The Wedding Party by H. E. Bates Read Free Book Online Page A

said:
    â€˜Oh! I didn’t mean to drag you out of bed. I really didn’t—’
    Something about these remarks seemed to strike him as being not quite right, so that he was embarrassed still further and tried to excuse himself by saying:
    â€˜You see the awful thing is that my wife will vow anddeclare I let him out. She did once before. He flew miles and miles away and we had the dickens of a job – I suppose you haven’t a ladder by any chance, have you?’
    â€˜I think there must be one in the garage. Shall I get it?’
    â€˜Oh! no no. I’ll go. I’ll get it.’
    â€˜No, please. I’ll go. You stay and watch the bird. Just in case he flies down.’
    When Mrs Daly came struggling back with the ladder, a big wooden extendable one, the man was calling with piteous insistence into the laburnum tree:
    â€˜You must come home. Mumsie will be angry if you don’t come. Mumsie will cry.’
    Mrs Daly, staggering under the weight of the ladder, managed to gasp out:
    â€˜What does he usually have for breakfast? Perhaps if I fetched a few bread crumbs that might entice him—’
    â€˜Oh! he generally has corn-flakes with a little brown sugar. Oh! I’m so awfully sorry – let me have the ladder – Oh! by the way my name’s Greenwood. I’m terribly sorry to inflict all this on you.’
    While Mr Greenwood took over the struggle with the ladder Mrs Daly went into the house to fetch the brown sugar and the corn-flakes. With a rough clatter of wood on wood the ladder mounted the laburnum tree, first frightening the budgerigar so that it flew down and settled on a bush of cream roses and then bringing Mr Daly with renewed fury to the bedroom window.
    â€˜And what in hell are you doing with my ladder?’ he shouted. ‘Who the blazes do you think you are?’
    â€˜I’m trying to get up to the budgerigar—’
    â€˜Good God, man, it isn’t there! It’s on the far side of the garden. Sitting on a rose bush. I can see it from here.’
    â€˜Gracious me, so it is—’
    In his sudden excitement Mr Greenwood let the ladder slip so that it crashed into the laburnum tree, splitting several branches. This event had barely started to madden Mr Daly afresh when he was utterly stunned to see his wife tripping across the dew-soaked lawn with a glass bowl of brown sugar in one hand and a packet of corn-flakes in the other.
    Out of an astonished silence he managed at last to produce a wordless croak or two but these were too feeble for either Mrs Daly or Mr Greenwood to hear. By this time Mr Greenwood was approaching the bush of cream roses with the creeping stealth of a hunter of rare fauna. With coaxing whispers he begged the blue budgerigar to think of Mumsie and come home, at the same time waving his butterfly net. A few moments later the triumph of capture seemed to be almost within his grasp but at the crucial moment Mrs Daly called:
    â€˜Here I am with the sugar and the corn-flakes—’
    The sudden sound of her voice startled the budgerigar into flight. With what seemed to be almost mischievous flutterings it crossed the rose-bed and flew over a thick cupressus hedge into the road beyond.
    With the desperation of a man pursuing a runaway Mr Greenwood wrenched open the garden gate and gave chase, madly waving the butterfly net, with Mrs Daly only a yardor two behind him, waving the corn-flakes and the bowl of sugar in excited unison.
    Outside in the road a lost and bewildered Mr Greenwood stood staring this way and that, unable to see his pet, but joy flooded his face as Mrs Daly called:
    â€˜I see him! There he goes! Over there by the telephone box.’
    Both Mr Greenwood and Mrs Daly started running. With a few last spasms of speechless wrath Mr Daly watched them go and then dragged himself back to bed, half-convinced he was part of some wakeful nightmare.
    â€˜He’s perching on the top of the