Captivity (First 8 Chapters) (5)
Bianca didn’t know anything much about music but she knew there were no gorillas in Brazil and guessed there might not be too much mist. “Are you sure you’re thinking of Brazil? They don’t have gorillas in Brazil. They have football pitches.” “You’re not English, are you?” “No, I’m not, and neither are you. I’m Romanian.” Frank drained his glass. “Another drink? What are you having?” “I’ll have a glass of Shiraz, if you don’t mind. Large one.” * * * * * The first of the senses to come to life is the olfactory, and thereby Margarita drifted from a slumbering nightmare of raging flesh-tearing felines into a waken nightmare of diesel, humans, smoke, dogs, decay, filth and the unknown. Noise soon crowded her ears. Her eyes were gummy and filled with dirt. Her muscles ached but more than anything she had a raging thirst and a pounding, throbbing in her head. As consciousness seeped back through her neurons, she remained stretched out in the dust. A prone antelope is a dead antelope: soon her instincts stretched her neck and she raised her head to try to look around. The world spun and swam. Her eyes prickled and burned, and the pounding in her head became one colossal pound as it crashed back down to earth. She heard voices and sensed men all around, attracted by her pathetic attempt to rise. Slowly she pulled herself to her feet and tottered there like a new-born. Her head was exploding and felt twice it’s normal weight. She felt she could barely raise it above her grazing stance, and her neck was weak. She took a couple of steps forward and slumped to her knees, bellowing. A couple of hours later she was more or less fully recovered, though her head still throbbed and her balance was poor. She was alone and terrified. She had never encountered a fence before and did not understand it in the least. There was a way around every obstacle she had ever met. The grass inside the fence was dry and unappetising, but outside the fence was nothing but danger known and unknown. There was only a tiny patch of shade at the edge of the enclosure where she dared not approach. There was a metal container filled with stinking metallic water which she had no choice but to drink. Her neck ached and eventually she lay down again, with her miserable head between her legs, more like dog than a deer. Men came and dumped armfuls of grass over the fence, but it was a kind of grass she had never eaten before and stank of men and dogs. That night she drank all the water and chewed miserably through the foliage. The next day she stood in the shade, head still not her own. After a few days of solitary misery, Margarita’s eyes grew misty, her tongue furred up and there were was a interminable ringing in her ears. She had still not regained her balance and since the water butt had been moved there was no reason to leave her tiny tent of shade, except when the men came to replenish the water or the heap of grass which she dutifully munched through. A truck came. Somewhat inured now by each new terror, even the lacklustre Margarita felt a new wave of terror. The truck roared and belched clouds of stomach-churning black smoke. It stank of the fear, and eventual death, of the cattle which it customarily conveyed to their martyrdom. Margarita’s deadened senses sprang back to life and she sprinted for safety, but all she found was fence after fence until she stood gasping in the centre of the corral like a bull in the ring awaiting his estocada. The truck reversed up to the barrier. Four men came and removed a section of the fence, exposing a narrow corridor. The men then entered the enclosure, shouting, waving branches and shirts, driving her towards the opening. Margarita tried to blot but there was nowhere to go, no way out except one. She plunged headlong up the corridor and quickly found it was a dead end, unable to turn around in such a narrow space she heard the squeaking, grinding crunch of the door of the crate descending and the world became darkness lit only by the spots of light which regularly punctuated her cell walls. The crate was winched aboard the truck. Chapter7 “You’re on the wrong bench.” Malbeck-Creek just snorted. From day one in Riyad, to day one in Jeddah, to day one in Mönchengladbach, to day 1,135 in Aldershot, Igglesden had occupied the bunk to the right of the door and Malbeck-Creek to the left. Then Malbeck-Creek was gone and Igglesden had spent a bizarre week staring at the space on the wall he had occupied for over four years before he too was released from captivity. Igglesden had returned to the Middle East, and patched together a career in the bijou zoos of sheiks and oligarchs. Malbeck-Creek had vanished into the murk. “Where did you go?” “Away. Here. Around here. Angola. Zambia. Zim-bloody-babwe. You?” “UAE. Went into zoos. I’ve spent the last five years cheetah patting. Falcons. Status symbol antelope. Cats. The Royal Vet Corps packs a lot of clout. Snobbery works. Why are you here?” “Same as you, I guess. Vacation. Get out of the bloody forest for a while.” They sat a while in silence. Malbeck-Creek continued with his sewing. “We should have something to say,” said Igglesden. Malbeck-Creek shrugged. “We will. 130-odd miles of parched dirt will loosen us up.” “I don’t drink any more, you know, not a drop. When I came out, I was off it, so I never bothered to get back on it. “Is this a coincidence? Did you plan this?” “I can’t tell you that. You know I would probably lie anyway. No, I didn’t plan this. Did you?” It was Igglesden’s turn to snort. “Not bloody likely. I’m thinking about the next flight to Wavis Bay, frankly.” “I owe you, Peter.” “I know. But I’ve forgotten and I don’t care.” “I haven’t. And I do.” The door opened and Basil released a posse of porters into the shed who began to cart out various supplies. “We are ready sirs, to leave in one hour from now. We go easy first day. No shower in the desert.” “I better check my kit. The dust, as you say, will loosen us up.” Malbeck-Creek snorted and went on stitching. * * * * * Moose rested his elbows on the fence around the chousingha compound, waiting for the vet. Their huge pen was thickly shrubbed with birch and hazel, bamboo thickets, rhododendrons, brambles and bracken. There were 14 chousingha in there, and while they were furtive, skulking beasts, there was enough of them for dedicated visitors to the park to see one, if they were prepared to wait and watch for twenty minutes or so. The water-stained, laminated picture of the small brown antelope rarely inspired many punters to peer into gloomy undergrowth. If a visitor were to see any of these delicate little creatures it would almost certainly be Parvati. Sir Miles had won the herd in a backgammon game it was rumoured, but that was before Moose’s time. If the stories were to be believed, almost all the stock was the result of a gambling escapade, or delivered as payment of some other kind of debt. Moose had been at Brentwood just over three years and in that time, it was true, many of his new charges did appear to have been the result of successful hands of Baccarat or Poker and games of Backgammon or Pitch and Toss. It was widely known that Sir Miles had won the entire Brentwood Estate in 1971 from a Belgian Count, who had in turn come into possession of it only a matter of hours before, as the sixth Marquis of Winchelsea studiously drunk, snorted, entertained and gambled away his family fortune. Further rumour had informed Moose that the seventh Marquis was now the partner of Tommy Gordon, Sir Miles’ reclusive son who resided in South of France and had been seen neither in the wild nor captivity for a number of years. Visitors who had the persistence were invariably delighted by what they saw. Chousinghas were more or less Bambi; a whole herd of Bambis. They were only a couple of feet tall with long back legs which made their bums stick up in the air. Parvati was the only one to have a name and had clearly been raised as a pet. She was also the only one to ever come really close to the fence and was curious about people. When Moose or one of his staff fed them, the compound would seem empty except for Parvati who would eat from your hand. Moose turned his back to the enclosure, rested his elbows on the fence. He had no shame about chewing a stalk of grass. He wore enormous steel toe-capped wellies, filthy canvass trousers and Brentwood t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Once, in the middle of January a couple of years previously, Bianca claimed to have seen him wearing a sweater. He peered off across the Bongo compound and soon caught sight of Igglseden’s golf-cart bumping across the lawn. Igglesden was unaccustomed to men who were taller than he, and uncomfortable with them. He wore jackets and sometimes even called his trousers ‘slacks’. His fine sandy hair, thinning rather than receding, was quite a contrast to the cascade of golden-red curls streaming off Moose’s head. They shared however, a deep hardened tan, both of which had once been red: Igglesden had been baking in the desert for years and Moose’s multitudinous freckles had eventually joined up. Moose remained leaning on the fence, rolling the grass stalk from one side of his mouth to the other. “Are you one of them call me mister vets or them call me doctor types?” “And a very good morning to you, er… Moose. I’m the call me Peter type of vet, mostly.” “Oh I don’t know if I like that. Someone as important as a vet, ‘e should have a proper title. I don’t call me Doctor, Kevin, do I? I call ‘im Dr Kevin.” “Well you can’t call me Dr Peter. That just sounds ridiculous.” “You know, I can’t help feeling that I have seen you somewhere before, Cap’n Igglesden.” “Were you in the forces?” “Oh no, not me, far from it. Could’ve been though, if I ‘adn’t of run away from home first chance I got.” “Ever worked in the Middle East?” “Can’t say I have. Went out there for a couple of months once.” “But not to work?” “No, not working.” “Holiday?” “Yes, a kind of holiday, I suppose. But I’m sure I’ve seen your face before. I’d like to say I never forgets a face, but I does. I never forgets an elephant’s arse though. Funny that, isn’t it?” “So what are we looking at here, Moose?” Igglesden directed his gaze into the verdant gloom within the shrubbery. “It’s Parvati. She’s hurt her leg. I reckon she got it caught in the fence or something.” “You’ll have to bear with me a little here Moose. What is Parvati?” “Parvati is a chousingha. And right tame and friendly she is too. Not like them other silly buggers hiding in the bushes all day long.” “Excellent, and bearing in mind that I am still quite new here at Brentwood, what exactly is a chousingha?” Igglesden ducked and moved from side to side peering deeper into the foliage. “Tetracerus quadricornis, the four horned antelope. From the forests of peninsula India. Not a true antelope at all, but a miniature cow: Bovidae. Most closely related to the Nilgai, Boselaphus tragocamelus. Though you would hardly know it to look at ‘em. Great big galumphing beast is the Nilgai. Chousingha looks like Bambi.” Igglesden stared at Moose. He had noticed this habit in Moose before, in conversation with other keepers. It was as if he had fallen into a copy of Walker’s Mammals of the World as a child and never quite found his way out. “There she is! My little beauty!” An incredibly frail-looking slight beast, Parvati did, indeed, resemble Bambi. She had simply appeared, magically at the fence while they had been talking. She stuck her nose through the wires of the cage, huffing and puffing. Moose see-sawed himself across the barrier and, with his wellies in the air, scratched the tip of her nose. Her right foreleg hung slack at the shoulder and her fetlock dragged along the ground. She seemed unable to lift it or move it. Igglesden noted that her nictitating membrane was exposed. Inside the enclosure, Parvati hobbled up to them. Her nose was dry and crusty, her eyes misty. From a precursory examination Igglesden could see that Parvati had caught her leg in something like a snare. Wire, or something like wire, had looped around her leg and almost certainly cut through both the long and medial heads of the triceps behind the olicranon. Some of her coat was rubbed away and the skin inflamed on the lateral side. Doubtless the nerves were severed also. “It’s amazing that she is still able to move around. Amazing that she is alive at all.” “You reckon you can stitch her up?” “Doubtful.” “What happened to her?” Igglesden stood up and turned his back on Moose and Parvati. Self-absorbed he began tinkering with his Blackberry, mumbling to himself. “Roan… 250… Choo…” He turned his head towards Moose, “Tetracerus..?” “Quadricorni, Tetracerus quadricorni.” “Qua.. dri… cor… ni… Hmmm.. 20… 20 kilos would you say, Moose?” “Dunno really. I’d say about 40 pounds… what have you got in mind?” Igglesden continued tapping. “40 pounds… 18.1… call it 20… 20 over 250… 8 percent… 20, say, microg. A3080… medetomidine… 0.29… ketamine…” Igglesden put the machine back in his pocket and fiddled around in his bag. “Could you get the big tray from the golf-cart, please, Moose?” “Sure. What have you got in mind, Dr Peter?” “Please Moose, just get the tray.” Igglesden primed a syringe with the calculated doses of A3080, medetomidine and ketamine and injected the dose into the scruff of Parvati’s neck, it took only seconds for her eyes to glaze over completely and her three good legs to buckle under her. “Pick up please, Roz,” he spoke to his walkie-talkie. “Roz here. Go ahead Peter.” “I’ll be bringing in Parvati in ten minutes or so, could you prep please?” “Sure, wassup?” “Maybe just a clean and stitch job, maybe have to think about a bit more than that. My cup of optimism is half empty, maybe three-quarters.” “I’m on to it.” Moose returned with a yellow plastic tray and laid it down beside the now unconscious Parvati. He stroked her head and then prized open her eyelids. He pushed his thumb and forefinger into her neck. Igglesden rearranged the contents of his bag. Moose bent forward and pressed his head to her chest. “Doc…” Igglesden looked down, “Doc… She’s not breathing.” “Don’t worry, her breathing will be very shallow.” “No Doc, she’s not breathing.” Igglesden fell to his knees and fumbled for the stethoscope in his pocket. No heartbeat, no breathing. His mouth dried and his jaw tightened. He looked across the corpse at Moose but had nothing to say. “You’ve killed her,” said Moose. “You bloody well killed Bambi.” * * * * * It was a long way from Tiger Compound Number 3 to the tea shed. Frank was a new man. Three days of bone, shit and barrow had transformed him. He now had a new sore back from bending and pushing, new blisters all over his hands, a fresh red neck and previously unimagined raking skills. He had been told he was to cut the grass, but not a blade had yet been shorn. Banrock had suggested to him the possibility of all manner of intricate interactions between his face, ‘ass’ or manhood and the lawn-mower, should the said lawn-mower encounter any fragments of osseous or fecal matter in its passage around the compound. It was very easy to take Banrock seriously. For the last couple of days he had been operating out of a flask of tea and a plastic box filled with fragments of breakfast, rather than trailing all the way over to the tea shed. There was a lot of banter around the keepers’ tables and as a newbie Frank felt a bit out of it. He never thought that it might a bit uncomfortable, working amongst his grandfather’s staff. He suspected he received special treatment from the other staff, or at least a special attitude, but whether this treatment was especially good or especially bad, he had yet to discern. Banrock was very specific that morning: one more pass quickly around the compound; come to the tea shed at break to get acquainted with the mower; don’t be late, Banrock was not coming to find him. Frank was more or less the first to arrive, got a mug of tea and three donuts, then sat on one of the picnic tables outside. Banrock rolled up in his golf-cart after most of the others had arrived and sat at Frank’s bench, in the opposite corner. Moose pushed his way onto the opposite end of Franks bench triggering a chain reaction which left Frank clinging on to eight inches of bench by a single buttock. Peter Igglesden’s golf-cart stopped beside Banrock’s and Igglesden breezed up to the table, nodding good mornings and acknowledging the formulaic greetings of the keepers. He raised his eyebrows and nodded to Moose before addressing Banrock. “Chad, can we meet after tea, up at the cloudies? Something about an abscess?” “Sure. Imogen got herself bit on the tail by one of the cubs, I guess. Shot of Cefadroxil should do the trick.” “OK.” Igglesden looked at his watch. “Half an hour?” “Forty minutes.” Igglesden turned and stepped towards to his golf-cart. “Prick,” said Moose under his breath, but not far enough under for it to go unheard. The vet paused without for turning, just long enough for everyone to know he had heard. He steered the cart towards The House giving the occupants of the table a stony stare and a mechanical wave as he passed. It seemed to Frank that there were a lot of students and summer staff at Brentwood, almost all of whom were older than he. One of these students now pushed a barrow with a squeaking wheel towards the assembled keeperage. He was a round-faced, podgy boy and Frank thought of him as typically English: pale and unfit. He dumped the squeaking barrow beside Frank and disappeared into the tea shed.
Copyright © 2009 Jonathan Shearer |