A Parrot in the Pepper Tree by Chris Stewart

Author:Chris Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Spain
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2001-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

10

A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

Outside our holiday cottage, El Duque, is a false pepper tree. We planted it as a seed, a little thing encased in what looks like a red peppercorn – but isn’t. Schinus molle (the Latin name) grows at an astonishing rate. Within three years it had become a fullblown tree with a thick peppery-barked trunk and a great mass of pendulous green foliage set with little clouds of false red peppercorns. You could happily doze and while away the afternoon hours in its shade. It hangs over the cottage gate.

One July morning, as Ana was passing beneath the pepper tree with a sack of washing in her arms, something bright green and feathery fluttered down and landed on her shoulder. It was a parrot – not a bird you see much of in Andalucia. It perched quietly and looked at her, its head on one side, and stayed there as she opened and loaded the boot of the car. “Hallo,” said Ana, who is not a person to be caught off guard by an event like this. “Do you want to come home with me, then?”

The parrot shuffled closer to her head and nibbled her ear in what she took to be a friendly way. “Well, it would be a fine thing to have our very own parrot, but let’s go and see if Antonia knows anything about you first,” Ana suggested.

♦

Antonia was the obvious person to ask about parrots because she’d been looking after Yacko, her Dutch family’s pet African Grey, for the last couple of years. Yacko is ancient and, as a result of a feather-pecking habit, resembles a small plucked turkey, with a huge beak and one scarlet feather sticking out of its butt. Since moving south he has spent most of his time hiding behind the fridge, from where he surveys a thin sliver of the Alpujarran landscape with a jaundiced eye, pining no doubt for the polders and tulips and the grey skies of home.

When Ana arrived with a stray parrot on her shoulder, Yacko couldn’t help but edge his beak around the front of the fridge to take a look. He gave an almighty squawk and scuttled backwards, jamming himself in among the pipes. Yacko does this to people, too, if less dramatically, like a suburban householder retreating behind their net curtains. Later, though, I wondered if Yacko hadn’t picked up on some deep and irremediable personality flaw in Ana’s windfall parrot.

Antonia had heard nothing about a missing pet but promised to help spread the word around the valley and into town. Meanwhile she loaded Ana up with seeds and useful advice about the bird’s diet and general care. The parrot seemed to like the idea of going home with Ana and clung to her shoulder as she climbed into the front seat and started the engine. Then, as the car bounced across the valley to El Valero, it stepped delicately onto the back of the passenger seat, as if to survey its new home.

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