Whistling for the Elephants (27 page)

Miss
Strange stood up. ‘Hello, Harry. Thought maybe you had forgotten your way out
here. Been a long time.’

Harry
pulled himself up tall but a flash of a little boy crossed his face. ‘Don’t
start with me, Miss Strange.’ Harry clenched his jaw and turned back to Joey,
to safer ground. ‘Pity you couldn’t join us on our little outing just now,
Joey. Oh sorry, I forgot, too short for the brigade, aren’t you?’

‘I have
asthma. You know I have asthma.’

Harry
smiled around at his chums. ‘Sure, of course. Still, I expect it was a man’s
work cutting up those pizzas for the ladies.’ Harry moved in on Joey. He
reached out and snapped his finger’s at Joey’s bow tie. ‘My, you look good
tonight. I always forget what a fine uniform that is.

‘I’m
here on official business,’ stammered Joey, stepping back a little. He seemed
to shrink even smaller as Harry rounded on him.

‘Official
business,’ repeated Harry. ‘Dog catcher to the zoo, huh? Not really a man’s job
is it, Joey? Animals? Furry animals? I mean, look at all these women. Much more
their line, don’t you think?’ Harry turned back to his brigade for approval.
The men were grinning.

Joey
pulled himself up as tall as possible. ‘Don’t do this to me, Harry. You always
do this to me. I have a job to do.’

‘No!’
Harry stepped back in mock surprise. ‘What are you catching today, Joey? A
dangerous poodle? A pest of a pooch? A schnauzer with a problem home?’

Joey
was sweating now. He eyed all the men watching him and then said with as much
dignity as he could muster, ‘A dog killed a goose.’ Harry laughed.

‘May
the good Lord save us in our beds. And to think we were fighting a fire while
all this was going on. Saving homes while our women were busy finding other
things to do.’ Harry dismissed Joey from his mind and turned to the silent
women. ‘Now then, ladies, we men are hungry. We drove past our homes and there
was no one there. That can’t be right, can it, Judith? Judith?’

Judith
said nothing. She sat so hunched now she could look at no one. ‘Judith, get up!’
barked Harry. His face twitched a little as she failed to move. Very aware that
everyone in town was watching, he hissed at her.

‘I am
talking to you. Now get up.’ Harry moved to the hay bale where Judith was
sitting and put his hand on the back of her neck the way he had at the
barbecue.

Joey
stepped toward him. ‘She’s not feeling good.’

‘She
can do that at home.’ Harry’s hand closed a little tighter. Everyone was
silent. ‘Come on,’ he insisted.

Miss Strange’s
voice was quiet but clear. ‘That’s how the tiger holds its prey, isn’t it,
Harry? You remember?’

Nobody
moved. It was Aunt Bonnie who broke the moment.

‘Stop
it, Harry. Leave her alone.’ Harry dropped his hand and looked at her. His jaw
was doing overtime clenching and unclenching. Then he looked at Uncle Eddie who
was standing in the middle of the brigade.

‘You gonna
let your wife talk to me like that, Eddie?’

Eddie
shuffled his feet but didn’t speak. Aunt Bonnie stood up holding Perry in her
arms. ‘I think you should go now, and perhaps you would like to take your
grandson with you.’ She didn’t yell but it felt the same. Harry looked at the
sleeping black child.

Harry
spoke quietly through clenched teeth. ‘That kid is nothing to do with me and
you know it.

Aunt
Bonnie stood right in front of him and held Perry out in her arms.

Harry
stood his ground for a moment, moving his huge jaw backwards and forwards.

‘He’s
Pearl’s child,’ she said.

Harry
spat out words under his breath. ‘Pearl is dead and he should be too.’

There
was silence followed by a general shuffling. I didn’t understand why but slowly
the women began moving toward the door. Doreen leaned over to Sweetheart as she
left. ‘Bring Perry into town. You don’t have to hide him out here. Bring him.’

Joey
stood to one side, trying to look official, but his uniform just didn’t cut the
same kind of ice as the firemen’s. Gradually the women paired up with their
men and moved off. Everyone except Aunt Bonnie and Judith. Judith didn’t move
at all. She just began to weep. Quietly at first and then louder and louder.
Harry stood still watching everyone depart. He looked at Aunt Bonnie like he
would kill her. He didn’t move but just kind of barked. ‘Come on, Judith.’

The
only response was more sobbing and a low wailing. Faced by such emotion, Harry
did what my father would have done. Nothing at all. Uncle Eddie never said anything.
Harry stood his ground, looking at his distraught wife, then he turned on Miss
Strange.

‘This
is your doing, you goddamn bitch. If it’s the last thing I ever do I will shut
you down. You and your fucking animals.’ He turned and was gone. Uncle Eddie
stood for a moment and then followed.

Joey
moved to Judith. He sat down beside her but obviously didn’t know what to do.
Awkwardly he began patting her on the shoulder.

‘I
know, I know. Rocco. You lost a lovely dog.’

We sat
for a while but then it got a little cold in the barn and everyone, including
Troilus, the goose, Sappho and Mr Paton, moved up to the house. I know Joey
wanted to come but he stayed in the barn.

‘I’ll
wait for the dog. Judith? I’m here if you need me.’ Judith didn’t say anything
but at least she had stopped crying. Her hair had quite fallen down to her
shoulders now but she didn’t seem to notice. She just followed along with the
rest of us, the orangutan and the devoted Troilus. Up at the house, Cosmos sat
on the floor in a yoga position while Helen, Judith, the goose, Aunt Bonnie,
Miss Strange and I settled round the library fire.

It was
Sweetheart who got the drinks out. She had surprising energy for someone her
age.

‘Time
for one of John’s settlers, I think,’ she said, mixing something in a big
silver shaker. No one was feeling too good but Sweetheart seemed determined to
cheer everyone up.

‘Helen,
did I ever tell you about that time Grace and Billie got stopped in the Packard
by a motorcycle cop?’

‘Yes,’
said Helen quietly, but Sweetheart ploughed on. She was enjoying the company.
Maybe it was like old times in the house.

‘Well,
Billie had been shopping for her final items to prepare for the big trip to
Africa. She and Grace were heading home in the Packard when they got pulled
over by a motorcycle cop. Billie was driving but Grace got out to talk to him.
He wouldn’t be pacified. They had been breaking the speed limit and he wanted
to talk to Billie. When he got over to the car Billie was sitting with her leg
pulled up on the seat. Peeping below her skirt you could just see a silver
flask tucked into her garter belt.

“‘What’s
in the flask, ma’am?” demanded the officer, pushing his hat back on his head.

‘Billie
smiled. “Oh, you don’t want to worry about that. It’s just a sample.”

‘“I
think you had better let me be the judge of that.” The officer held out his
hand. Billie shrugged and coyly removed the flask from the top of her leg. She
handed it to the officer and winked at Grace. The officer, rigorously doing his
duty, flipped open the lid and took a huge gulp. He paused for a moment and
then spat all over the ground. Billie smiled.

‘“I
said it was a sample. I just didn’t say it was a urine sample.” Billie had peed
in the flask while Grace was doing the talking.’

Miss
Strange smiled, sipping her drink. ‘I forgot. Phoebe laughed so. She touched my
face and she laughed so.’

Everyone
drank quietly for a while and it was nice. But grown-ups are so funny about
drink. It didn’t happen fast but slowly things began to get a little out of
hand. It had gone rather quiet. Miss Strange hadn’t said anything for ages
until she suddenly exploded with:

‘Harry’s
a son of a shit.’

‘He was
a nice kid.’ Sweetheart defended her son. ‘You loved him. You know he’s still
angry. He blames this place for killing Billie and he always will. They teased
him at school, you know they did. Living out here…’

‘Yeah,
with crazy ladies.’

‘I didn’t
say that.’

‘Living
with Miss
Strange.’

Sweetheart
sighed. ‘It was my fault. He hated me not being married.’

Miss
Strange sat looking into her glass. ‘Nothing was the same after Phoebe died.
The record had been playing so fast till then and suddenly everything slowed
down. I never even saw Phoebe buried.’

‘Down
by the river.’

‘I
know.’

‘Billie
never came out after that. She lay on that vast canopied bed of hers surrounded
by all those cabin trunks we’d packed. Trunks going nowhere. Her arm mended
fairly quickly but she never went near the tigers again. She never went to any
of the animals. I think she couldn’t believe that one of her beloved creatures
would turn on her. It changed everything. She had lost all her power. The only
person she allowed in her room, the only person she could stand to see, was
Harry. Harry helped bandage her arm. I made plates of food for her but she
would only let Harry bring them in. He read to her and I know he looked the
other way when she injected herself with morphine and more morphine. For a
while John Junior tried to get in but it was hopeless. He tried everything.
Remember the team of elephants from England who played cricket? It was pouring
with rain and he stood outside Billie’s window all dressed in white.’

‘Billie!’
he called up to the window. ‘Billie, watch this!’

A
young bull bowled the ball to John’s bat and he lashed out at it. The mud took
the earth from under his feet and John fell at the wicket. He looked up at the
house he had built for his beloved Billie. He looked at her window and saw
Harry. The son he now longed for. Maybe a son would make it all right. Billie
was pregnant.

John
scoured the land for a key to his wife’s heart. There was Lord Byron, the
educated pig that John had procured at great expense. He stood pathetically in
the hall outside Billie’s room and called to her about his porcine purchase.

‘Listen,
Billie, I can ask it anything.’ John turned to the pig. ‘Now then, Lord Byron,
how much is four plus two?’ There was a silence followed by six pawings on the
ground with a small trotter. John applauded enthusiastically and made the noise
of a marching band with his mouth.

‘Isn’t
that great? If you come out I can show you the finale. He can select a US flag
from a box of banners and wave it at the crowd.’

But
there was no response. He brought her maps of the corners of the earth. From
Singapore, Lapland and Peru, anywhere that they might travel and forget.

Grace
was in the county hosp ital for months. No one thought she would live but somehow
she pulled through. Well, what was left of her pulled through. She was a scary
sight and she knew it. It was months before she returned one night in the dark
to the Burroughs House. She too had declined all visitors. Harry wrote her. He
thought it would help his beloved Billie if he could persuade Grace to return,
but the letters lay unanswered.

Grace
came back because she had nowhere else to go. The house was silent when she
returned. Her limping footsteps echoed on the marble floor in the hall. She found
John Junior in the study. The place was littered with old bottles of Jack
Daniel’s. John sat on the floor with maps of Africa spread out before him.

‘Gracie,
Gracie,’ he called without getting up. ‘Grace has returned to the house of
death.’

‘How
are you, John?’

‘How
am I? I am terrible. My great balloon adventure is a disaster. Have a drink?’

‘No,
thank you.’

‘Mind
if I have yours?’

John
poured another belt and went back to his maps.

‘W
D. Boyce, remember him? Chicago newspapers, ass-hole, more money than sense, so
he asks me to go in on the American Balloonograph Expedition, the great
American Balloonograph Expedition. He was supposed to bring back the first
moving pictures of the African animals from the air, right? That would be worth
money. Maybe even a side-show. So he gets out there with his balloon and some
of my money and he inflates his damn balloon and attaches the movie camera to
it which he is going to operate from the ground. Now, it’s very windy so he
doesn’t want the balloon to fly away He ties it to a mule. A mule, for Christ’s
sake. Well, you know what’s going to happen. One heavy gust of wind, it seizes
the balloon and the goddamn animal. Apparently the mule brayed miserably before
disappearing into the clouds and never being seen again. That is because Boyce
is an asshole. Milton would never have allowed it. Sweetheart is quite annoyed.
I keep wondering what some poor native is going to think when a mule suddenly
lands on his head in the middle of nowhere.’

John
began to roar with laughter as Grace moved forward into the light. She had been
so beautiful but now she was like two sides of a coin. From the left she still
looked young and lovely. From the right she had turned in an instant into a
harridan. Her face, still livid with the fresh scars, clung on to her bones for
dear life, but it was an impossible battle. Everything on the right was pulled
down by gravity and injury. She was her own freak show.