Elephant, a short work of fiction, by Simon Morrell

Elephant, a short work of fiction, by Simon Morrell

Elephant, a short work of fiction, by Simon Morrell

“When I was three years old, maybe almost four, I was fascinated by a carving my parents had on their living room wall. I knew I was this age because we had yet to leave the Merseyside area where I was born.

The carving in question was a beautiful work of art of an elephant and a calf, a full 3d wooden affair, tusks and all.

The piece didn’t make the journey to live with us in North Wales with us, some months later, but of course, that was after my mum smashed the work of art over my dad’s head as he lay sleeping on the settee. I know she did you see, because I was sitting on the floor next to him, playing with my cars. I saw it, blood and all.”

Elephant is a work of fiction.

Trudy, they call her, or Trude for short, and though her name is Samantha, she can never really make the connection; no one can. Nobody even remembers when people started calling her this alter ego. They just did, and why would she be bothered? She is only five years old.

“A big girl,” her mother tells her. “Almost grown up already. How did you get so big?”

She loves her mum. She loves the trips into town, just the two of them. She loves her dad too, but he is always busy, too busy for day trips.

“Dancing, singing, drinking and sleeping,” that’s what her mum says. That’s what her mum says when she asks about her dad and why he won’t come into town on the bus with them.

“Because there are shops and people to talk to, real people,” her mum says. “That’s why. He doesn’t want to talk to real people.”

Trudy doesn’t understand. Remember, she is only five.

*

Sometimes the shops will see to it she gets the small books she likes.

She likes the ones about the seven kids the most; she is too young to really understand the one about the five that are famous.

“Two girls out on the town,” her mum says, buttoning up Trudy’s coat and taking her into the warm café for-

“One large tea, one small tea please, café man”, she shouts as her mother sits down and her audience laughs.

“I’ll bring them over Trudy,” he says.

*

“This week’s major purchase,” Trudy says, announcing to the world and the bus on the way home. “This week’s major purchase is a drum roll, please- it is a kettle!”

And the ladies on the bus clap, laugh and smile as Trudy’s mother pretends to hide her head in her hand in embarrassment, and Trudy lifts the kettle in the air for all to see. Well, the ladies on the bus at least. Oh the shame of it all, this little show-off.

*

She knows mum is annoyed as she gets near her home. Trudy isn’t stupid, she can feel it. She can sense her mum’s disappointment as they open the door and hear the snoring. Either way, Mum makes sure there are enough chips in the warm bags to go around. Enough even for dad, the lazy sod on the settee, snoring even louder by now and giving off a funny, stale smell.

Mother hushes her as they walk in the door, puts the chips on a plate, and they sit giggling at the kitchen table, the new kettle hiss, hiss, hissing away, and by Jesus, wouldn’t it hurry up because we are dying, no, gasping, no suffering for a cup of tea.

Trudy, Samantha to her really good friends who know better, hears her dad stir, wakes (or come around, her mum sometimes says), belches and makes commands for his chips.

“It is only fair,” he says.

*

“Would you like another bus trip, Samantha?”

Samantha, also known as Trudy, sometimes goes by the name of Trude would. She would love another bus trip.

“What do we do about dad?” she asks. “What do we do about the snoring giant?”

Her mother stifles a giggle, amused at Trudy’s description of her adulterous father.

“What shall we do?” she asks.

They shut the front door quietly on the way out. That is what they do.

*

“Ladies, if I may!” declares Trudy, almost six now. “We have been on the bus into town, my mum brought me shoes”- and she shows the shoes- “and then she brought our household-

The bus ladies laugh at this-

“She brought us this!” And she proudly holds up a new lamp.

“For the front room,” is what the mother offers.

*

“I’ll make something today, Trudy,” says the mother. “That lamp was a lot more money than I thought it would be, but we have eggs and bread at home.”

Trudy doesn’t care. Trudy only cares and hopes and dreams that her dad will be up and about, tea together, maybe a little wrestling match. That’s all Trudy hopes

Trudy is delighted when she opens the front door that leads to the room with the television. Her dad is not asleep on the couch.

She hears him whistling, happy, happy, happy whistling as he shaves in the upstairs bathroom. Actually, the only bathroom.

Then he is all moonlight, love, sunshine and stars as he waltzes down the stairs, teeth gleaming.

“Jesus,” thinks Trudy. “Those pegs could blind you.” She does not say this to her mum. She has been warned about using the Jesus word.

Still, she is happy, her mother not so much as she opens up her purse and hands out cash.

“This is the last time Conner.”

“Yeah doll, yeah. All in the past. I’m just away for a pint…”

But it’s not a pint. It’s ten. It’s ten and after as a crowd emerges on Trudy’s home, bottles in hands, girls on arms, songs to be sung, Trudy goes to bed with a pain in her head from all the noisy, drunk adults in her front room. Adults she has never met, adults she does not know. Her mum retires to her bed too.

                                                                         *

The phone rings. It rings very early, and despite the headache, the day-long hangover to be endured, her dad answers it. Trudy hears. She hears it go like this.

“Anthony, ya Roman Catholic yourself. This has nothin’ to do with you. Shut up whilst I’m talking. Jesus, you have a running mouth like your sister herself. Here is why I’ll tell you. I learnt stuff in prison you couldn’t comprehend. Don’t make me, ya’ hear.”

Dad bangs the phone down, belches, goes back up the stairs and gets under the covers. Trudy cries, goes back up the stairs and also gets under the covers. It’s a Mexican standoff.

*

Finally. Finally, Trudy gets her act three; she witnesses it. It’s a bus ride into town.

“Morning ladies. Yes, I’m six next. Yes my dad is fine, in work today he is. Some big project,” she said, but mum isn’t in the mood. She has seen it, the bargain of the day and it is a beautiful 3d carving. A huge wooden thing, would that fit on the wall? Yes, it would thank you, the huge elephant and calf.

“How do we get that one home?” Trudy asks herself, but they do. Mother and daughter suffer getting it home on the bus, and not only that, they hang it on the wall together, but Trudy has a nagging question, one she whispers to herself.

“Why does mum need a carving of an elephant and calf and why is it so close to where dad sleeps it all off?”

The question is forgotten as her dad stumbles through the front door, and mother and daughter are not sure whether he is still drunk from last night or this is a fresh one.

Ramblings to the mother. “Put the chip pan on! (stupid woman). We have no money for the chippy.”

Then he crashes, first one way, front first, then the next, flat on his back.

With mum’s help, he is back on the couch. His rightful throne.  He snores, he sleeps, he belches in his sleep. Yet again.

“Why did mum need the big elephant? The calf next to massive legs, huge, huge tusks made out of some kind of sharp and strong…and dunno?” Trudy thinks. “That would hurt if it fell on you.”

One more muttering from her dad. One more belch, two more burps and well, who knows what the next noise was.

*

“I saw her and she was beautif-,” and he is so far gone. So far drunk, he can’t finish the sentence, so neither Trudy, sometimes Trude, sometimes Samantha nor her mum will ever know the lady her dad was muttering about. The fool. The silly drunken fool.

“Why did mum buy that elephant?” That is what Trudy says as her mum stubs out her cigarette.

That is what Trudy thinks when she sees her mum lean over her sleeping, passed out, disgusting individual of her father. That is what Trudy thinks when she sees the blood hit the ceiling as elephant is raised high then brought down fast, the tusk hitting the artery, the carotid, if you please.

That is all Trudy and her hopeless, drunken fool of a dad know as he departs for a different world.

And then she knows why Mum brought Elephant.