Araminta Agoniste

Araminta Agoniste

Araminta was passionately interested in wildlife. All kinds of
wildlife. She loved all creatures equally - with a fine disregard for
their beauty or ugliness. She cared nothing whether an animal was
hairy, feathery, scaly, or bald as a coot. The number and disposition
of a creature's appendages, or indeed the absence of any limbs was a
matter that had a zero sum effect on her devotion. So when her husband
was killed by one of her beloved wild animals, her regret was
accompanied by several other emotions - chiefly shame.
Armand's job took him to many places around the world, and Araminta
went along whenever she could, in order to see as many of the local
fauna as she could fit into the couple of days that his business
usually took.
Thus she was in their room in the Tulsa, Oklahoma Marriot, waiting for
Armand's return, when the hotel's duty manager came to the door,
accompanied by a uniformed Highway Patrol officer.
They came into the room, and the manager said;
'I think you better sit down, Mrs Armitage. Officer Anderson here has
something to tell you.'
Araminta knew then that it was bad news. She did not suspect just how
bad it was.
'Has Armand had an accident? Is he . . . dead? What's happened?'
'I'm sorry, ma'am', the officer said, 'he was slain by an
armadillo.'
The duty manager had become fascinated by something outside the window,
but Araminta could see his shoulders quivering as if he was trying to
suppress some powerful emotion. That was when the shame started.
'Oh my god', she exclaimed, 'How?'
She knew, of course, that the armadillo is a small timid mammal with
armoured bands covering its back, which occupies the same ecological
niche in southern North America, as the hedgehog does in Northern
Europe. That is to say that it exists to be killed on the roads. This
feeble-minded creature has the habit of leaping into the air when
charged by an enemy, but it cannot jump high enough for a vehicle to
pass underneath it. The usual result is a smashed headlamp and a feast
for the turkey vultures on roadkill patrol.
This particular animal was charged by a truck - a Kenwood
eighteen-wheeler out of Memphis, bound for Amarillo and loaded with
enough Twinkies to ensure the continued prosperity of every
orthodontist in the Texas Panhandle. The creature must have mistimed
its leap very badly. By the time it remembered its heritage, the truck
had almost completely passed over. The belated jump took it into the
vicinity of the truck's rearmost axle, where it was somehow caught up
by a whirling wheel and flung backwards with great velocity. Thus
nature eventually took its course.
Unfortunately, at that precise moment, and in that precise part of the
westbound side of Interstate 40, Armand was on the hard shoulder,
bending over to change a flat on the left front wheel of his Hertz
Thunderbird. He never had a chance.
The officer departed, his job done, while the duty manager, mirth now
under control, waited to make sure that the sad news had sunk in. He
was working up to offering Araminta the services of a grief counsellor,
when she suddenly groaned and spoke.
'Damn', she said, 'I forgot to ask. I don't even know whether it was a
six-banded armadillo, or a nine-banded one.'

Back in England, Araminta attracted a great deal of sympathy from her
friends. Armand had died in an accident; and she was well content to
leave it at that. No one noticed her shifty and evasive behaviour over
the manner of his death - or if they did, they put it down to her
reluctance to face a painful memory.
Armand had been well insured, so she enjoyed a comfortable life. In the
fulness of time she also enjoyed the amorous intentions of various men
friends. In fact, the only blot on her landscape was the humiliating
memory that she hid from them all.
One of these men was Arthur, a minor politician struggling to become
major by espousing the cause of race relations. Unfortunately, his
career came to a premature end when he was pilloried as a racist by the
media. His mistake was to assert that fifty percent of immigrants to
Britain were of below average intelligence. Araminta lost no time in
dropping him. When bringing her friend Abigail up to date with Arthur's
demise, Araminta did not exactly criticise him verbally - but her
dickhead gesture was eloquent enough.
All her suitors fell short of ideal in one way or another. Until
Archibald. He and Araminta had so many things in common. He even shared
her love of wildlife. Soon they grew so close that the prospect of
matrimony entered the scene. Araminta knew she could not take such a
step without baring her soul to Archibald. So she told him the awful
truth about Armand's death;
'So I'm an armadillo widow', she concluded.
Archibald's reply convinced her that she had at last found her true
soulmate.
'Was it a six- or a nine-banded armadillo?'