Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [80]
From that moment on, they totally ignored each other. We would come into the room and they would each vie for our attention, screeches from Liza, hopper bashing and perch somersaults from Major. Each seemed to spur the other on to new heights of frenzy.
Lucy and I were finally driven to distraction when both birds added the other’s repertoire to its own so that we ended up with two bobbing, somersaulting, hopper-bashing, screeching cockatoos. Major, having the more powerful lungs, left us feeling as if Big Ben had been striking on our mantelpiece – we were totally tolled off and wrung out. All too much.
In desperation, I phoned a local garden centre that I knew had an aviary in its greenhouse section – designed to give a tropical ambience to the purchase of trays of pansies and petunias. The owner was more than willing to take on two cockatoos.
‘For free you say?’
For free, he was assured.
‘What’s wrong with them then?”
‘Well they do screech a bit.’
‘That’s not a problem.’
‘And one of them is a bit bald.’
‘Bald? How bald?’
How could I describe Liza’s condition other than as oven-ready? There was no way I could cover it – or her – up.
So Major went and Liza stayed. She seemed delighted at the arrangement; after all, she now had our undivided attention once more, and she could tweak out any new feathers which tried to grow through to her heart’s content, without interruption. We gave up hope of ever getting her to stop.
I wasn’t too sure when the idea of the party was first mooted. It was a bit like a sea of whispers. I overheard Mandy and Lucy discussing something down in the ward but they abruptly stopped conferring as soon as I walked in. Both looked guilty, so I knew something was afoot. But at least they were now talking to each other. It was as if the incident with the little tortoiseshell cat had been a watershed. Since then, Lucy had been in a much better frame of mind, helped by a more co-operative Mandy who now tended to share her responsibilities with Lucy rather than treat her as the general dogsbody. She even permitted Lucy to take charge of the anaesthetic machine during a few routine operations – closely supervised, of course. But, nevertheless, it proved there had been a significant shift in their relationship as the anaesthetic machine was usually jealously guarded by Mandy – very much her baby, and not to be tampered with.
It was Beryl who let it slip. She had just finished smoking her coffee-break cigarette, having battled to puff the smoke out through a half-open back door while struggling with the door to stop the wind blowing it back in. Someone needed to tell her that her raven hair, normally heavily lacquered to her head, had sprouted wings and looked as if it was about to take off. But not me. No way.
‘I don’t know what to wear,’ she suddenly said, giving me the eye as if I was about to inspire her. ‘Fancy dress parties aren’t my sort of thing.’
‘Party? What’s this about a party?
‘You don’t know?’ She saw my quizzical look. ‘No, you don’t, obviously. You’d better ask Lucy.’ With that she quickly shimmied back up to reception.
‘It’s Mandy’s idea,’ said Lucy when I eventually tracked her down in the dispensary making up a prescription – another job that Mandy now let her do unsupervised. ‘She fancies having a bit of a knees-up.’
I shrugged. ‘But where’s she going to have it? I hardly think Crystal and Eric would let her hold a party up in the flat. It would disturb all the in-patients. Let alone the neighbours.’
A block of flats had been built in the grounds sold off from Prospect House. People were forever complaining about the noise of dogs and cats. But, as Crystal said, we were there first. When the people bought those flats they knew exactly what they were letting themselves in for. Nevertheless, Crystal did her best to keep things on an even keel; a party in the flat would be