Rosy Is My Relative by Gerald Durrell Page A

so she paused politely to listen.
    “What I’m going to do with you, you damned animal, is to get you down to the coast by hook or by crook, and then I’m going to give you to the first person that’s fool enough to want you. And I don’t care what they do with you . . . they can do anything they like with you . . .” Adrian paused and searched his mind for a suitably terrible fate for Rosy. “They can put you in a lumber yard , for all I care. They can stuff you and put you in a museum. That would probably be the safest place for you. I don’t care what happens to you as long as you get out of my life.”
    Adrian paused for breath and Rosy, to show him that she bad been attending carefully to everything he said, flapped her ears and gave a small squeak.
    “It’s no good pleading,” said Adrian austerely. “My mind’s quite made up. I have decided that the one thing I don’t want in my life is an elephant, particularly one which has an infinite capacity for drink and staggers through the countryside leaving a trail of destruction behind her. As soon as we reach the coast our association is at an end. I have suffered more than any normal human being can be expected to suffer and still remain normal. So, while I still have some sanity left, you must go. Now shut up and eat your bread. It’s all you’re going to get.”
    So saying, Adrian pushed some more twigs on to the fire, rolled himself up in a blanket and tried to get half an hour’s nap before the mist lifted. He was so physically and mentally exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep almost at once, and slept blissfully on for two hours. When he awoke with a start the mist had disappeared and the moorland was flooded with sunlight. He sat up and looked about him, and what he saw made him leap to his feet in alarm. Some fifty feet away, parked by the side of a small stream, was a brightly coloured if slightly battered-looking caravan, with red and white check curtains drawn tightly over its windows. Rosy was leaning against it, a look of ecstasy on her face, scratching herself so that the whole caravan shook and rocked. From inside the caravan a shrill voice was endeavouring to make itself heard above the rasp of Rosy’s scratching.
    “Go away, I command you,” shrilled the voice. “Foul demons of the pit, desist. In the name of Nebuchadnezzar and the ten Seals of Solomon, avaunt! In the name of Erasmus and the Sacred Pentacle of Promethus . . .”
    “Rosy!” shouted Adrian. “Come away from there.”
    Rosy sighed deeply as she left the caravan. It seemed to her that recently Adrian was always telling her not to do the things she liked doing. Adrian approached the steps that led up to the door of the caravan.
    “I say!” he called. “You in there . . . I’m extremely Sorry . . .”
    “Avaunt!” screamed the voice. “Avaunt, you demon, in the name of . . .”
    “I’m not a demon,” shouted Adrian irritably. “Will you come out and let me explain?”
    “No, no,” screamed the voice. “You can’t catch me like that . . . I’m only a poor, old woman and you’re trying to lure me out so that you can snatch the soul from my body . . . avaunt, I say . . .”
    “Oh, do shut up,” said Adrian in exasperation. “I’m not a demon and I don’t want your soul. Why don’t you come out and let me explain?”
    “If you’re not a demon,” said the voice cunningly, “how did you rock the caravan?”
    “It was my elephant,” explained Adrian. “She was scratching herself against the side.”
    “A likely story,” said the voice.
    “Well, if you open the door and look you’ll see her,” said Adrian.
    “How would I know it was an elephant?” asked the voice. “I’ve never seed one.”
    Adrian took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
    “Madam,” he said at last, “I merely wanted to apologize to you for any inconvenience that my elephant may have caused by scratching herself on your caravan. If you cannot accept the apology in the