Whistling for the Elephants (10 page)

‘Made
you look like a freak.’

‘They
got freaks out at the zoo.’ Donna Marie never looked up as she spoke. ‘Maybe
you oughta go out there.’

The
friendship wasn’t going that well. I was still too different. I went and looked
in the sitting room. On a nest of tables a small, strange—looking goldfish was
making its way erratically across the waters of a crystal bowl. It was
strange-looking because it couldn’t swim straight. It tumbled pathetically
through the water.

‘It’s
the way they’re bred.’ Sweetheart came quietly up behind me. ‘It’s called a
tumbrel. They are bred and rebred to encourage the spine to curve unnaturally.
It’s a fish freak. Here, look.’ Sweetheart took a small pocket mirror from her
bag and held it down into the bowl. The tumbrel stopped its bumbling course and
seemed to stare at the mirror for a moment. Then the ridiculous fish turned
painfully and swam awkwardly back where it had come from.

‘Donna
Marie called me a freak,’ I said.

‘Curvature
of the spine. That’s what’s wrong with it. They say goldfish only remember
things for a few seconds.’ Sweetheart laughed. It was the light sound of a
small bird.

‘I used
to know a man called John Junior who knew all about animals. He used to say
goldfish would be a nightmare for a fish doctor. You’d have to keep on telling
the tumbrel it was sick, because it wouldn’t remember. Of course if the doctor
was a goldfish as well the whole thing would take for ever.’ Sweetheart
pretended to play both parts but her light voice made the two
indistinguishable. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Tumbrel, we have bad news. Oh no! Yes. I’m
afraid, Mr Tumbrel, we have bad news. Have I already told you this? We have bad
news. Oh no! Yes.’

Sweetheart
looked at me and put her hands on my shoulders. ‘I once knew a man called Fred
from Chicago. He had a very strange throat. Kind of wide. It didn’t look right.
I guess he was a kind of freak. He changed his name to Monsieur Cliquot from
Paris and took up sword swallowing. Eventually he could swallow an electric
light bulb connected to an eight-volt battery while juggling and made a lot of
money. I knew a bearded lady too but she was never very happy. Really she
wanted to be a bareback rider but she could not get the hang of it. The lovely
Madame Josephine Clofullia from Switzerland.’

‘Did
she really have a beard?’

‘Of
course.’ Sweetheart winked at me so I wasn’t sure. ‘She finally did get to work
with horses but it didn’t go well. John Junior, he had shows all over the
country. He put her in the Western Wonder Show of the World with Stupendous New
Equine Features, but she sued him.’

‘Why?’

‘It
only had one horse in it. That always made Phoebe laugh. She said Madame Josephine
had no imagination. The taking of Troy was a one-horse show and that was pretty
spectacular.’

I
remembered. ‘Phoebe. In the wheelchair. And John Junior — the big man?’

‘Yes.’
Sweetheart looked at me. ‘How do you know that?’

I
blushed. I was sure I shouldn’t have been there. ‘The big house… there’s a
picture… I saw it.

Sweetheart
sat down on a plastic-covered chair and smiled at me. I plumped down on the floor
in front of my new friend.

‘I
forgot about the picture. That day! The day the painter came, the noise was
unbearable. I think he was quite a distinguished artist as well. If you can
imagine the collective noise of a giraffe, a bunch of lions, several tigers, a
leopard, a polar bear, assorted hyenas and a sea lion making their way home
from the train station after a long day’s journey then you might have it about
right. The poor painter. He did his best but the giraffe ran off and got
entangled in the garden pagoda. It stuck its head through the top and proceeded
to drag the entire thing toward the house. It caused havoc with the rhododendrons.
Phoebe was crying with laughter. All the time John was shouting to her, “Look
what I brought you! You told me to get you a souvenir from Africa. Look!” Not
that there weren’t enough animals already. He just kept bringing more.’

‘Did
you know him — John?’

Sweetheart
stared into the fish bowl. ‘I sure did. It was a long time ago. John Barton
Burroughs Junior. He was a good man. Rich and bored, but he was a good man. He
built that house for his wife.’

‘Phoebe?’

‘No,
Phoebe was his sister. Billie. Billie Blake. Of course, that’s not the house in
the picture. That was the old Burroughs House. It was nice too, just not grand
like the new one. It was square, red-brick, nothing fancy. Billie pronounced it
“a thoroughly reliable, respectable and dull building”, so John built her a new
one.’

‘The
house of love,’ I said. Sweetheart looked surprised, but I wasn’t a trainee
spy for nothing.

‘Yes,
the house of love. Whatever Billie wanted. They had the money then… ‘twenty-six
or ‘twenty-seven … must have been nineteen twenty-seven, before the Crash
anyhow.’

‘What
was wrong with Phoebe?’

‘Polio,
and then I guess she was always weak. You see…

Judith
tottered into the room, patting her hair. ‘There you are. What are you two
doing in here? I’ve been looking everywhere.’

‘I was
telling Dorothy about the old Burroughs’ house.’

Judith
looked at Sweetheart for a moment and didn’t say anything. She glanced at Pearl’s
picture and gave a slight shake of her head.

‘Yes,
well, I never go there any more.’

‘You
should,’ said Sweetheart.

Judith
gave a little jiggle of her head. The weight of hair made the move work its way
right down to her feet.

‘Look,
Sweetheart, you know it makes Harry uncomfortable, and.., yes, well, Dorothy,
you kids could eat now. We’ll wait for the men, of course, but you kids could
start.’

It was
two hours before the men returned from the fire. Donna Marie, Eddie Jr and I
had burgers but the women waited for the men. Judith fussed over everything
while we munched.

‘The
men will be hungry. We had better save as much food as possible, don’t you
think? Eddie Junior, another cheeseburger? Men eat a lot anyway, don’t they, but
after tonight… well, they will have been doing men’s work.’ Judith sprayed
the side of the ketchup bottle with disinfectant and polished it with a cloth.
Men’s work? I couldn’t imagine what Father would be doing.

Sweetheart
got everyone another drink but no one else moved. Aunt Bonnie was still on the
lawn with a can of beer. She had made a little necklace out of the beer-can
tabs. Sweetheart went and sat on the porch swing with Mother.

The
women’s abstinence from food turned out to be pointless. In fact, the men
returned fully sated. The fire had been at the General Amherst Restaurant. Once
they had realized it was out of control, the brigade of boys had fanned the
flames round the kitchen to roast all the meat in there and enjoyed the biggest
cook-up the town had ever seen. They came back full, filthy and pumping with
their own virility. Even Father had a smudge and had loosened his tie. Harry
steamed into the yard and plunged his hand in the iced garbage can. He threw a
beer at Father who, always alert to unexpected bouncers, grabbed it deftly. To
my surprise he opened it and began to drink without asking for a glass.

‘Hey,
great catch, Charlie.’

Joey Amorato
arrived with Eddie. He was the last of our immediate neighbours. Joey was
really small for a man. Small and wide. I knew if I grew up to be a man, which
I knew I wouldn’t, but if I did, then I would look like Joey. Not that I would
want to, but life isn’t fair. He wore light brown pants and a matching work
shirt but it had been some time since either one had seen a washing machine.
Apparently it was because he lived alone and his mother had died. No one said
why he couldn’t do it himself. The shirt was tucked into Joey’s pants but it
protested at every button. His belly hung like a precipice over his work boots,
which had also seen years of service. There was a popular men’s hairspray ad on
TV at the time announcing, ‘The wet head is dead. Long live the dry look.’ Joey
hadn’t heard about it. He was going bald with some speed. What was left of his
hair was greased back into a DA you could fry an egg on. I’m trying to think of
good things to say about Joey. He smiled a lot, which was good because he had
no chin to speak of. His face kind of fell off at the smile, but at least the
smile was a good finish. I don’t know how old he was. Everyone was just a
grown-up. I think he went to school with Judith, which would have made him her
age, but he was so short that he looked like a man who wasn’t done with growing
yet. Anyway he was whatever you are when you’re more than thirty and not dead
yet. —

Donna
and Eddie Jr went back inside when Joey arrived.

‘Hey,
it’s the dog catcher,’ yelled Eddie Jr as he ran inside. ‘Bet you can’t catch
me.’

Joey
laughed uncertainly. ‘Kids today,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘Looking
great, Judith,’ he mumbled as she passed him a drink. She gave that giggle
again which I thought really let her down.

Harry
laughed. ‘You cruising my wife again, you dumb schmuck?’

Joey
looked down at what he could see of his feet. ‘No, no.’

I knew
the kids didn’t like Joey. He had been bitten by a dog as a boy and the close
of those canine jaws had determined his whole life. A life dedicated to
revenge. I had seen him in his dog-catcher van. He drove with intense purpose,
stopping only to carry out his duties or dust the framed photograph on his
dashboard. It was a picture of himself with Vice—President Hubert Humphrey,
taken at a whistle-stop tour in the ‘64 election. The VP’s train had made an
unscheduled halt in Sassaspaneck and Joey had been the only member of the local
administration anyone could get on the phone. I wondered where dog catcher put
him on my Chinese list. Stray dogs were number 7, but I wasn’t sure about
people who spent time with them.

On his
day off, Joey shot rats on the waterfront with a rifle. If he was in a bad mood
he would just stun them with a BB gun and finish them off with large rocks. The
gun fired little plastic pellets and he had once winged the Good Humour Ice
Cream man by mistake, but everyone balanced this up with his useful function of
keeping down the rodent population.

The men
began drinking heavily and the women fussed around them. No one ate the huge
steaks which withered on the grill. I went to watch TV in the house but the
others wouldn’t let me have a say about the channel. After
The Brady Bunch
and
Bewitched
I came out. Only the women were still in the yard. Mother was
sitting with Sweetheart. Aunt Bonnie sat on the grass smoking and Judith was
sewing on a canvas chair. Judith was in the middle of one of those adult
conversations which stops the minute a kid appears.

‘Harry
won’t even read her letters. I mean Pearl—’

Everyone
looked at me.

‘Where’s
Father?’ I asked.

‘The
men are dealing with a dangerous smell in the house.’ Aunt Bonnie giggled.

‘We’re
doomed, doomed,’ intoned my mother in a false Scottish accent. I knew
instantly. Drunk, the lot of them.

I went
in to find my sensible father. In the kitchen Uncle Eddie, Father and Harry
were sitting among floorboards.

There
was a terrible smell in the room. They had taken up the entire floor and Harry
and Father were now taking turns looking under it with a torch. Joey had
actually climbed down between the joists and was yelling into the darkness.

‘It ain’t
here. I swear it ain’t comin’ from here. Ain’t nothing here.’

‘So
anyway,’ Father’s faint voice pushed itself forward, ‘I served under General Ha
Ha Splendid Shepherd.’

‘Get
out of here.’

‘No
really. Ha Ha Splendid Shepherd. He absolutely adored fighting. Used to plunge
into the thick of the action with the cry, “Ha ha, splendid! Lots of fighting
and lots of fun.” Anyway we were due to attack this particular bridge and we
knew the bloody Jerry had called for reinforcements. So you know what he did?’

‘What?’
slurred Joey.

‘Sent
them a telegram.

‘Who?’
Harry was having trouble following Father’s near-mute story.

‘The
Germans. Ha Ha Shepherd sent the Germans a telegram pretending he was the
German colonel, saying don’t worry about reinforcements, I’ve already taken the
bridge. So they never came. It was brilliant. Fabulous chap. I remember his
first officer was captured and he sent him a pair of wire cutters disguised as
a ham bone.’

Harry
punched Father on the arm, the way men make friends. ‘You served in the war?’

Father
tried to stand and salute. ‘Certainly did. Royal Horseguards, Major Kane at
your service.’

‘God
damn.’ Harry beamed. ‘Corporal Shlick, sir.’

The men
went off into a World War Two reverie. Through the kitchen door I could see
Rocco. He was still sporting my hat and was now lying in a pool of his own
devising. He looked at me and chose that moment to emit an explosion of wind so
astonishing that it almost lifted him off the parquet, and bounced the hat over
one ear. The noise brought Uncle Eddie to the surface.