Now, Stephan was completely unarmed and so was I, but fortunately he kept his head and did the right thing: he stood absolutely still. Pedro righted himself and, seeing Stephan standing next to him, gave a little grunt, reared up on his hind legs, and placed his paws on Stephan’s shoulders. Stephan went several shades whiter but still did not move. I looked round desperately for some sort of weapon with which I could hit Pedro, should this be a preliminary to an attack on Stephan. Pedro, however, was not interested in attacking anyone. He gave Stephan a prolonged and very moist kiss with his pink tongue and then dropped to all fours again and started galloping round and round the crate, like an excited dog. I was still trying ineffectually to raise the slide when Pedro made a miscalculation. In executing a particularly complicated and beautiful gambol, he rushed into the animal kitchen. It was the work of a second for Shep to slam the door, and we had our escapee safely incarcerated. Then we freed the reluctant slide, pushed the crate up to the kitchen, and opened its door; Pedro re-entered his quarters without any demur at all. Stephan went off and had a strong cup of tea to revive himself. Two days later we released Pedro into his spacious new quarters, and it was a delight to watch him rushing about, investigating every corner of the new place, hanging from the bars, pirouetting in an excess of delight at finding himself in such a large area.
When you own a zoo the question of Christmas, birthday, and anniversary presents is miraculously solved: you simply give animals to each other. To any harassed husband who has spent long sleepless nights wondering what gift to present to his wife on any of these occasions, I can strongly recommend the acquisition of a zoo, for then all problems are answered. So, having been reminded by my mother, my secretary, and three members of the staff that my twelfth wedding anniversary was looming dark and forbidding on the horizon, I sat down with a pile of dealers’ lists, to see what possible specimens I could procure that would have the twofold value of both gladdening Jacquie’s heart and enhancing the zoo. The whole subterfuge had this additional advantage: I could spend far more money than I would have otherwise, without the risk of being nagged for my gross extravagance. So, after several mouth-watering hours with the lists, I eventually settled on two pairs of crowned pigeons, birds which I knew Jacquie had always longed to possess. They are the biggest of the pigeon family and certainly among the most handsome, with their powder-blue plumage, scarlet eyes, and great feathery crests. Nobody knows how they are faring in the wild state, but they seem to be shot pretty indiscriminately both for food and for their feathering, and it is quite possible that before many years have passed crowned pigeons will be on the danger list. I saw that at that precise moment the cheapest crowned pigeons on the market were being offered by a Dutch dealer. I have a great liking for Holland and its inhabitants, so I thought it would be as well if I went over personally to select the birds; as I argued to myself, it would enable me to choose the very finest specimens (and for a wedding anniversary, surely nothing but the best would do), and at the same time give me a chance to visit some of the Dutch zoos, which are, in my opinion, among the finest in the world. Having thus salved my conscience, I went across to Holland.
It was just unfortunate that the very morning I called at the dealer’s to choose the crowned pigeons a consignment of orang-utans had arrived. This put me in an awkward position. First, I have always wanted to have an orang-utan. Second, I knew that we could not possibly afford them. Third, owing in part to the trade in these delicate and lovely apes, their numbers have been so diminished in the wild state that it is possible within the next ten years they may become extinct. As an ardent conservationist what was I to do? I could not report the dealer to anyone, for the simple reason that, now that they had managed to reach Holland, there was no law against his having them.
I was in a quandary. Either I could not even look at the apes and leave them to his tender mercies, or I could, as it were obliquely, encourage a trade of which I strongly disapproved, by rescuing them. By this time I was so worked up over the conservation aspect of this problem that the financial side of it had disappeared completely from my mind. Knowing full well what would happen, I went and peered into the crate containing the baby orang-utans and was immediately lost. They were bald and oriental-eyed; the male, who was the slightly larger of the two, looked like a particularly malevolent Mongolian brigand, while the female had a sweet and rather pathetic little face. As usual, they had great pot-bellies, owing to the ridiculous diet of rice on which the hunters and dealers insist on feeding them and which does them no good whatsoever except to distend their stomachs and give them internal disorders.
They crouched in the straw, locked in each other’s arms; to each the other was the one recognizable and understandable thing in a horrifying world. They both looked healthy, apart from their distended tummies, but they were so young I knew the chances of their survival were risky. The sight of them, however, clutching each other and staring at me with such obvious terror, decided me, and (knowing that I should never hear the end of it) I sat down and wrote out a cheque.
That evening I telephoned the zoo to tell Jacquie that all was well and that I had managed to buy not only the crowned pigeons she wanted, but also two pairs of very nice pheasants. On hearing this, both Catha and Jacquie said that I should not be allowed to go animal shopping by myself and I had no sense of economy and why was I buying pheasants when I knew the zoo could not afford them, to which I replied that they were rare pheasants and that was sufficient excuse. I then carelessly mentioned that I had also bought something else.
What, they inquired suspiciously, had I bought?
“A pair of orang-utans,” I said airily.
“Orang-utans?” said Jacquie. “You must be mad. How much did they cost? Where are we going to keep them? You must be out of your mind.”
Catha, on being told the news, agreed with her. I explained that the orang-utans were so tiny that they would practically fit in your pocket and that I could not possibly leave them just to die in a dealer’s shop in Holland.
“You’ll love them when you see them,” I said hopefully, to which Jacquie’s answer was a derisive snort.
“Well,” she said, philosophically, “if you have bought them, you have bought them, and I suggest you come back as quickly as possible before you spend any more money.”
“I am returning tomorrow,” I replied.
So the following day I sent the crowned pigeons and the pheasants off by air and travelled myself by sea with my two waifs. They were suspicious and timid, although the female was more inclined to be trusting than the male, but after a few hours of coaxing they did take titbits from my hand. I decided after much deliberation to call the male Oscar and the female Bali, since it had some vague connotation with the area of the world from which they originated. Little was I to know that this would cause Jeremy to perpetrate a revolting pun that when Oscar was wild, this made Bali high.
I had decided to travel by sea with them because, first of all, I never travel by air if I can possibly avoid it. I am convinced that every aeroplane pilot who flies me has just been released from a hospital, suffering from acute angina pectoris. Also I felt the trip would be more leisurely and would give me a chance to establish some sort of contact with my charges. As regards the latter, I was perfectly correct; Bali had begun to respond quite well and Oscar had bitten me twice by the time I arrived.
As I anticipated, as soon as I returned to the zoo with my two bald-headed, pot-bellied, red-haired waifs, everyone immediately fell in love with them. They were crooned over and placed in a special cage which had been prepared in advance, and hardly a moment of the day passed without someone or other going to peer at them and give them some delicacy. It was a month before they showed signs of recovering their self-confidence and began to realize that we were not the ogres they thought. Then their personalities blossomed forth and they very soon became two of the most popular inmates of the zoo. I think it was their bald heads, their strange slant eyes, and their Buddha-like figures that made them so hilariously funny to watch as they indulged in the most astonishing wrestling matches that I have ever seen. Owing to the fact that their hind legs can, it seems, swivel round and round on the ball-and-socket joint of the hip in a completely unanatomical manner, these wrestling matches had to be seen to be believed. Gasping and giving hoarse chuckles, the two would roll over and over in the straw, banging their great pot-bellies together, and so inextricably entwine their arms and legs that you began to wonder how they would ever disentangle themselves. Occasionally, if Oscar became too rough, Bali would protest, in a reedy high-pitched squeak which was barely audible and quite ridiculous from an animal of that size.