His girlfriend, Sue, has twin sisters – they’re seven years old and she wants to give them a treat. He agrees to a day at the zoo, though he and Sue are just nineteen and he’s wary of playing mom and dad. Besides, he struggles with kids, and before leaving home drinks a beer to settle his nerves, pops a miniature gin in his pocket. The twins say he smells like their dad, who’s known for peeing the bed; he’s heard the stories of course – a sad old fool forever consigned to the dog-house. The twins seem wiser than kids should be, aloof and self-possessed like Sue, with secret knowledge that reminds him of cats. There’s a hint of the moon in their eyes: Sue says they’re brown, but he thinks they’re gold, like something stolen, then flaunted.

 

The zoo is his chance to teach them stuff, but they already know what ‘endangered’ means, ‘captivity’, ‘habitat’, ‘prey’. They’re better informed than him, shrugging, yawning, and wandering off on their own. When they climb too close to the puma enclosure he shouts with excessive force. They slope away in a sulk, a puzzled-hurt just like Sues when she disapproves of his views. He knows he’s rubbish with kids, but why should he feel that he’s the childish one?

 

Sue and the twins have prawns for lunch, relish sucking flesh from the heads, immune to antennae and poppy-seed eyes. When Sue takes the twins to the loo, he necks the miniature gin, hating himself and wondering why he needs it.

 

In the gift shop the twins choose a pair of cuddly pumas: he knows it’s a dig at his former rebuke. They scarcely say thanks, but chat to the toys all the way home on the bus. Their whispered tone is furtive: he can’t make out if they’re referencing him, but suspects it.

 

The twins zoom-off as soon as they’re home, slink beneath tables and wind behind chairs to crouch in the darkest parts of the house. He senses he’s failed and longs to leave for the pub. But he’s wrong.

 

It’s been a perfect day, Sue says, in purring tones that make him doubt his ears; she’s glad she spent it with him. He notes the Lou Reed quote, and assumes she’s making a joke. But no. According to her he’s a natural with kids, despite his doubts, the hisses he hears from invisible corners. It can’t be true, yet the brush of her cheek against his skin feels real, like an unearned gift that he can’t turn down. Maybe she’s right, and knows something he doesn’t?

 

He senses she’s pounced, and perhaps he should flee, but he yields to her creaturely force. When she rests her head on his lap it’s nice: he’s grateful, strokes her hair, electric beneath his palm. Thoughts of the pub recede, and slowly, slowly the twins reemerge to curl around his feet.

 

 

 

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Paul McDonald is the author of over twenty books, covering fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His most recent books are: Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020), Don’t Use the Phone: What Poets Can Learn From Books (2023), and 60 Poems (2023).

Visit the Paul McDonald Amazon Store – www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Paul-McDonald 

 

Photo by Mateusz Sobczak on Unsplash