In an almost lightless shop the woman with the Tyrolean hat and I were caught like moths in some dingy spider’s web. The melodious chimes of the door, one felt assured, would have someone running to attend the shop. Instead of which there was silence, except for the faint cheeping of the birds in the window and the sudden shuffling of feathers from a cockatoo in the corner, a sound like unironed washing being spread out. Having shuffled its feathers to its satisfaction, it put its head on one side and said, ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ very softly and with complete lack of interest.
We waited what seemed a long time but was probably only a few seconds. My eyes gradually grew accustomed to the gloom. I saw that there was a small counter and behind it shelves of bird seed, cuttle-fish and other accoutrements of the aviculturist’s trade, and in front of it were a number of large sacks containing hemp and rape and millet seed. In one of these perched a white mouse eating the seeds with the frantic speed of a nervous person nibbling cheese straws at a cocktail party. I was beginning to wonder whether to open the door and make the bell jangle again when, suddenly, a very large and ancient retriever padded its way solemnly through the door at the back of the shop and came forward, wagging its tail. It was followed by a man I took to be Henry Bellow. He was a tall, stout man with a great mop of curly grey hair and a huge bristling moustache, like an untamed gorse bush, that looked as though it were a suitable nesting site for any number of birds. From under his shaggy eyebrows his tiny blue eyes stared out, brilliant as periwinkles, through his gold-rimmed spectacles. He moved with a sort of ponderous slowness rather like a lazy seal. He came forward and gave a little bow.
‘Madam,’ he said, and his voice had the rich accents of Somerset, ‘Madam, your servant.’
The Tyrolean hat looked rather alarmed at being addressed in this fashion.
‘Oh, er. . . ., good day,’ she said.
‘What may I get you?’ inquired Mr Bellow.
‘Well, actually, I came to get your advice,’ she said. ‘Er . . ., it’s about my young nephew. He’s going to be fourteen soon and I want to buy him a bird for his birthday. . . . He’s very keen on birds, you know.’
‘A bird,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘A bird. And what kind of bird, what particular species of birds, have you got in mind, madam?’
‘Well, I, er . . ., I don’t know,’ said the lady in the Tyrolean hat. ‘What about a canary?’
‘I wouldn’t touch canaries at this time of the year,’ said Mr Bellow, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘I wouldn’t touch them myself. And I would be a dishonest man if I sold you a canary, madam.’
‘Why at this time of the year?’ asked the lady, obviously impressed.
‘It’s a very bad time of the year for canaries,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Bronchial trouble, you know.’
‘Oh,’ said the lady. ‘Well, what about a budgerigar?’
‘Now, I wouldn’t advise those either, madam. There’s a lot of psittacosis around,’ said Mr Bellow.
‘A lot of what?’ inquired the lady.
‘Psittacosis, madam. You know, the parrot’s disease. Most of the budgerigars have got it at this time of the year. It’s fatal to human beings, you know. I had an inspector from the Ministry of Health only the other day, come to check on mine. He said they were sure to get it sooner or later, so I couldn’t possibly sell you one of mine.’
‘Well, what bird would you suggest, then?’ said the woman, getting rather desperate.
‘Actually, madam, it’s a very, very bad time of the year to sell birds,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘They’re all in moult, you see.’
‘Then you wouldn’t advise me to get a bird?’ she said. ‘How about something else, like a . . . like a white mouse, or something similar?’
‘Ah, well I’m afraid you’ll have to go somewhere else madam. I’m afraid I don’t deal in them,’ said Mr Bellow.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Oh. Well, I suppose I can always go to Harrods.’
‘A very fine emporium, madam,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘A very fine emporium indeed. I am sure they will be able to satisfy your wants.’
‘Well, thank you so much,’ she said. ‘Most kind of you.’ And she left the shop.
When the door closed Mr Bellow turned and looked at me.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘And what can I have the pleasure of doing for you?’
‘Well, actually, I came to see whether you had any tubifex,’ I said. ‘I work at the Aquarium and we’ve run out of tubifex.’
‘At the Aquarium, eh? With that fellow Romilly?’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Well, well,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘And what makes you think that I would have tubifex? I deal in birds.’
‘That’s what Mr Romilly said, but I thought there was just a chance that you might have some, for some reason or other, and so I thought I’d come and see.’
‘Well, it so happens that you’re right,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Come with me.’
He led me through the door at the back of the shop and into the small and untidy but comfortable sitting-room. It was quite obvious, from the look of the chair and sofa covers, that the dog enjoyed them as much as Mr Bellow did. He led me through the back into a little paved yard where the plane trees from the churchyard hung over, and there was a small pond with a tap dribbling into it, and in the middle of it a plaster cupid standing on a mound of rocks. The pond was full of goldfish and at one end of it was a big jam jar in which was a large lump of tubifex. Mr Bellow fetched a jam jar and ladled some of the tubifex out into it. Then he handed it to me.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Oh, you don’t pay me for it,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Don’t pay me for it. Take it as a gift.’
‘But . . . but it’s awfully expensive,’ I said, taken aback.
‘Take it as a gift, boy. Take it as a gift,’ he said.
He led me back into the shop.
‘Tell me, Mr Bellow,’ I asked, ‘why are all the birds in your window labelled “SOLD”?’
His sharp little blue eyes fastened on me.
‘Because they are sold,’ he said.
‘But they’ve been sold for ages. Ever since I’ve been coming down this alley. And that’s a good two months. Doesn’t anybody ever come and claim them?’
‘No, I just . . . keep them, well, for them, until they’re able to have them. Some of them are building their aviaries, constructing cages, and so forth and so forth,’ said Mr Bellow.
‘Did you sell them when it was the right time of year?’ I asked.
A faint flicker of a smile passed over Mr Bellow’s face.
‘Yes, indeed I did,’ he said.
‘Have you got other birds?’ I asked.
‘Yes, upstairs,’ he said. ‘Upstairs.’
‘If I come back another day when I’ve got more time, can I see them?’
Mr Bellow gazed at me thoughtfully and stroked the side of his chin.
‘I think that might be arranged,’ he said. ‘When would you like to come?’
‘Well, Saturday’s my half day,’ I said. ‘Could I come then? Saturday afternoon?’
‘I’m normally closed on a Saturday,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘However, if you’ll ring the bell three times, I’ll let you in.’
‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘And thank you for the tubifex. Mr Romilly will be very grateful.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Good day to you.’
And I went out and made my way down the alley and back to the shop.
For the next couple of days I thought very deeply on the subject of Mr Bellow. I did not believe for one moment that the birds in his window were sold, but I could not see the point of having them labelled as such. Also, I was more than a little puzzled by his obvious reluctance to sell a bird to the woman in the Tyrolean hat. I determined that on Saturday I would do my best to prise the answer to these secrets from Mr Bellow himself.
/> When Saturday came I made my way down the alleyway and arrived at Mr Bellow’s shop sharp at two o’clock. The notice on the door said, ‘We regret that we are closed.’ Nevertheless, I pressed the bell three times and waited hopefully. Presently Mr Bellow opened the door.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon to you.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Bellow,’ I said.
‘Do come in,’ he said hospitably.
I went in and he locked the shop door carefully after me.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you wanted to see some birds?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said.
He took me out through his living-room and up a very tiny rickety staircase. The top part of the shop consisted of, as far as I could see, a minute bathroom, a bedroom and another room which Mr Bellow ushered me into. It was lined from floor to ceiling with cages and they were full of birds of all shapes, sizes, colours and descriptions. There were groups of tiny vivid little seed-eaters from Africa and Asia. There were even one or two of the gorgeous Australian finches. There were parakeets, green as leaves, and Red Cardinals that were as crimson as royal robes. I was fascinated. Mr Bellow proved to be much abler at his job than Mr Romilly, for he knew the name of each and every bird and its scientific name as well, where it came from, what its food preferences were, and how many eggs it laid. He was a mine of information.
‘Are all these birds for sale?’ I asked, fixing my eyes greedily on a Red Cardinal.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Bellow, and then added, ‘But only at the right time of year.’
‘What’s all this about the right time of year?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Surely if you’re selling birds you can sell them at any time of the year?’
‘Well, some people do,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘But I have always made it a rule never to sell at the wrong time of the year.’
I looked at him and I saw that his eyes were twinkling.
‘Then when is the right time of the year?’ I asked.
‘There is never a right time of year as far as I am concerned,’ said Mr Bellow.
‘You mean you don’t sell them at all?’ I asked.
‘Very rarely,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Only occasionally, perhaps to a friend.’
‘Is that why you wouldn’t let that woman have a bird the other day?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And all those birds in the window marked “sold”, they aren’t really sold, are they?’
Mr Bellow gazed at me, judging whether or not I could keep a secret.
‘Actually, between you and me, they are not sold,’ he admitted.
‘Well, then how do you make a profit?’ I asked.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bellow, ‘that’s the point. I don’t.’
I must have looked utterly bewildered by this news for Mr Bellow gave a throaty chuckle and said,
‘Let’s go downstairs and have some tea, shall we? And I’ll explain it to you. But you must promise that it will go no further. You promise, now?’
He held up a fat finger and waved it at me.
‘Oh, I promise!’ I said, ‘I promise.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do you like crumpets?’
‘Er . . ., yes, I do,’ I said, slightly bewildered by this change of subject.
‘So do I,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘Hot buttered crumpets and tea. Come . . . Come downstairs.’
And so we went down to the little living-room where Mr Bellow’s retriever, whose name, I discovered, was Aldrich, lay stretched sublimely comfortable, across the sofa. Mr Bellow lit a little gas ring and toasted crumpets over it and then buttered them quickly, and when he had made a tottering, oozing pile of them, he placed them on a little table between us. By this time the kettle was boiling and he made the tea and set out thin and delicate china cups for us to drink it out of.
‘Do you like milk?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, please,’ I said.
‘Sugar?’
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
We sipped our tea and then he handed me a crumpet, took one himself and sank his teeth into it with a sigh of satisfaction.
‘What . . . what were you going to tell me about not making a profit?’ I asked.
‘Well . . .’ he said, wiping his hands and his mouth and his moustache fastidiously with his handkerchief, ‘it’s rather a long and complicated story. The whole of this lane – it’s called Potts lane, by the way – once belonged to an eccentric millionaire called Potts. He was what would be known nowadays, I suppose, as a socialist. When he built this line of shops he laid down special rules and regulations governing them. The people who wanted the shops could have them on an indefinite lease and every four years their rent would come up for revision. If they were doing well, their rent was raised accordingly; if they were not doing so well, their rent was adjusted the opposite way. Now, I moved into this shop in 1921. Since then I have been payingfiveshillings a week rent.’
I stared at Mr Bellow disbelievingly.
‘Five shillings a week?’ I said. ‘But that’s ridiculous for a shop like this. Why, you’re only a stone’s throw away from Kensington High Street.’
‘Exactly,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘That is exactly the point. I pay five shillings a week, that is to say one pound a month rent.’
‘But why is the rent so ridiculously small?’ I asked.
‘Because,’ he said, ‘I make no profit. As soon as I discovered this section in the lease I immediately saw that it would provide me with a convenient loop-hole. I had a little money put by – not very much, but enough to get along on. And what I really wanted was a place to live where I could keep my birds. Well, this provided me with the ideal opportunity. I went round to see all the other people in Potts Lane and explained about this clause to them, and I found that most of them were in a similar predicament as myself; that they had small amounts of money to live on, but what they really wanted was a cheap abode. So we formed the Potts Lane Association and we clubbed together and we got ourselves a very good accountant. When I say “good” I don’tmeanone of these wishy-washy fellows who are always on the side of the law; those are no good to man nor beast. No, this is a very sharp, bright young man. And so we meet once every six months or so and he examines our books and tells us how to run at a loss. We run at a loss, and then when our rents come up for revision they either static or are slightly lowered.’
‘But can’t the people who own the property change the leases?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Mr Bellow, ‘that’s the beauty of it. I found out that by the terms of Mr Potts’s will these conditions have to stand.’
‘But they must have been furious when they found out that you were, only paying them a pound a month?’
‘They were indeed,’ said Mr Bellow. ‘They did their very best to evict me, but it was impossible. I got a good lawyer. Again, not one of the wishy-washy sort that thinks more of the law than he does of his customers. He soon put them in their place. They met with an equally united front from all the other shops in the lane, so there was really nothing they could do.’
I did not like to say anything because I did not want to hurt Mr Bellow’s feelings, but I felt sure that this story was a complete make-up. I had once had a tutor who lived a sort of schizophrenic existence and who used to tell me long and complicated stories about adventures that had never happened to him but which he wished had. So I was quite used to this form of prevarication.
‘Well, I think it’s fascinating,’ I said. ‘I think it was awfully clever of you to find it out.’
‘One should always read the small print,’ said Mr Bellow, wagging a finger at me. ‘Excuse me, but I must go and get Mabel.’
He went off into the shop and reappeared with the cockatoo on his wrist. He sat down and, taking the bird in his hands, laid it on its back. It lay there as though carved out of ivory, quite still its eyes closed, saying ‘Hello, hello, hello’. He smoothed its feathers gently and then placed it on his lap where he tickled the feathers over its tummy. It lay there drowsin
g in ecstasy.
‘She gets a bit lonely if I keep her out in the shop too long,’ he explained. ‘Have another crumpet, my dear boy?’
So we sat and ate crumpets and chatted. Mr Bellow I found a fascinating companion. In his youth he had travelled widely round the world and knew intimately a lot of places that I longed to visit. After that I used to go and have tea with him about once a fortnight, and they were always very happy afternoons for me.
I was still disbelieving about his story of Potts Lane, so I thought I would conduct an experiment. Over a period of days I visited in turn each shop in the lane. When I went to Clemystra’s, for example, I went to buy a hat for my mother’s birthday. They were terribly sorry, said the two dear old ladies who ran it, terribly sorry indeed; I couldn’t have come at a worse time. They had just run out of hats. Well, had they got anything else, I inquired? A fur, or something? Well, no, as a matter of fact, they said, all the stuff they had in the shop was bespoken at the moment. They were waiting for a new consignment to come in. When was my mother’s birthday? Friday week, I said. Oh, we think it will be in by then, they said; yes, we’re sure it will be in by then. Do come again.
Mr Wallet, the tobacconist, told me that he did not stock the brand of cigarettes I wanted. He also did not stock any cigars, nor did he stock any pipes. Reluctantly, he let me buy a box of matches.
I next went to the plumbers. I had called, I said, on behalf of my mother because there was something wrong with our cistern and could they send a man round to look at it?
‘Well, now,’ said Mr Drumlin, ‘how urgent is it?’
‘Oh, it’s quite urgent,’ I said. ‘We’re not getting any water into the lavatories or anything.’
‘Well, you see, we’ve only got one man here,’ he said. ‘Only one man and he’s out on a job . . . quite a big job. Don’t know how long it will take him . . . Maybe a day or two.’
‘Couldn’t he come round and do a bit of overtime?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I don’t think he’d like to do that,’ said Mr Drumlin. ‘There’s a very good plumber in the High Street, though. You could go to them. They might have a man free. But I’m afraid I couldn’t guarantee anything, not for . . . oh, two or three days – at the earliest, that is, at the earliest.’