The Square (32 page)

Larry turns over, flings his arm out in order to embrace her. It catches her on the nose.

“Ow! Fifteen years in bed together, and you still do that most mornings,” says Tracey loudly, her eyes streaming.

“What? Oh, sorry love.”

He gives her a fond cuddle.

“Don’t be dissatisfied. You were great last night. But telly isn’t everything.”

“I know. I’m alright really, darling.”

On the landing, she bumps into Anya, who comes out of the bathroom brushing her teeth.

“Anya, you’re up early.”

“That’s because I’m leaving, you know that. I must be at Gatwick by eleven. Didn’t you get my message?”

“What? I thought you were going next week!”

Anya ducks back to the bathroom to rinse and dry her mouth. She returns out to Tracey.

“No, no, sorry, Tracey. I decided to get an earlier flight. They have seats.” She shrugs. “My mother says she wants to have me home in Lodz early. My uncles are collecting me from Chopin airport. I did leave you a note in the kitchen.”

Do they always do this in the middle class world, thinks Tracey crossly. The living conditions between employer and au pair are so intimate that they see you in your nightie, or find (and read) your bank statement. Yet when it suits them they pretend to be distant, and arrange things how they want it. As if you simply didn’t count. Never mind the contract, the fondness for their small charges, the closeness you have shared. Tracey knows there is probably no point in railing against it, being formal, waving bits of paper about. It’s just how it is. It is their final trump card against the English bourgeoisie. You need us, they say. We don’t need you. You, the English employer, can be replaced at any time. There are lots of you out there.

“Oh, Anya. We will miss you. Have you said goodbye to the girls?”

“No, but I will. I’ll get them up and have breakfast with them.”

Of course you will. Eat our food, spend our money, snare the affection of our children and then go home.

“Well, let me know if you need any help.”

She wanders back into her bedroom, sits on the bed. She feels rather shocked by Anya’s announcement. At the same time, however, she starts to think about the girl in the past tense. She’ll have to find a replacement. Maybe this time she’ll get one who can drive. And cook decently. Tracey thinks she’d rather have a decent cook than someone who plays the piano, what a minefield that ended up being. Maybe it would be better to get a man. Eastern European, of course. An Eastern European male au pair. That would send shockwaves around here, she thinks. But at least a man wouldn’t get off with one of the neighbours’ husbands.

She pokes the semi-conscious Larry.

“Anya’s off. Says she’s booked on an earlier flight.”

Larry mumbles incoherently.

“A week early. Never mind the inconvenience for us.”

“Shame. Yes, I think I saw a note in the kitchen. I liked her. Good girl. And, of course, bad girl, ha ha.”

“Yes, well I’m thinking of getting a male au pair next.”

“Ha!” laughs Larry. “Are you bonkers? No way am I sharing a house with some Croatian bodybuilder. Or a Polish builder.”

“Well, at least it would stop problems with the neighbours.”

“Not necessarily. It might make them worse. A male au pair might end up in bed with our piano teacher. Or one of your friends. Or you.”

He nudges Tracey.

“Would you like to be in bed with a Croatian bodybuilder?”

Tracey looks at him anxiously. Does he suspect anything, she wonders.

“Do we need one at all?” continues Larry. “A nanny, that is.”

Tracey sighs, then jumps up off the bed, anxious to finish the conversation.

“Oh, Christ. I have to go. I’m going to London Zoo this morning. With Alan.”

Ten minutes later, he is there, sitting in the car outside Tracey’s house.

“The Munchkin? He’s on the back seat. Get in, TV star,” he says, patting the leather passenger seat. Tracey inhales the rich perfume of a recently valeted Mercedes.

“I got the Overnights,” says Alan, smoothing his hair and smiling.

“What?”

“The ratings. Shows us, well, my company, how many people watched the show last night.”

“And?”

“Really rather good. Better than average. Four million.”

The car glides out of the Square.

“I thought you said it was four point five who normally watched.”

“Yes, but the Overnights don’t count Catch-up.”

“What the hell is Catch-up?”

“iPlayer. Recordings. Sky Plus. Usually adds on a million or so. So it’s good. Very good.”

“Is it?” says Tracey dolefully.

“It’s all good,” says Alan firmly. “You’ll be getting more TV work after this, I know it.”

They pull into the car park opposite the Zoo.

Alan produces a piece of paper which indicates to the person in the car parking lodge that they don’t need a ticket, since they are here on business.

He opens the back door, pulls out a large plastic travelling case. Tracey looks into it. In the middle of the case, the Munchkin is squatting balefully.

“Was it difficult to get him in?”

“Not really. I sort of got hold of his branch and tipped him off it.”

“God. Weren’t you worried about being bitten?”

“I moved very fast. And I wore gloves.”

They arrive at the public entrance of the Zoo. The ticket booth is shuttered. Alan pulls out his phone, taps in a number, speaks brusquely to the person on the other end of the line.

“Yes, hello is that the Reptile House? It’s Alan Makin with the iguana. We’re outside the main gate on Prince Albert Road.”

Presently, a side door opens and a young man wearing a ZSL jumper comes out.

“Morning!” says the young man breezily. “If you’re quick, you’ll see the camels walking through.”

Alan and Tracey follow him inside the Zoo.

“Wait here,” says the ZSL man.

After a few seconds, four Bactrian camels come swaying past them, led by a small woman, also in a ZSL shirt. The camels walk one behind the other with semi-closed eyes, a towering line of disdain and odour.

“We used to do the same with the elephants, before one trampled a colleague. Then they had to go to Whipsnade,” observes the young man. “Oh, here come the llamas. Well, one of them.”

The llama appears. It is like a smaller, furrier version of the camels. It is wearing a blue harness and is being led by a diminutive person.

“That’s Perry,” says the young man.

“That’s George,” says Tracey, astonished, as the small figure holding the halter proudly advances.

“George! What on earth are you doing, leading a llama around London Zoo?”

“Keeper For A Day,” says George calmly as he passes the group. A London Zoo employee hurries up and walks beside him.

“Morning,” says the employee. “Normally we don’t let our Junior keepers lead the animals, but Perry is an exception.”

Tracey is speechless.

“That child seems to get everywhere,” she says.

“Shall we?” says Alan, lifting the box carefully. “It’s a bit cold out here for him.”

The heat hits them as they enter the Reptile House. Tracey walks past the adjoining glass fronted cells in which various lizards, caimans, snakes and salamanders crouch.

Cell after identically shaped cell, each animal living next door to the other. They are grouped into vague categories. But they have no way of knowing that they are there with their biological cousins. As far as they know it, they are alone.

One small green reptile is sitting on a large leaf. Above it hovers a disembodied human hand. The hand is holding a small can. It is watering the reptile with the can. The animal basks in the shower, luxuriating in the water, clinging onto the dripping leaf with extraordinarily long fingers, its snout turned upwards to the shower from the watering can. It has an air of utter bliss.

“That’s to replicate the effect of living in a rain forest,” says the ZSL man.

“Oh to be looked after like that,” observes Alan.

You are, thinks Tracey sourly. What with your fan base and your ratings and your Overnights. They shower on your head in just the same way. And you cling onto the leaf of fame in similar fashion. Soaking it up.

Alan is shaking the hand of the Director of the Reptile House. The Director is grinning. He squats down and peers into the Munchkin’s case.

“Morning, you,” says the Director to the Munchkin.

“How did you get him in here?”

“I manoeuvered him in very gently,” lies Alan.

“Because he looks rather agitated.”

“Really?”

“They don’t like being moved.” The Director stands up briskly. “Never mind, can’t be helped. We’ll settle him in. Has he been fed recently?”

“I gave him some crickets last night,” says Alan.

“Good, good,” muses the Director. “We’ll keep him backstage for a few weeks, let him settle in before bringing him out on show.”

“Will you miss him?” whispers Tracey to Alan.

“Well, he was a good… project. But these things have a duration, don’t they.”

Tracey looks at the Munchkin inside the vitrine. Such a complex, beautiful animal. Cast away and dismissed as a project. For the first time, Tracey thinks she will welcome having a respite from Alan’s life, perfect though it may be. She finds it altogether a bit mesmerisingly terrifying.

“So perhaps we could have you back here, when the iguana is ready to face his public, yes?” says the Director, shaking Alan’s hand again. “Perhaps we could have a bit of a public do for the unveiling?”

“Yes, yes,” says Alan. “As long as, you understand, my, er, previous charge of him is not handled, in a, how shall we say, unprofessional manner.”

The Director understands perfectly. Alan Makin does not want to come across as someone who has willingly kept a large and rare animal, who was possibly illegally imported, in a small glass case in Highgate for a long time.

“You did the right thing,” the Director of the Reptile House assures the TV presenter.

“Thank you. I know,” says Alan.

“Does this happen a lot?” asks Tracey suddenly.

“Does what happen a lot?” says the Director. “Television stars arriving at the Reptile House? No.”

“No,” laughs Tracey. “People giving you their pets.”

“Yes,” says the Director, with a faint weariness. “But not often with iguanas. It’s usually with terrapins. People buy them when they are tiny and then panic when they grow to the size of frying pans. Then they offer them to us. We usually can’t take them, but we find sanctuaries for them. It’s better that than the other solution.”

“Which is what?” asks Tracey.

“Throwing them in the Thames.”

Tracey gives a little shriek of horror.

“It happens,” says the Director.

Tracey looks at him. He may be an expert in reptile behaviour but she figures he is also pretty knowledgable about the human side of it too.

They leave the dark concrete of the Reptile House, its scaly inhabitants moving quietly in the humming heat under their individual sunlamps.

“I haven’t been here for years,” observes Tracey as they walk into the fresh air. “Shall we have a quick tour?”

“As long as I don’t step in any camel dung,” says Alan fastidiously.

They turn left, past the pygmy hippos and Hugh Casson’s brick Elephant House, now a showcase for tiny monkeys.

As they are standing observing a family of wild boar, a family of humans comes up to Tracey.

“Excuse me for asking,” says the mother, “but weren’t you on the telly last night?”

“Sorry?” says Tracey.

The mother repeats her question.

A warm glow of delight suffuses Tracey’s entire body.

“Yes, yes, I was.”

“You were great!” says the mother, beaming. “Can I take your photo? Actually, can I do a selfie?

Tracey nods her head, beaming back. “’Course you can, yes, yes,” she says, combing the hair out of her eyes selfconsciously.

The mother crowds up to Tracey, stretches her arm out, takes a selfie of her and Tracey together. Then, because she is of a certain age when these things still carry weight, she jumps as if she has just remembered something. “Tell you what, can I have your autograph?” She shoves a Visit London Zoo programme at Tracey, and rootles in her bag for a pen.

Tracey looks at Alan, smiling hopefully. Alan is smiling too. “Told You” he mouths, then turns to the woman.

“Yes, Tracey was the star turn in my report,” he says loudly to the woman, who has found her pen and is proffering it to Tracey.

“Oh gosh it’s YOU,” says the woman. “Alan Makin!”

Tracey notices that Alan exhales quite deeply at this moment. A sigh of relief, she thinks. Maybe he was worried that he wasn’t going to be recognised as well.

“Ooo can I just… take… this,” says the woman, bringing the phone out once more, grabbing Alan by the elbow and squeezing close to him as she takes the shot, the proof that she is in finger distance to someone famous. Alan visibly relaxes, smiles, puts his head on one side. He is having a good time. He has got rid of the Munchkin and he is being feted. Tracey and Alan both sign the programme…

Tracey and Alan both sign the programme, Alan with his professional swirl. Tracey isn’t quite sure how to do this, and so ends up simply writing her first name. Then she puts a smiley face below it.

“Thanks, thanks so much,” says the mother.

“Not at all,” says Alan. “Thanks for watching.”

“There you are,” he says to Tracey as the family depart. “That’s going to happen to you much more, now.”

It doesn’t, though. They walk through the entire Zoo, up past the Children’s Farm, the big cats and Bug World, then down past the parrots, the penguins and the shop and under the tunnel to the tapirs, zebra, giraffe and something called a bongo, which Tracey has never heard of before but learns from the information printed on a stand is a very shy relation of the zebra, which lives in the depths of the Congo rainforest, and was only discovered a few decades ago.

Nobody remarks on them. Nobody recognises them. The Zoo gradually fills up with shouting children and parents vainly trying to contain them. Nobody cares that Alan Makin and she are also visiting the Zoo, the day after their programme was watched by four million people. Five, if you count Catch-up.