The Corfu Trilogy

by Gerald Durrell

  We walked down the hill in silence. When we reached the place where the paths forked I said that I must leave him.

  ‘Ah, well, I’ll say good-bye,’ he said, staring at his boots. ‘I have enjoyed meeting you.’

  We stood in silence for a moment. Theodore was afflicted with the acute embarrassment that always seemed to overwhelm him when greeting or saying good-bye to someone. He stared hard at his boots for a moment longer, and then he held out his hand and shook mine gravely.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he said. ‘I… er… I expect we shall meet again.’

  He turned and stumped off down the hill, swinging his stick, staring about him with observant eyes. I watched him out of sight and then walked slowly in the direction of the villa. I was at once confused and amazed by Theodore. First, since he was obviously a scientist of considerable repute (and I could have told this by his beard), he was to me a person of great importance. In fact he was the only person I had met until now who seemed to share my enthusiasm for zoology. Secondly, I was extremely flattered to find that he treated me and talked to me exactly as though I were his own age. I liked him for this, as I was not talked down to by my family, and I took rather a poor view of any outsider who tried to do so. But Theodore not only talked to me as though I were grown up, but also as though I were as knowledgeable as he.

  The facts he told me about the trapdoor spider haunted me: the idea of the creature crouching in its silken tunnel, holding the door closed with its hooked claws, listening to the movement of the insects on the moss above. What, I wondered, did things sound like to a trapdoor spider? I could imagine that a snail would trail over the door with a noise like sticking-plaster being slowly torn off. A centipede would sound like a troop of cavalry. A fly would patter in brisk spurts, followed by a pause while it washed its hands – a dull rasping sound like a knife-grinder at work. The larger beetles, I decided, would sound like steam-rollers, while the smaller ones, the lady-birds and others, would probably purr over the moss like clockwork motor cars. Fascinated by this thought, I made my way back home through the darkening fields, to tell the family of my new discovery and of my meeting with Theodore. I hoped to see him again, for there were many things I wanted to ask him, but I felt it would be unlikely that he would have very much time to spare for me. I was mistaken, however, for two days later Leslie came back from an excursion into the town and handed me a small parcel.

  ‘Met that bearded johnny,’ he said laconically; ‘you know, that scientist bloke. Said this was for you.’

  Incredulously I stared at the parcel. Surely it couldn’t be for me? There must be some mistake, for a great scientist would hardly bother to send me parcels. I turned it over, and there, written on it in neat, spidery writing, was my name. I tore off the paper as quickly as I could. Inside was a small box and a letter.

  My dear Gerry Durrell,

  I wondered, after our conversation the other day, if it might not assist your investigations of the local natural history to have some form of magnifying instrument. I am therefore sending you this pocket microscope, in the hope that it will be of some use to you. It is, of course, not of very high magnification, but you will find it sufficient for field work.

  With best wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  Theo. Stephanides

  P.S. If you have nothing better to do on Thursday, perhaps you would care to come to tea, and I could then show you some of my microscope slides.

  6

  The Sweet Spring

  During the last days of the dying summer, and throughout the warm, wet winter that followed, tea with Theodore became a weekly affair. Every Thursday I would set out, my pockets bulging with match-boxes and test-tubes full of specimens, to be driven into the town by Spiro. It was an appointment that I would not have missed for anything.

  Theodore would welcome me in his study, a room that met with my full approval. It was, in my opinion, just what a room should be. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves filled with volumes on freshwater biology, botany, astronomy, medicine, folklore and similar fascinating and sensible subjects. Interspersed with these were selections of ghost and crime stories. Thus Sherlock Holmes rubbed shoulders with Darwin, and Le Fanu with Fabre, in what I considered to be a thoroughly well-balanced library. At one window of the room stood Theodore’s telescope, its nose to the sky like a howling dog, while the sills of every window bore a parade of jars and bottles containing minute freshwater fauna, whirling and twitching among the delicate fronds of green weed. On one side of the room was a massive desk, piled high with scrapbooks, micro-photographs, X-ray plates, diaries, and notebooks. On the opposite side of the room was the microscope table, with its powerful lamp on the jointed stem leaning like a lily over the flat boxes that housed Theodore’s collection of slides. The microscopes themselves, gleaming like magpies, were housed under a series of beehive-like domes of glass.

  ‘How are you?’ Theodore would inquire, as if I were a complete stranger, and give me his characteristic handshake – a sharp downward tug, like a man testing a knot in a rope. The formalities being over, we could then turn our minds to more important topics.

  ‘I was… er… you know… looking through my slides just before your arrival, and I came across one which may interest you. It is a slide of the mouth-parts of the rat flea… ceratophyllus fasciatus, you know. Now, I’ll just adjust the microscope… There!… You see? Very curious. I mean to say, you could almost imagine it was a human face, couldn’t you? Now I had another… er… slide here… That’s funny. Ah! got it. Now this one is of the spinnerets of the garden or cross spider… er… epeira fasciata…’

  So, absorbed and happy, we would pore over the microscope. Filled with enthusiasm, we would tack from subject to subject, and if Theodore could not answer my ceaseless flow of questions himself, he had books that could. Gaps would appear in the bookcase as volume after volume was extracted to be consulted, and by our side would be an ever-growing pile of volumes.

  ‘Now this one is a cyclops… cyclops viridis… which I caught out near Govino the other day. It is a female with egg-sacs… Now, I’ll just adjust… you’ll be able to see the eggs quite clearly… I’ll just put her in the live box… er… hum… there are several species of cyclops found here in Corfu…’

  Into the brilliant circle of white light a weird creature would appear, a pear-shaped body, long antennæ that twitched indignantly, a tail like sprigs of heather, and on each side of it (slung like sacks of onions on a donkey) the two large sacs bulging with pink beads.

  ‘… called cyclops because, as you can see, it has a single eye situated in the centre of its forehead. That’s to say, in the centre of what would be its forehead if a cyclops had one. In Ancient Greek mythology, as you know, a cyclops was one of a group of giants… er… each of whom had one eye. Their task was to forge iron for Hephæstus.’

  Outside, the warm wind would shoulder the shutters, making them creak, and the rain-drops would chase each other down the window-pane like transparent tadpoles.

  ‘Ah-ha! It is curious that you should mention that. The peasants in Salonika have a very similar… er… superstition… No, no, merely a superstition. I have a book here that gives a most interesting account of vampires in… um… Bosnia. It seems that the local people there…’

  Tea would arrive, the cakes squatting on cushions of cream, toast in a melting shawl of butter, cups agleam and a faint wisp of steam rising from the teapot spout.

  ‘… but, on the other hand, it is impossible to say that there is no life on Mars. It is, in my opinion, quite possible that some form of life will be found… er… discovered there, should we ever succeed in getting there. But there is no reason to suppose that any form of life found there would be identical…’

  Sitting there, neat and correct in his tweed suit, Theodore would chew his toast slowly and methodically, his beard bristling, his eyes kindling with enthusiasm at each new subject that swam into our conversation. To me his knowledge seemed in
exhaustible. He was a rich vein of information, and I mined him assiduously. No matter what the subject, Theodore could contribute something interesting to it. At last I would hear Spiro honking his horn in the street below, and I would rise reluctantly to go.

  ‘Good-bye,’ Theodore would say, tugging my hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure having you… er… no, no, not at all. See you next Thursday. When the weather gets better… er… less damp… in the spring, you know… perhaps we might go for some walks together… see what we can obtain. There are some most interesting ditches in the Val de Ropa… um, yes… Well, good-bye… Not at all.’

  Driving back along the dark, rain-washed road, Spiro humming richly as he squatted behind the wheel, I would dream of the spring to come, and of all the wonderful creatures that Theodore and I would capture.

  Eventually the warm wind and the rain of winter seemed to polish the sky, so that when January arrived it shone a clear, tender blue… the same blue as that of the tiny flames that devoured the olive logs in the charcoal pits. The nights were still and cool, with a moon so fragile it barely freckled the sea with silver points. The dawns were pale and translucent until the sun rose, mist-wrapped, like a gigantic silkworm cocoon, and washed the island with a delicate bloom of gold dust.

  With March came the spring, and the island was flower-filled, scented, and aflutter with new leaves. The cypress trees that had tossed and hissed during the winds of winter now stood straight and sleek against the sky, covered with a misty coat of greenish-white cones. Waxy yellow crocuses appeared in great clusters, bubbling out among the tree roots and tumbling down the banks. Under the myrtles, the grape-hyacinths lifted buds like magenta sugar-drops, and the gloom of the oak thickets was filled with the dim smoke of a thousand blue day-irises. Anemones, delicate and easily wind-bruised, lifted ivory flowers the petals of which seemed to have been dipped in wine. Vetch, marigold, asphodel, and a hundred others flooded the fields and woods. Even the ancient olives, bent and hollowed by a thousand springs, decked themselves in clusters of minute creamy flowers, modest and yet decorative, as became their great age. It was no half-hearted spring, this: the whole island vibrated with it as though a great, ringing chord had been struck. Everyone and everything heard it and responded. It was apparent in the gleam of flower petals, the flash of bird wings and the sparkle in the dark, liquid eyes of the peasant girls. In the water-filled ditches the frogs that looked newly enamelled snored a rapturous chorus in the lush weeds. In the village coffee shops the wine seemed redder and, somehow, more potent. Blunt, work-calloused fingers plucked at guitar strings with strange gentleness, and rich voices rose in lilting, haunting song.

  Spring affected the family in a variety of ways. Larry bought himself a guitar and a large barrel of strong red wine. He interspersed his bouts of work by playing haphazardly on the instrument and singing Elizabethan love songs in a meek tenor voice, with frequent pauses for refreshment. This would soon induce a mood of melancholy, and the love songs would become more doleful, while between each Larry would pause to inform whichever member of the family happened to be present that spring, for him, did not mean the beginning of a new year, but the death of the old one. The grave, he would proclaim, making the guitar rumble ominously, yawned a little wider with each season.

  One evening the rest of us had gone out and left Mother and Larry alone together. Larry had spent the evening singing more and more dismally, until he had succeeded in working them both into a fit of acute depression. They attempted to alleviate this state with the aid of wine, but unfortunately this had the reverse effect, for they were not used to the heavy wines of Greece. When we returned we were somewhat startled to be greeted by Mother, standing at the door of the villa with a hurricane lantern. She informed us with lady-like precision and dignity that she wished to be buried under the rose bushes. The novelty of this lay in the fact that she had chosen such an accessible place for the disposal of her remains. Mother spent a lot of her spare time choosing places to be buried in, but they were generally situated in the most remote areas, and one had visions of the funeral cortège dropping exhausted by the wayside long before it had reached the grave.

  When left undisturbed by Larry, however, spring for Mother meant an endless array of fresh vegetables with which to experiment, and a riot of new flowers to delight her in the garden. There streamed from the kitchen a tremendous number of new dishes, soups, stews, savouries, and curries, each richer, more fragrant, and more exotic than the last. Larry began to suffer from dyspepsia. Scorning the simple remedy of eating less, he procured an immense tin of bicarbonate of soda, and would solemnly take a dose after every meal.

  ‘Why do you eat so much if it upsets you, dear?’ Mother asked.

  ‘It would be an insult to your cooking to eat less,’ Larry replied unctuously.

  ‘You’re getting terribly fat,’ said Margo; ‘it’s very bad for you.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Larry in alarm. ‘I’m not getting fat, Mother, am I?’

  ‘You look as though you’ve put on a little weight,’ Mother admitted, surveying him critically.

  ‘It’s your fault,’ Larry said unreasonably. ‘You will keep tempting me with these aromatic delicacies. You’re driving me to ulcers. I shall have to go on a diet. What’s a good diet, Margo?’

  ‘Well,’ said Margo, launching herself with enthusiasm into her favourite topic, ‘you could try the orange-juice-and-salad one; that’s awfully good. There’s the milk-and-raw-vegetable one… that’s good too, but it takes a little time. Or there’s the boiled-fish-and-brown-bread one. I don’t know what that’s like, I haven’t tried it yet.’

  ‘Dear God!’ exclaimed Larry, genuinely shocked. ‘Are those diets?’

  ‘Yes, and they’re all very good ones,’ said Margo earnestly. ‘I’ve been trying the orange-juice one and it’s done wonders for my acne.’

  ‘No,’ said Larry firmly. ‘I’m not going to do it if it means that I have to champ my way like a damned ungulate through bushels of raw fruit and vegetables. You will all have to resign yourselves to the fact that I shall be taken from you at an early age, suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart.’

  At the next meal he took the precaution of having a large dose of bicarbonate beforehand, and then protested bitterly that the food tasted queer.

  Margo was always badly affected by the spring. Her personal appearance, always of absorbing interest to her, now became almost an obsession. Piles of freshly laundered clothes filled her bedroom, while the washing-line sagged under the weight of clothes newly washed. Singing shrilly and untunefully she would drift about the villa, carrying piles of flimsy underwear or bottles of scent. She would seize every opportunity to dive into the bathroom, in a swirl of white towels, and once in there she was as hard to dislodge as a limpet from a rock. The family in turn would bellow and batter on the door, getting no more satisfaction than an assurance that she was nearly finished, an assurance which we had learned by bitter experience not to have any faith in. Eventually she would emerge, glowing and immaculate, and drift from the house, humming, to sun-bathe in the olive groves or go down to the sea and swim. It was during one of these excursions to the sea that she met an over-good-looking young Turk. With unusual modesty she did not inform anyone of her frequent bathing assignations with this paragon, feeling, as she told us later, that we would not be interested. It was, of course, Spiro who discovered it. He watched over Margo’s welfare with the earnest concern of a St Bernard, and there was precious little she could do without Spiro’s knowing about it. He cornered Mother in the kitchen one morning, glanced surreptitiously round to make sure they were not overheard, sighed deeply, and broke the news to her.

  ‘I’m very sorrys to haves to tells you this, Mrs Durrells,’ he rumbled, ‘buts I thinks you oughts to knows.’

  Mother had by now become quite used to Spiro’s conspiratorial air when he came to deliver some item of information about the family, and it no longer worried her.

  ‘What’s th
e matter now, Spiro?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s Missy Margo,’ said Spiro sorrowfully.

  ‘What about her?’

  Spiro glanced round uneasily.

  ‘Dos you knows shes meetings a mans?’ he inquired in a vibrant whisper.

  ‘A man? Oh… er… yes, I did know,’ said Mother, lying valiantly.

  Spiro hitched up his trousers over his belly and leaned forward.

  ‘But dids you knows he’s a Turk?’ he questioned in tones of bloodcurdling ferocity.

  ‘A Turk?’ said Mother vaguely. ‘No, I didn’t know he was a Turk. What’s wrong with that?’

  Spiro looked horrified.

  ‘Gollys, Mrs Durrells, whats wrongs with it? He’s a Turk. I wouldn’ts trust a sonofabitch Turk with any girls. He’ll cuts her throats, thats what he’ll do. Honest to Gods, Mrs Durrells, its not safe, Missy Margo swimmings with hims.’

  ‘All right, Spiro,’ said Mother soothingly, ‘I’ll speak to Margo about it.’

  ‘I just thoughts you oughts to knows, thats all. Buts donts you worrys… if he dids anythings to Missy Margo I’d fix the bastard,’ Spiro assured her earnestly.

  Acting on the information received, Mother mentioned the matter to Margo, in a slightly less bloodcurdling manner than Spiro’s, and suggested that the young Turk be brought up to tea. Delighted, Margo went off to fetch him, while Mother hastily made a cake and some scones, and warned the rest of us to be on our best behaviour. The Turk, when he arrived, turned out to be a tall young man, with meticulously waved hair and a flashy smile that managed to convey the minimum of humour with the maximum of condescension. He had all the sleek, smug self-possession of a cat in season. He pressed Mother’s hand to his lips as though he were conferring an honour on her, and scattered the largesse of his smile for the rest of us. Mother, feeling the hackles of the family rising, threw herself desperately into the breach.