The red one has taken a liking to my bedroom. The green one flies about all the time, shouting swearwords, and the multicoloured two perch anywhere so long as it isn’t their official perches.
Someone has taught those damn parrots to shout, “Samantha! I
I put on my most austerely beautiful clothes and my Stiltskins and stormed round to Liam’s flat. He looked terrible. He was in his nightclothes. He hadn’t shaved or combed his curls and I think he was drunk. His flat was just as terrible. I saw it because as soon as he opened the door I marched in with Liam backing in front of me, shouting at the top of my voice. I admit that the nightclothes made me angrier still because it was obvious to me he had a woman in there. But he hadn’t actually. He was just lying about. He said, “Just shut up and tell me what you’re yelling about.” So I did. And he laughed. This made me furious. I yelled, “You are stalking me with
To my further surprise, Liam was almost nice about it. He said, “Now look, Sammy, have you any idea how much parrots cost?” I hadn’t. He told me. It was a lot. “And before you get suspicious that I know,” he said, “I only know because I did an article on them last month. Right? Since when did I have enough money for four parrots? And I don’t even know where you buy hens, let alone partridges. So it’s somebody else doing this to you, not me. He has to be a rich practical joker, and he has to know how to get at your Housebot to make it ignore your orders and let these birds in. So think about all the rich men you know and then go and yell at the likely ones. Not me.”
I gave in. “So I’ve walked all this way for nothing,” I said. “And my feet hurt.”
“That’s because you wear such silly shoes,” he said.
“I’ll have you know,” I said, “that these are the very latest Stiltskins. They cost me thousands.”
He laughed, to my further indignation, and told me, “Then go home in a taxi.”
While I was waiting for the taxi, Liam put his arm round me-in an absentminded way, as if he had forgotten we weren’t still together-and said, “Poor Sammy. I’ve had a thought. What kind of trees are they?”
“How should I know?” I said. “They haven’t any
“That is a problem,” Liam said. “Can you do me a favour and let me know if what your stalker sends next is something quite valuable?”
“I might,” I said, and then the taxi came. I don’t like these latest taxis. A mechanical tab comes out of the meter that says TIP and it’s always huge. But it was probably worth it to know that Liam hasn’t been doing this to me.
WHATEVER IDEA LIAM HAD, he was
Someone’s sent me a
“
The rings are all too small. I think that proves it wasn’t Liam. He once bought me an engagement ring, after all, and he knows that my fingers are rather wide at the base. Unless he’s being very cunning, of course. Whoever sent the rings seems to have very flashy taste. They all reminded me so much of the kind of glass-and-plastic rings that people give you when you are a little girl that I took the whole case of them with me when I went out to the Sales and had them checked out by a jeweller. And they are real. I could buy five more pairs of Stiltskins if I sold them. Well!
I meant to tell Liam, but I met Carla in Oxford Street and I forgot. When I told her, she wanted to know if I was thinking of marrying the unknown stalker. “No way!” I told her. “My mother probably would, though.”
OH MY GOD! I have six geese now. As well as another tree, another partridge, further pigeons, more hens and four extra parrots (making twelve of them and bedlam). I couldn’t believe these geese. I got to the door just as a whole team of men finished handing them indoors. The last one rode in on top of Housebot. They are
The only good thing about this morning was that the same courier turned up with another parcel of rings. He is a nice young man. He seems awed by me. He said hesitantly while I was signing for the delivery, “Excuse me, miss, but aren’t you on that media clothes show?
The rings today are all antique fancy gold. With the same message as yesterday. Liam couldn’t have afforded any of this, even if he mortgaged his flat, his pay and his soul. I forgive him.
And I supposed I should feed the geese. I got on to Avian Foodstuffs again and they sent round a waterproof sack of slimy green nibbles. The geese don’t seem to care for them. They ate all the hen food instead. The hens protested and got gone for again. To shut them all up, I tipped out one whole sack of hen food in the corner of the patio and this just caused another furious battle. Then it rained and the geese all came indoors. The beam that opens and shuts the sliding doors to the patio is set low so that Housebot can get out there to clean the pool, and it turns out to be just goose height.
I then discovered that geese are the most incontinent creatures in the universe. My living space is now covered with lumps of excrement, and the geese waddle through it, tramping it about with their large triangular feet. You interfere with them at your peril. I cracked and phoned Liam.
He said, “Don’t call me. Your phone is probably bugged, if your Housebot is. Meet me at the cafe on the corner.”
How unwelcoming can you get? To make it worse, that cafe is the one where we always used to meet when we were together. But I ground my teeth, got into rainwear and went.
He was sitting outside in the rain. He looks rather good in rainwear. He had even got me the right kind of coffee. He said, “What is it now? Geese?”
I was flabbergasted. “How did you know?”
“And five gold rings yesterday and today?” he said.
“Yes, but all too small,” I said.
“Ah,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “Then you have an admirer who is not only rich hut mindlessly romantic. He is sending you items from an old song-it used to be very popular two hundred years ago-called ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’”
