The Square

by Rosie Millard

  “We used to do the same with the elephants, before one trampled a colleague. Then they had to go to Whipsnade,” observes the young man. “Oh, here come the llamas. Well, one of them.”

  The llama appears. It is like a smaller, furrier version of the camels. It is wearing a blue harness and is being led by a diminutive person.

  “That’s Perry,” says the young man.

  “That’s George,” says Tracey, astonished, as the small figure holding the halter proudly advances.

  “George! What on earth are you doing, leading a llama around London Zoo?”

  “Keeper For A Day,” says George calmly as he passes the group. A London Zoo employee hurries up and walks beside him.

  “Morning,” says the employee. “Normally we don’t let our Junior keepers lead the animals, but Perry is an exception.”

  Tracey is speechless.

  “That child seems to get everywhere,” she says.

  “Shall we?” says Alan, lifting the box carefully. “It’s a bit cold out here for him.”

  The heat hits them as they enter the Reptile House. Tracey walks past the adjoining glass fronted cells in which various lizards, caimans, snakes and salamanders crouch.

  Cell after identically shaped cell, each animal living next door to the other. They are grouped into vague categories. But they have no way of knowing that they are there with their biological cousins. As far as they know it, they are alone.

  One small green reptile is sitting on a large leaf. Above it hovers a disembodied human hand. The hand is holding a small can. It is watering the reptile with the can. The animal basks in the shower, luxuriating in the water, clinging onto the dripping leaf with extraordinarily long fingers, its snout turned upwards to the shower from the watering can. It has an air of utter bliss.

  “That’s to replicate the effect of living in a rain forest,” says the ZSL man.

  “Oh to be looked after like that,” observes Alan.

  You are, thinks Tracey sourly. What with your fan base and your ratings and your Overnights. They shower on your head in just the same way. And you cling onto the leaf of fame in similar fashion. Soaking it up.

  Alan is shaking the hand of the Director of the Reptile House. The Director is grinning. He squats down and peers into the Munchkin’s case.

  “Morning, you,” says the Director to the Munchkin.

  “How did you get him in here?”

  “I manoeuvered him in very gently,” lies Alan.

  “Because he looks rather agitated.”

  “Really?”

  “They don’t like being moved.” The Director stands up briskly. “Never mind, can’t be helped. We’ll settle him in. Has he been fed recently?”

  “I gave him some crickets last night,” says Alan.

  “Good, good,” muses the Director. “We’ll keep him backstage for a few weeks, let him settle in before bringing him out on show.”

  “Will you miss him?” whispers Tracey to Alan.

  “Well, he was a good… project. But these things have a duration, don’t they.”

  Tracey looks at the Munchkin inside the vitrine. Such a complex, beautiful animal. Cast away and dismissed as a project. For the first time, Tracey thinks she will welcome having a respite from Alan’s life, perfect though it may be. She finds it altogether a bit mesmerisingly terrifying.

  “So perhaps we could have you back here, when the iguana is ready to face his public, yes?” says the Director, shaking Alan’s hand again. “Perhaps we could have a bit of a public do for the unveiling?”

  “Yes, yes,” says Alan. “As long as, you understand, my, er, previous charge of him is not handled, in a, how shall we say, unprofessional manner.”

  The Director understands perfectly. Alan Makin does not want to come across as someone who has willingly kept a large and rare animal, who was possibly illegally imported, in a small glass case in Highgate for a long time.

  “You did the right thing,” the Director of the Reptile House assures the TV presenter.

  “Thank you. I know,” says Alan.

  “Does this happen a lot?” asks Tracey suddenly.

  “Does what happen a lot?” says the Director. “Television stars arriving at the Reptile House? No.”

  “No,” laughs Tracey. “People giving you their pets.”

  “Yes,” says the Director, with a faint weariness. “But not often with iguanas. It’s usually with terrapins. People buy them when they are tiny and then panic when they grow to the size of frying pans. Then they offer them to us. We usually can’t take them, but we find sanctuaries for them. It’s better that than the other solution.”

  “Which is what?” asks Tracey.

  “Throwing them in the Thames.”

  Tracey gives a little shriek of horror.

  “It happens,” says the Director.

  Tracey looks at him. He may be an expert in reptile behaviour but she figures he is also pretty knowledgable about the human side of it too.

  They leave the dark concrete of the Reptile House, its scaly inhabitants moving quietly in the humming heat under their individual sunlamps.

  “I haven’t been here for years,” observes Tracey as they walk into the fresh air. “Shall we have a quick tour?”

  “As long as I don’t step in any camel dung,” says Alan fastidiously.

  They turn left, past the pygmy hippos and Hugh Casson’s brick Elephant House, now a showcase for tiny monkeys.

  As they are standing observing a family of wild boar, a family of humans comes up to Tracey.

  “Excuse me for asking,” says the mother, “but weren’t you on the telly last night?”

  “Sorry?” says Tracey.

  The mother repeats her question.

  A warm glow of delight suffuses Tracey’s entire body.

  “Yes, yes, I was.”

  “You were great!” says the mother, beaming. “Can I take your photo? Actually, can I do a selfie?

  Tracey nods her head, beaming back. “’Course you can, yes, yes,” she says, combing the hair out of her eyes selfconsciously.

  The mother crowds up to Tracey, stretches her arm out, takes a selfie of her and Tracey together. Then, because she is of a certain age when these things still carry weight, she jumps as if she has just remembered something. “Tell you what, can I have your autograph?” She shoves a Visit London Zoo programme at Tracey, and rootles in her bag for a pen.

  Tracey looks at Alan, smiling hopefully. Alan is smiling too. “Told You” he mouths, then turns to the woman.

  “Yes, Tracey was the star turn in my report,” he says loudly to the woman, who has found her pen and is proffering it to Tracey.

  “Oh gosh it’s YOU,” says the woman. “Alan Makin!”

  Tracey notices that Alan exhales quite deeply at this moment. A sigh of relief, she thinks. Maybe he was worried that he wasn’t going to be recognised as well.

  “Ooo can I just… take… this,” says the woman, bringing the phone out once more, grabbing Alan by the elbow and squeezing close to him as she takes the shot, the proof that she is in finger distance to someone famous. Alan visibly relaxes, smiles, puts his head on one side. He is having a good time. He has got rid of the Munchkin and he is being feted. Tracey and Alan both sign the programme…

  Tracey and Alan both sign the programme, Alan with his professional swirl. Tracey isn’t quite sure how to do this, and so ends up simply writing her first name. Then she puts a smiley face below it.

  “Thanks, thanks so much,” says the mother.

  “Not at all,” says Alan. “Thanks for watching.”

  “There you are,” he says to Tracey as the family depart. “That’s going to happen to you much more, now.”

  It doesn’t, though. They walk through the entire Zoo, up past the Children’s Farm, the big cats and Bug World, then down past the parrots, the penguins and the shop and under the tunnel to the tapirs, zebra, giraffe and something called a bongo, which Tracey has never heard of before but le
arns from the information printed on a stand is a very shy relation of the zebra, which lives in the depths of the Congo rainforest, and was only discovered a few decades ago.

  Nobody remarks on them. Nobody recognises them. The Zoo gradually fills up with shouting children and parents vainly trying to contain them. Nobody cares that Alan Makin and she are also visiting the Zoo, the day after their programme was watched by four million people. Five, if you count Catch-up.

  Someone must recognise her. Tracey is conscious of laughing too loudly, of presenting her face to people too blatantly, of not behaving normally. She worries that she hasn’t done her makeup well enough, that she’s not wearing very fashionable clothes. She thinks about having a public persona. She wants, above all, more people to come up and praise her, and treat her as their friend and ask for her signature with the smiley face. Maybe the thrill of fame will replace the thrill of having sex in Alan’s giant flat, and alleviate the regularity of life in the Square. Maybe, thinks Tracey quickly, she will be the most famous person in the Square. That would be something.

  “That was nice,” she ventures to Alan as they leave the Zoo past the giant Snowdon Aviary with its ibises and herons, and the small enclosures for the owls, who are all fast asleep, ignorant of the dead white mice, still bleeding, which the keepers have tenderly left below their perches.

  “What, the Zoo? I know, lovely. Such a London treasure.”

  “No, I meant the autograph. My autograph. The lady who came up and recognised me.”

  “Oh, I know. Did you like that? Well, I have to say, having had it both ways, that in my honest opinion, life is so much nicer when you are a bit famous. Not too famous, of course,” says Alan hastily, to his protegee. “But being recognised is lovely. If you get too famous, then it becomes tiresome, as you have seen with me, haven’t you? People do give me a hard time sometimes. It’s tough. But getting a little bit of fame is just right. Lovely.”

  He is treating me a bit like the Munchkin, thinks Tracey as she climbs back into Alan’s car. I am a project. Or at least, I have been. I’ve shown him the tricks of my trade, and he has shown me his. We have shared one amazing evening. That’s the summary of it.

  Tracey looks out of the window. She knows, despite herself, that this is a good ending. Much easier this way. And actually, she welcomes his cool stance. What if he got all emotional on her, demanded eternal loyalty and her to move in with him into the Lubetkin building? No, it’s much better this way. Probably.

  They drive back to the Square in silence. Its perfect symmetry enfolds them as Alan elegantly curves the car in front of Tracey’s house.

  “Well, thanks for coming to the Zoo with me. Thanks for doing that. I think it was the right thing. And it was a good thing. It was also so good to see you after the programme. As I said, it’s all good.”

  Tracey nods.

  “Look, I have to go now. Onto my next… ”

  “Project?” says Tracey, with a faint smile.

  “Yes, well, project, programme, you know. Look, you are great. Were great. Thanks for everything. We will hook up again. Maybe after Christmas? And Tracey?”

  “Yes?” she says dutifully, climbing out of the car, standing on the pavement beside her house.

  “Look after those finances! And get a better autograph!”

  From an upstairs window in the Square, someone is practising the piano. Out in the middle of the park, Gilda and Philip Burrell are performing Tai-Chi. Philip is in a pure white tracksuit. Gilda is wearing a Hello Kitty onesie and fairy wings. Tracey looks at them and envies their freedom and absolute determination to behave exactly as they feel, without the slightest indication that they know they are being observed and commented on by the neighbourhood. She even envies Gilda’s experiences as a topless model.

  Chapter Thirty-Four Jane

  It is pouring with rain as Roberta stands on the doorstep of Jane’s house. Water sluices off the grey slate rooves of the houses in the Square. It pours from the drenched leaves of the London plane trees. It gushes down the drainpipes. Not one resident has ignored the need to keep their drainpipes in order. Not one drainpipe is leaking. The water is perfectly directed into the guttering, an immaculate piece of rain orchestration. Even the coving on the road works in symphony with the drainpipes, draining the drenched street straight into the kerbside where the water is caught and cascades into the drains.

  By the time George manages to open the door, Roberta is soaked.

  “Aha,” says George with his usual sangfroid.

  “Good afternoon, George,” says Roberta. “My plants are going to love this, aren’t they?”

  Patrick appears in the hall. “Gosh, you are wet,” he observes unnecessarily. “Stair rods, isn’t it?”

  “What are stair rods?” says George.

  There is a pause as Patrick wrestles with the question.

  “Er, I think they are bannisters. Or balustrades. Or are they those things which keep the carpet tight on the step?” says Patrick as Roberta takes her coat off and hangs it up on the Alessi hat stand. “Don’t know, old chap,” he says, finally. “But when you say that they are falling from the sky, it’s clearly raining. Hard.”

  “Shall we?” says Roberta to George, opening the door to the music room.

  “I have a wonderful piece that I thought we might look at. Particularly today.”

  “I led a llama around London Zoo yesterday,” says George excitedly.

  “Did you?”

  “I was Keeper For A Day.”

  “Really?”

  “I was. And do you know who I saw there?”

  “Who? Apart from animals, that is. David Attenborough?”

  “No!” says George, laughing. “I saw Tracey and, you know, the presenter of the Talent Show. Andy Makin. They were there before the general public turned up.”

  “Alan. Alan Makin. Oh, really? What were they doing?”

  “Well, when I saw them, I was with Perry. You know, the llama. But afterwards we had to do some tidying up in the Reptile House, and I heard the Director talking about Andy, sorry, Alan Makin and his reptile.”

  Alan Makin is a bit reptilian, thinks Roberta.

  “It seems as if he has had a very big lizard, an iguana I think, in a teeny tiny case, and he gave it to London Zoo. The Director was very cross with Alan Makin after he left because he discovered all sorts of problems with the reptile, and said that Alan Makin hadn’t been looking after him properly.”

  “That’s a shame. Did you enjoy being Keeper For A Day?”

  “Yes I did.”

  He settles down on the piano stool and looks up at his teacher expectantly.

  She brings out a new book and opens it.

  “The ‘Raindrop Sonata’. By Chopin.”

  George points to the window, and smiles.

  “Oh, that’s clever of you, Roberta my dear.”

  She smiles at him.

  On the other side of the Square, a front door slams. It’s Anya, leaving in the rain, bound for the airport now called Chopin, in Warsaw.

  “Now, George. Chopin made this tune up when he was very unhappy and all he could hear was the rain drumming on the roof of his house.”

  “Where was he staying?”

  “He was staying with his partner who, who was also called George actually.”

  “Oh. Was he a gay?”

  “No, George was a lady. She was his girlfriend.”

  “That’s funny. Why would she have a boy’s name?”

  Roberta sighs. “Shall we just work out where the raindrops are drumming?”

  Footsteps running down the stairs. Roberta ignores them as they go past the room and down into the kitchen, although she hears Jane’s voice calling urgently.

  “Patrick, Patrick, quick!”

  She hears Patrick and Jane run past the door and back upstairs.

  “All you do with your left hand is just beat out this tune, dum dum dum, like this, like the rain,” says Roberta.

  Upstairs,
Jane is running from room to room. It seems that there is a lot of rain which has come through the roof, and is now falling in Jane and Patrick’s bedroom.

  “Look, look, it’s coming right through the light fitting, Patrick have you turned the electricity off?” shrieks Jane.

  “Well, it’s clearly off,” says Patrick testily. “I mean, the light is not on, is it?”

  He places a series of buckets under the ceiling rose.

  “Perhaps it’s not rain.”

  “I am going upstairs,” says Jane. “I’m dreading what I might find in George’s room.”

  She runs out of George’s room and into the spare room.

  “The leak must be in the other part of the roof, it must be in the valley of the butterfly,” shouts Jane down to Patrick.

  “What are you talking about darling?”

  “The butterfly! It’s a butterfly roof!”

  Patrick raises his eyebrows. Just like Jane to remember details like that. He vaguely recalls the nature of the roof, described to him in delicate detail by the surveyor when they bought the house. To give the outward appearance of a horizontal, classical line, the roof itself is an inverted peak hidden behind a flat parapet, like a pair of butterfly wings resting on the house. To the person on the street, who can only see the parapet, it looks as if there is no roof at all.

  This aesthetic used to confuse George, who would insist on drawing his home, when he was young, with a typical peaked roof.

  “Where has our roof gone?” he would ask. “Has it blown away?”

  It is not the butterfly design. It is something far worse. It is the entire water tank. Perhaps encouraged by the downpour outside, the tank has burst open and its contents are cascading down the wall and into the house downstairs.

  Jane starts screaming at Patrick.

  “Buckets, buckets! And a plumber! The carpet is sodden. The bed is soaking. Oh my God.”

  Dum dum dum dum, continues the piano from downstairs. It is a tune that Jane knows.

  “Oh, very funny. She’s got the boy to play the sodding ‘Raindrop Prelude’ or Sonata or whatever during a Biblical downpour which will cost us thousands.”