Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose [Stories]

A Parrot Is Forever

That eye was extraordinary, dominated by the yellow iris and fringed by a ring of spiky black eyelashes. In the short time I had been watching, the pupil had contracted to little more than a microdot.

“It’s magnificent, but it’s a lot larger than I expected,” I told the young woman who was its keeper.

She said, “Macaws are big birds.”

At this safe distance from the perch, I said, “I was expecting something smaller. A parrot, I was told.”

“Well, a macaw is a member of the parrot family.”

This member of the parrot family raised itself higher and stared over my head, excluding me, letting me know that I was unworthy of friendship at this first meeting.

“No doubt we’ll learn to get along with each other,” I said. “I’m willing to try, if the bird is.” I took a tentative step closer.

Too close for the macaw, because it thrust its head at me and gave a screech like a power drill striking steel.

I jerked back. “Wow!”

The keeper said, “It’s a pity. Roger was just getting used to us. Now he has to start over again.”

First lesson: you address parrots as you would humans. The impersonal “it” was unacceptable. This was Roger, a personality.

Roger. About right for this rebarbative old bird. Roger is one of those names redolent of wickedness. Jolly Roger, the pirate flag; eighteenth century rakes rogering wenches; Roger the lodger, of so many dirty jokes. The glittering eye and that great, black beak curved over the mouth in a permanent grin would make you believe this Roger had been everywhere and tried everything.

“He’s called ‘Sir Roger’, according to his papers,” said the young woman, wanting to say something in the parrot’s favour. “We were taught a dance at school called Sir Roger de Coverley. I expect he’s named after that.”

Fat chance, I thought. My Uncle George, the parrot’s former owner, was never a country dancer. He was a diamond robber. A long time ago, in May, 1954, Uncle George and two others held up a Hatton Garden merchant and stole twenty-seven uncut diamonds valued at half a million pounds. Half a million was a fortune in 1954. The advantage of uncut stones — if you steal them — is that they are difficult to identify, so it was also a clever heist. The only blemish on this brilliant crime was that the three robbers were rounded up within a week and given long prison sentences. But the diamonds were never recovered. Two of the robbers died inside. Uncle George served twenty-six years. After his release, he seemed mysteriously to come into money. He emigrated to Spain, the Costa del Sol. It was a wise move. He lived another fifteen years, without ostentation, but comfortably, in a villa, in the company of a señorita half his age.

In my ultra-respectable family, Uncle George was a taboo topic. My father rarely mentioned him, and never spoke of the robbery. I only learned of it after Dad died and I was going through his papers. There was a newspaper cutting about the release from jail of the old diamond robber.

Now my uncle was dead. He’d gone peacefully last Christmas, in his own bed, at the age of seventy-nine. It seemed he’d known his time was coming and he had made appropriate arrangements. This Blue and Yellow Macaw was bequeathed to me.

In January I had received a solicitor’s letter advising me of my legacy. At first I thought it was a practical joke. I was told I must wait six months while the parrot served the six-month quarantine period that applies to all imported animals — as if I was impatient to meet this creature! I hadn’t asked for the parrot. I knew nothing about parrots. I was an actor, for pity’s sake. How would I fit a Blue and Yellow Macaw into my life? The solicitor informed me when I phoned him that he understood parrots make fine companions. As for my acting career, he’d heard that the late Sir Ralph Richardson had kept a parrot, and it hadn’t held him back.

I was in a spot. Only a complete toe-rag would deny an old man’s dying wish. My uncle must have been devoted to the parrot to make arrangements for it to be shipped to England. But oh, Uncle George, why to me?

True, I was the only surviving relative, but I have another theory. Uncle George may have seen me on cable television in the part of a wise-cracking villain in some corny crime series. It ran for some weeks. I think he identified with the part.

The crushing irony of all this was that the rest of the estate, consisting of the Spanish villa and all its contents and enough pesetas to provide many years of comfortable living, all went to the señorita Uncle George had shared the last years of his life with. The parrot came to me, I guessed because Isabella said she’d strangle it if Uncle George didn’t get rid of it.

So here I was at Bird & Board, the aviary close to London Airport. Roger had completed his quarantine and now I had arrived to claim him.

“This is the box he travels in,” the young woman informed me, opening the welded mesh grille that was the door of a sturdy plastic pet-container. It was the sort of box used for cats and dogs, the only concession to Roger’s comfort being a wooden perch fitted some three inches off the floor and much chewed by his sharp beak. “He doesn’t like it much. Would you like me to put him inside?”

“Please.”

Roger had seen the box and was already getting agitated, swaying and ruffling his feathers. The moment the keeper started putting on a pair of leather gauntlets, there was a flexing of wings and a series of blood-curdling screams that started off all the other birds and created bedlam.

“They can be noisy,” she said as if she were telling me something. “Hope you’re on good terms with your neighbours.” Skilfully avoiding the thrusting black beak, she grasped the big macaw by the neck and legs, lifted him off the perch and placed him in the box. “He’ll calm down presently,” she shouted.

And he did. She draped a cloth over the front and the darkness subdued him.

She asked me, “Have you kept a parrot before?”

“No.”

“You’ve got treats in store, then. If Roger gets unbearable, you can always see if one of the tropical bird gardens will take him.”

“Would you?” I asked hopefully.

“Couldn’t possibly. We deal only with birds in quarantine.”

“So I’m lumbered.”

“Try not to think of it that way,” she said compassionately, then added, “That will be a hundred and fifty pounds, please.”

“What will?”

“Roger’s account — for staying here. We can’t do it for nothing, you know.”

“Some legacy!” I said, getting out my chequebook.

“If you do sell him,” she told me, “don’t sell him cheap. They’re worth a few hundred, you know.”

“So I’m finding out,” I told her as I wrote the cheque.

I carried the pet-container to the place where I’d left my car. Heaven knows, Roger had given me no grounds for friendship, but I muttered reassuring things though the ventilation slits. I continued to speak to him at intervals all the way along the motorway. At Heston I stopped at a garden centre and bought some heavy-duty leather gloves.

When I got home and opened the pet-container, it was some time before my new house-guest emerged. Having seen the size of his beak, and read a little about the damage one peck can inflict, I didn’t reach inside for him. In fact, I was extremely nervous of him. After waiting some time, I left the room to get myself a coffee. When I returned, Roger had stepped out to inspect his new quarters.

If nothing else, he had brought some much-needed colour to my home. His back and wings were vivid sky-blue, his chest and the underside of the wings purest yellow, his crown and forehead dark green. Spectacular — but at what cost?

I’d gone to the trouble of making a perch out of beech wood and installing it in my living room. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Roger wasn’t capable of getting up there unaided. His wings were clipped. I wasn’t ready yet to handle him, even with the leather gauntlets. But I didn’t need to bother, because he made his own choice. After a cursory inspection of the room, he decided to occupy the sheet-feed of my printer, which projected at a convenient angle and left just enough room for his long blue tail feathers. He reached it by scaling the waste-paper basket and the top drawer of the desk, using his beak and claws.

Once on his new perch, he established his right of residence by hunching his shoulders, lifting his tail and depositing a green dropping on the script of my next TV part, which I’d left behind the printer. I felt the same way about the script, but I replaced it with an old newspaper.

There was sunflower seed and corn in the feeding bowl attached to the perch. I succumbed and moved the bowl close to the printer. The parrot appeared to have no interest in food. He watched me keenly from my office machinery, I suppose to see if I had plans to eject him. To foster confidence, I removed the pet-container altogether and put it in the spare room.

There is no doubt that parrots are exceptional in their ability to communicate their feelings to humans. They have eloquent eyes that dilate and contract at will. The skin around the face can blush pink. With the angle of the head, the posture of the shoulders and the action of the claws, they can express curiosity, boredom, sorrow, anger, approval, domination and submission. All that, before they let go with their voices. Mercifully, Roger hadn’t yet screamed in my home.

That night, I left him perched on the sheet-feed. In the morning, although he still hadn’t touched the food, he seemed interested to see me. Genuine trust was slow in developing on both sides, but he began to feed and the day came, about a week later, when he succeeded in manoeuvring his way across the furniture to the back of a chair I was seated in. Neither of us moved for some time. It was a distinct advance.

One morning the following week, perched on the printer as usual, Roger put his head at an angle, dilated his eyes and extended a claw to me. With some misgivings, I extended my arm. He gripped it at the wrist and transferred himself from the sheet-feed to me. Acting as a living perch, I walked slowly around the room. When I made to return him to the printer, he clawed his way higher up my arm until he was on my shoulder. He had decided I was not, after all, the enemy.

I suppose the discovery was mutual.

If all else fails, I thought, I can now audition for a part in Treasure Island.

In a couple of months, I learned to handle Roger, and he transferred to the purpose-built perch. He had a small silver ring around one of his legs and I could have chained him to the perch, but there was no need. He behaved reasonably well. True, he used his beak on things, but that is standard parrot behaviour. The worst damage he inflicted was to peck through my telephone cable. Sometimes it’s an advantage to be incommunicado. At least a day passed before I realized I was cut off. I discovered the damage only when Roger fooled me with a perfect imitation of the phone’s ringing tone. I picked up the receiver and the line was dead. This was the first inkling I had that he was capable of mimicry. In time, when he really settled in, he would greet visitors with “Hello, squire,” or “Hello, darling,” according to sex. He must have been taught by Uncle George. He had no other vocabulary and I didn’t want to coach him. I think it undermines the dignity of animals to make them ape human behaviour.

As you must already have gleaned, Roger was winning me over. I found him amusing and appreciative of all the attention I could give him. There were moments when he would regard me intently, willing me to come forward and admire him, utterly still, yet beaming out such anticipation that I was compelled to stop whatever I was doing. The unblinking eyes would beguile me, seeming to penetrate to the depth of my being. As I went closer, he would make small movements on the perch, finally turning full circles and twitching his elegant tail. If I put my face against his plumage, the scent of the natural oils was exquisite.

One evening I returned late from a rehearsal and had a horrible shock. Roger was missing. I dashed around the house calling his name before I noticed the broken window where the thief had got in. I was devastated. My poor parrot must have fought hard, because there were several of those spectacular blue tail feathers under his perch.

The police didn’t give much comfort. “We’ve had parrots stolen before,” said the constable who came. “It’s just another form of crime, like nicking car radios. They know where to get rid of them. A parrot like yours will fetch a couple of hundred, easy. Did they take his cage as well?”

“He doesn’t have a cage. He lives on that perch.”

“How did you get him here in the first place?”

“In a pet-container. It’s in the back room... I think.” Even as I spoke, I knew it was gone. I’d been through the spare room and the box wasn’t there. I should have noticed. Well, I had, in a way, but it hadn’t registered in my brain until now. The bastards hadn’t just taken Roger; they’d had the brass to take his box as well.

“We’ll keep a look-out,” said the constable in a tone that gave me no confidence. “Would you know your own bird? That’s the problem. These Blue and Yellow Macaws all look the same.”

I felt bereft. It was clear to me now how important that parrot had become to me. I was angry and guilty and impotent. I’m a peaceful man, or believed I was. I could have strangled the person who had taken Roger.

Each day, I called the police to see if there was news. They’d heard nothing. Almost a week went by. They advised me to get another bird. I didn’t want another bird. I wanted Roger back.

I had to move the empty perch into the spare room because the sight of it was so upsetting. My work was suffering. I messed up an audition. I couldn’t learn lines any more.

On the sixth day after Roger was stolen, a Sunday morning, my phone rang.

It was Roger.

Reader, don’t give up. I haven’t gone completely gaga over this parrot. Roger hadn’t picked up the phone and dialled my number. Somebody else had. But I could hear Roger at the other end of the line. He was giving his imitation of the phone ringing.

The person who had dialled my number didn’t speak. I said, “Who is this?” several times. Roger, in the background, was still mimicking the phone. It could have been a second phone, but I convinced myself it was not.

I guessed what it was about. The thief was checking whether I was home. He was thinking of breaking into my home again, perhaps to steal something else.

The line went dead after only a few seconds. Not a word had been spoken by the caller.

I was frustrated and enraged.

Fortunately, there is a way of tracing calls. I dialled the message system and obtained the caller’s number. It’s a computerised system and you aren’t given the name or address.

I thought about going to the police and asking them to check the number, but I hadn’t been impressed by the constable who had come to see me. He didn’t regard a missing macaw as a high priority.

Instead, I waited an hour and then tried the number myself. It rang for some time before it was picked up and a woman’s voice said, “Marwood Hotel.”

Thinking rapidly, I said, “Is that the Marwood Hotel in Notting Hill Gate?”

She said, “I’ve never heard of one in Notting Hill Gate. We’re the Marwood in Fulham. Gracechurch Road.”

Fulham was just a ten-minute drive from where I lived. I told her I’d made a mistake. I put down the phone and went straight to the car.

Gracechurch Road was once a good address for the Edwardian middle classes. Now it stands under the shadow of the Hammersmith Fly-Over. The tall, brick villas have become seedy hotels and over-populated flats.

My approach wasn’t subtle. I went in and asked the woman at the desk if the hotel welcomed pets.

She said in the voice I’d heard on the phone, “Provided they behave themselves.”

“A parrot, for instance?”

“I don’t know about parrots,” she said dubiously.

“You have one here already, don’t you?”

She said, “I wouldn’t want another one like that. It makes a horrible sound when it’s excited. Fit to burst your ear-drums.”

“Blue and yellow? Big?” I said, my heart racing.

She nodded.

I asked, “Does it belong to the hotel?”

“No, the foreign gentleman in number twelve. The top floor.”

“When did he arrive?”

“About ten days ago.”

“With the parrot?”

“No, he brought that in one day last weekend. In a box. He says it’s only temporary.”

“Is he up there now?”

She checked the board where the keys were hung. “He should be. If you want, I can ring up.”

I said that on second thoughts I’d call back later. Simply going upstairs and knocking on the door would not be a wise course of action.

She didn’t see me double around the side of the house to the back. These old buildings converted into hotels often have fire-escapes and this was no exception. It was the most basic sort, a vertical iron ladder fixed to the brickwork, with access to the large casement windows on each of the three upper floors. With luck, I wouldn’t be visible to anyone inside.

This was a chance I had to take. I climbed about fifty rungs to the top floor. The window was a hinged one and it was open. Easy to open wider. There were extra rungs directly under it. All I needed to do was transfer sideways, put my leg over the sill and let myself in. First, I listened for sounds of movement from the room.

I could hear nothing.

I’m not much of an acrobat, but I succeeded in getting my legs through the window and scrambling into the room.

A voice I knew said, “Hello, squire.”

Roger!

For me, that reunion was on a par with H. M. Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone.

Roger was perched on the footboard of a double bed. He recognized me. He lifted his claw — a signal that he wanted to transfer to my arm and so to my shoulder. Elated, I took a step towards him. There was a sound behind me. I was not conscious of anything else, except a crushing blow to the back of my head.

I don’t know how long I was out.

When the world started up again for me, I was lying on the bed with my hands tied behind me. The foreign ‘gentleman’ had his thumb jammed into my eye, forcing it open. He spoke some words I didn’t recognize.

My head ached. My vision was blurred, but clearing. He looked evil. His shoulders were huge.

I said, “I don’t want trouble. I just want my parrot back.”

He said with a strong Spanish inflexion, “You own this parrot?”

I told him who I was.

He spoke again. “This parrot Roger, he is stupid. He tell me nothing. Nothing.”

I said, “He’s just a parrot. What do you expect?”

“You ask what I expect. I expect you have talked to this parrot, yes? He tell you where diamonds are kept.”

I said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He raised his arm and beat me across the face with the back of his hand. My lip split.

He shouted, “Your uncle had many diamonds, yes? Why he send you this parrot when he die?”

I said, “Just who are you?”

He grabbed my hair and forced my head back. “Now you are here, you will talk to Roger. Then he tell you some number, some number of box inside bank.”

Box inside bank: I was beginning to understand. “A safe deposit number?”

“Si.”

“He doesn’t speak numbers.”

“Do it. Speak numbers now.” Still grasping my hair, he hauled me off the pillow and towards the foot of the bed where Roger was still perched, looking uneasy, swaying slightly, just as he had when I’d first seen him at Bird & Board.

Feeling incredibly stupid and helpless, I started chanting numbers to my parrot. “One. Two. Three. Four.”

Roger watched me in a stupefied silence.

“Five. Six. Seven.”

“This no good,” said the man. “Try three, four numbers together.”

I said, “One two three. One two four.” My lip had swollen. I could feel warm blood trickling down my chin.

Roger looked away.

“One two five.”

I continued speaking sets of numbers, trying to think how this would end.

I said, “Roger is nervous. You’ve made him nervous. They don’t speak when they’re nervous.”

This seemed to make some impression. Roger played his part by drawing his wings tight to his body and making a groaning sound deep in his chest.

The man produced a flick-knife and cut whatever it was that pinioned my wrists. I sat on the edge of the bed and wiped some blood away from my face. I needed to think. He was far too big to take on.

He said, “Now you try again.”

I said, “I’d like to be clear what this is all about. You want a safe deposit number, and you think the parrot will speak it, right?”

He pondered how much to tell me. Then he said, “George, he had diamonds. Isabella, his woman, she search the villa. No diamonds.”

“You were sent by Isabella?”

“Si. She think maybe there is one deposit box in his bank in Màlaga. No name. Only number, comprende?”

“Yes.”

“Isabella say George he was crafty old gringo. He teach the parrot this number and send it to you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I hardly knew him at all.”

This didn’t impress my captor. “Stupid old man, he do this to cheat Isabella.”

“You’re Isabella’s friend?”

“Brother.”

I doubted if that was true. I said, “I’ve had Roger for almost a year now. He’s never spoken numbers to me. Basically, all he can say is ‘Hello’.”

Isabella’s “brother” struck me across the face a second time.

Roger screamed and spread his wings.

He took a swipe at Roger and just avoided being pecked.

In extreme situations, the brain works faster. I said, “If you’ll listen, I have a suggestion. You see the little silver ring attached to his leg? There’s something written on it. Very small. I don’t know if it’s a number. We can look if you like.”

“The ring! Si!” His face lit up. He reached towards Roger, who dipped forward and tried to peck his hand.

There was no chance of Roger letting him examine that ring.

He said, “You hold him.”

I said, “He’s nervous.”

He said, “You want me to kill you and the parrot?”

I spoke some encouraging words to Roger and held my wrist close to him. If ever I needed my parrot’s co-operation it was now. After some understandable hesitation, he put out a claw and transferred to my wrist. Continuing to speak to Roger as calmly as I was able, I fingered the ring with my free hand.

I told the man, “I need more light. I can’t read this.”

He said, “You come to the window.”

I stroked Roger’s back and stood up. The man led me towards the light. He said, “No tricks. You show this number to me. You hold the parrot and show me.”

Roger was amazingly compliant. He let me finger the ring again. In the better light, I gazed earnestly at the completely blank ring and started inventing numbers. “It looks to me like a three, a five, a nine. Is that a nine, would you say?”

The Spaniard moved to the only position convenient for viewing the ring. He didn’t dare come within range of that vicious black beak. He had his back to the open casement window through which I’d climbed.

It was my opportunity. I was poised to give him an almighty push, but Roger forestalled me. He screeched, opened his wings and reared at the man — who rocked back, lost his balance and pitched backwards out of the window. It was a long drop, three floors to a concrete yard. I didn’t look out to see the result.

I don’t believe Roger understood the consequence of his action. My theory is that he thought he was being taken to the open window. In the year I had owned him — as I discovered later — his wing feathers had grown and he was perfectly capable of flying. He wanted to test those wings. For him, it was the best escape route. When the man blocked his exit, he acted.

I’m not proud of my actions after that, but I ought to set them on record. I grabbed my parrot and pushed him into his travelling-box, which was just inside the door. I carried the box downstairs and drove off without speaking to anyone.

The inquest on the Spanish guest at the Marwood Hotel resulted in an open verdict. Identification was impossible, because he was found to be using a false passport. It was assumed by most people that this was a sad case of suicide.

Within a week, I, too, changed my identity. I moved away from England, sacrificing my TV career for an early retirement to the tropics. For obvious reasons I am not disclosing the name of this island paradise. The climate is a lot better than I’m used to and it suits Roger well. I have a fine stone house, a large swimming pool, servants and a speedboat.

Maybe you are wondering where I got the funds. Roger discovered the seven large uncut diamonds. They were hidden in the hollow wooden perch fixed in the travelling-box he so disliked. He’d pecked through the wood before I got him home from the Marwood Hotel. So Isabella’s “brother” had them in his possession for a short time, and never knew it. Sorry, Isabella — I’m certain they were meant for me. They were my legacy from Uncle George. Along with Roger, who is sitting on my shoulder as I write these words.

He’s got life running as he wants it, I think.