Later that day, when I went to cash a cheque at the reception desk, they were all red-eyed and tight-lipped. I was treated with a frigid courtesy that would have intimidated a polar bear. However, Havelock had not yet completed the full cycle of havoc. Soon I had a steady flow of patients. There was the young porter, Dennis, a nice but regrettably unattractive Scots lad, made more so by two physical defects. He had a speech impediment and a fine and fiery relief-map of acne across his face, from which his round brown eves peered shyly. He brought me a telegram and then stood fidgeting in the doorway.
‘N-n-n-no reply, sir?’ he asked.
‘No thank you, Dennis.’
‘Is there anything else I c-c-can g-g-get you, sir?’
‘Not at the moment. Not unless you have an exceptionally pretty sister of loose morals.’
‘N-n-n-no, sir. My sister’s m-m-married, sir.’
‘Good for her,’ I said, heartily. ‘It’s nice to know that the old institution’s still surviving. It’s as heart-warming as finding a dinosaur.’
‘That b-b-b-book you lent Gavin, sir . . . Does it say much about m-m-marriage, sir?’
‘Havelock says a lot about marriage,’ I said. ‘What had you in mind?’
‘Does he say anything about p-p-p-prop-p-posing, sir?’
‘Proposing marriage? Well, I’m not sure. I don’t think he gives any definite instructions. It’s more a general account of how to behave after you’re married.’
‘But you h-h-have to p-p-p-propose first, sir,’ he pointed out.
‘Of course. But that’s easy enough. Who do you have in mind to propose to?’
‘S-s-s-s-s-andra,’ he said, and my heart sank. Sandra was the last girl for him, even if he looked a million dollars which, with his acne and his chin covered with yellow down like a newly-hatched pigeon, he certainly did not. Add to this his impediment, and his chances of winning Sandra’s hand were about equal to his chances of becoming Prime Minister.
‘Well, it’s simple enough,’ I said heartily. ‘You take her out, give her a good time, and then, at the end of the evening, you pop the question. Simple. It’s after she says “yes” that your difficulties begin.’
‘I’ve got s-s-s-spots,’ said Dennis, dolefully.
‘Everyone’s got spots,’ I replied. ‘I’m not going to disrobe for you, but I’ve got spots all over my whole back. It looks like an aerial photograph of the higher peaks of the Andes.’
‘That’s on your b-b-b-back,’ pointed out Dennis. ‘M-m-mine are on my f-f-face.’
‘It’s scarcely noticeable,’ I lied. ‘I wouldn’t have seen them if you hadn’t drawn my attention to them.’
‘I s-s-stammer,’ he said. ‘How can you p-p-p-propose if you s-s-stammer?’
‘A slight impediment,’ I reassured him firmly. ‘When you come to the great moment, you’ll be so excited you’ll forget to stammer.’
‘I b-b-blush, too,’ went on Dennis, determined to lay out all his faults for my examination.
‘Everyone blushes,’ I pointed out. ‘Even I blush, but you can’t see it because of my beard and moustache. It shows a nice, delicate nature. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Actually Havelock has a bit about blushing in volume eight.’
‘Does he s-s-say anything about s-s-s-stammering and s-s-spots?’ asked Dennis, hopefully.
‘Not spots. That’s really not his scene. Do you want to borrow this to read what he says?’
‘Yes, p-p-please,’ said Dennis, eagerly.
He seized volume eight and scuttled off with it. The whole interview had left me feeling as limp as a psychiatrist at the end of a heavy day. I hoped that Havelock would produce a panacea for Dennis, for he was a nice, earnest boy, but I doubted it; the dice were too heavily loaded against him.
The next person to seek the advice of Havelock was Giovanni, one of the restaurant waiters, a tall, handsome, sleek, dark man, like a well-groomed antelope with melting eves. He looked so supremely full of self-confidence that it was hard to believe he had any problems at all, let alone sexual ones. But he waited one lunch time until I had lingered rather long over my meal and was the last person in the restaurant, then took up a station within six feet of my table and stared fixedly at me until I stopped writing.
‘Yes?’ I sighed. ‘What’s your problem, Giovanni?’
‘Well,’ he said, coming forward eagerly. ‘I justa wanta aska you . . . thata book, er . . . she tells you about sadism?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why? Do you feel an overwhelming urge to beat up Innocenzo?’
‘No, no! It’s notta me. It is-a my girl-friend.’
‘Oh,’ I said cautiously ‘What’s the problem?’
He glanced around furtively to make sure we were alone. ‘She bitas,’ he said, in a hushed whisper.
‘She bites?’
‘Yessa.’
‘She bites what?’ I asked, slightly confused, as this was the last thing I had expected.
‘She bita me,’ be explained.
‘Oh!’ I felt somewhat at a loss, for even Havelock had not prepared me for a girl who bit large Italian waiters.
‘What does she bite you for?’
‘She say I tasta good,’ he said, solemnly.
‘Well, isn’t that a good thing?’
‘No. Itta hurts,’ he pointed out. ‘Soma-tima I’m afraid she bita veina, and I bleeds to death.’
‘Surely not. You couldn’t bleed to death from a few love-bites.’
‘It is notta few love-bitas,’ he said, indignantly. ‘She issa sadism.’
‘A sadist,’ I corrected.
‘She’s thatta too,’ he agreed.
‘But love-bites are very common,’ I explained. ‘They are really a sign of affection, of love.’
He glanced round once more to make sure we were alone, then unbuttoned his shirt.
‘Issa thissa love, or is she sadism?’ he enquired, displaying to me a chest covered with an astrakhan-like pelt of fur, through which could be seen several neat red circles of teeth marks. In several places the skin had been broken, and at one point a piece of sticking-plaster was applied.
‘Well, it may be painful,’ I commented, ‘but I don’t really think it qualifies as sadism.’
‘No?’ he queried, indignantly. ‘Whatta you wanta that she should do? Eata me?’
‘Why don’t you bite her back?’ I suggested.
‘I cannot do. She would not like it.’
He certainly seemed to have a problem and his chief problem was that he had no idea what a real sadist was.
‘Would you like to borrow the book that talks about sadism?’ I asked. ‘Would that help?’
‘Yessa,’ he beamed. ‘Then I reada it to her, and she will see she is a sadism.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t read it all to her,’ I said, in a precautionary way ‘After all, you don’t want to start her on whips and things.’
‘I reada it first,’ he said, after a moment’s thought.
‘Yes, I would just censor it first if I were you. I’ll bring it down this evening, Giovann.’
‘Thanka you, Mr Durrell,’ he said, and bowed me out while re-buttoning his shirt.
Two days later, he returned the book, looking worried.
‘Is all aright,’ he whispered.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘She thoughta when I’m reading her these things he say, thata I wanta to do it to her. So she say, “no, no way”. So I say “you willa give up being sadism, and I willa too”.’
‘And she agreed?’
‘Yessa. She agree.’
‘And does it work?’
‘Lasta night,’ he said, closing one eye and looking at me. ‘Lasta night, she was gentle like a bird, like a beautiful bird
. . . so softa.’
‘Very nice,’ I said.
‘No. She is angry with me.’
‘Why?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘She was so beautiful, so softa, so gentle, that I bit-a her,’ he confessed. ‘Now she say she no sleepa with me again.’
‘She’ll change her mind,’ I reassured him, comfortingly. But he looked doubtful, and by the time I left the hotel his beautiful biter had not given in to his importuning.
In the unfortunate case of the kitchen porter and the cellarman, I was, quite unwittingly (with the aid of Havelock), the cause of some upset, of which, I am glad to say, the only really detrimental aspect was that the soup of the day, minestrone, was burnt black. It started because I’d found a short-cut through the cellars underneath the hotel, which led me straight out on to the cliffs instead of having to walk along miles of road. Here, since my short-cut led past the dustbins, I would frequently meet the kitchen porter or the cellarman. The porter was a nice Irish lad, with a lazy smile, very blue eyes, a crop of auburn hair and a face freckled as thickly as a blackbird’s egg. In direct contrast, the cellarman was a rather dark, saturnine individual, whose face, in repose, looked sulky but was transfigured when he smiled. He had a most attractive, deep, husky voice with a real Dorset accent. The news of my apparent endless fund of sexual knowledge (as represented by Havelock Ellis) filtered down into the cellars and both these attractive young men brought their troubles to me. The first one was the cellarman, David.
‘You see, sur,’ he confessed, blushing slightly. ‘I think she’s bloody wonderful. ‘Ur knows I do; ‘ur krows I want to marry ‘ur. But ‘ur won’ let me do it, sur. Not no which way. But ‘ur dum’t want me to do it with anyone else, see? Not tha’ I want to, understand? But what I say is, either she do it wi’ me, or I does it wi’ some’un else. Fair’s fair, sur, don’ you think?’
‘She thinks abstinence makes the heart grow fonder,’ I said, and regretted it when he gave me a reproachful look.
‘It’s no jokin’ matter, sur. It’s gettin’ me down, ’onest. I wunnered if thur was anythin’ in your book, like, I could give ’ur to read? Sort of, well . . . encourage ‘ur, I suppose.’
‘I’ll lend you the volume on sexual education and abstinence,’ I promised. ‘Though I don’t guarantee the results.’
‘Of course not, sur. I unnerstand,’ he said. ‘I jus’ want somethin’ to git ’ur started, like.’
So I lent him volume six.
Next, I was approached by the auburn-haired Michael. He had exactly the same problem with his girl-friend. I reflected that we were supposed to live in a promiscuous and permissive society, and yet everyone in the hotel seemed to behave like early Victorians. Certainly the girls appeared to cling to their maidenheads with the tenacity of limpets.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the queue, Michael,’ I said. ‘I have just lent the volume you want to David.’
‘Oh, him. Sure, he’s a bloody wash-out,’ said Michael. ‘I didn’t even know he had a girl. He doesn’t even look as though he’d the strength for a pee, let alone anything else.’
‘Well, he has a girl, and he’s suffering just as you are. So, show some sympathy.’
‘It’s sympathy I’m needing,’ he replied. ‘This girl’s driving me mad. She’s ruining me health. Even me religion is suffering and that’s a terrible thing to do to an Irishman.’
‘How is she affecting your religion?’ I asked, astonished by this revelation.
‘Sure, an’ I’ve nothing to confess,’ he said, indignantly. ‘And Father O’Malley won’t believe me. The other day, he asked me what I had to confess, and when I said “nothing, Father”, he told me to say fifty Hail Marys for lying. The shame of it!’
‘I’ll give you the book the moment I get it back,’ I promised. ‘With luck, it might help you and David.’
How was I to know that they were courting the same girl, since neither of them knew it either?
I had been for a walk along the cliffs, visiting that monstrously macabre monument to bad taste, the Royal Coates Museum and Art Gallery, and was taking my short-cut back into the hotel when I came upon an arresting tableau. Michael and David faced each other, each puce in the face, Michael with a bleeding nose and David with a cut on his forehead, being held back from attacking each other again by the rotund chef and his second-in-command. Face downwards on the ground lay my precious copy of Havelock, and nearby lay the trampled, blood-stained chef’s hat and the wickedly sharp meat cleaver. I rescued my book as the two antagonists still strained to get at each other and yelled abuse. I gathered, from the incoherent mouthings of both of them, that Michael had been shown Havelock by his girl-friend and, knowing it could only have come from one source, had laid in wait for David and chased him with the meat cleaver. David, being agile, had dodged the cleaver, hit Michael on the nose, and run for it. Michael had flung a bottle at him and hit him on the forehead. Before they could get to grips, however, they had been pulled apart by the two chefs.
‘Don’t you think you are behaving stupidly?’ I enquired.
‘Stupidly?’ roared Michael. ‘With that creeping Protestant toad giving filthy books to my Angela!’
‘Your Angela!’ snarled David. ‘’Ur’s not your Angela; ‘ur’s as good as said she’ll marry me. An’ it’s not a filthy book, neither. It’s Mr Durrell’s.’
‘She wouldn’t marry you, you Protestant carrion. And if that’s not a filthy book, may I never breathe again,’ said Michael. ‘If you’ll excuse me sayin’ so, Mr Durrell, you ought to feel a wave of shame, so you ought, at having helped this conniving bastard to try and despoil one of the fairest and daintiest girls I’ve ever seen outside Ireland. May God strike me dead if it’s not the truth.’
‘But you wanted to borrow the book to give to Angela yourself,’ I pointed out.
‘Sure! An’ it’s all right for me,’ I’m her fiancé,’ said Michael.
I knew better than to argue with Irish logic.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind you fighting and killing each other,’ that’s your affair. You’re both equally guilty, since you both wanted the book for the purpose of getting Angela to bed. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I will not have my property flung about like this. If I report this to the manager, then you’d both get the sack and neither of you would be able to marry Angela. Anyway, I don’t think either of you stand a chance. I saw her out at dinner last night with Nigel Merryweather.’
Nigel was a handsome young director of the hotel.
‘Nigel Merryweather?’ said Michael. ‘That swine! What’s she doin’ with him?’
‘Merryweather?’ said David. ‘She said ’ur didn’t like ’im.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Michael. ‘She said he made her feel sick.’
‘Well, there you are,’ I concluded. ‘It looks as though you’ve both had it.’
‘That settles it,’ said Michael. ‘I’ve finished with women. Like a bleedin’ monk I’ll be livin’ from now on.’
‘After all I did for ’ur,’ complained David. ‘To play me false with Merryweather, who makes ’ur feel sick, like she told me.’
A strong smell of burning now started to emanate from the kitchen.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God!’ said Michael.
‘My minestrone! My minestrone! You bloody bog Irish,’ screamed the chef, and he grabbed Michael’s arm and hauled him back into the kitchen at a run.
The second chef, Charlie, a rubicund cockney from Hammersmith, relinquished his hold on the other heart-broken lover.
‘I don’t know what to think about ’ur, I really don’t,’ said David.
‘Don’t think,’ I advised. ‘Go and have a drink and tell Luigi to put it on my bill.’
‘You’re very kind, sur,’ he said, brightening, as he moved towards the upper floo
rs and the bar.
‘Lucky you came along when you did,’ said Charlie, when David had disappeared. ‘They were all set to kill each other, silly idiots – using a bleedin’ meat cleaver, an’ all.’
‘Tell me,’ I asked, ‘who is Angela?’
Charlie stared at me for a moment. ‘You mean to say . . .’ he began. Then he started to laugh.
‘Well, I had to say something,’ I explained, ‘or we’d have been here all day.’
‘An’ I suppose you never seen no Nigel Merryweather neither?’ he chortled.
‘I haven’t seen him,’ I said, ‘but I was told he was the most handsome of the younger directors, with something of an eye for the girls, and no shortage of cash.’
‘Quite right,’ said Charlie. ‘A regular gun dog, ’e is.’
‘Gun dog?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Ah, yes, you know, always after the birds.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Gun dog. What a good description. Well, all’s well that ends well.’
‘Tell me,’ said Charlie. ‘Wot was that book they was all so excited about?’
I explained. ‘It’s an excellent series of volumes when used properly,’ I said, ‘but in this place, everyone who reads them seems to go berserk.’
‘Would it give advice on marriage in wot one would call an . . . intimate way?’ asked Charlie, a pensive look in his eye.
My heart sank. ‘Well . . . yes,’ I said, ‘but you must remember that it’s sort of a text-book really.’
‘Yes,’ went on Charlie. ‘It might be just wot I want. A text-book – like a school-book, you might say?’
‘Oh, dear. Are you sure?’
‘Well,’ said Charlie confidentially. ‘Me an’ the missus ‘aven’t been rubbin’ along too sharp recently. She’s been a bit depressed, like – an’ a bit naggy, if you get my meaning. Nothin’s right. She went to see one of those blue phonographic films a couple o’ weeks back, an’ now she says I don’t do it right. She says it’s the same old way every time and it’s drivin’ ’er mad. She says I ’aven’t got no imagination. I told ’er she wasn’t no Kama-bleedin’-Sutra, neither — but she says it’s all my fault.’
The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium Page 11