My Animals and Other Family by Julia Blackburn

Author:Julia Blackburn [Julia Blackburn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2007-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

We had moved from London to an old farmhouse in the country surrounded by a rambling garden, and with this change of life it was felt that Galaxy could have a wife. FluffBum was her name: a beautiful maiden with long sweeps of honey-coloured fur.

As soon as she was presented to him, Galaxy, who had always been the mildest of creatures, let out a shriek and began the gudda-gudda-gudda sound of guinea-pig passion. He leapt from my daughter’s hands and even bit her thumb in his haste.

Galaxy and his young bride went to live in the garden. They had a cage, with a sleeping compartment filled with hay, but the cage door was left open. After a while, and with the addition of more guinea pigs brought in from outside, Galaxy became the king of a multicoloured nation. As well as several open-doored cages, there were also new housing developments under the tumbling remains of an outside latrine.

Some of the younger generation became a bit wild and unbiddable, but Galaxy never forgot his roots. You could stand in the garden and call the guinea-pig cry of whee-whee-whee-whee and from far away, under the apple tree, or by the pond, or on the mound of earth that was left over from digging a cesspit where curly kale grew so well, came the answering cry. And like a little train, he would come trundling towards you as fast as his short legs could take him.

One day I heard that cry, but higher pitched than usual and more urgent. I went in search of the sound and there was Galaxy, racing through the grass with a weasel riding on his back and biting into his neck. I shouted at the weasel with as much anger and authority as I could muster. For one crucial moment it let go of its grip and Galaxy was able to escape. Then, and I’ll never forget this, the weasel turned on me. It reared up to its full height like a snake or a mongoose, and it swayed backwards and forwards, staring me in the eye and shrieking with rage.

A couple of years passed and one morning, my daughter came into the kitchen cradling Galaxy in her arms. She held him up to me and said, ‘There’s something wrong with him.’ She was right, there was something wrong with him, he was dead. I didn’t know how to explain this other fact of life to her, how to say that there is sleep, and there is also the endless sleep.

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