A Cold Elephant
A COLD
ELEPHANT
“I’ve never seen a cold elephant before Mammy!” Anna gripped her mother’s hand more tightly and looked up with a troubled expression.
“They’re not cold, that’s just your imagination. They’re fine”. Her daughter still appeared perplexed, so she added, “Well, I think they put a woollen jumper on them at night to keep them warm.”
The child pondered on this for
a few moments, uncertain whether to accept this explanation or to demand proof,
to see the jumper, to ask who knitted it and who dressed the elephant. Sensing
that her mother was not in the mood for questions, she cast her doubts to one
side, put on her broadest smile and started skipping down the path away from the zoo and toward the
bus stop, all the while thinking how cold the elephants must be at night.
They stood alone at the bus stop. Icy gusts blew down from the mountain and Anna’s mother shivered in her spring raincoat. Her gaze remained fixed on the horizon as she drew distractedly on her cigarette and crumpled the empty packet in her fist.
The last few words were blown away on the wind so Anna didn’t hear them and she didn’t feel like asking Mammy to repeat them. Instead, she registered the dull heavy presence of dread in her chest. It had been wakened by the sight of her mother and was growing inside her, moving from her heart and chest down into her stomach. She began to panic and longed to turn to Mammy, to bury her head in her mother’s coat and cry. But Mammy looked distraught and Anna knew that her tears would only make things worse. She took a deep breath, pulled her long dark hair over her face so that Mammy wouldn’t see what she was doing, bunched up her fist and shoved it into her mouth. Biting down hard on her own flesh made the heaviness go away. As the pain flooded through her it began to recede.
When they arrived home the house was bitterly cold because the new glass-fronted fire had gone out. Mammy set about lighting it and was just lifting the coal shuttle when she realised with a start she’d forgotten to buy more cigarettes. Anna watched as her mother sank her head into her blackened hands moaning in despair. “Anna, please go and get me ten Woodbine. I really need them,” she entreated. Her daughter continued reading her fairy story, pretending she hadn’t heard. “Anna, please, I’m begging you.”
Her voice was frail, sounding
like she was fighting against a high wind to make herself heard. The dread came
back. Anna looked up from her book at Mammy, who was kneeling on the floor by
the armchair. For a moment she felt like the powerful queen from her story,
looking down from her armchair-throne on one of her subjects. Mammy was
imploring her with tears in her eyes. The blackness within her spread and
terror shot through Anna’s small body. It was all wrong, daughters are not
supposed to be in charge. That was for Mammy, not for her. “Mammy, you promised
you’d stop smoking, you promised. Why do I have to go? I hate cigarettes; I
don’t want to touch them.”
But even as Anna said the words she knew she was going to the shop because if she gave in to her mother’s pleas then Mammy would be in charge again and the blackness would go away. Still, she negotiated one concession, that it would be the last packet of cigarettes her mother would smoke. Mammy promised gratefully that it really would be the last, the very last. Anna took the shopping bag and ran to the corner shop, waited till it was empty, and darted in to make her shameful purchase. The shopkeeper looked bemused when she asked him to drop the packet into the bag so that she wouldn’t have to touch it. “No sweets, then?” he asked. “No, not today. Maybe tomorrow.”
On the way home she hoped that her father and sister would be back soon. She wanted people around her, to be busy, to have noise and to feel that she was living inside her life, not outside of it, observing fearfully from a distance, like now. Even her street with its rows of neat bungalows seemed to be so far away and unreal, yet she was walking right past them, so they had to be real. The precision of the square windows, white walls, and black tarmac driveways was so distant from her blurred and chaotic world.
Soon her first day at school would come. School would mean a busy life, a life that drew her in, and didn’t leave room for the blackness. Mammy seemed happy every time she talked about the Holy Child School and how proud she’d be when the time came for her to walk Anna there and back every day in her uniform. Then she spoiled everything by smiling and promising to make her sandwiches, sugar sandwiches, for lunch. That was when Anna knew Mammy was lying. Sugar sandwiches were horrible; they were only for poor people. Anna knew that and Mammy knew it too, so why did she have to smile? Anna hated it when Mammy smiled while she was telling her a bad thing, because she made the bad thing worse by making it into a lie, by pretending it was a good thing.
Anna had to lie too by smiling because if she didn’t then Mammy might stop smiling. It was the same with the shoes. Mammy told her last week that spring was here so it was time to put the boots away and wear sandals, then she produced a surprise from behind her back, a pair of Anna’s old shoes, ones that were too small for her, with the toes cut out and the colour concealed by whitener. Anna recoiled; she’d seen Gypsy children wearing shoes just like these, recycled shoes. We’re poor, just like the gypsies, but the thought was banished as suddenly as it arose and she beamed broadly, accepted the shoes from Mammy and tried them on while the blackness took root inside her. That was the first time she’d felt its troubling presence. Since then, whenever Mammy smiled as she was saying something bad it came back, each time more terrifying than the last.
When she walked into the house the fire was lit and Mammy had made herself a cup of tea in readiness for the cigarettes. Smoking and drinking tea made her calm so Anna felt guilty for being bossy with her mother about the cigarettes. If Mammy could just stop smoking, if Mammy could just be bossy with her instead, maybe even shout at her like other mothers did, then the blackness would go away. But Mammy was never strong enough to say no to the cigarettes or to shout at Anna, she seemed to be tired all the time and kept saying sorry. Sometimes it felt like Mammy was living her life in a storm that had swept her out to sea and all the while she kept pretending that everything was normal, like there was no storm.
Right now, with the cigarette and cup of tea, Mammy was on a life raft, just floating along peacefully. Soon, the winds would gather and sweep her off into the waves again and she’d gasp for air. But then, while she was being tossed around, she’d do silly little things like pick up a brooch from her jewellery box, hold it to the light and pretend to inspect its vivid colours, saying how beautiful it was. Sometimes she’d stare out of the window and comment on the bright sunshine in a cheerful voice. These things fooled everybody else into thinking that Mammy was fine, but not Anna. She could see the despair of the drowning woman in her mother’s eyes, and Anna had to pretend that she saw nothing because Mammy would stop smiling if she asked about her sadness, or she would tell another lie.
“So, what would you like for tea then?” Mammy’s voice sounded normal now, after the cigarette she didn’t have to pretend… for a while. “Not spaghetti again, I get tangled up in it.” Mammy laughed and promised to cut it up for her so she could eat with a spoon and not make a mess. Anna watched her mother preparing the meal from her seat at the kitchen table. Mammy was gorgeous, film star gorgeous. She was like Snow White with her black hair and white skin. If only Anna could do something to make her happy. She tried all the time not to be bad, to be a good daughter; she’d do whatever she could to save Mammy from drowning. But sometimes she got tired of trying all the time and then she’d get really angry and scream bad things at Mammy for not being a happy mother, like all the others. Mammy didn’t shout back or slap her; she just sank into the armchair and cried endless tears. At those times, Anna felt she too was slipping away into the waves, that she was going under with Mammy. Then she’d say sorry and promise to be a good girl who didn’t tell lies, just so that Mammy would stop crying. She always did stop but each time this happened her smile faded into something weaker and sadder, leaving her face looking empty, bereft.
The afternoon wore into evening and Anna felt time weighing on her, heavy with foreboding. Something was going to happen soon. Anna knew it. She watched Mammy constantly, fearful that the slightest breeze that would upset the balance. She didn’t make Mammy cry by asking questions, yet inside she knew it was hopeless. It was only a matter of time before the blackness returned and all she could do was try to prolong that time as much as possible by keeping quiet and being good. She even stopped asking when her father and sister would be returning because that question made Mammy sad.
Each time she walked past the
broom cupboard, under the stairs, she thought about the package Mammy had
brought home the day before from the hardware shop. It was in there and she
couldn’t get it out of her head because the package was another lie, a very bad
lie. Anna knew how bad it was because Mammy looked frightened when she told
that lie. Mammy had lied to her right in front of the shop owner. “It’s a
clothesline, that’s all,” she insisted. Terror seized Anna. She was not
consoled. The paper bag was handed over the counter to her mother while Anna
looked up and plaintively repeated the question, “What’s that for?” No answer.
The shop was dark and the owner didn’t see through the lies. He took the money
and they left.
Anna walked past the cloakroom, regarded its door, closed tight, and turned into her own bedroom.
After a while Mammy came in and helped her get ready for bed. Anna loved having the downstairs bedroom because it meant that she could hear Mammy working in the kitchen and listen to the sound of the new television set in the living room when she lay in bed at night. Tonight there was no television; Mammy said she’d turned it off to give her head some peace. She propped Anna up on her pillows and smoothed her hair before reaching for her cup of warm milk. For a moment she paused, leant forward with a smile, plumped up the pillows again and urged Anna to sit up, “Be careful. You’ll choke if you try to drink it lying down.”
As soon as Mammy left the bedroom Anna sensed the blackness rise up in her again. The milk was finished and the room was dark. Mammy had gone and being alone filled her with terror, she wanted to cry just to make Mammy come back. But if she cried then Mammy might cry too. The tears that had welled up in her eyes did not spill over. Anna sat up, fully alert, fighting the blackness within her, but it was stronger than ever before and soon she was panicking. Somehow or other she had to make Mammy come back to her. She lay back in bed desperately hoping she could think of a reason to make Mammy return. Suddenly, it came to her; she would ask for another cup of milk, Mammy wouldn’t mind bringing her more milk. She called out. No answer. She called again, louder this time.
There was a chink of light creeping in under her bedroom door. Mammy hadn’t gone to bed but the house was silent. In this silence Anna slid her feet out of bed and on to the carpeted floor. Carefully she opened the door and peered out. All the lights were on in the house. The fluorescent tube in the kitchen was humming gently to her left and to her right the front door was shut. She stood quietly wondering what to do and at that precise moment Anna became aware that the broom cupboard door was ajar. Terror froze her heart and the blackness flooded into every part of her body.
As if in a dream, compelled
onward, she turned right and walked, somnambulant, toward the front door.
Faltering for just a moment, she turned around in a half circle so that she was
facing the staircase, and began to climb it, going up toward her mother. Anna
didn’t speak at all and Mammy didn’t turn to look at her, she was silent. She
clambered onto the chair beside her mother and looked up into her face. Her
eyes were open and so was her mouth but she didn’t talk. She just stared at
Anna but she wasn’t looking at her. In a fury of pain and anger the child
slapped her mother’s face repeatedly, screaming,
“You finally did it! You’ve left me on my own. You don’t love me! You never did. “These were the last words that Anna spoke to her mother. She got off the chair walked back down the stairs and wandered out into the night to seek help.
The following morning Anna woke in her aunt’s house. While her cousins were racing up and down the stairs wild with excitement because they all had new pairs of jeans, Anna felt the blackness lurking in her chest, heavy and dull. When she asked her aunt where her father was she was told he’d gone to buy potatoes. Another lie. Panic seized Anna and she started to cry. Something horrible had happened, she wasn’t sure what, and everybody seemed busy, ecstatic about new jeans and out buying potatoes. Nobody stopped to talk about this unspeakable thing with her.
Months went by and the silence continued. At Christmas Anna went shopping with her father and his new girlfriend. A turkey was needed so they put on their coats, scarves and boots and walked to the market to choose one. Throngs of people stood around in the blustery wind looking into a corral where the terrified fowl zigzagged around squawking frantically. Anna was mesmerised by the sight.
Something in the birds drew her to them and to the men who waded in amongst them, periodically snatching one and hauling it into a nearby van. Each time the rear doors of the vehicle opened and the men emerged, the squawking reached a new crescendo, and calm would return only momentarily while the van door was shut.
Her father pointed to one of the turkeys and the men approached the bird intently. The creature sensed immediately that it was being targeted and darted to the far end of the corral in a doomed attempt to escape. As it was hauled away, the bird flapped its wings so frantically that it became a blur of vivid colour in Anna’s eyes, a blur which disappeared into the dark interior of the van. Seconds later the door opened and a limp, silent and undignified mass of feathers was pulled out. Anna observed the lifeless creature with its twisted neck, dull eyes and open mouth.
She pulled her long hair down
over her face, bunched up her fist, put it into her mouth and bit down very
hard, until the blood came.
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