Part 9 (2/2)

As her wedding present from John, Billie got a theatre. Not just any theatre, but the eighteenth-century interior of a theatre from the castle at A solo near Venice, which John had had s.h.i.+pped and rea.s.sembled.

'It's the only original... what was it, Milton?'

'Baroque.'

'.... baroque theatre in the United States.' It was gorgeous. The audience consisted of three rows of galleries in an oval shape with three hundred velvet seats. The ornate decor included portrait medallions of Dante and Petrarch.

'Who are they?' asked Billie.

'I haven't the faintest idea,' said John. 'Dead, I guess. Sure haven't heard from them.'

Professor Heckler's World Famous Trained Flea Circus was the first act and the last. There had been a problem in rehearsal and the fleas had not been troopers. The show had not gone on and the fleas had abandoned the stage for the auditorium. The seats were infested.

Grace carried Phoebe out laughing and excited. 'Theatre. It's an old Greek word meaning ”to see”.'

'I didn't know we were going to feel it as well,' chortled Billie, scratching all over. 'Come on now, John, what does Grace get?'

John stood, his feet spread wide. A colossus in his empire.

'Grace? Why, Grace gets romance. Here.'

Around the corner of the main house walked Sweetheart's young son, Harry. He was leading the most beautiful female elephant. The boy looked fit to bust with pride as he gently held her by a giant ear. The great pachyderm was soft with the boy. She walked with the gentlest tread on huge cus.h.i.+oned fret. The n.o.blest of creatures, she had a slight smile about her which suggested she had seen a mirror and knew she looked ridiculous. Her grey skin was almost entirely obscured by her costume. A vast blanket with a hundred thousand hand-sewn sequins had been draped over her. Above her head the blanket had been moulded up into the head and body of a swan. It was Lillian Gish in an ill-advised musical. It was over the top. It was terrible but Grace was in love.

'For Toto. A mate for Toto.'

John shrugged as if it was nothing. 'Oh well, you keep going on about animals being lonely and whatnot. So there you go. She's called Ellen.'

The day after the engagement party Billie started packing her trunks for her honeymoon to Africa. Huge patterned boxes with inner drawers and hanging s.p.a.ce were filled with her finest clothes. Across the bed lay a flowing silk gown shaded in purples and blues.

'That's beautiful,' said Grace, stroking the rich silk while Sweetheart helped fold endless garments in tissue paper.

Billie held the gown against herself and danced across the room.

'I shall wear this for c.o.c.ktails at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. Elephants will wander by in single file as a lion roars under the stars. Come with us, Grace. Doesn't it sound romantic?'

I was drifting off to sleep when Miss Strange and Helen came in with the cocoa and Cosmos returned to build up the fire. Sweetheart put a coat over me. She stroked my cheek and I wanted to cry.

'I don't know why, but she reminds me of Phoebe.'

'Poor kid, she seems kind of lost.'

I went to sleep dreaming that Miss Strange carried me in her arms. I lay sure and still as she gathered me up. We laughed and wondered together at the animals as her strong arms held me up to see. I was home. I was safe.

When I awoke the women were all talking about the elephant.

'I don't see why it's like, a problem,' said Cosmos, emphasizing each word with a cut of her knife on a new flute.

Miss Strange was firm. 'Cosmos, we cannot deal with Artemesia. We don't have the facilities.'

I was having trouble following. 'Who's Artemesia?' I asked sleepily.

Miss Strange looked at me, sorry that I had no education. 'First known woman sea captain. Fifth century.'

'No,' I said. 'I meant, what kind of animal?'

'An elephant. The most beautiful elephant,' replied Sweetheart with a smile I had not seen before. 'Ellen and Toto's baby.'

'But it's the most blessed thing that could ever happen to the zoo,' persisted Cosmos. 'Touch an elephant and you receive enlightenment. Buddha himself was born into the body of an elephant in an elephant trainer's family. On the night of his birth, an elephant entered the dreams of Buddha's mother, Queen Mahamaya, and Gautama Buddha was thus born patient, strong, meek and unforgetful.'

'Did emperors have elephants?' I asked, already agog at the thought of this romantic creature.

'Have them?' said Cosmos. 'They adored them.'

Miss Strange was unmoved by emperors' feelings or otherwise. 'That is all very well but this is upstate New York, not India. We can't do it. The elephant would need a huge reinforced outdoor paddock. We don't have anything like that.'

'So we'll make one,' insisted Cosmos.

Miss Strange shook her head. 'We couldn't do it. We couldn't afford the labour.

'We can make it ourselves.'

'You don't know what you're talking about. This is not some pets corner we need.'

'Where did we used to keep her?' inquired Sweetheart, frowning.

'Up by the restaurant,' sighed Miss Strange. 'But I don't think those fences would keep her now. It's hopeless.'

Sweetheart nodded. 'She was lovely.'

Until then I had kept quiet, but the second I heard about Artemesia I knew I wanted the elephant to come. I wanted to receive enlightenment.

'Why doesn't Cosmos whistle for help?' I suggested. I looked at Cosmos. 'You said your whistles brought help.' The women looked at me. I think everyone thought I was overtired. It's what grown-ups decide about kids who have said too much. Everyone, that is, except Cosmos. She leaped to her feet and held her small flute aloft.

'Yes! Yes!' she cried. 'Sugar's right. If you're in trouble and you whistle then the elephants will come to save you. The elephant will come to save us. The elephant will come.' She put the flute to her lips. It wasn't even a finished one but the sound carried clearly in the night air. Cosmos began marching round and round the library, whistling her strange tune from the Sudan.

'Come on, Helen,' she called between pipings. 'Come on, Sugar, Miss Strange.'

'Cosmos, for goodness' sake! This is ridiculous,' called Miss Strange.

But Cosmos was not listening. She threw open the french windows to the garden and marched out. Slowly we followed, Miss Strange with Mr Paton on her shoulder and carrying Perry, Sweetheart followed by Sappho, the orangutan, and me. At last even Helen uncurled herself and very slowly came to see what was happening. A curious collection of womanhood. In the moonlight Cosmos was our Pied Piper. We followed her as she led us across to the zoo and up into the corner field. There she began pacing out the paddock, calling out encouragement to us to join in and dance. Sweetheart started to laugh and began marching behind her. Mr Paton began his own tune and the orang clapped along. Then Miss Strange and I tagged on behind and we marched, laughing, under the moon. Putting her arms around a sagging post, Helen clung on tight, and watched as Cosmos spread her arms into the light.

'We shall make a gaj.a.patti - an abode of elephants,' she cried. 'And we know that it is written: ”The form under which Buddha will descend to the earth for the last time will be that of a beautiful young white elephant, open jawed, with a head the colour of cochineal, with tusks s.h.i.+ning like silver sparkling with gems, covered with a splendid netting of gold, perfect in its organs and limbs, and majestic in appearance.”'

'c.u.n.t,' said Mr Paton.

<script>