The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  We sped down the Grand Canal and when we reached my hotel the boat put into the hotel jetty. As the engine stuttered and died we were passed by a gondola, propelled in a rather disconsolate fashion by a very damp-looking gondolier. The two people occupying it were shielded from the inclemencies of the weather by a large umbrella and so I could not see their faces, but, as the gondola passed us and sped down a narrow side canal that led to Marco Polo’s house, I heard a penetrating female English voice (obviously the product of Roedean, that most expensive of public schools), float out from under the umbrella.

  “Of course, Naples is just like Venice only without so much water,” it observed in flute-like tones.

  I stood riveted on the landing stage outside the hotel, staring after the retreating gondola. Surely, I said to myself, I must be dreaming, and yet in my experience there was only one voice in the world like that; only one voice, moreover, capable of making such a ridiculous statement. It belonged to a girlfriend of mine whom I had not seen for some thirty years, Ursula Pendragon-White. She, of all my girl-friends, I think I adored the most, but she was also the one who filled me with the most alarm and despondency.

  It was not only her command over the English language that caused me pain (it was she who had told me about a friend of hers who had had an ablution so she would not have an illegitimate baby), but her interference in the private lives of her wide circle of acquaintances. When I had last known her she was busy trying to reform a friend of hers who, she said, was drinking so much that he was in danger of becoming an incoherent.

  But no, I thought to myself, it could not be Ursula. She was safely and happily married to a very dull young man and lived in the depths of Hampshire. What on earth would she be doing in Venice at a time of year when all good farmer’s wives were helping their husbands get the harvest in, or organizing jumble sales in the village. In any case, I thought to myself, even if it was Ursula I did not want to get tangled up with her again. I had come here for peace and quiet, and from my past experience of her I knew that dose contact with her brought anything but that. Speaking as one who had had to pursue a Pekinese puppy through a crowded theatre during a Mozart concert, I knew that Ursula could get one involved in the most horrifying of predicaments without even really trying. No, no, I thought, it could not have been Ursula, and even if it had been thank God she had not spotted me.

  The hotel was sumptuous and my large and ornate bedroom overlooking the Grand Canal was exceedingly comfortable. After I had changed out of my wet things and had a bath and a drink I saw that the weather had changed and the sun was blazing, making the whole of Venice glitter in a delicate sunset of colours. I walked down numerous little alleyways, crossed tiny bridges over canals, until I came at length to the vast Piazza San Marco, lined with bars, each of which had its own orchestra. Hundreds of pigeons wheeled and swooped through the brilliant air as people purchased bags of corn and scattered this largess for the birds on to the mosaic of the huge square. I picked my way through the sea of birds until I reached the Doge’s Palace where there was a collection of pictures that I wanted to see. The Palace was crammed with hundreds of sight-seers of a dozen different nationalities, from Japanese, festooned like Christmas trees with cameras, to portly, guttural Germans and lithe blond Swedes. Wedged in this human lava flow I progressed slowly from room to room, admiring the paintings. Suddenly I heard the penetrating flute-like voice up ahead of me in the crowd.

  “Last year, in Spain,” it said, “I went to see all those pictures by Gruyиre . . . so gloomy, with lots of corpses and things. So depressing, not like these. I really do think that Cannelloni is positively my favourite Italian painter. Scrumptious!”

  Now I knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it was Ursula. No other woman would be capable of getting a cheese, a pasta and two painters so inextricably entwined. I shifted cautiously through the crowd until I could see her distinctive profile, the large brilliant blue eyes, the long tip-tilted nose, the end of which looked as if it had been snipped off — an enchanting effect — and her cloud-like mass of hair still, to my surprise, dark, but with streaks of silver in it. She looked as lovely as ever and the years had dealt kindly with her.

  She was with a middle-aged, very bewildered-looking man, who was gazing at her in astonishment at her culinary-artistic observation. I felt, from his amazement that he must be a comparatively new acquaintance, for anyone who had known Ursula for any length of time would take her last statement in his stride.

  Beautiful and enchanting though she was, I felt it would be safer for my peace of mind not to renew my acquaintance with her lest something diabolical resulted to ruin my holiday.

  Reluctantly, I left the Palace, determined to come back the following day when I felt Ursula would have had her fill of pictures. I made my way back into the Piazza San Marco, found a pleasant café and sat down to a well-earned brandy and soda. All the cafés around the square were packed with people and in such a crowd I was, I felt, certain to escape observation. In any case I was sure Ursula would not recognize me, for I was several stone heavier than when she had last seen me, my hair was grey and I now sported a beard.

  Feeling safe, I sat there to enjoy my drink and listen to the charming Strauss waltzes the band was playing. The sunshine, my pleasant drink and the soothing music lulled me into a sense of false security. I had forgotten Ursula’s ability — a sense well developed in most women but in her case enlarged to magical proportion — to walk into a crowded room, take one glance around in a casual way and then be able to tell you, not only who was in the room but what they were all wearing. So I shouldn’t have felt the shock and surprise I did when I suddenly heard her scream above the chatter of the crowd and the noise of the band.

  “Darling, darling,” she cried, hurrying through the tables towards me. “Darling Gerry, it’s me, Ursula!”

  I rose to meet my fate. Ursula rushed into my arms, fastened her mouth on mine and gave me a prolonged kiss accompanied by humming noises, of the sort that (even in this permissive day and age) were of the variety which one generally reserved for the bedroom. Presently, when I began to think that we might be arrested by the Italian police for disorderly behaviour, Ursula dragged her mouth reluctantly away from mine and stood back, holding tightly on to my hands.

  “Darling,” she cooed, her huge blue eyes brimming with tears of delight, “darling . . . I can’t believe it . . . seeing you again after all these years . . . it’s a miracle . . . oh, I am so happy, darling. How scrumptious to see you again.”

  “How did you know it was me?” I asked feebly.

  “How did I know, darling? You are silly . . . you haven’t changed a bit,” she said untruthfully. “Besides, darling, I’ve seen you on television and your photos on the covers of your books, so naturally I would recognize you.”

  “Well, it’s very nice to see you again,” I went on guardedly.

  “Darling, it’s been simply an age,” she said, “far too long.”

  She had, I noticed, divested herself of the bewildered-looking gentleman.

  “Sit down and have a drink,” I suggested.

  “Of course, sweetie, I’d love one.” She seated herself, willowy and elegant, at my table. I beckoned the waiter.

  “What are you drinking?” she asked.

  “Brandy and soda.”

  “Ugh!” she cried, shuddering delicately. “How positively revolting . You shouldn’t drink it, darling, you’ll end up with halitosis of the liver.”

  “Never mind my liver,” I said, long-sufferingly. “What do you want to drink?”

  “I’ll have one of those Bonny Prince Charlie things.” The waiter stared at her blankly. He did not have the benefit of my early training with Ursula.

  “Madam would like a Dubonnet,” I said, “and I’ll have another brandy.”

  I sat down at the table and Ursula leant forward, gave me a ravishing, melting smile and seized my hand in both of hers.

  “Darling, isn’t this romantic ?” sh
e asked. “You and me meeting after all these years in Venice ? It’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard of, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” I said cautiously, “how’s your husband?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? I’m divorced.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” she explained. “It was better really. You see, poor dear, he was never the same after he got foot and mouth disease.”

  Even my previous experience of Ursula had not prepared me for this.

  “Toby got foot and mouth disease?” I asked.

  “Yes . . . terribly,” she said with a sigh, “and he was never really the same again.”

  “I should think not. But surely cases of humans getting it must be very rare?”

  “Humans?” she said, wide-eyed. “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, you said that Toby . . .” I began, when Ursula gave a shriek of laughter.

  “You are silly,” she crowed. “I meant that all his cattle got it. His whole pedigree herd that had taken him years to breed. He had to kill the lot, and it seemed to affect him a lot, poor lamb. He started going about with the most curious women and getting drunk in night clubs and that sort of thing.”

  “I never realized that foot and mouth disease could have such far-reaching effects,” I said. “I wonder if the Ministry of Agriculture knows?”

  “D’you think they’d be interested ?” Ursula asked in astonishment. “I could write to them about it if you thought I ought to.”

  “No, no,” I said, hastily, “I was only joking.”

  “Well,” she said, “tell me about your marriage.”

  “I’m divorced, too,” I confessed.

  “You are ? Darling, I told you this meeting was romantic,” she said misty-eyed. “The two of us meeting in Venice with broken marriages. It’s just like a book, darling.”

  “Well, I don’t think we ought to read too much into it.”

  “What are you doing in Venice ?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, unguardedly. “I’m just here for a holiday.”

  “Oh, wonderful, darling, then you can help me,” she exclaimed.

  “No! ” I said hastily, “I won’t help you.”

  “Darling, you don’t even know what I’m asking you to do,” she said plaintively.

  “I don’t care what it is, I’m not doing it.”

  “Sweetie, this is the first time we’ve met in ages and you’re being horrid to me before we even start,” she said indignantly.

  “I don’t care. I know all about your machinations from bitter experience and I do not intend to spend my holiday getting mixed up with whatever awful things you are doing.”

  “You’re beastly,” she said, her eyes brimming, blue as flax flowers, her red mouth quivering. “You’re perfectly beastly . . . here am I alone in Venice, without a husband, and you won’t lift a finger to help me in my distress. You’re revolting and unchivalrous . . . and . . . beastly .”

  I groaned. “Oh, all right, all right, tell me about it. But I warn you I’m not getting involved. I came here for peace and quiet.”

  “Well,” said Ursula, drying her eyes and taking a sip of her drink, “I’m here on what you might call an errand of mercy. The whole thing is fraught with difficulty and imprecations.”

  “Imprecations?” I asked, fascinated in spite of myself.

  Ursula looked around to make sure we were alone. As we were only surrounded by some five thousand junketing foreigners she felt it was safe to confide in me,

  “Imprecations in high places,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s something you must not let go any further.”

  “Don’t you mean implications?” I asked, wanting to get the whole thing on to a more or less intelligible plane.

  “I mean what I say,” said Ursula frostily. “I do wish you’d stop trying to correct me. It was one of your worst characteristics in the old days that you would go on and on correcting me. It’s very irritating, darling.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said contritely, “do go on and tell me who in high places is imprecating whom.”

  “Well,” she said, lowering her voice to such an extent that I could hardly hear her in the babble of noise that surrounded us, “it involves the Duke of Tolpuddle. That’s why I’ve had to come to Venice because I’m the only one Reggie and Marjorie will trust and Perry, too, for that matter, and of course the Duke who is an absolute sweetie and is naturally so cut up about the whole thing, what with the scandal and everything, and so naturally when I said I’d come they jumped at it. But you mustn’t say a word about it to anyone, darling, promise?”

  “What am I not to say a word about?” I asked, dazedly, signalling the waiter for more drinks.

  “But I’ve just told you,” said Ursula impatiently. “About Reggie and Marjorie and Perry. And, of course, the Duke.”

  I took a deep breath: “But I don’t know Reggie and Marjorie and Perry or the Duke.”

  “You don’t?” asked Ursula, amazed.

  I remembered then that she was always astonished to find that you did not know everyone in her wide circle of incredibly dull acquaintances.

  “No. So, as you will see, It is difficult for me to understand the problem. As far as I am aware, it may range from them all having developed leprosy to the Duke being caught operating an illicit still.”

  “Don’t be silly, darling,” said Ursula, shocked. “There’s no insanity in the family.”

  I sighed. “Look, just tell me who did what to whom, remembering that I don’t know any of them, and I have a feeling that I don’t want to.”

  “Well,” said Ursula, “Peregrine is the Duke’s only son. He’s just eighteen and a really nice boy, in spite of it.”

  “In spite of what?” I asked, muddled.

  “Adulteration,” said Ursula, ominously and incomprehensibly.

  I decided not to try to disentangle this one.

  “Go on,” I said, hoping that things would become clearer.

  “Well, Perry was at St Jonah’s . . . you know, that frightfully posh school that they say is better than Eton or Harrow ?”

  “The one that costs ten thousand pounds a term without food? Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

  “My dear, only the very best people’s children get sent there,” said Ursula, “it’s as exclusive as . . . as . . . as . . .”

  “Harrods?”

  “Well, more or less,” agreed Ursula, doubtfully.

  “So Perry was at St Jonah’s,” I prompted.

  “Yes, and doing frightfully well, so the headmaster said. And out of the blue came this bolt,” she said, lowering her voice to a penetrating whisper.

  “Bolt?” I said, puzzled. “What bolt?”

  “Out of the blue, darling,” went on Ursula impatiently, “You know how bolts come. I do wish you’d stop interrupting, darling and let me get on with the story.”

  “I wish you’d get on with the story, too,” I said. “So far all I’ve got out of it is an adulterated Duke’s son with a bolt, and I have no means of knowing whether this is an affliction or not.”

  “Well, be quiet and let me tell you. If you’d stop talking for a moment I could get a word in sideways.”

  I sighed.

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Thank you, darling,” said Ursula, squeezing my hand. “Well, as I say, Perry was doing frightfully well when along came this bolt. Reggie and Marjorie went to the school. Reggie was employed as their art master because, you know, he is awfully good at oil-painting and etching and things like that, although I do think he’s rather eccentric and so I was surprised at St Jonah’s taking him, really, because it’s so posh that they don’t really go in for eccentrics, if you know what I mean?”

  “Why is he eccentric?”

  “Well, my dear, don’t you think it’s eccentric to have an oil-painting of your wife in the nude hung over the mantelpiece in your drawing-room ? I told him I thought it was more suitab
le for the bathroom, if you had to put it on the wall, and he said that he had thought of hanging it in the guest bedroom. I ask you, darling, if that’s not eccentric, what is?”

  I did not say so, but I rather warmed to Reggie.

  “So Reggie was the bolt?” I enquired.

  “No, darling, Marjorie was the bolt. The moment Perry saw her he fell violently in love with her, because she a rather beautiful — if you like those women from the South Seas that Chopin used to paint.”

  “Gauguin?” I suggested.

  “Probably,” said Ursula vaguely. “Anyway, she really is quite pretty, but I think she’s just a weeny bit stupid. Well, she behaved very stupidly with Perry because she encouraged him. And then came another bolt.”

  “Another bolt?” I queried, steeling myself.

  “Yes,” she said. “My dear, the silly girl went and fell in love with Perry, and as you know she’s almost old enough to be his mother and has a baby. Well, perhaps she’s not old enough to be his mother, exactly, but he’s eighteen and she’s thirty if she’s a day, although she always swears she’s twenty-six, but anyway, it doesn’t alter the fact that the whole thing was most unsuitable. Naturally, Reggie got very despondent.”

  “He could have solved the problem by giving Perry the portrait of Marjorie,” I suggested.

  Ursula gave me a reproving look.

  “It’s no laughing matter, darling,” she said severely. “We have all been in a complete turmoil, I can tell you.”

  I was fascinated by the thought of seeing a Duke in a turmoil, but I did not say so.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Well, Reggie tackled Marjorie and she confessed that she had fallen in love with Perry and that they had been having an affair behind the gym, of all uncomfortable places. So, not unnaturally, Reggie got fearfully annoyed and gave her a black eye, which was really quite uncalled for, as I told him. He then went looking for Perry to give him a black eye, I suppose, but luckily Perry had gone home for the week-end, so Reggie couldn’t find him, which was just as well because Perry’s not a very strong boy, poor dear, whereas Reggie is built like an ox, as well as having a terrible temper.”