Chapter 29 – The Elephant in the Room
Having fallen into a very deep fiscal black hole, Tarquin had been forced to make difficult decisions and take stringent economic measures, as a result of which he was renting a small – a very small – bedsitting room whose one window overlooked a main thoroughfare into a city for which he had only loathing and disgust, and from which he could, had he so wished, have reached out to salute, wave, insult or blow kisses to the passengers on the top deck of the Number 17 bus that passed by on its way into the town centre once every 15 minutes or so. But these things he rarely did, preferring to keep the window and the curtains closed in a desperate and futile effort to convince himself that the outside world was not there.
The room, as has been noted, was very small. In one corner, in a strange cupboard-like arrangement, lurked what passed for a kitchenette. A single bed, one not especially large two-seater settee, an old and disturbingly rickety table and two plastic chairs comprised the room’s furnishings. The landlord did not allow tenants to own a pet, but had Tarquin owned a cat there would only barely have been room enough within which to swing it. Bathroom and toilet facilities were, rather appallingly, shared with other tenants in the building, the remnants of whose personal habits sometimes made Tarquin physically ill.
Although the landlord’s rules stipulated “No Pets”, Tarquin – generous to a fault, as always – had no hesitation in saying “Yes” when his pal Sebastian asked if he would take care of his pet elephant for a few days while he was out of town. It was, after all, only a baby elephant, and while he realized it would still be a bit of a squeeze, the elephant could sleep on the settee, and anyway the landlord would never find out because he never showed his face anywhere near the place.
When Sebastian came by with the elephant, whose name was Nelly, Tarquin could not help but notice that the baby had grown somewhat since last he had seen her. But no matter, they managed to squeeze her through the front door of the building, and coax her up the stairs to the room, and through that door, and after having had a cursory look around Nelly settled down on the settee and began to leaf through a magazine.
It did not take long for Tarquin to realize he had not thought enough about what it meant to have an elephant living with you. It was not only a matter of Nelly’s size. He had shared accommodation with one or two sturdy girlfriends in the past, but he was now faced with issues of a different order. He very soon ran out of buns which which to feed her, and Nelly, for her part, very soon demonstrated that a litter tray may be adequate for the average cat but did not make a dent on the consciousness of an elephant. But the main thing Tarquin had failed to take into account was that his pal Sebastian was a lying bastard. His “few days” was actually a three-month sojourn with his fiancée’s family and friends in the South of France. And what with the bun supply issue, the toilet arrangements, and the fact that a bit of a squeeze is alright for a short time but after a few weeks it can start to get on the nerves of even a saint, Tarquin was driven increasingly to spend time out of the house, and was often to be found nursing a half pint of ale in a nearby hostelry, muttering in his cups about the despicability of so-called friends.
But whenever anyone asked him what was wrong, all he would say was “I don’t want to talk about it.”
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Conrad Titmuss
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