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‘committed’, ‘viable’, and
‘relevant’ veered drunkenly through her mind. I can’t do anything for people if I don’t know anyone. And only one person has ever known me, or wanted to. She put that
thought away into some grave that she had dug for it, but never covered, left open for grief. She wished that she was four times as stupid, and twice as unattractive and eight times nicer. What did
nice mean? Caring about others. Working for World Peace; the poor; the diseased, the old and the mad. The trouble was that she had never found time to care about others. She thought it was sweat,
but found she was crying, or at least that there were tears on her face as well. I’ll turn over a new leaf, she said inside herself to Guy. I’ll be marvellous where I’m going. If
I feel like this, everybody must feel it a bit, and as I feel so awful I’ll understand them like most people don’t.
    Guy hunched his immense shoulders and redirected his contemplation a fraction away from her. He knows it won’t work, she thought. If she could have shared her peanuts with him, he might
have been more cooperative. But ‘Do not feed Guy’ was on all the notices.
    A keeper came along with a truck full of fruit and vegetables. Guy observed him without turning his head. As the keeper began selecting oranges, cabbage, carrots and lettuce, she said,
‘Couldn’t I give him something? Something you’d be giving him anyway, I mean?’
    The keeper looked at her and then held out a banana. ‘You can try him with one of these. He won’t take no notice though. You’ll have to come round this way.’
    When she held out the banana, Guy, without otherwise moving at all, put out the one arm, on the end of which was a gigantic and exhausted-looking work-worn hand, and took it.
    ‘He doesn’t mind you, then.’
    Guy examined the banana carefully, and then, with an absent-minded but dismissive gesture, put it down.
    ‘He knows it’s your banana, though. He knows it isn’t a present.’
    ‘We’ve had to put a stop to all that. In the old days, people could feed nearly all the animals. But these days – you get some very funny jokers …’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘One give an orange to a young African elephant. Stuffed full of razor-blades, it was. After that we had to tighten up the rules.’
    Arabella began to think of the elephant with the orange, and without the slightest warning, was sick. This made her cry.
    ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she gasped, leaning against Guy’s cage and groping for a handkerchief.
    The keeper gently moved her from Guy’s possible reach, opened her bag for her, and took out the handkerchief.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.
    ‘Don’t you worry. We’re used to cleaning up. Don’t worry about that. Sorry I upset you.’ He led her back to the public fairway and put her on a bench.
    ‘Look at the old boy,’ he said as though to a child. ‘Look at Guy, now. He’s eating your banana, see?’
    Guy, who had turned to watch her when she had been sick, had now picked up the banana and was peeling it with careless virtuosity. In between each piece of peel, he watched to see whether she
was watching, but as he stripped each piece he was intent upon the banana. This dual intensity was somehow comforting: he made her watch him, and not think. When he had eaten it, the keeper
said, ‘Feeling better, are you?’
    Realizing he meant her rather than Guy, she nodded.
    ‘I should have a nice cup of tea and go home. You look a bit off colour to me.’
    ‘You’ve been very kind.’
    ‘That’s all right, madam, ’ he said, with an emphasis both kind and jaunty, and went back to Guy.
    Feeling that she should move, so that at least she looked as though she was taking his advice, she got up and wandered past the ape house. People kept advising her to go home. Perhaps a cup of
tea would make a difference of one kind or another. ‘How can you spend one hundred and fifty pounds and have nothing to