You may recall how, a couple of weeks ago, I liberated a VERY distantly related avian cousin from imprisonment in the home of Oscar and Cara. It was a pink and grey cockatoo thing – a galah – whom they called Bazza and whom I flew home to my nest.
Well, I think I made a big mistake by doing that.
It was them – Cara and Oscar – who made the first mistakes by being daft enough to pay out a lot of good money for it and then by believing the sales-person when she said it was male. I compounded their comedy of errors by assuming that Penny – my wife and mother – would view this parrot with the same contempt as me... that is to say that Penny would share my contempt for it (not that Penny would view us both with equal contempt... she’d better NOT!). Not only did Penny and this Bazza hit it off from the start, but I soon realised that all the hard work that we had put into carefully camouflaging our nest among the ivy, under the eaves of the Granary Theatre, Malcaster, would be wasted when a large pink object began flapping all around it..
Bazza not only moved in with us, but she attracted the attention of everybody connected with the Granary Theatre. Penny and I had of course always been the epitome of discretion, lurking, as we did, in the shadows, to observe all the comings and goings below us. When we entered the building, it was covertly via the air-conditioning ductwork. From there, we could make our way to various shadowy perches from where we could watch rehearsals and performances, and listen in to all the conversations. I used the computer only when the theatre was completely deserted.
Only Oscar and Rollo are aware of our visits. Rollo is the bar steward. Before he retired, he was the landlord of the Jolly Boatman and it was some months after that that he and Oscar met while Oscar was steering his narrowboat – the Esprit de Noel – along the canal. That was when Oscar was really active at the Granary, before his stroke. Anyway, Rollo said how fed up and bored he was with no pub to run, which is when Oscar said he knew where there was a splendid little pub that needed someone to take care of it and Rollo started at the Granary. I like Rollo; he’s smallish for a quacker and round, but ever so strong (you should see him lugging those barrels around; his white hair flopps over his face, that goes all rubicund and shiny and he keeps prodding his little brass spectacles back onto his nose and panting and swearing). And he likes me too because, just after he started at the Granary, he discovered that certain rodents were snacking on his stock of cheesy crisps and peanuts. He told Oscar, Oscar quietly introduced him to me and I set about the solution of Rollo’s small problems, but we keep all this secret. Not even Cara knows where we live, Penny and me.
But she knows where Bazza lives! What makes it worse is that Penny had me building an extension onto our nest so that she and Bazza can sit chatting when the time comes for them to sit on their eggs. EGGS?!! Yes, eggs. It’s alright for Penny and me to produce our annual brood, but this Bazza was hanging around with a lot of other galahs before she finished up in Pets’ Corner at the supermarket. As soon as she arrived at our nest she started squawking, flapping around and drawing attention – not only to herself, which would be bad enough, but also to us!
Then she spotted me slipping in through the ventilation shaft and followed me. I tried to get her out again, but she was off exploring and chattering out loud as she went. She finished up staring through the grid over the air-conditioning outlet into the bar when it was full of Granary members. Someone got a ladder, unskrewed the grid and let her out. Proper little heroes they thought themselves. I don’t know who squawked the loudest as she flapped out, her or all the quackers in the bar.
Now she goes in there regularly, and not through the A/C ducting, they hold open the front door for her and she flaps straight in. At least, by this means, I don’t have to feed her as well as Penny, but she’s got more privileges at the Granary than any of the members! They even buy her drinks and try to get her drunk, not that she needs any encouragement. Now she’s inspired them to start planning a production of “Treasure Island” at Christmas time and she’s started learning her lines and rehearsing. Every time she sees a vacant shoulder, she flaps onto it and starts shouting “Peaces of eight! Peaces of eight! Yo-ho-ho me hearties, splice the mainbrace!” She’s incorrigible!
I’ll tell you one thing, “me hearties”: it’s them as dies’ll be the lucky ones!
And my friend Rollo is distinctly and uncharacteristically ant-bird these days on account that this Bazza has no concept of manners and propriety – just shits anywhere!
Thinking things through, I’m developing an opinion that I would be well-advised to arrange for Cara to find out where her beloved new pet has relocated itself. I mean, whenever this Bazza is missing from the Gramary Theatre, she’s perched by our nest with Penny, both of them chattering out loud to each other. For all I know, they might soon BOTH have chicks, all chattering and squawking at once and demanding to be fed.
Oscar hasn’t been out very much at all since he came out of Malcaster General Hospital. I think he’s scared...
...but the canal runs beside the Granary Theatre. After all, the old-time quackers used to load tons of grain out of the granary into their cargo boats when they were moored at the old wharf. Now... I wonder if I can persuade Oscar to bring “Esprit de Noel” up to the wharf, where Cara can see her bloody parrot perched by my nest or – better still – rolling around drunk and helpless in the bar, and...
Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".