Good Husband Material

‘Borzoi,’ I replied, taking in the serried ranks of jars and tins and packets jammed from floor to ceiling all round – not to mention all sorts of things hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and the jars of sherbet dabs and other comestibles on the counter.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Borzoi.’

‘Oh – Bourgeois. One of them foreign breeds. Labradors, I like. Nothing like a nice Labrador.’

‘She’s “an Aristocrat of the Russian Steppes” actually,’ I told her, quoting from TheBorzoi Owner’s Handbook, which I had bought in the hope that it would tell me the stupid creature would acquire brain cells when mature.

‘A Bourgeois,’ she murmured, committing it to memory. ‘What can I get you, now?’

Since I’d been drawn inside by sheer curiosity this momentarily stumped me, but then my eye fell on a basket of tangerines and I said hastily, ‘Four pounds of tangerines, please.’

Don’t ask me why four pounds – it just came into my head.

‘Four pounds it is,’ said the woman. ‘That’ll be a lot of tangerines, then?’

‘Yes …’ A picture from my Complete Book of Home Preserving (a recent book club choice) flashed into my brain. ‘I’m making tangerine marmalade.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said brightly, measuring out tangerines into a large set of scales and then wrapping them up in a bit of newspaper. ‘Right, then – you’ll be wanting some sugar, I expect? Granulated do?’

Weakly I agreed, and again when she suggested a lemon (why a lemon?). But when she started hauling out expensive-looking Kilner jars from under the counter I hastily said I had lots of empty jars, which I have. I’ve been collecting them in anticipation of such country pursuits, though I didn’t expect to be doing them quite so soon after moving in!

Disappointed, she thrust the jars back with her foot.

‘That’s all, I think,’ I said firmly, but even so, she managed to add two packets of jar labels and waxed discs to my purchases before I got away, having spent rather more than I intended.

I was aware of her absorbed gaze through the window as, hampered by the insecurely wrapped tangerines, which threatened to break out of their newspaper bundle at any moment, I untied Bess, frantic and drooling.

As I made my way along the lane something compelled me to look back; in the distance a small figure stood planted sturdily in front of the shop, staring after me. I gave a kind of half-wave, then, feeling uncomfortably aware of the eyes boring into my back, hurried on.

Even before I turned into our garden gate I could hear faint shouting, high-pitched and very penetrating, and when I got the front door open it revealed the astonishing range and power of a parrot’s lungs to the entire village. Possibly even the whole county.

How amazing it is that something the size of an over-stuffed budgie can produce so much noise! I lost no time in rushing into the living room and throwing a cloth over the cage. Bloody bird.

Silence reigned. Sometimes I wish that I could leave him permanently covered, but that would be cruel, even if he is the parrot equivalent of a mental defective.

He was left to me by an elderly neighbour, since I’d looked after the creature once when she was taken into hospital. He came together with a small legacy, and unfortunately I couldn’t keep the money and refuse the parrot.

He was supposed to be very ancient, but years have passed and, though the legacy has gone, Toby hasn’t. There’s nothing more determined on life than a parrot. He’s a dirty bundle of grey feathers touched with crimson, noisy and vicious – and doesn’t biting the hand that feeds you prove he’s stupid?

When I came back from the kitchen with a cup of coffee the shrouded, silent cage seemed to reproach me. I uncovered it and cautiously filled up the seed pot with the Super Expensive Parrot Mix he favours, and he rushed up to it on his horrible crinkled grey feet as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. All was peaceful – if you can ignore the ghastly grindings and crackings of a busy beak.

Sipping my coffee, I looked up tangerine preserve in the book. I’d make the marmalade this very afternoon, before James could return and point an accusing finger at the psychedelic citrus spoil-heap.

The recipe seemed straightforward enough, and soon I was stirring the bottom half of my pressure cooker, entirely full of liquid with bobbing bags of pips and peel in it. (The book said a muslin bag, but I haven’t got one, so in the end I used the feet of a pair of clean tights.)

Then, just at the stage where the marmalade was going critical, Toby decided to treat the world to his full repertoire: Concerto for One Parrot.

I began to feel a bit fraught. Marmalade-making is a surprisingly messy business, and both I and the kitchen seemed to have become horribly sticky. And Bess. Do other dogs eat tangerine peel?

As I thankfully slapped the lid on the last jar the doorbell jangled out its vulgar ‘Oranges and Lemons’ tune (it’s got to go!) and, with a muttered curse, I washed my hands and went to answer it.

On the doorstep was a diminutive old lady, ill-dressed against the cold in a cotton dress covered by a flowered pinny, and with long, draggled grey hair tied up in a skittish ponytail with red-spotted ribbon.

Her pink, dough-like face, set with beady black eyes, had an expression of belligerence that seemed natural to it, and which was not helped by the minor landslide that had reshaped the left side of her face, dragging the eye and corner of her mouth with it.

I’ve seen more attractive old ladies.

‘I’ve come about The Child!’ she hissed accusingly out of the good corner of her mouth.

Chapter 6: The Posy Profligate

‘Oh, yes?’ I answered politely, in case she should prove to be the local lunatic. ‘What child?’

‘What child! What child!’ uttered the old lady scathingly. ‘Why, the one I hear screaming and crying night and morning! Morning and night! Hark at it now, the poor thing! It’s a disgrace to neglect a child like that – besides going out and leaving it alone in the house, which I seen you do this morning! If it doesn’t stop I’m going to complain to the authorities, and so I warn you!’

My mind swung into gear with an almost audible click as I grasped the truth of the matter, for even now there was a raucous screaming coming from the living room.

And this must be the quiet, sweet little old lady from next door! Hardly what the estate agent led us to expect.

‘It isn’t a child screaming, it’s my parrot,’ I explained. ‘I’m very sorry if it disturbed you.’

She turned on me a look of indescribable contempt. ‘A parrot? The child was screaming and sobbing for its mother!’

‘Where’s Mummy, then? Toby want biccy!’ pleaded the feathered encumbrance from the other room.

‘Parrot, indeed!’

There was nothing for it but to invite her in to view the wretched bird, and of course Toby immediately shut up and eyed us with malevolence through the bars, turning his head doubtfully from side to side. Then he scratched the back of his head with one foot, before excreting copiously with a horrid ‘glop’.

I averted my eyes. He makes me feel quite ill, sometimes.

‘He’s not very big to be making all that noise, is he?’ said my neighbour, unconvinced. ‘I thought parrots were them big, colourful birds with curved beaks.’

‘I expect you mean macaws, but he is a parrot – a South African Grey – and it’s surprising just how much noise he can make. I have to cover him up sometimes, just to get a bit of peace, but I can’t cover him up all the time.’ (Unfortunately.)

‘He’s not saying anything now, is he?’

We both stared at the silent cage, and Toby stared inimically back.

‘But if you really haven’t got a child, I suppose it must be him I heard.’

‘I haven’t got a child hidden away, and I’m really terribly busy just now …’

She gave one last, doubtful look at Toby and turned to go.

‘Shut that bloody door!’ screeched an eldritch voice, and she whirled round as fast as her game leg allowed her.