by Phil Earle
Joseph swore under his breath as she blustered from the room and up the stairs. Probably in search of her witch’s broomstick, he didn’t wonder.
He had no idea where they were going, but he knew one thing. The day had to get better, surely.
4
There was little to celebrate in the sight of buildings reduced to ashes, but it did make Joseph feel a couple of things, other than his usual anger.
Firstly, he was shocked. How could he not be? He’d seen photos and grainy footage of the Blitz before, but nothing had prepared him for the smell of it. There was gas in the air and plenty of it, so much, it was a wonder that the cigarettes of the many bystanders hadn’t seen the whole street burst into flames. But there was another smell too: a cloying smell of charred decay, and as it invaded his senses for the first time, Joseph wondered if it would ever leave him.
It was an assault on the eyes as well: not just the buildings reduced to dust, but the other things around it. Joseph hadn’t expected to see a gaggle of nurses in full white uniform digging amongst the rubble, for starters. Wasn’t that what the home guard was for? Shouldn’t they be at the hospital, putting people back together again? He asked Mrs F as much.
‘War might bring out the worst in some people,’ she said, ‘but it brings out the best in most.’ And she thanked the nurses as she passed.
The other feeling racing round, apart from Joseph’s queasiness and shock, was a strange sense of gratitude, because the endless, smouldering houses warmed the air from Baltic to merely freezing.
He didn’t ask where they were going. He’d already learned better than that, and instead he allowed his mind to wander, imagining the most fitting place for Mrs F to work.
Hair salon? Unlikely, given the electrified shock of frizz barely tamed by her coarse woollen hat.
Cafeteria, maybe? He shook his head. He’d tasted her porridge and reckoned no one else would pay for the privilege.
Hospital, then? It was a definite possibility, seeing how she’d thanked those nurses. But she didn’t exactly have the bedside manner. A grin hit his face as a more likely location lodged in his head.
The funeral home. No one would answer back or challenge her there. Plus she was as cold as the cadavers she’d lay out in readiness.
The image of her applying make-up or fixing neck ties on corpses was enough to occupy Joseph’s mind for a good few minutes, the images becoming more elaborate and macabre in his mind, until he lost himself entirely and ploughed into the back of Mrs F, who had stopped abruptly in front.
Righting him with a firm tut and a strong arm, she told him they had arrived, before wrestling a huge padlock and chain that wrapped snakelike round two metal gates.
Joseph took a couple of steps back, focusing on the imposing stone pillars that stood either side of the gates, and the two letters that sat, proudly above them: OO, they read. The building didn’t look in any way as enticing as the letters suggested. In fact it looked desperate, like it would happily beg a German bomber to put it out of its misery.
It didn’t take long for Joseph to work out what the building was, of course. He wasn’t daft, far from it, and quickly realised where the third letter should be.
‘You work in a zoo?’ he asked, not wanting to sound impressed, despite a twinge of excitement.
Mrs F turned, the chain coiled effortlessly in her arms like a sleeping python.
‘Work in it? No, I don’t work in it. I run it. Like my brother did before he went off to fight. There’s very few people who work in it, Joseph, because it’s 1941 and there’s a war on. So by my reckoning you make up one third of the workforce. Best get used to it.’
And she laid the chain around his neck, the unexpected weight almost taking him off his feet.
‘Now, close that gate and follow me. Before one of the residents thinks breakfast has arrived early.’
He knew she was joking – well, he at least hoped she was, but there was something immediately strange about the place: ghostly, still, unsafe. As they passed cage after cage, there was no sign of movement, though his ears picked up disjointed, jarring cries that were always in the distance and impossible to place.
There was one noise that persisted, a growl that rumbled over them, growing louder and louder as they paced on.
It didn’t trouble Mrs F, not in the slightest. In fact, she looked so unconcerned that Joseph wondered if only he could hear it.
He didn’t like it, and found himself reaching for a shard of wood that lay abandoned on the floor. He gripped it tight, his knuckles turning white. What am I doing? he thought. This was ridiculous. He didn’t get scared.
Mrs F still showed no sign of distress. What did she know, that he didn’t? How could she not hear it, or be feeling the same rising panic that was engulfing him?
He wasn’t going to ask her though, of course he wasn’t.
Mrs F walked on, whistling tunelessly, until suddenly, from the shadows, a scruffy black tornado whipped past her, launching itself at Joseph’s chest before he could even raise his weapon.
He tumbled to the floor, gravel pulling through his shirt and at his back, a wail leaving his throat that was more primeval than anything the inhabitants in the cages could muster.
He felt his shoulders tense and arms flail as the creature’s muzzle snapped repeatedly at him. The wood fell uselessly to the floor. He wanted to bite back but found himself pinned, powerless, not just by the animal, but by fear itself. He waited for pain to rip through him, but instead he heard a different bark from a different beast.
‘Tweedy. No!’ snapped Mrs F.
Then: ‘Friend. Boy.’
Instantly, the growling stopped, and Joseph felt the pressure from the animal’s limbs relent. It was still on top of him, still pinning him flat, but its jaws were no longer searching for the juiciest part of his neck. Instead, its muzzle was less than an inch from his face, two chocolate brown eyes hiding behind a mess of straggly hair, thick and unkempt like an old man’s eyebrows.
Joseph didn’t know what was going to happen next, and still half expected teeth, but got instead a tongue: long slobbering licks that started at his chin and didn’t stop until his hairline.
‘Get off!’ he yelled, embarrassed. The dog’s breath reeked. Hot and stale, like its tongue had spent far too long up close to another dog’s backside. Or its own. Whichever it was, Joseph didn’t want it anywhere near his face, and pushed the animal off him, surprised by how easily it moved: completely at odds with its initial power.
He rolled onto his side, head (and nose) clearing, though he felt a wave of shame engulf him as he saw the dog properly for the first time.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting: a German Shepherd perhaps, the sort he imagined Nazi officers strained to contain on a leash as they terrorised a cowering crowd. Something with heft and power coursing through it. But to Joseph’s embarrassment, he saw only what looked like a longhaired miniature whippet.
Not a puppy, there was too much grey in its matted coat for that, though it was bounding around now like a youngster, snapping at its own tail with dizzying speed.
It was, quite possibly, the scruffiest-looking thing Joseph had ever laid eyes on. Its beard was a mess of food and Lord knows what else, and its fur carried what looked like a small collection of flowering bushes.
Joseph wondered when it had last been bathed. Though to be honest, it looked like a bath was way too late for it. The most sensible option would be to shave it from ear to tail and start all over again.
‘Terrifying beast, isn’t he?’ Mrs F said, appearing above him, a wry smile on her face. ‘Almost the scariest thing in the whole place. He lives with me, usually, but with you arriving I left him here last night. Takes his guarding duties very seriously.’
She pulled a morsel of something from her pocket and tossed it at the dog, who hoovered it up and sat to attention for more.
‘Is he yours?’
‘Hard to say,’ she replied, bending to the dog, wincing as she did so. ‘Found him sleeping in the hippo enclosure seven months ago. Don’t know how he got in there, but they didn’t seem to mind as long as he left their food alone. In fact the hippos were sadder to leave him than anything else when they were shipped out. Lord knows if big beasts like that can actually cry, but they didn’t like leaving the daft dog behind. Wouldn’t get in the lorry until he led them in.’
It was the most the woman had said to him since he arrived, and he heard a different tone to her voice, saw the tiniest softening in her body, too, as she carefully pulled the foliage from the dog’s fur. It rankled with him. She could show a straggly mutt such care, but manage only orders and demands of him.
The dog, now freed of its leafy cargo, turned its attention back to Joseph, sniffing at his hands before circling him in short, fast bounds. Begging him to play, howling excitedly.
Joseph gave him no time, walking on instead towards a large cage, feeling like he was on the inside of the bars, not outside them.
‘I wouldn’t get too close to that one,’ Mrs F said, ‘Adonis isn’t keen on new people.’
‘Sounds like someone else round here,’ Joseph muttered, ignoring her and wandering closer still.
It was dark inside the cage, too vast and shadowy to see where it ended, though he could make out a ramshackle hut at the back, with wooden walls and a corrugated tin roof. He thought Mrs F was winding him up: that the cage was as empty as most of the others, so he picked up a stick, about as long as his arm, and began to run it along the bars as he walked.
The echo of the metal was a pleasant noise, almost musical, and Joseph enjoyed how the stick, bouncing off the bars, sent shudders up his arms and across his chest. He reached the end of the cage, spun on his heels and started to rewalk its length, repeating the process, ignoring Mrs F’s second warning.
But as he reached the middle of the cage, he felt the world spin on its axis.
There was no warning, no siren, just a tsunami of movement and an ear-splitting noise. Something crashed against the bars, ripping the branch from his fingers and sending him skittering backwards in shock, tripping and falling unceremoniously to the ground.
The noise continued. Noise wasn’t even the word. Joseph had never heard anything like it. It tore at his ears, so loud that his hands flew to his lobes, not only to cover them, but to stop the blood that he felt must be flowing. What sort of place was this? he thought. What on earth was he doing here? Was it a punishment? Because he didn’t deserve this, did he?
The chaos didn’t stop. Whatever was in the cage continued to throw itself against the bars, long hairy arms reaching through, clawing for the boy as he scuttled away on his hands and knees.
It was a monkey, he thought. No, it was bigger than that. Way bigger. Angrier, too. Angry enough to push Mrs F into action, moving towards the bars as Joseph dashed from them. Through gasping breaths Joseph watched her walk slowly closer, arm outstretched, hand open and flat, but head lowered, never once making eye contact with the monster inside.
What was she doing? Had she not seen what was in the cage, the way it was behaving? It’d rip her apart. She was mad.
Mrs F, though, appeared to be completely in control. As she neared the cage, her pace slowed further and she started to talk. Well, make noises really. A succession of grunts, low and guttural, while the arm that wasn’t outstretched snaked into her pocket.
She reached the bars, a matter of inches from where the animal still rocked, agitated, and let herself slide down them until she was in a crouching position, a mirror image of the animal inside the cage. Slowly, with her head still down, she took a carrot from her pocket, and pretended to eat it. The animal watched her, its movements slightly blunted.
She pretended to take another bite, and a third: then, almost in slow motion, she allowed her arm to reach through the bars, the beast’s hand brushing hers as he took the carrot from her grasp.
And then? Nothing. The animal tucked into it, while scratching at something on his belly. A flea probably, Joseph thought, as he watched Mrs F mimic him, her own hand rubbing at her stomach.
The carrot lasted seconds, and before he’d even finished his final mouthful, the creature turned and stalked into the shadows. Mrs F stood too, shaking the stiffness from her knees.
‘Don’t worry. Adonis takes some getting to know. You’ll be cleaning his cage out in no time.’
‘You go in there? When he’s actually in there too?’
‘Of course. I can hardly send him out for ice cream, can I? And he’s not likely to shovel up his own muck if I leave him a spade. Sometimes I wait till he’s asleep, sometimes not. It’s all about trust.’
‘You wouldn’t catch me in there,’ he mumbled.
Mrs F didn’t hear him, but she wasn’t finished. ‘Lesson number one,’ she said. ‘Always listen to Mrs F.’
There was a pause, a heartbeat.
‘Lesson number two – always listen to Mrs F in the zoo. Especially in the zoo. I’ll tell you lesson number three as soon as I make it up.’
And without offering him a hand, she walked on, the stupid dog circling her.
Joseph’s eyes didn’t leave the cage. He still couldn’t comprehend what he’d seen. All he knew was that Adonis (if that was the name of the creature), clearly didn’t like him very much. Just like everyone else in his life.
5
As entertainment went, the zoo fared badly, and not just because of the foul mood that enveloped Joseph after his introduction to Adonis.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. What was it about him that made others react like that instinctively? Was he so vile and repulsive? Should he have acted differently? Retaliated, maybe? He didn’t know. Maybe, he thought, it summed everything up. Maybe he was only getting what he deserved. All these thoughts bubbled and stewed within him. He didn’t have a clue what to do with any of them, so he settled as usual for feeling angry.
‘Stupid monkey,’ he murmured, too close to Mrs F.
‘Don’t let him hear you call him that,’ she replied, throwing a pair of stinking overalls his way. ‘He’s not a monkey. He’s a gorilla. Silverback. Pride of the zoo, that one. When it was open.’ Her words tailed off and Joseph could see why. There was precious little to feel proud of around here any more.
The boy pulled the overalls on reluctantly. They were covered in a crusty dung, sitting like scabs at regular intervals up and down the legs. He wasn’t sure what jobs awaited him to deserve such an outfit, but he was sure they weren’t going to be pretty.
First things first, though, Mrs F insisted on a tour to give him his bearings.
‘I won’t be telling you where things are twice,’ she added tersely, ‘so stop your sulking and pin your ears back.’
They started in the aquarium, or what would’ve been the aquarium had it contained any fish. Or water. Joseph was no expert, but he was pretty sure the only thing living inside the tanks now was algae: it clung to the glass like overcooked spinach on a Sunday dinner plate.
‘It’s not exactly the Ritz in here, is it? Could you not have cleaned the place up a bit?’ he sneered.
‘Well you know what they say,’ she smiled back icily. ‘Why keep a dog and bark yourself?’
God, he hated her. Whatever he said, she always had an answer. And his gran must’ve known that when she sent him here. Still, he’d bide his time. Get his own back on the woman. She could be sure of it.
As he walked round the aquarium, he noticed a vast amount of sticky tape that zigzagged the length and height of the tanks. There seemed no pattern or reason to it: it had the look of a birthday present wrapped by a four-year-old.
Joseph traced the tape with his finger, forehead creased as he tried and failed to understand its mystery.
&nbs
p; ‘In case a bomb drops,’ Mrs F said, eyes moving skywards, even though they were standing inside. ‘The tape might stop the glass from shattering. It’d cost a small fortune to replace it.’
‘Where did the fish go? They dead?’
He felt her stiffen beside him.
‘Some of them, yes. Some were moved into the pond outside, the ones that could survive the cold, but the others... well, food was so expensive that...’
Hesitation. Joseph spotted it and didn’t let it go unnoticed.
‘What? They died of starvation? Or did you sit there with a fishing rod like a garden gnome?’
He saw her anger ignite, saw it swell and swirl quickly across her body. He liked it, hoped he’d finally got under her skin. But she blindsided him again with a clipped and icy response, calm.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have a rod, just a set of steel ladders and a net. I had to fish them out one by one, then watch them die. Some of them lasted too long, though, they were writhing about in agony, so I had to put them out of their misery.’
Joseph deflated. What could he say to that? The thought of it was horrible, and for all his spikiness, he didn’t know if he could’ve acted in the way she did. Nor admit it so matter of factly.
So what should he do? He knew what his dad would say. He’d fix him with a steely look, tell him to say he was sorry.
But his dad wasn’t here. He’d left him too, whether he wanted to or not. And now he was stuck with this woman, who hated his guts.
‘Sounds ’orrible.’ They were the only words he could muster.
‘Yes, well, it’s done now, isn’t it?’ she replied, marching on. ‘So let me show you the rest of it.’
The tour continued, not that there was much to see.
‘That was the elephant’s enclosure...’
‘The old lions’ den...’
‘Penguins swam in there...’
Most things were referred to in the past tense – all the glories gone, animals transferred to zoos in the countryside or put down before they starved to death.