*
I lived alone and ate alone and worked alone and slept alone.
Morning. I was in one of those funny moods in which work seems unusually difficult. I was seated at the kitchen table where I normally worked, quite incapable of motivating myself to begin to summarise a report on vacuum cleaner engines.
In an attempt to kick-start myself I went down to the corner shop to get milk.
In the hall downstairs above the mailbox was a board on which were pinned notices for the residents of the block and on my return I went to check if there might be anything of consequence. There was the usual: an announcement stating the fire alarms were to be tested, a piece of misaddressed mail, a notice about the sorting of refuse and a sheet with the previous year’s accounts. But there was also an A4 sheet with the word PETS typed in capitals, underlined by hand with a black marker and followed by two rather hysterical exclamation marks.
“ FLAT 22a., WILLIAM MATHERS, Flat 22a, was sadly a victim of his pet. All residents are advised to exercise caution in their choice of companion animal and to respect the comfort and safety of other residents. Signed Barry, Building Manager”
And beneath the text were two photographs, one of a beaming Mr Mathers, a middle aged man with a huge smile and robust, masculine features, and another photo of a gigantic boa constrictor with a conspicuous bulge in its middle: also Mr William Mathers, presumably. Someone had stuck a heart-shaped sticker of a teddy bear next to the first photo.
I returned to my apartment.
I had not known William Mathers of flat 22a well, but I recalled him, some years back, helping me with the kitchen table I’d just bought.
The delivery men had parked their van in the street in front and had placed the table on the pavement outside the block. I’d descended to meet them.
“Hi. It’s up on the second floor, I’ll open the door..”
They replied with bland expressions, “Nah mate. We just deliver to the block, see. Nothing about stairs.”
And his mate showed me the delivery note. “If they’d meant us to take it up the stairs they’d have written that.” I looked at his fat dull face. “Just sign this, mate,” he continued. “Down ‘ere”.
Thus, I stood there with a 5 foot kitchen table on the pavement outside the block, scratching my head, when a sturdy fellow in gym clothes appeared.
“Leave it to me,” he said, easily raising the vast pine table onto his massive shoulders before marching grandly up the stairs, my only duty being to hold the doors open.
"Need anything else?" he asked with a smile. And we chatted briefly, his stolid virtue impressing itself upon me, and thereafter he never passed in the block or street without a greeting.
With that recollection, a wave of melancholy crashed over me, and I sat at that same kitchen table immobilised by sadness, the milk carton still sealed on the table and my laptop open apathetically at:
Hardware design considerations for an efficient vacuum cleaner using a BLDC motor.
For how could a man ever find it in himself to research suction systems when his own neighbour has been swallowed by a snake?
Was it sentimentality on my part or had the atmosphere in the block, usually so impersonal, changed? I fancied that it might have, that my fellow residents were careful to greet me in the stairwell or exchange cordialities at the mailboxes or to hold the door at the entrance or even, on one occasion, for two of their children to help carry my supermarket bags up to my flat.
But whatever feelings the news of my helpful neighbor’s decease might have generated, the advice included on the notice can have had little impact for just two weeks later a second A4 sheet appeared.
“ FLAT 40 MRS BLACKMORE. Mrs Blackmore, Funeral. 7 April. Mrs Blackmore, known to many as Nelly sadly passed away, an unfortunate victim of her parakeets. I wish to take this opportunity to urge all residents to exercise caution in their choice of companion animal and to respect the comfort and safety of other residents. Signed, Barry, Building Manager”
A neighbor joined me at the noticeboard.
“Well... ” I said.
“Lovely lady,” he replied. He was an older man with fine silver hair. “Lovely birds too. Green, yellow, red, pink. So charming.” He broke his reminiscence sharply. ”But that's the thing with parakeets.”
“Really?” I said, “They seem harmless enough.”
“Let them out of the cage, she did. Never let them out of the cage. I always said that. Never let them out of the cage. She left the cage open at night, she did, and they got her while she was sleeping.” He continued with a sigh, shaking his head from side to side. “Started with her eyes. ” He paused for a moment.
“Oh dear,” I said.
He then looked directly at me, and I saw his eyes were welling with tears, “I always said that, I did, never let them out of the cage.”
And with that woeful wisdom he disappeared to his apartment.
And another neighbour approached the notice board, a youngish woman who I think lived above me. She gave me a nervous glance, came over closely and, leaning her head to one side conspiratorially, whispered, “her feet were all gone”.
“Christ. That’s insane”.
“Yeah. There’s something not right about that,” she added, and wandered off.
*
I lay on my bed imagining Mrs Blackmore, known as Nelly, being pecked to death in her sleep less than fifty metres away, first her eyes removed then what? Tongue? Fingers? And her feet? What was that about? And how many parakeets were there? - their pastel plumage turned ruby red. There must have been quite a frenzy. I pictured them wheeling about her slumbering corpse, nightgown tattered, feathers floating in the turbulence above her.
These thoughts made me feel quite uncomfortable, though I had no recollection of meeting the lady or her birds.
*
There were, happily, no more such messages.
There was no announcement of an Extraordinary Residents Meeting. The block did not work in that way. There was, howeve,r an impromptu gathering in the entrance foyer: about twenty residents were there- quite what the specific cause was was not clear. The man with silver hair was there, head sadly bowed, as was the youngish lady, who gave me a little wave. I also recognised Neville and his wife, a couple who lived on the floor above and whom I'd helped with the loan of a vacuum cleaner.
He was the most vocal, his voice bellowing, “it's those imported pets. I knew it. Those imported pets. Cause nothing but trouble, I told everyone. They should deport the lot of them.”
His wife added, “yes you did Neville. You were right on the ball”.
Neville continued, "They shuld deport the lot of them."
But another man, perhaps Indian in origin, added, “find me a truly English native pet? You think Siamese cats and goldfish are native to England?”
“And what about tortoises:?” asked a child who I saw was one of the two children who had, some weeks earlier, helped me with my shopping.
“Will my hamster be deported?” asked his sister looking up to me nervously .
"I don't think you should start worrying ," I replied.
All his seemed to rile Neville, “oh you lot are just nitpicking!” he declared.
“Come on everyone, “ came an authoritative voice: it was Barry the Building Manager. “You can’t hand around here. Health and Safety. And he pointed to a notice:
"No more than 5 persons are permitted to gather here at any time. By Order”.
“Let's go, Neville”, said his wife.”We're definitely off to Portugal if it carries on like this”. And she took him by the arm and with their departure the rest of the group dispersed.
There were no further incidents. Perhaps Barry’s advice had finally been heeded, and we duly returned to our previous mutual indifference and I carried my own shopping up the stairs.
Autumn became winter. We shivered. And, in my solitude, I wrote:
“Maximum suction occurs when a sealed suction gauge is used…”
*
Read to: The Writers Group Gainsville, 14 August, 2021, Albuquerque Cyberscrives, 17 August, 2021, Astoria Writers Group 22 August, 2021
*
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