Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales For Girls Part 1

Rosie Little's Cautionary.

Tales for for Girls Girls.

by DANIELLE WOOD.

Acknowledgments.

Not for Good Girls.

These are not, I should say from the outset, tales written for the benefit of good and well-behaved girls who always stick to the path when they go to Grandma's. Skipping along in their gingham frills - basket of scones, jam and clotted cream upon their arms - what need can these girls have for caution? Rather, these are tales for girls who have boots as stout as their hearts, and who are prepared to firmly lace them up (boots and hearts both) and step out into the wilds in search of what they desire. And since it cannot be expected that stout-booted, stout-hearted girls will grow up without misfortune or miscalculation of some kind, they require a reminder, from time to time, about the dangers that lurk both in dark forests and in the crevices of one's own imaginings.

Rosie Little

VIRGINITY.

The Deflowering of Rosie Little

The trouble with f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o, in my view, is its lack of onomatopoeia. Take more honest words like suck suck, or gargle gargle, or gurgle gurgle and ... ta-da! Their meanings are all neatly wrapped up in the way they sound. Whereas and ... ta-da! Their meanings are all neatly wrapped up in the way they sound. Whereas f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o, all on its own, could leave you clueless. Especially in the week before your fifteenth birthday.

f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o could lead the uninitiated to envisage something ornate, baroque even - perhaps some sort of decorative globe, or a wrought-iron birdcage encrusted with stiff black vine leaves. Placed in a sentence: 'What a lovely could lead the uninitiated to envisage something ornate, baroque even - perhaps some sort of decorative globe, or a wrought-iron birdcage encrusted with stiff black vine leaves. Placed in a sentence: 'What a lovely f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o you have on the sideboard, Mrs Hyphen-Wilson!'. Not, of course, that I had the opportunity to make such a mistake. Because although Cecile Volanges got Latin terms on the occasion of her deflowering, I, Rosie Little, did not. you have on the sideboard, Mrs Hyphen-Wilson!'. Not, of course, that I had the opportunity to make such a mistake. Because although Cecile Volanges got Latin terms on the occasion of her deflowering, I, Rosie Little, did not.

I witnessed the seduction of Cecile Volanges more than once in the year I turned fifteen. Nightly for three weeks, the actor playing le Vicomte de Valmont in the local repertory theatre company's production of Les Liaisons dangereuses Les Liaisons dangereuses whispered to the ingenue Cecile - with the utmost delicacy, and from within the chintzy confines of a four-poster bed - whispered to the ingenue Cecile - with the utmost delicacy, and from within the chintzy confines of a four-poster bed - I think we might begin with one or two Latin terms I think we might begin with one or two Latin terms. And nightly for three weeks, I suspended my disbelief, more than willingly, endowing the set's plywood four-poster with all the solidity of pre-Revolutionary French oak, and thoughtfully touching up the dark stripe which, with each performance, was becoming incrementally more obvious in the parting of Cecile's yellow hair.

Le Vicomte would whisper and Cecile would squeal with pleasure and toss her blonde curls as she yielded into the softness of huge white pillows. And from various dark corners of the theatre auditorium I would watch, rapt, a stack of unsold programs just inches from my beating heart. I wanted desperately to hear the words that le Vicomte was about to trickle into the innocent ear of young Cecile. But each night, just as these spellbinding incantations of seduction were to be disclosed to me, the scene would fade to black.

So, although I ripped tickets and sold programs, gratis gratis, for the entire season of Les Liaisons dangereuses Les Liaisons dangereuses, I did not learn the word f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o. Neither did I learn the two neat, clipped syllables of coitus coitus (a demure game played upon the decks of ocean liners?). And now, some years later and knowing one or two things more than I did in the week before my fifteenth birthday, I strongly suspect that even if my own seducer's vocabulary had stretched to (a demure game played upon the decks of ocean liners?). And now, some years later and knowing one or two things more than I did in the week before my fifteenth birthday, I strongly suspect that even if my own seducer's vocabulary had stretched to c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s, he would not have been terribly interested in its application.

In another country, in another time, a young man as well-off as Gerard Hyphen-Wilson (as I like to call him) would certainly have been schooled in Latin. His red-necked father would, with a little of his pocket change, have engaged a governess. Solemn of face and solemn of frock, she would have led him briskly through his first verbs. And later the little thug would have been sent away to boarding school, where he would learn to recite his Virgil, and perhaps utilise a few elementary Latin terms in his dealings with younger boys.

But not being in another country, or another time, Gerard Hyphen-Wilson had no Latin. In fact, the most interesting word I learned from the young lord of the manor was s.n.a.t.c.h s.n.a.t.c.h. Placed in a sentence: 'Christ, your f.u.c.king s.n.a.t.c.h s.n.a.t.c.h is tight'. For such was his eloquence as he clumsily ruptured my hymen while I lay beneath him on the splintery bed of a jetty in one of the better riverside suburbs. is tight'. For such was his eloquence as he clumsily ruptured my hymen while I lay beneath him on the splintery bed of a jetty in one of the better riverside suburbs.

I found myself in this rather unenviable, Latin-less position because my friend Eve had a boyfriend at Grammar, the exclusive boarding school that purported to educate all the thick-wristed, thick-witted farm boys within a 700-kilometre radius of our provincial centre. It was at a party to which we were invited by this prematurely shadow-jawed boyfriend that my deflowering was to occur.

Eve's father was an artist, which is no doubt why she knew Greek words like phallic phallic and was able to deploy them, casually, in conversation. The time she described a rosebud in my mother's garden as 'a bit phallic' wasn't the first time I had heard her use the expression, or the first time that I had nodded and giggled, pretending I knew what she meant. But it was the time that compelled me to seek out the dictionary, from which I came away no wiser, since I had been searching under F. and was able to deploy them, casually, in conversation. The time she described a rosebud in my mother's garden as 'a bit phallic' wasn't the first time I had heard her use the expression, or the first time that I had nodded and giggled, pretending I knew what she meant. But it was the time that compelled me to seek out the dictionary, from which I came away no wiser, since I had been searching under F.

I loved the painterly chaos of Eve's father's home, and the hippie-chic disorder of her mother's, every bit as much as she loved the fluffy white towels, hospital corners and tidy nuclear unit of mine. I scrambled to keep up with her, trying to learn the adult words that she knew, trying to match the distance that she would go with boys. But always, I found myself five steps behind. Even her body was ahead of mine, morphing into a desirable and womanly shape while mine remained painfully open to my father's taunt that you wouldn't see it past a matchstick with all the wood sc.r.a.ped off it.

The physical differences between Eve and myself were duly noted by a cla.s.smate of ours, Geoffrey Smethurst, who sat with us at lunchtimes when the other boys played handball, and who unkindly repeated to me a suggestion from one of the b.i.t.c.hier girls that I would be a wonderful presidential candidate for the Itty Bitty t.i.tty Committee. Geoffrey was thin, with boofy black hair and a habit of doodling with biro on his forearms. His eyes fixed on the mounds in Eve's school jumper, he would remind us almost daily that all his out-of-school friends called him Skywalker, not Geoffrey. Still, I have him to thank for my early understanding of such important words as prost.i.tute prost.i.tute, m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e and and franger franger.

One day, when we had both sidled out of some kind of sporting activity and were alone together in a cla.s.sroom, he waggled a finger of one hand and the thumb of the other at me.

'What would you prefer, do you reckon, long and thin, or short and fat?'

Frankly I thought both sounded rather revolting and wondered if it were necessary to choose, or if there was such a thing as a happy medium.

A Word from Rosie Little on: p.e.n.i.ses p.e.n.i.ses I In the 1940s, Lieutenant William Schonfield made the important decision that it wasn't worth measuring flaccid p.e.n.i.ses. Their size, he reasoned, could fluctuate due to temperature and other factors so, semper sursum semper sursum, Lt Schonfield took to the streets of New York and measured only the erect p.e.n.i.ses of 1500 men and boys. He discovered not only that the mean adult length was 15 centimetres, but also that more than 90 per cent of the p.e.n.i.ses he measured were over 11 centimetres long, and less than 5 per cent of them were shorter than 5.5 centimetres. Other research records the average length of a flaccid p.e.n.i.s at 9.25 centimetres with a diameter of 3.125 centimetres, and the average length of an erect p.e.n.i.s at 12.75 centimetres with a diameter of 4 centimetres.It's also interesting to note that p.e.n.i.ses come in a marvellous array of shapes. A pig's p.e.n.i.s, for example, mimics his corkscrew tail and can do the twist for more than 40 centimetres. (But surely this begs the question: what happens if a boy pig with a right-hand thread meets a girl pig who screws the other way?) Should you find a page of diagrams of primate p.e.n.i.ses, you could be forgiven for thinking you had glimpsed a page of designs by Gaudi for elaborate and pro-truberant roof details. A snake's p.e.n.i.s splits in two at the end, rather like his forked tongue, and a tapir's p.e.n.i.s resembles an anvil. The p.e.n.i.ses of cats and dogs have spines - possibly for the purpose of removing the coagulated s.e.m.e.n of other males who got there first. And certain varieties of skate go extremely well equipped, having two p.e.n.i.ses to choose from on any given day.Rumour has it that the band 10cc settled on its name because the average male e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n measured 9 cubic centimetres, and the band's members thought they could go one better. But the cubic centimetre is directly equivalent to the millilitre, and most research puts the average amount of discharge at between 3 millilitres and 5 millilitres. So if the 10cc christening story is true (which its members coyly deny), then the boys really were supremely confident about their capacity. One book thoughtfully measures out the average amount of discharge at between half and one teaspoon, just in case you were planning to cook with it. And those watching their weight should remember that there are 5 calories per teaspoon.

But on that day in the cla.s.sroom, as I pondered the options so appealingly put forward by Geoffrey Smethurst, I knew none of this. (Neither did I know whether, when it it happened, it would be okay to leave my top on to hide my embarra.s.singly small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It seemed to me, from all the available evidence, that people mostly did it in the nude. But I wasn't certain that there was a prerequisite for b.r.e.a.s.t.s to be bared. After all, b.r.e.a.s.t.s weren't involved in the happened, it would be okay to leave my top on to hide my embarra.s.singly small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It seemed to me, from all the available evidence, that people mostly did it in the nude. But I wasn't certain that there was a prerequisite for b.r.e.a.s.t.s to be bared. After all, b.r.e.a.s.t.s weren't involved in the actual mechanics actual mechanics as far as I could tell.) And so it was that I found myself inadequately prepared for my first glimpse of a lavender-headed erection poking out of Gerard Hyphen-Wilson's pants. as far as I could tell.) And so it was that I found myself inadequately prepared for my first glimpse of a lavender-headed erection poking out of Gerard Hyphen-Wilson's pants.

The party to which Eve's boyfriend invited us was held in a boatshed owned by the Hyphen-Wilsons, which sat at the far end of a jetty, and which Mr Hyphen-Wilson Snr might have visited once or twice a year when he came down from the family seat. Whether young Gerard had come to possess the key by way of his father's blessing or his ignorance, I cannot say. I can say, definitively, that my parents had not sanctioned my attendance at this particular party. To the best of their knowledge, Eve and I were out watching a teen movie and putting in our mouths nothing more harmful than Minties and popcorn.

A pair of kerosene lanterns lit the interior of the boatshed, and in their tarnished glow I could see a dinghy hoisted into the rafters alongside some sc.r.a.pe-bottomed kayaks. I could make out oars propped against the bracing on timber walls and, nailed to a corkboard, a calendar. Although it was December, the calendar showed Miss August, who wore only the bottom half of a polka-dot bikini. She had tanned b.r.e.a.s.t.s with heavy brown nipples and glossy lips that were - almost needless to say - slightly parted. To the right of the calendar was the door to a rudimentary bunkhouse, behind which, by way of a small lapse of sisterhood, was Eve with her boyfriend.

The air was full of cigarette smoke and pheromones, both of which were rising in clouds off the dozen or so Grammar boarders who swung on fold-up chairs, or sprawled on the slatted floor, flicking their f.a.g-ash through the gaps. I leaned against the splintery wall in my angora cardigan, concocting a demeanour that was at once frosty, challenging and flippant. (You might, equally, picture the boarders as a pack of eager and salivating hyenas, and me as the neatly trussed carca.s.s of a small bird - a spatchc.o.c.k, or possibly even a quail - dangling from the ceiling by a slender thread.) 'Drink?'

This, then, was the host - the leader of the pack. He had eyes that competed with each other to be closer to the bridge of his nose, and longish hair that made curling spaniel ears on either side of his face.

'Thank you.' I was polite, as you can see.

'A c.o.c.ktail?'

'Sure.' And experienced, too.

'We only do one c.o.c.ktail here,' said Gerard, making the others laugh.

'We call it the Rene Pogel,' said one of the laughers, rolling the 'r'.

Gerard ripped the ring-pull from a can of beer and took a long lug. Then he topped the can up with a greenish liquid from a square-cut bottle. When he pa.s.sed it to me, it smelled minty and beery together.

'Creme de menthe,' he explained.

What was required, I decided, was a declaration of non-prissiness. And so I downed the contents of the can in three swallows and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

'Whoo-hoo! I think little Rosie likes our mate Rene,' said Gerard. 'Another?'

'Sure.'

Which went down the same way, leading to cheers and whistles. Things were going quite well, I thought.

'You don't get it, do you?'

He was very close to me now, f.a.g-breath in my face.

'Get what?'

'Rene Pogel?'

'So?'

'Can you spell?'

'Of course I can spell.'

'But not backwards?'

Backwards? Oh. Oh s.h.i.+t.

It is worth mentioning, just in pa.s.sing, that some men do not progress, in the evolutionary stakes, much beyond the proto-mentality of the Grammar boarders I met at the Hyphen-Wilson jetty that night. Only recently I encountered a man of forty who had amused himself by naming his - admittedly very sw.a.n.ky - yacht the Rene Pogel Rene Pogel. But on the night I first became acquainted with this charming little ananym, Gerard watched me and waited and then, when he considered me sufficiently primed, led me through the door of the boatshed to the open decking beyond. After some alarmingly vigorous sucking at my mouth, he pulled me down onto the boards. Looking up I saw the moon, but it appeared to have turned its face the other way. I could hear the old ferry thumping out a ba.s.s heartbeat as she patrolled the estuary as part of her Friday night booze cruise. Closer was the rapid breathing of Gerard Hyphen-Wilson, whose great clumsy paws were up under my skirt and clumsily tugging at my tights. Soon I felt something hard and blunt b.u.t.ting between my legs, looking for a hole that didn't appear to be there.

'Christ, your f.u.c.king s.n.a.t.c.h is tight!'

I looked down to the opening in his fly, and understood that when my mother had told me about s.e.x, she had omitted a rather important fact.

My mother is a nurse and she most emphatically does not believe in the use of silly words for body parts. She has this much in common with le Vicomte de Valmont, who advised young Cecile that in lovemaking, as in every science, it was important to call things by their proper names. In Sister Pat Little's view, 'wee-wee' is the most idiotic of the euphemisms for v.a.g.i.n.a, and when I was a child I was expressly forbidden to use it. Her insistence on correct anatomical terms was to have repercussions for the elderly groundsman at our school who didn't know where to look when I, aged five and dressed in my kindergarten smock, informed him that I had fallen over and hurt my v.a.g.i.n.a.

I recall stopping off once during a long drive, at a set of public conveniences on the side of the highway. The women's toilet block was full of the sound of trickling streams against metal and the wailing of a small girl who was making it known, between wails, that it hurt 'down there'.

'Does Aunt Mary hurt, darling?' asked an older woman, prim tones hushed.

'For G.o.d's sake - it's called a v.a.g.i.n.a!' my mother called out from within the safe confines of her cubicle. She would never have been so confrontational at the basin, I am certain.

s.e.x education occurred so early in the Little household that I have no clear recollection of it. To my mother, s.e.xual intercourse was a fact, a bodily thing just like eating or having bowel movements. So secure was I in the knowledge that the p.e.n.i.s went into the v.a.g.i.n.a that I had never stopped to wonder how, precisely. I had been exposed to a small range of floppy p.e.n.i.ses (not w.i.l.l.i.e.s, not doodles, not d.i.c.ks, but p.e.n.i.ses) in the course of a normal childhood. I'd had baths with my brother and seen his little bald worm of a p.e.n.i.s. I'd seen my dad's larger and woollier arrangement. I'd even seen my grandfather's p.e.n.i.s hanging over his big baggy sac. But that night, on a jetty in one of the better riverside suburbs, I encountered a p.e.n.i.s doing something I had never seen a p.e.n.i.s do before. It was sticking straight up, and its underside was all covered in veins. (Later, I would find my mother's s.e.x education to be inadequate in the face of sperm as well. She had told me that it was a 'white, sticky substance'. Well, toothpaste is a white, sticky substance, and while I didn't exactly expect s.e.m.e.n to come in various permutations of mint flavouring, I was surprised when it turned out to be an egg-whitish sort of muck.) No four-poster bed, no chintzy curtains, no Vicomte slithering Latin delicacies into my ear. Instead, I was being deflowered by a jumble of Gerard Hyphen-Wilson's fingers and his sticky-up p.e.n.i.s, one or the other or some combination of which caused a sudden splitting pain that made me squeal and pull at a hank of his hair in fury.

'b.i.t.c.h!' he yelled. On top of me, he was red in the face and one of his pimples had burst, sending a little river of pus down one cheek.

'It's no good anyway, you're too f.u.c.king tight,' he complained, rolling off.

He manoeuvred my sluggish body until I was sitting alongside him on the side of the jetty. I remember watching one of my patent leather pumps falling off my foot and floating away on the current, and the wobbly sensation that I was about to follow it. But then, Gerard's fat fingers were pressing small indentations into my scalp, and his purple-faced p.e.n.i.s was just centimetres from my nose.

'So, what are you like at giving head?' he asked. As I said, Gerard Hyphen-Wilson had no Latin.

I now wish that I'd had the prescience to answer: 'Well, since I'm fourteen and I've never even heard the expression "giving head" before, let's just a.s.sume I'm fairly c.r.a.p at it, whatever it is.' My response at the time, however, was significantly less articulate, being more of a gurgling sound in the back of my throat. Gerard was pus.h.i.+ng my face towards his p.e.n.i.s. What did he want to do? Stick it up my nose?

It was at this point that intervention came from a most unexpected source: Rene Pogel himself. Master Hyphen-Wilson thought he had Monsieur Pogel firmly on his side, but there can be too much Rene for a small-framed girl. My dinner of lobster thermidor and trifle, marinated in a frothy green soup of creme de menthe and beer, erupted from my mouth to cover the straining p.e.n.i.s of Gerard Hyphen-Wilson, which was, suddenly, not straining so hard.

Of course it is easy to sn.i.g.g.e.r, these years later, at that shrivelling p.e.n.i.s coated in masticated seafood and liquor. But at the time, as Gerard Hyphen-Wilson's school mates scrambled out of the boatshed to see what all the shouting was about, I was hardly a picture of ha-ha, so-there composure. While he jumped about like an angry puppy, brus.h.i.+ng the muck off his thighs, whining, 'Slag! The f.u.c.king little slag spewed on me', I was still flat on the boards emptying my stomach in small, violent bursts that clouded the water below. And this was the glorious image of my defloration that I was left to ponder the next day and for the long, long remainder of my high school career.

I wish you could see the various issues of teen magazines containing warm and euphemistic be-friends-first, always-wear-a-condom, it-might-hurt-a-teensy-bit accounts of the ideal first f.u.c.k, whose margins I filled with the ananymatic insults I might hurl at Master Hyphen-Wilson the next time I had the displeasure to see his leery face. Elohesra! Elohesra! and and Reknaw! Reknaw! and and Trevrep! Trevrep! I scribbled. Impotently, as it turned out. For I simply continued on my way - my basket lighter by one cherry - and never crossed his path again. I scribbled. Impotently, as it turned out. For I simply continued on my way - my basket lighter by one cherry - and never crossed his path again.

TRUTH.

Elephantiasis.

elephantiasis elephantiasis A chronic form of filariasis, due to lymphatic obstruction, characterised by enormous enlargement of the parts affected A chronic form of filariasis, due to lymphatic obstruction, characterised by enormous enlargement of the parts affected Macquarie Dictionary Macquarie Dictionary My cousin Meredith has elephantiasis. To say this is not to imply that she is fat, though, coincidentally, she is. Not just a little overweight, but quite fat. Meredith has the kind of body that means shopping for clothes in the Big is Beautiful section; that entails judging carefully the width of chairs with arms. Hers is the kind of flesh that feels, sliding over it in supermarkets, in doctors' waiting rooms or worse, the Family Planning Clinic, the averting glances of whip-thin girls with blonde ponytails and long necks with which to flick them.

It's not only Meredith that has elephantiasis. Her villa unit - one of a set of brick and tile triplets nestled on a landscaped block - has elephantiasis also. In the lounge room, the suite is piled with plump cus.h.i.+ons embroidered, cross-st.i.tched, latch-hooked, printed and painted with elephants. Others are simply in the shape of elephants. Sentinel to the hearth are two mahogany elephants, which, by virtue of timber that is unrefined and almost hairy, bears a family resemblance to their ancestor, the woolly mammoth. The mantelpiece holds a pa.s.sing parade of jade, serpentine, onyx, ebony and marble elephants. Elephants have even made it into the bathroom, where the plastic bodies of Babar and Celeste are filled with bubble bath. In the kitchen, the fridge door flutters with no fewer than six fliers (the one that arrived by chance in Meredith's own post augmented by five others pa.s.sed on by thoughtful friends), all seeking donations to help an unfortunate Thai elephant, the victim of a landmine explosion, in need of a prosthetic foot. Each of the fliers is attached to the fridge with a separate elephant-shaped fridge magnet.

Meredith wonders at how quickly the elephant effect gained momentum. The first elephant, a palm-sized figurine carved in ivory-pale wood, was from no-one of particular consequence. The giver had sat next to Meredith in a personal development seminar, perhaps five years ago. She was a woman with raspy greying hair and a long crooked body which she was always s.h.i.+fting in her chair, as if simply sitting caused her pain in her bones. The woman mentioned she was planning a holiday to Africa, and Meredith - outside in the car park after the seminar was over - gave her a blow-up neck pillow for the plane journey. Meredith had found the pillow uncomfortable, and so it had been lying, deflated, in the boot of her car for months.

The second elephant was a soft toy, pale grey and plush. It was also a thankyou gift, this time from a neighbour whose plumes of agapanthus Meredith watered while the neighbour was away nursing her sick mother. To this day Meredith does not know whether the neighbour chose the soft toy in response to the wooden African elephant on the (then relatively uncluttered) mantelpiece, or whether it was a purely coincidental choice. In any case, after that the elephantiasis spread like a virus to birthdays and Christmases, even to Easter, as friends, family and colleagues were seized by the thematic simplicity of it all.

white elephant An annoyingly useless possession Macquarie Dictionary The truth is that Meredith does not even like elephants, and never did particularly. Before they took over her life, Meredith had for elephants no special feelings. Now that the elephantiasis is advanced, her house a shrine to the order Proboscidea, she resents them. Perhaps, she thinks sometimes, the elephantiasis was a punishment for an act of bad faith: giving away a travel pillow that she already knew to be uncomfortable. She feels, however, that the punishment has gone far enough, since it is now her entire existence that is stretched out of shape, swollen up and distorted with elephants.

Could she have halted the stampede? Yes, almost certainly. She could, at some point, have mentioned that she would prefer to collect b.u.t.terflies. Or springboks. In her most soul-bare moments she knows why she did not, does not. And it's not only because she is naturally conciliatory, and polite in a style that is grateful for a gift, no matter how awful. It's because she knows that her friends, family and colleagues see this (imagined) fondness of hers for elephants as proof of her jolliness. It is evidence of her good-natured acceptance of her fatness. A huge joke against herself. There she is, an elephantine woman surrounding herself with familiars. And a jolly fat woman without jolliness is left, she understands, with only one adjective.

A Word from Rosie Little on: Totemic Wors.h.i.+p Totemic Wors.h.i.+p G Gift shops thrive on people who have chosen - or, as in the case of Meredith, have had chosen for them - an animal totem. Perhaps it is a desire of the domesticated human to connect with an inner wildness that makes African safari animals such popular choices. Giraffes, lions and elephants are usually available as small carved wooden idols, keyrings, pencil cases with zippers down their backs, erasers, blown-gla.s.s trinkets and stuffed toys. Elephants, considered lucky, are more likely than the others to be found as tiny silver charms for a bracelet, tinkling against hearts, four-leaf clovers, horseshoes, money bags, and wishbones.The Howards, who reside at Castle Howard of Brideshead Revisited Brideshead Revisited fame, collect hippopotamuses. I once saw the hippos displayed in the castle's entrance portico, a frippery amid the ancient Greek statues, the overarching frescos, the great, heavy gilt of it all. In a gla.s.s cabinet are comic china hippopotamuses decked out for golfing, an elaborate Faberge hippopotamus, and a group of serene grazing hippopotamuses etched into gla.s.s by a leading London artisan. Some of the hippopotamuses were given by the Howards to one another as anniversary gifts, while others have come from well-wishers who know the couple's proclivity for the animals and have no doubt thought of the couple when they've stumbled across an unusual one. The Howards are pleased to say that one of their favourite hippos - a wooden carving with large ears - was purchased for one pound and fifty pence at an Oxfam store. But they regret that they cannot have on display, due to its limited shelf-life, the charming carved-potato hippopotamus that was once sent to them by an admirer. fame, collect hippopotamuses. I once saw the hippos displayed in the castle's entrance portico, a frippery amid the ancient Greek statues, the overarching frescos, the great, heavy gilt of it all. In a gla.s.s cabinet are comic china hippopotamuses decked out for golfing, an elaborate Faberge hippopotamus, and a group of serene grazing hippopotamuses etched into gla.s.s by a leading London artisan. Some of the hippopotamuses were given by the Howards to one another as anniversary gifts, while others have come from well-wishers who know the couple's proclivity for the animals and have no doubt thought of the couple when they've stumbled across an unusual one. The Howards are pleased to say that one of their favourite hippos - a wooden carving with large ears - was purchased for one pound and fifty pence at an Oxfam store. But they regret that they cannot have on display, due to its limited shelf-life, the charming carved-potato hippopotamus that was once sent to them by an admirer.The memory of an elephant proverbial saying For Meredith, the single worst thing about being a primary school teacher is the last day of the school year. On that day the children arrive, all glowing with the joy of giving, presents for teacher in hand. Even the grottiest boys are coy and sweet with gift-wrapped antic.i.p.ation. Among the presents Meredith receives there is always a mug with an elephant's trunk as its handle. Some of these mugs are slip-cast with Dumbo-type elephants that have fat, pale-grey curves and pink inner ears. Others are of bone china, and bear more serious elephants with trunks finely ridged and delicate pale slivers for tusks. Usually, too, there is a cus.h.i.+on cover, lately in Indian-sari style with small circular mirrors blanket-st.i.tched to the elephants' pink and orange saddles.

Meredith teaches at a private school, and there are newly moneyed parents who like to make expansive gestures of their grat.i.tude. As a result her courtyard water feature (placed according to feng shui principles) is ringed by a conference of solemn pachyderms of plaster and sandstone, soapstone and granite.

When Meredith was nine years old, the same age as the children she now teaches, her mother Rhona took her to the hospital to visit her Auntie Pat, who had just given birth to the baby Rosemary (yes, that would be me). On the way to the hospital Meredith and her mother stopped at a news-agency to buy a card. Meredith, a tall child without ankles and with dimples for knees, was allowed to choose. She was drawn to a small square card with a marshmallow-pink pig surrounded by tufts of green gra.s.s, sporting a green polka-dot bow between its peaked ears. It was a happy-looking pig, and Meredith thought that the arrival of a cousin was a happy sort of occasion. She picked out the card and gave it happily to her mother, who crossly shoved it back down into the card rack, dog-earing a corner of it.

'You can't give a woman a card like that, Meredith! You might as well call call her a pig!' her a pig!'

This was one of a number of psychic slaps that Rhona was unwittingly to give her daughter. Meredith has never forgotten that incident in the newsagency, and as a result of it is always careful not to buy greeting cards with images that might be considered, even in any obscure or tangential way, inappropriate. And every year on the last day of school, after defeating the pit-deep dread that makes her want to vomit or at least call in sick, she takes herself reluctantly to work. She smiles and thanks sincerely each exuberant gift-giver. But she thinks, as she unwraps each parcel, 'you might as well call call me an elephant'. me an elephant'.

Elephants do not mate for life Elephant Information Repository For a time, Meredith had a boyfriend called Adrian Purdy. He was an information technology teacher at a high school adjacent to her primary school, and it is my strong suspicion that he never entirely discarded his teenage fascination with role-playing games. The internet filled the hole in his life which had opened when his old university mates moved on from Dungeons & Dragons to golf. Although he and Meredith were together for many years, Adrian continued to live with his mother. This was largely because his mother took the view that couples who lived together before they were married did not deserve wedding presents. They had not, she said, sacrificed anything.

Jean Purdy had the long torso, short legs and lopsided gait that were, Adrian told Meredith, characteristic of female trolls. (Who were, Adrian told Meredith, the original 'trollops'.) Meredith found it hard not to picture Jean - especially when she delivered her doubt-free treatises on everything from the sanct.i.ty of smacking children to the benefits of fibre, the cure for leaf-curl in lemon trees and the cheek of indigenous people expecting apologies for things done in their best interests - standing beneath a bridge, her skull k.n.o.bbled with horns.

Jean was as hard and defined as a stone, and she left Meredith feeling bruised. Jean was loud, while Meredith spoke as if she might diminish her size by keeping her voice small. Jean began dieting discussions with the prefix, 'Now I hope you won't mind me saying, but ...' And behind those words Meredith heard the tearing of fabric, the ripping away of her veil of invisibility. Jean might as well have been saying: Of course they notice, Meredith Of course they notice, Meredith ... rip ... ... rip ... Do you really think anybody could be looking at you Do you really think anybody could be looking at you...rip ... and not be thinking and not be thinking...fat...fat...FAT!

After a while Meredith learned that when she heard 'Now I hope you won't mind me saying, but ...' it was time to go. Her body remained there - monumentally there - in Jean's fussy Laura Ashley living room. But her mind departed the scene, leaving the soft flesh of the body to absorb the blows.

What Jean Purdy's son Adrian loved about Meredith was her flesh. He loved every gram and kilogram of it, would not have cared if she put on more weight, just as long as she didn't lose too much. It would be losing, he told her, too much of her self. She told me once, quietly, out the side of one of her chubby hands, that he could not stop himself, during lovemaking, from grasping at handfuls of her. Although she asked him, embarra.s.sed, not to do it, he couldn't help himself.

Adrian Purdy's hands, like the rest of him, were unnaturally pale. They were unworked hands, with fingernails as soft as flakes of mica. With those hands he kneaded her like a cat kneading a pillow into shape. On the rare occasion he stayed the night at her house, his body forming a pale fringe around her, his hands still plied her flesh in his sleep.

Once, Meredith decided to tell Adrian the truth about the elephants. Although he had known her for several years, he had given her only a single elephant item: a jaffle-iron with a hard plastic lid in the shape of an elephant's face. And it was while Meredith was using the jaffle-iron, after a morning in bed during which she had felt particularly close to him, that she realised it was the perfect moment to tell him. When he came out of the bathroom, she was going to say: Adrian, I love this jaffle-maker, I really do. But the truth is, I really HATE elephants. Isn't that funny? Adrian, I love this jaffle-maker, I really do. But the truth is, I really HATE elephants. Isn't that funny? And she would laugh, and he would laugh, and they would laugh together in that kitchen-shaped bubble of intimacy. As it happened, Adrian Purdy emerged from the bathroom looking fixated and nervous. His pale hair was neatly combed at the sides but springing up at the crown. He put on his suede jacket and asked Meredith if they could skip breakfast, since there was something important they had to do. And she would laugh, and he would laugh, and they would laugh together in that kitchen-shaped bubble of intimacy. As it happened, Adrian Purdy emerged from the bathroom looking fixated and nervous. His pale hair was neatly combed at the sides but springing up at the crown. He put on his suede jacket and asked Meredith if they could skip breakfast, since there was something important they had to do.

Adrian drove, concentrating on the streets he travelled each day as if they had overnight become foreign. His soft nails flexed against the leather of the steering wheel. By the side of the river, he pulled over and turned to Meredith. Nervously, he fitted over her head the elastic of a sleeping mask. The sleeping mask was hers, she noted. She kept it in the bathroom for shutting out the light when she took long baths. She was momentarily put out that he had taken it without asking. When the car began to move again, Meredith could judge for a time, by the pattern of turns and roundabouts, where they were. Then she became uncertain, and lost her way.

After he parked, Adrian helped Meredith out of the car and took her by the hand. They walked a short way, and then she heard him whispering to someone and the sound of coins falling over each other into a pocket. He guided her through something that felt like a turnstile, cold metal touching her on her stomach and her flanks. She had to push herself through like a boiled egg through the neck of a bottle. Blindfolded, Meredith could smell food, and hear children. Adrian walked her along quickly, talking loudly about trust, and about the ability of the other senses to compensate rapidly for the loss of sight.

'Okay Mere, you can take it off now,' he said.

First there was the sunlight, which made her blink. Then, as her eyes slowly focused, the images that confronted her appeared, between blinks, as if in a slide show. She could almost hear the slides shunting through the carousel. And these are the things she saw: 1. Directly in front of her, Adrian Purdy, down on one knee, a s.h.i.+vering bunch of white daisies in one hand. click click 2. A small child in a striped jumper, and in the child's hand, the stick of a toffee apple. The red bulb of the apple was swinging like a pendulum towards the earth, and the child's mouth, smeared red, was opened in glee. click click 3. Behind Adrian Purdy, a cyclone fence. click click 4. Over the cyclone fence, reaching, coming towards the shoulder of Adrian Purdy's suede jacket, a gently swaying prehensile trunk.

An elephant family is led by a matriarch, with the matriarch being the oldest and most experienced of the herd Elephant Information Repository Elephant Information Repository My Auntie Rhona, my mother's oldest sister and Meredith's mother, does not remember the debacle with the pig card in the newsagency. If Meredith were to tell her about the lasting impact of the incident, Rhona would laugh good-naturedly and say, 'Oh, you silly girl! What funny things you remember!' She regards Meredith as her easiest child. She was always compliant, malleable, even-tempered and happy. She could almost have been pretty, with her flawless skin and s.h.i.+ning curls a hair's breadth from black.

For Meredith's twenty-fifth birthday, Rhona planned a special gift. She had framed for Meredith an enlarged photograph of a female elephant on her knees by a waterhole, her trunk wrapped around the torso of a calf sinking into the mire.

Rhona had been worried about her daughter. Although Meredith insisted she was fine, she had definitely been in low spirits since her abrupt and unexplained break-up with Adrian Purdy. Rhona was looking forward, in a quiet way, to the expression on Meredith's face when she unwrapped the photograph at her birthday party. The image spoke to Rhona of the extraordinary strength of her love for her daughter, of her determination to pull her through any kind of difficulty. And she was sure that Meredith, who was, bless her, so fond of elephants, would understand the message implicit in that coiled trunk.