Caravan in a field
Tuesday, August 14
I woke as I did every night – about eight times – each and every time due to the heat. At forty two Celsius, today had been the hottest day yet, but temperatures had hovered in the high thirties for weeks, rarely dropping below high twenties overnight. If it rained, you could throw hideous humidity into the equation as well.
But it hadn’t rained. Not much. Not nearly enough. Instead the sun had risen around six, blow torched my caravan for about thirteen solid hours with hardly a cloud intervening, then buggered off again about seven. I wasn’t equipped for this. Neither was my elderly caravan. But then they probably didn’t have heat like this in 1965.
The caravan, a squat, off-white bubble on wheels, had ridiculous red racing stripes along its sides and, peculiarly, only one brake light in the centre of its rear. It had wooden sides and heat-seeking aluminium panelling everywhere else. It was equipped with a gas refrigerator and two-burner gas stove, both of which could spontaneously combust at any moment. Its gravity-fed water tank fed an endless supply of hot, dirty and completely undrinkable water. The cupboards were doorless shelves stacked with plastic plates, cups and glasses full of insects. The squab bed was a generous two inches of sweat-soaked foam with a lifetime guarantee of fitful, aching sleep. It had been providing this for four decades. Amazingly, it was still doing so.
As were the mattresses in the five equally ancient bubble caravans parked in a neat row alongside mine, all of them nasty little hothouses, all of them receiving scant shade despite the presence of a goodly line of leafy trees. All of them occupied by people equally uncomplaining and, from what I had seen, just as happy as me. Because that was how the hierarchy worked around here: casuals and part timers in the bubble caravans; fulltime unskilled staff in the small air conditioned prefab building adjoining the main block; and fulltime veterinary surgeons, keepers and managers in the comfortable, yet far from opulent array of units and cottages dotted along the outer perimeter fence of the seventeen acre Agra Bear Rescue Facility. I was a volunteer; a casual, unskilled, unpaid worker here to just ‘muck in’ and do what I could.
My 1965 caravan, the vets, keepers, managers and – at time of writing – one-hundred-and eighty-nine rescued sloth bears were located in Sur Sarowar, about sixteen miles from Agra, an ancient, pleasant enough city in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India. We were also just a few short miles from one of the world’s most famous buildings, the Taj Mahal – resting place of Shah Jahan’s favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, whoever he was and she was. To these sensibilities, quite a large and expensive building for a corpse to rattle around in while most of India’s ‘living’ citizens slummed in corrugated coffins. Shah Jahan was clearly an all too willing subscriber to the psalm of the sanctimonious – Money and religion equals ignorance and neglect.
The Agra Bear Rescue Facility – built for about the cost of Mumtaz Mahal’s burial dress – comprised two small quarantine pens, a larger socialisation enclosure and a very large forest enclosure. Among other things there was a cub weaning area, two large pools for the bears to cool off in and an excellent clinical laboratory equipped to cope with even the most diseased and downtrodden bear.
Today we were gearing up for the arrival of Misky, a three year old female sloth bear who had spent all but the first few months of her life dancing for money along the hot, polluted highway between Agra and the Taj Mahal. From all accounts, she was a mess with all sorts of infections, infestations and mental problems and she had one eye missing, gouged out by her Kalander keeper as part of her training. Sanctuary vets were readying to receive her. Meanwhile I was just running about planting trees, tidying up the enclosures, feeding some of the resident bears, hiding food to stimulate them and maybe draw some of the coyer ones out of their shells.
I had been told I would be involved with Misky’s arrival in some way, my first experience of a new bear arriving in the sanctuary. On the one hand, I was excited. On the other, I was anxious. I had been around rehabilitated dancing bears for two weeks now, bears that had been here six months or more. I had seen them frolicking in the pools, climbing trees and play fighting when they weren’t chilling out in their air-conditioned dens. I’d helped keepers feed them an endlessly interesting menu of rotis, fruit, honey, cooked soybean, boiled eggs, watermelon, mangos, pineapples, wheat porridge, gallons of milk and anything else their fractured hearts desired. I had seen partially or fully recovered bears revelling in a new life. What I had not yet seen was the raw material; the disfigured, diseased and tormented dancing bear straight off the streets of Agra.
*****
Alan Thompson, Agra Bear Rescue Facility general manager, a gruff, coarse Aussie workaholic perpetually clad in B-odorous khaki, was pacing. He was agitated. His new bear was imminent and the quarantine enclosure wasn’t ready.
‘Bailey!’ he bellowed as I rushed past with a sapling and a shovel. ‘Clean out one of the quarantine enclosures quick smart, mate! I’ve got a bloody bear arriving any minute and nowhere to put it! Give the pen a bloody good clean and put some fresh straw down. And we’ll need some warm milk in there as well. I’d get somebody to give you a hand if I could fuckin’ find anyone!’ He glared angrily around the compound. ‘Jesus! It’s like a fuckin’ ghost town round here! Where is everyone? Where’s that bloody fiancé of yours? Gabriel! Gabri-ellll!’
*****
Austin Hogg died in the early hours of Thursday, February 23rd from a massive heart attack, five months to the day after the Windy Dale terror campaign began. He had simply lost the will to live. Not that he seemed to have one in the first place. A sad man merely got sadder. From all accounts, the final indignity came when he was barred from his beloved Pig in Muck, at which point he went entirely mute. His last words, muttered some three weeks before his death were ‘Frim clogs te clogs i’ three generations,’ Yorkshirespeak for ‘Rags to riches to rags again in three generations.’
His funeral – which I attended in a discreet, distant, suited-gent-in-dark-glasses-lurking-in-trees sort of way – was on a bright, clear and bitterly cold Tuesday in late January. It was held at a small stone church bearing five hundred years of decay and mildew and six months of untended grass and weeds. It was, as you would expect, a simple affair, if simple is the right word for folk around there.
Of course, all the usual suspects were there: Mariabella, Melissa, Attie, the Devil Monkey Baby (growing bigger and uglier by the day), the wet feather and any number of locals who had also barred him from their lives of late. All hypocrites, all with champagne on ice for when the sombre, reverent part of the celebrations were out of the way. Simon was there as well.
As was Marcus Friend. He was with a small group of protesters waving ‘THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE CHICKENS!’ placards, who were kept at a respectful distance by a small contingent of edgy police. Marcus Friend’s loud hallow had been confiscated the moment the service began and he hollered ‘We are gathered here today to bury a monster!’ All recorded by regional television news crews from the BBC, ITV and Sky News who had skulked about the lane with a bored ‘I’m bigger than this’ aloofness.
By the time Gabriel arrived alone in a small blue hatchback and joined the service beside her mother, her father was already being lowered into the ground. I imagined her saying something like ‘Sorry. I got lost,’ or ‘Sorry, I almost couldn’t be bothered,’ but I don’t know – I couldn’t hear or lip read from my angled position across the road in the trees. I had, however, seen her close enough to weep when she’d got out of her car, stern and cursing, all in black. She looked gorgeous.
Austin Hogg was laid to rest at the bottom of a hole. The wet feather stepped up, paused in prayer, then threw something in after him. Something that momentarily glinted in the sun and probably wasn’t supposed to break. A glass pint from the Pig in Muck Inn.
I saw bible readings: Simon, Attie (go figure) and Melissa (no figure). And then it was done. Men with shovels moved in with the grace of road workers and the ‘mourners’ moved off up the broken, weed-ridden path.
Gabriel said goodbye to her family outside rusted wrought iron gates, reserving the only hug for Simon, then marched head down for her car, a car she had only been out of for ten minutes, yet more than enough time for me to slip through the trees and be stationed within covert whispering distance. I waited until she was at the car door, a sombre little person in dark glasses returning to whatever it was she was returning to.
‘Gabriel! Gabriel!’
She heard me, then saw me.
And nothing changed. Not a hint of recognition. Not a twitch of an eyebrow. Not a flicker of a smile. She just walked into the trees, put her head on my chest, her arms around my waist, and hugged me.
Two weeks later, Austin Hogg’s Last Will and Testament was read before Family Hogg by, as Gabriel put it, ‘a suit of mothballs in Hustwickgate’. I didn’t attend. Gabriel did. As, of course, did Mariabella, Simon, Melissa and Attie. A ‘salivating’ set of hopefuls they were too according to Gabriel (with the exception of Simon, of course). Not quite as salivating as they would have been had Windy Dale Eggs still been North Yorkshire’s second largest battery hen egg producer. They’d have had to wear bibs.
This was the bit that made it all worthwhile. This was when all that hypocritical pandering to the old man’s needs bore fruit. How exactly would Austin Hogg’s depleted estate be divided up?
Answer? It wouldn’t be divided up at all.
Mariabella Hogg didn’t get a bean. Gabriel’s words: ‘I’ve never seen Mum lost for words. She sat there going “Ach! Ach!!” like she had fur balls, then screamed “But he loved me!’ At which point Attie leant round and said “Apparently not.” I pissed myself and I have never ever pissed myself with anything Attie said.’
Melissa and Attie Joubert didn’t get a bean. Gabriel’s words: ‘They were gutted. You could see them doing the maths in their glazed eyes when mum went out of the equation. I still hate my father, but, God bless him, he finally got something right.’
Simon didn’t get a bean. Gabriel’s words: ‘Dad got that horribly wrong. It was such a Dad thing to do. Nasty to the bitter end. Simon was Dad’s only ally. His drinking buddy. You know what Simon did? He told Dad he’d stolen Danby. He couldn’t live with the guilt. And now he’s got to live without the money he deserves. I think Simon was going to get the whole estate, or at least half of it. You know, it’s so unfair. Simon broke his back to please Dad without a single thank you. I did nothing but complain, cry, scream and ultimately leave, yet I was still the apple of his eye.’
Gabriel didn’t get a bean. Her words: ‘I was pleased. I didn’t deserve it. What Dad did to me didn’t kill me. What I did to Dad with that video was beyond stupid. Forget the little girl lost shit. I was old enough to know better. But I planted the seed, didn’t I? I took months, maybe years off Dad’s life and made him die a broken man when he could have died a proud man. But he got the last laugh. He knew we were living together. Mum told me. Attie the Slug did his dirty work for him. The night of the barbecue? Dad got Attie to check our wardrobe when he went to the loo. Mum thinks I was cut from the will right there.’
So who got Austin Hogg’s estate? Gabriel’s words: ‘There was no one left. We’d all sat there hearing Dad’s words read out to us: “To my drunken leech of a wife, Mariabella, I bequeath nothing. To my useless daughter, Melissa and her loathsome husband, Attie, I bequeath nothing. To my traitorous son, Simon, I bequeath nothing.”’
‘Then the bombshell – “I hereby bequeath my entire estate to the only person who didn’t treat me like a silly old fool and the only person I love unconditionally to the grave…My grandson, Jacques.”’
Jacques Joubert. The Devil Monkey Baby.
‘It was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Melissa and Attie, they were gasping like fish in the bottom of a boat. Mum was suicidal and Simon was just sitting there stunned. But you could see Attie and Melissa were groping for air and thinking “It’s coming to us after all! We’re getting everything!”
‘I could live another thousand years and not see anything as fantastically, wonderfully Dad as what happened next…There was a clause. After the bit that said I bequeath my entire estate to my grandson, Jacques, there was a short clause, which said something like…”Every cent of my estate is to go into a trust fund and be paid out in full in the name of Jacques Klippie Joubert on the occasion of his forty-fifth birthday.”
*****
Misky was a mess when she was lifted off the back of a flatbed truck in a purpose-built crate. I will live a long time before I see a more tragic sight…
Like most bears poached from the forests of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchai, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa for the now illegal dancing bear trade, Misky was a sloth bear. As was the norm, she was stolen from her mother’s den as a cub (her mother was either out foraging or shot) and sold to Kalander gypsies, the nomadic Muslim tribe who had danced bears across India for centuries. Barely months old, she was held down while a red hot poker was forced into the flesh of her muzzle and out through her nostril. A crude iron needle and jute rope was then shoved through the hole and knotted at one end to stop it slipping out. This rope would be the ‘magic’ key that made Misky dance. All her teeth were then smashed out with a hammer and her claws torn out with pliers – all without anaesthetic. To teach her to stand upright she was forced onto hot coals. The dancing? That was easy. One good yank on that rope rubbing against raw flesh would be enough to make anyone dance; what tourists saw as a cute gyrating bear was an animal wincing and flinching away from the pain. To us, incomprehensively cruel; to the Kalander gypsies, like pulling the wings off a fly.
Misky had been voluntarily turned over to the sanctuary by her Kalander owner, Azad, keen as he was to claim the fifty thousand rupees incentive offered by the Kalander Rehabilitation Programme. This sneaky piece of positive activism (note well, Marcus) was designed to give Kalanders a leg up into an alternative trade – to buy a rickshaw taxi, plant crops, set up a shop – thus breaking the vicious cycle which would normally see him straight off to the traders for a new bear. I had to admit it was better than beating Indians to death with sticks.
Misky was crying pathetically in her crate. And rocking. Driven insane through years of neglect, beatings and the ever-present pain from the filthy rope through her nose. The wounds on her muzzle were horrific, a large jagged hole raw, inflamed and oozing pus. Maggots crawled from the open wound. She cowered, rocked and wailed in her crate and there wasn’t a dry eye amongst us, hardened veterinarians and keepers weeping openly at her plight. I was sobbing. Gabriel was bawling. Even Alan Thompson who had seen it all was wiping away tears.
Then, in the context of her suffering, a wonderful moment as vets cut away her nose ropes and muzzle and she was free for the first time in her miserable life. We watched as she was led into her quarantine enclosure. There she would be monitored almost constantly for three months, treated for parasites, diseases and infections, and pumped full of health tonics before being released into a socialisation pen amongst other like-minded bears. Then, when she was ready, it would be on into the forests of the sanctuary proper.
It would be a long, difficult haul for her. She would have to learn to trust, an emotion she had been deprived of from a very young age. She would have to adapt to a strange new world without pain, a world full of oddly gentle people showering her with love and kisses, not punches and lashes. But, as evidenced by the other bears here, she would make it at least part way back to being the bear she could have been before the Kalanders stole her innocence.
*****
‘Creative Solutions, Gabriel speaking…Hi Ian. I’ll put you through to Charlie.’
Gabriel and I were at the Agra Bear Sanctuary for three weeks, without doubt the most emotional and rewarding three weeks of our lives. No question we will be back. For now we settle back into routine in a hot and surprisingly sunny North Yorkshire summer, a routine neither of us can complain about.
For Gabriel this routine is two fold. One fold is Creative Solutions relief receptionist between twelve and one, a role she detests but tolerates in the interests of role two. Role two, a role she is already showing immense promise in, is trainee account executive, her unlikely mentor, Charlie Chabot. Then again, I have changed my opinion on Charlie’s worthiness quite considerably. He is surely the world’s most apologetic man, his methods far from text book, his manner most-unadvertising – translation: transparent, respectable and selfless. I don’t think Gabriel could have a better tutor.
For me, routine is now heading the creative department in a pseudo creative director’s role, although my business cards still say senior copywriter – the grander title rather incompatible with my ‘follower’ mentality. Fergus Blaine has not been replaced. Instead I float between several graphic artists slash trainee art directors in the studio, which has its frustrations but also yields moments of blinding freshness.
As for Creative Solutions itself: we are attempting to diversify into the mainstream, a slow process thus far producing a Hustwickgate gym and a small bakery chain. Most gratifying however is the charity work; regular dollops of magnificent munificence on the part of our leader – currently just free campaigns for local animal refuges and the like, but early days.
Last I heard, Dave Land had found a new tenant for Hartley Castle House; I can only hope a tenant more receptive to the alarming comings and goings of animals than I was. Gabriel, Kurt, Courtney and I are now happily ensconced in a cosy two bedroom cottage with a decent kitchen, good sized lounge and ensuite main, not to mention a sixty acre yard made up of formal walled gardens, award-winning rose gardens, a spectacular herbaceous border-lined grand walk shooting long and straight from the Manor steps like a mini le Champ de Mars parklands, and picture perfect, white fenced fields dotted with oak trees and obscenely healthy looking sheep and cattle. A yard we share with an excellent bloke who had gladly babysat our dogs while we were in India; the sole resident of Killing Hall.
Last I heard Stacey Dobbyn, former hotel room cleaner and ex-lover of England midfielder Andrew Sandham had been found hanging upside down from a St. Pancras skip bin on the eve of the Chelsea versus FC Barcelona football match at Stamford Road.
As a target, she was an interesting choice. The obvious tack would have been Sandham’s family – Amanda George and their two toddlers, April Showers and Misty Rain. Or their dogs, Slim and Shady. Such was the security net around these prized possessions, it would have taken an armour-plated Hummer to get anywhere near them with a letter full of Anthrax. Same, of course, for Sandham himself.
Who else could Marcus Friend have targeted? It had to be someone Sandham held dear. His manager? A loyal fan? An up and coming prodigy? No. Marcus Friend set his sights on someone far closer to Sandham’s heart than that. Someone who would rock him to the core were she to come to any harm: the woman who cleaned the loos. And much though I hate to admit it and much though I am quick to vilify the action, it was a clever choice. Stacey Dobbyn now had celebrity status. Stacey Dobbyn now had money, fame and others cleaning her loo. But she did not have a security entourage as such, unless you called a seriously dwindling paparazzi interest an entourage; and she certainly couldn’t rely on them in a crisis.
So in the small hours of a Sunday night, while she was watching a rerun of the X Factor alone in bed, Stacey Dobbyn was abducted by masked men, gagged, bound to a meat hook and hung upside down from a St. Pancras back alley skip bin with a toy kangaroo shoved up her jumper. Until morning, rats were the only things any the wiser.
The timing of her abduction was interesting too, coming as it did on the eve of the Chelsea versus FC Barcelona match, a match Sandham played and reportedly played badly. For the record Chelsea won a dour, disappointing match by a single own goal. Sandham immediately went to ground and was quoted as being ‘extremely upset.’ It wasn’t made clear whether this was due to the result of the game or the knowledge his ex-squeeze had been hung upside down from a skip bin. Equally interesting, when an official two pronged Sandham statement was ultimately released to the media, neither of these prongs made even passing reference to football boots. He expressed ‘deep sorrow’ that ‘a former employee’ had been ‘attacked by violent terrorists’. That was prong one. In prong two he expressed his ‘sincere hope these callous, dangerous people’ were brought to justice as soon as possible. No prong three apropos the offending boots and his resultant attitude towards them now other than animals were suffering through his greed.
Frankly I was appalled by both of them – Friend for his abhorrent, fly-driven action, Sandham for his reticent money-driven reaction. I didn’t approve of the weaponry Marcus Friend threw on his bandwagon. Likewise I didn’t approve of the insult Sandham threw on his feet. In the end it came down to intelligence and my intelligence said ‘Stay out of it, monkey. We’re not in a great position to intervene.’
Last I heard the ALF’s Windy Dale Eggs file had been closed the same day Windy Dale Eggs closed. I’m told there were wild celebrations. But, knowing Marcus Friend, another file would have quickly opened. I held out
little hope for Marcus. One day he was sure to plonk a fat foot over the fine line separating him from his freedom. Only time would tell if he remained passionately attached to his snuff video. Only time would tell if we were ever irrevocably linked with the demise of Windy Dale Eggs and, I suppose, indirectly, Austin Hogg. I have a strange empathy for Marcus now, born in the main out of a mutual love for animals, but also due to a conspicuous overlapping of feelings on more controversial matters of creed and greed, feelings we, from time to time, vent down a fibre optic cable.
I also sympathise with him in a peculiar, patronising way. Pillion Passengers on the Storm is probably not where he’d imagined himself to be in middle age. But then, squatting in an English country estate probably wasn’t where I’d imagined I’d be at my age either. At least I know what I’m doing now. Marcus Friend clearly doesn’t. His modus operandi is both flawed and unpopular. I can relate to his fly theory. Sadly, so long as animal activists like him fail to find more positive offensives such as those employed to dismantle a centuries old Kalander tradition, they themselves will remain as endearing as flies in the eyes of the general community. It seems inevitable that we will hear of Marcus Friend again. Via the front pages of every major daily is my bet.
Last I heard our Asok Marauder ad received a ‘highly commended’ from Sepalika, this being the euphemistic equivalent of ‘Nice try.’ I was disappointed for Fergus Blaine. But not that disappointed. As it happens, JAS 360 didn’t win the account anyway. As is often the case in the strangely conscienceless world of advertising, the account stayed where it was – with the incumbent – the five agencies who had thrown the sort of money most charities can only dream of into winning the business, left to wonder why they bothered.
As for Fergus Blaine, he called me to say goodbye. He was off to try his luck in, of all places, New Zealand. I never found out where he lived. I never found out who he was. I told him to keep in touch. He told me he would, ‘he truly would.’
Enough said.
Last I heard, the widowed Mariabella Hogg, in a last desperate attempt to salvage something from her sham of a marriage, had hired a ten ton lorry at very short notice, ordering driver and lugger to pack anything she pointed at in Chicken Colditz HQ. This being every item of furniture and every ornament she could either use or pawn once she got back to Oxford – none of which she now had any title to. Accounts vary as to who ratted on her – either Attie or Melissa or Attie and Melissa. Suffice it to say lorry and stolen goods didn’t even get out the compound gates.
While the trial and sentencing for this rather complicated, paper work-intensive offence are still pending, Mariabella has already been through the courts for the much more straightforward offence of assaulting an attending police officer whilst sconed off her brain. She duly attended court similarly affected and, once sworn affidavits confirmed her religious fervour for the top shelf, she was frogmarched into enforced rehab. I have no doubt Mariabella considers her life to be over. I also have no doubt she will soon discover, through twelve suddenly procured hours of additional daily sobriety, that it may well have just begun.
Last I heard the essentially broke and broken Attie and Melissa Joubert and their small pot of unattainable gold – the Devil Monkey Baby – had moved to Perth, an appropriately clichéd thing for an English family to do. I assume their other option had been the equally sunny, beach-wrapped Durban back in Attie’s beloved South Africa. Not much difference between Perth and Durban as it happens, aside from the apartheid. In Australia. Sadly Attie Joubert was going to feel right at home oppressing Aborigines.
Last I heard Simon Hogg, now fatherless and, effectively, motherless, had packed all his paltry possessions into a suitcase, walked out the door of Chicken Colditz HQ for the last time and moved into a single room with a single bed, a single desk lamp, a set of drawers, a freestanding wardrobe and not much else.
Last I heard, literally two weeks ago, Gabriel needed to ‘p-put a sock in her mouth’ because our (we thought) considerate love making through the wall was disturbing his sleep.
It had been an easy and quite convenient decision for Charlie to sack his incumbent care-taker/groundsman/stock keeper/dog looker-after and replace him with Simon Hogg: ‘He was,’ Charlie had said, ‘an oddly creepy old perv with a nasty habit of being at windows looking in when you looked out. I expect he’s gone to Bangkok.’
Simon, for a man with so much blood on his hands, had traversed the great divide between tormentor and tender with consummate ease and considerable boyish glee. He admitted to me once that he always named as many of the birds in the cages as he could so he could pray for them individually at night. Now he didn’t need to pray for any animal, just look after forty or so until the day they died, a day they would choose themselves. I learnt about Charlie’s sheep and cattle the morning of the York pub visit, sheep and cattle in the fields of Killing Hall for two reasons: they made excellent lawn mowers and because they looked nice when Charlie opened his bedroom curtains in the morning. And, of course, because, like me, Charlie had a soft spot for animals, these the lucky few who had found their way onto Charlie’s estate.
Among other things it was Simon’s job to maintain their heated shelter, and maintain the lawns the animals couldn’t get at, and maintain the roses, walled gardens, fences, outbuildings, and God knows what else. He was a busy man, but a happy man. He was thriving on it and he particularly thrived on the animals – thirty-two sheep and lambs he had named and insisted he could tell apart, though I insisted he was lying; a dozen cattle he had also named and insisted he could tell apart. This time I had to agree with him. I could tell them apart too. Particularly the ones I had named myself, the ones I looked for every morning when I parted the bedroom curtains; the woolly polar bear impersonators, Ping Ping and Yang Yang.
I suppose, in effect, Gabriel and I had adopted Simon, although Gabriel was still his baby half-sister and, at pretty much the same age, I was more like a brother. It was also fair to say Charlie Chabot was stepping swiftly and quite seamlessly into the breach as the surrogate father, the sort of father Simon never had. It would be a long, difficult haul for him. He would have to learn to trust, an emotion he had been deprived of from a very young age. He would have to adapt to a strange new world without pain, a world full of oddly gentle people showering him with love and kisses, not booze and tongue lashes. But, as evidenced by recent experience, he would make it at least part way back to being the man he could have been before Family Hogg stole his innocence.
Last I heard – literally in this morning’s Times newspaper – Andrew Sandham announced the cessation of his Asok Marauder contract, effective immediately. His official statement read, in part: ‘My decision is not due to the fear and intimidation by animal rights groups. If anything, the callous attack on a former employee delayed my decision and I was determined not to let them get their way. In the end, my decision was for humane reasons as I could not condone the slaughter of kangaroos to make football boots.’
It is yet to be seen how this fabulous decision will impact on Asok and their attitude to kangaroo skin boots. It is also yet to be seen how it will impact on the Australian government and their determination to eradicate a national treasure: After all, only months before the Sandham decision, they raised the kangaroo kill quota from seven to eight million.
Last I heard the very last dancing bear had been removed from the shadows of the Taj Mahal, a massive victory for the rescue operation. However, at time of writing there were still upwards of six hundred bears just like Misky dancing in the streets of India. As they say, from little things, big things grow and we will certainly do Agra again, short sharp bursts where our services can be best utilised. Already the experience has awoken in us the desire to continue to make a difference.
Lastly, last I heard Gabriel and I were still not married, were in fact no closer to doing so, the giddy heights of Paris a distant, fond memory growing fonder by the day, though priorities have changed rather drastically, as have budgets – equally drastically. And while a pool of refunded Hartley Castle House rent money now sits in an account accruing interest, we have accrued interest in undoing old knots rather than tying new ones. That money gets us back to India.
Despite Gabriel’s emailed proclamations to the contrary, there had been no new boyfriend. There had however been a determination to storm about metaphorically slamming doors. I am pleased to report that Gabriel has now resolved to seek anger management counselling in return for the surgical removal of my second face. Neither of these great leaps forward is yet to proceed past a mere resolution – I am loathe to force the issue as it only makes her angry.
That said I like the idea of one face facing all, a united front so to speak. I like the idea. I am apprehensive about the practicalities. Just as Gabriel’s rages have been a form of safety net for her – an offensive defence mechanism to counter the lack of a rational argument – a full compliment of double standards has afforded me certain freedoms as well. To suddenly lose half these standards does seem scarily restrictive. Like a gun in a bedside table you have no intention to use, it’s just nice to know they’re there.
Yet while two heads are better than one, two faces are apparently not. So when Gabriel is ready to be consistently civil, I will officially shed the charlatan and stride boldly into my new world of flagrant transparency, toting ideals, emotions and status about in a dirty great parcel of cling film, baring my soul as proudly as a nudist bares their genitals. I will be me and me alone. A scary notion leaving me open to both ridicule and rejection. Yet the only way I can find my true worth.
