Read Online Whistling for the Elephants by Sandi Toksvig - Free Book Online Page B

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.