10
Joseph sat for a while, but it didn’t suit him. It made his ears sting with cold and his brain itch with questions.
Where has she gone? it asked. What was she doing?
When he couldn’t answer, his mood darkened further.
Why do you even care? he asked himself. Do you think she’s in that office fretting about what you’re doing? No, she isn’t. She’s probably sat with a nice cup of tea.
He told himself to think or do something else. There had to be another way of occupying his brain, he was in a zoo, for crying out loud. But then again he thought, when the prize assets are two wolves howling for dentures, or an ape in need of a straitjacket, well, it hardly screamed ‘funfair’.
Instead, he gave himself a shortlist in an attempt to force the issue.
But as that final thought entered his head, he shook it out angrily. Why the hell would he do that? What possible reason did he have for bending his back to help someone who clearly didn’t want him around?
In his mind, she was no different to the others who were meant to have cared for him. In fact, he thought, scrub that, she was worse. At least when his dad was called up, his gran made noises about wanting him, even if that’s all they were. It hadn’t taken long for her to change her mind.
But this woman? If she hadn’t insisted on him washing his clothes then he wouldn’t have bothered unpacking his case. Wait till she saw in him the things his mum and gran had. She’d give him a piggyback to the station, just to be rid. Maybe then everyone would leave him be. Maybe then they’d recognise what he already knew, that he was best on his own.
So he dug his heels in, or on this occasion, his backside, and remained sitting on the bench that faced Adonis’s lair.
Right on cue the ape chose to lope out of the shadows, stalking on all fours, each step slow and loose, back flat enough to serve a pot of tea from.
‘What do you want?’ Joseph said. The last thing he wanted was to see its face. He wasn’t going to move, though. That would feel like defeat, like the gorilla had won on the basis of their first encounter, and Joseph wouldn’t have that.
As much as he wanted to look away, he couldn’t, for there was something majestic about the way the gorilla covered the ground. Each placement of his fists seemed planned, navigated, the muscles in his arms and chest rippling as they took the weight of the rest of him. As he strode, his head moved slowly from side to side, eyes piercing, seeking any danger that dared invade his eyeline. He looked in complete control of his surroundings, and the boy envied him for it.
It looked to Joseph as though Adonis’s kingdom didn’t even end at the bars: they were a mere inconvenience, one that he could overcome whenever he saw fit.
Joseph sat and watched, lips pulled in a snarl. If Mrs F wasn’t here to aim his anger at, then he would be more than happy to point it at the animal, and with good reason, he thought. It had scared him witless, for starters, but more than that, like everyone in his life it seemed Adonis had chosen to reject him. Instantly, in this case. And when that happened, the boy had learned to return fire. He could match every bit of anger thrown his way.
Adonis paced the width of his enclosure, left to right and back again, ploughing the same path around six feet from the bars. The grass there had long been trampled, replaced by a parched, cracked earth that trembled regardless of how slowly the ape placed his feet.
It wasn’t until he’d covered the entire space half a dozen times that he finally came to a halt, sitting with his weight resting upon his gigantic fists.
Adonis’s gaze landed on Joseph. The boy’s pulse quickened. He hadn’t taken his attention from the ape, not once, in the hope that eventually their eyes would lock, but when they did, it was not what he expected.
The ape didn’t blink when he looked at him and his pupils blazed with an orange fury. It was pure animal, primal, the boy thought, without realising that his own eyes flared with the same intensity.
Joseph looked hard at the scars dotted on the animal’s face. They were old, some half-hidden by hair that had long grown back, but they were worn like trophies, as a warning to anyone who dared get too close.
The boy would not back down or look away, though, and it was Adonis who tired of the stand-off first – a loud, unexpected bark surprising Joseph, knocking him off balance. After a second, quieter noise, Adonis pushed his fists into the ground, and started his languid movements again. In seconds, Joseph was left to look only at his rear.
What had he done this time to deserve that?
It brought something up in Joseph. Too many times he’d been judged too quickly, and he was damned if it was going to happen now with a dirty, stinking ape.
He jumped from his perch and stooped for the nearest piece of rubble. Pulling himself into a side-on position, he trained his arm on Adonis, who had sat once more.
Here it came. His own revenge. A feeling he loved and was well-versed in.
His shoulder tensed, eyes narrowed, as his arm pulled back.
This was it. He would not miss.