empty glass.

  ‘Look, Dad,’ said Ben, not unkindly. ‘I’ve seen you with her. I may not know women like you do, but I know when they’re yours. I see how they look at you. And Kim is one of them. So, you can either tell me or you can not tell me, and my mind will make it worse.’

  A group of noisy students came into the back room. On the wall above where they sat down was a poster for a ghost-hunting night.

  Will looked towards the bar. Ben told him a drink would help far less than just being honest and Will’s shoulders slumped, like someone had let the air out of them.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, what?’ Ben drank the pint that swam with both of them.

  ‘I slept with Kim.’

  ‘How … when…?’

  Between glances towards the b
arman, Will described how Kimberley had come over one day the previous winter, with shortbread her grandmother had baked for him. She was crying because she had broken the snowglobe Mike bought her in New York. They had chosen the ornament in Macy’s for their engagement, and now it was wrecked.

  ‘When women cry, I’m mush,’ Will admitted. ‘Jane was crying over her dead father when we met. Frances over … I can’t remember now.’

  ‘It was Kimberley’s fault for crying?’

  Will insisted it was he who instigated the moment. He described how she’d wept on his shoulder that the crack in the glass globe was irreparable. He’d assured her he’d find a replacement so when Mike returned it would be like it had never broken.

  Will said it happened by the sink, just once.

  The sink was too real; Ben had argued with him there many times. He had washed dishes while his dad smoked with their neighbour Cartwright in the garden; he had talked to his mum about Africa there; he had daydreamed there; wondered why Andrew hadn’t called him there.

  Kimberley had kissed Will’s cheek there and when he moved, so his lips were on hers instead, she’d been startled. But not enough to stop. The warmth of comfort had boiled over into the heat of curiosity. Kimberley had let Will push up her skirt and penetrate her against the sink.

  ‘No details, please,’ cried Ben.

  ‘Sorry,’ Will said, miserably. ‘I’m always attracted to the pureness of a new woman. Then I have her, and it dies. She’s flawed – grumpy or nagging or possessive.’

  ‘Maybe you damage them,’ snapped Ben. ‘Ever think of that?’

  Will sighed, said he had. He added that Ben’s mum’s death had cemented her purity, that she was eternally young, forever ideal. It was all Ben could do not to snap that his dad had treated her like shit, harping on about her mis-words, belittling her.

  ‘I didn’t think,’ said Will. ‘There’s no excuse for what we did, but in that moment the feelings were real.’

  Ben drained his glass. ‘What was poor Kim’s flaw then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said it dies when you find women are flawed.’