Fillets of Plaice

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  “Of course, of course,” said the D.C. “all informal here. I was just explaining to Bugler here. Really a matter of routine. Just come through once or twice a year to keep an eye on you chaps. Make sure you’re not getting up to any mischief.”

  With infinite relief I removed my rainbow-coloured tie and my jacket and flung them on the couch. Pious passed me my drink, for which I did not thank him. Generally it was not done to thank your servants for anything in West Africa. Nor did you call them by their Christian name. You simply clapped your hands and shouted “Boy”.

  The conversation had come to a complete halt during this operation. It was quite obvious that the D.C. was holding the floor and that nobody else could speak until he did. I sipped my drink reflectively and wondered what on earth I could have in common with the D.C. and indeed whether I was going to survive the evening with my mental faculties intact.

  “Chin, chin,” said the D.C. as I raised the glass to my lips.

  “Your very good health, sir,” I said.

  The D.C. settled himself more comfortably in his chair, adjusted his glass on the arm of it, glanced round to see that he had a rapt audience and then began.

  “As I was saying, Durrell, just before your late arrival, I’m extremely pleased that Bugler here has got this place apparently in perfect order. As you know, we chaps have to potter out occasionally just to make sure that the various areas are kept in order.” Here he gave the most uncharming chuckle and drank deeply from his glass.

  “Awfully good of you to say so, sir,” said Martin.

  He then saw Mary turning imploring, anguished eyes upon him. “But, of course,” he added hastily, “I couldn’t have done it without the aid of a splendid A.D.O.”

  “I think you’re being too modest, Bugler,” said the D.C. “After all, A.D.O.s can be a help or a hindrance.”

  “Oh, but I assure you that Standish is absolutely marvellous,” said Martin, making one of his sweeping gestures and knocking the large bowl of roasted peanuts into the D.C.’s tap.

  “Sorry, sah,” came a chorus from Pious, Amos and the two small boys, who were standing waiting in the shadows like hunting dogs. They converged upon the D.C. and while muttering “Sorry, sah,” “Sorry, sah’, they swept the greasy peanuts from his clean trousers back into the bowl and removed it to the kitchen.

  “I’m terribly. terribly sorry, sir,” said Martin.

  “Oh, it’s just an accident,” said the D.C., looking at the grease stains on his trousers, “could happen to anyone. But I must say you do seem to go in for this sort of thing, what? Where was that place I visited you?”

  “Yes, and I’m awfully sorry about that,” said Martin, interrupting hurriedly, “but it was a complete misunderstanding you understand, sir. I assure you the lavatory here works perfectly.”

  McGrade, Robin and Mary looked completely and utterly mystified by this conversation.

  “Yes, well, as I was saying,” said the D.C., glancing down again at the oil stains on his pants, “I think that Bugler has done a very good job.”

  He paused and drank.

  “And of course,” he said, as an afterthought, leaning forward and bowing sanctimoniously to Mary, “aided by you and your husband, Bugler seems to have done awfully well. The roads and bridges seem to be in remarkably fine fettle.” He glanced at McGrade.

  “Thank you, sir,” said McGrade with mock civility.

  “And I understand,” continued the D.C., addressing Robin, “although of course your chaps don’t come under us chaps, that you managed to provide this excellent caviar. Remarkable to find such a thing in Mamfe.”

  Robin gave a little bow. “I deeply appreciate your appreciation,” he said, “for as you well know, sir, caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon.”

  “I think the whole thing is absolutely splendid,” said the D.C. “As a matter of fact, it is one of the best tours I’ve had so far, but don’t let it go any further, for it might hurt certain people’s feelings. Ha ha!”

  We all laughed dutifully. I was watching the level of the gin in the D.C.’s glass because I had planned things with Pious, knowing that this sort of conversation could not go on interminably without driving us all mad. So at the precise moment that the D.C. drained the last drops from his glass, Pious appeared, all polished buttons, and said to Martin,

  “Jesus say chop ready, sah.”

  “Ah, chop,” said the D.C., slapping his stomach, “just what we all need, don’t you agree, little lady?” He gave Mary a rather arch glance.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mary, flustered, “I think chop is awfully important, especially in this climate.”

  “Actually,” said Robin, as we all got to our feet and walked towards the dining-room, “I have always been under the biological impression that chop was important in any climate.”

  Fortunately, the D.C. didn’t hear this remark.

  Martin seized me by the shoulder and whispered frenziedly in my ear,

  “What about seating?”

  “Put Mary at one end of the table and the D.C. at the other.”

  “Oh, good,” he said. “And I’ve done something rather clever.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, “what have you done now?”

  “No, no,” he said, “it’s perfectly all right. But while you all were being so helpful I felt I had to contribute in some sort of way. I’ve got the punka to work and Amos’s son is out there to pull on the cord so at least we’ll have some fresh air in the room.”

  “We’re obviously having a good effect on you, Martin,” I said. “By the time we’ve finished with you, you’ll be able to socialise like mad. Now go on ahead and make sure that everybody sits where they’re supposed to sit. As long as we get Mary at one end of the table and the D.C. at the other, you can spread the rest of us to look like a crowd.”

  I must say the dining-room looked extremely impressive. The table and chairs glowed in the candlelight like freshly-husked chestnuts. Three candelabras ran down the centre of the table and the fourth was on the massive sideboard. Pious had done his job well. The cutlery and the china gleamed in the candlelight. If the D.C. wasn’t impressed by this, I thought, nothing would impress him.

  We sat down and Pious, who had obviously got Amos and the D.O.’s small boy under control, passed drinks of our choice.

  “By Jove,” said the D.C., glancing at the shining candelabras, polished table and the gently swinging punka, “you’re very well placed here, Bugler, aren’t you? Positive Government House, what?”

  “No, no, sir,” said Martin hastily, obviously under the impression the D.C. thought he was spending too much money. “We don’t always eat like this. Normally we eat sort of bush fashion, if you know what I mean. But we felt this was a special occasion.”

  “Quite right,” said the D.C. “I understand perfectly.”

  Pious, with all the deference and decorum of a head waiter from Claridge’s, served small square chunks of porcupine on pieces of crisp toast.

  “By Jove,” said the D.C., “what’s this?”

  Martin, who by this time was in an acute state of nerves, was just about to say “porcupine” when Mary, in her calm, placid voice, said,

  “Once you’ve eaten it we want you to guess. It’s a surprise.”

  The porcupine, as I knew it would be, was excellent. The D.C. engulfed it with obvious enjoyment.

  “Ha!” he said as he swallowed the last mouthful, “you can’t catch me — venison! Eh, what?”

  The look of relief on Martin’s face almost gave the whole thing away but again Mary stepped into the breach.

  “But how clever of you,” she said, “we thought you’d never recognise it since it’s been smoked and prepared in a special way.”

  “Can’t catch me out on things like that,” said the D.C., preening himself. “Don’t forget I was an A.D.O. once and had to live in the bush and live rough. We used to feed off all sorts of things. These local antelopes are unmistakable, but I must admit this has been wonderful
ly smoked.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “it’s a thing that we do have occasionally and Martin was clever enough to find a small man down the road who has a special recipe for smoking and does it extremely well. So on the very rare occasions when we manage to get the venison, Martin is kind enough to distribute some so we can all enjoy it.”

  While this rather tricky conversation had been going on, the enormous platter of groundnut chop had been placed in front of Mary, and down the long shining table had appeared some twenty little plates containing the small small tings. It really looked most impressive.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we couldn’t think of anything except groundnut chop,” said Martin, who had an awful tendency to apologise in advance, thus giving his adversary a chance to complain. “But normally my cook does it frightfully well.”

  “I know one tends to eat too much of it,” said the D.C., “but, really, I think it’s a very good, sustaining food.”

  Mary had served the groundnut chop with rice onto the plates, which were solemnly carried by Amos and Pious and distributed among us. Then came the sort of chess game that one had to play with the small small tings.

  The D.C.’s plate was piled high. He added three or four chunks of pink paw-paw and looked at it with satisfaction.

  “Splendid,” he said, “it looks absolutely splendid.”

  Martin began to look a little less strained, for he knew that my cook was helping Jesus and that the groundnut chop would probably be excellent.

  Mary, on her best behaviour, looked at the D.C., who gravely bowed his head, and she dipped her spoon and fork into the groundnut chop. The D.C. followed suit and then we all picked up our implements and attacked our plates. The punka, creaking slightly, waved to and fro and sent wafts of warm air upon us.

  “Best groundnut chop I’ve ever had,” said the D.C., having just swallowed an enormous mouthful.

  Martin beamed at me across the table.

  “Martin’s a great one for organising,” said McGrade.

  “Indeed he is. I agree with you entirely,” said Robin. “I fear that on this occasion it is I who have failed.”

  “Failed?” said the D.C., “how d’ye mean, failed?”

  “Well, we could have put on a much more splendiferous meal for you,” said Robin, “but unfortunately the river ran rather dry and the boat with the supplies couldn’t get up. So I’m afraid poor Martin’s doing the best he can in the circumstances.”

  “Yes,” said Mary, “we’d hoped to put on a really good meal for you.”

  “Nonsense, nonsense,” said the D.C., waving his hands deprecatingly. “This is superb.”

  Martin positively glowed and relaxed.

  “Tell me,” said the D.C., “I understand you’re an animal collector, Durrell.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  “But surely you don’t find much around here?” he enquired.

  During the course of our drinks on the veranda I had seen Pious swiftly and silently remove a praying mantis and a gecko from the D.C.’s chair.

  “When I was an A.D.O.,” he said, “wandering about in the bush, never saw a damn’ thing.”

  “Oh, there’s an amazing amount of stuff around here if you know where to look for it, sir,” I said. “Why, only the other day I caught quite a rare creature at the bottom of Martin’s garden. There’s plenty of life here if you look for it.”

  “Extraordinary,” said the D.C., shovelling a great spoonful of groundnut chop into his mouth, “I wouldn’t have thought there was anything living so near to civilisation, as it were.”

  At that moment came a noise like somebody breaking the backbone of a whale, and with a rustle like a million autumn leaves being caught by a hurricane, the palm leaf punka crashed straight onto the table, one end of it completely obliterating the D.C.

  Fortunately, it put out the candles so that nothing caught fire, but it did, however contain in its many ballet-skirt-like sets of fronds an extremely interesting cross-section of the local fauna that lives in close proximity to civilisation.

  The effect upon the party was considerable.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” screamed Mary, leaping to her feet, upsetting her gin and tonic and losing her normal pose of placidity.

  “Why didn’t you let me check it, you stupid bastard!” roared McGrade.

  “There are times when I really despair of you, Martin,” said Robin with some asperity.

  “I’m terribly, terribly sorry, sir,” said Martin to the invisible D.C. “I really don’t know how to apologise.”

  He was trembling from head to foot at the catastrophe. The palm fronds rustled and the D.C.s’ head appeared. He emerged from the punka looking not unlike an albino African emerging from his hut. He opened his mouth to say something and then caught sight of a chocolate-coloured, very hairy spider the circumference of a saucer making its way along the punka towards him. Already the rich and happy little community that had been living in the fan undisturbed for years was starting to emerge. The D.C. pushed back his chair and leapt to his feet.

  I knew this was a disaster of the worst sort from Martin’s point of view, but I have always found in life that one should seize every opportunity. It seemed as though the punka was going to provide me with some interesting specimens.

  “I suggest you all go into the other room,” I said, noticing a new species of gecko emerging from the palm fronds. “I’ll fix things in here.”

  The parts of the table that were still visible were rapidly becoming covered with indignant beetles and other specimens of lesser life who looked, even if they were not, extremely malevolent.

  Mary pulled herself together and with great grace led the way out of the dining-room and onto the veranda and the others trooped after her.

  The staff had been frozen solid because, as we had been sitting in our chairs, it would have been extremely difficult to remove the palm leaf fan and pretend that dinner was going on as normal. It was a situation they had not met with before and even Pious was incapable of coping with it.

  “Pious,” I roared, startling him out of his horrified trance, “go bring bottles, boxes, anything for catch this beef.”

  Beef is the all-important West African term meaning any animal that walks, flies or crawls. Pious, grabbing Amos and the two small boys by the scruff of the neck, disappeared.

  By this time a number of other interesting inhabitants were appearing out of the punka to see why their community life had been disturbed. The first to emerge was a young and highly indignant green mamba, reputedly the most deadly snake in Africa. He was about two feet long, like a green and yellow plaited lariat, and you could tell from his attitude that the whole thing was very upsetting to his psyche. I tried to pin him down with a fork but he wriggled free and fell off the table onto the floor. It was only then that I realised that although all the others had fled to the veranda and left the disaster to me, the D.C. had stayed on. The green mamba, in that irritating way that snakes have, with the whole of the room to choose from, wriggled straight towards the D.C., who remained rooted to the spot, his face going a rather interesting shade of blue. I made another quick assault on the mamba and this time succeeded in pinning him down and picking him up by the back of the neck. By this time Pious had returned, having unearthed from the kitchen jars, boxes, bottles and other containers. I slipped the green mamba into a bottle and corked it up securely.

  The D.C. was still regarding me with bulging eyes. I had to say something in an attempt to cover up the disaster and protect Martin. I smiled at the D.C. beguilingly.

  “You see what I mean, sir?” I said airily, removing a large beetle from the groundnut chop where he was lying on his back waving his legs and uttering shrill mechanical whirrings. “The animals are all around you. It’s merely a question of finding out where they live.”

  He stared at me for a moment.

  “Yes. Yes, I can see that,” he said, adding, “I think I need a drink.”

  “It was
extremely clever of you to stand still, sir,” I said.

  “Why?” asked the D.C. suspiciously.

  “Well, most people in those circumstances would have panicked, sir, but you kept your head admirably. If it hadn’t been for you I doubt whether I’d have ever caught the mamba.”

  The D.C. looked at me suspiciously again, but I was wearing my most innocent expression.

  “Hah!” he said. “Well, let’s go and have a drink.”

  “Well, I think there are one or two more creatures here for me to catch and I’d better get Martin to organise things a bit. I’ll join you in a minute, sir, if I may.”

  “Certainly,” he said, “I’ll send Martin to you.”

  Martin staggered into the dining-room looking like the sole survivor of the Titanic.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, “I never thought...”

  “Look,” I said firmly, “just don’t think. Do what I say.”

  “It’s worse than the lavatory!”

  “Nothing could be worse than the lavatory. Now, just take things calmly.”

  While we were talking Pious and I were busy collecting further denizens of the fan, which consisted of numerous geckos, eight tree frogs, a hysterical dormouse with its nest and young, three bats, a couple of irascible scorpions and an incredible number of beetles.

  “What are we going to do?” said Martin in despair, almost wringing his hands.

  I turned to Pious and I could tell from his expression that he was as worried by this awful catastrophe as Martin was. I, unfortunately, was suffering from an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh loud and long but I didn’t dare to do so.

  “Now,” I said to Pious, “you go go for Masa McGrade’s house and you find chop. Then you go to Masa Girton’s house and you find chop. Then you go to A.D.O.’s house and find chop, then you go for our place and find chop. I want chop in one hour, you hear.”

  “I hear, sah,” said Pious and disappeared.

  “God, I shall be sent back to Umchichi,” said Martin.

  “That might well happen,” I said, “but judging by the D.C.’s reaction it will not.”

  “But he couldn’t have been pleased,” said Martin.