Rose of Tralee (26 page)

They turned into Mere Lane as she spoke and her
companion looked pensively at the road sign.

‘It weren’t a lane I were lookin’ out for,’ he said. ‘Still, I dare say this way’s quicker.’

‘Well, I had to buy the parrot food so I stayed on Heyworth Street a bit longer than I might have and besides, this way’s just as quick if you want the Walton Breck end of Oakfield,’ Rose explained. ‘You aren’t goin’ out of your way though, honest to God.’

‘Don’t mind if I am,’ Mr Dawlish said comfortably. ‘It’s nice to ’ave company, Miss Ryder. Where’s your evenin’ class held, then?’

‘Oh, a way from here,’ Rose said vaguely. Nice he might be, but she did not intend to make him a present of her entire life history. ‘Is the lady in Oakfield Road expectin’ you, Mr Dawlish?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Mr Dawlish admitted. He swung his suitcase from his left hand to his right as they reached the pit on the corner of Mere Lane and Breckfield Road, crossed it, and began to descend the long hill on which St Domingo Vale was situated. ‘I say, these are nice ’ouses! Did you say you lived here?’

‘That’s it,’ Rose said proudly. ‘The one wi’ the lilac tree ... see?’

They reached the garden gate and Rose paused. ‘I hope you find everything all right, Mr Dawlish, then we’ll be neighbours,’ she said. ‘It’s’ nice round here, though to my way of thinkin’ Oakfield’s a good deal noisier than the Vale. Still ...’

‘There’s a sign in your front window,’ Mr Dawlish said, as though Rose could not possibly be aware of it. ‘Rooms to let. Could I ask ... I wonder if I might ...’

‘’Course you could,’ Rose said heartily, swinging the gate open. ‘Come in, Mr Dawlish, an’ if the room an’ the terms aren’t to your satisfaction ... well, at
least you’ll see where Gulliver’s goin’ to live for a while.’

The two of them went up the path and climbed the neatly redded steps to the front door.

It was a strange old world, Lily told herself a week later as she and Mrs Kibble cleared up the breakfast things and began to wash up. Eight days ago she had had no lodgers and had been beginning to worry. Now she had three, for the evening Mr Dawlish had arrived, Lily had agreed, albeit grudgingly, to have Mona if her acquaintance proved suitable. She also had a parrot, though Gulliver, she felt rather confusedly, had come into her house under a false flag and, having entered, was proving difficult to evict.

The truth was that when she had seen Rose entering the house with Mr Dawlish, and explaining that her companion had come ashore after several years at sea and was looking for lodgings, she had leapt to the conclusion – who would not have done? – that Gulliver was his property. And Mr Dawlish was so nice; quiet, dependable, humorous. And of course she thought – who would not have done? – that he would look after his parrot in his room and would keep him there unless invited to bring him down, in his cage, to be with him in the sitting-room of an evening.

So she had showed him up the stairs to the best front bedroom; double windows overlooking her pride and joy, the garden, and beyond that the quiet road. She had named her rent, deciding to stand out for a decent sum since it was the best bedroom, and knowing that she could agree to ask for less but could scarcely, should he prove amenable, ask for more. Mr Dawlish agreed unhesitatingly to the price, only
enquiring if it included breakfast in the morning, a main meal at night and lunch on Sunday, when he would be at home all day.

‘That’s right; and a supper and cocoa before you go to bed,’ Lily had said and had seen, by the slight widening of her companion’s blue eyes, that this had been well beyond his expectations but had not cared in the least. She had a lodger!

And when he was in his room, unpacking, and she, Rose and Mrs Kibble were in the kitchen, cooking up the evening meal of sausages, bacon and black pudding which Rose had been hastily dispatched to buy from the nearest butcher, Rose had broken the news to her that her cousin Mona had found her another lodger, a middle-aged Irishman. And that Mona herself would be happy, now that her aunt and cousin were settled, to come and share Rose’s room and to pay her aunt a reasonable rent.

‘We-ell ...’ Lily had said cautiously. ‘It’s awright, is it, Rose? She won’t go misbehavin’ herself?’

‘I’m sure she won’t,’ Rose assured her mother. ‘That was why she and Aunt Daisy fell out – because Mona wanted to stop meetin’ up wi’ fellers an’ Aunt Daisy wanted her to go on. Mona said it was a fool’s game an’ she was quittin’ while she still had her health an’ strength, an’ Aunt Daisy told her the only fool was her an’ that if you wanted good money you had to tek chances. Imagine, Mam, a woman sayin’ that to her only daughter!’

So Lily agreed that they would give Mona – and Mr O’Neill – a trial, and gone happily down to her kitchen to prepare a meal and to tell Mrs Kibble the glad tidings.

And now, a whole week after settling her new lodgers into their rooms – Mr Dawlish in the best
front, Mr O’Neill on the floor above in what she called, to herself, the second-best front, and Mona sharing Rose’s nice attic room – she had discovered that Gulliver, far from belonging to Mr Dawlish, was not actually owned by anyone in the house.

‘He’s stayed in Mr Dawlish’s room because Mr Dawlish said he’d give an eye to him while I were workin’,’ Rose had explained. ‘But really, he’s a lodger, just like the others. Didn’t you wonder why I give you that three bob, Mam, last week? It were his rent money.’

‘But I don’t tek parrots,’ Lily had wailed. ‘Oh, Rosie, how could you? You deceived me, that’s what you been an’ gone an’ done. An’ you mean that now Mr Dawlish has started work at the shippin’ office I’m to look after that bleedin’ bird day an’ night? I don’t know nothin’ about birds an’ what’s more I’m scared of ’em. Look at the beak on him – it’s curved like one of the Turkish dagger things you see on the fillums. He could tek me finger off wi’ one bite!’

‘He’s all right, Mam, honest. And if I’d gone on sayin’ “no”, I’d likely have lost me job,’ Rose said. ‘An’ as for deceivin’ you, I did no such thing! I thought you’d guess when I gave you the three bob, honest I did.’

‘Oh come on, Rosie, how could I guess?’ Lily had said, staring with loathing at the parrot in its cage which now stood in the middle of the kitchen table. ‘Mr Dawlish seemed real fond o’ the crittur, an’ you never said a word about Mr Garnett, or ... or ...’

Rose was a truthful girl, however, and in the end she had admitted that she had not wanted to tell her mother the truth straight out. ‘I knew it ’ud come best after you’d got to know Gully,’ she said. ‘Only ... only it were difficult for you to get to know him, him
bein’ in Mr Dawlish’s room most o’ the time. An’ when Mr Dawlish brought him down you never so much as offered the ole bird a peanut!’

She had sounded injured and Lily, despite herself, had laughed. ‘Oh, go on wi’ you,’ she had said. ‘I s’pose I’ll get to like it, in time. An’ three bob a week ain’t to be sneezed at.’

But now, she and Mrs Kibble were clearing up in the sunny kitchen with Gulliver, in his cage, sitting on the Welsh dresser, and Lily was trying to accustom herself to the idea of letting him out of the cage once they had finished their work. He normally spent his time in the bow window in the front room where he could watch passers-by and comment, in peace, upon anything which occurred to him. But today, when she had gone in earlier to take the cover off his cage, he had said: ‘Poor ole Gully, gi’s a kiss, pretty Gull, pretty feller!’ all in a gabble, which had ceased abruptly as she opened the door to leave the room. Glancing back, she had seen him ruffling up his feathers and turning back to the window, and somehow he had looked so lonely and about half his usual size ... so she had gone back and carried the cage into the kitchen, where he had danced on his perch, shouted and catcalled and generally made it clear that he was happier with company. Or so Lily felt, at any rate, and Mrs Kibble had agreed with her.

‘If he gets too noisy I’ll carry him back to the front room,’ Lily said as the two of them finished clearing away. ‘Rose says Mr Dawlish lets him out for an hour or so every day, only he’s workin’ late tonight an’ won’t be able to do it, so since she’s goin’ straight to her night class after work I s’pose I oughter lerrim free for an hour or so. If I keep the door an’ winders tight shut it should be awright.

She hadn’t said that to Rose this morning, mind. She had been quite clear where she felt her own duties towards Gulliver stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Rose, but I can’t abide birds, so it’s stayin’ in the cage,’ Lily had said firmly. ‘One day without an airin’ won’t kill it. Chances are I’d lerrit out an’ we’d never see it again, an’ then what would your Mr Garnett say?’

Rose had agreed, reluctantly, that it would not harm the bird to stay in its cage for a day and had promised faithfully to let it out for an hour after her class, and Lily had been content enough with that. But seeing the parrot hunched up on its perch, she had begun to feel mean. After all, it wasn’t such a huge bird and it had been good all morning so far, even shouting out ‘Cheerybye, Rosie’ as her daughter had left for work. And it sounded a bit like me, an’ all, Lily told herself, secretly very impressed with the bird’s quickness. And Rose had said that it couldn’t fly very far even if it wanted to, as its wings had been clipped. She said all it seemed to do when let out of its cage was to potter about, sometimes going for a short little flight, at other times investigating the furniture and fittings of whatever room it was in. So surely she could let it out just for an hour? Rosie would be so pleased with her, would be able to go straight to bed after her supper, instead of having to stay downstairs with the parrot for an hour.

Having almost made up her mind to take the plunge, Lily approached the cage. It was still on the kitchen table, but she could carry it back to the front room – it would be safer there since tradesmen would simply bang on the door and enter, not having the time to hang about and wait for a housewife to come running. She thought about calling Mrs Kibble down – her helper was making beds – but decided against it.
She would take Gulliver through to the front room, check that the windows were closed, shut the door and open the cage. And then she would do all her usual cleaning work in the room whilst the bird pottered about. But first she would fetch some vinegar and her soft cloths, since it was her day for cleaning the bow window-panes, and she would also bring the duster and the beeswax so that she could do the furniture, and the carpet sweeper to pick up any bits on the small square of carpet, and the feather duster to clean the picture rail and to swish down any spiders daring enough to make their webs at ceiling height.

She brought through all her cleaning equipment and fetched the cage. She stood it on the small window table, then she and Gully stared at each other doubtfully through the wicker bars. Gully said: ‘Gi’s a kiss!’ in a creaking, old-man’s voice, then, in her daughter’s very tones, he added, ‘D’you want a peanut, Gully? Gi’s a kiss then!’

You had to give it to him, Lily decided, approaching the cage and gingerly unfastening the door. He was a first-rate mimic and he learned like lightning. She had heard Rose talking to him as she gave him peanuts or raisins or the little pink shrimps that he loved, but she’d not realised he could pick up a couple of sentences so quickly.

The door open, she pinned it back and waited, with some apprehension, for the bird to flap out, but nothing happened. Gulliver sat on his perch, eyes half closed, muttering something beneath his breath, and after a few minutes, satisfied that he was not about to do anything untoward, Lily began her work. And presently, turning back to the window for a moment, she saw that the bird had left his cage and was, as Rose had described it, pottering about.
Indeed, he was behind her aspidistra and when he peered at her through the branches he looked so comical that she had to laugh.

‘Pretty Gully,’ he said contentedly, and Lily said: ‘You’ll have to learn to say “pretty Lily”, me boy, if you wants to keep in my good books!’ and then got on with her work.

The front room was her favourite place, and she always cleaned it herself and presently, carried away by the sheer enjoyment of waxing the round mahogany table in the window embrasure, she began to sing softly to herself beneath her breath, ‘
Bobby Shaftoe’e gone to sea, silver buckles at his knee, he’ll come back and marry me, bonny Bobby Shaftoe!
’ The sun fell in syrupy golden slabs on the new carpet and on the table, polished until it shone like dark water, and on the empty cage, turning its wicker bars to gold. And Lily realised, with a tiny stab of guilt, that she was feeling happy, really happy, for the first time since Jack’s death.

But Jack would be glad for her, she knew that. There was no more generous man than Jack. And she went on flicking with her feather duster and presently began to sing once more.

When the door opened an hour later and Mrs Kibble came into the room, Lily had lost all her fear of Gulliver and was treating him like an old friend. They had sung a chorus together – he did not know ‘
Bobby Shaftoe
’, it appeared, but was familiar with ‘
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
’, which he roared out in a convincingly seamanlike voice – and exchanged a good deal of light banter. Indeed, at one point Gulliver had proved that he wasn’t quite as bright as Lily had thought him by making advances of an
amorous nature towards her feather duster. But Lily had poked him with it and knocked him off the picture rail so that he had flown, squawking, right round the room, coming to rest again on the top of his cage and imitating her subsequent laughter with great aplomb.

In fact, so at ease with him did she feel that it never occurred to Lily to shout to Mrs Kibble to shut the door and before either woman had done more than open her mouth to speak it was too late. Gulliver, perched on the picture rail and making his slow, sideways way along it, had dived for the opening and disappeared.

‘Oh Gawd!’ Lily squeaked, truly dismayed. ‘Is the back door open, Agueda?’ She used the older woman’s Christian name for the first time in her panic.

‘I do not know, it may be,’ Agueda replied. ‘The butcher has just delivered ... oh, let us pray he shut the door again, Lily, or we shall be in very great trouble.’