Whistling for the Elephants (9 page)

‘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.

‘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.

‘In
charge. It says I am in charge.’

No one
said anything. We all saw, we all watched, and no one said anything. I like to
think Father would have but I know he wouldn’t. I should have but I didn’t. I
was too busy thinking about girls not rushing the plate.

‘Harry.’
Sweetheart spoke quietly to her son. He looked at her and I thought something
was going to explode. Instead he stroked Judith’s neck and pulled her to him
for a hug like he was just kidding. Judith laughed and moved away to smooth her
hair. Harry carried on as if nothing had happened. Happy couple banter.

‘Hey,
Dorothy, you’re not wearing one of those antiwar bracelets, are you? Eddie,
you know your Donna Marie has one?’

Eddie
shrugged and pulled the liver from a trout. ‘Kids.’

‘It’s
not just kids. That goddamn Martin Luther King riling up the black people
against our boys.’

‘He’s
dead,’ said Aunt Bonnie, opening another beer.

‘That’s
not the point. It’s un-American. Why, I never even questioned serving my
country. When I signed up…

Sweetheart
interrupted quietly. ‘Don’t upset yourself, son.’

‘I am
not upset, but if those goddamn Commie people had never…’

We didn’t
hear what the goddamn Commies should never, because the fire alarm went off on
the other side of the harbour. As the siren started, Harry threw off his apron.

‘I’ll
get the car,’ yelled Uncle Eddie, divesting himself of fish scales on the run.
The hooter carried on giving the signal as Aunt Bonnie counted.

‘Three-two-four.
Over on Palmer, Eddie,’ she yelled after her husband. Harry nodded.

‘Come
on, Charlie. Sounds like a big one.’ He gave Father no choice but grabbed his
arm and in a second the men were gone.

Almost
every guy in Sassaspaneck was a member of the Volunteer Fire Brigade. It was
partly to do with economic necessity in the town and partly to do with some
kind of sperm-count display in the men. It was about as macho an organization
as it was possible to find. Sassaspaneck was not a rich town. There had been a
boom in the twenties when the Burroughs Boot Factories were going
full-throttle, but nothing had been the same after the Depression. Fifty miles
upstate from the city, it was a little too far to be commuter belt and no
industry had ever settled along its shores again. Now the town didn’t have the
money for a full-time fire brigade. The big horn over at the boatyard would
suddenly start blasting and men from all over the town would close down stores,
drop fishing rods and race to be first on the engine. They all wanted to drive
the fire truck, or at least race through town clinging on in a yellow hat and
big boots.

Each
street had a different series of blasts and the council printed a list of them
so everyone in the neighbourhood could tell exactly where the fire was. The
signals didn’t tell you where in the street, as it was generally reckoned if
you couldn’t see the fire by the time you got there the owners had no business
calling out the brigade in the first place. Mr Angelletta from the pizza parlour
(Tony’s Pizzeria
—
a slice
—
Your Mother Should Make it so
Good)
was nearly always first on the engine as the firehouse stood between
the pizza parlour and Torchinsky’s
(It’s Your Funeral)
Funeral Parlour.
Mr Torchinsky always stayed behind.

‘Please
God there are no fatalities,’ he would mutter outside his door as the engine
pulled away. Then he would turn and polish the brass plate on his door. ‘Still,
if it should happen…’

The
women sat quietly on the patio. Within a few minutes we could hear the sirens
of the first engine pulling out toward Palmer. Judith went to get some sewing
to do and Aunt Bonnie grabbed a fresh six-pack out of the garbage can.
Sweetheart sat looking at Judith.

‘He
means well. He’s not been himself since…’ Judith interrupted with a stab of
her needle.

Sweetheart
shook her head and changed the subject.

‘So,
Rosie, isn’t this nice? We have time to visit now the boys have gone off to
play. What do you do with yourself all day?’ she asked. My mother smiled
uncertainly. I was curious to hear the answer.

‘Oh, you
know, the house, Dorothy… et cetera.’ The others nodded. It was a full life.
Sweetheart smiled. Judith settled down to her Christmas tapestry in the warm
summer air.

‘Sweetheart
works as a candy-striper. You know, a volunteer at the hospital. Kind of fancy
cleaner, isn’t it, Sweetheart?’

‘I work
with the patients,’ replied Sweetheart quietly. It was obviously an old
exchange. Judith hardly took a breath.

‘I
mean, I think it is wonderful to give your hours but being
married
I
just don’t have the time.’

There
was some problem here but I couldn’t work out what it was. Judith was getting
at Sweetheart but I didn’t know how. Aunt Bonnie flipped open another beer.
Judith stabbed at a festive reindeer and ploughed on.

‘I don’t
know how you stand that hospital. The place is full of people who don’t pay
their bills. Harry was talking to Doc Martin today. Doc had a woman up there
who had been admitted with terrible back pain. Turns out she only works as a
furniture remover! She said to the doc, “What can I do?” He said, “You can
start by behaving like a lady and stay home.”‘

Aunt
Bonnie nodded. ‘Doc Martin, he’s a funny guy.’

Sweetheart
fanned herself. ‘Going to be a hot summer.’ She shifted to get more comfortable
and sighed.

Judith
looked up. ‘You still haven’t been down to the store, have you, Sweetheart? I
keep telling you. Do you have an eighteen-hour girdle yet, Rosie? They are
fabulous. Harry can’t get enough of them. They just sell the minute they come
off the truck into the store. I keep telling Sweetheart. Your own son and you
won’t go.’

‘I like
my old girdle just fine,’ said Sweetheart, fanning herself.

‘A
woman shouldn’t have to suffer.’ Judith pulled herself upright. ‘You should
try one, Bonnie, might give you a better shape.’

‘Who
gives a hang?’ barked Bonnie into her beer.

Judith
eyed Bonnie, who was slumped on the grass. ‘Might give you a shape at all. I’m
sure Eddie would like it.

‘If
Eddie don’t like my shape he knows what he can do.’

I
looked at the four women, Bonnie, Judith, Sweetheart and my mother, and I knew
I didn’t want to be any one of them. I wanted to be driving the fire truck.

Chapter
Five

Inside Harry and Judith’s
house Donna Marie and Eddie were watching TV in the den. I was shunted away
from the women’s talk ‘to make friends’. I stood in the doorway of the small
room where the black and white TV blared. Eddie Jr looked at me.

‘Hey,
English, where’s the tie?’

‘I took
it off,’ I answered, trying to make my vowels sound right. He turned back to
the TV.