Free Golden Afternoon by M. M. Kaye Page A

about six inches long and exceedingly talkative. Fortunately, since Tacklow was away so much and we would accompany him on his tours whenever we could, ‘Club’ Chips soon transferred his allegiance to the Club’s cook, who used to feed him for us whenever we were away. Preferring a static owner to ones perpetually on the move, ‘Club’ Chips very sensibly decided to move in where thefood was, and since the cook became quite fond of him, we lost him to the kitchen department some time during one of our Rajputana trips. This was lucky, since shortly after his defection, the Club
mali
(gardener) presented us with ‘Pozlo’ * — a tiny, naked hideosity, all eyes and beak and about the size of a somewhat battered golf ball. An unalluring object that, given the chance, should grow up to be a purple-headed parakeet.
    Pozlo’s parents, for reasons best known to themselves, had pushed him out of the hole in a silk cotton tree in which they had made their nest, and the
mali
had found him cheeping forlornly on the ground and had put him back. But an hour later he had been pushed out again. The same thing happened when we took over and returned him to his nest — twice. Nature is ruthless in these matters, and presumably there was something wrong with the poor fellow that was imperilling the rest of the fledgelings.
    Since it was obvious that if we did not take him into care a cat or a snake would make a meal of him, we decided to keep him, even though he hadn’t a single feather to fly with, being still only skin and quills, and we had no idea what to feed him on. However, he was far more afraid of falling than he was of us, and regarding a finger as a lifebelt, he would cling to it for all he was worth. It obviously spelled safety in a harsh world, and from then on we were friends and allies. I think I am right in saying that we started him on a cannibalistic diet of chopped hard-boiled egg, before abandoning it in favour of mashed banana and any other available fruit, on which he flourished and grew feathered. And, as with all our pets, he ended up by attaching himself firmly to Tacklow.
    Purple-headed parakeets are small birds that look larger than they are because their blue tail-feathers are at least three times the length of their stumpy little bodies. But since Pozlo had not acquired a tail, he fitted very nicely into the palm of one’s hand. Tacklow bought him the biggest cage he could find in the bazaars and Pozlo loved it. He learned very soon how to open and shut the door and it was a treat to see him turning to latch his front door carefully behind him. I daresay if we had provided him with a notice saying ‘Do Not Disturb’ he would have learned to hang it out when he felt like it.
    It was in the ballroom of the future Kashmir House that I attended what was to be my very first ball, as opposed to a mere dance. A ‘BlueCross Ball’ in aid of the RSPCA, it was a best-dress, sixteen-button glove * affair, since it was attended by an assortment of the Great, including His Excellency the Governor of This, That and the Other Province, as well as the Viceroy and his wife, a glitter of Indian royalties, a shimmer of Indian Civil Servants, a froth of Foreign-and-Politicals, and any number of full-dress uniforms — the Raj in splendour!
    Fortunately, we had been invited to join a large party, and since it was the custom for every male guest to dance at least once with every female one, I cannot have had to sit out too many dances. Anyway, it stays fixed in my memory as a wonderful and exciting occasion — which it certainly would not have done had I spent it being a wallflower. But although I can’t remember the colour of the dress I wore, or who I danced with or talked to, I still remember very clearly one particular item of the amateur cabaret show that was almost an obligatory accompaniment to any charity ball.
    The lights in the ballroom were all switched