Chapter 27: Dead Zoo sandwiches

Things were slow at work for Leonard. The work-from-home illustrators were busy with their kids during the mid-term break so there were no new drafts to go over. The boilerplate Roman book was in pre-production and wouldn’t be ready for checking for another fortnight. He had been told that there were another couple of projects in the pipeline, but nothing definite had been assigned to him—a rumoured book about world religions had been mothballed as ‘too topical.’ His admin was up to date, and he had killed twenty minutes changing his desktop wallpaper and experimenting with the more esoteric settings on his computer. Things got so bad that he had wandered over to Helpdesk Greg voluntarily for a chat.

‘Hi Greg. Busy?’

Helpdesk Greg was carving open a foot-long baguette on his desk and had a pot of all-in-one sandwich spread ready and waiting; it was basically the normal ingredients of a salad sandwich, blended to look like septic pus.

‘Just putting the finishing touches to this masterpiece. My body is a temple, Leonard, and my stomach is its altar. Of course the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach,’ he said, raising his voice and directing it at Margaret, Shelley’s erstwhile colleague, who was on a call to an unhappy customer. She threw a pen at him without even looking.

‘What brings you to my confession booth, Leonard? I hear that love is no longer blossoming in your pants. Sorry to hear about that. Men like you and I just can’t seem to catch a break. Fussiness is the precursor to loneliness,’ he said, again directing his voice at Margaret.

‘Oh, well, things aren’t so bad. Any news on the new colour cartridges coming in for the printers? I have a few things that I’m waiting to print out, to see how they look.’

‘No need to print off internet porn Leonard. There are magazines for men like you who prefer printed amusement. Dirty books too.’

Greg widened his jaw in preparation for an attack on his baguette. Margaret wore a frozen expression of disgust as she watched. Leonard had to admit that he was kind of curious himself about whether Greg could eat the whole thing.

Helpdesk Greg didn’t disappoint.

He shouted in triumph, raising a double thumbs-up while chewing the last chunks of bread in his open mouth, churning like a washing machine on its final cycle.

‘Okay. Best be getting back,’ said Leonard.

‘The young challenger leaves,’ said Greg, doing a nature programme voiceover, ‘Defeated by the alpha male, who will celebrate a successful hunt with the rest of his harem.’

This time the flying stapler actually hurt.

When Leonard got back to his desk, there was an email from Mark Baxter, BEd:

From: himark@markbaxterbed.com

Hi Lenny,

Had a great meeting with the guys over at Factorial Publishing. Some seriously sharp people there—going to take the encyclopaedia business to the next level. Totally disruptive.

They loved your book. And I mean loved it. Only problem is, they say it’s not for them. They say it’s not really a fact book. More of a story book. I told them, I said ‘No way! It’s a totally disruptive fact book – absolute game changer!’ They were cool with that but said they’d never get shelf space in the reference section for it, and they’re not a fiction publisher, so it’s kind of falling between stools I guess. They say they want to stick with regular reference books and try to be disruptive that way.

So, I’m sorry my friend. Thanks for coming to me with it. Anytime you want to bounce something off me, just treat me like a friendly old squash court.

Take it easy (but not too easy!).

You may wish to note the above.

Mark Baxter, BEd

Leonard sent him a quick response, thanking him for trying and wishing him well with his next project, and saying that he hoped they would get to work together again sometime soon. It goes without saying that he suggested that Mark Baxter, BEd, may wish to note the above.

Naturally, he was a little disappointed. He had put everything into that book, but he had also got a lot out of it. Although, if he was completely honest, once he had decided to write the book for Patrick, it no longer mattered to him if anyone else ever read it. Sometimes that happens, he thought, the motive only revealing itself after the fact.

A slow morning had finally crawled to lunchtime. Leonard grabbed his jacket and went to meet Shelley. She had picked the Natural History Museum as the venue for their lunch date, and Leonard liked to think there was a subtle note of compromise in her choice. She had even promised to treat him to a vegetarian lunch, although it struck him that it was a somewhat futile gesture given that they would be eating in what was effectively a room full of hunting trophies.

When he arrived there was a train of primary school kids filing out of the museum all wearing hi-vis bibs, a young teacher counting heads as they passed. Leonard climbed some old wooden stairs that creaked like a boat with each step, towards the mammal section where they had arranged to meet. He passed by the first few rows of glass cases, which housed stuffed wildlife royalty like lions, tigers, polar bears and chimps. In the middle clearing, under a humpback whale skeleton that had faced the wrong way for a hundred years, he saw Shelley sitting with a sketch pad in front of the bull hippo, and beside her, instantly recognisable from her description, sat Patrick.

‘Hello folks!’ said Leonard. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting.’

‘Hey, just in time. We’re just finishing our pictures. Patrick, say hi to Leonard. Remember I told you we’d be meeting him today. He wanted to hear what you thought about the Roman book.’

Patrick looked up.

‘Hi Leonard,’ he said. ‘I’m just finishing this, so just let me do this bit, around here, a little line here, just a few of these, there! Finito!’

He showed it to Leonard.

‘Oh, I like this,’ said Leonard, crouching down to cancel the height difference.

‘It’s like a regular hippo, only with lots of improvements,’ said Patrick. ‘Those are turbo boosters, so he can get away from predators. That’s a crying lion saying “Oh, why am I so slow I can’t even catch a slow clumsy hippo” and those things on the hippo’s feet are wheels, which are hidden inside his feet but which come out whenever he’s near train tracks, and then train tracks shoot out of his tusks to lay tracks wherever he goes, so he can still use his train wheels on dusty paths and regular roads.’

‘And what’s that spot there?’ asked Leonard.

‘Oh, that’s the bullet hole where he was shot by the French.’

‘Why the French?’

‘Oh, they owned Africa a long time ago and there were lots of wars, but when I’m in charge of the world, there’s going to be none of that. Any country that fights—zzzhhhttt!—off with their heads!’ said Patrick, slicing his pencil across his throat.

‘And how did they shoot the animals without breaking the glass display cases?’

Patrick flipped his head back and groaned.

‘They didn’t shoot them in here. They shot them in Africa and countries like that, and then put them in the cases. You should know that if you write books.’

‘Here’s your sandwich by the way,’ said Shelly, smiling and pulling out a slightly squashed lump of bread wrapped in cling film and handing it to Leonard.

‘Oh, thanks. Do you mind me asking what’s in it?’

‘Egg.’

‘Egg?’

‘Yes, egg,’ said Shelley. ‘I don’t want you to run low on protein. Got to look after yourself.’

‘Indeed. It’s just that egg makes me gassy and, well, we can’t open the windows in our office.’

‘You’ll figure something out. Patrick! Come here for a sambo.’

‘Eh, I’m okay for sandwiches. Any treats? Or if I can’t have a treat, can I get something in the gift shop, pleeeeeeeze?’

Patrick was swinging from Shelley’s sleeve.

‘We’ll see,’ she said, and then, looking at Leonard, ‘We’ll see.’