Free The Birdcage by John Bowen Page A

company. For by now there was quite a little group of starlings watching. Norah Palmer was not sure how many, because they would not stay still to be counted. Since each starling of the group moved at different times and never for long, the effect was almost of a brown tide with little flurries and swirls of speckled foam getting all the time closer and closer to Fred.
    Then one of the starlings flew at him. Well, really! Fred seemed bewildered. He left the piece of bread, hopped a little way back, and then stopped. The starling was as big as he was. Bigger. If it had pecked him, Norah Palmer couldn’t see the place. Perhaps it had only been a warning. Poor Fred!—they were warning him off. He would do better to stick to birdseed, and leave the crusts of charity to those for whom they were intended. Abruptly all the starlings flew at him together.
    Fred fell over. The starlings pecked at his head and his eyes. “Oh!” Norah Palmer cried. “You beasts! Go away!” and clapped her hands to frighten them. But the starlings took no notice. There was blood on Fred’s head. Norah Palmer wanted to weep, and she wanted to shout, and she wanted to hurt the starlings, but she was helpless there behind the window, out of reach and helpless. They were pecking at Fred, beating at him with their wings, and he had never known anything like this before, and could neither fly away nor fight back. In a moment they would have killed him, or he would fall off the roof into the street below. If she were to throw something … the soap…. She reached to get it, but even as she did so, the starlings scattered, and just for a moment she saw Fred clearly, lying there on the slate roof struggling to get up, his bright feathers dusty and draggled with blood. Then there was a shadow over Fred, and sharp talons and grey wings thatcame out of the shadow, and hovered only for an instant, and after that there was nothing on the roof, neither Fred nor the starlings, but only perhaps the hint, the merest whisper, of a purple feather hanging in the air.
    London is a city of predators. There are kestrels at Ken Wood; they have been known to nest on the tall buildings of the City. Plumage of green and purple, a flurry of starlings —such trivial signals may interest those who wait, high in the air, watching all day those of us who, going about our daily affairs, forget that they are there. When the gods are interested, little things may die. The kestrel took Fred and carried him away, high and away, far out of reach of soap or shouting, so high into the sun that Norah Palmer’s eyes were dazzled, and she could not even follow his flight.
    *
    She had determined to keep the break clean, and save herself pain. One evening, ten days after she had left the flat in Beaufort Street, Norah Palmer made a telephone call to Peter Ash.
    She listened to the ringing tone. It rang once, twice, three times, four.
He’s out
, she thought, disappointed and relieved at once. She was mad to have tried; she would not ring again. Then the receiver at the other end was picked up, and Peter Ash said, “Kensington Four One——”
    “Peter? It’s Norah.”
    A pause.
    “Oh!”
    “I was wondering if you were in.”
    “Yes…. Yes, I am.”
    “You’re not doing anything?”
    “Nothing special. Cooking.”
    A pause.
    “How are things with you?” Brightly.
    “Oh … you know.”
    “I hope I didn’t forget anything when I left.”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Well…. That’s all right, then.”
    “Thank you for ringing.”
    A pause.
    “I’ll say good-bye, then.”
    “Good-bye, Norah.”
    Norah Palmer replaced the receiver.
Silly bitch; that’s what you get
, she thought. She would not ring again.
    Peter Ash, a little disturbed, returned to the kitchen where he had been frying bacon for supper. For the first time he noticed that Lucy was huddled to one end of her gilded cage, out of sorts and lustreless. Pining, he supposed. He would have to ask Mrs.