Chance Meeting at an Elephant Sanctuary

We're stood in a gift shop full of elephant themed merchandise. The gift shop is formed from walls of canvas beneath a canopy in the middle of a field, so it's an outdoor gift shop. We are a little way outside Stonewall, Texas at the Hill Country Elephant Preserve. We've already had the conversation about the name and established that it's up to them, even if it suggests that someone is making jam from innocent pachyderms; and now I say to my wife, 'Those people are from England!'

There's an elderly couple stood near and I've been listening in. I wouldn't ordinarily be quite so surprised but the accent sounds like south-east London, and it's beautiful to my ears.

'You should talk to them,' Bess suggests.

'I will when I get the chance.'

I look at the paintings, all done by elephants. Naturally they're abstract but I quite like them. I'd buy one but it seems the elephants charge more for their work than I do for mine. My work is figurative and I'm a human, but there doesn't seem to be much point getting angry about it.

The elephants aren't here yet. We're waiting for them, which is why we're milling around in the gift shop.

'If you'd all like to take a seat,' one of the staff calls out, ushering us towards the trees beneath which picnic tables are huddled.

I watch the elderly couple. They are with a group of five or six others, all younger and American. The woman seems to be hanging a little way behind so I take my opportunity. 'Excuse me - hope you don't mind me asking. You're from England, aren't you?'

'I am.' She seems a little dazed and beckons her husband over.

'I knew it. 'I heard you talking. Are you from London, by any chance?'

'Yes, we are,' the man says, 'Bellingham.'

I somehow manage to keep from yelling holy shit!

Bellingham is part of Catford, which is where I worked as a postman for a couple of years back in the nineties. I know the area well and still retain some knowledge of the layout from an hour or so of sorting its mail every day, six days a week, August 1990 to February 1994. The first name which comes to mind is King Alfred Avenue, which was one of the first street names to imprint itself upon me. The postmen of Catford frequently referred to one of their number as King Alfred, and it was a full week before I realised that this was the main road of the man's delivery rather than a nickname based on his having burnt some cakes, or similar.

'I was a postman over that way,' I tell the couple. 'I don't suppose you're from King Alfred Avenue are you?'

That is honestly what I've just asked them, trying not to laugh because I know the chances are a bit fucking unlikely.

'Well no,' he says. 'We been here since '74, but yeah, we lived up King Alfred as it happens.'

I still manage to keep from yelling holy shit!

'King Alfred?'

'That's right. Where you from then? You must know the area.'

'I was living in Lewisham, but I got married and moved here in 2011. I was a postman in Catford, though I suppose you must have left by then. I'll bet I would have known your postman though, like maybe Ray Lester or one of the old boys. He used to do Randlesdown Road.'

'It's all gone now, you know?' He pronounces gone as gawn.

'Really? That's a shame. I suppose I haven't been back there in a while.' I realise it may even be decades. I've passed through Catford but it's been some time since I had reason to get off the bus and wander around.

'Small world innit.'

'I'll say.'

'Funny though, we was talking to another feller from England a couple of weeks back. Said we're from Bellingham and he said oh you won't know my bit of London then, you won't really know where I'm from.'

There's a comic pause. He grins and gives me a playful punt on the arm. 'He come from Southend Lane!'

We all laugh because we're probably the only three people in the world qualified to find this joke funny. Southend Lane runs from the Bromley Road down to Sydenham and is to be found at the end of King Alfred Avenue.

We briefly exchange life stories and the details of what brought us all to this place, here and now.

The sound of collective astonishment rises up from those around us, and we all look up to see five elephants coming over the hill, each holding onto the tail of the one in front with her trunk. It's such a sight that it even displaces thoughts of Catford.

We are introduced to the elephants. Their names are Tai, Dixie, Kitty, Rosie and Becky. They are Indian elephants and they stand in a line facing us as one of the keepers tells us about them. They seem happy, although I'm not sure quite how I'm able to tell this. As they stand and wait for whatever comes next, their heads gently wobble from side to side in the manner of Indian shopkeepers on racially insensitive situation comedies, and I realise I'm not sure if I've known an Asian person to demonstrate this affectation in real life. Is it a real thing? I wonder, and if so, did they pick it up from hanging around with elephants?

I have never been this close to a living creature of this size, and it's a peculiar feeling. I can see how their skulls must be enormous, and their eyes suggest intelligence, and they are very unlike the rest of us. I've a feeling that if ever we encounter creatures from another planet, the meeting will probably feel a little like this.

Having met the elephants, we get to feed and wash them, even trim their toenails. They seem gentle, sociable creatures who enjoy the attention and have a well developed sense of humour. I ask one of the keepers about African elephants, specifically whether they get on with Indian elephants, and whether they all recognise each other as essentially the same thing. She tells me that Indian elephants are more closely related to the extinct mammoth than to African elephants, and that African elephants are themselves more closely related to the mastodon. I find this amazing.

As we move to another part of the pasture, I notice the woman from King Alfred Avenue hanging back. She doesn't seem to have spent any time with her husband. I give her my address and say that the two of them should get in touch and we'll go out for something to eat, but even as I do so, I wonder at the wisdom of it. I don't know anything about these people beyond where they came from. Deep down, I know I'm never going to see them again.

Maybe it's best to enjoy these miracles for what they are.