Bertie and the Hairdresser Who Ruled the World

The Curious Chronicles of Bertie Gordon, Part Two

By Mike Vickers

I’m once again straying from my normal path in this article. If you’ve read my previous shameless plug for the first novel in The Curious Chronicles of Bertie Gordon trilogy, you’ll know this is not about any of my travels but is instead a cheerfully brazen attempt to entice you into making an excellent investment in the second book of the series, entitled Bertie and The Hairdresser Who Ruled The World, which has also now been republished on Amazon UK. Actually, travel and novels are intimately linked – the more books I manage to sell the more pennies flood into our holiday coffers, opening up the possibility of a round-the-world jaunt to visit such exotic places as Singapore, Vancouver and New England, and if there’s any cash left, possibly even Reading!

I spent some time working on this book – although not quite as long as I spent on The Kinky Politician – but the same interruptions still apply; running Yakamoz Hotel, getting married and bouncing around between England and Turkey. As I’ve said before, I first got the idea for writing the Bertie series after discovering that macaws and parrots are remarkably intelligent. This intelligence is not limited to just these birds – have you seen videos of the pigs who’ve learnt to play video games to earn treats? Frankly, they’re better on the joystick than I’ve ever been, which is more than a little disheartening.

So, armed with the knowledge that certain birds really are very smart indeed, I thought I’d write a book where the main character is a macaw, and chose the largest and bluest of them all to be my hero, the hyacinth macaw, officially known to science as Anodorhnychus hyacinthinus.

Hyacinths are the biggest of all the macaws and covered in brilliant blue feathers from crown to tip of tail, with contrasting bright yellow patches beside their bills and thin spectacle rings around the eyes. Like all nut eating birds, hyacinths have immensely powerful bills that can effortlessly crush the hardest shell to reach the kernel inside. Being inventive, I also added Bertie has the uncanny ability to remove the ears of people he really doesn’t like. This happens with distressing regularity.

With a length of up to forty inches and a sixty inch wingspan, this is a formidable creature, especially when you throw in a surprisingly complex intellect. It’s all to do with neuron density, apparently, and while I would like to point out that we, as humans, certainly do have a large brain, our brains do not have a particularly high neuron density. Macaws, on the other hand, have a small brain with a high neuron density. The result is a measurable IQ, generally regarded to be on a par with that of a child of four or five years. As I said, these are clever creatures which are also blessed with an extended lifespan – if you live for sixty years plus, you’re bound to accumulate much knowledge along the way.

That’ll do nicely for our hero, and so Bertie Gordon was born. He came from an egg in Brazil but eventually ends up living in Gloucestershire. As you do. Well, come on, it’s a novel. A work of fiction, and like the first book in the series, takes us on a rollicking journey through a lively combination of satire, farce, eccentricity and ludicrously unlikely coincidences.

You’d be surprised how often this happens in Gloucester.

So, what’s the plot?

Well, this second novel carries on from where the Kinky Politician left off, and some of our favourite characters are back. To the astonishment of the nation – and the dismay of the Westminster clique – James is still an MP. He and Celeste have never been happier and even Bertie is getting his oats. Hangdog Detective Constable Wilf also makes a welcome return. The villains this time are a secret cabal, titans of commerce, banking and industry, and Bertie finds himself battling to save Britain from unchecked avarice and corruption on a biblical scale. A quick scan of any newspaper on any day will reveal where I got the inspiration for this story.

However, I’ve also managed to weave into the plot a secret society, noble, enlightened and ancient, set up millennia ago by one of the most famous women of all time, Helen of Troy. Intrigued? Want a teaser? Well, redhead mother-of-two Doreen Coddle is from Chipping Sodbury and one of the most normal and innocuous women you’ll ever meet, but guess what – she’s also a hairdresser…

Here’s an extract to whet your appetite, where a nasty little man called Miller breaks into Celeste’s home and makes a critical error of judgement:

The door was inevitably unlocked. He just loved rural folk. They were so trusting. He eased it open silently, waited a few seconds just in case, then padded into the kitchen, heavy sap in hand. A newspaper rustled in the next room. Miller closed in on the sound like a seagull homing in on an abandoned fish and chip supper. The man had his back to the door. Miller ghosted forward and tapped him on the back of the neck with the sap. He knew exactly how hard to hit someone, having done it many times before, and the man collapsed with a sighing grunt, falling into his open newspaper before sliding gracefully to the floor like an unset grey blancmange, face down, knees tucked up and arse pointing to the beamed ceiling.

‘Exemplary! Give yourself a Mars Bar,’ murmured Miller proudly. That was a perfectly executed blow. He waited for any repercussions, but the cottage remained silent. The only witness watched, but said nothing. Bingo! Miller knew he’d have no difficulty identifying his target and so it proved. A substantial bird cage stood beside the fireplace on a wheeled supporting frame, its wire door open – and beside it perched a large blue macaw.

A very large blue macaw.

Miller baulked for a moment. ‘Jeez,’ he murmured softly, ‘you’re big.’ The two eyed each other up for a moment, then Miller tried the universally accepted approach. ‘Who’s a pretty boy, then,’ he cooed soothingly, clicking his fingers. The bird considered this in aloof silence, then uttered one word.

‘Biscay!’

Miller didn’t have the time for social niceties. He drifted forward, increasingly aware of the size of his target and keeping an eye on its claws, then lunged, grabbed it unceremoniously around the neck and swiftly stuffed it into the cage with little ceremony, thankful for his leather gloves. The bird squawked in loud indignation, wings flapping, but he ignored its shrill protest. A violet feather fluttered to the carpet in the struggle, saving him the trouble of plucking the damned thing. He picked up the feather and taking a plastic bag from his jacket pocket, extracted a forensically clean note using disposable tweezers.

A careful man, was Miller.

Both were laid on the kitchen table. Miller liked a touch of the dramatic and with a violent downward sweep, stabbed feather and note to the table with Celeste’s best Japanese boning knife. His favourite way to leave a message. He retrieved the Transit and reversed up the drive, then rolled the cage to the front door, bumped it over the sill and manhandled it into the back of the Transit, struggling a little with its weight and bulk. The double doors slammed, he strapped himself in and drove away in a manner entirely unsuspicious.

That was easy.

Had he bothered to look back to the cottage, he would have seen another blue bird watching from the bedroom window.

Bertie started out of a light snooze, aware of noises downstairs. Mummy must be home, he thought, and stretched a wing lazily. He’d been basking in a pool of bright sunshine on his favourite window ledge, the only spot in the house where he actually felt as warm as he’d done in Brazil all those years ago. Now there was a country that knew a thing or two about heat. And trees. And rain. Yes, lots of rain. It rained out there almost as much as it did here in this chilly land.

He cocked his head to one side. Surely that was Milly squawking. She didn’t sound at all happy. Odd, considering the circumstances. They’d mated not an hour ago and she seemed pretty happy then. Mind you, she could have been faking it. Bertie had been around humans long enough and seen sufficient TV to understand the unsettling concept of faking it. He also knew she was twenty-five years his junior, but he’d always known she liked the older, the more mature macaw. Having never had a mate before, Bertie had no real experience in these matters to make comparison, but he had to admit that she appeared much more willing nowadays than she had done at their first encounter. That little incident at the zoo must have come as a hell of a shock. In public as well. He’d played to an audience that day. Sadly, her meteorological obsession remained unchanged, hence his preference for a little quiet post-humping reflection up on the bedroom window ledge.

Now alert, Bertie was about to hop down and scamper off to investigate when he heard another squawk. Distance dulled the call, but that one definitely sounded like a cry for help. He became aware of the distinctive rattle of Milly’s cage as it trundled over gravel outside and peered back through the window. To his amazement, he saw a strange man sliding Milly’s cage into the back of a van. She looked up and caught Bertie’s eye even as the doors slammed shut. Moments later, the van made off down the lane.

A wave of agitation swept over Bertie. That shouldn’t have happened. Mummy and Sparrow Man from the zoo had promised Milly would be staying for some days. His concern grew swiftly. He half-hopped, half-fluttered down the stairs and scampered into the lounge, but there was something very wrong with Wilf. He knew how people were supposed to sleep. They lay down flat and made funny rasping noises with their mouths open. Daddy was especially good at this. However, Wilf was propped against the sofa, his rear end skywards, his face squashed flat against the rug. Now that didn’t look comfortable at all. Something was very wrong here. Bertie  chirruped in an attempt to wake him, but there was no response. He tickled an ear with the tip of his bill. Again, nothing. Perhaps this needed something a little more vigorous, so he tugged hard on a wisp of hair and squawked in surprise when it came loose in his beak. He felt an intense pang of guilt. Wilf’s plumage was exceedingly sparse at the best of times and now he’d pulled out a large percentage of what little remained.

Obviously, Wilf was dead. That was an unsettling thought. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t helped Milly. Bertie knew Wilf would have stopped the strange man if he could, but he hadn’t. Because he was dead. And now even balder. Pity. Bertie had really liked Wilf, but he had no time to mourn. Milly had called for help. She was his mate. He had to do something. With Celeste nowhere to be seen and Wilf now dead, the moment for action had arrived – and Bertie was the sort of macaw who understood the need for action. Time was of the essence and he needed to get after Milly, so he stuffed the plucked strands of hair under the sofa cushion – just in case there was a slim chance Wilf was still alive and he needed to hide the evidence – then scuttled into the kitchen and heading for the back door, nosed open Sebastian’s cat flap. Finally, that damned animal had proved useful. He squeezed his bulk through and once outside, immediately took to the air. Like a huge blue bomber, Bertie banked around the side of the house in a flash of azure, gained height and set off in hot pursuit of the van.

If you find yourself intrigued and feel an overwhelming urge to know what happens next, why not get a copy.

Come on, you know you want to…

Bertie and The Hairdresser Who Ruled The World is available here on Amazon UK as a download for e-book, price £2.99, or as a print-on-demand actual paperback, with pages for turning while enjoying a nice cuppa and some quality dunking biscuits, price £9.99 – and if you enjoyed Bertie, please don’t forget to leave a glowing review on Amazon.