‘You call eleven puppies a few? The place will look like the Greek branch of Crufts’ Dog Show and they’ll probably all turn out to be bitches and come into season simultaneously. Life will deteriorate into one long canine sexual orgy.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mother, changing the subject. ‘You’re not to go around saying Margo’s sex mad. People will get the wrong idea.’
‘Well, she is,’ said Larry. ‘I see no reason to cover up the truth.’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ said Mother firmly; ‘I won’t have you saying things like that. Margo’s just romantic. There’s a lot of difference.’
‘Well, all I can say is,’ said Larry, ‘when all those bitches you’ve brought into the house come into season together Margo’s going to have a lot of competition.’
‘Now, Larry, that’s quite enough,’ said Mother. ‘Anyway I don’t think we ought to discuss sex at lunch.’
A few days after this, Margo returned from her travels, bronzed and well and with her heart apparently healed. She talked incessantly about her trip and gave us graphic thumbnail pictures of the people she had met, inevitably ending with, ‘and so I told them if they came to Corfu to come and see us’.
‘I do hope you didn’t invite everyone you met, Margo dear,’ said Mother, slightly alarmed.
‘Oh, of course not, Mother,’ said Margo impatiently, having just told us about a handsome Greek sailor and his eight brothers to whom she had issued this lavish invitation. ‘I only asked the interesting ones. I would have thought you’d be glad to have some interesting people around.’
‘I get enough interesting people that Larry invites, thank you,’ said Mother acidly, ‘without you starting.’
‘This trip has opened my eyes,’ concluded Margo dramatically. ‘I’ve realized that you’re all simply stagnating here. You’re becoming narrow-minded and… and… insulated.’
‘I don’t see that objecting to unexpected guests is being narrow-minded, dear,’ said Mother. ‘After all, I’m the one that has to do the cooking.’
‘But they’re not unexpected,’ explained Margo haughtily, ‘I invited them.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Mother, obviously feeling that she was not making much headway with this argument. ‘I suppose if they write and let us know they’re coming we can manage.’
‘Of course they’ll let us know,’ said Margo coldly. ‘They’re my friends; they wouldn’t be so ill-mannered as not to let us know.’
As it happened, she was wrong.
I returned to the villa after a very pleasant afternoon spent drifting up the coast in my boat looking for seals and, bursting, sun-glowing and hungry, into the drawing-room in search of tea and the mammoth chocolate cake I knew Mother had made, I came upon a sight so curious that I stopped in the doorway, my mouth open in amazement while the dogs, clustered round my legs, started to bristle and growl with astonishment. Mother was seated on the floor, perched uncomfortably on a cushion, gingerly holding in one hand a piece of rope to which was attached a small, black, and excessively high-spirited ram. Sitting around Mother, cross-legged on cushions, were a fierce-looking old man in a tarboosh and three heavily veiled women. Also ranged on the floor were lemonade, tea, and plates of biscuits, sandwiches, and the chocolate cake. As I entered the room, the old man had leaned forward, drawn a huge, heavily ornate dagger from his sash, and cut himself a large hunk of cake which he stuffed into his mouth with every evidence of satisfaction. It looked rather like a scene out of the Arabian Nights. Mother cast me an anguished look.
‘Thank goodness you’ve come, dear,’ she said, struggling with the ram, who had gambolled into her lap by mistake. ‘These people don’t speak English.’
I inquired who they were.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mother desperately. ‘They just appeared when I was making tea; they’ve been here for hours. I can’t understand a word they say. They insisted on sitting on the floor. I think they’re friends of Margo’s; of course, they may be friends of Larry’s but they don’t look highbrow enough.’
I tried tentatively talking in Greek to the old man and he leaped to his feet, delighted that someone understood him. He had a swooping, eagle nose, an immense white moustache like a frosty sheaf of corn, and black eyes that seemed to snap and crackle with his mood. He was wearing a white tunic with a red sash in which his dagger reposed, enormous baggy pants, long white cotton socks, and red, upturned charukias with immense pompoms on the toes. So I was the adorable signorina’s brother, was I, he roared excitedly, bits of chocolate cake trembling on his moustache as he talked. What an honour to meet me. He clasped me to him and kissed me so fervently that the dogs, fearing for my life, all started barking. The ram, faced with four vociferous dogs, panicked; it ran round and round Mother, twisting the rope around her. Then, at a particularly snarling bark from Roger, it uttered a frantic bleat and fled towards the French windows and safety, pulling Mother onto her back in a welter of spilled lemonade and chocolate cake. Things became confused.
Roger, under the impression that the old Turk was attacking both myself and Mother, launched an assault on the Turk’s charukias and got a firm grip on one of the pom-poms. The old boy aimed a kick at Roger with his free foot and promptly fell down. The three women were sitting absolutely still, cross-legged on their cushions, screaming loudly behind their yashmaks. Mother’s dog, Dodo, who had long ago decided that anything in the nature of a rough house was acutely distressing to a Dandie Dinmont of her lineage, sat soulfully in a corner and howled. The old Turk, who was surprisingly lithe for his age, had drawn his dagger and was making wild but ineffectual swipes at Roger, who was darting from pom-pom to pom-pom growling savagely, evading the blade with ease. Widdle and Puke were trying to round up the ram, and Mother, desperately unravelling herself, was shouting incoherent instructions to me.
‘Get the lamb! Gerry, get the lamb! They’ll kill it,’ she squeaked, covered with lemonade and bits of chocolate cake.
‘Black son of the devil! Illegitimate offspring of a witch! My shoes! Leave my shoes! I will kill you… destroy you!’ panted the old Turk, slashing away at Roger.
‘Ayii! Ayii! Ayii! His shoes! His shoes!’ screamed the women in a chorus, immobile on their cushions.
With difficulty avoiding a stab wound myself, I managed to tear the ravening Roger off the old Turk’s pom-poms and get him and Widdle and Puke out onto the veranda. Then I opened the sliding doors and shut the lamb in the dining-room as a temporary measure while I soothed the old Turk’s wounded feelings. Mother, smiling nervously and nodding vigorously at everything I said although she did not understand it, was making an attempt to clean herself up, but this was rather ineffectual as the chocolate cake had been one of her larger and more glutinous creations, oozing cream, and she had put her elbow into the exact centre of it as she fell backwards. At length I managed to soothe the old man, and while Mother went up to change her dress I dished out brandy to the Turk and his three wives. My helpings were liberal, so by the time Mother came back faint hiccups were coming from behind at least one of the veils and the Turk’s nose had turned fiery red.
‘Your sister is… how shall I tell you?… magical… God-given. Never have I seen a girl like her,’ he said, holding out his glass eagerly. ‘I, who, as you see, have three wives, I have never seen a girl like your sister.’
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Mother, eyeing his dagger nervously. I repeated what the Turk had said.
‘Disgusting old man,’ said Mother. ‘Really, Margo should be more careful.’
The Turk drained his glass and held it out again, beaming convivially at us.
‘Your maid here,’ he said, jerking a thumb at Mother, ‘she is a little bit soft, huh? She doesn’t speak Greek.’
‘What does he say?’ asked Mother.
Dutifully, I translated.
‘Impertinent man!’ said Mother indignantly. ‘Really, I could smack Margo. Tell him who I am, Gerry.’
I told the Turk, and
the effect on him was more than Mother could have wished. With a roar, he leaped to his feet, rushed across to her, seized her hands and covered them with kisses. Then, still holding her hands in a vice-like grip, he peered into her face, his moustache trembling.
‘The mother,’ he intoned, ‘the mother of my Almond-blossom.’
‘What’s he say?’ asked Mother tremulously.
But before I could translate, the Turk had barked out an order to his wives, who showed their first sign of animation. They leaped from their cushions, rushed to Mother, lifted their yashmaks, and kissed her hands with every symptom of veneration.
‘I do wish they wouldn’t keep kissing me,’ gasped Mother. ‘Gerry, tell them it’s quite unnecessary.’
But the Turk, having got his wives re-established on their cushions, turned once again to Mother. He threw a powerful arm round her shoulders, making her squeak and threw out his other arm oratorically.
‘Never did I think,’ he boomed, peering into Mother’s face, ‘never did I think that I should have the honour of meeting the mother of my Almond-blossom.’
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Mother agitatedly, trapped in the Turk’s bear-like hug.
Again I translated.
‘Almond-blossom? What’s he talking about? The man’s mad,’ she said.
I explained that the Turk was apparently greatly enamoured of Margo and that this was his name for her. This confirmed Mother’s worst fears about the Turk’s intentions.
‘Almond-blossom, indeed!’ she said indignantly. ‘Just wait until she gets back – I’ll give her Almond-blossom!’
Just at that moment, cool and fresh from aswim, Margo herself appeared in a very revealing bathing costume.
‘Ooooh!’ she screamed delightedly. ‘Mustapha! And Lena, and Maria, and Telina! How lovely!’
The Turk rushed across to her and kissed her hands reverently while his wives clustered round making muffled noises of pleasure.
‘Mother, this is Mustapha,’ said Margo, glowing.
‘We have already met,’ said Mother grimly, ‘and he’s ruined my new dress, or, rather his lamb has. Go and put some clothes on.’
‘His lamb?’ asked Margo, bewildered. ‘What lamb?’
‘The lamb he brought for his Almond-blossom, as he calls you,’ said Mother accusingly.
‘Oh, it’s just a nickname,’ said Margo colouring, ‘he doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘I know what these dirty old men are,’ said Mother ominously. ‘Really, Margo, you should know better.’
The old Turk was listening to this exchange with quick glances from his bright eyes and a beatific smile on his face; however, I could see that my powers of translation would be stretched to their limit if Mother and Margo started arguing so I opened the sliding doors and let the lamb in. He came in pertly, prance-footed, black and curly as a storm cloud.
‘How dare you!’ said Margo. ‘How dare you insult my friends. He’s not a dirty old man; he’s one of the cleanest old men I know.’
‘I don’t care whether he’s clean or not,’ said Mother, coming to the end of her patience. ‘He can’t stay here with all his… his… women. I’m not cooking for a harem.’
‘It is wonderful to hear the mother and daughter talk together,’ the Turk confided to me. ‘It’s like the sound of sheep bells.’
‘You’re beastly,’ said Margo, ‘you’re beastly! You don’t want me to have any friends. You’re narrow-minded and suburban!’
‘You can’t call it suburban to object to three wives,’ said Mother indignantly.
‘It reminds me,’ said the Turk, his eyes moist, ‘of the singing of the nightingales in my valley.’
‘He can’t help it if he’s a Turk,’ shrilled Margo. ‘He can’t help it if he’s got to have three wives.’
‘Any man can avoid having three wives if he puts his mind to it,’ said Mother firmly.
‘I expect,’ said the Turk confidingly, ‘Almond-blossom is telling her mother what a happy time we had in my valley, huh?’
‘You always try to repress me,’ said Margo. ‘Everything I do is wrong.’
‘The trouble is I give you too much licence. I let you go away for a few days and you come back with this… this… old roué and his dancing girls,’ said Mother.
‘There you are, that’s what I mean – you repress me,’ said Margo triumphantly. ‘Now you expect me to have a licence for a Turk.’
‘How I would like to take them back to my village,’ said the Turk, gazing at them fondly. ‘Such wonderful time we would have… dancing, singing, wine…’
The lamb seemed disappointed that no one was taking any notice of him; he had gambolled a little, decorated the floor, and done two nicely executed pirouettes, but he felt that no one was paying him the attention he deserved, so he put down his head and charged Mother. It was a beautifully executed charge. I could speak with some authority, for during my expeditions through the surrounding olive groves I had frequently met with eager and audacious young rams and fought them matador fashion, using my shirt as a cloak, to our mutual satisfaction. While deploring the result, I had to confess that the charge was excellent, well thought out, as it was, and with the full power of the ram’s wiry body and bony head landing with precision on the back of Mother’s knees. Mother was projected on to our extremely uncomfortable horsehair sofa as if propelled by a cannon, and she lay there gasping. The Turk, horrified at what his gift had done, leaped in front of her, arms outstretched, to protect her from further attack, which seemed imminent, for the ram, pleased with itself, had retreated to a corner of the room and was prancing and bucking rather in the manner of a boxer limbering up in his corner of the ring.
‘Mother, Mother, are you all right?’ screamed Margo.
Mother was too breathless to answer her.
‘Ah-ha! You see, he has spirit like me, Almond-blossom,’ cried the Turk. ‘Come on then, my brave one, come on!’
The ram accepted the invitation with a speed and suddenness that took the Turk by surprise. It moved across the room in a black blur, its feet machine-gunning on the scrubbed boards, hit the Turk on his shins with a crack, and precipitated him onto the sofa with Mother, where he lay uttering loud criesofrage and pain. I had been charged in the shins like that and so I could sympathize.
The Turk’s three wives, aghast at their master’s downfall, were standing immobile, uttering noises like three minarets at sundown. It was into this interesting situation that Larry and Leslie intruded. They stood riveted in the doorway, drinking in the scene with unbelieving eyes. There was I pursuing a recalcitrant lamb round the room, Margo comforting three ululating ladies in veils, and Mother apparently rolling around on the sofa with an elderly Turk.
‘Mother, don’t you think you’re getting a little old for this sort of thing?’ Larry asked with interest.
‘By Jove, look at that marvellous dagger,’ said Leslie, eyeing the still-writhing Turk with interest.
‘Don’t be stupid, Larry,’ said Mother angrily, massaging the backs of her legs. ‘It’s all Margo’s Turk’s fault.’
‘You can’t trust Turks,’ said Leslie, still eyeing the dagger. ‘Spiro says so.’
‘But what are you doing rolling about with a Turk at this hour?’ Larry inquired. ‘Practising to be Lady Hester Stanhope?’
‘Now, Larry, I’ve had quite enough this afternoon. Stop making me angry. The sooner this man is out of here, the better I’ll be pleased,’ said Mother. ‘Kindly ask him to go.’
‘You can’t, you can’t. He’s my Turk,’ squeaked Margo tearfully. ‘You can’t treat my Turk like that.’
‘I’m going upstairs to put some witch hazel on my bruises,’ said Mother, hobbling towards the door, ‘and I want that man out of here by the time I come down.’
By the time she had returned, both Larry and Leslie had struck up a firm friendship with the Turk and to Mother’s annoyance he and his wives stayed on for several hours, imbibing gallons of sweet tea and biscuits be
fore we could finally manage to get them into a caraccino and back to town.
‘Well, thank heaven that’s over,’ said Mother, limping towards the dining-room for our evening meal. ‘At least they’re not staying here, and that’s one mercy. But really, Margo, you should be careful who you invite.’
‘I’m sick of the way you criticize my friends,’ said Margo. ‘He’s a perfectly ordinary, harmless Turk.’
‘He would have made a charming son-in-law, don’t you think?’ asked Larry. ‘Margo could have called the first son Ali Baba and the daughter Sesame.’
‘Don’t joke like that, Larry dear,’ said Mother.
‘I’m not joking,’ said Larry. ‘The old boy told me his wives were getting a bit long in the tooth and that he rather fancied Margo as number four.’
‘Larry! he didn’t! Disgusting old brute,’ said Mother. ‘It’s a good thing he didn’t say that to me. I’d have given him a piece of my mind. What did you say?’
‘He was rather put off when I told him what Margo’s dowry was,’ said Larry.
‘Dowry? What dowry?’ asked Mother, mystified.
‘Eleven unweaned puppies,’ explained Larry.
2
Ghosts and Spiders
Take heed o’ the foul fiend.
– SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Throughout the year Thursday was, as far as I was concerned, the most important day of the week, for that was the day that Theodore visited us. Sometimes it would be a long family day – a drive down south and a picnic on a remote beach, or something similar; but, normally, Theo and I would set off alone on one of our excursions, as Theodore insisted on calling them. Bedecked with our collecting equipment and bags, nets, bottles, and test tubes and accompanied by the dogs, we would set out to explore the island in much the same spirit of adventure as filled the bosoms of Victorian explorers who ventured into Darkest Africa.
But not many of the Victorian explorers had the benefit of Theodore as a companion; as a handy encyclopaedia to take along on a trip, he could not be bettered. To me, he was omniscient as a god, but much nicer since he was tangible. It was not only his incredible erudition that astonished everyone who met him but his modesty. I remember how we would sit on the veranda, surrounded by the remnants of one of Mother’s sumptuous teas, listening to the tired cicadas singing the evening in, plying Theodore with questions. Meticulously dressed in his tweed suit, his blonde hair and beard immaculate, his eyes would sparkle with interest as each new subject was introduced.
The Corfu Trilogy (the corfu trilogy) Page 56