Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) (30 page)

After a further course to get the necessary teaching qualifications, she decided – a rather spur-of-the-moment decision – to undertake some VSO work and chose a project over in Costa Rica to put her newly-acquired teaching skills to the test. And now she was back, not quite sure where to go from here. Probably supply teaching until she decided.

With the second glass of wine – a large glass, I have to admit, which perhaps eased me more fluidly into what happened next – came the second phase of my tongue loosening, which constituted an act of a far more tactile nature than the mere exchange of words. It occurred on the walk back from the Woolpack in the middle of that tunnel of rhododendrons.

I’m not quite sure what got into me. Actually, that’s not true … I did know. Lust. Those groin-based tremors finally got the better of me. We were halfway along the path where the rhododendrons cast their deepest shadows – and where the Council had failed to ensure there was sufficient public lighting to illuminate, and so prevent, the goings-on of whoever stopped at that spot to partake in acts that would be certain to get other tongues wagging, if not those of the participants.

All had been above board when we left the Woolpack amidst cries of ‘Come back and see us soon …’ and I had a spring in my step, inasmuch as the word ‘spring’ evokes the thrust of nature and the arousal of sap in trunks – oh, yes, indeed. Our animated conversation on the pub’s banquette had been punctuated by moments of flirtation; ‘accidental’ touching of each other’s shoe, a hand brushed against a thigh, eye contact that said ‘I fancy the pants off you …’ which was reciprocated by the other, in a ‘Yes please, how soon?’ sort of way.

We walked side by side along the pavement, very virtuously, our arms swinging close to each other, occasionally touching. We turned from the Green at the lamp post on the corner, where the path up through the rhododendrons started. Still virtuous … still well mannered. Polite. In that vein, we managed to progress up the first third of the path, our arms touching more and more as we got deeper into the shade, the light getting weaker, my pulse getting stronger, our pace getting slower, until we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel ahead of us start to get stronger, where the floodlit porch of Prospect House glowed. Which meant the more we went on walking, the brighter the path would become.

It seemed we instinctively knew we had reached the exact spot equidistant from the two ends. The exact middle of the tunnel. The exact place where it was darkest. The exact place to indulge ourselves. We ground to a halt, turned and, without a word, ground into each other as if there were no tomorrow, as if we were 16-year-olds who didn’t know better. But we were adults who chose not to know better, who knew exactly where we were, even if it was in the middle of a public footpath up from the Green. And so there we were, at it, in that tunnel of rhododendrons, and we continued at it by virtue of a quick hop over the railings and a plunge deep into the bushes. ‘God I needed that …’ was Jodie’s panted response when we’d finished and I’d pulled my chinos back up.

‘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.

E
veryone 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 voice 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.