Kevin Brooks

Candy

2005. The Chicken House, 2006.

I walked the down-trodden streets of Camden, then up through Parkway and into the splendour of Regent's Park...looking around at the regal white houses and the lush green spread of the park, and the calming waters of the canal, and the little stone bridges, and the barges, and the ducks, and the distant sounds of the zoo, drifting in the air, the faint cries of the birds, the monkeys, the sea-lions...

Joe has bunked off school for the day to meet up with Candy, first encountered in disquieting circumstances on an earlier visit to London. This time they have arranged to meet at the zoo, and after visiting the animal enclosures go for a meal in the cafe.

I gazed out through the cafe window. The patio outside was deserted. Across the zoo I could see the pathways winding up and down through a landscape of trees and rocks and make-believe animal worlds. Man-made mountains stood glowering in the distance, as pale and grey as poster-painted papier-mache, and I wondered if the animals knew the mountains weren't real, and if they did know, whether they cared