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Revisiting Luther
By Vanessa Gebbie
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For nine weeks and two days, Leticia Hooper started each morning upside-down,
talking to her first husband through the bars of his cage. Wearing a very
elderly and baggy black leotard, she would unhook the cage from its stand and
place it on the rug, and then she would do a headstand against the wall of her
bed-sit over the Tatler Tearooms.
"Luther," she would say between clenched teeth, "This is not
getting any easier."
And it wasn't. At sixty, the sinews protested a bit, but so what?
Luther would rattle his beak against the bars, or sometimes, if he was in a
particularly good mood put his head on one side and reach over to ting his bell.
Parrot or no parrot, suffusing the head with blood for ten minutes every morning
was very good for the brain. There may have been some changes to her routine now
that Luther was here, but yoga was not negotiable.
He had come to stay under completely false pretences. Never again would she give
in to a plea from another librarian to look after a parrot for three months. If
she'd known then what she knew now...
As soon as she saw him, (he was called Bill then) she knew there was something
funny. Not that she was all that well acquainted with parrots, but it was
something in his look that reminded her of the first Luther. Bulging eyes and
swiveling head, probably. No, the revelation such as it was had come later that
same day. It was when she'd been undressing for bed. As soon as she peeled off
her pants the parrot set up a frantic whistle and fixed its beady eyes on her
pubic hair. Not a wolf whistle, more of the noise a train makes when it rushes
into a tunnel at speed.
It was discomforting, being fancied by a parrot. Sitting in bed with her book
that first evening, trying hard to concentrate on "Sons and Lovers"
for the third time, Leticia had watched him bobbing furiously on his perch,
and climbing the bars with his knobby feet. Are parrots sexual beings viz a
viz humans? Sex with Luther the Man hadn't been inspiring; D.H. Lawrence would
have been most alarmed. Following the same train of thought, "Leticia and
the Parrot" did not have the same ring as "Leda and the Swan". Do
parrots have penises? Leticia got out of bed and went to have a look. She bent
down in her wincyette nightie behind Luther, so that her face was at the level
of the parrot's rear
end, but she couldn't see anything. Then she inspected his lower front. There
were too many feathers. The parrot turned round on his perch and bent to look
her in the eye. Leticia blushed. From then on she dressed and undressed in the
bathroom.
"I don't think you're Bill," Leticia had put her face up close to the
bars and eyeballed the parrot, who gazed back at her, unmoved. "I
think you're Luther Carstairs come back to haunt me." The parrot had put
its head on one side, and lifted a large seed to its mouth with a claw. No
direct answers. So evasive. Just like Luther the Man. It rolled its eye, and
moved the black pebble that was its tongue slowly round the seed, then cracked
it, letting the husk fall to the bottom of its cage. It lent forward and
looked at the mess it was making. Housework. He was telling her to clear up
after him. No question about it. So the parrot became Luther.
Ursula-Who-Does-The-Breakfasts had come up with her tray the next
morning,
"Morning Mrs Hooper. Tea and toast. Oh goodness. What's that?"
"I think he'd better have a kipper," said Leticia in a strangled voice
from a few inches above the rug. Luther the Man had had kippers every day for
six years. That would nail it.
After yoga every morning, Leticia would sit reading the paper over her
breakfast. This was normally, pre-Luther the Parrot, a quiet time, time to
stretch her long legs out from the little settee, and lean back with a cup of
tea, while scanning the daily disasters. (Why on earth couldn't the papers print
good news for a change. You can't even go on holiday these days without
wondering if you'll be blown to smithereens on the way. And forget about
relaxing in your own home. The contents of the average food cupboard have been
discovered to be a veritable health hazard. Don't think you can escape damnation
with going organic either. Last night's organic broccoli had included a large
well fed caterpillar that had plopped, cooked and rigid, onto her plate.)
Now, breakfast with Luther was interesting. Parrots have a habit of eating
kippers very messily indeed. Leticia had to give up the middle sheets of her
newspaper to protect the rug from flying fish. But he was loving it. Leticia
had to be careful though. The kippers had a loosening effect on Luther. He had
taken to lifting his tail and shooting a stream of excreta out at whatever
happened to be behind him. The first time this happened he hit the decanter,
totally deliberately, of course. Luther the Man had been teetotal since he went
Baha'i the year before they split up, and Luther the Parrot seemed equally
starchy
about alcohol. When Leticia poured herself a small schooner of medium sherry
after walking up the hill from the library on the Monday evening, Luther went
berserk. Even if parrots can't do mock faints and fall backwards deliberately
off their perches, Luther came pretty close. He dropped to the ground, and
dragged himself round the floor of his cage limping, watching Leticia over his
shoulder.
It is all very well having your first husband back with you, thirty years later,
even if he is wearing feathers. It is worrying. There was nowhere to put him
where he was not overlooking the bed, other than the bathroom, and going to the
loo would have been impossible with Luther watching. So Leticia left him where
the librarian had put him, in the corner of her bed sit, by the window.
The other permanent guests of the Tatler Tea rooms were accommodating as far as
Luther went. Leticia played it correctly, right from the start, and asked them
all in to meet him. Of course, she did not divulge to little Colonel Etherington
that this was her husband, but she might as well have done.
"Good God. What a sight. Euthanasia." was all the Colonel said. On
reflection, Leticia agreed. And the Misses Cartwright. Luther could screech as
much as he liked. They were so deaf that he didn't bother them on that score,
but he did disgrace himself by spitting sunflower seeds into their tea when
Leticia seated them too close to his cage.
Mrs. Carmichael, the owner of The Tatler, was ambivalent.
"So long as the customers aren't disturbed," was all she said.
The weeks went by, and Leticia received two postcards from the other librarian,
on sabbatical in Florence. What freedom. What stimulation... unlike
Leticia's own recent experience. Luther the Man had become impossible to live
with all those years ago, and Luther the Parrot was following suit. Their
relationship was becoming dangerously similar in many respects to what it had
been when he was a man. After taking off his covers, she gave him his kippers,
and the room smelt of them all day. He said very little during breakfast,
but then neither did she. She ate her toast, and Luther rasped occasionally
and flicked fish about onto the newspaper. She cleared up after him. When
she was dressed, he said very little. Often he didn't even bother to look
at her, but preened
himself. Leticia went to work in the library, and when she got home, he didn't
so much as ask how her day had gone. If she was late giving him his
supper he would sulk and turn his back on her. If her hand reached out for the
decanter he squawked like a banshee. It took a while before Leticia realized
what the large brown blanket the other librarian had brought was for. And until
she did, Luther the Parrot whistled at her all night bobbing furiously,
giving her very little pleasure indeed. Exactly like Luther the Man.
Parrots must know when they are disliked. One day, arriving back from the
library, Leticia found three rather nice feathers on the rug. Not little
accidental feathers, large ones. Over the course of a few days, a small bare
patch appeared on Luther's chest, and more feathers appeared on the rug. That
was all she needed. A parrot with psychological problems. The patch grew as
their relationship declined.
The countdown to eventual freedom having begun with only three weeks left to
Luther's repatriation, Leticia was devastated to receive a phone call from the
other librarian, begging for another month's board and lodging for his pet.
Luther screeched throughout the call, making it impossible to hear properly.
"So you'll be back when?" said Leticia over the din.
The other librarian said something about him sounding as happy as a pig in
something or other.
"Yes, but the noise, the intrusion, seriously, when will you be
back.....?" but he had rung off, and was no doubt off to enjoy a glass of
something cool, light and bubbly. Leticia turned to Luther. She would put the
blanket over his cage early tonight, and finish her book in peace. She was
reading a very good book this time, short stories by Graham Greene. Much more
satisfying, short stories, when you have a parrot. Less chance to lose the plot.
And anyway, they were like an excellent glass of sherry if drunk at the right
time. Left you with a bit of a glow. Luther the Man had been trying to be a
writer. Waste of time, really. You were surrounded by books all day at the
library, with boxes of the things arriving every Monday. Did the world really
need Luther's? Had he made it after the divorce? She'd never seen anything by
Luther Carstairs, but then he might have used a nom de plume.
Seven more weeks. Noise, mess, and the constant reminder of a failed sex life,
while she had been young enough and energetic enough to be really good at it,
given half a chance. Plus the added cost of all those kippers.
Then Luther made a mistake, a very silly mistake. He turned his back on Leticia,
and raised his rump, and before she could do anything about it, he'd defecated
all over Graham Greene.
A parrot's neck is much thinner than it looks, though all those feathers. It
took Leticia precisely half a minute to wring it. Bloody bird. Ten a penny in
the pet shop. There seemed to be feathers all over the room, and Mrs. Carmichael
wanted to know why she needed to borrow the Hoover at seven on a Thursday
evening, but Leticia said she'd spilt some parrot feed. Graham Greene was quite
unreadable.
The brown blanket stayed over the cage the next morning.
Ursula-Who-Does-The-Breakfasts didn't notice a thing, as Leticia welcomed her,
upside down as usual, and said:
"Just leave his kipper on the floor. He's still asleep."
The day before the other librarian returned, Leticia rang the fifteenth pet shop
in Yellow Pages, and discovered that to her delight and relief, they did indeed
have a parrot that closely resembled Luther. What she had not bargained for was
the cost.
Walking back up the hill from the bus station to the Tatler, the new parrot got
heavier and heavier. Her bank account had gone in the opposite direction, and
was much, much lighter. Several thousand pounds lighter. But the new parrot
looked exactly like Luther, and so chances were that the other librarian would
never notice the difference.
The new parrot was in its new cage. Leticia settled down on the settee with a
new book, Best American Short Stories, and a cup of tea. No, damn the tea, a
drink was called for. She put down the open book, got up and went over to the
decanter.
And the new parrot began to screech, and screech, and
screech..........................
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The author does not only write about parrots.
She is a journalist and has to be serious sometimes. Other people have had the
good taste to like her stuff... among them, Aesthetica,
Cadenza, Buzzwords, Smokelong Quarterly,
Flashme. The proper author Alex Keegan
is lucky enough to be her tutor.
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