James came in through the front door just as Debs was leaving. They exchanged the briefest of greetings and he told her not to worry, he’d lock up. He offered her his cab – he could always call another when he was ready to go – but she felt safe around here, especially while it was still light, and she would rather walk the five minutes home.

He loved this time of the day here. Alone in the reception area, he had the run of the place until Vi had finished, and took his leisure in his favourite chair of beaten-up tan leather, which smelled of chestnuts and was set up to face directly the large photo portrait of Kurt Vonnegut. James could get lost in this famous image: the mop of unruly hair, the most honest eyes of anyone who had ever lived, and the half-smile that said “I meant every word of it, but I don’t mind if you don’t believe it.” No more punters at this hour: the blinds had been pulled down – that was always the last thing that Debs did before she was off – and the lighting reduced to the bare minimum.

Kurt wasn’t the only face on the walls. It was just that he was James’ favourite. Working round clockwise, amongst the many he still didn’t recognise, he would pick out George Best and Donald Bradman side by side: clearly genius was no bar to inclusion; Seasick Steve lorded it above Daniel Day-Lewis on the small wall by the water cooler; and Confucius took pride of place behind the reception desk, below the transom.

His sweep of the room complete, he checked his pocket for the twentieth time since he’d left the house. The tickets were still there, unsurprisingly. He tutted at himself, his self-doubt.

Vi was late: it was already 6.40 and she ought to have finished at half past. A while ago this would have driven him crazy: if you make an arrangement, no matter who it’s with, you ought to stick to it. But he had come to love her work almost as much as she did, and was happy to cut her as much slack as she needed where that was concerned. Besides, this was one of his favourite rooms anywhere in the world. No hurry, anyway: the exhibition didn’t open for another hour, nearly, and they weren’t eating until much later.

He knew she’d be busy in the training area in the back. That was the place that she lost track of time.

He wanted to see her in action, so he extracted himself with a small grunt from his cocoon of chestnuts, skirted Debs’ desk and climbed the stairs to the balcony. He had no idea what she’d be doing or who she’d be working with, so he had to scan the entire area. There was no action in the big tank, and it seemed that all of the smaller training pods had been closed down for the day. He followed the skyway to the annexe, and stopped dead.

What he witnessed was quite breathtaking. From nowhere, hidden within the purpose-built eaves of the atrium, a large bird of prey came swooping at a breakneck pace down to the ground, seemed to kiss it – how, at that pace, there was no almighty collision was a mystery to James – and rise up again to its starting point with what looked like a small rodent in its claws. Vi jumped out of a ground-level corner, almost squealing with delight. She held out a treat for the bird, who flew down straight away to land on her wrist and help himself. James remembered this patient: he had arrived over a month ago with a wing so disfigured that Vi had openly doubted if he’d ever fly again, let alone hunt. Now just look at him.

Vi sent him back off to the eaves while she reset the mouse-o-matic (Field)™. Having placed the rodent-shaped lure in the far corner, she trailed the tough wire back behind her to a cubbyhole, keeping hold of what looked like a control box. She could have been no more than 12 metres away when she took up her concealed position. She waited a while, enough time to let all the background noise settle into the straw-covered surface of the enormous pen. Then she pressed the silent green button.

The mouse snapped into life. It set off like a shot across the floor. It would already have travelled one of those 12 metres before the hawk shot from its perch, in full attack position. It hugged the edge of the training area, flitting against the high Perspex wall dressed with hedgerow, not even taking the most direct route to the rapidly escaping prey, as if it had all the time in the world. Then, like a pinball off an electronic bumper, it cut inside and swept up the robotic rodent before its circuits had any chance of recalibrating. Incredible: once the hunter had made up its mind that the attack was on, it was all over. James was quite humbled, almost intimidated.

He smiled and took the alternative skyway around the back of the atrium to check everything else was shut. Debs was a totally trustworthy assistant, but sometimes Vi didn’t even know her own schedule until the last minute, so things stayed unlocked until the end of the day. She would be finishing up after this, though, so he could close up. It would save them time.

Most of the storerooms were already shut for the night. He checked inside the freezer, like he always did: thoughts of locking somebody in there often bothered him. He must have been watching too many films. Nobody there, of course. The only other room open was the prosthetic store. Beautifully kept, as was everything in the facility, but he saw the stock of legs had decreased quite markedly since last week. That was surely a good sign, especially since the government grant had been coming through: in the days when Vi had had to fund these herself, they had come close to ruin. She loved working with the sharks, and was like a schoolgirl whenever a new wounded specimen was brought in, but they were among the most expensive to treat and rehabilitate. There were days when Vi would have to find quite creative ways of continuing the training without the required equipment, sometimes placing herself in quite considerable danger. As if she cared about that. But the state handout had solved all that: it was reassuring to know that, sometimes, even central government got their priorities right.

He locked the limbs away safely and completed his tour, arriving back in the reception area by the other door, which he also locked behind him. He sat in Debs’ chair and swivelled around, splaying his legs like a child, counting the number of revolutions he could achieve with one good push. No personal best today.

Vi appeared down the metal stairway and watched him for a minute. She regularly admonished him for acting like an infant, as he was now, but she was in such a good mood tonight that it didn’t bother her at all.

‘Not you again,’ she moaned. He brought himself to an unceremonious halt. – ‘Every week the same bloke! I keep putting in requests for Daniel Craig or Imran Khan, but I always get you.’ She kissed him flush on the lips anyway, despite her disappointment.

‘How’s your sparrowhawk? He looked in fine fettle.’

‘Shhhh! Honestly, don’t let him hear you say that. He’s a goshawk. Sparrowhawks catch other birds – not rodents. There wouldn’t be much point training one of them with the mouse-o-matic (Field)™. And his name is Godwin.’

‘Sorry. Sometimes I find it difficult to spot the differences. Is Godwin progressing well?’

‘Very well, thank you. He’s almost ready. I think he’ll be leaving us next week. I’ve grown quite attached to him. He’s been a real success story.’

‘Another in a long snaking line,’ James said proudly.

‘Shit! Thank you! Wait there a second.’ She dropped her bag, ran back, unlocked the door to the ground-level treatment pods and disappeared for a few minutes. Then she was back, locked the door once more and brushed herself down. – ‘What am I like? I totally forgot! I’m adjusting Anna’s squeezepost every night until it gets to 12 psi. Once she can deal with that for a week, she’s good to go.’

Anna was a green anaconda, who had been left on the doorstep in a filthy blanket, horrendously undernourished and only hours from death. Vi had been shaken at the state of her at the time, and the months of care she had lavished on that sorry specimen made the imminent parting even more poignant. The squeezepost was Vi’s own invention: the constrictor would have to exert a certain amount of pressure before food was dispensed from the top. Simple, really, but a most effective way of ensuring the beast’s basic mastery of its art before forcing it to rely on that very art for survival. Not many practitioners of her type were so dedicated to the well-being of their patients. And she was gorgeous, too.

‘You’re wearing a dress! You look beautiful,’ he really meant it. It was very rare nowadays that she aired her legs. She blushed a bit.

‘Are you sure? It’s not too obvious?’

‘What’s not too obvious?’ She frowned at him. He came back quickly: – ‘No, it’s fine. It would take more than a hungry tiger shark to ruin those legs.’ The scar was noticeable, of course, and the missing flesh, but it was no more than a part of her, an apposite reminder of the selfless work she did and the disregard for her own well-being that went into it and made her the best. She knew it was there as well as anyone, but James’ reassurance helped.

They climbed in to the waiting cab. The driver had just finished his crossword. James asked him to take them to the gallery.

‘Of course, sir. An excellent choice, if I may say so. I’m hoping to be there myself tomorrow night.’

They smiled at each other. This town had, without a doubt, the most cultured cab drivers on the planet.

‘Did Ellie go into piano OK?’ she asked once they had pulled out of the clinic’s parking area and onto the road proper.

‘No problem. She was especially looking forward to it tonight. It’s jazz night.’

‘Of course,’ jazz night was once a month. That was the piano teacher’s own preference – she had been a jazz pianist once upon a time – and Ellie loved those nights the best.

‘Shame I can’t say the same for Theo and his tennis. Skills and drills. Just bashing balls constantly. No games.’

‘Stop right there, mister,’ she held up her hand. The driver glanced in the mirror to check she wasn’t talking to him. – ‘No Theo tonight. That’s the rule.’

He agreed. That was the rule. Tonight all talk about his job and their older child was banned. It seemed arbitrary, but it was strangely effective.

The driver got a generous tip. Once inside the gallery, Vi made straight for a champagne-toting waitress. She was as ruthless as a tiger shark.

‘Wow. I needed that.’ She replaced her empty glass and took another. – ‘Don’t let me do that again, though, or I’ll be asleep before we get our main course.’

James sipped his champagne rather more delicately and grinned. She was right: she didn’t often drink, but when she felt deserving she could take things a bit far. The worst that would happen would be inappropriate snoozing, and they generally didn’t go to the theatre on these nights any more, but, still, he made special efforts to keep her occupied and away from the abundant caterers.

Easier said than done: the works on display were what they liked to call ‘challenging’. It was the word they used when totally stumped. Vi had a better eye for them than James did, although he wasn’t completely unappreciative. This night, though, they were both struggling. They giggled at some while trying to work out if they really were as filthy as they seemed at first sight, or even if they had identified the right species. With others, they tried to guess what the exact name of the colour palette might be: dermatological decay, ultraviolence, colonic irrigation? They kept their childish suggestions as low as possible, but failed miserably to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Mingling aimlessly among the exhibits, James was keen to catch up on her other inmates.

‘So, who else is progressing? Any breakthroughs? Any disasters? Any new arrivals?’

‘Nobody new so far this week, although Jane’s got an Egyptian mongoose that she’s having some trouble with and might have to palm him off on me. That won’t be until next week at the earliest though: she’s got some ideas she wants to try. I’m a last resort!’

They sat down in front of an enormous installation of what looked like aluminium, bashed to within an inch of its life in an extremely violent manoeuvre and fashioned into something that may or may not have looked like an acorn.

She continued. ‘Tendulkar (he’s the hedgehog with the anxiety attacks) is doing well. I’ve managed to get the sensors to stay put on his nose and feet now, so I can time his balling perfectly. Down to 0.9 seconds today. He seems to have improved now I’m using the barn owl image rather than the tawny. Odd, but maybe he finds them scarier. Once he gets to 0.75 he’ll be fine. And Johnson, bless him, he completely destroyed two prosthetics today. He’ll be back to being a killing machine in no time. I’m going to be needing more patients!’ But it still seemed to James that she wasn’t as enthused about her successes as she normally was. She looked around vacantly and bit her bottom lip.

‘What’s bothering you, then? I can tell there’s something. You’re doing that biting thing again with your lip.’

‘Hmmmm. I’m still worried about John. He’s got his exam tomorrow.’

‘Which one’s John? Is he the honey badger with the slipped disc?’

‘No. God, you’re hopeless. He’s the dwarf chameleon who was having the fainting fits. It’s his colour change test. It’s the last ordeal before he can be released. We’ve got the independent examiner coming in at 10. I know he can do it – he’s worked really hard and I’m sure he’s ready – but you just never know how they’re going to handle the pressure. It’s such a big thing for him.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. You wouldn’t have booked the examiner if you didn’t think he could do it. And he’s sailed through all the other tests. Try not to let it worry you, and enjoy the, errrrr….., artworks.’

‘No, you’re right. We’ve come here to relax and enjoy some truly creative genius. I shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself. What did Ellie do at school today?’

And they spoke affectionately of their daughter while they pretended to study the content of the remaining rooms. Her own problems were in the distant past now, too early for her to even have any memory of, and she was growing up into the sort of girl they both couldn’t help but be proud of. She had her mother’s red hair and determination to be the best, and her father’s dark eyes. Quite a formidable combination. She had her mum’s legs too. Lucky girl.

---

‘Cheers!’ they both called together, making sure of eye contact as they clinked. Another rule. It wasn’t an official celebration, but they both understood the significance of the date. A year ago to the day she had started to take her new approach. Before that point, she had been a fine zoological therapist with a growing reputation, but her success record had been eating away at her. It was no worse than anyone else’s, but that wasn’t good enough. For every successful release, she was losing another innocent patient. That was only to be expected – the wild is a dangerous place – but she was sure she could be doing more.

She would spend hours, days, brooding about exactly what more she could be doing. What she wasn’t giving the animals before expecting them to reintegrate. It was depressing her, and it wasn’t doing much for her husband or children either. It was a difficult time all round: James had always known how much the work meant to her, and was resigned to taking the lows that came with the highs. But this was another thing entirely: a slough of unprecedented depth or duration, and it dragged in everybody close to it.

Then, those 12 months ago, Vi had the feeling that she had glimpsed some light. Except what she saw was so disarmingly simple that she worried she must have left something out. Her patients were getting lazy, that was what it was. They were neglecting their skills, and losing them as a result. She was so attentive that they no longer needed to struggle to survive, as long as they were in the facility. Imagine a bird of prey who had to brave nothing more than a leisurely float down from his perch, once his wing had mended, to pick up a tasty and nutritious meal from the hand of his indulgent keeper. Keep that up for a few weeks, gain the weight you need, then return to the big bad wild, where prey moves and hides and even fights back. That can be a wake-up call even to the most ruthless of hunters, and not all are up to the job of adapting, rewhetting that edge. And it was all her fault: she was mollycoddling them into oblivion. She may have been mending them externally, but she was removing their natural steel.

Horrified with herself, she implemented the new regime straight away. Everyone would have to work for their freedom, like they were still in the wild. The results had been both immediate and spectacular. Now, she was imitated across the whole world, but still nobody could approach her inventiveness or her success rates.

So this was a celebration of a year of unprecedented professional success, and much deserved it was too. But not everything was quite so rosy, and the upturn in the fortunes of the clinic had not necessarily been accompanied by any similar improvement in family life. Up until that point, a short year ago, her preoccupation with her perceived failure had created an emotional stench, and the accompanying conflict, around the entire unit. Mostly between her and James, naturally, but it radiated out beyond the pair of them. The children were too immature to understand the difficulties their parents had to deal with, but that didn’t prevent them suffering from the fallout. James had hoped that Vi’s professional epiphany and the consequent dramatic turnaround would see an end to all that, but he was to be disappointed: her depression was replaced with vitality, but the absolute level of her preoccupation stayed static. Negative or positive, it seemed not to matter. Her family, which had descended to the status of a major irritant during the bad times, remained firmly in that same trough while she took on the rest of the world. Why wouldn’t it? It hadn’t been the cause of her previous problems, and it wasn’t the motivation or the catalyst behind her enlightenment. There was no reason for it to take on an altered form in her consciousness now.

James was disappointed, but dutifully carried on filling in the gaps she left. Truth was, he was too occupied himself to take any meaningful action.

Six weeks ago he, equally frazzled by his own commitments, would have sneered at the idea of a pre-arranged event, dripping with rules and organised with military precision. A date? With his own wife? He would consider that about as far as it was possible to get from the romance and magic it was designed to engender. Spontaneity and mystery, they were what was needed.

– ‘I can’t believe what Debs is planning on doing now,’ she said, after breaking the back of her eagerly awaited risotto. She laid her fork down for a second and looked over her glass at him while savouring the Chablis inside it. – ‘She makes my head spin.’

– ‘What’s she done now? Men, again, I expect?’

– ‘Of course. What else? She’s stringing along that nice Bob who comes and picks her up sometimes, while she’s started seeing that married man again. She’s going to get herself into trouble. But worse than that, she’s going to end up lonely. You can’t carry on like that for ever. If she thinks he’s ever going to leave his wife, she’s got her head screwed on wrong. She won’t listen.’

James agreed. He had never been able to make head nor tail of Debs’ love life, but it was her choice, in the end, he supposed. He had seen what loneliness could do: their neighbour, who wandered around naked for the majority of the day, in full view, caused them great mirth regularly, including right now, but they surmised that her behaviour probably arose from a sort of terminal loneliness. The requirement to be seen and remarked upon was not generally part of the psyche of somebody in a loving and fulfilling relationship. He and Vi enjoyed building possible pasts for her, based broadly on what few facts they knew of her life, but in the end it always came down to some kind of emotionally-scarring abandonment, whether deserved or undeserved, as the key to her present way of life. It was harmless enough fun on their part – she would never know what kind of scenarios they had placed her in, or how she had reacted. For Debs to be going down the same path was a genuine worry. Still, Vi reluctantly agreed to say nothing.

They decided to take the tube home. It was a safe enough walk back from the station to their house, especially at this time of year, and Vi felt somehow hypocritical if she showed any trepidation around being out and about. After all, it was she that provided much of the potential danger herself. At the very least it was disrespectful to the beasts she had nurtured back to full match fitness.

They sat, quietly, holding hands, gazing at nothing in particular. She was still replaying her dessert, spoonful by spoonful. The train clacked on its inevitable way, its ever-changing rhythm lulling her deeper and deeper. Her head dropped gently onto his shoulder and the slightest smile curled onto her lips. James would definitely ask her later, but for now he imagined that she was dreaming of goshawks.