The Old Men at the Zoo

by Angus Wilson

  “Would you care to look at the paper?”

  “No, thank you, I’m too tired. But leave it with me.”

  The decision was unfortunate for my peace of mind. The paper was Godmanchester’s Advertiser—a rag I seldom saw—and a large portion was given over to rumours of war. Although the Zoo was not mentioned by name, there was a special word of praise for those London institutions which, despite the Government’s lulling words, had decided on evacuation. I lay on my bed for more than half an hour before my aching desire for sleep could swallow up my growing certainty that my suspicions of our President were well grounded.

  At first I felt I could not puncture Leacock’s new found zest in living; then I became irritated with his evasion of reality; at last, I decided that I must not again let my dislike of doing hurt absolve me from a larger duty. But not until I had slept, I thought, not until I was rested enough to be as kind and as serious as I knew how.

  It was midday when I woke, refreshed and resolved. I was to meet Leacock at the old Stretton private Zoo now used for the resting and treatment of new arrivals from Regent’s Park. Then, sauntering through the Exotic Park, we were to make our way to Merritt’s Farm for luncheon. The motor car dropped me at the entrance to a paddock which might have been the scene of rehearsal for some County Agricultural Exhibition or even the Royal Show, if it had not been for the rarity of the creatures being groomed. In the foreground Filson was superintending the feeding of some emus, a crane and an adjutant stork that had just been released from the loose box in which I had brought them down. In the distance, half a mile away, Strawson’s fat figure was being shaken into melting jelly as he helped a young keeper to exercise a llama.

  Concerned for Filson’s welfare and anxious to postpone my meeting with Leacock, I asked the old man how he found life in the country.

  “It’s a new life, Sir. I’d never have believed it. But I feel as I did in the first days when I was put in charge of the humming bird house just after the War. There seems something to do all the time and something worth doing too. Mind you, it’s not for me to say, but it’s the Director that does it. It’s an experience to work for him. Nothing’s too much trouble to help you, but nothing’s too much to ask you to do. I said to Mrs Filson last night, ‘I’ve never been driven like it and I’ve never felt more equal to it, though I’m turned sixty’. Of course, there’ll never be anyone like Mr Price, as you know, Sir. But . . . well, working with the Director is a different sort of thing. As I said to Mrs Filson it’s like a mission sermon—like the Dominicans or the Jesuits give in our church, you know, Sir—after the usual sermon by Father Hansford. I can’t do fairer by Mr Price than make the comparison.”

  I wondered what either party might have made of it.

  But I asked, “And Mrs Filson?”

  “Marvellous, Sir. She’s learning to drive the little car Lord Godmanchester’s given us, to go into Hereford for Mass and that. And though she misses her lounge, she’s got it into her head to start collecting antiques to furnish the cottage. Black and white it is. With the old beams. And she’s hoping to pick things up here and there, you know, as the fancy takes her.” He paused. “And the dahlias in our cottage garden, Sir, are a picture. I hope you’ll come to see them.”

  I hesitated, then I asked, “It doesn’t worry you working with Strawson?”

  The old man looked down, then taking a handful of grapes from his pocket, he appeared to be intent on feeding the crane.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” he said, “but time will do it. And everything tactful to make me feel easier the Director’s done. I’m sorry you had to tell him by the way, Sir, of what I’d said, and yet I’m not, for it’s taught me the fine cut of the man’s character.”

  This information further complicated the feelings with which I saw Leacock get out of his Landrover and come towards me from the distant road. As I advanced towards him, I tried to avoid Strawson, but he bore down upon me.

  “And how may I ask is the old place, Sir? As smoggy as ever if I may judge from the London look you’ve brought with you.”

  Luckily Leacock hailed me at that moment. As we walked back to the Landrover, he said, “Of course, I’ve been very cut off from the uniformed staff in the past, but I’m getting to know them now. That man Strawson’s a humbug, as you said, but he’s not altogether incompetent and I work him hard. Filson’s the best chap—a bit slow but utterly reliable. There’s no doubt your friend Price has done a good job of training there.”

  I gazed out of the window until I no longer wanted to laugh at this judgment, then I took a gulp and said, “Before you talk about the wonderful progress you’ve made down here, will you forgive me if I tell you something that’s worrying me greatly.”

  “Of course. But you shouldn’t worry. You can never do the best work that way. Of course with Falcon and Sanderson round your neck, I’m not surprised.”

  “It’s not that. I am overworked but that wouldn’t upset me if I felt sure of what I was working for.”

  Leacock turned on me with a hurt and puzzled look.

  “Don’t judge what we’re doing here until you’ve seen everything, Carter.”

  “Oh, please, I’ve judged it in essence already and I mean all the praise that I’ve given. No, it’s Godmanchester’s motives that I’m worried about. There’s hardly a member of the staff at Regent’s Park who hasn’t come somehow or other to think that the move to Stretton is an evacuation in the face of threat of war. And though I can’t prove it, I believe Godmanchester has told them so.”

  “Well that’s what he believes. He told us so.”

  “He also told us that his belief was not to be murmured to anyone. Now it’s more than hinted at in his newspapers. What is one to think?”

  Leacock laughed. “That he’s trying to create a war scare, of course. I’ve never had any doubt that that was one of his motives.” He began patiently to explain to me, “You know, Carter, there are more sorts of men than one. Now I’m an entirely single minded chap. But Godmanchester’s got multiple aims. Take his attitude to this place. I think he was sincerely impressed by my ideas. But he’s an amateur and his vision is elsewhere. Then again, as you told him, he’s got it into his head that he may have to retire from the political scene and that zoo-keeping would be a nice hobby. I doubt if he thinks of it as more than a very remote insurance. We must hope he’s right. Then he truly believes that the Government’s incompetent so he’s not exactly lying when he says that he thinks we’re in for trouble. But I’ve felt from the start that he was exaggerating that. I don’t feel war in the air myself.” He sniffed the breeze that came in through the swivel window as though to reassure himself. “No, far more important to him is that he should be in power. Not selfishly, you know, he genuinely thinks he’s the only competent man for the job. He may be right. That’s politics, I don’t know. Being, as I say, a single-minded chap, I don’t too much like the devious way he goes about things and the lack of concentration of effort. It looks to me too much like old age, but there you are.”

  I burst out laughing. Leacock flushed red.

  “I’m sorry if you find my views ridiculous.”

  “No, no, that’s not it at all. It’s only that this has been my suspicion all along and I’ve thought it too disgraceful to mention to you.”

  “Unprincipled more than disgraceful, don’t you think? But then we know he’s not an idealist. At least not in the sense that we understand it. But in any case ours is only one of the enterprises he’s interested in. I read his rags down here, you know. I’m too tired for The Times. Business firms, factories, archaeological expeditions, sports events, everything he’s got a stake in, even the pictures his wife has lent to the Tate, are being used to point the same moral—Godmanchester for Prime Minister or else. And we must hope he gets his way. The Prime Minister for our honorary President would give the Society great prestige and it would also bring the Reserve government money. And it would keep him too busy to interfere.”

&n
bsp; My amazement at his new found confidence must have reached him. For a moment the old high-flown, preaching note came into his voice.

  “And he’s been generous beyond belief, Carter. If anything I’ve said suggests that I’ve forgotten that, I’m sorry for it. I shall never forget it.”

  We were approaching the red brick farmhouse. One wing was covered with the grey green of wistaria, the other with the glossy green of magnolia grandiflora. With its elegant white porch and shelled cupola it seemed to me everything that was desirable. My anxieties were forgotten in contemplating it.

  “It’s a bit square and characterless, isn’t it?” said Leacock. “But Mrs Leacock’s made the rooms very cosy.”

  I said, “I simply don’t understand how you can calmly accept all you’ve said about Godmanchester and place any reliance on his word. The gentleman’s agreement you’ve accepted for the Reserve . . .”

  He braked suddenly, jolting me against the car roof, turning the bonnet close up against a rhododendron bush, so that its rare autumn crimson blossoms were pressed ridiculously against the windscreen.

  He said, “I’m sixty-two, Carter. I haven’t time to hang about. This is the greatest chance I’ve ever had and I assure you that I shan’t easily allow anybody to take it from me.”

  I did not feel much happier, though I recognized in his new manner some basis for reassurance. As we drove up the gravel drive towards the porch, where Mrs Leacock in cinnamon jumper and purple tweed suit awaited us, I could say no more than, “I’ll do my best to help you.”

  Inside the house my spirits were at once depressed. What Dr Leacock meant by ‘cosy’ was clearly no more than the presence of his own furniture from the London flat. Armchairs and sofas upholstered in wine coloured rep and with wooden arms, a wine coloured carpet flecked with almond green, and an oval mirror with beaten silver frame—they had always saddened me in their old surroundings, now they seemed to make these well proportioned rooms cheerless beyond hope. Madge Leacock, indeed, unlike her husband, did appear a little dimmed in her bright spirits by the move.

  She kept patting the chairs and saying, “We’re not quite straight yet, Mr Carter. But Edwin’s out such a lot and I’m more used to camping when I’m in the country.”

  Dr Leacock gave me the smallest glass of the driest sherry.

  “They say this is rather good Tio Pepe,” he said, but he did not take any.

  Mrs Leacock cried, “Oh, none for me, Daddy. It would make me tiddly at lunchtime, I’m sure.”

  I had a feeling that she was not exaggerating.

  It would only be pot luck she told me, she was not used to cooking.

  “Our Mrs Coppard was such a real cockney; we couldn’t persuade her to leave London. Sometimes Harriet cooks us something special, doesn’t she, Daddy?” Dr Leacock didn’t answer.

  The dining room furniture was of a standard antique oak kind that has been machine made now for many decades; it did not even claim to be imitation Jacobean. Its very lack of pretension was depressing. Nor were the jug of water and the small squares of cut bread beside each place more cheering. The shepherd’s pie was of the very worst sort—with lumpy mashed potato and the minced meat swimming in a strongly flavoured gravy. Mrs Leacock said that the house would be nicer when they had some of the family down to stay—Elinor was coming shortly with the twins, and then Michael and his pretty little wife. She also said that, if she knew herself at all, it wouldn’t take her long to get to know everybody round about. Leacock talked of the acclimatization of agouti and hyrax. But he was less entirely happy. He was clearly waiting.

  We had already begun to eat the apple crumbly when Harriet came in, preceded as she had been on the night of the programme by Rickie. Both dog and mistress looked the worse for wear. His coat was mudcaked and she had put on too much make-up too carelessly. Her eyes were great dead sapphires; at the sides of her large sensual mouth misplaced lipstick emphasized lines of discontent. She gave a scowling look at her father, a contemptuous look at her mother and the food, a hungry look at me.

  Dr Leacock said, “Harriet, I must ask you to have some consideration for meal times.”

  He would have gone on, but Mrs Leacock made absurd little signs at him to stop. Harriet sat, crumbling her piece of bread. I made a selfish resolve that the Leacock family troubles should not spoil my visit to Stretton.

  Mrs Leacock said, “I hope they’ve made you comfortable at the Crown. I believe it’s a nice old pub.”

  “I was worried when I heard that they’d got young children, Carter. That sounded too much like home from home to me. You need a rest.” Dr Leacock seemed really concerned.

  “I hate children,” Harriet announced defiantly.

  Mrs Leacock began nervously to scrape out the remnants of the apple crumbly from the dish.

  “Harriet lost her only one,” she said in what I think must be termed a half-aside.

  “Mummy always thinks that will make people like me better. It’s rather odd really because the thing only lived two days. And I had a miscarriage as well in my first marriage but that’s never been expected to endear me to anyone.”

  Mrs Leacock gave a little embarrassed laugh almost before Harriet spoke so that it struck me that they must have had this ghastly conversation many times before in company. The thought did not endear them to me.

  “Actually I had two abortions in my second marriage. But I suppose they would be considered downright off-putting.”

  Dr Leacock said, “As you will see, Carter, Harriet likes to show off in front of visitors. She’s never really grown up.”

  She turned to him and said very quickly and quietly, “That’s marvellous really, coming from someone who still calls his prick his weewee.” Then she turned to her mother and, as though she had never made the remark, said, “They hadn’t the green wool, darling. They wanted to sell me something of a sort of dark sage green which I didn’t think you’d want. Horribly dingy!”

  Her father was forced to accept the escape she offered him. He too said as naturally as he could manage, “You’re going to give Carter coffee, aren’t you, Madge dear?”

  Harriet now turned to me. She gave a kind of wink. Then she asked me what I was going to do at Stretton.

  “I can’t say I like being surrounded by all these captive animals,” she said, “I suppose it’s all right with a very few—the tortoises and things, though even then . . . But with the beautiful strong ones it horrifies me. One could forget them in London even though Father was their keeper. But here one seems surrounded by them. I think of them at night. The wolves and the pumas—all the lordly ones. They ought to be free.”

  She was talking I thought, to give her mother time to recover from her embarrassment. The old woman’s head seemed to shake involuntarily when she went out to the kitchen. She returned carrying cups of some pale brown liquid with a strangely iridescent surface. She was composed enough to make an effort.

  She said, “For all their quarrels Harriet and Edwin are so alike. Those are just Daddy’s ideas, dear!”

  “Limited liberty!” Harriet laughed as she said it.

  To prevent a fresh outbreak of the feud, I said, “What about your dog?”

  “Oh, Rickie! That’s different. He’s my man. Aren’t you, old darling?” Then smiling almost happily, she said, “But you really are concerned with wild animals, Mr Carter. I remember you on television some years ago with those badgers. That did seem to be a thing worth doing.”

  I told her then of my excitement about the British Reserve, of how I hoped during this week to prospect and chart the whole area, of how I knew already of at least two groups of badgers’ setts, and that they seemed to be independent colonies. I wanted to talk about it and I wanted to help. I managed somehow to include all of them in the conversation, but, although she talked with her mother, she completely ignored anything her father said. As she relaxed, I thought that I liked her rather better. After all, if she was what most people would have called ‘impossible’, she
was also, from another angle, in an ‘impossible’ position. I did not know to what degree she was held there, whether by indigence or laziness or by a promise or possibly by some legal control. If her weapons seemed crude and cruel I had no means of knowing what ancient feuds she was fighting. Perhaps she guessed that I was not ‘against’ her, for she smiled and said,

  “Well, I must see that Rickie doesn’t play havoc with your wild life. Not that it will be possible to lay blame on him, that’s one thing. There’s sure to be some dangerous beast escaping all the time from this prison without bars. So any shambles that Rickie creates on the local farms can be put down to the escaped hyaena or what not, thank God.”

  Dr Leacock said coldly, “I hope you’ll keep this kind of frivolous nonsensical talk to yourself, Harriet.”

  “As I don’t know anybody here to talk to I shall have to, shan’t I? In any case if they do escape, good luck to them.”

  I tried to take a hand, “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be good luck. An escaped captive animal is simply a hunted and terrified creature.”

  “Oh, I dare say it would have some fun before it was shot. Getting its own back by eating some fat, juicy little child.” She was silent for a moment and then quite abruptly she asked, “Would you take me with you to watch your badgers?” She sounded desperate.

  It was the last thing I wanted, I thought it unfair, and yet at that moment I felt that I couldn’t let her down in front of her father.

  I said, “Certainly. It’s tiring, you know, keeping still and absolutely quiet. I shall verify the setts today and if the wind’s right, we might go at dusk tomorrow.”

  Mrs Leacock said, “You’ll have to behave yourself, Harriet dear.”

  She looked at her mother for a moment and then burst out in laughter.

  I said, “I’m afraid you won’t be able to bring Rickie though.”

  “I’ve got some sense of the convenable,” she replied.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. I tried to be interesting. I sketched the future Reserve for her on a scrap of paper, marking such fox earths, badger setts, squirrels’ dreys and so on as I had already found. She leaned over my shoulder, her dark hair tickling my neck and cheeks; she seemed completely happy and relaxed; but, attractive though I had often thought her, her physical touch somehow repelled me. However I was now committed. Mrs Leacock condemned me to a further decrease of my privacy.