Christmas for Kong had never been as bloody, nor as violent and carnal, as legend might lead one to expect. For so many decades the community on the other side of the barrier, seething with their own concerns, had made tribute to the great Kong, the King Kong. Fashions and tastes changed from generation to generation behind the barrier, but the offerings remained as steadfastly, as solidly, uniform as the dread Kong himself. It is no wonder, of course, that the people thought of him as a god. And as a god he could not go blameless when a typhoon capsized the fishing boats and destroyed the market. But as a god he could be placated; a quiet Christmas could be predicted by a doubling of tribute. Not just a young girl, scented with clove oil and drugged to calmness, but also a teenage boy picked by a lottery, and a basket of glass blown into shapes too delicate for Kong to handle. The glass shapes represented fishes, fruits, sometimes eggs (for fertility), female shapes (for luck in marriage) and flowers. For the people behind the barrier, flowers symbolised prosperity. If Kong overturned the basket while ripping the human offerings from their stakes, then a bad year was foretold. If the basket remained more or less intact then the people could rejoice in a great and fortuitous year ahead. He ate the offerings. This is what he has always done. For the offerings to take place at Christmas was natural: the Winter Solstice heralded the triumph of light over darkness and a true beginning to the next twelve months of survival and trade.

That Kong in his head termed this festive season, ‘Christmas’, was a consequence of his time with the city people. He could still see their habitations be-strung with little flames of light. He’d seen gold and silver used in obscene amounts to decorate halls and windows. The glamour affected him. He remembered, in the centre of the city, a tree almost as huge as he himself. It extended fronded branches out all around it, in a wider circle at its base than its top. It wasn’t like the trees back on Kong’s island; its heavy scent was alien to him, and it was dead. It had been shorn from its roots and it decayed in plain sight. It was on top of this tree that Kong wishes he had tried to place the blonde girl. She could have been his offering to the wild things that rule all. A plea to the wind and the rain and the earth, all of whom he had been led to believe he had influence over, to come and wreak savagery on the city-humans who in Solsticean orgiastic excess had killed the tree for no practical purpose.They had captured Kong: for what? Not meat. Not a ceremony. To be displayed in cages and pits.

In the early city days he had crushed the skulls of as many of them as came near enough. He had displayed his fine skills by levering open the mess of their heads and scooping out the brains. These humans came after him with stings and poisons. They made him sleep. A god shouldn’t sleep. They took his divinity. This is a thought Kong does not accept. He is older than them. Older than their city. He has more in common with the ancient tree they sacrificed to their invisible gods than to the other creatures they cage in their menageries. He had to get back to the island. To the barrier, and its throngs of humans. He would pay greater attention to their development after his return. They would not be allowed to forget his presence, nor his divine favour or fury.

Kong plots in his sleep, scratching at the sores and scabs he’s developed from the filthy pit in which he is kept. Two keepers, finishing their last round of the enclosures before shutting up the New York City Zoo for Christmas, peer through the iron rails spanning the opening of the pit. They see Kong twitch. They are unaware of his dreams of Christmas on his island. One of them spits and lets it drop through the bars. Two years ago a little girl had come close to the pit. Kong had created a hook out of twisted rubbish he’d hoarded from somewhere and he’d managed to tug at her skirt, ripping its blue gingham fabric. He’d almost succeeded in catching her. The keeper that spit had lobbied for Kong to be put down. ‘It’s too dangerous. It’s a filthy freak and a threat.’

Ecomonics won. Kong is the city’s biggest attraction, next to the Statue of Liberty. The city fathers had even limited the tests that scientists hoped to perform on the brute ape, too scared were they to risk either Kong’s death or his escape. The scientists protested: no-one knew Kong’s age, and a rumour was circulating that he could be immortal, like a god.

‘People’d still come to see him stuffed,’ says the keeper to the other, sensing that Kong might hear and understand.

The other keeper shrugs. It was no time to get into debates. It is Christmas Eve. He wants to get home to his family, to bath and get the animal smell off him. Christmas is a time to be at home.

Kong twitches in his sleep, dreaming of tributes and drums.