When Phillipe left, taking his fathomless dark eyes, his full lips and flawless skin, body and hair with him, he also took the keys to the Hertz rental, my cell-phone, expired passport, air ticket home, my credit and ATM cards with their PIN numbers and quite a lot of what I’d found attractive about Paris. Strangely, that he left in the small hours was what hurt the most, but then I’d never been ripped off so completely before, so I guess expecting him to be a gentleman about it, shows my naivete.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a while, considering my options. And came to the conclusion that there weren’t any. Daddy wasn’t going to be charitable and understanding after the generous sum he’d deposited in my account and his warning that I’d better get myself sorted out this time. If it took Paris to do it, so be it, he’d said, but this was it. After Fanie Labuschagne and Quinton D’Urban- Smythe in such quick succession, I suppose you could understand. Each was a louse in his own way, leather-jacketed Fanie in his noisy Cortina with the lowered suspension, and tweedy Quinton in his Jaguar with the door dented by that skittish polo-pony at the Club. Neither as good in bed and thoroughly bad as Phillipe, I decided, and returned to the present. The pensione bill was already overdue. Room service can push it up quite a bit.
I packed a sling bag with immediate needs and a few clothes and from the vantage point of my third-storey window, surveyed the rooftops of Paris for what was probably the last time. I wondered what other hurt and deception had taken place last night under that sprawling, picture post-card canopy, then I sighed and left. Gaston looked up from whatever desk clerks do at the front of an upmarket pensione and started scrabbling about, doubtless for my overdue bill. By the time he’d found it, I was out of the double doors and only caught a glimpse of his reflected image holding it aloft. I wondered if selling off my abandoned possessions would realise enough to pay it, but I’m not an authority on the value of matched leather suitcases and designer clothes.
I put some distance between me and the pension, striding along in a way that made men look at me, admire my legs and think the thoughts men do. It was what had attracted Phillipe in the first place, long before he discovered I had money – or access to money, anyway. It was spring, so the weather was good, but still, I went inside a dingy coffee shop and sat down, instead of at one of their rickety pavement tables, so that a panting Gaston hurried by, eyes on the far distance.
I ordered a coffee that matched the dreadful décor and did some thinking, scraping together odd coins from forgotten pockets and the corners of the sling-bag. Looking for the last coin, I found my season ticket for the Paris Zoo and put it on the table before me and stared at the bright-eyed lemur whose question mark tail formed the “P” of Paris. I’ve always enjoyed animals, not just dogs and cats, but all the strange and exotic creatures one encounters in zoos. I’d placated my conscience over the leather luggage with the thought that I also love steak, so the donors of either served an essential need by their sacrifice.
I tucked the ticket into a secure pocket and left the shop while the attendant was in the backroom, reflecting that I was getting good at this sort of thing. This time my strides were even longer and I was through the ornate gates of the Zoo in less than thirty minutes, and could slow down. I toured the cages and enclosures or sat and admired exhibits from the comfort of the benches that overlooked them. But all the while, I was pondering my next move. Paris may look romantic and festive in brochures and guide-books, but for the homeless, it’s uncharitable and pitiless. The gendarmerie wear those peaked caps for good reason – they shadow cold and calculating eyes that seem to weigh up and assess every passing face. As Paris’s newest bilker and coffee bill dodger, I hoped any wanted posters had caught me at a good time and that the arresting officer was good-looking, and then I realised I was thinking of Phillipe again and switched my attention to the present – and my situation. I was still sitting there when the keepers started feeding the animals. The pandemonium was deafening, gibbons hooting and swinging like hairy pendulums, cold eyed big cats pacing their polished walkways back and forth, their deep-chested grunting and moaning, all but drowning the anxious twittering and squeaking of a thousand other creatures. I sat there enjoying the guzzling, slurping and crunching until it took on another significance and it occurred to me that I was starving and that the meal with Phillipe last night was the last time I’d eaten.
More pressing though, was my immediate future. No money, no bed to go to, Daddy six thousand miles away and uncontactable, the authorities, whoever they might be, a threat rather than a source of assistance. I looked around me. A row of sheds tucked away behind a screen of poplars caught my eye. Keepers were loading bales onto a tractor-drawn trailer and now the elephants and hippos were adding to the racket and I saw my salvation. Paris may be the City of Lights, but when darkness falls, a girl alone on the streets is likely to have experiences the guide-books say nothing about. So it was that, just before the closing bell, I found myself sauntering across the intervening lawns and a moment later I was in the hay-scented darkness of the furthest shed, followed by the best night’s sleep I could remember in France, maybe because Phillipe never once entered my dreams.
Under the only tap I could find, my morning ablutions had me gasping but refreshed, and ready to tackle the new day. And what a day it was! A whole day, watching and studying the animals as they made the best of their situation - but trying to ignore the rumbling of my stomach. I was back on my bench by feeding-time, watching the gibbons and envying the freedom of their play – even in captivity.
A keeper crunched past me, his loaded barrow making heavy going of the gravel path. Something fell from the brimming bin nearest me, something brown, wet, glutinous and vaguely familiar. I looked closer and then swept it up, and sniffed it, looking this way and that, in case I’d been seen. I flicked the gravel off it and a turkey drumstick emerged, gamey and redolent with some sort of veterinary additive - probably vitamin enriched, so telling myself it was at least food, I made short work of it. By nightfall, I was back in the hay-shed, warm but still hungry and fast losing hope of a solution. I slept badly this time.
On the morning of the third day I was so intent on my tug of war with a chimpanzee over an overlooked banana, that I failed to see the bustling keeper.
“ No feeding of ze animals – she is forbidden.” He said, crossly. ”Here...! Take your banana!” And he wrenched it free of the simian’s grasp and thrust it at me. Standing there clutching my battered prize, I found myself teetering on the edge of hysterical laughter that suddenly turned to floods of tears. Non-plussed, the keeper and his distant relation watched me, the latter with such a look of genuine concern that I veered back to laughter. Clearly shaken, but conscious of his duty towards young women having a nervous breakdown, he gingerly took my elbow and walked me to the Zoo Director’s office. A rapid exchange in French had the great man pull up a chair opposite mine, before taking my hand gently in one of his, using the other to pluck the odd straw from my hair and offer me a clean handkerchief. His hand was warm and he had the most remarkably blue eyes. I stopped snuffling long enough to explain my predicament. At the end, he sat back in his chair and stared at me. “Ma foi – zat is tres MAL ????– zee man ees a… ow you say.. lice par non, nes pas ?”
“Louse” I murmured, feeling guilty at the correction “Daddy would agree. He says I pick ‘em.”
The Director continued to look at me. I found it disconcerting, but then he leaned forward and asked
“What work you do?” I hesitated to list Saturday morning promotions in liquor stores, a bit of fashion modelling for a friend, some Christmas charity work and then realised I hadn’t really done any work worth mentioning. But the question offered promise. And I needed an income right now more than ever in my life.
“This and that” I said airily. “I like change. Moving about”
“Tres bien. You lak animaux ?” I nodded vigorously, looking as employable as possible
“Come wiz me” he said and led me out to a shrouded enclosure behind his office I hadn’t seen before. We entered a nursery containing a wide range of baby animals, orphaned or rejected. The Director wove his way between the creatures in the nursery, pointing out this one or that. As I picked my way through them in his wake, there was a tug at my skirt. I looked down. Into a face that seemed as old as time.
It belonged to a very young oran-utang, it’s legs clearly affected by some sort of paralysis, so that it was supported in one of those walking rings you see human babies using. The Disney characters had all but worn off the device but it served its purpose well, and the creature’s arms were long enough to reach the ground and propel it about..
Without thinking I swept it up to cradle it and those long arms encircled my neck as any child might. “Zat is Orry. ‘Ee lak you. Zat is very good.” Orry cemented our new relationship with a warm stream down my front that I hardly noticed in the magic of the moment. ‘E cannot live wiz ze ozzers, not lak zem, to climb, you know?” Orry’s walking ring was digging into my ribs and I slipped it off, cradling the cold, lifeless lower limbs and unresponsive feet in my free hand. The Director was explaining the specific needs and requirements of other residents, some of which came forward to nuzzle us, others holding themselves aloof or cowering away from human contact. The Director stopped. “Ees too much for you?”
I was visualising the drudgery of fostering this diverse brood, weighing my response. Then my stomach rumbled again, and I gathered my resolve and said “ No...ees, um, it’s not too much - I can do this.” But there must have been a note of hesitation, because he said.”Ees ‘ave only wan uzzer work...’ere.” He jerked his chin at the fence “Regardez”. A hunched female figure trudged by on the path, weighed down by two brimming buckets. “ Lech.” He said.
“Is that her name?” I asked and he looked puzzled, then chuckled. “ Non, non ! Pardon...she is ‘ow you say, ze milkman – milk woman. For ze little wans – ‘ere.” He gestured about him and at a long row of feeder bottles and bowls on a shelf. “Ze milk mus’ be fraisch et naturel, you understand?”
“Is that all she does? No other work?” I asked, looking at my own milling workload soon to be. Orry was getting heavy.
The Director looked genuinely amused. “Ma foi! You sink is easy, her work? You have milked mebbe a rhinoceros before? Zen after, mebbe a camel? Ze oran-utang is ze worst. Formidable!”.
Suddenly, Orriy’s weight seemed lighter.