Lou is still talking. Her voice getting higher and higher pitched as her anger increases.
‘It’s a no win situation. The government exploits children to mine Coltan and Cassiterite then sells them cheap to the west. The Rebels just want control of the trade. It’s not like they’re trying to take over to make things better for the people. They’ll do exactly the same. They’ll also increase the price of the minerals and they’ll still use children to dig it out of the ground. The only difference is they’re using children to fight their way to it. Children, James. Children younger than Harry. Is this getting through to you?’
I can’t speak. I know she is telling the truth. If I’m honest with myself I’ve known it for a while.
‘The only winners are the bank, your bank, and the electronics companies, because they control the Rebels and they control the minerals. Every time a new games console comes out, the demand for them increases and thousands of people die. Do you understand?’
Silence.
‘Do you understand? That BMW you are sat in is paid for by the rape of women, murder of children and the destruction of a country. Does that make it any clearer for you?’ she repeats.
‘Yes,’ I finally manage to say.
Cars pass by, buffeting me. I feel like I’m drowning.
‘Look at the Amnesty website, James. You’ll see that I’m telling the truth.’
I already know she is. There is no doubt in my mind.
‘I will,’ I say.
‘Looking isn’t enough, James. You’re part of this now. Whether you like it or not. You’re contributing to this. Looking isn’t enough. It’s what you do that counts. You’ve caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. And I’m not just talking about my art. You’ve got some making up to do.’
Something occurs to me and before I can stop myself I’ve blurted out, ‘Have you been texting me?’
‘What?’ she says.
‘Texts, emails and stuff.’
‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous, why would I do that? I don’t even want to talk to you.’
‘To tell me that stuff. To make me realise?’
‘Fuck’s sake, James. You’re a grown man. Take some fucking responsibility for the things you do.’
Sometime later I realise she has hung up and I’m still on the side of the road. Rain is drumming on the roof of the car. Headlights streak past me, smears of light through the rivers running down the windows.
Then I’m alone. Really alone.
I understand now why Ben didn’t want to sign off the ads.
57.
I’m through the plastic sheeting again.
I can’t be in the day room. I can’t be with the others. Blank faces. Denial. The lingering impression that they are fakes, actors, charlatans hasn’t left me, if anything it’s got stronger. As I went for a fag earlier Mark and Beth were talking and when I opened the door they stopped. I wanted to ask what they were talking about, even when I knew the answer would be a lie.
It hurts that Beth has turned on me. I can’t deny it. I know I have brought this upon myself, I know I scared her, I should be pleased I am keeping The Zoo away from her and I am, but I can sense her falling away from me and it hurts. I wonder if this is what The Zoo wanted all along. That it planned an endgame of divide and conquer to keep me away from the others, to let me think that I’m winning by holding it at bay, while all along it’s laughing at me.
Bamidele is waiting for me just inside the plastic sheet. We walk together in companionable silence towards the light and the warmth. In the dark I reach for his hand and it’s rough and cold to my grip.
Through the hole in the plastic.
Into a world of ash and smoke and screams.
Bamidele’s hand is in mine. I can feel his tension through my fingers. Around us the town is burning, plumes of smoke reaching up into the sky to escape the carnage. I can barely see a few feet in front of me. The air is full of noise, the crackle of burning wood, the crack as a hut nearby collapses, the whump as the ceiling hits the floor, people crying all around us. The darkness is tainted with the red and yellow and orange of fire, people bursting out of the darkness, their faces grey with ash, eyes stapled open by terror. As we stumble forward the smoke fills my lungs, I cough and splutter, unable to catch my breath, the heat scorching my tear filled eyes. I trip over something and lose Bamidele’s hand, look down and see a woman cradling a bloody child, limp in her arms. Everywhere is so chaotic it’s hard to focus on anything. The world flickers and shimmers, dances in flames. I cast about in panic, try to find Bamidele, but he is gone and I am alone in the burning confusion. I stagger deeper into the village, past shattered homes, treading on mounds of burning wood, wood that used to hold up walls, roofs, contain families. I trip and fall face first into the dirt, my hand on a pile of embers, instantly searing my palm. A dog trots past me, something in its mouth. As it gets closer I realise it is a hand, severed at the wrist and I gag and heave, nothing coming out apart from smoke. Panic now. Panic seared with a desire to return to the ward, to find my way back through the hole. I try in vain to get my bearings. Walk, then run, to my right, attempting to find my way to the fence, to work my way back round. Instead there is only a maze of burning buildings, of choking smoke. I bump into a man, his chest crossed in blood, and he flinches and pulls his hands up over his face, I splutter reassuring words, want him to understand I mean no harm, but my words are alien to him and he backs away from me into the crackling darkness. The world is just heat and smoke, I can see nothing, feel nothing, I wander, blind, disorientated, terrified until I collapse in the dark and the heat drops a suffocating blanket over me.
58.
I wake quickly, as if from a bad dream, but there is only a blank space. I don’t know how I got here. The last thing I remember was being in my car on the side of the road. I am wet with sweat. Unaware of the time I go to the blinds and pull them open onto a flat grey day. Midmorning? Early afternoon? Hard to tell. From the main office I can hear the thump of someone’s stereo, so it’s got to be in work hours. I fumble about on the desk for my phone, find it lying against the far wall. I turn it on. Ignore the cavalcade of emails that pour out of it. Phone my home number. Sally answers. As soon as she hears my voice she hangs up. When I ring back it’s engaged. I ring her mobile. She rejects it. Again. Again. Again. I slam it down on the desk, it bounces near my foot, so I hoof it against the wall.
My desk is covered in a maze of post-it notes. A mass of scrawled capitals, some of them backwards, childlike, spidery, mocking and chiding. As I read them I curl up and clasp my knees against my chest.
Traitor.
Murderer.
Spineless.
Fucking Killer.
Lie.
Joke.
Charlatan.
Killed them.
Kill him too.
I sweep them up, bundle them together. Muttering, ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you don’t know what you’re talking about, fuck you, fuck you’, when I catch sight of my desktop, at the screensaver of a pile of dead children, flies on their faces, flies crawling into their mouths, black eyes staring at me saying murderer, charlatan and killer. So I grab the mouse and maximise my email client and there too, every email the same, every one of them from me to me, saying murderer and killer and charlatan. I scramble the power off and fall away from it, smash into my bookcase, knock the award from Campaign magazine so it hits the side of the desk and the glass explodes across the room. A second later Ruth smashes the door open, her hand over her mouth and I can see the horror in her face. I say something about an accident and push past her, out of the office, into the corridor. Bamidele’s there in the doorway, blocking my way. As I push him he’s solid and real, he pushes me back, pushes me back with stumps, holds them up in front of me, the arms stopping in bloody stumps, behind them his manic grin, wide and white mouth as he laughs. The blood is in my mouth and my eyes, I taste the iron, as he pushes them into my chest. The sharpness of the bone,
the warm wetness of the blood and he’s laughing and pushing. I’m screaming, ‘Fuck you, you’re not real, you’re not real’, even as I feel the bone piercing my clothes and the blood warm on my skin and in my mouth, ‘You’re not real’. Then I’m past him too and he catches me with a glancing blow which unbalances me at the top of the stairs, then there is air. As I fall I look back at him, with his smile and the gaps where his hands should be, then I hit the concrete, the wind forced from me. I am up again, running now, stabbing pain in my side with every footstep and breath. I am away, in the street, away from him and his laughing, into a world of staring faces and flat grey light. I am panicking, running, a blood covered maniac. People step aside in horror as I gibber and stumble and trample them, until I turn into an alley and collapse to my knees and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, throw up until there is only acid and bile and nothing left.
Sometime later I find myself outside the bank. The sweat is dry on me. I can smell myself. I’ve stopped shaking and I’m calm now. Everything is clear. I know what I must do.
Through the automatic revolving doors, the interior stretched by the glass, ugly, contorted. I’m in the foyer and there is a wall of warmth, stifling, and I loosen my scarf, gulp, then I’m through it, at the huge curved desk. The mahogany is cold on my palms, I’m looking into the smiling face and cold dead eyes of the beautiful girl and she is saying ‘Can I help you?’
I tell her my name and she’s on the phone, saying my name, looking at me under worried eyelids, her hand covering her mouth. She’s smiling at me again, but I can tell it’s false and a lie.
She’s asking me to take a seat, pointing at a sofa.
I sit and wait.
Music in the air, smell of perfume.
I try to work out the music, no vocals, just guitar, but I can’t place it. I can taste his blood.
A man comes in, leans over the desk, talks to the receptionist, only his toes touching the floor, and they look at me, talk again, huddled and conspiratorial.
Then the man is standing in front of me, saying, ‘How can I help you?’
My voice is taut, calm, I know what I must do.
‘I’d like to see Ben Jones please.’
He surveys me, makes a decision, says, ‘Wait here please,’ returns to the desk, to the phone and makes another hidden call. When he comes back his demeanour has changed. He is ruthless efficiency.
‘I’m sorry sir, but there isn’t a Ben Jones here.’
‘When will he be back?’ I ask.
‘No sir, I don’t think you understand. There isn’t anyone of that name here.’
‘Has he left?’
Stay calm.
‘No sir. There is no-one of that name that works here.’
‘I think you must be mistaken, I spoke to him the other day. Ben Jones. He works in the marketing department.’
‘Sorry sir. I think it’s you that is mistaken. There is no-one called Ben Jones who works here.’
My anger is rising. I’m barely strong enough to hold it back as I say, ‘Can you check again please? I work for your advertising agency. He’s my contact. I need to speak to him. It’s important.’
His look is incredulous. I glance down at my chest. The blood is gone. The tears have gone. There is dirt on the knee of my trousers where I fell, but the rest is gone. He isn’t writing me off as a mental tramp, he just doesn’t believe me.
‘It’s really important that I speak to him,’ I repeat, ‘or Mr Berkshire, can I speak to Mr Berkshire?’
‘No sir. That isn’t going to happen. Now I’m very busy, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
His hand is on my shoulder. I shrug it off. It finds its way back. Harder, more insistent, I am turned. I grasp his knuckles, try to move them. Nothing. Iron. Solid. As he turns me to the door I twist and turn, break away, run back towards the lifts, shouting ‘Ben, Ben Jones.’
The receptionist reaches out a manicured hand towards me, but I bat it aside, press all the buttons on the lift, the numbers impossibly high and I’m still shouting ‘Ben’ as I’m hauled out of the doors, my arm high behind my back. He punches me hard in the kidney so I drop to my knees, then he kicks me in the back of the head, it meets concrete and as I fade away I feel him lifting me, dragging me across the car park and dumping me on the pavement, where I lie listening to the thrum of cars as they pass me, huge spots of rain drumming unhindered on my upturned face.
59.
The order goes: The Cowboy, The Knight, The Pirate, The Soldier, The Lion, The Rhino, The Ape, The Horse, The Zebra, then The Dog.
It is true that dog is man’s best friend. However, the cold authority of The Cowboy has pushed him down to a lowlier position. In a time of war The Cowboy has no time for The Dog. He has no time for friends, only the order of The Zoo. Maybe if The Dog was a Collie or a Husky then he would be higher, but he is a mongrel, the sort seen scavenging on the streets of a South American city, the sort seen trotting behind malnourished teenage gang members, being chased away from bins with a stick, only to return when the humans have left.
He came from the wolves, but he is tamed, broken and beaten. He runs alongside us, docile, friendly and not as intelligent as we like to think.
We train him to walk us when we are blind, but we also dress him in human clothes and carry him around in handbags as trophies to our ego, reducing him to fashion.
He is Lassie telling us a relative has fallen down a well.
With three heads he guards the gates to the underworld.
He is Greyfriars Bobby standing guard over his deceased master for 14 wasted years.
He is Toto following Dorothy into the unknown.
He carries a barrel of brandy to stricken climbers, pulls a sledge across the tundra.
He is doting and mindless, and this weakness means he sits at the bottom while The Cowboy ignores him.
The only Animal below The Dog is The Chicken and he has no worth other than fodder. They are the last of The Plastics. They are well thumbed. Like The Rhino’s horn The Dog’s tail has been chewed and flattened with teeth marks. Without the rule of The Cowboy they would simply be wild and aimless. They are after all the beasts and this is what they do. They are the brainless, the followers, the masses.
Without the structure of The Zoo I would have found them concerning. There seems to be a propensity to violence under their plastic shells, an implicit threat which, through the taming and structure put in place by The Cowboy, The Knight and The Pirate, has been suppressed. Their primal instincts have been calmed into something altogether more settled and subservient. They needed to be contained. This, I have learned, is the nature of The Zoo.
The order goes: The Cowboy, The Knight, The Pirate, The Soldier, The Lion, The Rhino, The Ape, The Horse, The Zebra, The Dog, then The Chicken.
And that is the totality: The Zoo.
After lunch I traipse back to my room. Lethargy slows my legs, dragging them through weary treacle. No-one is really talking to me. It’s amazing how much I miss them now I’m on my own, when I thought of them as irritating and wearisome. I tried to begin a conversation with Beard at lunch, but he simply raised a hairy finger to his lips and ssssh-ed at me. I reached out to Mark for conversation but he turned a shy face away from me.
In the corridor the orderlies brush past me, Beth is a back turned on me. I long for my meeting with Janet, even though I know it’ll be probing and prying more than a conversation.
In my room I sit next to Bamidele on the bed and sigh.
‘You’re here now then?’ I ask.
He nods towards The Zoo.
‘It asked me to come.’ His accent is less thick here and easier to understand.
‘You’re not going to hurt me? It didn’t ask that?’
He shakes his head. ‘We’re past all that. I’m here to help you.’
‘The Zoo wants to help me?’
‘Why wouldn’t it?’
He puts his arm around my shoulder. It weighs nothing at all, it ma
y as well not be there.
It always tries to hurt me, that’s what it does. The Zoo is there to hurt me, I know that. I try to tell him. He stops me talking by squeezing my shoulder.
‘It’s time you understood. It wants you to understand.’
‘Understand what?’
I am aware I sound like a child.
‘You know what it all means. You’ve just forgotten. It’s time for you to remember.’
In my memory there is nothing apart from pain and confusion. I shake my head.
‘I can’t,’ I say.
‘You can. You have to. There’s no need to be afraid anymore. I told you, we’re past all that. Things are different now you know what The Zoo is and what it means. You just need to work out your position in it and the rest will fall into place.’
He gets to his feet. Bare feet on cold tiles. He is taller than I expect. He towers over me. I want to know more. He needs to tell me more. I open my mouth to ask him questions, lots of questions, but he is already padding away from me. At the door he turns and nods at me, then he is gone. After a pause I jump to my feet and run to the door, open it and glance up and down an empty corridor.
He is just fading footprints in the dust.
I face The Zoo.
It shivers, seems to pulsate, the room is filled with a low hum that permeates my skin and bones, the hair stands up on the back of neck, on the back of my hands, my arms alive with electricity.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask and I swear it smiles back at me. It wants answers. I need to go back to get them.
60.
I’m in a bar in the centre of the city, nursing my bruises. My face is swollen where it struck the pavement. There’s a mountain range of lumps on the back of my head, a head coated in hair matted with blood. I am surprised they served me. Guess they were scared not to. A pint is going flat on the table in front of me. I spin my phone on the wood, take a gulp of my flat pint. Scroll through the names on the phone until I reach Leary and click dial. It rings and rings long enough for me to assume he’s not going to answer, then as I’m putting it back down onto the table I hear him say, ‘Wotcha.’
The Zoo Page 20