The Old Men at the Zoo

by Angus Wilson

  We had reached the Stilton before he said, “Well, I hear Jackley’s on his way back. Have you got everything ready to hand over to him, Carter?”

  I hope that I did not betray my feelings, but I did not answer.

  Oresby said, “Oh come, Hales. You’re rather putting your foot in it. The Directorship has to be decided by the Committee and there’s—”

  “Yes, yes, of course, but Jackley’s the best man for the job.”

  Lord Oresby smiled, “There can always be two opinions about that. Some people would like to have our friend Carter here, if, that is, he were interested.”

  Hales shot a sharp glance at me. “Oh, sorry, Carter. Didn’t think you were an ambitious chap. A fine administrator, of course, but I never think of you as a zoologist.”

  “Well, I don’t know that Leacock was outstanding as a zoologist.” Lord Oresby exaggerated the reflective note as he said it.

  “Leacock!” Hales gave his little laugh. “We don’t want to go back to the murky past. Must have been an awful strain working with all those blighters. Your health hasn’t been too good, has it, Carter?”

  “I did have amoebal dysentery very badly at one time but strangely enough the rigours of camp life at Enfield seem to to have improved my health.”

  “Oh, you were at Enfield. Bad luck! How long were you there?”

  “From last July.”

  “Oh, I see, right at the end. Still you’ve worked your passage in the Resistance—just.”

  This was too much for our host, he said, “Carter’s not being interviewed now, my dear fellow.”

  Hales laughed again, “No, no. I shall be more deadly than this on the day. By the way, Jackley’s sent in some account of his present researches in San Francisco. He’s working on carbon dioxide stimulation with bottle nosed dolphins. Wants to create something on a large scale here for the same sort of work. Could be a big thing for the Society after a period of dud research.”

  I said, “My experience suggests to me that the Director mustn’t be too tied to any one experiment—.”

  “Look here. I don’t think we’d better discuss your views now, Carter, if you’re going to be a candidate. Can I have a port, Oresby? I seem to remember this club having a very good port. Of course, I thought you’d probably want to get away from the Zoo back to your naturalist’s work, Carter. I always think of you as a country man after those television talks of yours some years ago. Beautifully done they were for a popular audience.”

  I decided to say nothing of my schemes for a Nature Reserve at that moment.

  Lord Oresby said, “Good heavens I Carter’s no recluse. He’s principally an administrator. The Treasury fought hard to keep him there.”

  “Oh, yes, I was forgetting. I came across a chap from the Treasury—Ogilvie—he told me of some little tiffs he’d had with you. Admired you enormously as an administrator, but wasn’t your greatest fan as far as personal relationships went. Poor chap, he died in Southampton.”

  I wasn’t going to be led into a discussion of my personal relationships at the Treasury.

  Unthinkingly, I said, “Died at Southampton?” I could have bitten my tongue off as soon as I had said it.

  Hales said, “I’m thoroughly enjoying this Stilton. Yes, strangely enough, Southampton. Perhaps it escaped your notice that our major port towns were wiped out by enemy action. Some people think it was the reason we lost the war.”

  Oresby was nettled this time, he said, “Carter was practically running the Zoo at a desperate period. He had to remain detached.”

  From deep inside me there arose a reply I couldn’t hold back, “Too detached! I should hope if I were to become Director that I have now learned to be more engaged both with other people and with the animals.”

  The tension in my voice alarmed me; it obviously embarrassed Oresby and Hales even more.

  After a silence, Hales said, “Well, you had the tough luck to be associated with a very bad period—Leacock, Beard, Falcon, and that old swine Englander—a shocking lot of old men. A very bad period in the Zoo’s history.”

  Oresby gave a modified assent by the nod of his head.

  “I’m afraid,” I said, “I can’t see it as simply as that. You see, I knew them all.”

  Hales laughed. “Chacun à son goût. What did that old scoundrel get by the way?”

  Lord Oresby glanced at me nervously, “I’m afraid he got two two years,” he said.

  “Afraid? In my opinion he should have got life. Well, anyway we have to thank the excesses of chaps like that for forcing world opinion to put things to rights. They managed to sicken even their friends, the French and the Germans in the end. And now we’ve got new men and a new order. How do you feel about the new world before us, Carter?”

  “It excites me enormously,” I said, “especially because I shall always be deeply involved in the old.”

  After Hales had gone, I told Oresby that I should be definitely applying for the Directorship. He seemed pleased.

  “I’ll do all I can for you,” he said, “but you mustn’t forget that Jackley has the advantage of having been off the scene.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “I hope the Committee may see the disadvantage of that, too, by the time I’ve made my case.”

  As I returned to Regent’s Park I felt very determined.

  I played with the children that evening in continued happiness, but I knocked over Violet’s brick castle.

  She said, “You’d better be careful. If you get to be a nuisance, Mummy will send you away.”

  Reggie looked aside, blushing. He said to me quickly, “What’s the strongest animal, Dad? I bet it’s an elephant, or is it a hippo?”

  Violet said, “It’s a giraffe.”

  “Silly! A giraffe couldn’t kill anyone. Could it Dad? A rotten old giraffe!”

  I answered, “I hope not. I’m not sure yet.”