The Old Men at the Zoo

by Angus Wilson

  And Martha said, “Don’t do it Simon. You look exactly like a camel.”

  I said, “I’ll just go across to the Zoo and see if the Home Office has anything to say about safety precautions.”

  And Martha, turning off the television on which some ‘splendid’ woman was appealing for civil defence volunteers, said, “I’ll go up the High Street and see if I can get some asparagus before the shops close. It may be our last asparagus. And then I’ll look in at the Town Hall and see if there’s really anything one can do.”

  Then she began to cry. By the time we’d gone out into the street, she had recovered. It was as I reached the Staff entrance that I suddenly thought we were mad: these were our last moments and we were wasting them in triviality. I turned round, almost knocking over a white faced Sanderson who had arrived at that moment; I could see Martha walking away from me down the deserted street. I ran after her. Coming down Primrose Hill I saw a strange, broken down, slightly mad old man who was well known to the neighbourhood as a character. I reached Martha, held her tight in my arms and kissed her.

  The old man called out, “That’s right. Bloody kiss. You’ll be bloody dead tonight.”

  It was my last moment of wild panic. We left one another and I walked into the Zoo.

  Bobby Falcon sat at his desk making notes.

  He said, “Oh, Simon! What do you think of this? It’s a little idea of mine for an addition to the childrens’ exhibition. I thought, this afternoon, what about all the animals in childrens’ fiction? You know—Black Beauty, Alice and the White Rabbit, Tarka, the Banda Log, Jemima Puddleduck, Badger and Mole, Wol and Pooh. Only, adapted like one of those Victorian screens so that the scenes fade into each other. To give a sort of fairy land pantomime effect. I think it could be done if one arranged the caging at various levels like this and then filled in with some sort of greenery, rather feathery and whispy, almost like a cloud, to give that strange dreamy feeling of Victorian childhood.”

  I sat down opposite him and said as quietly as I could manage, “Too literary, I think.” Then, trying to maintain the same tone of voice, I went on, “Have any precautionary measures come from the Home Office, Bobby? I imagine that, short of a miracle, we are already at war and there must be immediate measures to be taken for public safety.”

  He said shortly, “Nothing’s come through to me. The best thing we can do is to get on with our job. I’ve always hated all that theatrical cant of Jane’s, but it has its points. ‘The show must go on’, Simon; and again, ‘it’ll be all right on the night’.”

  I asked, again trying to sound casual, “Are you sure there’s nothing from the Home Office? If there’s not we’d better go ahead with the destruction of the dangerous species as we listed them two years ago.”

  At last I forced his attention. He said, “If you think you can identify the species that will be dangerous in an atomized world, you go ahead.”

  He strode out of the room. I followed him to the typists’ room where Mrs Purrett was taking off her hat.

  She said, “I didn’t know what to do for the best, Sir Robert. The evacuation people have fetched my mother and I thought I should come straight round here.”

  He said, “Splendid. I want to you take a letter to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We’d better write to the Director. He’ll know where to apply. What I’m interested in are these Victorian childrens’ keepsakes. But with animal figures.”

  I saw an expression of real terror on poor Mrs Purrett’s fat face. I motioned to her behind Bobby’s back to take the letter. I went off to my own room and rang Lascelles at the Home Office.

  He said, “We’ve been waiting for your confirmation that your safety measures have been carried out. I told Falcon an hour ago that if the European powers hadn’t responded to the Russo-American appeal . . .”

  I said, “They’re under way,” and rang off.

  Before I could implement this, the telephone rang. It was Beard.

  He said, “I suppose the evacuation’s started. I can’t get any sense from Falcon. But I have a preliminary list of specimens vital for research work. Shall I bring it round?”

  “Please. I would like to get all the curators to my room within a quarter of an hour.”

  Mrs Purrett met me in the corridor.

  She said, “I don’t think Sir Robert should be in charge, Mr Carter. He doesn’t seem to grasp . . .”

  “I know. I’m going to try to bring the situation home to him now. Will you get Mr Price and Mr Sanderson round here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Mr Carter. Oh! And Mrs Englander rang up. She was in a terrible state. The police have been round to arrest Dr Englander.”

  ’Well, as he’s abroad, she needn’t worry. But tell her as soon as everything’s clearer, I’ll find out what it’s all about.”

  “She sounded very foreign, Mr Carter.”

  “That’s not a crime yet. Now please get those curators as soon as possible. And then contact Lord Oresby.”

  She patted my arm. “That’s right, Mr Carter. We must all find plenty to do.”

  I said sharply, “I don’t suppose that’s going to be difficult.” But I put my hand on her shoulder. I liked Mrs Purrett.

  I walked into Bobby’s room. He was still scribbling drawings of cages.

  I said, “Bobby, you withheld from me the Home Office orders. I don’t know whether you’ve gone out of your mind or what. But I must tell you now that unless you’re prepared to take control, I shall act with the other keepers to give effect to what has to be done.”

  His flushed face as he looked up at me was not at all wild, only contemptuous.

  He said “Do whatever you like. But don’t touch any of the show pieces, do you understand? If we can’t open, we’ll at least go out in a blaze of glory.”

  I meant to say no more, but irritation drove me on.

  “I shall take whatever safety measures are required for the public and for the animals in our care.”

  He got up, “If you touch my work . . .”

  In my nervousness, I made a little smirking sound. He gave a roar like a lion and came for me. Youth tells and I had sprung aside before he reached me. I put out my foot, and, tripping, his heavy body crashed over a chair on to the floor. I saw that his nose was bleeding. He lay on the floor and groaned. So the age of violence had arrived, I thought; it seemed as ridiculous as any other. I wondered whether it was my duty to hand him over to the police or to the asylum authorities; but they were no less busy, I felt sure, than I was. Looking at him lying groaning there, I felt a strange and unfriendly sense of power. I think I could have shot him, if someone had told me that circumstances had called for it. Instead I put a cushion under his head and walked out of the room, locking the door behind me.

  Matthew and Sanderson were in my room. I told them briefly about Bobby. Matthew was very evidently shocked. He was the complete officer now.

  He said, “Oh, God! Well, there you are, you see, it’s what one would expect. But he is the Director. I should think he’d better report sick.”

  Sanderson said, “We must try never to mention it when the real Falcon comes back to us.”

  Beard came in with his list. It took me nearly a quarter of an hour to convince him that the destruction of the dangerous species must precede the evacuation of the anatomically interesting ones.

  “My dear Beard, poisonous snakes and pythons to say nothing of spiders could survive quite a while in this hot weather and the number of people they could kill is considerable.”

  “But I suppose those people will be killed anyway.”

  At last it was Matthew who said, “Oh, God! Well they might kill you, you see, Beard. And then all the creatures we’d evacuated for you to cut up would be wasted.”

  After that Beard agreed.

  Before we separated to take up our tasks, I said, “In any case if war is declared, we’ll all be atomized in a moment. So I don’t know what’s the use, but still.”

  Sanderson sai
d, “Ohl I’m glad to say, Carter, that they’re not going to use those dreadful weapons. I heard it on my little radio set just before I came over here. There’s been a Franco-German statement promising not to. It does mean we’re fighting sportsmen anyway.”

  Matthew said, “Oh, God! It’s always balls about the enemy being sportsmen.”

  “I don’t think you should say that, Price. Anyhow our Prime Minister’s taking them at their word. We’ve promised to stick to conventional weapons ourselves.”

  It seemed difficult to place all one’s relief on a report of Sanderson’s. However, the constriction went from my chest. I felt able to let in a new, less paralysing fear.

  “God help us!” I said, “we haven’t got any.”

  Matthew was in a transport of delight, “Conventional? Oh, it’ll be like the last war.”

  Beard rustled the papers he held.

  “Has everyone got a copy of my list?” he asked.

  “Beard’s the man of the hour,” Sanderson announced.

  Before the Prosector left, he asked irritably, “Why is the Director’s room locked, Carter? I may want some papers from there.”

  I explained the situation. “He might do himself an injury if he wanders about in the state he’s in.”

  Beard said, “Oh Lor’!” and went out of the room.

  I had taken upon myself to superintend the Reptiles and the Aquarium. As I passed Mrs Purrett’s room, I asked her to telephone all the keepers ordering them, transport permitting, to come to the Gardens.

  When I reached the Reptile House, it seemed that only a very young keeper, a cockney boy of no more than seventeen, had reported for duty.

  “I didn’t know what to do, Sir, what with Mr Kennedy away and all. So I come along.”

  He seemed either too frightened or too foolish to answer my questions. I had relied on one of the head keepers to destroy the snakes, but now it seemed that I should have for once to take an active part, for the boy told me that he’d never used a revolver. I told him to conduct me round the upstairs inner gallery that, running behind the show cases, is used for observation and feeding of the most deadly species. The boy was to operate the feeding shutters, I to fire through them. The priority on my list was the bushmaster. I stared through the aperture to see nothing but a small artificial tree trunk and some soiled grass and straw; the smell coming through the peephole was sweetish and quite sickening.

  “I don’t see the snake.”

  “Ah! No. Mr Kennedy took him away Thursday when he come.”

  “Took it away?”

  “Yus. In a van he’d got with him.”

  Fascinated to see how far Englander had taken things into his own hands, I went on to the black mambas—with the same result, but this time I was told that Mr Granger, the second keeper, ‘had taken them away Wednesday’. Questioned further, the boy told me that they ‘took away all the poisonous ones’. I went downstairs and walked round the fronts of the show cases. It was quite true—three quarters of the snakes had gone: rattlesnakes, puffadders, cobras, mambas, the bush-master, the taipan, king snakes, whip snakes, and a dozen other species had simply vanished; so, too, had the great constrictors. Once the boy saw that I knew the worst, he became more communicative.

  “The Doctor ‘phoned Monday night from Germany, I think, and give instructions they was to be taken away to safety. I think ‘e knew trouble was coming. Mr Kennedy and Mr Granger was waiting for the orders so they had all the vans ready. But they don’t tell me where they took ‘em. They said if Sir Robert or you was to ask, to say Dr Englander left two of them British adders for Sir Robert’s show. And frogs and toads, of course.”

  And sure enough there the adders were. I had not the heart to destroy them. Compared with innumerable mammals and even birds that we must leave alive, their power to harm was negligible. My pent up tension escaped in a wild burst of laughter. The boy was clearly much relieved.

  “There’s some alligators still here if you want to take a pot shot, sir. They’re a sitting target, that’s one thing.” He giggled nervously.

  But neither friendliness nor show of authority could get him to say where the snakes had been taken; I doubt, in fact, whether he knew.

  “I know they’ve gone North, sir. That I do know.” He repeated it again and again.

  My work at the Aquarium was more easily done. Jackley’s keepers were all in attendance. I gave orders for the destruction of the marine species and the siphoning of the ocean water into the additional subterranean tanks I had provided. Now, with the Biscay water I had imported, there would be enough sea water for Jackley to double his marine collection when the war was over, if the sea of destruction had not engulfed us all by then. It was nice to feel one’s conscience clear towards at least one person. The fresh water fishes I ordered to be placed in Dr Englander’s empty water snake pools. I remembered his telling me that some similar action in 1939 had been one of the greatest absurdities he’d had to endure in his whole Zoo career. It seemed reasonable that he should know that the administration could hit back, however feebly.

  I was now free to see how the twin tasks of blast defence and of evacuation were proceeding. Yet first I thought that I should let Jane Falcon know of Bobby’s condition. It was very difficult to make a telephone call at all at that time; even more difficult to track down Jane. I almost gave it up, for it seemed so monstrous a waste of precious time. Then Mrs Purrett came in.

  “I’ve been to see the telescreen in the canteen,” she said, “They’re still talking. It’s all a question now of our agreeing to some European control of our industries. I didn’t quite understand it. But while there’s life there’s hope, isn’t there?”

  The reprieve seemed to justify my calling Jane. I got her at last at a rehearsal at a West End theatre; the box office people were very unwilling to disturb her.

  She said, ‘Isn’t it all too sickening? This piece of Ronnie Stapledon’s is to open on Tuesday. I’m quite certain it’s the best thing he’s done. But who’s going to come with all this panic on? I don’t think people realize what this kind of thing means to the live theatre.”

  I said, “Jane, I’m very concerned about Bobby.” I told her what had happened.

  “My dear, whatever do you suppose I can do? After all, poor sweet, this thing couldn’t have come at a worse moment for him. “

  “Jane, I’m sorry. That sort of line may be all right for the theatre until the moment when you all start putting on shows for the forces, but the Director of this place has very serious commitments. We can’t have Bobby here in his present condition. Something will have to be done with him until he comes to his senses.”

  “Bobby come to his senses! My God, your conceit, Simon! Poor old Bobby, whatever he’s not been, he’s been more in one day than you’ll ever be in your whole life. You leave him alone, do you understand? You Carters have done quite enough to hurt him. Don’t bloody well interfere with anything until I come over. Ronnie Stapledon thought it was incredible that I should be called out of a rehearsal like this; but then ordinary people don’t have to deal with maniacs who are trying to shut their husbands away. If nobody else cares what happens to one of England’s greatest explorers then his wife does!”

  I had stung her into action and that was the main thing.

  I realized that I had longed for him to be taken away. The spectacle of his collapse filled me with repugnance, where I should have liked to feel compassion. I steeled myself to see at least that his injuries were not serious. When I turned the key of the lock in his door, I found that it was open.

  I went across to Mrs Purrett.

  “Have you unlocked the door of the Director’s room?” I was angry.

  “Oh, no, Mr Carter. It was Dr Beard. He said he wanted to get some papers. I told him of the orders you’d given. But he was quite determined. He made me give him the duplicate key. I am so sorry.” The poor woman was very distressed.

  “But Sir Robert isn’t there.”

  “
Oh, Mr Carter. Oh dear! I haven’t seen him. Dr Beard said he was asleep.”

  When I reached the centre of the Gardens by the tunnel entrance to the Old Zoo it was already getting dark. I could see no sign of Bobby. I went across towards the Parrot House. Matthew was busy there with a group of keepers. He had removed his coat, and his elegant willowy figure seemed more exotic than ever in a white silk shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, and tight black evening trousers. He seemed to be everywhere at once, now consigning cages of colourful parrots to their lorries, now urging me over to see the netting of the wading birds and the luring of the graceful flamingos into pens on wheels. As he leapt, pirouetted and generally danced his way from one spot to another he seemed like an eighteenth century duellist; and yet from his constant screaming chatter, he might have been a gigantic magpie. As I followed him across to where the humming birds were being netted like butterflies and packed away into strange lobster-pot shaped glass and wire containers, we passed Beard. He was helping to head off the nervous okapi into a waiting loose box. With his extreme short sight I felt sure that at any minute he would be seriously injured by a kick from the beast.

  But as Matthew said, “Beard’s got surprising guts for a man who looks as though he has worms.”

  It was when Matthew and I stood surveying the emerald, ruby, topaz and gold shimmering flight of the humming birds as they flew wildly here and there amongst the thunbergia and the giant frangipani trees vainly seeking to evade the butterfly nets, that suddenly the whole Gardens seemed to be flooded with light of every colour—blue, rose, green, amber, purple.

  “What bloody fool has turned on the illuminations?”

  It was a rhetorical question and I waited for no answer, but ran full tilt to the power house down by the sea lion pool. As I ran the whole place seemed to turn to a fairyland somewhere between a child’s dream and a pantomime transformation scene. There was no doubt that Bobby and Jane had done just what they hoped with the lighting.