The Elephant of Belfast

by S. Kirk Walsh

  “What?” Ferris asked, looking over her shoulder.

  Eliza waved at both of them.

  “She’s a character, don’t you think,” Ferris said.

  “Are you friends with her?”

  “Everyone knows Eliza Crowley,” he said. “She’s a free spirit.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  Eliza retrieved a mop from the supply closet and began to swab the canteen’s floor.

  “I spoke to Mr. Wright this morning about taking care of Violet,” Hettie said, blowing on the surface of her tea.

  “And?”

  “He said no.”

  “Ah, Hettie,” Ferris said, grimacing. “I’m sorry.”

  Hettie smiled sadly. “He doesn’t like me.”

  “He’s that way with everyone,” Ferris said, looking up at Hettie, the creases deepening across his broad forehead.

  “If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Hettie said.

  “That’s not true.”

  Hettie made eye contact with Eliza Crowley again. This time Eliza blew an exaggerated kiss in their direction. Hettie turned away, feeling a blush creeping up her neck.

  “You gotta believe in yourself a wee bit more,” Ferris said. He tapped two fingers against the top of her hand. It felt like a knock at a door, and an imprint of his warm touch settled onto her skin. “Mr. Wright will come around,” he said. “Don’t worry yourself too much.”

  Ferris returned his hand to his teacup, and Hettie felt strangely bereft. Hettie considered Eliza’s words again. Ever since Hettie and Ferris had known each other, they had always been friends. But if she were being honest, she often felt something more when she was in his company. A soft flare of attraction. A buoyancy of self-confidence because she knew he believed in her. They shared a passion for the animal world, and he respected her intellectual curiosity. They had met three years earlier during a class for high-achieving science students that was held at a local technical school. Hettie was the only girl in the unit. From their fellow students, Hettie had heard that though Ferris had been born and bred in the city, he was mad about animals, and that he lived in a cluttered, smelly flat with his own personal zoo of sorts—two dogs, four cats, two rabbits, even a rat (when he managed to catch one)—and no one else. His parents had died in an automobile accident along the coastline between Portstewart and Portrush five years ago. It had been raining and the wheels of the automobile skidded, sending the couple and the vehicle crashing over a cliff into the churning waters of the North Channel. When Hettie had found that out only a few weeks after meeting Ferris, it had made her even more determined to be his friend.

  They were assigned as lab partners. During one of the dissections, Hettie remembered tying a baby pig’s translucent legs with twine onto the four corners of a shallow metal tray, its bottom covered in waxed paper, and feeling an energizing, unnerving mix of delight and dread. She felt a degree of pity that the pig didn’t have a chance to experience much life (their instructor Mr. Spence had explained that these pigs hadn’t even made it out of their mothers’ wombs alive), but at the same time, she was eager to slice the poor thing open and scrutinize its slippery insides. Ferris had tested the sharpness of the scalpel’s blade against the paper of a notebook with intense concentration. Hettie could tell that he was equally thrilled at the prospect of cutting the pale beast open and getting a closer look at its organs. Since then, the two had remained firm friends.

  “What do you have this afternoon?” Ferris asked.

  “Mr. Wright asked me to clean the Reptile House.”

  “Ah, the snakes and the lizards.”

  Hettie frowned slightly. “Not my favorite task.”

  Ferris glanced down at his wristwatch. “Oscar and the rest of the penguins are waiting for me,” he said. “You know how impatient those penguins can be.” He took his last swallow of tea before getting up from the table. “Afterward Mr. Wright is sending me in with the hyenas,” he said with a grin.

  “Good luck,” said Hettie, trying not to let envy edge into her voice.

  Ferris pushed through the canteen’s double doors, and Hettie looked up at the clock on the wall. She still had ten minutes until she was expected at the Reptile House. She took another sip of her lukewarm tea and found herself thinking about Violet again—the gentle, pendulum-like swing of her torso, the rhythmic march of her footsteps, the agile movements of her serpentine trunk. From a textbook she had read during her studies, Hettie recalled how elephants mourned a lost member of their herd, nudging the lifeless corpse with their feet, smelling it with their trunks. Their grief was everywhere. Drooping ears. Listless tails. Heads bowed to the ground as if they were caught in a trance of religious devotion. Later, the elephants returned to the sites where they had lost their loved ones. An internal compass always guided them back to where they needed to be. Hettie felt a kindred spirit with this particular trait of the elephants—that she carried a similar internal mechanism, that she would always return to where her sister had once been.

  Hettie took a last sip of tea and ferried their empty cups to the pass-through that connected the dining room to the dishwashing area. There, Mrs. Carson and Mrs. Flynn stood in front of two-basin sinks, their sagging elbows resting on the rounded edges. Hairnets caught stray strands of their hair, the black crisscross of mesh pressing against their foreheads. A crucifix hung around Mrs. Flynn’s neck, its gold producing a glint of light. Hettie recalled how both women had attended Anna’s funeral, how the fact that her sister’s service was held at a Protestant church hadn’t mattered to them. After the funeral, they had waited outside for Hettie. Mrs. Flynn had touched her forearm, and when Hettie looked up, she was startled to meet her glassy, red-rimmed eyes. Now Hettie regarded these women with affection.

  “Allo, Hettie,” Mrs. Flynn said, looking up and noticing Hettie. “Staying out of trouble this morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said with a smile.

  “That’s what we like to hear,” Mrs. Carson added.

  “Don’t let those boys boss you around,” Mrs. Flynn said with a wink. “Remember, you’re the one in charge.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hettie said again, grinning now.

  Taking a few steps toward the door, Hettie heard a raspy cough behind her. She turned around to see Eliza Crowley sliding a damp mop across the already wet floor.

  “I’m happy to see you’re taking my advice,” Eliza said.

  Hettie blushed. “It’s not what you think,” she said, glancing up at the clock on the wall. She had five minutes left of her break.

  “You shouldn’t be a tease,” Eliza said sternly. “Boys don’t like that—”

  Hettie shushed Eliza and glanced over her shoulder, worried that Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Carson might overhear their exchange. Also, she didn’t understand why most women were constantly concerned with matching men and women. Perhaps Eliza didn’t have much to think about while washing dishes and mopping the floor, so she concocted these fictional melodramas in her mind. Eliza wiped a strand of fiery hair out of her eyes.

  “Anyway, all the boys know that you’re more interested in animals than a friendly shag.”

  “Who said that?” Hettie asked sharply.

  “You know, some of the boys.”

  Just then, through the large picture window, Hettie saw Mr. Wright strutting by, his gait long and officious, and his black leather crop tucked underneath his arm. With a shudder of panic, Hettie glanced up at the clock again and realized she was going to be late. She didn’t want to give Mr. Wright another reason to criticize her.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, wrapping her father’s wool scarf around her neck and tucking her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

  “Eliza, almost done with that floor?” Mrs. Flynn called out from the kitchen.

  “Don’t forget what I said, Hettie Quin,” Eliza said, a smirk pinching her face. “Always make sure you’ve got a goo
d kiss in you.”

  Eliza yanked the handkerchief from her head and amber ringlets spilled onto her birdlike shoulders. She playfully thrust her chest forward and arched her spine. Even though she was running late, Hettie couldn’t stop herself from watching Eliza. She was short with a sizable pair of breasts under her work blouse and denim apron. She exaggerated the sway of her hips and then picked up her feet higher, dancing fluid circles around the mop. Mrs. Flynn clicked on the wireless in the kitchen, and the tinny sound of a big band tune traveled from its meshed speaker. “It Don’t Mean a Thing” was playing, the distinctive sound of the slide trombone riding over the swinging chorus of trumpets, saxophones, and piano. Eliza spun in faster circles, looking as if she might take flight at any second. Her body was nimble and elegant, a blur of motion. Her heels clicked against the floor. Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Carson clapped their hands. Joy was written all over their faces. Finally, Eliza took the mop’s handle into her arms and dipped it toward the floor, her hair tumbling down into a cascade of copper locks. She kissed the wooden handle and then turned to Hettie and winked.

  “Bravo. Bravo,” the two women cheered. “Bravo, Miss Crowley!”

  Hettie had to smile.

  Three

  ON HER NEXT DAY OFF, HETTIE RODE HER BIKE TO ST. GEORGE’S Market. It was an old black Raleigh bicycle, with a crossbar, that used to be her father’s. Inside the Victorian market, diluted sunlight spilled through the reticulated rooftop. Vendors sold produce that wasn’t yet in short supply: cabbages, turnips, beets, sweet potatoes, carrots. Oatmeal biscuits and rock buns and soda bread. Families gathered around wooden tables, eating bowls of cabbage soup, and fish and chips served in cones of grease-stained newspaper. Somewhere in the cavernous space, live music was being performed; the twangy notes of a fiddle hemmed the midmorning air. Hettie walked farther down the aisle until she reached the rear of the market. There she found Marguerite, her blond braids trailing down onto her floral smock. A couple of items—soda bread, honey-oatmeal buns, and bacon turnovers—were still for sale on her table.

  “Mornin’, Hettie,” Marguerite said, wiping her hands on her smock. “You caught me just in time.”

  “Morning.” She smiled. “I’ll take that one,” Hettie said, pointing to one of the loaves of soda bread.

  “Perfect,” Marguerite said, wrapping the loaf in brown paper. “How’s your ma?”

  “She’s grand,” she lied, as she often did when people inquired about her mother.

  That morning, when Hettie left the house, Rose had asked how she planned to spend her day off. Hettie had said that she would be volunteering at the Carnmoney Parish, assisting with a clothing donation that was being sorted for the church’s orphanage in Derry. The answer had satisfied Rose enough that she didn’t ask for any further details. In truth, Hettie had made plans to visit Liam Keegan, Anna’s widower, and their three-month-old baby, Maeve, at his family’s flat on the Falls Road. She knew that if she had mentioned this to Rose, she would have demanded that Hettie not go, and would have pointed out that the Fall Roads was no place for a young woman to be wandering around by herself and that it would be better if the two of them paid a visit together, but Hettie knew this would never happen, because her mother never traveled into Catholic neighborhoods, even if it meant not seeing her only grandchild.

  Hettie handed Marguerite a few shillings, and Marguerite handed her the wrapped loaf.

  “Say hello to your ma for me. Tell her I miss seeing her.”

  “I will,” Hettie said, stowing the bread in her satchel. She knew she would say nothing to her mother. “Cheers.”

  She threaded through the busy aisles and tried to forget about her mother and her persistent sadness, and distracted herself with the offerings of the numerous vendors. Careful stacks of purple cabbages and onions were on display. Tight clutches of radishes, their blush of pink fading into white. Hettie bought a waxed-paper package of black licorice pieces. As she made her way toward the entrance, she popped one in her mouth, and bitterness bloomed on the tip of her tongue.

  Near the double doors leading to May Street, an illuminated case was filled with sausage links, ground meat, and select cuts of pork. Despite the rationing, livestock—mostly pigs—were still being slaughtered and sold at the market. Behind the case, a middle-aged man in a blood-splattered apron and a paper butcher’s hat stood next to a pig hanging by its feet from an iron hook. The butcher angled his sharp knife into the throat of the pig before carefully sliding it along the underside of the animal’s breastbone. The smell of copper and fish hung in the air, making Hettie’s nose wrinkle.

  “My God,” someone said. “Hettie Quin.”

  Hettie turned around and her eyes widened as she saw who it was. There, behind the butcher case, stood Samuel Greene, dressed in a blood-soiled apron and a butcher’s hat. Despite it being a crisp autumn morning, damp strands of his dark brown hair were matted against his forehead. In his hands, he held a pile of pig entrails on a fresh sheet of butcher paper.

  Hettie’s mind spooled back over all that had transpired since she’d last seen Samuel. He and Hettie knew each other from the neighborhood; his family lived five streets over, not far off the Antrim Road, but she still hadn’t seen Samuel during the last few months. Right after graduation, Samuel had invited Hettie to the movies. Her friend Lena from school said Samuel had a reputation for asking out lots of girls but never dating one for long. Despite this, her fellow classmates were jealous when the news circulated that Samuel Greene was taking Hettie to the pictures one Saturday night.

  Samuel had selected a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie playing at the Lyric Cinema on High Street, and once they arrived in the darkened theater, he had chosen a pair of seats in the gods. More than halfway through the film, he reached over, unbuttoned Hettie’s blouse, and cupped her breast. His touch felt like sandpaper. He slurped and sucked against her neck like a greedy fish. During that moment, Hettie had attempted to settle into the discomfort and the thrill of being the object of Samuel’s attention. She had very little experience with men—and tried to convince herself that this kind of physical unease was a natural part of this rite of passage, that she needed to give in to the encounter rather than resist it. Samuel guided her hand onto his stiff penis as he unzipped his trousers and made motions for her to stroke it with vigor. Hettie tried, massaging his member, but she couldn’t get a solid grip and then he squirted into her warm palm and along her forearm, and everything smelled like ammonia. Oh my god, Samuel whispered. I’m sorry. The only thing she could manage to do was excuse herself and run to the washroom and rinse herself off. By the time Hettie returned to the theater, the closing credits were scrolling up the screen, and Samuel stood awkwardly near the entrance. They walked home, Hettie pushing her bike along the pavement, saying very little to each other. A spot of shame burned underneath her rib cage. She didn’t know how to express that she had enjoyed their date—despite the unpleasant turn of events—and that perhaps they could go to another picture again soon. But instead, when they parted ways, Samuel merely shook her hand and wished her a good summer.

  “I would give you a proper hug but I’m a bit untidy,” Samuel said with a grin, glancing down at his bloody palms.

  “Still working for your father, I see,” Hettie said.

  He wiped his forehead with his arm. A smear of crimson marked his cheek. Samuel’s father stared in their direction before continuing to butcher the suspended swine.

  “I haven’t told my pa yet, but I’ve applied to join the police,” he said softly. “Next month I’ll find out if I’ve been accepted.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I don’t want to be slaughtering animals for the rest of my life, you know. And if I don’t work for my father, he’ll force me to enlist in the army. I prefer the police. There’s less of a chance of me catching a bullet.”

  Samuel started to arrange the pig’s glistening intestines into neat rows next to the already-butchered feet, knees, and cheeks in the ca
se. Hettie noticed his long, agile fingers against the pig’s insides and remembered how Samuel used to play piano when he was still in school, and how the teachers had strongly advised him to study classical music but his father had discouraged Samuel’s artistic pursuits because he needed his oldest son to work alongside him in his shop.

  “Sorry to hear about Anna,” Samuel said. “Everyone is—”

  Hearing her sister’s name still felt like an unexpected sock in the stomach. A salty film leaked into the corners of her eyes.

  “I heard she had a baby girl.”

  “Maeve,” Hettie said, looking up at Samuel. “Her name is Maeve Grace Keegan.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t able to make her service,” he said. “I tried, but Pa had a special order that day.”

  It seemed strange to Hettie that she was now talking civilly to this boy, who she knew both so intimately and not at all.

  “Still helping out with your mum?” Samuel asked as he continued to arrange the rows of intestines.

  Hettie remembered what Eliza had said, that young men might be impressed by her employment at the zoo, and she found herself standing a little taller. “I have a part-time job at the zoo,” she said.

  “Impressive.”

  Maybe Eliza Crowley was right about at least one thing, then.

  A fly buzzed near Samuel’s face and landed on his cheek. “Where did you come from,” he said, swatting it away. Blood now smudged his upper cheek.

  Hettie glanced down at her father’s watch. It was already half past ten, and the Keegans were expecting her at eleven. “I best get going,” she said. “I’m late.”

  “I’ll come by the zoo soon.”

  “That would be nice,” she said, feeling her cheeks warm up.

  “Good to see you, Hettie Quin.”