Who let the parrot out?…..
Well, it was me, and I very nearly picked up the phone on Saturday, 8th May, when I heard Richard Coles and Nikki Bedi on Radio 4’s Saturday Live ask guests and listeners alike to confess to past misdemeanours.
After almost fifty years, it is time to ‘fess up to the disappearance of our family’s African Grey parrot. Time to admit to my role in liberating it from our South London flat in the 70s.
Over six months to nine months, this bird became the bane of my life.
It was a battle of wits between bird and human each time I had to clean out its cage, top-up its feed or refill its water bowl. It was all about speed and agility, and I could not always withdraw my hand quickly enough to avoid being bitten and nipped.
I quietly grew to hate that bird and started to dream up ways of getting rid of it.
At eleven inches tall, I can still see it tracking my every move with its watchful eyes. It was intelligent, I could tell, and I relied on this when planning and executing its liberation.
So, I bided my time and eventually took the opportunity presented to me by a hot summer day and an open sash window.
It was a hot, sticky day during the long school holidays; my sister and a few others were around the back, jumping off the bomb shelters. We might then have chosen to head to the front for a quick round of ‘Cannon.’ In any case, I needed the loo, so leaving my sister behind, I ran around to the front to let myself into our empty flat.
I can’t remember what prompted me to go into the living room, possibly a squawk from the parrot, but as I poked my head in to look, I noticed the sash window opposite the birdcage had been left slightly ajar. The critical thing to note here is that it wasn’t me. I was already framing how I would present myself if questioned. At the tender age of eleven, I had decided which lie I might get away with.
It was the opportunity I had been waiting for, mid-afternoon, and no one else was due home for at least a few hours. This would give me plenty of time to set everything up and allow the bird enough time to make its escape.
All I needed to do was help the parrot while covering my tracks. If I were clever enough, it would look like the bird had escaped of its own accord through a series of unfortunate events😉.
Though I could not be too long setting things up, my younger sister was still outside playing with friends. As the oldest, it was my job to look after her.
The first thing I did was hitch up the sash window a little more to ensure the eleven-inch parrot could fit through the gap. True to form, I could see it watching me very closely, essential for the next stage, to loosen the clasp on the cage door. With the bird’s eyes on me, I wanted it to see that its cage door was not quite as it should have been.
This bird was more than capable of undoing the cage door if given a bit of help and encouragement, and that was precisely what I intended to do. Once I had taken care of the cage door and the window, all I needed to do was withdraw, making sure to close the living room door securely behind me. I didn’t want an irritated African Grey flying around the rest of the flat.
And I certainly didn’t relish the thought of trying to recapture it. My sincere hope was that the intelligence I read in its gaze would be enough for it to realise how to fully open the cage door and make its way to freedom through the open window. All I was doing was smoothing the way.
The whole operation took no more than five minutes or so, and I am pleased to say we discovered its disappearance a few hours later. I recall there was some discussion about the window being left open, but no one ever connected its disappearance with me.
Though I did wonder if mum had her suspicions and chose to keep them to herself. 😉
So, there you have it, until next time.
Janice Taylor
