Whistling for the Elephants (8 page)

‘How’s
school?’ he would whisper.

‘It’s
the holidays.’

‘Absolutely.’
He paused. ‘When it was school, how was it?’

‘Fine.
We did World War One.’ I searched around in my mind for a fact. ‘It was a
terrible war.’

‘Second
one was better. I fought in the Guards, you know.’

‘Yes.’

Father
nodded. We had done enough bonding and I would go to my room. There I pulled
out my secret weapon from Aunt Bonnie. I spent even more hours with it than my
Chinese present, until at last I felt ready. The night of the barbecue, I
wandered down the corridor with it to Mother’s room. I thought she might be up
as she would need to get ready for the outing. I knocked and heard her light, ‘Come
in.’

Mother
was sitting in a white slip and stockings at her vanity table. She stared
blankly in the mirror. Small bottles from the drugstore littered the glass top
among an array of powders and puffs. Mother took a lot of pills. They all came
from the doctor so I guessed she needed them.

‘Mother,
can I speak to you about something?’ She nodded but never swayed her attention
from the mirror. ‘I want to get some new clothes.’ For one brief second we had
a mother-and-daughter moment. Mother smiled in the mirror. I smiled back. In
her mind I think she had leaped with me to the finest stores in New York. In
mine, my Sears, Roebuck catalogue purchases had already been delivered. Then we
looked each other in the eye and the moment was gone. She was so beautiful and
I was so strange-looking. I put the catalogue which I had borrowed from Aunt
Bonnie on the vanity table.

‘They’re
in here.’

‘What
are, darling?’

‘The
clothes I want. Some shorts and some shirts. Maybe…’

I don’t
think a stray dog relieving itself in the bedroom could have had a worse
effect.

The
barbecue hadn’t really started by the time we got there. Father always got us
too early everywhere. He had a dark suit on and held Mother’s arm as we crossed
the empty road to the Schlicks’ house. Mother was wearing her cream Jaeger
suit. I didn’t think either one of them was really in barbecue mode. We walked
slowly and carefully. No one ever said there was anything wrong with Mother. I
just knew we were always careful. The Schlicks’ house was clapboard like ours,
but it was two stories high and made of real wood painted a dark grey. A large
brass eagle flew over the front door with a Stars and Stripes clenched in its
beak. On the front lawn, a small cannon stood sentry. We knew the barbecue
would be in the backyard and we could easily have just gone round but Father
insisted on ringing the front doorbell. We stood waiting on the step. Mother
looking lovely but smiling vacantly, Father’s neck twisting like the clappers
against his collar, and me. Funny old me. Mrs Schlick took some time to open
the door. We could see the handle being wrestled long before it opened.

‘Come
on, Rocco. You have to move, sweetheart.’

It was
with something of a wrench that she finally fell out of the screen door, which
banged against the wall and caused the flag to flutter above in the eagle’s
beak.

‘Charlie,
I am so sorry. It’s Rocco. He’s old and I cannot get him away from the front
door.’ Mrs Schlick leaned rather longer on Father than was necessary. She had
very high-heeled shoes on. Maybe she needed the support. Her outfit was a
little startling. It was a brocade  jacket, very close-fitting, which finished
somewhere on her upper thigh. After that there was nothing till you got to the
shoes. It was a long way to the shoes. She smiled at Mother while pushing her
mountain of hair a little more heavenward. I swear it creaked as she did it. I
don’t know who was more dumbfounded, Mother or Father. I knew Mother wouldn’t
think these were our sort of people. I just hoped she’d remember not to say so
till we got home. Father was very tense. We’d had some bad times with Mother at
cocktail parties in Paris before we left. I don’t think he had ever thought
that Cherry Blossom Gardens would be a place where he had to deal with
socializing. Slowly the front door closed behind our hostess.

‘So,
you must be Rosamund. Such a beautiful name. We hadn’t seen you. I was
beginning to think Charlie had given you a cement overcoat in the Amherst.’ Mrs
Schlick’s body jiggled all over at the joke and then stopped as she spoke
confidentially to my mother. ‘It has happened, you know.’ Mrs Schlick tutted
for a moment, brushed an invisible piece of lint from her remarkably exposed
cleavage and turned to me. ‘Why, hello, Dorothy’

‘Hello,
Mrs Schlick.’

‘Dear
God, listen to you. I told you, honey, Judith, everyone calls me Judith. Funny
kid.’ No one disagreed. ‘Come on in, come on in.

Judith
turned to push the door open again. It would not budge.

‘Rocco,
darling, you have to move, honey,’ she called, but nothing shifted. Mrs Schlick
shoved again and her Empire State heels began to slip on the front step. Father
had no choice but to leave Mother to stand on her own for a moment and help
push. The door became less and less helpful until Father and Judith were
shoulder to shoulder against the wretched thing. With a small yelp from the
ancient Rocco, it finally gave and they rather collapsed into the house. I
helped Mother in. The dog had suffered something of a decline since I had first
met it. Now bits of moisture dripped from every possible opening, not just the
eyes. Fading fast from this world, Rocco had taken to lying across the mat by
the front door. Bewildered by the onslaught of people, he swayed slowly to his
feet and released a loud, dissatisfied explosion of gas as we stepped into the
hall. It mingled with Judith’s overwhelming perfume.

Judith
sighed. ‘Oh God, ain’t it terrible. I cannot get him on his feet any more. Not
even for a walk. A WALK.’ She screamed the word at the dog but it was unmoved.
It had, I suspect, determined to dedicate the remainder of its life to
flatulence. ‘He won’t move from the door. I said to Harry we oughta just cut a
piece off the bottom of the door and open it over his head. Don’t stroke him,’
she said to Mother, who could never have been further from such a thought in
her life. ‘You look so lovely but he doesn’t expect it and it’ll make your hand
smell. I don’t know what it is. I’ve had him cleaned. It stays with you for
days. Judith sighed and then instantly brightened into a good hostess. So come
in, come in. Welcome to Our Home.’

It
sounded like a welcome but in fact Judith was pointing out a large needlepoint
which said
Welcome to Our Home
in bright orange with a border of small
pumpkins. ‘I made it for Halloween, but everyone said it was so lovely I just
kept it right there.’

The
house was perfect. I mean in that nothing was out of place. It was also tapestried
knick-knack heaven. Everything which could have been made out of canvas and
thread had been. Everything which deserved an embroidered motto got one. The keyring
holder by the hall window said

You
Don’t Got to Look Far

For
the Keys to the Car

with hooks shaped round
pieces of an Oldsmobile in quilted fabric. The hat rack poked out from a major
piece of sewing of cats wearing fedoras with the words

Hang
Your Hat on a Cat!

You’re
Purrfectly Welcome.

Small
wooden ducks rested on embroidered ponds, the banister of the main stairs had
an embroidered cover of ivy leaves, every door had a cheery sign indicating its
function in words with follow-up pictures in case you got confused. If I stood
still long enough I was fairly sure I too would be committed to wool in
surprising shades. Any remaining wall space was filled in by God blessing the
house in every possible manner, and at least ten different designs assured me
that Jesus was my friend. I liked that. I had been thinking about having Jesus
as my friend since I had seen the advice on a bumper sticker. I thought Jesus
being your friend would be a good deal because you wouldn’t have to worry about
getting cooties from drinking soda wrong. While I was having these revelations
Father was staring at me. My hat. He wanted me to take my hat off. I removed it
reluctantly and hung it on a cross—stitched Siamese.

Through
an arch in the hall we could see into the sitting room. Judith swept us in on a
brief tour. It was obviously not where the party was happening. The furniture
was not designed for sitting on. It all looked very nice but was entirely
shrouded in clear plastic fitted covers. If you sat down you would either stick
to it or slide off in a second. In one corner there was a huge tropical-fish
tank, but the focus of the room was a fake fireplace surround above which hung
a painting of a girl. The picture was lit so that you couldn’t really look at
anything else. In another country you might have guessed that it was some
mystical shrine. Judith tottered toward it and leaned on the mantelpiece.

‘That’s
our Pearl. The pearl of our heart. Her papa’s pride and joy. Taken on her
sixteenth birthday. The photograph, that is. This is a real painting. Milo, at
the Toy Store? He does them from the photograph. He’s doing one of Rocco too.’
Judith sighed in wonder at the painting. ‘So much talent in a storekeeper. She’s
twenty now. Be twenty-one before you know it.’

‘She
looks lovely,’ murmured Father. Mother didn’t say anything. She was just
looking at the plastic on the sofa. ‘Uh… I’m looking forward to meeting her.’
Father marched the conversation on, his hands clenched behind his ramrod-stiff
back.

Judith
pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and ran it along, the bottom of the
picture frame.

‘Oh,
Charlie, she’s not here. I miss her.’ She choked suddenly, emotion welling
under her mascara. I don’t think we knew if this meant the daughter was dead or
what
, and no one dreamed of asking.

‘Perhaps
a drink?’ suggested Father.

‘Of
course,’ Judith replied, and the bright hostess returned.

She
sparkled her way through the house to the backyard. As we left the hall I could
just see Rocco in the corner under the hat rack. He was still swaying at the unexpected
sensation of being on his feet. He took the scene in for a moment and then
simply fell sideways. The tremor shook my captain’s hat free from the rack and
deposited it on his head. We moved on.

‘We are
so glad you moved to the neighbourhood. Harry and I have been here for ever but
every time we think of moving something interesting happens and we just have to
stay.’ Judith giggled the sort of laugh I had spent a young life avoiding. I
knew if such a girly sound ever came out of my mouth I would have to kill
myself.

Father
whispered something which Judith must have taken as a compliment. ‘Oh, Charlie,’
she giggled and whispered back, ‘Don’t mention Pearl to Harry, okay? He gets
kind of funny. Fathers, huh? He’s a good man, really.’ Judith pushed open the
back door.

In the
garden, Harry was wearing a large chef’s hat with a blue and white striped
apron bearing the words
I’m in Charge.
Smoke poured from a barbecue
which an ox might have found a little roomy. He was cooking steaks so big they
had to have been stitched together from several cows. A great dustbin of ice
was filled with cans of beer and soda.

‘Great,
great, the Kanes, start the party.’ It seemed unlikely. ‘Charlie, grab a beer.’
Harry twinkled at my mother. ‘You have gotta be Rosamund. What do they call you?
Rosie?’ He lowered his voice confidentially and leaned
too close to
Mother. ‘I tell you, Rose, we were beginning to think Charlie had given you a
cement overcoat in the Amherst.’ Harry roared at the joke and Judith did some
more jiggling. The evening was going to be impossible. Father could never drink
from a can. Mother could never cope with that much meat. I moved to put the
picnic table and chairs between me and Harry I didn’t really want to talk to
him. I was feeling very exposed without my tie and didn’t want him to say
anything. I did the top button of my shirt up and stood watching the grown-ups.

‘It’s a
good job you arrived, Rosie,’ confided Judith. ‘Your Charlie is much too
handsome to be left alone. We had such talks, didn’t we, Charlie? And you know
what we have been talking about?’ I couldn’t imagine. ‘History. Ain’t that
nice? Who woulda thought we had somethin’ in common? We just adore history Course,
mine ain’t as refined as Charlie’s.’ She sat down on a deck chair and gently
patted the one next to her. I couldn’t tell if it was for Mother to sit down or
because the cover was slightly wrinkled. Anyway, I knew it wasn’t for me so I
didn’t move. Judith waltzed on.

‘Dorothy,
you’re a girl.’ She looked round at me as if to check. ‘You’ll appreciate this.’
Her tone turned confidential. ‘I am writing the total history of fashion in
cheerleading through the whole century. People didn’t always wear saddleshoes,
you know.’ I nodded. I don’t know why. I had no idea what a saddleshoe might
be. ‘And look at this. I just finished this. Isn’t this keen?’

She
picked up a large black bag from beside her chair. On the side in multicoloured
diamanté was a portrait of Rocco in what I could only imagine was a full cheerleading
ensemble. The dog looked slightly demented wearing a short, pleated skirt and
holding its paws aloft with two giant pompoms. Above the pompoms were the words
Notre Dame 1952.