Two lions on upper back

The keeper, a man called Odell with tar ground into his cuffs, swears the two were never apart in the hold. You don't believe him until the night of the gale, when the lamp gutters and a roar comes rolling across the quay from the sheds. You take the lantern down. The lioness is pressed hard against the bars, and the old lion stands behind her, his shoulder close to hers, not quite touching, so that the wet dark between them looks like shadow and fur folded into one.

At first light Odell unlocks the gate, because the boat is due and nobody wants to pay for a dead animal on the slip. You stand back by the bollards. The lioness walks out first, steps down onto the cobbles and looks back over her shoulder once. The old lion follows so close that his mane brushes her flank with every stride. Neither of them goes for the gulls, or the gap in the wall, or you.

By noon the sheds are empty and the oil has come off your hands with salt soap. Years later you still catch diesel and wet stone when someone mentions the menagerie. You never learned where the pair went, only that the northern wall was low that morning and the mist lay over the water like a grey blanket pulled up to the chin.