The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  ‘We’d better call an ambulance,’ Andrew said.

  Another cry from the bathroom compelled them to act fast. Will picked up the phone; Ben asked what they might need; Andrew said maybe towels. They knocked again on the bathroom door.

  ‘Come in,’ gasped Kimberley.

  Lodged on the floor between toilet and bath, huffing and puffing, legs splayed, she said, ‘It’s right there. I can feel it.’ She had pulled off her underwear and hiked up the roomy skirt.

  Seeing how cold the tiled floor looked, Andrew helped Kimberley up and slid the threadbare mat beneath her. ‘Breathe,’ he said, trying to hide his fear. ‘Just breathe.’

  ‘We’ve called an ambulance,’ said Ben.

  Andrew had no clue what came next; he tried to remember all those hospital dramas he’d watched.

  Will’s arm reached around the door with warm towels from the airing cupboard, and Ben placed them near Kimberley. Andrew rubbed her feet.

  ‘It’s not gonna wait!’ shrieked Kimberley, eyes wild. ‘I need to push!’

  Will called from the other side of the door that the ambulance was ten minutes away.

  ‘Can’t … wait … ten … minutes!’ grunted Kimberley.

  ‘What do we do?’ Ben asked Andrew.

  ‘Just help,’ said Andrew, trying to stay calm.

  With no clue what he was looking for, Andrew peered between Kimberley’s legs at the angry, stretched skin, the glimpse of fluffy hair differing in colour to that surrounding it. ‘I think you’re supposed to push on a contraction, so when you’re in pain, just go for it.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ moaned Kimberley, chin on her chest. ‘Here it comes…’ She bore down, face crimson; the child’s skull grew bigger within the circle of its mother’s opening, but then retreated as Kimberley surrendered with a scream.

  ‘Keep pushing,’ urged Andrew.

  On the wave of Kimberley’s next tightening, in a rush of stained liquid and mucus, a head popped out, followed by a slimy body that Andrew caught in a towel. He was stunned. Moved and stunned.

  ‘Is it okay?’ Kimberley lolled about as limp as cooked spaghetti.

  Andrew rubbed the baby gently.

  ‘Why isn’t it crying?’ Kimberley tried to reach out.

  Will tapped on the door asking why things were so quiet. As though to answer, the baby screamed. Andrew laughed; Kimberley laughed.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kimberley.

  ‘You should see.’

  Andrew watched Kimberley open the towel and smile and whisper, ‘Hello little girl – so you’re the one who’s been kicking me all this time.’

  All Andrew could see when he handed the child over was blood staining Kim’s skirt and the towels, and he thought, Blood gets everywhere. Blood means birth, it means life, it means death, and it means hurt. He saw his own every day.

  ‘Should we cut the cord?’ said Andrew.

  ‘Leave it for the paramedics to do,’ said Ben.

  ‘She’s Lola Heidi after your mum, Ben,’ said Kimberley.

  Will appeared in the doorway now, smoked cocktail glass in hand. Kimberley beckoned, and he leaned over to look at the bundle. Will trembled. He said that there had been no girls born in the family for a long time, the last being his sister who was now seventy.

  ‘My mum’s youngest sister is only fifty-four,’ said Ben, clearly irritated.

  ‘Still, it’s a long time.’

  Andrew had never seen a thing that was moments old, so much ahead, so little past. Never again would she be five minutes old. Already she was defined by numbers.

  Ben walked out. Andrew followed and joined him at the window in the front room. Ambulance sirens wailed.

  ‘That was pretty overwhelming,’ Andrew said, trembling again. ‘I just delivered a baby. A baby.’

  The sirens grew louder. They looked for the ambulance. Eventually Ben said, ‘You delivered my sister.’

  Andrew insisted he was muddled up, that he was excited and not thinking quite right, and she was his niece, Mike’s daughter.

  ‘No, Andrew, trust me.’ Ben looked at him. ‘I have a sister.’

  16

  Nothing

  When Ben was a baby, and had kicked the cot mobile onto the carpet, Grandad would come in, take off his blue slippers and put them on Ben’s feet. They were too big and made him look like a clown.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Once Kimberley and her new daughter had been taken to the hospital with Will – who argued that as the grandad he should go – Andrew and Ben washed the mismatched plates and put them in the cupboards.

  Feeling sure his blood sugars were low yet again, Andrew asked Ben if they had any Coke as he had drunk all of his. There was only weeks-old lemonade in the fridge. He made do, sipping as they tidied up. Andrew watched Ben rub the nine-birded plate until it squeaked and decided not to bring up Lola’s parentage again unless he did.

  Ben suddenly stopped and said, ‘Do you want kids?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must know,’ said Ben.

  ‘Why must I?’ Andrew frowned. The lemonade was not having the same brisk affect as Coke did and he felt crabby.

  ‘You’re nearly forty.’ Ben looked at Andrew, quickly adding, ‘I’m not saying that’s old, but you must know by now.’

  ‘My mother was forty-four when she had me and never thought it would happen.’

  ‘Exactly. Never say never.’

  ‘She also said the fling that resulted in me was nothing,’ said Andrew.

  Nothing had baffled him as a kid. Nothing filled the room when Andrew’s mother worked sixteen-hour shifts and he talked both sides of a conversation. Working in a care home, where she tirelessly toiled until retirement, she often said to him that she felt as old as those she catheterised. I have nothing, she would say.

  ‘If we had a child, it would be everything.’ Ben’s eyes were serious.

  ‘You’re only twenty-two,’ snapped Andrew. ‘And you reckon you’re going to Africa.’

  ‘Are you okay? You look so pale.’

  Andrew slammed the cupboard and looked outside. The room grew dark, but the sun hadn’t gone, and the garden’s shadows were not yet long. A brown moth bounced off the window as though drunk.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he mumbled.

  But he didn’t feel it.

  Though he had never worried about his age, now he imagined a clock ticking past important moments faster than he could enjoy them.

  This isn’t nothing, it ticked.

  ‘It’s different for women.’ Ben was stacking cups on the counter.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Women have a biological clock,’ said Ben. ‘I’m only asking cos of Lola. It makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  The brown moth gave up its dizzy dance and fluttered away.

  Andrew finished his lemonade and dropped the glass into the washing up bowl. ‘Do you want them then?’ he said. When the glass sank into the bubbles he realised his vision had blurred again.

  This isn’t nothing, ticked the clock.

  ‘I think one day, but not yet.’ Ben was wrapping the tea towel about his wrist like a bandage, undoing it and then looping it again. ‘That was incredible what Kim did. One minute she’s pregnant and the next there’s a living person. It won’t be easy for us though, will it? I think I want one.’

  ‘One?’ asked Andrew. He went to the back door, needing air on his damp face. His heart was beating terrifyingly fast.

  Ben approached him. ‘We’ve only known each other two months, haven’t we?’

  ‘I’d never have one.’ Andrew opened and closed the door like a fan, his gold fringe rising and falling.

  ‘I get it, you don’t want children.’

  ‘No, I’d never have one. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be one child?’ Ben shook his head. ‘Playing Scrabble on your own, making up the words for two people, playing cards against yourself. Getting a see-saw at Christmas that you can’t use
unless you have a friend over.’

  Andrew’s head swam.

  This isn’t nothing, ticked the clock.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Ben joined him at the door and they stood in the light for a moment before Andrew shook him off and returned to the sink.

  ‘I’m fine! You brought up kids and dads and who they are!’

  ‘I just feel for Mike not seeing Lola’s birth – what he doesn’t know. I’m sure my dad is that baby’s blood father.’

  ‘Going around saying it could fucking ruin lives,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘No! Stop asking me! I feel shit!’ Andrew breathed hard. Held onto the table. ‘I think I should test my blood again. Can you…’

  He gestured at his bag for the blood meter, but when Ben had found it, Andrew saw he had run out of test strips. He started looking in cupboards, not sure what for. Everything was hazy. Words came out of him, words he knew barely made sense. Ben took his hands, stopping him pulling all the tinned mackerel off the shelf. He slumped against the doorframe.

  ‘You need more sugar. Sit down. Stop moving about.’

  ‘When a father doesn’t stick around,’ said Andrew, sitting on a chair, knowing he was babbling, ‘when he barely appears long enough to impart that necessary essence of himself, he leaves a gap that is profound.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ben gently, kneeling at his feet. ‘I know. We can talk soon, but now you have to eat this, please.’ He held something out. His face was too close and elongated, like a ghostly mask. But his eyes were kind. His eyes. His golden eyes.

  ‘I love your eyes,’ said Andrew.

  ‘I know. Eat this.’

  This isn’t nothing, ticked the clock.

  Andrew reached for what Ben was holding out and it broke the fuzzy cloud. He could not get hold of it. He felt Ben open his mouth and try to force it in. He was talking but Andrew couldn’t even hear him now.

  This isn’t nothing.

  No, this was definitely something.

  Something was very wrong.

  Andrew feared that if he closed his eyes Ben would disappear forever. That he would never come around, never see his gorgeous face again. So he struggled hard to keep his heavy eyelids open. Or maybe he was scared that he would disappear, like when children play hide-and-seek and think they are invisible if they cover their eyes. Andrew didn’t want to disappear forever – become nothing – but the dark dropped on top of the light, until there was only black.

  PART THREE

  BEN

  17

  ZIMBABWE

  Something Must Die So Something Can Live

  Ben knew he could never hunt. He did not truly have a lion’s heart.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  There comes a morning in Zimbabwe when even the sky’s glorious flames don’t lift Ben’s spirits. When his sunrise, his land, his refuge does not comfort. It is early. Earlier than usual. He has been awake since it was dark. Isn’t sure if he even slept at all. He wishes there was a chair for him to sit on outside the hut. Instead, Ben grasps the wooden railing and breathes deeply, tries to let the dawn infuse him with its usual calm.

  Today, it is as if Andrew is with him. As if he can smell him, the soap he used, the deodorant he wore. The memories are flooding back now. Ben tried only to let in the good ones but doing that seems to have unlatched a door and let them all in.

  Now Ben sees vividly the moment Andrew collapsed in their kitchen. Remembers the strange things he muttered before passing out on the lino at his feet. Ben injected him with his emergency glucagon pen, hands wobbling. It didn’t work; he remained out cold. So Ben called an ambulance. It took an age to come; maybe it was minutes, but it felt like forever.

  Ben thinks he should call Andrew today. He wishes for the first time that he hadn’t thrown his phone away in England. He will use the communal phone here. It doesn’t matter if Andrew hangs up or ignores him. No matter what happened, he has to make sure he is okay.

  How could he not have done before now?

  ‘Christ, Roberts, now you’re talking to yourself when you’re awake.’

  Ben starts. It is Simon; he hasn’t even heard him emerge.

  ‘I was jus…’ Ben can’t think of anything.

  Simon slaps him on the back. ‘I’d have thought hooking up with someone like Esther you’d be less restless. I’d sure as hell sleep better if I spent an evening with her!’

  ‘Don’t talk about her like that,’ says Ben.

  ‘Only teasing. You ready?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The hunt?’

  Ben had forgotten. Tonight Lucy will hunt for the first time, and he is going along.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ says Simon. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world. A gang of lionesses savaging something – I’ll be there.’

  Ben spends the rest of the day avoiding everyone, even Esther.

  At nine o’clock, against a sunset waving on the horizon like the legs of an orange octopus, a now-eight-month-old Lucy heads out on her first hunt. Standing in the back of a dirt-covered truck with Stig, Simon and two other volunteers, Ben watches his young protégé lead the other lionesses.

  Having bonded with a placid creature called Aurora and hot-headed Sheba, Lucy now asserts her innate leadership and takes the group towards a herd of impala gathered to relax by some smooth-barked fever trees. Nothing is more draining than sunshine when your fur is like a great winter coat and you must run at forty miles an hour to catch your dinner, so lionesses do most of their hunting at sunset when the temperature falls and the small animals grow sleepy, and at night where in the dark they can more easily approach their prey.

  The group in the truck have two pairs of binoculars to pass around, but Ben isn’t sure he wants to see a kill in close-up. Instead he views the action with the safety of distance.

  ‘I almost feel like I should warn the impala,’ he whispers to Simon.

  ‘Better bloody not,’ says Simon. ‘Lucy might turn on you for dinner! Anyway, whose side are you on? Don’t you want her to succeed?’

  ‘I do … but…’ Ben feels helpless.

  ‘Nature is brutal,’ says Stig. ‘Something must die so something can live.’

  Fucking shut up, thinks Ben.

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  One lioness always leads the hunt, often a mother, but there is no parent here. Aurora and Sheba prepare to attack from the side, unspoken agreements made before the quest. Lucy crouches low, camouflaged by long grass, and approaches the group of impala slowly. Her companions are some metres behind. She will know she must get close before charging; impala can run fast, and for much longer than a lion. If they get a good lead, there will be no meal tonight. However, if an animal spots a predator and stays very still, he might survive; a lioness’s sense of smell is stronger than her sight or hearing.

  But these antelopes are not still; they graze and shuffle and kick in the dying light. They are joyfully unaware of approaching danger. Ben feels sick for them. He loves Lucy but fears for the beautiful creatures she wants to rip apart. A very young antelope frolics about the legs of a bigger one, his tan and white tail swishing. Black patches above his feet look like socks. Ben wishes he would stop the dance. Save himself. Run while he can. Escape the inevitable.

  But sometimes you can’t.

  Ben knows this more than anyone.

  ‘Lucy’s bloody ace,’ Simon whispers to him. ‘Look at her. You’d not think it was her first hunt. She’ll have no trouble in the wild, mate.’

  Ben should be happy; his cub is doing what she is supposed to, what will let her be free.

  ‘She’s definitely a leader,’ says Stig. ‘Look how the other two follow her, as slow as she is, trusting her totally.’

  Engine throbbing quietly, the truck remains at a distance. The little black-socked antelope still leaps about.

  Run, you fool, Ben thinks when Lucy is only feet away from the herd. Run, and you might es
cape. How can you not sense her?

  ‘There she goes,’ whispers Stig, the awe obvious in his voice.

  Ben watches through his fingers, breath held, still refusing the binoculars. The lionesses attack. The impala don’t stand a chance. In a flurry of panic, they leap about, hoping to confuse their foes, some jumping so high they look as though they have springs on their hooves. A few have the sense to escape, to run off into the grass. The black-socked antelope runs.

  But Lucy runs too.

  Her coat ripples like a golden sea. Her legs are fired by the heat of hunger and glisten with damp exertion. She leaps at the little antelope. It happens for Ben in slow motion. At first the attack looks like a loving embrace. Lucy wraps her front paws about the creature’s neck and brings him roughly to the ground. She bites into his neck and crushes his windpipe. The antelope struggles – but not for long. The tussle is a desperate battle, and the small creature fights valiantly to survive. It is not that a lioness wants life more, or that she is the better animal, but she knows what she can have. Blood stains Lucy’s jaws, the ground, and her paws.

  And she looks utterly beautiful.

  ‘Wow,’ breathes Simon, almost speechless for once.

  ‘I know,’ says Stig.

  Ben once read a theory that lions project calming thoughts into their prey, lessening their suffering as they die. If Lucy does this with her kill, the little impala gives no clue. He seems to succumb in misery. Though from this distance Ben cannot see his eyes, he imagines they flash with amber agony.

  Simon nudges Ben, again offers him the binoculars.

  ‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘It’s horrible enough from this distance.’

  Afterwards, the three cats lie down separate from each other, a preferred position to eat, and tear flesh from the stomachs of their prey, swallowing without chewing. The lucky antelopes who escaped death are long gone. The sun dies altogether. Blackness snuffs out the light.

  The day is over.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ says Simon, grinning. ‘Nice table manners.’