The Corfu Trilogy (49 page)

Sitting and watching this miraculous piece of craftsmanship, I wondered how on earth the very first water-spider (who wanted to
become
a water-spider) had managed to work out this ingenious
method of living below the surface. But the habit of living in its own home-made submarine is not the only peculiar thing about this spider. Unlike the greater majority of species, the male is about twice the size of the female, and once they have mated, the male is not devoured by his wife, as happens so frequently in the married life of the spider. I could tell from her size that my spider was a female and I thought that her abdomen looked rather swollen. It seemed to me she might be expecting a happy event, so I took great pains to make sure that she got plenty of good food. She liked fat green daphnia, which she was extraordinarily adept at catching as they swam past; but probably her favourite food of all was the tiny, newly hatched newt efts which, although they were a bulky prey for her, she never hesitated to tackle. Having captured whatever titbit happened to be passing, she would then carry it up into her bell and eat it there in comfort.

Then came the great day when I saw that she was adding an extension to the bell. She did not hurry over this and it took her two days to complete. Then one morning, on peering into her tank, I saw to my delight that the nursery contained a round ball of eggs. In due course these hatched out into miniature replicas of the mother. I soon had more water-spiders than I knew what to do with and I found, to my annoyance, that the mother, with complete lack of parental feeling, was happily feeding off her own progeny. So I was forced to move the babies into another aquarium, but as they grew they took to feeding upon each other and so in the end I just kept the two most intelligent-looking ones and took all the rest down to the lake and let them go.

It was at this time, when I was deeply involved with the water-spiders, that Sven Olson at last turned up. Larry, to Mother’s consternation, had developed the habit of inviting hordes of painters, poets, and authors to stay without any reference to her. Sven Olson was a sculptor, and we had had some warning of his impending arrival, for he had been bombarding us for several weeks with contradictory telegrams about his
movements, which had driven Mother to distraction because she kept having to make and unmake his bed. Mother and I were having a quiet cup of tea on the veranda when a cab made its appearance, wound its way up the drive, and came to a stop in front of the house. In the back was seated an enormous man who bore a remarkable facial resemblance to the reconstructions of Neanderthal man. He was clad in a white singlet, a pair of voluminous brightly checked plus fours, and sandals. On his massive head was a broad-brimmed straw hat. The two holes situated one each side of the crown argued that this hat had been designed for the use of a horse. He got ponderously out of the cab, carrying a very large and battered Gladstone bag and an accordion. Mother and I went down to greet him. As he saw us approaching, he swept off his hat and bowed, revealing that his enormous cranium was completely devoid of hair except for a strange, grey, tattered duck’s tail on the nape of his neck.

‘Mrs Durrell?’ he inquired, fixing Mother with large and childlike blue eyes. ‘I am enchanted to meet you. My name is Sven.’

His English was impeccable, with scarcely any trace of an accent, but his voice was quite extraordinary, for it wavered between a deep rich baritone and a quavering falsetto, as though, in spite of his age, his voice was only just breaking. He extended a very large, white, spade-shaped hand to Mother and bowed once again.

‘Well, I am glad you have managed to get here at last,’ said Mother, brightly and untruthfully. ‘Do come in and have some tea.’

I carried his accordion and his Gladstone bag and we all went and sat on the balcony and drank tea and stared at each other. There was a long, long silence while Sven munched on a piece of toast and occasionally smiled lovingly at Mother, while she smiled back and desperately searched her mind for suitable intellectual topics of conversation. Sven swallowed a piece of toast and coughed violently. His eyes filled with tears.

‘I love toast,’ he gasped. ‘I simply love it. But it always does this to me.’

We plied him with more tea and presently his paroxysms of coughing died away. He sat forward, his huge hands folded in his lap, showing white as marble against the hideous pattern of his plus fours, and fixed Mother with an inquiring eye.

‘Are you,’ he inquired wistfully, ‘are you, by any chance, musically inclined?’

‘Well,’ said Mother, startled, and obviously suffering from the hideous suspicion that if she said ‘Yes’ Sven might ask her to sing, ‘I like music, of course, but I… can’t play anything.’

‘I suppose,’ said Sven diffidently, ‘you wouldn’t like me to play something for you?’

‘Oh, er, yes, by all means,’ said Mother. ‘That would be delightful.’

Sven beamed lovingly at her, picked up his accordion and unstrapped it. He extended it like a caterpillar and it produced noise like the tail-end of a donkey’s bray.

‘She,’ said Sven, lovingly patting the accordion, ‘has got some sea air in her.’

He settled his accordion more comfortably against his broad chest, arranged his sausage-like fingers carefully on the keys, closed his eyes, and began to play. It was a very complicated and extraordinary tune. Sven was wearing such an expression of rapture upon his ugly face that I was dying to laugh and was having to bite the insides of my cheeks to prevent it. Mother sat there with a face of frozen politeness like a world-famous conductor being forced to listen to somebody giving a recital on a penny whistle. Eventually the tune came to a harsh, discordant end. Sven heaved a sigh of pure delight, opened his eyes, and smiled at Mother.

‘Bach is so beautiful,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mother with well-simulated enthusiasm.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ said Sven. ‘I’ll play you some more.’

So for the next hour Mother and I sat there, trapped, while Sven played piece after piece. Every time Mother made some move to seek an escape, Sven would hold up one of his huge hands, as though arresting a line of imaginary traffic, and say, ‘Just one more,’ archly, and Mother, with a tremulous smile, would sit back in her chair.

It was with considerable relief that we greeted the rest of the family when they arrived back from town. Larry and Sven danced round each other, roaring like a couple of bulls and exchanging passionate embraces, and then Larry dragged Sven off to his room and they were closeted there for hours, the sound of gales of laughter occasionally drifting down to us.

‘What’s he like?’ asked Margo.

‘Well, I don’t really know, dear,’ said Mother. ‘He’s been playing to us ever since he arrived.’

‘Playing?’ said Leslie. ‘Playing what?’

‘His barrel organ, or whatever you call it,’ said Mother.

‘My God,’ said Leslie. ‘I can’t stand those things. I hope he isn’t going to play it all over the house.’

‘No, no, dear. I’m sure he won’t,’ said Mother hastily, but her tone lacked conviction.

Just at that moment Larry appeared on the veranda again.

‘Where’s Sven’s accordion?’ he asked. ‘He wants to play me something.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Leslie. ‘There you are. I told you.’

‘I hope he isn’t going to play that accordion
all
the time, dear,’ said Mother. ‘We’ve already had an hour of it and it’s given me a splitting headache.’

‘Of course he won’t play it all the time,’ said Larry irritably, picking up the accordion. ‘He just wants to play me one tune. What was he playing to you, anyway?’

‘The most weird music,’ said Mother. ‘By some man – you know the one – something to do with trees.’

The rest of the day was, to say the least, harrying. Sven’s
repertoire was apparently inexhaustible and when, during dinner, he insisted on giving us an impression of meal-time in a Scottish fortress by marching round and round the table playing one of the more untuneful Scottish reels, I could see the defences of the family crumbling. Even Larry was beginning to look a little pensive. Roger, who was uninhibited and straightforward in his dealings with human beings, summed up his opinion of Sven’s performance by throwing back his head and howling dismally, a thing he only did normally when he heard the national anthem.

But by the time Sven had been with us three days, we had become more or less inured to his accordion, and Sven himself charmed us all. He exuded a sort of innocent goodness, so that whatever he did one could not be annoyed with him, any more than you can be annoyed with a baby for wetting its nappy. He quickly endeared himself to Mother, for, she discovered, he was an ardent cook himself and carried round an enormous leather-bound notebook in which he jotted down recipes. He and Mother spent hours in the kitchen, teaching each other how to cook their favourite dishes, and the results were meals of such bulk and splendour that all of us began to feel liverish and out of sorts.

It was about a week after his arrival that Sven wandered one morning into the room I proudly called my study. In that massive villa we had such a superfluity of rooms that I had succeeded in getting Mother to give me a special room of my own in which I could keep all my creatures.

My menagerie at this time was pretty extensive. There was Ulysses, the scops owl, who spent all day sitting on the pelmet above the window, imitating a decaying olive stump, and occasionally, with a look of great disdain, regurgitating a pellet onto the newspaper spread below him. The dog contingent had been increased to three by a couple of young mongrels who had been given to me for my birthday by a peasant family and who, because of their completely undisciplined behaviour, had been
christened Widdle and Puke. There were rows and rows of jam jars, some containing specimens in methylated spirits, others containing microscopic life. And then there were six aquariums that housed a variety of newts, frogs, snakes, and toads. Piles of glass-topped boxes contained my collections of butterflies, beetles, and dragon-flies. Sven, to my astonishment, displayed a deep and almost reverent interest in my collection. Delighted to have somebody displaying enthusiasm for my cherished menagerie, I took him on a carefully conducted tour and showed him everything, even, after swearing him to secrecy, my family of tiny, chocolate-coloured scorpions that I had smuggled into the house unbeknownst to the family. One of the things that impressed Sven most was the underwater bell of the spider, and he stood quite silently in front of it, his great blue eyes fixed on it intensely, watching the spider as she caught her food and carried it up into the little dome. Seven displayed such enthusiasm that I suggested to him, rather tentatively, that he might like to spend a little time in the olive groves with me, so that I could show him some of these creatures in their natural haunts.

‘But how kind of you,’ he said, his great, ugly face lighting up delightedly. ‘Are you sure I won’t be interfering?’

No, I assured him he would not be interfering.

‘Then I would be delighted,’ said Sven. ‘Absolutely delighted.’

So, for the rest of his stay, we would disappear from the villa after breakfast and spend a couple of hours in the olive groves.

On Sven’s last day – he was leaving on the evening boat – we held a little farewell lunch party for him and invited Theodore. Delighted at having a new audience, Sven immediately gave Theodore a half-hour recital of Bach on his accordion.

‘Um,’ said Theodore, when Sven had finished, ‘do you, you know, er… know any other tunes?’

‘Just name it, Doctor,’ said Sven, spreading out his hands expansively. ‘I will play it for you.’

Theodore rocked thoughtfully for a moment on his toes.

‘You don’t by any chance, I suppose, er… happen to know a song called “There Is a Tavern in the Town”?’ he inquired shyly.

‘Of course!’ said Sven and immediately crashed into the opening bars of the song.

Theodore sang vigorously, his beard bristling, his eyes bright, and when he had come to the end, Sven, without pause, switched into ‘Clementine.’ Emboldened by Theodore’s Philistine attitude towards Bach, Mother asked Sven whether he could play ‘If I Were a Blackbird’ and ‘The Spinning Wheel Song,’ which he promptly executed in a masterly fashion.

Then the cab arrived to take him down to the docks, and he embraced each one of us fondly, his eyes full of tears. He climbed into the back of the cab with his Gladstone bag beside him and his precious accordion on his lap, and he waved to us extravagantly as the cab disappeared down the drive.

‘Such a
manly
man,’ said Mother with satisfaction, as we went inside. ‘Quite one of the old school.’

‘You should have told him that,’ said Larry, stretching himself out on the sofa and picking up his book. ‘There’s nothing homo’s like better than to be told they are virile and manly.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ asked Mother, putting on her spectacles and glaring at Larry suspiciously.

Larry lowered his book and looked at her, puzzled.

‘Homosexuals like to be told they are virile and manly,’ he said at length, patiently, and with the air of one explaining a simple problem to a backward child.

Mother continued to glare at him, trying to assess whether or not it was one of Larry’s elaborate leg-pulls.

‘You are not trying to tell me,’ she said at last, ‘that that man is a – is a – is one of
those?
’

‘Dear God, Mother, of course he is,’ said Larry, irritably. ‘He’s a rampaging old queer –the only reason he’s gone rushing back to Athens is because he’s living with a ravishing seventeen-year-old Cypriot boy and he doesn’t trust him.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ asked Margo, her eyes wide, ‘that they get
jealous
of each other?’

‘Of course they do,’ said Larry, and dismissing the subject, he returned to his book.

‘How extraordinary,’ said Margo. ‘Did you hear that, Mother? They actually get jealous –’

‘Margo!’ said Mother quellingly. ‘We won’t go into that. What
I
want to know, Larry, is why you invited him here if you knew he was, er, that way inclined?’