The Bird Cage

By Roy Burton - 02/03/2007

It was a simple enough job after all, and any old fool could have done it. But then, Albert Potts wasn’t an ordinary man by any means. He was a dedicated DIY man, and he reckoned he could turn his hand to anything, even if he had had a few setbacks in the past. However, let us start at the beginning, just before the lounge was virtually gutted, and before Joey the budgie was rendered temporarily homeless.

 

The seeds of the calamity were sown when Albert, feeling restless during a spell of rainy weather, cast his eyes around looking for something easy to do indoors to keep his itchy hands occupied. A long Saturday afternoon stretched out before him and he had no stomach for tedious talk with the rest of the family. It usually got round to the time Uncle Alf dropped dead in the toilet, or the problems her next door was having with her bowels. Albert shuddered at the thought.

 

Suddenly he spotted the solution to his immediate dilemma. It stood in the corner, quiet and unpretentious, almost as if wishing not to intrude upon anyone else’s space. Of course, this was the very thing.

 

“I’m going to clean up the budgie's cage.” he announced loudly to the family, who were in their customary slothful positions, draped across various bits of furniture. An ominous silence descended on the room and all eyes turned accusingly on to the speaker. Joey stopped pecking at his cuttlefish as if he knew that danger was somehow lurking nearby. Albert was now the centre of attention, and he felt vulnerable and uncomfortable.

“Well, look at the state of the bloomin’ thing,” he protested loudly, the pressure of the silent hostility compelling him to justify his intentions. “It’s about six months since it was last cleaned out, and anyway the door doesn’t shut properly. It’s a wonder the bird hasn’t got out and flown away before now.”

 

His wife, Olive Potts, a small neat woman, and forever the epitome of patience, sighed softly, and her hand flew unconsciously to her ear, there to start tugging at the lobe. Since she was a girl she had always had this mannerism whenever a fit of nervousness seized her.

“All right luv, if you think you must,” she said, “But do be careful. Don’t forget that you’ve tried that a few times before and something’s always gone wrong. And you remember last week when you tried to mend the telly and it caught fire afterwards.” The chiding remark scored a bull’s eye, and Albert felt grievously hurt. “That could have happened to anybody,” he said sulkily, “And anyway, we needed to get a new set.”

 

Albert felt the need to remove himself from this potential confrontation, and he went to his shed to collect some paint and a spray gun he had recently bought at a car boot sale. As he clumped awkwardly in and out of the lounge, Albert was acutely aware of the eyes of his family boring into the back of his neck. He could feel the antagonism that hung like a noxious vapour in the air, but he was not about to let them win this particular skirmish.

 

He’d had these problems before with this lot when he wanted to do something about the house. He had always made it quite clear (without actually saying so, of course) that he was not just a ham-fisted buffoon who got in their way when all they wanted to do was laze about. Yet, try as hard as he might to ignore the tension that their enmity generated, it unnerved him, and he was sure it was because of this that everything he attempted seemed to come to grief.

 

But this time things were going to be different – he was, after all, the head of the household, and this was going to be just a simple cleaning and painting job. And anyway, what did this lot of morons know about the finer points of ‘Do It Yourself’? A steady flow of arguments and accusations raced through Albert’s mind as he prepared his equipment, and placed the birdcage on the newspaper, now spread carefully across the table.
Then, under the penetrating and unbroken stare of his audience, he plugged the spray gun into the mains and hesitantly pressed the ‘on’ button. For several seconds nothing happened, and then with a sudden kick like the recoil of a blunderbuss the electric motor roared into life, and a great liquid torrent erupted from the nozzle covering everything in the lounge with a spectacular coat of green paint. Albert’s desperate, fumbling fingers attempted to adjust the spray, turning it this way and that, and then when it failed to work, tried to turn the gun off altogether. But the spray gun, having now decided to function, was in control of the situation, and was obstinately refusing so respond to any amount of button pushing.

 

Amidst this intense and riotous confusion the high pitched voice of Stanley, Albert’s eight year old son, screamed into his father’s ears, demanding his attention. “Dad, dad, switch it off quick. Poor old Joey’s still in the bloody cage!” Even in the heat of the moment Albert felt a rising sense of anger at hearing his young son use a swear word. And also he felt an increasing foolishness at having forgotten to remove the unlucky bird in the first place. All things considered, however, he felt that this was not the ideal time or place to remonstrate with the lad on the matter, and that it would have to be dealt with later.

 

His only course now, he concluded, was to pull the plug out of the wall socket, and to cut off the source of supply to the rogue machine, the noise of which was now reaching deafening proportions. Albert turned sharply, but true to the old maxim ‘more haste, less speed’ his left foot became entangled in the mains lead, the inevitable result being that as the top half of his body surged forward on its important task, the bottom half stayed firmly rooted to the spot.

 

All this appeared to Albert as if he were part of a slow motion film, and he threw his arms out flailing the air in an attempt to grasp hold of something, whatever it was, to keep himself upright. But there being nothing within arms distance Albert continued on his unexpected journey to the floor, and he crashed down with all the noise and loss of dignity as a great tree when it is felled in some rain forest. After a moments when the commotion and the dust had subsided, the whole family burst into laughter. Little Stanley fell about, holding his aching ribs. “Cor, that wasn’t half funny dad, you should have seen your face.” he giggled, “Can you do it again for us?”

Albert’s humiliation and embarrassment was now complete. His face was the colour of a fully ripe beetroot, and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. After such a riotous display of ineptitude there was no explanation or excuse that poor Albert could offer without adding to the gales of laughter that filled the green splattered room. With as much decorum as he could muster he clambered up from the floor and disappeared sheepishly out into the tool shed, there to lick his wounds among the half-used tins of primer and best gloss paint.

 

After a welcome period of isolation where he had been mercifully free from the taunts and jibes of his family, Albert suddenly emerged from his bolt-hole and strode towards the house, blowlamp in hand, pumping furiously away at the plunger, eager to put to rights the damage that had been done. At least the blowlamp was now working properly, and a healthy flame roared and spluttered from the jet, and bit by bit Albert was regaining some of the confidence and authority he had lost after the last mishap. Mrs. Potts, on the other hand, anticipating yet another catastrophe in the making, tugged at her ear lobe. “I don’t want to interfere with what you’re doing, luv,” she said, her voice shaking slightly, “But should you really use that lamp on wet paint – shouldn’t you clean it off with some turps and a bit of rag or something?”

Albert’s whole body stiffened at her words, as he felt his authority being called into question yet again.. He knew instinctively that she was right, but there was no way now that he could back down and still save face. Now was the time to make a firm stand, to re-establish some semblance of credibility. “Leave it to me, ma,” he replied with unconvincing nonchalance, “Don’t you worry yourself. This’ll get it off in a jiffy!”

But above the hissing of the blowlamp he could hear the sniggering of the family, and little Stanley’s voice was plain and clear. “You watch this,” the lad chuckled, “There’s going to be bloody trouble here!”

 

Once more there was the surge of anger in Albert on hearing his child’s colourful phraseology. His face regained its former redness and the blood pounded in his ears. He slammed the flaming blowlamp down hard upon the table and spun round to confront his errant son. “Now look her, young fellow-me-lad,” he screamed, his voice shaking with emotion, “I’ll not have you using that sort of language, especially in front of your mother. You might use those words in the school playground …..” “But dad,” Stanley yelled out, his eyes looking wildly behind his father. “Don’t you dare interrupt me, you cheeky little monkey, you’ll feel the back of my hand if you carry on….”
“But dad, look. Look behind you, the blowlamp has set the curtains on fire,” the young lad spluttered. “Your backside will be on fire when I get hold of you,” retorted Albert, beside himself with rage, “Just you…”  It was then that a whiff of acrid smoke curled itself round Albert’s nostril, and in a moment of sheer horror he realised that there was more than an element of truth in what the boy was saying. The scene that he turned to look upon struck terror to his heart. The curtains were blazing merrily away, the hungry flames already licking at the window frame and reaching up towards the ceiling. “Well don’t just stand there, you soppy lot,” screamed Albert, acting at this point on a heady mixture of logic and sheer panic, “Grab hold of the curtains and pull them down before the whole house goes up in smoke!”

A few reluctant hands took hold of the curtains and gave one or two feeble pulls, but to no avail. “Oh, for goodness sake, must I do everything myself. Come on, give it to me.” Albert snatched the flapping material, and putting the entire weight of his body into the effort, gave one enormous yank.

 

Without a shadow of doubt this desperate action achieved the desired aim, for down came the blazing curtains, down came the nets, and down came the new imitation brass curtain rail that Albert had struggled manfully to put up only a fortnight ago. With a resounding crashing, ringing noise this assortment of material and metal came thundering down to land in a great cloud of dust on the floor. Followed, unfortunately, by a large lump of plaster, which, by some twist or turn of fate, detached itself from the wall, striking the hapless Albert smack on the back of the head with one almighty blow. For an instant Albert stood there, a vacant look on his face, and then with a little smile closed his eyes and sank into oblivion on to the litter strewn carpet.

 

The sun had started to break through as Albert Potts’ eyes flickered open. He screwed them up against the bright light streaming in through the window, and raised his throbbing head from the pillow. There was a faint smell of disinfectant and he could hear muffled voices somewhere in the distance. “Where am I” What’s happened, ma?” His voice was dry, and he croaked the words out to his wife sitting by his bedside. “Hello luv,” Mrs Potts said anxiously, “How are you feeling? You’ve had a bit of an accident and took a nasty knock on the head, but the doctor says you should be up and about in a day or two.”

 

Then she recalled in detail what had happened to him, and the damage that had been done to the lounge. “And poor Joey, well, we thought we’d lost him, but we found him hiding in the passage,” she droned on, “Anyway, we caught him again, got the paint off him, now he’s back in his cage and seems quite chirpy again.” Albert began to fidget, and he was sure his headache was getting worse. “Well, I’m not to blame for any of that,” he mumbled, “And I don’t fancy laying about in this bed too long, I’ve got work to do in that lounge.” “Now don’t worry about that, luv,” the long suffering Olive assured him, “I’ve been in touch with Mr. Biggs, the painter and decorator in Cromwell Street, and he’s going to come over and do up the lounge for us.”

 

Albert, his bottom lip twitching, stared at the floor, disappointment written clearly on his face. She knew that he loved doing things around the house, it was what he was best at, and to be denied an opportunity like this was an acute blow to his pride. They sat in silence for a while, and then Albert suddenly looked up with a big smile that spread from ear to ear. “Well that’s all right, ma,” he grinned, “You go ahead and let Mr Biggs do it. You see, ma, I’ve just had an idea – I didn’t finish doing the bird’s cage, so I’ll get stuck into it as soon as the lounge is finished. Yes, that’s it. I can’t wait to get started!”

 

Olive Potts said nothing, then she lifted her eyes heavenwards and offered up a quiet prayer to whoever might be listening.

“Don’t let him,” she whispered, “Please don’t let him.”

And she tugged at her ear lobe harder than she had ever done.