Whistling for the Elephants

by Sandi Toksvig

  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.

  ‘It’s Rocco. Ain’t it the spit?’ Mrs Schlick let out a shrieking yell. Everyone nodded.

  Harry torpedoed in. ‘Want to see my tanks? Come see my tanks.’ I think Father thought it was some war thing but Harry opened the door to a large wooden building at the back of the yard and led us in. Inside was a crescent-shaped aquarium divided into several different compartments. The walls had a few shelves with fish food paraphernalia on them, but everywhere else there were photos. Black and white pictures of Harry with a baby Pearl on his lap. Harry and Pearl laughing in a rowing boat, Harry and Pearl playing baseball, Pearl blowing out birthday candles. Apart from the fish, she was everywhere. Harry stood proudly in front of his mini-ocean and put his arms out to take in the joy of it.

  ‘Twelve thousand gallons. That’s the cubic capacity of the underground reservoirs and that’s just the salt water on this side. There’s six thousand gallons of fresh water in those tanks over there. Of course the amount of water you see is only about a fifth of what’s in circulation.’ Harry tapped on the glass. ‘The water is constantly on the move. The water flows out of the tanks through a series of very elaborate sand filters and then returns to underground reservoirs to feed the tanks again. Everything from salamanders to shrimp. Took me and Eddie a helluva time.’ Harry beamed with pride at his own creation. Above his head an old poster announced

  A College of Trained Animals and Cephalodian Monsters of the Deep.

  ‘It’s all here, you know: drama, sport, domestic idylls, monstrosities and horrors.’ Harry leaned toward Mother. ‘Did you know that prawns play football?’

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘Really? How absurd. I mean they’re so small and…’

  ‘Sure they do. If you drop tiny pieces of fish in the tank and they’re not hungry then they dribble the food along with their forelegs to each other.’

  Father chuckled. ‘Perhaps you could have a Touring Prawn Football League.’ Harry laughed and dropped some food into one of the tanks.

  ‘Watch this.’ He reached into another tank, pulled out a starfish and without a word tore a leg from it.

  ‘I say!’ said Father ineffectually.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He threw the starfish and its leg back in the water. ‘You tear a leg off and it makes a new one. The old leg makes a new starfish.’

  Mother looked faint at the whole operation and gave a slight moan. Harry reached for her arm and soothed her.

  ‘It’s all right, Rosie. It’s natural.’ He smiled at Mother and turned to me. ‘So, you feeling better, Dorothy?’ Harry asked. Father looked at me. ‘Fainted right away at Boat Safety.’ They didn’t even know about Boat Safety. It was terrible. Father would think I was turning out like Mother.

  ‘Hello,’ an elderly voice interrupted. It was my saviour. Everyone turned. Sweetheart was in her late sixties by then but she was what people in those days used to call spry. She had such a lovely soft face under her white hair. A face that had aged with nothing but laugh lines. I wanted her to adopt me straight away I thought about adoption a lot in those days. I stood stock still, holding on to myself so I didn’t run at her for a hug. She had on a pink and white striped dress and white nurse’s shoes. Harry smiled.

  ‘Hey, Mom. Everyone, this is my mom, Sweetheart.’

  Sweetheart smiled and nodded. ‘Have you done the drinks, Harry?’

  ‘Just coming, just coming.’

  Harry ushered us outside again where Judith was looking in a small compact to apply yet another layer of lipstick.

  ‘So, Sweetheart, these are the Kanes,’ she said, pursing her lips to herself and then snapping the pocket mirror shut. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t met yet. Sweetheart lives right next door to you.. Isn’t that nice?’ It clearly wasn’t that nice. Her tone to Sweetheart was less jovial as she spoke to her out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Sweetheart, didn’t you want to change? You still have your uniform on and there’s Rosie looking so…’ Judith took in Mother’s pristine suit, ‘… nice.

&nbs
p; ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  ‘Hey, Mom, look at the size of these steaks,’ Harry called.

  She smiled at her son. ‘That’s nothing, Harry.’

  ‘I know,’ he laughed. ‘When you’ve eaten eland, steaks are nothing.’

  Sweetheart worked as a volunteer at the local hospital so I guess she knew instinctively that Mother shouldn’t stand long. She took Mother’s arm and settled down with her on a bench. Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Eddie and the kids arrived in a great display of noise. Eddie Jr and Donna Marie bombed into the house as if they owned it and within a minute Aunt Bonnie was chucking a beer down her throat on the grass and Uncle Eddie was gutting fish over in a corner. It would be fair to say that Aunt Bonnie had made no effort for the party at all. She was at the other end of the sartorial spectrum to Mother. She wore jeans and a T-shirt before even folk singers thought it was a good idea. Father stood uncertainly in the middle of the patio. Now he didn’t have Mother to hold up he wasn’t sure where to go. Judith minced over to the barbecue and put her arms around Harry’s waist. He patted her hand and prodded at his task with a huge fork as flames spat up from the grill.

  ‘Honey,’ wheedled Judith, kissing his back after each word. ‘Do you think maybe you put the steaks on a little too soon? I mean the fire looks a little hot.’

  It had all been going so sedately that Harry’s speed surprised everyone. He turned Judith under his arm with one hand and grabbed her by the neck. She kept smiling but sagged slightly as he held her like his own personal Resussa—Annie.

  ‘Darling!’ he hissed, smiling. ‘What does it say on here?’ He held her face close to the words on his apron. Judith laughed as she tried to release herself.

  ‘Oh I know it…’

  Harry squeezed his hand closed on the back of her neck. He spat the words through his big teeth.