Fillets of Plaice

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  “Hasn’t he any spirit of fun?” I inquired.

  “He hasn’t any spirit of fun about anything,” said Martin vehemently. “And anyway, I don’t blame him. Anyone falling into that load of muck couldn’t possibly treat it with merriment.”

  “I do see your point,” I said. “Have some more beer.”

  “The trouble is,” said Martin, “that this was not the first time that I’d made mistakes of that sort. There are several things I did when I was an A.D.O. which I prefer not to tell you about, and that’s why it took me so long to work up from being an A.D.O. to a D.O. After this awful lavatory thing my next posting was to Umchichi, and you know what that’s like.”

  “Dear God,” I said, “I’ve never been there but I’ve heard about it.”

  Umchichi was the sort of Devil’s Island to which all naughty D.O.’s and A.D.O.’s were sent when they were in disgrace. It consisted of a lot of leprous Africans and more mosquitoes than anywhere else on the whole west coast of Africa.

  “Fascinating though these revelations are,” I said, “I don’t really see what this is all about.”

  “But that’s what I was telling you as I was coming down the hill?” explained Martin. “He’s coming through on a tour of inspection. He arrives in three days’ time so I must have your help.”

  “Martin,” I said, “much as I love you, I am not a social hostess.”

  “No, no, old boy, I know,” he said, “but if you could just back me up a bit.”

  This cri de coeur was impossible to refuse. All the white population of Mamfe and ninety-nine per cent of the African population loved Martin dearly.

  “I must give this some thought,” I said.

  We sat in silence while Martin twitched and perspired.

  Presently I shouted, “Pious, pass more beer for the D.O. please.”

  When the beer had been served I leaned forward and fixed Martin with a piercing eye.

  “This,” I said, “is your only salvation. We have a woman in our midst.”

  “A woman?” said Martin, puzzled, “What woman?”

  “Mary,” I said, “your A.D.O.’s wife, in case you hadn’t remembered. Now women are good at this sort of thing. We also have McGrade (he was the Public Works Department man in charge of mending bridges, building roads and similar uninteresting things). We have Girton (he was the United Africa Company man, who spent his time selling Manchester cloth to the Africans and beer and tinned goods to the white population). Now, surely between all of us we can get something done.”

  “Dear boy,” said Martin solemnly, “I shall be for ever, in your debt. What a brilliant suggestion.”

  “Now, the first thing to do,” I said, “is to have a look at your house.”

  “But you’ve been there often,” said Martin in surprise. “You’ve been up several times for chop and any number of times for drinks.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I’ve never seen anything other than your main living-room and your veranda.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” he said. “Yes, of course. Well, you’d better come up and see it now.”

  “I’ll bring Pious,” I said, “because I’ll lend you him for the evening. He’s far better than that stupid lout you’ve got and he can really put on Government House type service. That steward of yours is liable to drop the soup in the D.C.’s lap.”

  “Oh, God!” said Martin in an agonised tone of voice, “don’t even suggest such a thing.”

  So taking Pious with us, we went up to the D.O.’s house, which was perched high on a bluff overlooking the river. It was a very handsome house, with thick walls and huge rooms, for it had been built in the time when the Cameroons had been a German colony. The Germans knew how to build for the heat so what little breeze there was the house received, and the massive walls made its interior as cool as it was possible to be in a place like Mamfe. On the way up the hill I explained to Pious what the problem was.

  “Now,” I said, “this is very important and we all go help the D.O. as well as we can.”

  “Yes, sah,” said Pious grinning happily, for he always felt I spent far too much time looking after my animals and not nearly enough letting him show off his prowess as a steward.

  When we got there I examined the living-room and the veranda with great attention. They were spacious and quite pleasantly furnished by bachelor D.O. standards.

  “I think you ought to take that calendar off the wall,” I said to Martin, “for a start.”

  “Why?” he said, “I thought she was awfully pretty.”

  “Martin,” I said, “if the D.C. sees nude women hanging all over your living-room, he is going to get some very peculiar ideas about you, so take it down.”

  Pious, who had been following this with close attention, took down the calendar of a woman in a voluptuous pose who was so obviously a mammal that it almost embarrassed me.

  “Now, his bedroom,” I said.

  The bedroom, again, was large and contained a big double bed with a mosquito net.

  “Pious,” I said, “you go look the bed to make sure it no go break.” Giggling happily to himself, Pious crawled round the bed on hands and knees examining every nut and bolt.

  “Now,” I said to Martin, “we’ll both bounce up and down on top of it.”

  We did and the bed responded well.

  “Well, that’s alright,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything in here that will do him any damage. Now, where are you going to feed him?”

  “Feed him?” said Martin, puzzled.

  “Yes, feed him,” I said impatiently. “You’re going to feed him while he’s here, aren’t you?”

  “Well, on the veranda,” Martin said.

  “But haven’t you got anything else?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s the dining-room.”

  “Well, if you’ve got a dining-room for God’s sake use it. After all, you want to give him the best treatment possible. Where is this dining-room?”

  He took me to the living-room, threw open two massive wooden doors and there was a splendid dining-room with a table long enough to seat at least ten people. It was beautifully polished but, naturally, as Martin had never used the dining-room, the whole thing was covered in dust, as were the rather handsome but heavy wooden chairs. From the ceiling, down the whole length of this eight-foot table hung what in India is called a “punka”. It is, in fact, a giant fan. The backbone of this one, as it were, was made out of a long length of bamboo some four or five inches in diameter and from it hung down a long fringe of dried palm fronds some four feet in length. From the centre of the bamboo ran a string through a series of little pulleys across the ceiling and out through a hole in the wall which led to the kitchen quarters. The idea was that you engaged a small boy to pull the string so that the whole fan waved to and fro over the table, thus at least occasionally allowing you a gust of warm air in the midst of your meal.

  “But this is absolutely splendid,” I said to Martin. “He’ll be most impressed with this.”

  “I suppose he might,” said Martin. “I’d never have thought about it. I never use the damn’ thing. You see, I would feel so lonely sitting here.”

  “What you want is a wife, my boy,” I said in a fatherly tone.

  “Well, I do try,” said Martin, “every time I go on leave. But as soon as they hear where I am, they break off the engagement. In fact, there was an awfully nice girl called Molly whom I met on my last leave but, unfortunately, one of her uncles had been to Mamfe and the damned old fool told her about it in the worst possible terms and so it came to nothing.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Persevere. You might find a woman stupid enough to marry you in the first place and live here one day.”

  We got Pious to examine the huge table and the chairs with great care. We both sat on each one of them and tested the table by standing on it and doing a sort of tango, but it was as firm and solid as rock.

  “Now,” I said to Martin, “I want to put Pious in c
harge of your staff because by and large they seem a very inefficient lot whereas Pious is highly efficient.”

  “Anything you say, dear boy, anything at all,” said Martin, “just mention it.”

  “Pious,” I said.

  “Sah,” he said.

  “We have three days to get ready. During that time you go be half my steward and half the D.O.’s steward. You hear?”

  “I hear, sah,” he said.

  We went out onto the veranda and sat down.

  “Now,” I said to Pious, “go tell the D.O.’s steward to pass us a drink. By the way, Martin, what is the name of your steward?” I asked.

  “Amos,” he replied.

  “Yes,” I said, “he looks like an Amos. Well, Pious, go tell Amos to pass drink and then you go bring the cook, the steward and the small boy here so we look ’um and have palava.”

  “Yes, sah,” said Pious and with an almost military strut disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  “I think the question of the food can be safely left to Mary,” I said. “The others might have some suggestions of use, too, so what I think would be a good thing is to call a council of war this evening. If you send chits round to all of them they can come up and have drinks and we can discuss the whole matter.”

  “You’re really proving my salvation,” said Martin,

  “Nonsense,” I said, “I am just orientating you a bit. You obviously aren’t cut out for social life.”

  Pious came in bearing a tray with beer, followed by Amos, who in his brown shorts and jacket looked like an amiable but mentally defective monkey; the small boy, who looked quite bright but was obviously completely untrained and — if Amos was supposed to be his trainer — never would learn a thing; and then, to my astonishment, an enormous, tall, thin Hausa who looked as though he was 110 years old, wearing a white coat and shorts and a huge chef’s hat, on the front of which was embroidered in rather uneven lettering “BC”.

  “Now,” I said in my firmest voice, “the D.O. is having the D.C. here in three days’ time. The D.O. he want my steward to watch you all and make sure that everything is proper. If it is not proper, D.C. will be very angry with D.O. and D.O. and I will be very angry with you and we will kick you for larse.”

  In spite of the sternness with which I spoke, they all grinned at me happily. They knew the importance of the visitor and they knew that my threat was quite genuine. But it was put in a joking form that they could understand.

  “Now,” I said, pointing to Martin’s steward, “you’re named Amos.”

  “Yes, sah,” he said, standing to attention.

  “Now, what’ee your name?” I asked the small boy.

  “John, sah,” he said.

  “The cook,” said Martin apologetically, interrupting my dragooning, “is called Jesus.”

  “Dear fellow,” I said, “you’re in luck. With Pious and Jesus with us we can’t go far wrong. By the way what is that extraordinary piece of embroidery on the front of his hat?”

  Martin looked acutely embarrassed.

  “He happened to cook a very good meal one day by pure accident,” said Martin, “and I had a magazine which had a picture of a chef in a London hotel and so to encourage him I told him that the next time I went on leave I would buy him one of those hats that only expert cooks wore.”

  “It was a very kind thought,” I said, “but what’s the embroidery in the front, the ‘BC’?”

  Martin looked very shamefaced.

  “He got his wife to embroider that on for him,” he said, “and he’s very proud of it.”

  “But what does it mean?” I insisted.

  Martin looked even more embarrassed.

  “It means Bugler’s Cook,” he said.

  “Does he realise the terrible confusion he could cause in some people’s mind by being called Jesus and having BC on his hat?” I inquired.

  “No, I’ve never tried to explain it to him,” said Martin. “I felt it would only worry him and he’s quite worried enough as it is.”

  I took a long soothing draught of beer. The whole thing appeared to be getting so religious one would have thought it was the Pope who was arriving instead of the D.C.

  “Now, Pious,” I said, “you go get some furniture oil, you hear?”

  “Yes, sah,” he said.

  “And,” I said, “you go make sure that the dining-room is cleaned out and the chairs and table are polished proper. You hear?”

  “I hear, sah,” he said.

  “I want the table top to look like a mirror. And if you don’t make sure that it does, I’ll kick your larse.”

  “Yes, sah,” he said.

  “And then the day before the D.C. arrives, all the floors have to be scrubbed and made clean and all the other furniture polished too. You hear?”

  “Yes, sah,” said Pious.

  I could see by the proud look on his face that he was going to look forward immensely to overseeing this very important occasion and also having the opportunity of dominating some of his compatriots.

  Martin leant forward and whispered in my ear.

  “The small boy is an Ibo,” he said.

  Now, the Ibos are an extremely clever tribe and were constantly wandering over from Nigeria, swindling the Cameroonians and wandering back again. So they were regarded by the Cameroonians with great loathing and distrust.

  “Pious,” I said, “the small boy is Ibo.”

  “I know, sah,” said Pious.

  “So you go make him work hard but you no go make him work too hard because he is an Ibo. You hear?”

  “Yes, sah,” said Pious.

  “Alright,” I said as though I owned Martin’s house, “pass more beer.”

  The staff trooped off into the kitchen.

  “I say,” said Martin in admiration, “you are good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve never done it before,” I said, “but it doesn’t require much imagination.”

  “No, I’m afraid I’m rather lacking in that,” said Martin.

  “I don’t think you are lacking in imagination,” I said. “Anybody who would have the brilliance to bring back a chef’s hat for his cook cannot be completely insensitive.”

  So we drank some more beer and I tried to think of any other calamity that could possibly happen.

  “Does the lavatory work?” I asked suspiciously.

  “It’s working perfectly.”

  “Well, don’t, for God’s sake, let the small boy drop a pawpaw down it,” I said, “because we don’t want a repetition of the last episode you told me about. Now, you send the chits round to everybody and I’ll come up here about six o’clock and we’ll have a conference of war.”

  “Wonderful,” said Martin. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said. “Even Standish couldn’t have organised things so beautifully.”

  Standish was the Assistant D.O. and was at that moment sweating his way through the mountains north of Mamfe sorting out the problems of the remoter villages.

  I hurried back to my marquee and my vociferous family. Having to help Martin had set me back in my routine work so the baby chimps were yelling for their food, porcupines were champing at the bars, and the bushbabies with enormous eyes, glared at me indignantly because, having roused themselves from their slumbers, they had found no pots of delicately chopped fruit in their cages.

  At six o’clock I presented myself at the D.O.”s residence and found that Mary Standish, the A.D.O.’s wife, had already arrived.

  She was a young and pretty woman, inclined to plumpness and had a great placidity of nature. She had been whisked by Standish from some obscure place like Surbiton or Penge and had been plonked down in the middle of Mamfe. She had only been there six months but so gentle and sweet was her nature that she accepted everything and everybody with such calmness and good nature that you felt that if you had a raging headache and she placed one of her plump little han
ds on your forehead, it would have the same effect as an eau de cologne-soaked handkerchief

  “Gerry,” she squeaked, “isn’t this exciting?”

  “Well, it may be for you,” I said, “but it’s a pain in the neck as far as poor Martin is concerned.”

  “But the D.C!” she said again. “It might mean a promotion for Martin and it might even mean one for Alec.”

  “If it’s organised properly,” I said. “The reason we’re having this council of war is to make sure that nothing goes wrong because, as you know, Martin is accident prone...”

  Martin, thinking that I was going to tell her the hideous story of the D.C. and the latrine, made one of his windmill gestures to stop me and immediately knocked his glass of beer onto the floor.

  “Sorry, sah,” said Amos. The Cameroonians had an endearing habit of saying “Sorry, sah” whenever arty accident befell you, as though it was their own fault. If, for example, you were following a line of carriers in the forest and you tripped over a root and grazed your knee, you would hear “Sorry, sah,” “Sorry, sah,” Sorry, sah,” “Sorry sah,” echoing back along the whole line of carriers.

  “You see what I mean?” I said to Mary as Amos cleaned up the mess and brought Martin a fresh glass of beer.

  “Yes, I do see,” she said.

  “Well, we won’t discuss it now,” I said. “We’ll wait till the others arrive.”

  So we drank our beer thoughtfully and listened to the hippos gurgling and roaring and snorting in the river some three hundred feet below us.

  Presently McGrade arrived. He was a very impressive Irishman of enormous dimensions with almost pillar-box-red hair and vivid blue eyes, and he had one of those lovely Irish accents that are as soft as cream being poured out of a jug. He slumped his massive form onto a chair, seized Martin’s glass of beer, drank deeply from it and said, “So you’re being visited by royalty, then?”

  “The nearest approach to it,” said Martin, “and kindly give me back my beer. I’m in urgent need of it.”