For God's sake let us sit on the ground and tell sad tales of the passing of pigs. Francis Bacon entered our lives, a small, black little bundle of adorable piggy fun. She left it a great deal larger. And our family, and the garden was never the same again.

Where do we start with Francis AKA The Pig From Hell. Like all good fairystories, it should start with a clich�. A long, long time ago, The spouse, My child , Khosi, My child's little friend Steven, and I went to Bruma Lake - a flea market with upmarket pretensions, and down market prices. We went because the kids were restless, I was fretting, trying to decide whether to write a new script or get pregnant, and The spouse was bored. Always a dangerous combination. So off our happy little slice of life goes. To Market, To Market. To Buy a Fat Pig, though we didn't know that that's what we were going for at the time.

At Bruma, we bung the kids into the play area, and wander, until I stop dead by a pet stall. There in a cage are four little black squirmy snorting adorable bundles of love and joy. Yup, you got it in one, folks :.. Vietnamese, pot-bellied pigs. I lose my heart immediately. �h" I coo. The spouse winces. "Ooh's a sweet little piggy wiggy den" I chortle mindlessly. The spouse frog-marches me away (Our trackrecord with animals is not good) and force feeds me hamburgers to try and take my mind off the piglets. But I had just reseen the video of "Babe", and "Charlotte's Web" with My child, and my rational reflexes were not kicking in. We sit over lunch staring at each other, Me mournful and longing, The Spouse is unrung and impassive. Finally he says :If the pig is still there after lunch, he'll buy it for me. A birthday present. I swallow the hamburger in two bites and leap to my feet (Babe and Charlotte's Web have a LOT to answer for!) and we pelt back to the pet stall to find that the one I'd set my heart on, has NOT GONE! Now, I ask myself in retrospect, why not? Did all these other shoppers know something that I didn't about Vietnamese Pot bellied pigs? But at the time rational question were the last thing on my mind. I coo over the piglet, who wrinkles it's snout at me endearingly ; the stall keeper sensing another sucker, whips out the invoice book, . The spouse retaliates with out the magic plastic, and Francis is ours. "She will" says the pet stall owner carefully," be a little wearing on your garden. Pigs like to dig" ... "Oh how sweet" I exclaim. "We've got lots of weeds. She can dig them up"

The children are ecstatic. My child's attempts to name her "piggy" are squashed, The spouses vote for "CD" (Christmas Dinner) is laughed down. I dub the pig "Francis" after Bacon after Shakespeare's sidekick.

Now you know all those things they say about pigs? That they're clean, easily housetrained, and highly intelligent? They lied! Francis was indeed easily housetrained, once in the house she refused to leave ; she would lie in our bedroom farting gently to herself, and snarling at anyone who tried to remove her. She would crawl onto our laps, something that is incredibly sweet in a six month old piglet, not so easy to deal with when said Pig is fully grown - and Francis grew. My God how she grew. At three months she was treble the size of the dogs ; at six if Francis catapulted herself at you, you went flying. A nasty suspicion starting sneaking it's way into our heads. Francis was neither pot-bellied, nor Vietnamese. But we squashed the feeling as being unworthy ; After all, what kind of stall keeper would sell a REAL pig to people who live in Hillbrow, right? Right.

Like all our animals, Francis suffered an identity crisis . She was being brought up by the dogs, ergo ; she must be a dog.. She would bound up and down the garden, in over wrought delight, wagging her little piggy tail, giving little snorts of welcome when The spouse or I came home ; she would be found snout pressed to the gates, terrifying unwary passers by .

My mother (of course) loathed Francis. Habitually imputing unto others her own ideology of unhappiness, she decided that Francis is all part of a deep-rooted hidden agenda of mine to reject her, and everything she ever tried to teach me. She would walk into the yard and burst into tears the moment Francis came snuffling up to greet her. Baba Isaac, on the other had, was delighted. He's a farm boy himself, and had great hopes for Francis and her nutritional possibilities. He would come over with scraps to feed her, telling me with a broad grin that she was "Fresh". The neighborhood was entranced. Here in the middle of one of the most densely populated high rise areas in the world, is a pig. A pig who grows larger by the day ; and who snortles happily at them as they pass. Fascinated bystanders came and gazed at our pig, discussing her merits in various languages. As one of the finer points of living in Hillbrow is seeing live chickens in cages on street corners, right next door to the man who barbecues chicken pieces, I'm was wary of their interest in our latest pet.

The spouse became obsessive about Francis. He took to leaving work in the middle of the day to come home during lunchbreaks to "check on the pig". Quite a good thing really because of the third day of her stay with us, he came home to find hysterical piglet stuck in the bars of the security gate - how the hell she had got herself caught in there was beyond me. But since I wasn't there I have to go on The spouse's word about the ear piercing quality of the shrieks. Pigs are not great believers in the suffering in silence rule. He rushes to the gate to find Francis stuck between the bars. So well stuck in fact that she cannot get out. He tries turning 20 KGs of struggling hysterical piglet onto it's side to slip head back through bars, no luck. He covers Francis in oil. Even less luck (Remember that phrase, trying to catch a greased pig? The spouse's comments on this saying are unprintable) He tries levering the bars apart with a crowbar. Even less success. Just when he was contemplating calling the fire brigade and trying to phrase the request in his head "I have a pig, she's stuck in the gate, no, no, not on a farm, we live in Hillbrow" Francis takes a deep breath, kicks her back legs, and slips out. The spouse is left a gibbering wreck. Francis digs up more of the garden to console herself.

Because, yes, the pet stall owner was at least honest about one thing. Pigs like to dig. And dig. And dig. They are no respecters of anyone's property. So my lovingly salvaged garden, on which I had spent three years and thousands of rands, rehabilitating from the public urinal it was when I first bought the house, is trashed. There are no flowers, there is no grass. There is very little ground left, because Francis is a pig, and a pig will dig. Francis enjoys digging. Francis must dig. The only space she left untouched was the vegetable patch, obviously the vibes coming from that particular piece of ground were too much even for her.

But let's return to the things they say about pigs ; "Easily housetrainable" they say ("They" in this case, being people who have obviously never owned pigs!) "Once they've crapped in a place they'll always crap in the same place". Well, yes this is true. However Francis chose our shower for her personal toilet. Our shower. This meant that, it would be a sunshine filled day, she would happily disinterring the flowerbeds outside, and suddenly a distraught pig, curly tail straight up in the air, would career past you making for, you guessed it, the shower, to relieve herself. -

Let me offer you a few other high points from Francis digestary career ....
She also fixated on the dining room (thus bring an abrupt end to one of the few dinner parties Id managed to have, as the guests all exited en masse after Francis made her presence felt in no uncertain terms. It took two bags to clean that lot up I recall) and the hallway. The hall way was a good spot. Any unwise visitor to Chaos Manor had to be headed off at the front door and warned in case they took home more than memories on their shoes. No amount of begging, pleading, and disciplining could talk Francis out of these favourite spots. When they say "stubborn as a pig"? Yup, they knew what they were talking about.
Things I learnt during Francis's time with us. Clich�s are clich�s because they're true! "Screaming like a stuck pig"? Nothing can beat the heartrending scream of a pig that's being picked up ; it sounds like a baby being slowly dipped into boiling oil ; "Pig headed?" Ever tried moving a pig who's determined to sit in your lap? -

And Francis grew, and grew , and grew.. Francis was a nutritional overachiever. The sweet little potbellied pig that had won all of our hearts rapidly turned into a massive sow that any farmyard would be proud to sell to the butchery. By now my mother refused to enter the house unless she was feeling particularly masochistic, in which case she come in and wander around the house with tears streaming down her face. The garden looked like the "after" picture for a Nuclear Fallout advert. And My child was starting to ride Francis, like a pony.

I am accommodating my nature, but even I realized something had to go when an ex of mine came to visit ; Now gay and living in New York, he's suave, sophisticated and elegant, Nothing suprises Dean. (He was with me for a long time, I tend to wear down the "normal" quotient in anyone after a while) . We talk, and gossip, relive old times, Francis farts gently throughout the conversation. As I escort Dean, his lover and his mother out, Francis takes a moment to express her feelings about the whole visit by relieving herself in the hallway in front of them. A long beat as we all examine her offering on the carefully polished Canadian Deal floors. Then Dean leans forwards, and kisses me on the cheek, "Darling" he says ; "You look ... marvelous. The house .... ?" (He waves his hands to indicate orgasmic pleasure) "Magic .. a dream come true, but darling " He leans forwards to gaze into my eyes as his lips brush against my cheek in the time honored air kiss farewell.. "Darling. Lose the Pig!"

Sigh. So Francis was lost. Another epic moment. The spouse found a farmer who wanted to breed pigs (we couldn't hand her over to someone who might actually eat her could we?) Farmer John by name. The children have been forewarned that Francis is going off to pastures new, where she will be happy. and dig to her hearts content and make lots of little piglets to dig up other people's garden's. They are grief-stricken, but accepting. Steven came by to say farewell; and everyone waits for Farmer John to arrive and take Francis. He arrives in a bakkie; but so does the rain. A gentle, persistent African rain, that has decided to settle in and soak the neighborhood for the whole day and night if required.

Have you ever tried to catch a wet pig? A hysterical wet pig? Because after The spouse and the kids and farmer John have chased Francis round the garden for half an hour, she is hysterical. So am I. Francis's screams are deafening. Even in our neighborhood where screams and gunshots are such a normal occurrence that they're background buzz. The neighborhood is delirious with joy - People are hanging out of their windows on the 18th floor of the Witberg opposite us to watch these mad whities trying to catch their pig. I'm thinking of charging for the floorshow. Francis is screaming, everyone is soaked, Farmer John is looking very tight around the teeth, and says he'll come back tomorrow with a vet. And a tranquilizer. Maybe two. But having screwed my courage to the sticking point and made the decision to actually get rid of Francis, I'm determined that the man will take the bloody pig home with him, NOW, come hell or high water. Because, let's face it, a screaming pig is hell, and the yard is almost ankle deep in water by now.

So I send the kids outs to get Francis's favourite foods ; tomatoes from the vegetable patch, grapes from the vine outside the bathroom, and I lay a trail and start to tempt Francis up a wooden ramp on the bakkie - because Francis is now too big to be lifted into anything, and no one can catch her anyway. Damp eyed with relief that this nice human understands a pigs needs and desires, Francis docilely follows the trail up the wooden planks ... Smiles and triumph all round. "You see guys, " I say smugly, "It needed the woman's touch. Not force, love and bribery". Except I'd forgotten one thing. Wood gets slippery when wet. What happens when 90 KGs of hungry pig on small, sharp, little trotters goes trit trot up a wet wooden plank? Got it in one. They slip. And fall to the ground. Not doing any damage, to themselves or the bakkie, but determined never to set foot on those treacherous planks again, however many tempting grapes and tomatoes are laid for them..

We try the "Let's catch Francis " routine again - Great pandemonium and joy as the wet screaming pig hurtles through people's legs, with the added bonus now, that Francis is crapping as she runs. Soon we're sliding all over the place in sodden pig manure. The neighborhood has NEVER had such an exciting day. Finally I snap. I run to the back and haul out three of our largest male tenants, and a blanket. Dragging them to the front yard with me, I slip the blanket under Francis's belly telling them each to grab and leg, and bloody lift. Which they do. Hysterical, bloodcurdling screams from Francis. But she's lifted and carried, and deposited into the bakkie amidst cheers and applause from the neighborhood. The children bid her a tearful farewell, throwing in some last tomatoes and grapes for good measure, and Framer John drives off to the Magaleisburg, looking as if he needed the valium shot and not the pig. And thus Francis exited our lives, as swiftly as she entered them leaving great gaps in the garden, and a reluctance on the part of all of us to use the shower.