As a child, I used to go carol singing in our neighbourhood, mainly to raise a little pocket money for Christmas. With a choir-trained voice, I had the advantage of being able to sing, and my efforts were usually rewarded.
Now on this particularly bitter cold night, I was singing away when the house door opened and a very old man and lady peered out. “That was lovely,” they both said, and invited me in.
Nowadays, of course, such an offer to a child would be impossible. A SWAT team would be surrounding the house and breaking the door down within minutes. Even then, as all children know from the Brothers Grimm tales, an old lady is most likely to be a witch who puts you in a cage to fatten you up.
None of these fears was lost on me, but I was extremely cold and the old couple seemed harmless enough.
They led me into a warm and cosy sitting-room, and offered me a comfortable armchair close to an open fire. What a relief it was to feel the warmth in my limbs.
“You must be very cold,” said the old couple. “How about a little glass of ginger wine to warm you up?”
Hey, I was twelve years old, and had never touched anything stronger than orangeade. Where was that SWAT team?
Ginger wine? Ginger beer? What’s the difference, I innocently thought, and said yes, of course. In moments it was served on a tray with a plate of small cakes. Looking back, I now see it as bearing every resemblance to a glass of absinthe, the green devil. Little did I know what was waiting for me.
”A fig roll?”
Fig roll, figgy pudding, Christmas pudding. What could be nicer? “Thank you.”
It was only then that I noticed the parrot, perched in an alcove on my right hand side. It was huge, bright green, and, more to the point, dangerously free to wander. Which it suddenly began to do, edging its way closer and closer to me with a rather nasty gleam in its unpleasantly close eyes.
“Drink up your wine!”
I smiled nervously, lifted the glass to my lips and took a sip. A terrible searing sensation filled my mouth and my throat. I knew I was going to die. It was clear that the inventor of ginger wine for his own tortured reasons must have set out to design a drink that would kill off the human race, or at the very least destroy its taste buds.
The parrot had now hopped on to the back of my chair, and was horribly close to the back of my head. It began probing around my neck with a beak that was enormous, grotesque and highly menacing.
“Have a fig roll. They’re very nice.”
How could I trust these people now? But there was no way out. Into my mouth went a bite of the fig roll. It was dry, bitter and disgusting. I choked on it. Even the parrot wasn’t tempted. It was more interested in my ear lobe.
I must have shown signs of panic. “Oh, don’t worry about him. He wouldn’t hurt a flea.” How often in life do we hear that just before the dog bites you! Then, “Oh, it’s the first time he’s done that,” as if it was somehow your fault.
Now imagine the effect of all this on an impressionable child — a situation which would take the diplomatic skills of the Foreign Office to extract oneself from politely. It seemed I was doomed to die, either of ginger wine poisoning, fig roll inhalation or bleeding to death from a parrot bite.
I don’t really remember how I got out of there. Presumably the ginger wine made me so daring that I stuffed the fig roll into the parrot’s maw, rendering it harmless, and fled to the door. I recall the echoing cry, “Do come again!” as I stumbled away to safety.
Children nowadays will never have this kind of adventure. Maybe in my second childhood, though, there’ll be nothing to stop me from keeping up the old customs and go carol singing. But, if I come knocking on your door, no ginger wine, no fig roll. And above all, please, please, lock up your parrot!
CJM
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