Fillets of Plaice, by Gerald Durrell (7 page)

“Well, it's not,” said Spiro.

“But he and she look like the mama and the papa,” said the fisherman, pointing at Sven and Mother, “and the rest look just like their children. The one with the beard, I suppose, must be the grandfather. What part of England do they come from?”

It was quite obvious that if this went on much longer Spiro would seize an empty wine bottle and bash the fisherman over the head with it.

“Do you think perhaps I ought to have a few words with him?” said Mactavish.

“No,” said Larry. “Here, Spiro, let me deal with him.” He leaned over the side of the benzina and in his most mellifluous voice said in Greek,

“Listen, my soul, we are an English family.”

“Welcome,” said the fisherman, smiling broadly.

“We have come here in this boat,” said Larry slowly and clearly, “and we have run out of petrol. Also we have run out of food.”

“Run out of petrol?” said the fisherman. “But you can't move if you haven't got petrol.”

“That is exactly the point,” said Larry. “So would you be kind enough to let us hire your boat so that we may go down to Metaloura, get some petrol and bring it back here?”

The fisherman absorbed this information, wiggling his brown toes in the pile of red mullet, squid and octopus that was lying in the bottom of his boat.

“You will pay me?” he inquired anxiously.

“We will pay you fifty drachmas to take one of us to Metaloura and another fifty drachmas to bring that person back.”

Briefly the man's eyes widened with astonishment at this lavish offer.

“You wouldn't give me fifty-five drachmas, would you?” he inquired, but without much hope in his voice, for he realised that the price was a very large sum of money for such a simple task.

“Oh, now, my soul,” said Larry, “my golden one, you know I'm offering you a fair price and that I will not cheat you. Would you have it said that you would try and cheat us? You, a Greek, to strangers in your country?”

“Never!” said the fisherman, his eyes flashing, having forgotten the story of the Englishman he had cheated. “A Greek never cheats a foreigner in his country.”

“Now, here,” said Larry, extracting two fifty-drachnia notes, “is the money. I am giving it to this man who is a Greek like yourself and he will carry it with him, and when you come back with the petrol I will make sure that he gives it to you without cheating you.”

So touched was the fisherman by this that he agreed instantly and Larry carefully placed the two fifty-drachma notes in the pocket of Spiro's shirt.

“Now, for God's sake, Spiro,” he said in English, “get into that bloody boat and go and get us some petrol.”

With something of an effort, for he was a portly man, Spiro lowered himself gingerly over the side of the benzina and got into the fisherman's boat, which sank several inches farther into the water with the addition of his weight.

“Do you want me to go now or this evening?” inquired the fisherman, looking up at Larry.

“Now!” said all the Greek-speaking members of the party in unison.

The fisherman started his engine and they headed out into the bay, Spiro sitting like a massive, scowling gargoyle in the bows.

“Oh, I say!” said Donald, as the little boat disappeared round the headland. “How frightfully remiss of us!”

“What's the matter now?” inquired Larry.

“Well, if we had bought all his octopus and fish and things we could have had some lunch,” said Donald plaintively.

“By God, you're right,” said Larry. “Why didn't you think of it, Mother?”

“I don't see why I should be expected to think of everything, dear,” she pretested. “I thought he was going to tow us down the coast.”

“Well, we can always have limpets for lunch,” I said.

“If you mention those disgusting things once more, I shall be sick,” said Margo.

“Yes, shut up,” said Leonora. “We've got enough problems on our hands without you interfering.”

So we tried to distract our minds from our empty stomachs. Mactavish gave Leslie lessons in how to draw the pearl-handled revolver rapidly from his hip. Leonora and Margo alternately sun bathed and swam. Larry, Sven, Donald and Max argued in a desultory fashion about art and literature. Mother completed some complicated piece of knitting, dropping more than the regulation number of stitches. Theodore, having remarked to everybody's irritation once again that it was a good thing that he was a small eater, pottered off to collect some more specimens in the stagnant pool at the bottom of the cliffs. I took my penknife round to the rocks and fed ravenously on limpets.

Having nothing to eat, we all got rather drunk on the large supply of wine which we still had left, so towards evening Donald and Max were dancing another complicated middle-European dance while Larry was endeavouring to teach Sven to play “The Eton Boating Song” on his accordion. Mother, now secure in her mind at the idea of rescue, had slept peacefully throughout this raucous party, but it got later and later and all of us, although we didn't say anything, had the same thought in mind. Had Spiro, in fact, accompanied by the mad fisherman, reached his destination or were they marooned as we were in some remote bay? For the fisherman had looked as though his knowledge of navigation was practically nil. As the light was fading even the effects of the wine did not make us convivial and we sat in a morose bunch, exchanging only an occasional and generally acrimonious remark. It was like the tail end of a good party when everybody wishes everybody would go home. It was the dying embers of pleasure, and the approach of night was putting ash on them to kill them. Even the sky, which had decided that night to be like burnished copper streaked with gold, elicited no response.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the little fishing boat slid round on the gold-blue water into the bay. There in the stem sat our mad fisherman and there in the bows, like a massive bulldog, sat Spiro. Immediately all the complicated and beautiful patterning the sunset had made upon the sea and the sky became twice as vivid. Here was rescue. They had returned!

We gathered in an anxious bunch at the end of the beach as the little boat drew nearer and nearer. Then the fisherman switched off his engine and the boat, under its own impetus, headed towards us.

Immediately the sound of the engine and its echo died away, Spiro shouted in his Minotaurian voice,

“Don'ts you worrys, Mrs Durrells, I've fixed it.”

Simultaneously we heaved a sigh of relief, for when Spiro said that he had fixed something we knew it was fixed. The boat came drifting in, nosed and scrunched its way gently onto the sand and we saw that lying between the fisherman and Spiro was a whole roasted sheep on a spit and beside it a great basket containing all the fruits of the season.

Spiro scrambled clumsily out of the boat and waded massively ashore like some strange sea monster.

“I broughts us foods,” he said, “but they hadn't gots any petrols.”

“To hell with the petrol,” said Larry, “let's get that food ashore and eat!”

“No, no, Master Larrys, it doesn't matters abouts the petrols,” said Spiro.

“But if we haven't got any petrol we're never going to get away from here,” said Mother. “And that sheep won't last for long in this heat now that all the ice has melted in the ice-box.”

“Don'ts you worrys, Mrs Durrells,” said Spiro, “I tells you I'd fix it and I fixed it. I gots all the fishermens to come down and fetch us.”

“What fishermen?” asked Larry. “The only one we've seen is this fugitive from a lunatic asylum.”

“No, no, Master Larrys,” said Spiro, “I mean the fishermens from Corfus. The ones that comes out at nights.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Larry.

“I know,” I said, eager to display my superior knowledge. “It's a whole fleet of benzinas that come out to fish at night with lights. They fish with nets and lights and I got some of my best specimens from them.”

“Did you get those extraordinary
Argonauta argus
from them?” inquired Theodore with interest.

“Yes,” I said, “and I also got a Duck's Foot Starfish.”

“Well, I hope to God they're reliable,” said Larry.

“I fixed it, Master Larrys,” said Spiro in a faintly indignant tone of voice. “They says that they'll be heres at about twos o'clocks.

“After they've finished their fishing, though?” inquired Theodore.

“Yes,” said Spiro.

“They might have procured some interesting specimens,” said Theodore.

“That's exactly what I thought,” I said.

“For God's sake, stop talking about specimens and let's get the food out,” said Larry. “I don't know about anybody else but I'm ravenous.”

Carefully we extracted the sheep's carcass, burnt and polished by the flames like fumed oak, and the basket of fruit. We transported it to our benzina so that not one morsel of it should be touched with sand, and there we had the most glorious meal.

Now it was night and the moon striped the water orange, yellow and white. We were replete with food and had drunk far too much wine. Sven played his accordion incessantly while the rest of us all endeavoured to do polkas and waltzes and complicated Austrian dances suggested by Max. So vigorously did we dance that Leonora fell over the side in a glorious chrysanthemum burst of phosphorescence.

Then at two o'clock the fishing fleet arrived and stationed itself, lights gleaming like a string of white pearls across the mouth of our bay. Then one benzina detached itself and came chugging in and, after the normal amount of Greek altercation, which made the cliffs echo and tremble, we were hitched up to it, towed away and then joined on to the main fleet.

Then the fleet started heading for Corfu and, with their lights burning, it seemed to me that we were like the tail end of a comet shooting across the dark waters of space.

As our pilot boat nosed us in gently to the jetty beneath the old fort, Mother said with infinite feeling,

“Well, it has been enjoyable in a way, but I'm so glad it's over.”

At that precise moment about sixteen drunken fishermen who had entered into the spirit of the whole affair as only Greeks can do, were, under Spiro's instructions, moving the ice-box from our benzina onto the jetty. Owing to the fact that they could not move it one way, after some discussion they all turned round and moved it the other way, with the result that half the fishermen and the ice-box dropped into about two fathoms of water.

“You see!” said Mother. “It's the last straw! I
knew
we shouldn't have brought that ice-box.”

“Nonsense,” said Larry, “to-morrow morning we can get it out of there as easily as anything.”

“But without the ice-box what am I going to
do
?” exclaimed Mother. “I'll have to reorganise
all
the food for at least three or four days.”

“Oh, do stop fussing,” said Larry. “Really, one would think it was a major catastrophe. Spiro can bring the food up to us.”

“Well, it may not be a major catastrophe as far as you're concerned,” said Mother frigidly, “but it is as far as
I
am concerned.”

Having embraced and said farewell to the rest of the party, we got into Spiro's car and he drove us out to the villa. Although Larry hummed merrily and although Leslie showed Mother the beauty and intricacies of the pearl-handled revolver, although Margo tried to persuade her that the dress length would be absolutely ideal for her, and although even I tried to lighten her spirits by telling her about a rare butterfly that I had managed to catch with her birthday butterfly net, Mother maintained a frigid silence until we reached the villa. Obviously the loss of her precious ice-box had wounded her very deeply.

When we got in she poured herself a very stiff brandy and sat on the sofa, obviously trying to work out menus that one could cope with without an ice-box until it was retrieved from the depths of the sea, as we all — including Spiro — assured her it would be.

Larry had found some mail waiting for him. Filling a glass with wine, he started to open the letters with interest.

“Oh good!” he exclaimed, when he got to the second letter, “The Grubcnsteins are coming… and they're bringing Gertrude with them.”

Mother came out of her gastronomic trance.

“Grubensteins?” she said. “You don't mean that awful greasy little man who looks as though he hasn't washed for about six weeks and that gipsy-like wife of his?”

“Great talent,” said Larry. “He's going to make a fine poet. She paints awfully well. Gertrude's very interesting, too. You'll like her.”

“The less I see of them,” said Mother with dignity, “the better I'll be pleased. I don't know about this Gertrude woman, but the Grubensteins left a great deal to be desired.”

“What d'you mean, the less you see of them?” said Larry with surprise. “They're coming to stay here.”

“You haven't invited them here!” Mother said, startled.

“Of course I have,” said Larry, as though it was the most natural thing in the world; “they've got no money to stay anywhere else.”

Mother took a large gulp of brandy, put on her spectacles and what she considered to be her most fierce expression.

“Now look here, Larry,” she said in a firm tone of voice, “this has got to stop. I will not have you inviting all these people, at least not without letting me know. When are they supposed to be arriving?”

“The day after to-morrow,” said Larry.

“Well, it's got to stop,” said Mother, “my nerves won't stand it.”

“I don't see what you're carping about,” said Larry irritably; “they're a very nice trio. And anyway, you've just had a nice
holiday
, haven't you?”

TOWARDS the end of 1939, when it looked as though war was inevitable, my family uprooted itself from Corfu and came back to England. We settled for a time in a flat in London while my mother made repeated forays into different parts of the English countryside in search of a house. And while she was doing this I was free to explore London. Although I have never been a lover of big cities I found London, at that time, fascinating. After all, the biggest metropolis I was used to was the town of Corfu, which was about the size of a small English market town, and so the great sprawling mass of London had hundreds of exciting secrets for me to discover. There was, of course, the Natural History Museum, and the inevitable visits to the Zoo, where I got on quite intimate terms with some of the keepers. This only strengthened my belief that working in a zoo was the only real vocation for anyone, and confirmed me in my desire to possess a zoo of my own.