Bertie and the Kinky Politician (15 page)

‘Christ!' Coberley panted, holding a handkerchief to his horribly mutilated ear in a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood. ‘What a cock-up!'

‘Just keep running. I think we're –' Pritchard screamed in pain, a girlish, shivering cry of absolute terror as Bertie's claws raked the back of his neck and shoulder again, drawing fresh lines of agony. He looked up to see a shadow twist in mid-air with astonishing skill and return swiftly. The speed of the attack was terrifying. Screeching like a banshee, Bertie swept in from the front, a shadowy Titan with sickled claws thrust forward, bloodstained and murderous. The two panicking men dived to each side as the bird flashed between them, wing tips hissing over their heads. They put on a final spurt to the Transit. Both were now bleeding profusely from numerous wounds to the face and head. Pritchard's broken nose was blocked and congested. Blood and snot slid down his throat in a coppery trickle. Neither had ever faced such a furious and deadly assault.

‘Quick, get in!' gasped Coberley unnecessarily. It was doubtful any other course of action had entered Pritchard's head. He beat off another attack with a swing of his arms, flung open the door and dived inside. The powerful engine roared into life, Coberley hit the laughing gas boost and howling tyres laid enormous streaks of smoking rubber down the road. Bertie still attacked gamely, gripping the wipers and buffeting the windscreen with his wings but Coberley switched on the wiper motor, jerking the macaw from side to side. They both laughed hysterically as Bertie was swept back and forth across the glass and in a fit of diabolical sadism, Coberley doused him with a generous squirt from the washers. He struggled to maintain his grip, hissing at the men through the glass, but Coberley switched to fast wipe and Bertie was suddenly swept off to one side and spiralled into an uncomfortably prickly hedge like a fighter downed by a missile, droplets showering from his nether regions. He heaved powerfully against the twigs but the van had accelerated around a corner with another tremendous squeal of tyres and was gone by the time he managed to extricate himself.

Silence fell.

‘Mummy?' He didn't recognise a single landmark. Every house looked strange and unfamiliar, stark in the harsh orange light. ‘Mummy?' he called again nervously. Bertie gazed up and down the street, but there was no sign of Celeste. This disturbed him a great deal. They'd never been parted before and the thought of her loss welled up to smother him in a frightening blanket of anxiety. His agitation grew. ‘Mummy?' The call was pained, like that of a lost and confused child. Bertie desperately needed the comfort of Celeste's presence, but the street was utterly alien. Eventually, because there was nothing else to do, he flew up above the houses and circled several times nervously before setting off towards the great flood of lights to the west.

A net curtain slipped back into place as he disappeared. After a moment's hesitation, a liver-spotted hand with arthritic joints fumbled with a pen and carefully made a note on a jotting pad beside the phone.

Bertie flew for what seemed an age, gliding over endless buildings. Street lamps necklaced the roads, inviting him to follow, but they only led to a greater confusion of highways. Some of the larger routes were clogged, despite the early hour. Cars and vans followed each other dutifully, the serpentine streams of trudging traffic well-spaced while they moved but then bunching together again at the next junction like a vehicular concertina.

The vastness of the city was disorientating, but instinct took over and guided by a pale moon – the only light shining above him – and an untested homing instinct, he toured the delights of Millwall, circled the glass-glittering arrogance of Canary Wharf and, crossing the dark ribbon of the Thames again, completed an erratic tour of the East End. The City still beckoned away to the west, bright and twinkling, but it seemed too far away for comfort. Eventually, tired with trying to find his house and now in desperate need of human companionship, he dropped lower, aligning himself along silent streets, searching for a roost. A tree loomed up and he slowed, altering the angle of body and tail before landing with a final sweep of his wings. Unfortunately, this disturbed a colony of starlings who complained vociferously at the intrusion, shrieking and lunging at him with testy aggression, their raucous cries inviting him to push off out of their tree, so he swooped into a nearby garden, spotted the illuminated square of an open bedroom window and executed an immaculate landing on the wooden sill.

Bertie poked his head inside. A small girl lay asleep on a cot bed surrounded by untidy clutter, her cherubic face illuminated by a night light on the bedside cabinet. Bertie looked about in interest. The room was awfully pink, with matching wallpaper, curtains and carpet. Posters and pictures hung on the walls, some skewed as if the room had just experienced a minor earthquake. He hopped on to the pink foot board and regarded the sleeping girl with curiosity. She was very pretty, with chubby red cheeks and a messy tangle of pale blonde curls spread in coiled disarray over a My Little Pony pillow. His movement disturbed the girl. She stirred, opened her eyes and stared directly at him, blinking rapidly.

There was a long, long silence.

Bertie didn't like silences. They made him uncomfortable. His cheerful nature demanded at least some token attempt at communication. ‘Hello! My name is Bertie and I'm very pleased to meet you. Who are you?' His diction was perfect. This was what he had been taught to say and it usually got an answer, but the girl looked strangely shocked. She shrank back in stunned disbelief under the protection of her equine-spattered duvet, pulling it up to her widened eyes and hugging a large, one-eared teddy bear for moral support. Bertie tilted his head to one side. ‘Hello? Anyone home?'

This eventually got a timid response, muffled by the covers. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mister Bertie.' The girl's voice was faint and tremulous – after all, it wasn't every night you woke up to find something huge and violet perched at the bottom of your bed. On the whole, showing the remarkable resilience native to children, she seemed to be coping rather well. ‘I'm Mary,' she said after an awkward pause.

Splendid! This was a major breakthrough between the two species. Bertie liked Mary's oratorical style. Short and simple. Keep the words to a couple of syllables each and he could, with luck and concentration, strike up quite a conversation. However, social niceties could wait. There was something much more important on his mind. ‘Mary, I'm hungry. I want nuts.'

‘Pete, are you awake?'

‘Mmmmm?'

‘Pete!'

Something shook Peter Osborne out of a warm and pleasant slumber. ‘Not now, Cath. I'm tired.' It was an automatic response to a request that had become depressingly rare in the last year or so.

‘Pete, I can hear Mary downstairs.'

‘So what!' This came in Limbo Language, that slurred, in-between-consciousness mumbling which afflicted humans who had just checked out of the real world and were galloping headlong towards the delicious other-universe of sleep. His lack of paternal concern over the welfare of his daughter annoyed Cath.

Actually, quite a lot of things about Pete annoyed Cath.

Catherine Osborne sometimes wondered why she bothered any more – her husband had definitely not turned out to be the man she thought he was when they performed the church aisle shuffle six years ago. She persisted doggedly against his somnolent indifference.

‘But Pete, I can hear her talking.'

There was a non-committal grunt shot through with impressive quantities of disinterest from the vague hump on the other side of the bed. She waited, but the hump showed little inclination to move further and its breathing settled back into pre-snoring mode. Exasperated, she suddenly kicked him. Hard.

‘Wha – what?' A light flared. Pete winced and sat up rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. ‘For God's sake, Cath, what are you doing? It's the middle of the bloody night!' There was that distinct note of irritability in his voice she knew so well. Under normal circumstances it would have been best to leave him be, but Cath could not let this rest and was already out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown. Mary was their only child – and if the frequency of their coition was anything to go by, that situation was unlikely to change.

‘I told you, I heard Mary talking downstairs.'

‘Yeah? Big deal! She's been able to talk for years.'

‘Moron! Cretin!' she ground out. ‘So who's she talking to? Who's answering?' Cath picked up a heavy vase and stole towards the door. As she cracked it open, Pete heard furtive voices downstairs. One was definitely Mary's, but the other most definitely wasn't. Suddenly very awake, he leaped out of bed and looked for a suitable weapon. With rising panic, he jerked open his wardrobe door and after a moment's rummaging, extracted a golf club. A seven iron. Virtually unused.

Pete's painful attempts to master the noble game had cratered Shooter's Hill golf course with divots of varying sizes. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he remained convinced that one day he would be able to strike the ball straight and true without showering his playing partners – and any casual observer unfortunate enough to be within the immediate vicinity – in a generous cascade of stones, shredded turf, and very surprised earthworms. An optimist by nature, Pete was one of those men who firmly believed that if aliens were prepared to travel truly colossal distances across interstellar space only to kidnap and impregnate astonishingly ugly American women with bouncing triplets, then they could also teach him to play golf.

It was all really rather sad.

He padded after Cath, relieved her of the vase and pushed her behind him. Together, they stole down the stairs and along the gloomy hall. Ahead, the kitchen light shone brightly. Mary's voice filtered through the half open door.

‘More?'

‘Yes please.'

Cath clutched Pete's arm as they inched forward. There was a sickening, stomach-churning crack. Like bones breaking. Mary giggled. ‘I don't know how you can get those out without breaking them. Daddy can't.'

‘Easy-peasy.'

Pete took a firm two-handed grip on the club and slowly pushed the door open with its head. They stared into the kitchen. Mary was perched on her stool by the breakfast bar, dressing gown on inside out and legs swinging in mid-air, one slipper dangling from her toes, the other lying abandoned on the floor. Something vast and weird and covered in blue feathers was perched on the back of the stool next to her, gripping the pine backrest with one foot, its steel-coloured claws so sharp little shaves of varnish curled off the wood. Worryingly, those needled tips also seemed to be stained with what looked suspiciously like dried blood. In the other foot it held a Brazil nut to its viciously curved bill. As they gaped in utter disbelief, the armoured husk was effortlessly crushed and the fleshy nut neatly extracted.

‘Wow, that's great,' breathed Mary, lost in wide-eyed admiration. ‘Here.' She pulled another from the packet and held it out.

The big blue thing took the friendship offering and said, ‘Thanks.' Casually. Conversationally. In perfect English.

‘Holy Mother of God!' whispered Pete. Both Mary and her new companion looked up at the sound of his voice.

‘Hello, Daddy.' She wriggled off her stool, ran forward and pulled him into the kitchen by the seven iron. Cath was spot-welded to his back, fists knotted in his pyjamas. She peered over his shoulder with frightened eyes at the huge bird. They both edged nervously towards the breakfast bar. By contrast, Mary showed no fear at all.

‘Hello, Daddy,' repeated Bertie faultlessly. ‘My name is Bertie and I'm very pleased to meet you.'

‘Bertie's my friend. He's something called a highniclinch macaw and was lost and flew in through my window and was
so
hungry we came down here and I gave him some of your nuts and I hope you don't mind, Daddy.' It all came out in one excited, breathless rush. For a moment, Cath observed in a totally detached manner that Bertie's use of grammar was far superior to her daughter's. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

‘No, I don't mind, poppet.' Pete's faint voice still reflected his confusion, after all, it wasn't every day you were awoken from a deep sleep to find your daughter carrying on a conversation with a bird the size of a cooker! On the whole, he thought he was coping magnificently. There was an uncomfortable pause. He didn't want to act the twit in front of his family, but it became very obvious his wife, his child – and probably the macaw as well – were waiting for him to say something. Discounting his simian supervisor at work, it was the first conversation he'd ever attempted with a non-human life form.

‘Bertie?' he asked hesitantly.

‘Yes, Daddy?'

‘His name is Pete, silly,' interjected Mary.

‘Yes, Pete Silly?'

‘Do you have an owner?'

Bertie considered this thoughtfully. He had a mummy. ‘No owner.'

‘Are you lost?'

‘Lost. Yes.'

‘Do you have a mummy?' interjected Mary with a theatrical sigh, hands on hips, obviously much more at ease than her father and impatient to take charge of the situation. Her acquaintance with Bertie was more extensive than his – by about ten minutes. She showed a confidence Pete could never hope to match.

‘Mummy. Yes. Celeste. Bertie loves Celeste. Nut. Please.'

Mary obliged.

‘Thanks.' Bertie was impressively polite.

‘He's very hungry,' said Mary. ‘Perhaps he's been flying all night.'

‘I think he must have escaped,' observed Pete. ‘Pity there's no ring on his leg.'

‘I've never seen such a beautiful creature,' whispered Cath. ‘Could it harm Mary?' She remained safely behind her husband's back. Yes, that was definitely blood on those claws.