Janet wandered off humming an insouciant hymn tune. Once she was out of earshot she sulked and brooded. She knew she was behaving horribly, she knew that she was indeed horrible, a despicable compound of arrogance, covetousness, and self-centred rage. She was like one of those seething, stinking mud spouts which boil up in Iceland and lob burning rocks at passers-by. She felt guilt for blighting Vera’s pleasure and excitement; she felt shame. Her shame and guilt only made her angrier. Where would it end? Her heart was pounding; any moment she might burst. And after everything, Lulu, in her ecstatic joy, pronounced that the pony’s name was to be Blackie. Blackie! Not Satan, not Lucifer, not Pluto, not even Midnight, but Blackie! It was as well for her that Janet was speechless. Anyhow, the morning’s events should put paid to her presence on the zoo trip. But after lunch Hector drew her aside: “I’m not going to discuss your behaviour. It is beneath contempt, as you well know. This is Lulu’s day and you will go to the zoo with the others and put a good face on it. That is final.”
The zoo was in a fold of the hills about twelve miles away. It was privately owned and it was reputed to be run on the lines of Whipsnade. This meant, Vera explained, that the animals ranged with some freedom over woodland, grassy slopes, or boulder-strewn scree, according to preference. They had enclosures, of course, but these were for their own protection. Wolves, after all, must be kept apart from deer. “What, do you mean they don’t have lions or elephants?” asked Rhona in disappointment. “Oh yes, I think they do; I’m sure they do.” “Well, how can animals from hot countries…” began Janet. Then she remembered her outcast status and was silent. She was feeling a little more benevolent. She watched the clouds shift and the sun appear. A group of Highland cows were standing, sturdy and placid in the rough wet heather, by the roadside; beyond them the sky was palest blue and the watery sunbeams limned them in burnished light. They look holy, she thought, visionary. A vision of gentle beasts; she loved this idea.
Rhona had Caro firmly clasped on her knee. Her face was alight with warmth, affection, and excitement. She was reciting to her, “Four horses stuck in a bog, / Three monkeys tied to a clog, / Two pudding ends would choke a dog, / With a gaping, wide-mouthed waddling FROG.” Caro bounced up and down in time, squealing. Lulu wriggled forward, thrusting her elbow into Janet’s stomach. She leant over into the front; it was her day after all. She took a deep breath and began to chant: “High jump tomato, high jump tomato!” Rhona and Caro joined in. Francis was silent in the front; he was studying a map. Vera drove on imperviously. Janet unwound the window. The scent of wet turf and bog myrtle wafted up to her; she could hear a curlew and lambs crying. “High jump tomato, high jump tomato!” “Just fancy,” said Francis, “there’s a place called Balloch and near it there’s a place called Luss. Gives one curiously to think, doesn’t it?” “Whatever do you mean?” asked Vera. Then abruptly, “That’s quite enough, Francis. Keep your schoolboy humour for your friends.” “Do you really think,” inquired Francis, “that they should be going on like that about tomatoes? You know how Janet is with tomatoes. And carrots.” Janet’s mouth went dry; her stomach lurched. “Please stop, quick, let me out,” she gasped. Bent double, heaving helplessly by a gorse bush, she thought, “He did that on purpose.”
It was cold at the zoo. The sky had clouded again and there was the bite of frost in the wind. Vera took the little ones off and left Francis and Janet to look around on their own. Francis vanished into the snake house. Janet stood watching the monkeys. How dispiriting to think that these were close relations. On the other hand, perhaps this explained a good deal about human behaviour. They crouched on their branches picking fleas off each other and eating them. They were constantly on the move, changing places, slyly poking, pulling, jostling. They seemed unable to concentrate on anything for more than a moment. Then they noticed a blackbird trapped in their enclosure, desperately flinging itself against the netting. A hideous hunt began, with the monkeys anticipating every move of the bird, swinging and leaping, blocking its flight path. Janet shouted at them. She waved her arms about. They paid no attention. At last the bird sank in exhaustion to the floor. The monkeys crowded around it. The bird was motionless; only the faintest tremor in its breast showed that it still lived. The monkeys lost interest; back they went into the high branches, where they resumed their scratching, pinching, and intent scrutiny of each other’s backsides. A man came with a wheelbarrow. He released the bird and, to Janet’s joy, it flew at once.
Lions strolled lethargically on a muddy slope. They were tarnished by winter and dulled with boredom. A black panther glared from its den, so much a part of its enclosing darkness that only the two emerald chips of its eyes were visible. The lions stiffened, moved forward to their fence; suddenly they were alert and purposeful. Perhaps it was feeding time. Janet turned to see what they were watching. A group of nuns were coming along the path, their black habits billowing against the leaden sky. Were ancestral voices whispering to these lions, reminding them of what might be done with missionaries? Cheered by this thought, she moved on. An extraordinary creature confronted her from a small rectangular pool. It towered up out of the water, monumental and tragic. Its thick grey skin hung in flaps and folds, its great round face was a mass of whiskery wrinkles; its brown eyes brimmed with yearning and sorrow. Sea lions frolicked heartlessly around it, slapping eddies of cold water up its flanks. She remembered that sailors were said to have mistaken these creatures for mermaids as they reared from the waves of far oceans, sunlit and turquoise. How could this ever be? The world must possess no creature more dolorous. Snow began to fall, fluttering and settling on the huge stony form. It did not move. Janet turned away miserably. She looked back at it once; it was still motionless, gazing unfathomably into the blizzard while the shining black sea lions leapt and played.
Woeful and cold she felt as they drove homewards. They passed the wolves, scrimmaging together in the dusk, fending and ripping at a small blue anorak. “Well now,” said Francis, “I wonder what they’ve done with the owner.” Lulu gasped; fearfully she clutched Rhona’s arm. “Don’t be silly, Francis,” said Rhona, “I saw you chucking that in to them.” “Only something I found in a puddle. I thought it might cheer them up.” Vera sighed heavily. Janet sat in the front this time. Steadily the windscreen wipers fanned through the slush and mud. The snow had stopped but there had been a great burden of it on the canvas roof and now it was melting and dripping down all the windows like streaming tears, like the tears of the manatee. She shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the thought. There had been a happy fish in the aquarium house. It was a skate, a pure white skate, and it had moved vertically, floating up and down on a little wake of bubbles, like a handkerchief or a small pale ghost. As it floated, it opened and closed its mouth, and it had seemed to Janet that it was soundlessly singing “Hallelujah, hallelujah.” Its fluent effortless dance was a dance of praise, a joyous offering.
For most of the journey the little ones were quiet, but as they turned up the drive to Auchnasaugh and birthday tea and candles, excitement broke loose again. “What IF,” they shrieked. “What if a penguin rode on an elephant?” “What if a pear jumped over the moon? No, a melon.” “What if a slow-worm?” “No, Caro, that’s not how you do it.” “Water’s dripping in from the roof,” said Francis. The canvas was sagging heavily inwards. “Oh, never mind, we’re almost there,” said Vera, accelerating perilously. The car skidded, zigzagged, straightened. In the headlights they saw Jim pedalling laboriously towards them. He was on his way home; two rabbits and a pigeon dangled on strings from his handlebars; the rabbits’ stiff hind legs swung against the spokes of his front wheel. “I must just have a quick word with him.” Vera braked abruptly. The car lurched sideways again. There was a rending sound; an avalanche of slush and ice water engulfed Janet’s head. “The roof ’s split! Look at Janet!” squawked Francis. They looked, they squealed with laughter, they looked again and collapsed in helpless mirth. Vera wound up her window, waved to Jim, glanced at Janet, and began to laugh too. Janet was speechless from the shock of the cold; her hair was saturated, water was still pouring over her face, onto her lap, soaking into her coat, trickling even into the capacious recesses of her padded pre-formed brassiere, bought to leave room for growth. (Growth, what a hideous word.) The car drew to a halt by the front door. “What if,” proposed Francis, “something extremely funny happened to Janet?” Blindly she rushed into the hall and up the stairs. The twin lagoons gurgled beneath her jersey. Far below she heard Caro trying again: “What if a clown jumped into a bucket of socks?”