The Zoo (27 page)

‘What's a lie?' he asks me, the words thick with scorn.

‘The campaign. It's all a lie.'

He laughs. Empty. Callous.

‘Of course it's a bloody lie. It's an advertising campaign.'

Laughs again. Like he's cracked a hilarious joke. Normally I would feel like I should laugh. I want to smash the phone on the table until the glass breaks. Get in the car. Drive round to his house and stick the shards in his smarmy fucking face.

Instead I try to tell him about Nhgosa. About the mines and the rebels and the children and the rape and the murder. But the words are jumbled and confused and I know I sound like I'm ranting and desperate and mad. All the while he laughs over me. In the end I peter out. Hilary is laughing so much he snorts.

‘Listen,' he says, when he manages to control himself, ‘you've been working hard recently, probably too hard. Burning the proverbial candle. You know it's true. You're not thinking straight. God knows you're not speaking straight. Here's what I want you to do, and I'm not going to take no for an answer, I want you to go home. I want you to take a shower. I want you to drink a big coffee, a pint of water, then I want you to sleep it off. You'll feel better tomorrow. I promise. Then I want you to spend the day with your wife and child. When was the last time you spent some serious time with Sally and Harry?'

My wife. My son. A lump in my throat. Everything else fades away, replaced by my son, with my wife.

‘I don't . . .'

‘Okay. It's okay. I'll sort everything out. Go home. Sober up. Mend things. Take a couple of days off. I do not want to see you near the office. And while I mean that out of concern, I mean it literally too. I do not want to see you near the office.'

He hangs up.

My wife. My son.

Fighting against the rest of it.

I dial Leary's number. It's engaged. On a hunch I ring Hilary again, ready to hang up if he answers, but he's engaged too.

My wife. My son.

I force a soggy hand into my pocket, fish out my car keys, focus on the door through four empty pint glasses, then stagger to my feet, back to my car and drive home drunk.

The whole way Bamidele is seated next to me in the passenger seat, gibbering and shouting, half African, half English, so loud I have to play the stereo at full volume to drown him out. All the while waving his arms in front of me, blood on the dashboard, on the steering wheel making it slick, on the inside of the windscreen so I have to repeatedly wipe it clean with my sleeve.

The car lurches to a stop. Stalls as I leave it in gear, lift the clutch, bump into the garden wall. I drop the keys as I get out, smack my head against the doorframe and watch them skitter underneath the car. Leave them there for now, concentrate instead on getting to the door. I realise now how pissed I am. I make it to the door, half expecting the lock to have changed, fumble the key into the chamber, hear the click, push the door open, where it snags on the security chain. I put my weight against the door, lean into the world spin. The hall light is on. I lean out of the door again. The lounge curtains are closed, a chink of light between them. Back to the door. Squeeze my hand into the gap, attempt to unlatch the security chain. Snag my nail on it, bend it back painfully. Curse and sway about. Grasp the door for balance. Steady myself. Level. Movement from inside the house.

‘Sally?' I call out, more slur than words, ‘Sally. Are you in there?'

Light across the hallway. Outline of a body in shadow.

‘Sally,' I holler again.

A noise behind me. Look over my shoulder at Bamidele's grinning face. He gesticulates with his stump, a sign I read as encouragement.

‘Sally. Is that you?'

‘Leave us alone,' she says, staying out of view.

‘Let me in, darling.'

‘No way.'

She says something I can't hear to someone behind her.

‘Harry, Harry, it's me, son. Daddy's home.'

‘No, go back into the lounge, wait for Mummy there. I need to talk to your father. No, it's adult talk, baby.'

His blond head, her arm around him. My heart shatters, the pieces only held together by booze.

‘Come on, Sally, let me in,' I whine, face squashed inbetween the door and frame, air forced from my cheeks.

‘Fuck off, James. Leave us alone.'

‘No. Don't say that. Let me in. It's my home too.'

‘Well, if it's your home, where the fuck have you been the last few days? Where have you been when my mother has had to look after Harry? Where have you been when he's been crying for his Dad at night? Where the fuck have you been?' Her voice is high-pitched, stretched, hissing out through her teeth.

‘Let me in and I'll tell you. I've had things to sort out. You told me to sort myself out. I needed some time. I had some things to do.'

‘You're drunk. I can hear it. You disappear. Abandon your family. Abandon me. Then come back here, drunk and shouting.'

‘I'm not shouting. I'm not drunk. I just want to come home. Please, Sally. Let me come home.'

‘Too late, James. Way too late.'

‘Please?' I plead.

‘Go away. I don't want to see you. I couldn't hate you any more than I do now. You should go. If you stay I'm going to say something you don't want to hear.'

‘Sally.'

‘Go away.'

The hiss raised. Sharper, cutting me open.

The door to the lounge closes. The light gone. The shadow gone. My wife gone and with her my son.

The curtain flickers again, spitting light across the lawn. At the window. Press my face against the glass. Searching for a gap in the curtains. Searching for my family.

Back to the door, kicking the base of it, shaking it on its hinges, screaming for my family, screaming for my wife and child, banging on the wood with numb hands. Lights come on in the next door house. Disapproving faces at windows mouthing words of reproach. Me responding, ‘Mind your own fucking business. Fucking busybody. Mind your own business. Go on. Fuck off back inside.'

Scrabbling about on the floor I find the keys, then I'm back in the car with my foot to the floor. Reversing onto the road, the door flapping like loose skin, ripping tyre marks into the tarmac as I career away. Bamidele is in the passenger seat and we're weaving down the road howling out of the window. Tears of rage and anger and despair and emptiness freezing on my face. Cold lips mouthing missing names.

Hotel.

Dropping credit cards onto the reception desk. Scrawling a messy signature. Empty room. Starchy bed. Neat vodka in a plastic glass. Another. Another. Another.

Falling.

So far so . . .

Falling.

So far so . . .

Falling.

So far so . . .

Fallen.

Time passes. Minutes are hours long and hours fly by so quickly I can't hold onto them. I can't sleep, stare instead at a pockmarked ceiling. Then I can't wake. I burrow myself into spiky dreams, then wake in a screaming sweat. The room gets smaller, compressing about me, then expanding so rapidly that I shake with agoraphobia.

Images scroll around the wall – burning villages, a child scrabbling at the dirt with bleeding fingernails, a hail of gunfire across a fire-orange sky, convoy of trucks, berets and grimaces and the cowering public. Over the top run the words from the adverts like a telecaster, the words I wrote, the lies I wrote.

I order bottle after bottle from the hotel bar and ask them to be left outside my door. Bolt them back neat as I write texts to Sally I never send.

Days in. Could be days in. May only be a few hours. There's a knock at the door. I ignore it. Another knock, more insistent this time. I yank myself from the floor, skin peeling away from the carpet. I realise I'm naked, my torso is covered in welts and bruises, some old, some brand new, a lattice work of tiny cuts on my forearm, beads of blood caught in my arm hairs.

Another knock.

The door is so far away, so far, like a reverse dolly zoom from a Hitchcock film. I reach out for it with overlong arms and tiny spindly fingers. Then I am there smack up to it. My face is against the wood and I am massive, Alice massive, tottering over the tiny room, so far down, so far down, that the room spins with vertigo. I clutch my head in my hands, squeeze my eyes shut until the carousel slows then squint through the spyglass and see the shiny bald head of my dealer. Runner. Thank God. Though I don't remember calling him. Opening the door a fraction I scope the corridor out, then let him in.

‘Easy, bruv,' he says.

I nod at him then, remembering my nakedness, scuttle into the bathroom, ignoring the debris in there, and pull on the complementary dressing gown.

Back in the room he's sitting on the chair at the desk, legs crossed tightly, camply, mocking me.

‘What's going down, Howard Hughes?'

I just hold my hand out and say, ‘Please sir, I want some more.'

He's examining me. Like he's questioning me. Like he doesn't want to give me any.

‘I'm good for it,' I say.

‘Oh I don't doubt that, my friend. I don't doubt that at all. But, look at the state of this place. I'm the last one to do myself out of business. Are you sure you need it?'

‘Fuck me. Are you a drug dealer or a drug counsellor?' I pull a wodge of notes from a stained wallet, wave them in front of him. ‘Now, I want a quarter, here's the money. Are you going to sell it to me or are you going to fuck off?'

After he's gone I'm searching in my pockets for something to chop it up on when I find an invite with a charcoal drawing of my wife on it. Checking the date against my phone I realise it's today.

I rack out a massive line and offer one to Bamidele who is seated on the end of the bed. He refuses, so I do his too.

I question myself the whole time I am in the shower, scrubbing off days of detritus, scrubbing away at the pain until my skin is raw and bleeding and my eyes are stinging with the soap.

I continue to question myself as I dry myself with crispy hotel towels. Pulling on dirty underwear I notice someone has written in the steam on the mirror,
you're only lying to yoursel
f. As I smear it away with the back of my hand I catch a glimpse of my red-rimmed eyes and shudder.

I order a clean shirt from the hotel reception and, while I wait for it to arrive, light a cigarette and watch the smoke curl around the ceiling fan.

My juddering fingers are only just capable of phoning a taxi and, in the time it takes for it to arrive, I inhale three sweeping lines of chop and drink two miniatures from the mini bar.

As the cab slides through the city I watch the world through a sheet of glass and am full of panic and loss, everything running away from me like the rivulets of rain chasing each other across the windows.

The party is at a champagne bar tucked away in one of the side streets of the cultural quarter. It's the sort of place with a tiny sign that lives by the idea that it only wants you as a customer if you know it's there. The sort of place that doesn't think it needs to advertise. The sort of place that makes people like me redundant and paradoxically the sort of place people like me gravitate to.

I hover outside, smoke a cigarette, letting fine rain drum on my head, trying to let the cold water clear it.

‘Can I come in with you?' asks Bamidele, suddenly at my side, blood running into his eyes.

‘No fucking way,' I say quickly.

He seems sad, but doesn't follow me.

Inside it's low-lighters and little booths with leather seats and people leaning in to talk over mahogany tables. Exposed brickwork, low archways – it's self-conscious, stylish, quickly dating. Bamidele is at the window, face against the glass, big eyes following me around. I wave a hand at him, tell him to go away. He lowers his head and disappears into the night.

I find the others downstairs milling around the bar, all scarves and jackets and jeans and smiles. They looked shocked to see me, bury it quickly and there is a round of pats on the backs and kissing on the cheeks. Hilary clasps me tight on the shoulder, tells me he's pleased to see me, tells me that everything is alright, that the bank is fine and everything is going well. Bile rises in my throat. Alan tells me I look like shit and laughs a warm, beery laugh in my ear. Despite myself I'm pleased to see them all.

Baxter makes his way over to me. I shake his hand and tell him as sincerely as I can, congratulations. He's glowing. A beautiful woman is at his side. A happy, beautiful woman.

‘Melissa?' I ask.

Baxter nods. She holds out a delicate hand. I ignore it and kiss her on the cheek.

‘Congratulations to you both. I'm sure you will be very happy. Would you like a drink?'

‘That would be very kind of you,' she says and her voice is like crystal.

At the bar I order a bottle of Dom Perignon and ask the barman to take it over to them. I slink away to the toilet and do another line off the toilet roll dispenser. It burns on the way down the back of my throat.

Back at the bar I order a Jaeger bomb. Collins is next to me, so I order another two and insist he chugs it down with me. He does and then fades away into the gloom. I order another beer which doesn't taste of anything. Find myself wandering around and through the booze and the drugs I'm thinking,
things will
be all right, things will be fine, just like they
always were, everything will go back to the way it
was, this will all wash away
. And at least on face value I'm right, with every drink it washes away. With these people about and this booze inside me it all seems okay, Nghosa is a country far away and nothing at all to do with me. I'm feeling better, feeling much better, calmer, orderly, back on top of things.

Jessica appears at my side. She glides out of the darkness into a pool of light, lit perfectly from above, she is all cheekbones and kohl eyes, like a movie star.