Perfect People

68

John, his empty camera case slung from his neck, stood in the middle. Luke, in a fleecy anorak, was on his left, Phoebe, in a duffel coat, on his right. Behind them two gibbons leapt around their cage, shrieking.

John held Luke and Phoebe’s tiny, gloved hands tightly. They were both wrapped up warm against the biting November wind. Flecks of sleet blew around them, like ash. There was a sour reek of dung and animal feed and straw in the air, tinged with the odours of frying onions and burgers.

Naomi, holding the camera, wisps of hair flapping beneath her bobble hat, called out, ‘OK! Smile! Luke, Phoebe, everyone say c-h-e-e-e-e-e-s-e!’

She watched them through the viewfinder. John grinned; Luke and Phoebe, hesitant for a moment, both mouthed something back at her and then, to her absolute joy, grinned as well. She pressed the shutter. After some moments she lowered the camera, and looked at it, puzzled. ‘I’m not sure if it took,’ she said. ‘It didn’t make the right sound.’

‘Try another, hon.’

‘OK. Everyone, once again, ready?’

Despite the cold, and the fact that the sight of animals incarcerated in zoos always made her a little uncomfortable, Naomi felt happy this afternoon. The children were actually smiling at the camera! This was promising to be the first picture ever with them smiling!

She framed them again, adjusted the zoom, called out to them to get them to look at the camera. ‘Great!’ she said, and handed it back to John.

He pressed the display button and then showed the image to Luke and Phoebe. ‘See those two little folk?’ he said. ‘Who are they?’

Luke studied the image for a moment. Phoebe turned around, more interested in the monkeys.

‘Can you see?’ John said.

Luke looked up at him with wide, baleful eyes and gave him a look that seemed to say, Yes, fine, I can see, it’s a picture, what’s the big deal?

‘You stand with them now, hon, I’ll take one of the three of you.’

‘Let’s find a different background,’ she said.

‘OK.’

Luke and Phoebe prised their hands free of his and walked back to the gibbons’ cage.

‘Don’t get too close, darlings,’ Naomi said, worried, hurrying after them. She put a protective arm around each of them. Luke and Phoebe stood giggling at their antics, then said something to each other that Naomi couldn’t catch. It sounded like their usual code.

After a couple of minutes she could tell their attention was wandering. ‘What would you like to see next?’

‘How about owls?’ John said. ‘You want to see an owl? We hear them at night sometimes. Would you like to see what an owl looks like?’

Almost in synch, each of them gave him a nod. He caught Naomi’s eye and they grinned at each other.

John gripped Luke’s tiny hand, so frail, so warm, in one hand, and Phoebe’s in the other. Naomi held her other hand. The wind gusted bitterly, but John barely felt it, he felt such a warm glow of happiness inside him. At long, long last he was starting to feel a connection with his children. They were reacting to this place, enjoying a day out at the zoo; seeming to be emerging from whatever strange space they had been in.

They headed towards the owl house. As they passed the meerkats, Luke and Phoebe tugged excitedly, pulling him over towards the cage. They all stopped and stared at the creatures, which looked tiny and cuddly. Naomi peered closely at the sign on the cage and read from it aloud.

‘While the rest of the family are digging, sunbathing or playing, one meerkat will always be on guard.’ She turned to their children. ‘See that one looking at us, Luke? Phoebe? She’s the one that’s on guard!’

Luke giggled. Phoebe pointed, giggling too, and said, ‘Maccat!’

‘ Meerkat!’ Naomi corrected her.

‘Maccat!’ she repeated.

‘Maccat!’ Luke shrieked.

They saw the owls, then spent a long time watching a sloth, upside down, asleep.

‘Would you like to be able to hang upside down like that, Luke?’

Phoebe burst into giggles again, then said something to Luke, and he started giggling, too.

John and Naomi exchanged another look. This is great! This is amazing! Simply amazing! Maybe our fears have been unfounded!

They went back outside, saw the llamas, then the camels, then the bears, then went into the insect house and stopped in front of a glass cage containing a pair of tarantulas. Luke and Phoebe moved closer to the cage, then shrank back, each squeezing John’s hand hard.

‘Not crazy about them? Me neither.’

‘Nor me,’ said Naomi, with a shudder.

They moved on and stopped in front of a giant East African hornet.

John knelt down and whispered to Luke, ‘Hey, tell me, what do you think about bugs? Creepy-crawlies? See these – they’re even bigger than the one you killed last summer. Remember that?’

He connected for a fleeting moment with Luke’s eyes. Then Luke looked away as if he was evading the question.

‘You guys hungry? Want to eat something? An ice cream? Want to go pan for gold? Play in the bubble tub? Go on a ride?’

‘S’ceam,’ Phoebe said.

‘S’ceam,’ Luke echoed.

They bought them each a huge ice-cream cone with a chocolate flake sticking out of the top. Within minutes, John and Naomi were fully occupied wiping the sticky mess from their faces. John put an arm around Naomi and hugged her, hard, and she hugged him back. Suddenly, standing out here, with the wind blasting his face with sleet and grit, he felt almost delirious with happiness. Finally he had a life that was as close to perfection as any man had a right to. A wife he adored, two beautiful children. A career that was going brilliantly.

Just seeing Luke’s chocolate-smeared mouth plunge once more into the cone, and watching Naomi wipe away a blob of ice cream from Phoebe’s nose brought feelings of joy deeper than he had ever thought a human being was capable of.

Then the shadows returned. The Disciples of the Third Millennium. The mystery hacker who played his chess moves against Gus Santiano for him. His concerns over the strange phone calls from the States that both he and Naomi had had last week.

But for the moment, for these few precious hours where they were just a normal family having an outing, he shrugged them aside.