‘Now, darling, don’t start getting angry with me. I hate it when you get angry and starting roaring and snorting like Achilles the Bun.’
‘Attila,’ I corrected. I was too dispirited to correct the Bun part. Ursula looked at me and her eyes welled. Two enormous tears, bright as shooting stars, raced down her cheeks.
‘Darling,’ she said huskily, ‘I’ve had a horrible time, so don’t be so cruel to me.’ I was just about to relent when she added, ‘Or to poor Moses.’
At that moment the drinks arrived and this successfully prevented me from telling her what I thought of ‘poor Moses’. I toasted her in a chilly silence while from those springs she possessed ‘in caverns measureless to man’, she allowed two more tears of improbable size to slide down her cheeks. At that moment, before my heart could melt at this display of emotion — which I knew to be entirely spurious — Sebastian appeared, bearing menus and a wine list.
‘Sir, madam,’ he said, slightly bowing as he handed out the menus, ‘we have some rather lovely things today. The grilled lambs’ kidneys are superb, the oysters Rockefeller are especially large and succulent . . .’
‘Do you have any roast parrot?’ I enquired. ‘West African grey for preference.’
Ursula glared at me.
‘You don’t eat parrots,’ she said.
‘Yes, you do, if you’re a West African,’ I replied.
To answer your question, sir,’ said Sebastian smoothly, ‘we have none on the menu. We have been told that they are tough and indigestible and have the unfortunate effect of making you talk in your sleep.’
Both of us laughed and peace reigned.
‘So tell me why I am having lunch at the Dorchester with what my friend the taxi driver called a pornographic parrot,’ I suggested.
‘Well, darling, I got him into my room safely enough, although I had to give the porter an enormous tip because Moses called him — well, never mind. Anyway, I wanted to go out and do a bit of shopping, some things I forgot to bring, and get some fruit for Moses. Then I noticed his water dish was empty, poor dear, and he was obviously thirsty, so I got him a vodka and tonic from the fridge in the bedroom . . .’
‘You got him a what?’ I interrupted incredulously.
‘A vodka and tonic, darling. You know, that Russian drink the Vulgar boatmen used to have. The sailor I got him from told me he never drank anything else. Well, he must have been dying of thirst, poor lamb, because he simply lapped it up. Then he went into a sort of doze.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said.
‘So I gave him another one in case he should wake up and still feel thirsty . . .’
‘Another one!’ I interjected. ‘Sweetheart, you must be mad.’
‘But why?’ asked Ursula, puzzled. ‘I mean, I don’t like vodka, but that’s no reason why he shouldn’t drink it. After all, I don’t see why I should start acting like those Intemperance people telling people what to do.’
‘Quite,’ I said.
‘It’s that sort of thing that leads to crime,’ she explained mysteriously, ‘interfering with people’s civil liberties and making them uncivil.’
‘So after you got him fit to be tied, what did you do?’ I enquired.
‘Fit to be tied? What does that mean?’ she asked.
‘It’s an American expression; it means now you’d got him so drunk you had to tie him up.’
‘But I didn’t have to tie him up,’ she said triumphantly. ‘He fell on the floor of the cage. It gave me quite a shock. I thought he was dead until I heard him snoring.’
‘And then?’ I asked, fascinated in spite of myself.
‘Well, I went down to Fortnum and Mason to get his food.’
‘Fortnum and Mason? Why not to some little fruiterers in the back streets round there?’
‘What, and be seen walking into Claridge’s with a lot of brown paper bags? Darling, do be sensible.’
‘Well, you didn’t seem to mind walking into Claridge’s with a brass cage containing a parrot that was singing dirty songs,’ I pointed out.
‘But that’s quite different, darling, that’s a bird. You know all the English are animal lovers.’
‘I bet they’d make an exception with Moses,’ I said. ‘Anyway, go on. What did you get at Fortnum’s?’
‘Well, they had fruit and nuts, of course, and I bought him a big box of liqueur chocolates, because I knew he’d like them. But, you know, darling, how Fortnum’s prides itself on having everything in the world?’
‘So they say,’ I agreed.
‘Well, I caught them out. They didn’t have the two things that the sailor said Moses particularly liked,’ she said.
‘And what were those?’
‘Well, the sailor said that he always fancied a bit of crumpet and Bristol Cities.’
If I could have got my hands on that jolly Jack tar at that moment, his life would have been in grave danger.
‘So?’ I said.
‘Well, they said that crumpet was not in season. I didn’t know crumpets had a season, darling, did you? Although, come to think of it, all those little holes in them must be where they shoot them, poor little things, so they must be like grouse.’
‘And the other item?’
‘Well, I don’t think the man really understood what I meant, because he sent me to the lingerie department.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘Well, I took a taxi back to the hotel. I asked the taxi man if he knew where I could get crumpet and Bristol Cities and he said the only ones he knew of belonged to his wife and she was very attached to them. I asked where she got them and he said they were inherited. Well, I got to Claridge’s and the receptionist said that the manager would like to see me. He’s a friend of Daddy’s so I thought he wanted to give me some flowers or something. So I said I’d see him in my room in five minutes.’
She paused and gazed at her empty glass. I signalled for a refill.
‘Of course, the moment I got out of the lift I knew in a jiffy what the manager wanted to see me about.’
‘Moses?’
‘Yes. He’d woken up and was singing the most awful songs you can imagine and you could hear him right down the hall. Well, I rushed to the room but in my panic I dropped the key, then I bent down to pick it up, all my parcels fell out of the carrier and the bag with the oranges split open and there were oranges all over the floor. At that moment the manager arrived.’
She sipped her fresh martini and looked at me with tear-filled eyes.
‘Honestly, darling, I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. There was the manager of Claridge’s and me on our hands and knees collecting oranges and inside the room there was Moses bawling out some disgusting song about a girl with a bum the size of a b-b-b-bathtub.’
I kept my face grave, but inside I was filled with unholy glee at the mental picture her story presented.
‘Well, we got into the room and thank goodness Moses stopped singing. He just eyed the manager for a moment and then called him the offspring of a jig-a-jig girl. Darling, what’s a jig-a-jig? I never heard of it. Is it like a tango?’
‘Somewhat,’ I said, it was invented in Port Said to — to — to take sailors’ minds off the fact that they were far away from their wives.’
‘Oh,’ she said, pondering this improbable story. ‘Well, anyway, the manager was perfectly sweet. He said he didn’t mind my having Moses in my room, it was all the swearing and singing. He’d had so many complaints from his other customers, he’d have to ask me to remove the bird. So I brought him to the Dorchester. What else could I do? He sang all the way here and called the taxi driver something I won’t repeat. He was very rowdy in the reception hall and so I got them to give me a vodka and tonic and while he was drinking that we covered his cage with napkins and rushed him in here and put him under the table. He’s been as good as gold ever since.’
‘Darling,’ I said, ‘I think your idea of giving the Reverend Penge a parrot was a very sweet t
hought. But don’t you think that the sooner the reverend takes delivery of his present the better for all of us?’
‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was doing when you arrived, phoning Pengey — that’s what he likes to be called — and I told him we’d bring his present round this afternoon and he was delighted.’
‘Well, thank God for that. You didn’t tell him what it was, I hope.’
‘Oh, no, darling. I want it to be a surprise,’ she said.
‘It’ll certainly be that,’ I agreed.
We had a somewhat nervous lunch, since there was a lady two tables away who was possessed of a shrill and penetrating laugh. Every time she was amused and gave vent to this bugle-like bray, both of us jumped under the impression that it was Moses bursting into song. Ursula got hiccoughs and had to ask for a wineglass of vinegar which was, according to her, the only known cure for this malady. When we had finished, we faced the problem of getting Moses and his cage out of the restaurant. Two waiters, overseen by Sebastian, crouched under the table, wrapping napkins around the cage. I fancy one or two of the diners wondered what was happening. Finally they had the cage wrapped in linen. They lifted it up and we started on our way in their wake, looking somewhat like a funeral cortege following a dome-shaped coffin draped in white. All went well until one of the waiters caught his toe on a chair leg, stumbled and two of the napkins slipped and fell to the floor. Moses surveyed the assembled diners with a jaundiced eye.
‘You greedy lot of buggers,’ he observed in a penetrating voice that made every occupant of the room cease whatever they were doing and fasten their attention on us.
‘Greedy bastards,’ said Moses, just to show he had not exhausted the second letter of the alphabet.
‘Get him out of here — quick,’ Sebastian hissed. We all fled precipitately, just as Moses started to sing. In reception, I found a copy of The Times someone had left, divided it, crossed it, punched a hole in the middle for the cage’s rings, and plastered it over Moses just as he started on the second verse of ‘Judy O’Kelly’.
‘He seems a bit of a problem as a pet, sir, if you don’t mind my remarking,’ said Sebastian, smiling.
Moses had fallen silent.
‘He’s going to a good home,’ I said. ‘He’s going to live with a vicar.’
‘I had no idea the Church was getting so liberal-minded,’ he said. ‘It must be a sign of the times.’
Ursula appeared from the ladies’ room, bearing two large carrier bags.
‘Thank you for your tolerance and help,’ I said to Sebastian.
‘Any . . .’ he began, and then stopped.
‘If you were going to say “any time”, don’t,’ I said. ‘Once in a lifetime is enough.’ I bundled Ursula and Moses into a taxi and gave the address of the Reverend Penge.
‘Darling, that was a scrumptious lunch, thank you so much,’ she said, kissing me, ‘and thank you for being so good about poor Moses.’
As she spoke she was shuffling about in her carrier bags, examining things.
‘What have you got in there?’ I asked.
‘Oh, just a few goodies for the poor old man,’ she said. ‘A couple of bottles of Scotch because I know he likes his little noggin and I’m sure he can’t afford it. Then there’s some food for Moses and his favourite drink, and some reading matter for Pengey, poor old duck.’
She pulled out The Times, the Telegraph, the latest Vogue, a copy of Punch and, to my incredulous gaze, a copy of Playgirl.
‘What,’ I asked, ‘did you get him that for?’
‘Well, darling, it’s part of my plan for redebilitating him, making him mend his ways. He should start thinking more about the opposite sex and less about his own. So I got him Vogue and this, so that he could see what he was missing.’
‘Have you looked inside Playgirl?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s the usual girlie magazine, isn’t it?’
‘Take a look,’ I said, grimly.
It was perhaps unfortunate that she opened it at the centrefold, which showed a very nude, very virile and very large young man in all his glory.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said, appalled. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Hardly the thing to give old Pengey to redebilitate him, is it?’
‘Oh, darling, thank heavens you noticed. Of course I can’t give it to him. But what am I going to do with it?’
‘Take it back to Claridge’s and give it to the manager,’ I suggested.
She did not speak to me for the rest of the journey and she left the offending magazine in the taxi.
The Penge residence — if I may call it that — was one of those splendid old houses like an upended shoebox, with two rooms to a floor. The reverend, we discovered, occupied the two attic rooms and so we toiled up four flights of stairs to get to his abode, Ursula’s carrier bags and Moses’s cage becoming heavier at every step. Eventually, panting, we stopped outside a door on which, rather pathetically, was pinned a card which said: ‘The Reverend Mortimer Penge XXX English lessons given, also Bible lessons (Church of England)’.
Ursula knocked and the door was thrown open by the Reverend Penge. He was not what I expected. He looked rather like a French bean that has been deprived of light during its formative years. He bent in the same way and had the same troglodyte greenish-white colouring. He wore large horn-rimmed glasses, a roll-top pullover with purple and white stripes and grey flannel trousers. His white hair was in wild disarray and he held his hands in front of him like a rabbit sitting up, his hands dangling as if both wrists were broken.
‘Ursula!’ he exclaimed. ‘My dear child, how simply divine to see you.’
He kissed her chastely on the cheek.
This is Gerry,’ said Ursula.
‘Gerry — what an attractive name and what an attractive person,’ he said, fluttering his eyelids at me. ‘You are a lucky, lucky girl. But do come in. Come into my humble abode.’
His humble abode consisted of two rooms, one divided into a minute kitchen and shower, the other acting as a sitting-cum-bedroom, with two lumpy chairs, a threadbare carpet, a narrow divan bed and under it, to my delight, a huge Victorian chamberpot, decorated tastefully with garlands of pansies and forget-me-nots. Looking out of the window, I saw the reverend had a nice view over a small park, with plane trees, beds of spring flowers, a pond with ducks on it and benches for reclining on.
One by one, Ursula produced her presents, and with each one the reverend got more and more delighted and tearful with joy. Finally, Ursula mixed an extra large vodka and tonic, lifted a corner of The Times and slipped it into Moses’s drinking vessel. She let a few moments pass and then, like a conjuror doing a trick, she whipped off The Times and revealed to the reverend’s amazed gaze Moses slaking his thirst.
‘A parrot!’ gasped the reverend. ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted a parrot. Does it talk?’
By way of answer, Moses left off imbibing the heavenly Russian liquid to stare at the Reverend Penge.
‘Hello, you old bugger,’ said Moses, and then once again set to the task of drinking himself into an alcoholic stupor. The Reverend Penge laughed and laughed and laughed — till he cried.
‘Oh, my darling Ursula, you could not have brought me anything better,’ he crowed.
‘Well,’ said Ursula, obviously delighted, ‘you said you wanted someone to talk to.’
‘You’re a saint, my dear, a real saint,’ said the reverend. I thought grimly that if he had suffered as I had suffered since meeting Ursula at the station that morning, he might have had second thoughts about her saintliness. We chatted for a while and drank a Scotch (which the reverend insisted on broaching) out of a glass, a cracked cup and a tin mug, then we took our leave.
The next two days were blissful London in those days was a wonderful city, war-torn though it was. To be there in the spring with an enchanting girlfriend was every young man’s dream, but few achieved it. I went back to Bournemouth well satisfied.
T
en days later the phone rang.
‘Darling, it’s me, Ursula.’
‘How are you, sweetheart?’ I asked, with no sense of impending doom.
‘Oh, I’m fine. But, darling, I want you to do something for me, will you please? It’s terribly, terribly important. Do say yes, darling, and then I’ll tell you what it is. Promise?’
I should have known Ursula by now.
‘Of course,’ I said, visualizing some trivial errand.
‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘d’you remember Moses?’
I went cold all over.
‘No,’ I shouted into the phone. ‘No. I will not be involved with that bloody bird again. No, no, no.’
‘There’s no need to swear, darling,’ she said, ‘and in any case, you’ve promised now, so you must. Let me tell you what’s happened. Pengey’s in prison.’
‘In prison? What for?’
‘Well, I’m afraid it’s partly Moses’s fault,’ she said. ‘You see, Pengey used to take him out in his cage to that nice little park and sit on a bench. And then Moses would start talking and all the young boys would gather round.’
I groaned.
‘And then Pengey would ask one of the boys if he would like to see the parrot do acrobatics, and of course the boy would say yes. So Pengey would say well you must come up to my flat because I can’t let him out of the cage here in case he flies away. So the boy would go up to Pengey’s flat with him. And you can imagine what happened.’
‘Only too vividly,’ I said. ‘How long did he get?’
‘Eighteen months,’ said Ursula, ‘and, darling, I’m so upset about poor Pengey, but I’m so worried about Moses, poor thing. He’s got no one to talk to and love him and give him food and vodka. The landlady says she won’t keep him any longer as his language is so foul it embarrasses her husband.’
‘What’s her husband? A bishop?’
‘A docker, I think,’ said Ursula, ‘but that’s not the point. Moses must be rescued and that’s where you come in.’
Marrying Off Mother: And Other Stories Page 19