The Old Men at the Zoo Page 3

  “Look, Carter,” he said, “I am very glad you’ve come. You’re an old friend of Falcon’s. You must persuade him not to blame himself for this horrible business.”

  I did not know whether that could or ought to be my office, but luckily I had to say nothing. Bobby broke in. He was, as so often, twisting a strand of his thick grey curly hair around in his long fingers. Standing in tall silhouette against the sunlit window, he seemed with his ruffled crest more than ever like a secretary bird.

  “It’s good of you to say so, my dear chap. But I may have to.”

  His ravaged handsome Apollo’s head with its flushed, sunburnt skin, seemed to snap at the air as he jerked out his words with his savage-seeming stutter. With one leg he jabbed at the ground, as though he were impaling a snake on his claws. The Director, round toucan’s eye fixed stolidly ahead, long tapir’s nose pointing us ever on, stood full square on his magnanimity.

  “No, no, Falcon. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Beard. If he considered that there was a need for shooting the beast, he should have said so. It’s a question of function. He tends to forget that he’s Veterinary Adviser as well as Prosector. Of course, it’s part of his extraordinary devotion to humanity. Any part of his work, like surgery, that serves human medicine comes first with him. But that isn’t the point.”

  “I must be fair, Director, and make it clear that Beard did strongly indicate his view that Smokey’s tumour was probably inoperable and that he ought to be put down. For the rest the proper care of the mammals in the Society’s collection is my concern. And the blame is, therefore, mine.”

  Edwin Leacock gave his most matey grin.

  “Your friend Falcon’s impossible, isn’t he, Carter? He will punish himself. Look,” he went on, addressing Bobby in the tone of a helpful scoutmaster in a pep talk on personal problems, “This is a matter of function. Not of battle order. If we’re going to consider that, then the whip’s got to come down pretty hard on me. I’m Director. I knew the giraffe was sick. You had reported it to me. And if you’re going to say I’d got a lot of other things to deal with, I should remind you of what our President always says: ‘The man at the top is never too busy.’ And to give Godmanchester his due he never is. I suppose it’s a great part of the secret of his political success.”

  I said, “During the last two years he hasn’t in fact been too busy.”

  Edwin Leacock frowned. For a number of reasons, in particular those of prestige, he preferred not to remember that our President was out of political office.

  “If all I hear is true that may not be for much longer,” he said.

  He knew that I doubted whether he had heard a thing more than any of the rest of us. I said “Ah!” in a tone parodying his solemnity. As a rule Bobby Falcon relaxed with delight when I mocked the Director’s pomposity. That morning he seemed not to hear.

  He said savagely, “You’d much better let me carry the can, Director. I’m like Smokey, an anachronism. I belong to the old order of things.” Edwin Leacock faced this with four square honesty.

  “My dear Falcon,” he said, “don’t let’s clutter up this perfectly simple discussion of right and wrong in a particular affair with the conflict of our general views about the future of the collections. I don’t mind saying that an accident of this kind is in some degree grist to my mill. It would probably never have happened if it hadn’t been for those out of date cramped paddocks. I shall, of course, say so.”

  “And I shall, of course, fight you. In defence of the exquisite beauty of Decimus Burton’s designs.”

  As always, when praising Victorian taste, Bobby’s usual spluttering changed to an arrogant drawl—the dandy within the famous soldier-explorer. But if his voice was arrogant, there was none of the anger he usually showed when Leacock attacked his beloved Victorian Zoo. The Director’s smile at Falcon’s taste, too, was not as patronizing as usual; indeed there was a sentimental note in his voice as he said;

  “Of course you will. I hope at least that we shall always pay each others’ views the compliment of opposing them strongly. But just because we’ve fought so often and will do so again, I should like you to listen to me this time. It would be absolutely shocking if some imaginary blame were to attach to the reputation of the greatest zoological collector of our time. I mean that, Falcon, I have it in mind,” he added earnestly, “quite as much as any effect this unfortunate business may have on my television address at the end of the month.”

  So Leacock’s current King Charles’ head had popped up. He was shortly to present a television programme on the need for a National Reserve. He surrounded the whole scheme with secrecy, and as a result the rest of us were sceptical of it being more than a piece of self-advertisement. But there was no doubt that in his mind it had become the key to the success of his hopes for the Zoo.

  I coughed to avoid laughing; but Bobby Falcon seemed quite content. Blushing, he looked down at the ground like a flirtatious schoolboy.

  “You’re being much too kind to me, Director, you know.”

  Suddenly I could bear their cooing no longer.

  I said, “I’m afraid I can think of nothing except that wretched boy dying a painful and unnecessary death.”

  Bobby blushed even more for what no doubt he felt to be a hysterical outburst.

  “Unnecessary? If you’re suggesting that we’re inhuman, Simon, you ought to think that Leacock and I have been up to our necks in the bloody business the whole morning.”

  Edwin Leacock was more bland.

  “There’s a technique for dealing with this sort of ghastly event as with everything else, you know, Carter. I believe one must deliberately lower the emotional temperature. If we’re not to lose our heads, that is.”

  “We’ve none of us known the excrutiating agony of losing our balls.”

  Bobby shouted, “That’s a perfectly filthy thing to say, Simon. Do you mind taking it back?”

  The real fury of his voice surprised me. It seemed to surprise Leacock also.

  He said, “I don’t think Carter intended any offence. Violent death affects people in very different ways. You must remember that the war can hardly be more than a memory to him.”

  Then to demonstrate a more rational form of reproof, he asked rather abruptly, “Well, Carter, what was it you wanted to see me about?”

  I told them the story of Sanderson’s indiscretion to the Press. I like mimicking and I can imitate Sanderson particularly well. I suppose that I was anxious to dissipate Bobby’s anger. My imitation as I had anticipated put him in a good mood. He filled the room with his deep belly laughter.

  “Good God! The bloody cheek of it. Doesn’t he know that a giraffe’s the most harmless animal living. Just let him wait until one of his black widow spiders gets loose among a party of schoolgirls. I’ll have him in the News of the World as a sex murderer.”

  Imitations and laughter were less to Dr Leacock’s taste.

  He said, “I’m glad you told me, Carter. Though I think its more serious than you quite realize. We all know that Sanderson besides being a first rate entomologist is unfortunately a complete ass. But this goes a bit too far. Its particularly irresponsible at this time because I explained to him only the other day the very great importance I place upon this television programme of mine.”

  Bobby was now relaxed enough to give mie an amused look.

  I said, “What I had in mind was the unfortunate effect any adverse publicity might have upon the Ministry of Education grants. The scheme’s only been going a year and there’s still quite a lot of opposition to it at the Ministry. They have a hearty contempt for incompetence in dealing with the Press. And quite rightly.”

  Bobby Falcon said, “What a civil servant you are, Simon. We haven’t changed you. As far as I’m concerned if this beastly business restored us to our private status, it’d be a blessing in disguise.”

  The Director was now returned enough to his normal competent, active self to brush Bobby’s nostalgia for the past aside
with a joke.

  “That’s sentimental nonsense, Falcon. You simply refuse to remember what things had come to in ‘68 before Godmanchester got us the Government grant. You used to come in here begging for a loan. ‘I’m down to my last hippo,’ you said.”

  Then he turned to me. “This needs dealing with at once, Carter, as you say. I hope I’m not an alarmist man, but if the wrong sort of publicity got into tomorrow’s papers, it could just mean that the television authorities would cancel the whole programme.”

  I felt that his concern was less pettily selfish than his words made it appear, so I clicked my tongue in sympathy.

  He said suddenly, “You know, it’s all right. If it had been any paper but the Telegraph or Times, it might have been impossible to stop it. Not that a lot of the Zoo chaps on the popular dailies aren’t most co-operative,” he added hastily.The tightrope he walked between Establishment and servant of the Common Man was one of my favourite aspects of our Director’s character.

  “I shall be seeing Fitelson of the Telegraph at the Athenaeum at lunch. I’ll have a word with him then. The best thing I can do is to give him a small piece covering the incident for their Zoo chap, Howard Dudley, to write up. Something that puts it into perspective, and without inhumanity makes reasonably light of the whole thing.”

  He sat back in his swivel chair and swung from side to side with such obvious relief that I could not help saying: “You mean a short paragraph headed ‘A Tall Story’.”

  He seemed not to hear. Getting up from his chair, he went to the window. He picked up a hideous mauve watering can with a long spout and began to water the tulips in the window boxes.

  “A present from the twins,” he said. “They’ve got it into their heads that Grandad does nothing at the office. So they try to keep him busy.”

  I waited for a few moments, but neither of them spoke. Like the Director, Bobby Falcon seemed to have returned to his normal behaviour. His heavy face showed the sort of brooding distaste that he usually evidenced in Leacock’s presence.

  I said “Well that seems to put the Zoo in clear with the public.” As neither of them took this up, I added sharply, “Though we still have the coroner, of course, to deal with.”

  Edwin Leacock replenished the little arty watering can from a large serviceable one.

  “Your wife’s promised me some Lefebvre tulip bulbs for next year, Falcon. I shall keep her up to it.”

  “Oh you must, Leacock. Jane promises the entire garden to at least a dozen people every year. I suppose,” he turned towards me, “that coroners are sensible enough to know the limits of their knowledge.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Dr Leacock said. “They follow what the experts tell them.”

  “I see.” I let them have it, “Then really we can say that all this has worked out very satisfactorily.”

  They seemed simply not to take it.

  Bobby said, “Satisfactory? It’s been one of the most ghastly days of my life.”

  Edwin Leacock was more definite.

  “In the very limited official sense in which you’re speaking, Carter, yes.” He looked at his watch. “Look here, I shall have to push you fellows off. I am meeting Mrs Leacock before lunch for some shopping for the twins.”

  Bobby gave his automatic glance of amusement at ‘Mrs Leacock’, but I felt too annoyed to return it.

  In the corridor Bobby slapped his hand on the glass case of the large model of Dr Leacock’s proposed National Zoological Park.

  “Well, today’s events have decreased the chances of this sort of absurdity. No hippos in their natural lovely setting of the Severn or beavers buggering up the Broads or whatever it is Leacock has in mind to instruct us all with. The public always panics at any gory accident. Its the nature of the beast.”

  Every phrase was chosen to annoy me; to upset in turn my respect for education, my egalitarianism, and my genuine support for Leacock’s schemes. I said sharply, “I doubt if Filson’s death is going to encourage the preservation of gems of Victorian architecture like the Giraffe House.”

  “Oh, no doubt they’ll pull it all down. Burton’s stuff as well as everything else of dignity. What do you expect under a government that’s let everything English go in order to kowtow to the commercialism of France and Germany? Modern Europeanism! Well, I have to be at the Travellers’ at one.”

  “That’s not good enough, Bobby. You know exactly what I’m thinking. Was Filson’s accident the result of some muddle?”

  As I said it, I thought that I did not really know him well enough to speak so directly. He was Martha’s godfather who had helped the young man she had married to change his job. That was all our relationship. Yet if there was an intimate, Christian name tone, it had been his doing; he had clearly wanted to reduce the twenty five years between us. Now however his large, too brightly blue eyes blazed rather insanely at me.

  “I’m perfectly aware of what you’ve been thinking,” he said, “but I don’t feel any obligation to satisfy your morbid scruples. Nor is it any of your business.”

  I was committed now.

  I said, “That’s nonsense. If Strawson or someone was negligent and young Filson died as a result, then it’s your job or Leacock’s to see that it doesn’t happen again. Should he have been in sole charge of a sick giraffe? After all he had only been here a month.”

  “If I may say so, Simon,” his tone now was easier, “this only shows your complete ignorance. That sort of work is instinctive and the young fellow had the instinct. He was a particular favourite with Smokey. That’s why Strawson, who is a first rate keeper, left him in charge.”

  “And a spiked railing for him to fall on.”

  “That sort of piffling thing could happen with anyone. The boy should have moved it. In any case Strawson’s my head keeper. Any wrong action or failure to act on his part is my responsibility.”

  “Oh, come off it, Bobby. Strawson isn’t your head Sikh guide, or for that matter your senior N.C.O. at Dunkirk or wherever you won your spurs.” It worked. He laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he added, “Not that I have a monopoly of high mindedness at the moment. You appear to have constituted yourself the conscience of the Zoo.”

  He stopped for a moment and stared towards the Monkey House where Yeti, the great orange gorilla he had discovered, crouched forward on its powerful arms and scowled beneath its shiny black forehead at the assembled visitors.

  “He draws the crowd all right,” he observed. “I like to see them in front of the great apes or any of the big cats. Wretched weedy cits and the noble beasts. All right. No more high flown talk. But good God! Simon, you claim to know people. Surely you can understand what I’m feeling. If I’d had that giraffe shot, that boy would be alive now. What does A do about that?”

  “I don’t understand, Bobby, why you harp on that. If that is the only negligence, Beard’s to blame not you. Leacock was right about that. The Veterinary Adviser has a final say in the disposal of animals rendered dangerous by disease of any kind. I don’t understand why you insist on taking the blame.”

  “Charles Langley-Beard has had a hell of a life. He’s the best ‘Dead Prof we’ve ever had. You ask some of the older keepers. The chap’s got ulcers with family worries as it is. It would be a disgrace to start bawling him out over a thing like this.”

  “Well if he’s to blame . . .”

  “Look, Simon, I’m too old to travel hard now. That means my serious expeditionary work’s over. In any case anything that’s any good is being blown sky high these days. Why not go with it?”

  The exhibitionistic quality of his defiantly asserted archaism was thrown into highlight as he stood near the exit. His small, curly brimmed bowler hat, his broadly checked tweeds, his umbrella, gloves and vivid chestnut suede shoes seemed such a ridiculous challenge to the open necked shirts and billowing trousers of the ordinary summer visitors around him.

  I said sharply, “You’re not going to the guillotine, Bobby.” />
  Then suddenly as I looked at his lined, sensual soldier-clubman’s face, it seemed like that of an old, sick puma that I had watched each morning last winter on my walk to the office, dying out its last days in the uncongenial snow and sleet.

  I said, “I’m much more on your side than you think, Bobby, and that goes for a lot of the younger people.”

  In so far as the statement had any meaning at all, I was doubtful of its truth. As a result I was conscious of sounding hesitant. But Bobby obviously mistook the note for sincerity. He smiled.

  “Thank you, Simon. But I don’t want you to think I’m grousing. I seemed just now to be putting the blame on window dressers like Leacock or on this ghastly government. Who’s responsible for letting people like that get there? Me and my kind. We shall get it in the neck and we deserve it.”

  This time his jeremiad had no sad overtones. His voice was jaunty as he asked the commissionaire at the exit to get him a cab. The prospect of Götterdämmerung clearly invigorated him. As I walked towards the Staff Restaurant past the melancholy adjutant stork, standing one legged and gloomy in its paddock, I felt that the profit, if any, of our conversation had been Bobby’s, not mine, nor that of future young Filsons, nor yet the Zoo’s. However the misery in the puma’s eye had haunted me all the winter, and now for a moment I had been able to banish it by proxy.

  A moment later the Director caught up with me, all redolent with lavender soap to greet his lady wife, as he was apt to call her. He walked beside me with his curious self-assured roll— part jockey, part sailor—neither walks of life that could have played much part in his scheme of things as an ambitious scientist administrator. His walk always suggested to me—it was part of my constant sense of his clownishness—that he was avoiding what my mother would have called ‘an accident in his trousers’. Yet neither snobbish nor comic devices could really successfully eliminate the strong liking that I often felt for him. He had the unfair appeal to one’s protective instincts of all those who are totally without charm.