‘We must do this again sometime …’ she murmured huskily as she climbed into her mum’s car once we were back outside Prospect House, and had given me a parting peck on the cheek. I watched her rev and drive out before walking across to my own car. As I did so, I glanced up at the flat and saw a figure silhouetted in a window, looking down. Lucy. She must have seen me staring up as she quickly withdrew and the curtains were whipped across.
Driving over the Downs, Beryl’s warning words reverberated faintly in my mind. ‘Be careful, Paul. Be careful.’
I smiled to myself, shook my head and put my foot down. I knew exactly where I was going. At least, I thought I did. Oh, just how foolish could I possibly be?
Very.
14
HAVING THE QUILL TO LIVE
Everyone at Prospect House was sympathetic about my failing to save the ostrich; all, that is, except Lucy, who now unsurprisingly kept herself very much to herself and her contact with me was on a working basis only – the animals at Willow Wren had been sorted in her customarily efficient way, with Queenie, Bugsie and his two guinea-pig companions returning to Prospect House while Gertie remained at the cottage with the small flock of budgerigars.
‘These things happen,’ Beryl had remarked, reiterating the words spoken by Jodie, and, for a minute, I thought she meant my break-up with Lucy. But she was referring to Ollie.
Her comment reminded me of the other things that had happened that day – things that had happened deep in the rhododendrons. I felt my ears burn with embarrassment – and excitement – at the memory. Beryl was quick to spot them and, misinterpreting the cause of their reddening, uttered further sympathetic noises in an attempt to reassure me I’d done my best. If only she’d known I’d done exactly that in the bushes the previous evening.
Eric, in his ever bouncy, energetic style, whirled his arms around while he spouted off about the trials and tribulations of being a vet, the ups and downs of which he was simulating pretty well as he flapped up and down himself, declaring, ‘You can winkle it out only to find it dies on you.’
‘Sorry?’ I said, startled. I hadn’t really been paying much attention, rhododendrons still being uppermost in my mind, and wondered what he was referring to since I’d had no such problems in that department.
He gave me a funny look. ‘Budgerigars, Paul,’ he explained. ‘They can curl up their toes even before you’ve got them out of their cages. Shock.’
I still didn’t see how that related to the death of Ollie. But at least Eric had to be given credit for trying to be supportive. Bless him.
Crystal was more succinct. Naturally. ‘From what Jodie tells me’ – I shuddered for a moment, wondering what her daughter had told her – ‘Ollie had a perforated gut, so the odds were stacked against him anyway. Just put it down to experience …’ – mmm, as experiences go, it was a good one – ‘… and get on with what you do best.’ Mmm … I’ll certainly try … … and the sooner the better! ‘Paul?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, pulling myself together with a shake of my head.
‘No regrets for what happened then?’
‘None,’ I replied, looking her straight in the eye. ‘None whatsoever.’ Mmm … it had, in fact, been a pleasure.
Even though Jodie had lifted my flagging spirits, despite all the later reassurances the episode with the ostrich left me feeling downhearted, very out of sorts; it wasn’t helped by returning to Willow Wren each day to face coq au vin and fisherman’s pie and chicken tikka masala ready-meals for one. The evening of the following Thursday saw me scrape out the last vestiges of a leek and potato bake from the bottom of its plastic tray, a little ashamed with myself for not having made the effort to turn the meal out onto a plate. My standards were beginning to slip. I had to be careful, otherwise, before I knew it, I’d be wearing my underpants for more than one day at a time without changing them. As it was, I’d already started sniffing at my socks, wondering whether I could get another day’s wear out of them. But at least I hadn’t stooped to applying the same test to the crotch of my Calvin Kleins. Well, not yet anyway.
I’d taken a mug of decaffeinated coffee out into the garden, wandering down the lawn, my mind only half taking in the border to one side with its banks of purple salvias, the blues of the delphiniums, the mounds of pink cranesbill, all now gradually blurring and darkening in the dusk of the evening, when the ring of the phone jolted me from my daydream. I wasn’t on call, so the phone’s clamour didn’t set me off sweating, my pulse racing, quite so much as when on duty. I strode in and picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hello?’
‘Oh, hello, dear … it’s only me.’ It was my mother. Her customary patter followed. ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’
‘No.’
‘Have you had your supper yet?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘You’re keeping all right?’
I hesitated there. Didn’t seem much point in burdening my mother with my woes. ‘Fine,’ I eventually said.
‘You don’t sound fine.’ My mother was canny at picking up on things, tuned into feelings. She could have given Madam Mountjoy a run for her money.
‘No really, I’m OK. Just a bit tired, that’s all.’
There was a sympathetic murmur down the line. ‘You need to get yourself a good night’s sleep.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
There followed something that would ensure I didn’t get that good night’s kip. ‘Sorry, dear, but I’ve got a bit of bad news, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s Polly. She’s not at all well. In fact …’ There was a pause, a break in my mother’s voice. A sniff. ‘I’m sorry, love. But she’s dying.’
The receiver began trembling in my hand. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Mum went on to explain. Our beloved African Grey parrot, a member of our family for over 20 years, had developed a growth on her neck. Dad had called in a local vet, a friend of his from Bournemouth’s Conservative Club, as they hadn’t wanted to bother me, knowing how busy I was. This vet had just peered through the bars of Polly’s cage and declared she had cancer and that the growth was inoperable. That had been three days back, since when Polly had stopped eating and drinking and hadn’t uttered a word.
‘She is very sick,’ croaked Mum, her voice breaking again. ‘We don’t think she’ll last much longer and so we thought we’d better warn you. We know how much you love her.’ There was another tearful pause. ‘We all do, of course.’
I, too, felt weepy on hearing the news, my words catching in my throat as I tried to console Mum, while rapidly thinking what I could do to help. I decided that I’d have to get down to Bournemouth and see Polly for myself, if only to convince myself that nothing could be done to save her. I told Mum this. ‘I can’t promise, Mum,’ I said, ‘as I’m supposed to be on duty this weekend. But I’ll see if I can swap round.’
I phoned through to Crystal’s house and found myself speaking to Jodie – which provoked another raft of emotions – so, all in all, I felt pretty mixed up and must have sounded so as I gabbled on about Polly and could I have a word with Eric. Jodie said how sorry she was to hear about the parrot and if there was anything she could do to help then let her know, before Eric came on the phone and I explained the situation to him, asking if there was any possibility of him standing in for me the coming weekend and I’d do his rota the following one.
‘That’s no problem whatsoever, Paul,’ he said, and he hoped I’d be able to do something to save Polly; he then added that Jodie would like another word.
She came on to say, ‘Paul, if it means you might be operating on Polly, how about me coming down with you to lend a hand? I’d be happy to do so.’
I really didn’t stop to think about the consequences, the sleeping arrangements, meeting my parents. I just said, ‘Thanks, that would be a real help.’ We agreed to meet up at Prospect House first thing Saturday morning and drive down in my car from there. I could hear the relief in my mother’s voi
ce when I phoned back to tell her I was coming down, but I warned her not to raise her hopes too much.
Friday was warm and sunny, a beautiful, early June day, but it did little to lift my spirits. Beryl, aware of my glum mood, suggested we got some Bert’s baguettes for lunch and ate them on the Green. ‘Get a bit of sun to the eyeballs …’ she said or, in her case, eyeball. So at 12.30pm we left the practice and trotted off down the rhododendron tunnel, sun streaming through the leaves, dappling the footpath … that wonderful footpath! The memory was still fresh in my mind.
Beryl, her shoulders in their usual hunched-up position, swung her head from side to side, her handbag swinging in unison, as we passed through, staring suspiciously at a man who had been sauntering up the other way and had stopped roughly at the spot where Jodie and I had gone for each other. It being summer and a warm day, the man was dressed accordingly in light, cotton shirt and shorts, but I suspected Beryl thought he was a likely flasher and that, in more inclement weather, requiring the wearing of a mac, he would jerk open that garment to justify her suspicions.
‘It’s not safe along here after dark,’ she whispered to me as we hurried on, past the loitering man. ‘All sorts of things go on.’
Indeed they do, Beryl, indeed they do, I thought, my mood momentarily lifting.
‘So,’ said Beryl as we attacked our Bert’s baguettes, having found a park bench to sit on, ‘tell me a bit more about Polly.’
There was no encouragement needed for me to launch into how Polly and I first met. My father had been in Nigeria on a two-year contract with an oil company. One morning my parents were trailing through the local market, with me as an eight-year-old trailing behind them, when a trader in billowing, white robes sprang out of the crowd and danced round me, dangling a parrot cage from his hand. In the cage was a bundle of grey that growled and flapped as it was rocked to and fro.
‘Young masa like dis bird?’ queried the trader, his face splitting into a broad, toothy grin, the teeth stained red with betal juice. My father grabbed me by the arm and attempted to propel me through the crowded market as I dragged my heels in the dust.
‘Please, Dad, please,’ I implored.
‘Oh, go on, Jack, let him have the bird,’ urged my mother.
‘No,’ said my father firmly.
‘Masa … masa …’ cried the trader, fearing the loss of a sale. ‘To you, masa, special price … 500 naira.’
Father continued to frogmarch me away. The trader darted after him. ‘Dis bird, picin like much.’ The cage was swung in front of me again and a pair of bewildered, frightened grey eyes stared out through the bars.
‘Please, Dad,’ I whined.
‘Dis dum fine bird,’ coaxed the wily old trader.
‘300,’ said father, stopping.
The trader laughed and shook his head.
Father took a step forward.
‘Na … na …’ cried the trader and stretched out a dusty palm. The cage exchanged hands. The African Grey parrot was ours.
‘So how long ago was that?’ asked Beryl, who had by now finished her baguette, and was surreptitiously glancing at her watch as she spoke.
‘Oh, must be the best part of 20 years,’ I replied, popping the last of mine into my mouth.
‘Long time ago,’ murmured Beryl, distractedly, fiddling with her watch, and glancing round her.
It was indeed. And it was quite a while before Polly and I became friends. For several months, Polly remained a frightened, nervous youngster. But her pale-grey eyes soon matured to a golden yellow. Her broken quills moulted out one by one and strong new flights burst through her wings. Tiny, soft-grey feathers edged with white appeared over the sleek contours of her body and hid the scars of her capture round her neck; and her tail, a moth-eaten collection of six red feathers, erupted in a blaze of vermillion.
‘Sounds as if she turned out to be a smart-looking parrot,’ said Beryl, a little distractedly, looking down the path over my shoulder, adding in an excited gush, ‘Why, look, there’s Mr Entwhistle and Bess.’
I swivelled round on the bench to see Ernie hurrying towards us, his young Border collie trotting obediently by his side. As he drew level with us, he stopped and gave a little bow. ‘Sorry I’m a little late,’ he said, gazing fondly at Beryl before courteously turning to say, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Mitchell,’ with another polite nod of his head.
Ah, I thought. So much for Beryl’s suggestion of having a tête-à-tête with me on the Green. There’d been an ulterior motive. I saw her blush as she got to her feet and exclaim that it was not a problem as Paul here had been entertaining her with reminiscences of his parrot.
‘You will excuse us then,’ she added, linking arms with Mr Entwhistle, who smiled at me, his blue eyes twinkling as he escorted her across the Green to pause before they crossed the road and headed into the rhododendron tunnel. That tunnel of love. Hmm. What next, I wondered? What next?
I settled back on the bench, my mood mellowed by the warmth of the sun on my face. There was still 20 minutes before I had to get back. Time enough for further memories to surface. And they did.
It was a long time before Polly could be coaxed out of her cage. ‘Come on Polly,’ I’d whisper, placing a piece of ripe banana just outside the open door. But she wasn’t tempted. Father tried a more bravado approach and manoeuvred his hand into the cage in the rather optimistic hope that Polly might genteelly hop onto his finger. She did hop on, but only as a means to lash out and give him a savage bite. I didn’t need convincing of the power in Polly’s beak as I’d seen her splinter a block of teak as if it were a matchbox. Yet those black bone-crushers could perform acts of extreme delicacy – such as when she tackled a peanut still in its shell. She’d hold it horizontally and crack it open to display the row of nuts inside. She would then select one, carefully lifting it out, and balance it between the points of her beak and proceed to peel off the skin while rolling it around with her tongue. Fascinating to watch.
I continued to live in fear of Polly’s beak until the day I smashed my aquarium. I was staggering through the lounge, the aquarium clutched between my arms, with the intention of changing the water in the kitchen. But as I swung round the lounge door, I caught the front panel of the aquarium on the door’s handle. The glass cracked and exploded outwards. The contents – my snails, beetles and fish, lovingly collected from the local reservoir – cascaded onto the floor.
Howling with all the force an eight-year-old can muster, I ran out onto the veranda and stood sobbing in front of Polly’s cage. She side-stepped across her perch and tucked her head down against the bars as if wanting me to scratch her head. Without thinking, too occupied with the loss of my underwater world, I stuck my fingers between the bars. Her head whipped up. Her beak caught my finger. But instead of biting it, she gave it a gentle kiss, her tongue running lightly up and down its tip. Then, she too burst out crying. From that moment on we were firm friends.
I felt my eyes prick with tears as I recalled the memory. Or maybe it was just the brightness of the June sun making my eyes water. Whatever, I jolted awake – had I really been dozing like one of Westcott’s retirees? – saw that afternoon surgery was due to start soon and so shunted the memories to the back of my mind.
But they returned that evening, encouraged by my neighbour, Eleanor Venables, who had been privy to the terminal throes of my relationship with Lucy, on account of the thinness of the dividing walls, allowing her to hear every word of our many altercations. As a consequence, feeling sorry for my now solitary existence, she had invited me round for supper. I took some wine, which I, in part, blamed for the resurfacing of those memories. But then Eleanor did have a certain empathy with birds, as evidenced by the dealings the two of us had had with that cockatiel earlier in the year; and the fact that her son was a parrot fanatic, with four of his own.
‘So tell me, Paul,’ she asked, spooning out a second portion of sticky toffee pudding for me, ‘was your Polly a good talker?’
I
winced at the use of the past tense. Was? It brought me up sharp. Tomorrow I’d find out whether the use of that tense was appropriate. But up till now, Polly had been a wonderful mimic and also displayed intelligence in the choice of words she used. The range of her repertoire was astonishing. Having mastered ‘Good morning’, it was subsequently embellished with army slang so that at dawn we were woken, bleary-eyed, with a ‘Wakey, wakey … rise and shine, you shower …’ The Colonel’s wife was amused when, on an occasion she was invited for tea, she swirled across to Polly’s cage to be greeted with a ‘Hello’ in my mother’s voice. ‘Oh, what a charming bird,’ remarked the Colonel’s wife. Polly studied her intently, head cocked to one side, and then, in a very loud voice, still that of my mother, said, ‘You’ve got droopy drawers.’ The Colonel’s wife’s face went bright red. As did my mother’s. There were no further invites for tea.
When I reached the age of 11, I had to return to the UK for schooling, although the holidays meant a welcome return to Nigeria and a reunion with my parrot. ‘Watch’er, mate,’ she’d say as if I’d only been gone a day instead of three months. Partings, though, were a wrench. Her cheery ‘Bye-byes’ would echo in my ears long after I’d boarded the plane back to London.
Then, all of a sudden, it seemed my father’s contract was over and my parents were coming home for good. And so was Polly. They flew home; Polly went by sea as part of her quarantine and, in doing so, she picked up a few choice swear words and a ‘Hello, sailor’ in a Liverpool accent.
She was installed in the kitchen of our new home in Bournemouth and absorbed the sounds therein, only to throw them back at us magnified and distorted. Cutlery crashed into the drawer like scaffolding collapsing; filling the kettle was like Niagara Falls; melodies were snatched from the radio appallingly out of key. Her back-door bell imitation even had the effect of galvanising the Maltese we’d acquired to go rushing into the kitchen, barking at invisible visitors; this evoked a ‘Go in your box, Yambo’ from Polly, and when the little dog meekly obeyed, she followed it up with a ‘Sit, Yambo’ … which he promptly did. He never learnt.
Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) Page 24