Whistling for the Elephants by Sandi Toksvig Read Free Book Online

floor. A
room of rainbows. On one wall hung the most enormous oil painting in a golden
frame.
    It was
a busy picture, painted in what seemed like the gardens of the house, but the
house itself looked quite different. It was square and plain. Not the fancy
edifice I had just come into. In the middle of the painting stood a large man
holding aloft a golden birdcage containing a single golden bird. He was
immensely tall, with the chest of a sea elephant, the chin of a prize fighter
and an Atlantic Ocean of wavy black hair. No clothing could adequately
encompass him. His what used to be called ‘rude health’ burst from every button
of his dark suit and his brilliantly coloured waistcoat. Nature’s only flaw in
him, her little aside, seemed to be terrible eyesight. He squinted at the world
from behind small round spectacles. Perhaps because he couldn’t quite see
everything that was happening, he stood laughing as a giraffe, twelve lions,
three tigers, two leopards, a polar bear, assorted antelope and a sea lion ran
riot around him, chased by exhausted assistants of various ethnic origins. A
hyena was stalking a peacock on the lawn while a polar bear with a collar,
muzzle and chain was standing on its hind legs trying to reach a quivering
black man up a tree in what looked like a red dress.
    In the
corner of the picture sat a young woman in a wheelchair. Her body was withered
by some illness. She was very small and her tiny frame lay twisted in the large
mahogany-and-cane chair. She had no lines on her face so I guessed she was
young, but her hair was thin like an old lady’s. Only her eyes still suggested
youth. She looked like she was having fun. She was dressed for the jazz age — a
beaded flapper frock in pearl grey and a small matching grey feather in her
hair — but didn’t look like she was ever going to be part of it. She was never
going to get up and boogie, that was for sure. The wheelchair woman was smiling
at the man with the birdcage. A man in command of his world and all that was in
it. A small brass plaque was fixed to the bottom of the painting. I read it out
loud:
    ‘Phoebe
and John Burroughs Junior. 1925.’ Phoebe. His wife? The woman in the
wheelchair. Feeble Phoebe…
    ‘We
shall have a Chinese Garden of Intelligence.’ I jumped as a voice spoke behind
me. I thought for a second it came from the picture. ‘A Great Menagerie. Like
King George at Windsor or the Duke of Bedford. Tropical princes shall come and
bring us barbaric offerings of tigers, leopards and creatures no man has ever
seen before. We shall have such a collection that the Emperor of Abyssinia will
hear of it and wish to come.’
    I
turned but couldn’t see anyone. Then, amongst the great drapes which covered
the walls, something moved. A giant insect woman. All in brown. Its wings closed
about itself. It spoke to me.
    ‘No
one, not even in Egypt, China, India or Rome, will be able to boast of such
exotica.’
    The
huge bug shimmered toward me. She was maybe in her late thirties but when you’re
a kid everyone just looks old. She was probably as old as Mother, just less set
in aspic. She wore brown corduroy pants, a brown turtleneck and a vast brown
cardigan. Her face was plain and thin and looked severe with her matching brown
hair pulled back from her face into a brown rubber band, but she smiled at me
and I smiled back. There was nothing about her which suggested ‘friend’, but I
didn’t think to run. She stood and looked at the painting for a moment.
    ‘Were
they here? The animals?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes,’
she said.
    ‘How?’
    ‘The SS Uritania from Europe and then Amherst’s finest railway. They had to walk
from the station. Couldn’t get the giraffe in a cab.’ It sounded like a joke
but she said it seriously so I didn’t laugh. The brown woman reached her hand
out to the picture for a second. ‘Poor Phoebe.’
    Then
she sort of fluttered off I followed her into the next room. The room beyond,
with the french