carmella (the hearing trumpet)

Carmella is the funniest character in Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. She is the protagonist's best friend and the one who gives her the hearing trumpet as a present. She is bald and always wears a red wig, "a kind of queenly gesture to her long lost hair". She is described as a "very intellectual woman" whose main passion is to write letters to people she does not know and who never reply to her. When Marian tells her of her son's idea to send her to a house for old women, Carmella's reaction is unpractical and totally hilarious: "'You might escape to Lapland' said Carmella. 'We could knit a tent here so you wouldn't have to buy one when you arrived'".
While in the institution for old women, Marian receives a letter from Carmella where she mentions the dream of a nun (thus recalling the painting of the winking nun in the Institution) and plans a possible escape based on "undeground passages". Carmella then goes to pay a visit to Marian and gives her chocolate biscuits and a bottle of port, kept in a water bottle, "in case anybody might examine the basket".
Later on, Carmella comes to rescue her friend from Dr. Gambit's rigid stubborness, when she convinces him to send away Natacha and Vera, suspected of poor Maude's death. By chance, she discovers a mine of uranium in her house and becomes a millionaire. As a consequence of that, she decides to go and stay with her friend and help her out during the new glacial era, with the aid of a violet limousine stuffed with coats and food and Majong, her chauffeur.
Accordng to Ali Smith, who wrote the beautiful introduction to the Penguin 2005 edition, Carmella is inspired by Remedios Varo, Carrington's Spanish friend, whose paintings are full of rich and sofisticated inventiveness. Pallant House Gallery (Chichester, UK) has organised a stunning exhibition dedicated to Carrington, Varo and their friend Kati Horna. Significantly, the title of the exhibition is Surreal Friends, open until September 12th, 2010. Here a very interesting video with Carrington herself (she still lives in Mexico City where her friendship with Varo and Horna flourished) talking about art.