I live in a zoo. Not a public zoo, with displays of conservation efforts and the grim diminishing numbers of the animals in the wild. I live in a private zoo, owned and managed by my family. It’s a bit like the Durrells, but in Surbiton, and less amusing.
Each morning I rise early to avoid the noise and smells of feeding time. I get ready for school in a silent house, the curtains all closed, eating quietly in the kitchen. Bowls are noisy and noise tends to wake the lighter-sleeping of the animals. Toast smells waft up the stairs. So I eat cold bread and Nutella.
If I’m quick, I can leave the house alone and unencumbered. Occasionally an early-rising antelope tiptoes its way across the first floor landing, startling me as I emerge from the bathroom. Her gentle brown eyes widen and her ears prick up. Then with a single bound of alarm she is gone, back into her room. Tiny noises of disquiet are the only evidence of her presence.
I arrive home after school and the meercat is there to meet me. We trudge our way up the path from the bus stop with nowhere else to go. I find the house silent and watchful.
The only permanent resident is the guard dog. A bundle of energy and wistfulness, his legs are too short for the head that he carries, giving him a tendency to overbalance. He wins prizes for the ‘Dog the Judges Most Want to Take Home’. By day he naps illegally on the sofa but denies it when questioned. A warm patch and the twitch of an eyebrow are the only proof.
The other animals are on loan to others during the day. For these hours I loaf. I eat inappropriate things and watch inappropriate tv.
The guard dog watches me hungrily. He knows his time will come when the zoo shuts down for the night. He will prowl the grounds, sniffing out the discarded wrappers as his street-dog instincts compel him to. The bins will be overturned. He will blame it on the foxes.
The time of silence is coming to an end. At five thirty the animals start to return. The first to arrive is the owl. He is reclusive and tightly wound. A lover of knowledge, but only factual, he devours entire encyclopaedias for fun. He fixes me with his baleful yellow eyes and asks ‘hoo?’
I like the owl. He perches. He keeps the rats down. He is no trouble. At night he takes up position in the living room, staring out at the world as it passes him by. He lives by a different set of parameters. He uses words like ‘parameters’, that owl.
Next is the hedgehog. She is a quiet little thing. She keeps herself to herself, hoovering up the leftovers of everybody else’s grand meals. Grubs and insects see her through. She doesn’t like to come out into the light - it makes her nervous and then she curls into a prickly little ball. So best to put down some bread and milk. Whatever you do, don't mention the fleas and ticks she carries with her. She thinks they are what makes her special.
The chimpanzee is not due until later. He’s more intelligent than the other animals. Sometimes they think this is not true but they would never admit it. There’s something about his walk. It is long and contained, taught and loose, both a promise and a threat.
You can tell when he is about to arrive. The meerkat is always the first to notice. She feels the change in the air, hears a noise, two, that she has learned over years of careful listening. She has been waiting for an hour, perched on the edge of the sofa, a tasty morsel held inches from her face. Chewing is too loud, she might miss something.
When her call goes up the animals scatter. The meerkat goes to ground, using dirt and dead leaves as a protective screen, her dull fur blending into the furniture.
The owl has more pride. He waits for as long as he dares, his long talons gripping his perch, anchoring him there. He knows better than anyone it is a risky strategy. The chimp’s arms are long, his screams piercing, his bite poisonous.
A few years ago, for some reason the owl stayed put, stood his ground, dug his heel spurs in and bit back. For years he had fought to maintain a sense of belonging in this place, but he couldn't pretend forever. He was banished to Siberia for a while for failing to get along with the other animals.
The hedgehog and meerkat know better now. They missed the owl while he was gone. Apparently it did the owl good. Soothed his ruffled feathers. But the meerkat knew he wasn’t soothed, his wings were clipped. They took away his ability to fly.
He was too bright after that to fight back. Instead he is biding his time until his flight feathers grow back. Then he will soar. Woe betide any rodents or rabbits he spots in the long grass.
The chimp has the right of way in the house and he knows it. There’s no telling what might set him off. Perhaps he’s hungry, or frustrated. Perhaps a slow loris looked at him funny or the Gorilla in his day-time enclosure took up too much room.
The chimp was not born in captivity but his parents, the keepers assumed, had rejected him. He had been found, a tropical animal, still in immaturity, wandering in a park in Kent. One zoo after another had taken him in and he had shown great promise but on reaching maturity a number of behavioural issues had seen him retired to our quaint little space in suburban London. I suppose because no one else would have him.
The hedgehog and meerkat groom the chimp daily, in some kind of unknowing self-preservation. Fleas and matted fur would only incite one of his rages. But the daily effort is almost always self-defeating. The chimp, annoyed at the attention, snarls and bites, sending the amateur beauticians scattering.
The hedgehog seems not to mind the verbal slaps and parries. She simply moves aside and continues on. Perhaps her spiny exterior protects her, or perhaps that is just the nature of the hedgehog.
The meerkat usually flees as a first choice. She grooms as a reflex;a leftover from the instincts of a pack animal without a pack. Her tiny heart beats a million times a second in anticipation of rebuff. Sometimes I find her afterwards huddled in the kitchen. Her fur has come out in places. She will scratch and shred her nervousness out in bark and leaves and new and deeper burrows in which to hide.
The animal you see the least is the tiger. Its very nature is to be silent in the shadows. It hides in darkness, the very brightness of its fur a camouflage to the eye. Nobody sees it in plain sight.
Lions are the king of beasts. They advertise their very existence with flicking tails, winking eyes and a roar that can be heard three counties over. A tiger is silent. Occasionally it will cough or growl but when you look around there is nothing but shadows. The tiger makes sure nobody knows it exists.
A tiger bite can tear through bone, skin, and sinew. It can rip your arm clean out of its socket. A tiger’s paw can crush a man’s head without any effort. But even a little swipe, the caress of claw against skin, leaves a welt which can become infected over time. . It festers and becomes stinking. The poison enters the bloodstream, rewriting chemistry, eating away at certainty, solemnity. A tiger bite can infect your very soul.
We have only seen the tiger twice.
Time has moved on. As predicted the owl unfurled his wings one night and took to flight. He is seen occasionally, in misty skies, soaring on the updrafts. He flies alone. He likes it that way, I presume, although it is hard to ask him as he swoops past. When it is attempted he turns his soup-plate eyes on me and says “hoo?”
I left the zoo a while ago too. So the hedgehog and chimp are all that’s visible of our erstwhile menagerie. She is still fiercely determined to stay and strangely immune. He continues to rattle his bars and throw shit at anyone who comes near.
They take care of one another, in some strange symbiotic way.
The meerkat hasn’t been seen in a while. Her trembling legs took her deep down into a burrow. It was dark and reassuring down there and she declined to emerge. I asked her a few times if she would like to come out and play but her chattering teeth were her only reply.
I’ll go back for her one day. When the time is right. She’s safe for now, underground. Her fur is all gone, scratched away by her nervous paws, and she has managed to convince the keepers that she is just a naked mole rat. Eventually her false teeth may give her away. Hopefully by then she’ll have found a new disguise.
When I visit I still watch for the tiger. It lurks, unseen and unacknowledged. Sometimes I wonder if the keepers even remember that it’s there. When I visit I have wrist guards and amulets and have bought juju beads from a variety of vendors. So far they seem to be working.
Perhaps he is getting weak. One day even the meerkat may take him down.
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