O Caledonia

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.