Out-and-Out Liars; Of Ice, Fur and Fire. (Chapter 4, Part 8)

                                                                                    8.

Five minutes after he had freed  Zelda, a female Crested- Macaque, from The Exotic Pets Department in Harrods, Floy realized he had done the wrong thing; she was a consumer addict with not the slightest idea of how to delay gratification. She launched into the various halls of neatly arranged luxury goods and demanded, in a tone she could only have picked up over the years from ogling visitors to her department and from a entitled clientele ranging from as far afield as Highgate and Golders Green. “ You’re not going to buy for me that its-so loverly –everyone-will-say-what-a-caring- husband-he-is- lime green floor-length Zandra Rhodes coat?. You want I should escape in rags?”.

The fact they were not married and not likely to ever be, notwithstanding, when Floy pointed out she could have anything for free as it was the middle of the night and that her companions were already marauding through the hangers, more by accident than by design, acquiring incongruous bits of out-fit and had collectively acquired a ‘look’ that wouldn’t have been out of place at a grunge party had they not been wildlife, his new potential mate protested. “So, you want I should become a thief. So, you're an expert on prison manicures all of a sudden?". Then, " Now give young Benjamin here your most expensive smile, or I’m speaking to management". This last sentence was delivered in a clipped entitled High Clapham voice, for the culmination of watchfulness and long periods absorbing speech and behavioural patterns of the wealthy had left Zelda with more personalities, all of them insufferable, jostling within her than nature intended. “If we pretend we slipped on this puddle Lizzy dear, we can sue this place.  Yes Richard, we have somewhat drunk our wealth away.” It seemed Zelda had picked up a tad more than terms of endearment and bescreeching requests.

Floy used a system of designer ties to get all the escapees and now colourfully dressed menagerie out of the store. A single driver, drunk enough to think he was sober enough to drive was the only soul about who, (the Highway Code being the gossamer thin line between civilisation and utter barbarianism,) slowed to a halt at the zebra crossing to witness an ape leading an elephant in jogging pants and tweed stalker hat,  two lions in gold and silver sequin boob-tubes, a Crested-Macaque sashaying in lime-green coat and Russian fur hat, a snake with a rainbow Cashmire Pashmina, and two bonobos in hoodies and top of the range pumps. Three alligators took up the rear in an assortment of bangles, one whose mouth was clamped shut by a Rolex and Giraff with a Gucci handbag dangling from its neck and a foot wedged in bespoke toaster.

Meanwhile in the Arctic Mary Mary, celebrity drag chanteuse presumed dead, had caught up with her beloved Swarovski-collar wearing Chihuahua. Their respective modes of transport had run out of fuel, the septuagenarians and bankers having, to a last man succumbed to the rigours of sub zero temperatures.Clad in knit-ware the bearded drag queen and her toy dog now stood blissfully content side by side in the tundra. Blissful indeed not because they were finally reunited but because, immediately above  and all around them they were treated to a most wondrous and awesome vision:  the dazzling sight of tens of thousands of beautiful young men of all hues borne along by giant white wings where arms should be. In slow motion the white angels flew gracefully and soundlessly overhead with the focus and determination of migrating swans; they were going south.

It would be a while before Mary Mary would make the connection between the unending fleets of white angels that sailed, unseeing, passed her and the utter distress of her country-men, -women and -children back home on their knees praying for the next meal, heat or both. Now standing there in the snow, a single feather fell in a slow gyratory motion and landed in the palm of Mary Mary’s outstretched hands, anchoring the vision in reality.

She realized she was crying, her tears washed by what she initially thought to be rain; the angels were weep, their tears comingling with her own amid the vast, silent, light snowfall.