The Zoo by Jamie Mollart Read Free Book Online Page B

some traffic lights. I look out at an angular city shrouded in mist. Hard frost on all surfaces.
    â€˜Tossers,’ I slur.
    â€˜Are you trying to pick an argument with me, mister?’
    â€˜Yes, so we can have angry make-up sex when we get home.’
    â€˜Oh really? I can think of loads of things to be angry with you about if that’s the case.’
    â€˜Yes please.’ I lean forward and knock on the glass between us and the driver, ‘can you hurry up please, mate, the missus has got the horn.’
    â€˜Oi,’ shouts Sally and tries to sit up. I hold her still, her head in my groin.
    â€˜That’s it,’ I say, ‘Make yourself angry.’

14.
    Beard is praying. Or at least it looks like he is. Hands clasped together, eyes screwed up, his mouth working quickly, pink lips moving rapidly and silently.
    I sit next to Beth at the table. She is reading a paperback, the pages folded back on the table so I can’t see the cover. She smells of soap. When she speaks, her voice is too small, like a child’s.
    â€˜I don’t know how he can do that.’
    It takes me a moment to realise who she is talking to because she doesn’t raise her eyes from the book. 
    â€˜Pray?’ I ask.
    â€˜Uh-huh,’ she says, her voice so quiet that I have to lean in to hear her.
    â€˜Whatever gets you through, surely?’
    She studies me, then closes the book. It’s a copy of ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’. ‘I would think that this place would be a recruiting ground for Atheism.’ she says.
    â€˜I don’t think you can recruit for Atheism, can you?’
    â€˜How so?’ Her eyes are clearer. Now they are brown and intense.
    â€˜Isn’t it a reaction to something rather than a philosophy?’
    â€˜Go on.’
    â€˜Well, it’s a negative response to having belief and not a set of beliefs itself, so I don’t think you can recruit for it, can you? It’s a not having something rather than a having something.’
    The way she looks at me I’m doubting myself.
    â€˜What do you think the default position of a human being is then?’ she asks me.
    I try to think of something, something clever, something pithy, but I can’t. Shrug my shoulders instead.
    â€˜You’ve not really thought this through, have you?’ Her voice has a laugh in it now, teasing.
    â€˜No. I’ve not. Just came out with it.’
    I smile at her, a proper smile. Beth is reading me again. Her eyes narrow, as if she is trying to work something out about me.
    â€˜Do you find that about being in here? That you can’t think things through properly. Like there’s something that stops it.’
    â€˜The medication?’ I ask.
    â€˜No. Well, yes. But more than that. Even now, when I’ve not been given anything, my thoughts aren’t quite all there.’
    I consider it. Beth’s hand hovers over her book. I don’t want her to start reading again.
    â€˜If I’m honest I would say that I haven’t been thinking straight for quite a while.’ I gesture for her to come closer, as if I’m going to tell her a secret. I look around with theatrically wide eyes. ‘To tell you the truth I’m pretty sure everyone in here is guilty of not seeing things quite right.’
    I throw myself back in my chair and wiggle my eyebrows up and down. She snorts with laughter. The whole room turns to us. It feels naughty. For a second it feels like us and them.
    â€˜Do you fancy a cup of tea?’ I ask her.
    â€˜Yes please.’
    We don’t speak as the kettle boils. We’re a facsimile of domesticity. I can hear the TV from the other room. I make sure my body is turned away from her all the time so she can’t see my left hand. I don’t want to draw attention to it. I pass her a mug and we take our drinks out into the courtyard.
    â€˜Wish this was something stronger,’ I say and