The Elephant Problem

I was woken at just after 6.30 one morning by a hammering on my back door.

I threw on some clothes and hurried downstairs, where Alun was waiting outside the door with a man in a suit and tie (obviously a mainlander).

“There’s someone to see you Jed,” he said, “a solicitor from the mainland. He’s got some news for you Jed.”

“Thank you,” the suited man said to Alun, then, turning to me, he said: “Mr Wood?” He held out his hand to me the way that many mainlanders do, and I shook it to keep him happy. “I’m Mr Garfield, from Garfield, Garfield and Garfied. I have a letter for you from a client of mine. May I come in?”

They both came inside. Alun put the kettle on and failed to make tea, so engrossed did he become in to our conversation.

“This letter contains details of a bequest to you from the last will and testament of Simion Jarvis. I am here to see that the details of Mr Jarvis’ wishes are carried out as he would have wished.”

“Mr Jarvis?” I said, “I’ve never heard of him?”

“Mr Jarvis is, I mean was, a great fan of your work Mr Wood. He wanted you to know how much your New York murder mysteries meant to him. I’m sure you’ll agree that his bequest to you is the perfect way of expressing his appreciation.

I tore open the envelope, but before I could read the letter the solicitor was reciting its contents.

“My client has left you an annual sum of £250 per annum, conditional on your meeting the 2nd part of the bequest.”

“The second part?”

“In addition to the annual pecuniary sum, my client has left you a gift from his menagerie. An elephant.”

“An elephant! I can’t keep an elephant here on this little island. Where will it live? What will I feed it on?”

“I am reliably informed that the annual sum will be more than sufficient. Anyway, you don’t have to decide now, give me a ring in a few days to let me know your decision.”

The solicitor handed me his card and left to wait for the lunchtime boat back to the mainland.

“An elephant Alun,” I said. “I’ve always said my fans were crazy. What on earth would I do with an elephant? We can’t let it run wild. It will trample everything we have, crush our crops, damage our fridges, frighten our geep. It’ll be chaos. We’ll have to keep it in a cage.”

“I don’t believe in cages, Jed, and neither would you, not if you’ve seen what I’ve seen. The way they treat commuters on the mainland, all squashed together in a crowded confine, even tinned sardines have more space now, to prevent splatter risk.”

Alun has explained life on the mainland to me many times, but it still bemuses me. It’s never been clear to me what commuters are being punished for.

“Anyway,” I said, “how are they going to get the elephant here in the first place?”

“The Elephant Boat, Jed.”

“Of course.” I’d forgotten about the elephant boat. It was built to carry elephants from the mainland to the islands in our archipelago. The service has long since been disbanded, an example of the laws of supply and demand in action. Nobody wanted to supply elephants to the islands, and nobody on the islands demanded them.

I eventually agreed to honour Mr Jarvis’ bequest. The money offered was simply too much to turn down. Alun helped me build a secure area in the centre of the island, strong enough to withhold the force of a fully grown adult elephant, but spacious enough for him or her to have a comfortable and pleasant existence. After all, our island is in many ways an idyllic locale.

A few days later I was woken early by a hammering on my back door. I opened it to find Alun, holding an elephant in his arms.

The elephant was tiny, at least by the standards of its species, about the size of a badger.

“This is it Jed, a fully grown adult elephant. Her name’s Suzie.”

“An adult? But it’s tiny.”

“It’s a rare species of miniature elephant Jed. Your mad fan wasn’t as mad as we thought. It’s just the right size, it can roam freely around the island and be no trouble to anyone. And it’ll hardly cost anything to feed, just the occasional lettuce.”

“It’s amazing how all the rare peculiar animals all seem to end up on our little island,” I said, “it’s almost like a metaphor for something.”

“Don’t be silly Jed,” Alun said, “an elephant’s not a metaphor for anything. It’s just an elephant.”

A few months’ later Suzie gave birth to five babies, who were utterly cute and tiny. Alun, as the island’s doctor and make-do vet, helped deliver the calves and earned the honour of given them names. The six elephants now live at the top of Elephant Mountain, where they enjoy the best view on the archipelago, only coming down for lettuce season.