Page 18 of Just Like That

‘Are you OK?’ Nick looks at me curiously as he lets go of my hand.

‘Um… yes… yes, I’m good. Just relieved that I never followed through on going to Gwen. That would have been a career killer – she would have thought I was a paranoid lunatic.’

‘I don’t think so. She’s a pussycat really. I just didn’t want this to become a thing, because she might have become concerned enough to contact your boss. Not sure it would have done any major damage though.’

‘Ha. You don’t know the half of it.’ I raise my eyes to the sky. ‘I’m not exactly the shining star of my company right now.’

‘Is that right? Well, maybe if you turn this place around, your glory will be restored.’

‘I’d say that’s wishful thinking. But I am going to find my way back, and however I do that, it definitely shouldn’t involve creating a massive hoo-ha in this place.’

‘Understood.’ Nick’s eyes crinkle with amusement. ‘Well, how about we keep things on track and go and deal with that elephant poo?’

I wrinkle my nose in distaste. ‘Sure… if we must. Oh, by the way, is there actually anything in there?’ I point to the seemingly empty enclosure.

‘Not at the moment. I’ve been getting the place ready. But there will be tomorrow. You’ll be helping me, and I promise you – that part of the job, you’re going to love.’

The afternoon passes quickly, despite me gagging and feeling like I’m going to throw up with every piece of elephant excrement I deposit in the bucket. The small mercy in the whole experience is that, after we’ve cleaned out the enclosure, Nick takes me to the outdoor area where the elephants are now hanging out, and we feed them apples over the wall as they use their trunks like arms to take them from us. I whoop with delight every time one of them reaches across and plucks one out of my grip, then plonks it into their mouth whole. Nick seems to have an amazing connection with the elephants and knows each of them individually by name.

‘So that’s Flora.’ He points to them one by one. ‘Then there’s Zooey, Tomakin, Baboo and Elias.’

‘It’s amazing that you can tell them apart.’ I squint at them, trying to clock some identifying features. ‘They all look really similar to me.’

‘They’re actually quite different. It’s about getting to know them: their personalities as well as their different physical characteristics. Tomakin’s the head of the pack. He pushes the younger males around, keeps them in line, while Flora is like the matriarch. She’s the only one who can give Tomakin a good rollocking if she thinks he’s overplaying his hand. And Baboo’s a bit of a wido. He’s young and arrogant, will maybe take over the pack from Tomakin one day, but Tomakin won’t let go easily and he really puts Baboo in his place.’

‘Gosh, it’s riveting.’ I clasp my hands with intrigue. ‘Like a daytime soap.’

Nick shrugs. ‘We’re not so different. Just animals ourselves really, only further evolved. Though I do wonder if we’ve come that far when I watch all the bad stuff on the news, like wars and terrorism and power plays by authoritarian governments.’

‘Or women who go nuts at you when you’re only trying to help.’ I offer him an embarrassed smile.

‘Yeah, that. Or guys who take the hump when their egos get wounded.’ He gives me a side glance and I smile.

‘Yeah, maybe we aren’t that much more evolved than our chimp ancestors. That’s who we descend from, right?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, that’s a common misunderstanding. But we do share a common ancestor with them from about ten million years ago.’

‘Now that I did not know. This is like being on a school trip. Except I don’t have a quarter bottle of vodka stashed in my bag.’

Nick laughs at this.

‘So what do you think the downfall of humanity will be then?’ I ask. ‘Seeing as we’re sort of on the subject.’

‘Greed and narcissism. No question. The way the world is so connected these days, I think it’s a really sad thing that we can’t all work together to solve the big issues that we share – like climate change and protecting the world’s biodiversity. Then these guys would have a chance in the wild.’ He gestures to the elephants, who are still huddled together in front of us, swaying their trunks hopefully, despite us having run out of apples. ‘It’s all so self-serving and political.’

‘It’s depressing for sure.’

‘You may judge this as a bit sad, but I much prefer spending time with animals over people if I’m honest. The thing I like least about humans is the disingenuity and the game playing. You never really know where you’re at – unless it’s someone you know and trust. These guys… they’re way less complicated.’

Nick’s face seems to cloud as he says this and for a moment I wonder if he’s referring again to our misunderstanding, but there’s something in his demeanour that makes me think it cuts way deeper than our surface-level feud. And interestingly, after spending the last several hours detesting and avoiding this man, I kind of want to know what it is.

Chapter 9

By the time I’m driving home that evening, I feel like I’ve been on work experience. After our stint with the elephants, Nick let me sit in on a vet’s consultation with a sick (and very rare) tropical frog that the whole park team are desperately hoping will pull through. Then we joined one of Nick’s team members while he oversaw the defining moment of the blue-crowned laughingthrush breeding programme through a thick paned window. This involved ensuring the exact right conditions were created to encourage the handpicked couple to ‘get it on’, and while I’d like to be mature and call it a moment of true beauty when they did, I couldn’t help blushing and babbling through the main event like an awkward teenager watching a sex scene with her parents.

Whizzing back along the A1 and into the Edinburgh city limits, my brain pores over the thoughts that are continually taking up the biggest space in my mind: Seth’s recovery and my work situation. The former, while it troubles me deeply, is largely out of my control. I desperately want my brother to fight his way back to the life he had before his stroke, but the reality is that will never happen. Though I’m not sure Seth has accepted that yet, and if it keeps him going, then I see no reason to insist on bursting his bubble. All I can do is give him what he needs to keep going – unconditional support, love and encouragement – while making sure he eats well and gets enough sleep and social stimulation. The rest is up to the experts and they seem to have everything covered.

My work situation, on the other hand, is less straightforward. While I had an enjoyable and somewhat ‘escapist’ day at the wildlife park – my unfortunate confrontation with Nick aside – it really isn’t the type of work project that’s going to set me alight. I can already see where their opportunities lie, and once I’ve done the brainstorming bit and sorted them out with some regular events to boost their revenue and take them out of the red, I’ll be thirsty for my next challenge.

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