The Lion

There’s a damp patch on my bedroom ceiling. I could paint it out, but why would I splash out on paint, when we’re sure to be kicked out in a few months? Anyway I quite like it, as it looks like the face of a lion. He’s looking sideways and smiling slightly, like he’s sharing some secret joke with me.

I told Gus there’s a lion living down the bottom of the garden, just to wind him up. There’s an old rusting water tank there, tipped over on its side and overgrown with blackberries. That’s his den, I said, where he sleeps and eats his dinner. He loved that idea, so I’ve turned his pedal car into a safari truck by tying his cuddly giraffe toy onto the back. I’ve shown him how to make binoculars out of toilet roll tubes too, for watching ‘his’ lion. He says they really do make things look closer. In the charity shop a fur hat that caught his eye. It wasn’t real fur, just nylon stuff in a golden colour. Gus stuck it on his head and growled. I didn’t think it made him look much like a real lion though, so when we got it home I added felt ears, and knotted some long bits of brown wool through it. It must’ve taken me a week off and on to make a full mane. Gus is now the only lion in a nursery full of superheroes and Star Wars robots, so of course it makes him popular.

I thought I’d pop to the Black Lion for a quick drink before the end of nursery. I don’t know many people at this end of Brighton, and well, it was that lion thing again. Perhaps it’s some kind of sign. I got talking to a bloke there, but he wasn’t a Leo, and he’d already got three kids by an ex, so wasn’t exactly what I’m looking for. In fact I’m not sure I’m looking for a man at all. Just a few new friends would be nice, people I could see regularly, probably ones with kids too.

I hate filling in those online job-hunting forms. I ended up saying I’d like to be a zookeeper. I mean I really couldn’t think what I’d like to do. I’ve done shop work and made coffees, but something where I had a regular, dependable wage that covered childcare would be good. I’m patient, hardworking and like a challenge. That’s what I filled in on the form. I think a lion would like to be looked after by someone like me. I mean I know it would rather be in the wild if it could choose, but if not, I’d be a good lion keeper. I’d be a keeper not a lion tamer, definitely. You can’t tame something that’s wild, and in my opinion, you shouldn’t try to.

‘Iron Like A Lion In Zion’, ‘Roar’ and ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ are now my wake up play-list. I know this’ll sound weird but this morning, looking through a hole in the curtain, I think I saw him for a second. A pair of huge paws stretched out from beneath blackberries, and then above them, a massive, teeth-baring yawn. I know I’d drunk a whole bottle the night before but I swear I wasn’t dreaming. Gus reckoned that overnight he’d scoffed the bread we’d put out for the birds. It had certainly all disappeared.

“It’s a male lion is it?” My sister Jade had seen on a wildlife programme that the female ones are actually fiercer and do nearly all the hunting. “The male ones just lie around, bone fucking idle like your average geezer.” I said I was sure it was a male lion, as it had a mane. “Maybe you’re just seeing what you need to see, Zoë. Something big, strong and male that’s looking out for you. Protecting you.” I was livid when she said that. I’ve had a couple of men in my life who’ve thought that being all muscles and occupying space was enough. The lion wasn’t like that. He didn’t take up the entire sofa; expect me to pay for a sports channel and take-aways for him. He didn’t promise to play football with Gus and then forget. The lion was great with to Gus. Sometimes, when I stood outside his room, I could hear him chatting away to it.

There’s a paw print on the path. It’s huge and muddy like the lion has been digging in the spot where Gus makes his mud pies. I went over there and looked too, but there were no more prints on the freshly dug earth. I googled ‘lion’s paw print’ on my phone, and ours actually looked exactly like the one in the picture. I know you’re going to think ours was just made by a large cat, you should have seen it. Anyway, I didn’t really think there was a lion under the blackberries. Of course not, I mean I’m not daft. I’ve just been kind of wishing there was. Wishing really bloody hard actually, because it would be something different, something dangerous, something to tell me I’m still alive.

The rain washed the paw print away overnight. I still looked out every morning when the lion music woke me, but I didn’t see anything else. There’re a few planks missing from the fence and our garden borders onto a small garage block, where nobody keeps a car. Everyone parks on the street, and all the garages are stuffed with old furniture and stolen goods. If there was a lion at the bottom of our garden he could slink out through the garage block, cross the road at the corner and slip into the park where the hedge ends. It’s not exactly the Serengeti but he might be able to hunt for squirrels or pigeons there.

Jade suggested smoking a bit of weed after Gus has gone to bed, and then going out there with a torch. “That’s what you need to do if you really wanna see it. When you’re half stoned, you can see anything like.” I didn’t do it. The lion would show himself to me again in his own time. Or maybe not. I didn’t care that much and I’m used to disappointments.

A man from the council came round. He said there’d been complaints. Someone had been shouting and yelling in my back garden in the middle of the night. That’s total bollocks I said. Me and Gus were tucked up in our beds. We hadn’t heard anything. Apparently the neighbours were going to be keeping a ‘noise diary’ and would be reporting any further incidents. If it happened again my landlord, Mr. Dempster, would have to be informed. It’s a six-month let and I know Mr. Dempster always refuses to extend, even if like us you’ve been as quiet as a mouse. None of our friends who were renting here when we moved in are still in this close. He’s evicted them all. I can’t go to the trouble of getting to know the new people. There’s hardly any point. Gus was sad enough when the old neighbour’s kids had to move on. I’m not putting him through that again.

I wonder if it was the lion roaring in the middle of the night that the neighbours heard. They do apparently, to warn others off of their territory. Perhaps too, it’s the lion that ate the half a cooked chicken I’d left in the fridge. I know I sank half a bottle of wine after the council visit, but I don’t remember eating anything with it. Also if I’d eaten the chicken there’d still be the bones to dispose of and the bin is empty.

Gus is even sleeping in his lion hat now. A couple of times his old baby monitor has picked up the sounds of a deep growling coming from his room. When I’ve gone in there he’s been sound asleep. Perhaps the monitor is just distorting his snoring.

We were in the supermarket earlier and in the freezer section, Gus suggested we buy another chicken. I said we were getting fish fingers, but Gus insisted that ‘Bob’ likes chicken. I wasn’t aware the lion had a name or that my son had been leaving it expensive offerings from the fridge. He confessed that as well as the chicken; he’s given it half a packet of bacon, a peanut butter sandwich he didn’t want to eat and even some Haribos, which must’ve been quite a sacrifice. “Bob is my bestest friend ever” he said. Mine too, in a funny way.

I can never sleep when I’m behind with the rent, and this time I’m seriously behind. It’s not like I’ve spent it on anything, just too many direct debits coming out at the same time. I rang the Mr. Dempster but he wasn’t there. He didn’t ring back either. There are blackberries ripening in the scrubby patch at the end of the garden. I wanted to serve them up with ice cream, but when I went to pick them, Gus got upset. “Mum, they’re Bobs!” The blackberries are left alone.

It’s our eighth-month at this address. Mr. Dempster hasn’t evicted us and hasn’t been in touch either despite my arrears. I started packing stuff up in boxes, so we’d be ready to move out when our tenancy was up, but I’ve not had a letter about it or anything. I think it’s best not to remind the old git that he’s forgotten about us. You don’t poke a sleeping lion with a stick do you?

“Snow, Mummy!” It’s not snow, bless him, just a hard frost, but Gus still wants to go out in the garden and play. I tell him it’s too cold and slippery. Down the end of the garden, where most of the leaves have now fallen off the thorny branches, I can see something large and tawny coloured lying beneath them. From the bedroom window I can see what looks like part of a rather moth-eaten mane. I rub my eyes and rub them again. I’m stone cold sober and it’s still there.

I told Gus to stay indoors and gave him his Playmobil lion family to distract him. There is something lying in the brambles and I can see now that it’s not a lion. It looks like a big lump of frozen, bloodied meat, wrapped up in a brown wool coat. I recognise that coat, recoiling in shock. It’s Mr. Dempster, or the remains of him at any rate. From where I’m standing something appears to have eaten his head down to the neck, and I’m not getting any closer. There are no legs either. A sheet of paper is fluttering in the grass. It’s my eviction notice. He must’ve been delivering it personally, when something attacked him.

Gus asks me if he can have some “green bottle water” too. I’m knocking back the plonk like there’s no tomorrow. I will call the police when I’ve stopped shaking, though I’m worried they might suspect me of murdering my landlord. I can only think I was out and when he didn’t get an answer by ringing the front door bell, he must’ve come through the gap in the fence and tried to pick his way through the blackberries. A big mistake when a lion lives there, especially if he’s looking out for his pride.

I send Gus to his room, despite his protests and take out my phone. I debate whether I should call 999 or 111. It’s hardly an emergency. Mr. Dempster’s been beyond medical help for some time by the state of him. Trying to think of the words to say, I look out of my bedroom window. The body of my landlord isn’t where it was when I came in. It’s halfway through the gap in the fence and still moving.

The corpse it being dragged out of my garden. I can’t see the lion himself because the fence is in the way, but I can hear him growling over his kill. He must be moving it to somewhere else, somewhere less exposed where he can finish eating it in peace. Perhaps he has decided to leave and find a new home. I watch as the remains of my landlord completely disappear and the garden is left empty. There’s no point in calling the police. Instead I lie on my back on the bed and gaze at the ceiling. The lion’s face in the damp patch has changed shape since I last bothered to look at it. The mouth is open now and his fangs are bared in a mighty roar.