Fillets of Plaice

by Gerald Durrell

  The amount of money that was now lying at the mayor’s feet represented something like ten or fifteen pounds which, to the average peasant anywhere in Greece, was a fortune beyond the dreams of avarice.

  ‘There’, said Mactavish, turning and smiling at us proudly, ‘it never fails.’

  ‘You certainly have got them in a very good mood,’ said Mother, who was by now completely relaxed.

  ‘I told you not to worry, Mrs Durrell,’ said Mactavish.

  Then he made his fatal mistake. He bent down, picked up all the money lying on the ground and put it in his pocket.

  Immediate uproar broke out.

  ‘I, um . . ., I had a sort of feeling this might happen,’ said Theodore.

  The mayor had risen shakily to his feet and was shaking his fist in Mactavish’s face. Everybody else was shouting as indignantly as a disturbed rookery.

  ‘But what’s the matter?’ asked Mactavish.

  ‘You’re stealing my money,’ said the mayor.

  ‘I think,’ said Larry to Mother, ‘that now is the time for you, Leonora and Margo to get back to the boat.’

  They left the table with alacrity and disappeared down the main street at a dignified trot.

  ‘But what do you mean, your money?’ Mactavish was saying earnestly to the mayor. ‘It was my money.’

  ‘How could it be your money if you found it in my beard?’ asked the mayor.

  Once again, Mactavish was defeated by the illogicality of the Greeks.

  ‘But don’t you see,’ he said painfully, ‘it was only magic? It was really my money.’

  ‘NO!’ came a chorus from the entire village, ‘If you found the money in his beard it’s his money.’

  ‘But can’t you see,’ said Mactavish desperately, ‘that I was doing tricks? It’s all tricks.’

  ‘Yes, and the trick is to steal my money!’ said the mayor.

  ‘YES!’ came a rumbled agreement from the assembled population.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Mactavish, turning desperately to Larry, ‘I think this old boy’s senile. He can’t see the point.’

  ‘You really are a bloody fool, you know,’ said Larry. ‘Obviously, he thinks that if you got the money out of his beard it’s his money.’

  ‘But it’s not,’ said Mactavish obtusely. ‘It’s my money. I palmed it.’

  ‘We know that, you fool, but they don’t.’

  We were now surrounded by a throng of wild-looking and extremely indignant members of the community who were determined to see that justice was done to their mayor.

  ‘Give him back his money,’ they all shouted, ‘or we’ll stop your benzina from leaving!’

  ‘We’ll send to Athens for the police!’ shouted one man.

  As it would have taken several weeks to communicate with Athens and several weeks for a policeman to come back and investigate the thing – if, indeed, one was ever sent – the whole situation was taking on alarming proportions.

  ‘I think, um . . .,’ said Theodore, ‘the best thing would be for you to give him the money.’

  ‘That’s what I have always said about foreigners,’ said Donald. ‘Excitable. Rapacious, too. Just like Max here who is always borrowing money from me and never paying it back.’

  ‘Now do not let us start to quarrel too,’ said Max. ‘Dere is enough quarrel here for everybody.’

  ‘Really,’ said Larry, Theodore’s is the best suggestion. You must give it back to him, Mactavish.’

  ‘But it’s almost fifteen pounds!’ said Mactavish. ‘And after all it was only a trick.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t give it back to him,’ said Larry. ‘I think you’ve a very slim chance of getting out of here without being beaten up.’

  Mactavish drew himself up to his full height.

  ‘I’m not afraid of a fight,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ said Larry in a weary tone of voice. ‘If all these stalwart young males go for you at once, you’ll be torn to pieces.’

  ‘Well, we’ll compromise,’ said Mactavish.

  He took all the drachma pieces out of his pocket and handed them to the mayor.

  ‘There,’ he said in Greek, ‘it was a trick and the money was not yours, but nevertheless, in order that you shall buy yourself some wine, I am giving you half of what I got from your beard.’

  ‘NO!’ roared the villagers in unison. ‘You’ll give him everything!’

  Mother, having got Leonora and Margo safely onto the boat, had come back to rescue me and was horrified at the sight of us surrounded by this threatening mob.

  ‘Larry, Larry!’ she shouted. ‘Save Gerry!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ Larry shouted back. ‘He’s the only one of us who’s not going to get beaten up.’

  This was perfectly true because in such a situation only accidentally would any Greek hurt a child.

  ‘I suppose we could all get into a corner and face it out,’ said Donald. ‘It seems a bit much backing down to a lot of foreigners. I used to be quite good at boxing when I was at Eton.’

  ‘Um . . . have you, um . . ., er . . ., noticed that most of them are wearing knives?’ inquired Theodore, as though he were discussing some museum specimen.

  ‘Ah, I know how to fight wiz a knife,’ said Max.

  ‘But you haven’t got one,’ said Donald.

  ‘True,’ said Max thoughtfully, ‘but if you knock one of dem down, I could get his knife off him and den we could fight dem.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a very wise thing to do,’ said Theodore.

  During this, the uproar was still going on and Mactavish was still trying to persuade the mayor that they should split the proceeds of his beard fifty–fifty.

  ‘Are you saving Gerry?’ shouted Mother from the back of the crowd.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Mother,’ yelled Larry, ‘you’re only making things worse. Gerry’s perfectly alright.’

  ‘I think, you know, judging from their tone of voice and the things that some of them are saying,’ said Theodore, ‘that we really will have to persuade Mactavish to give the money to the mayor. Otherwise we’ll find ourselves in a rather unpleasant predicament.’

  ‘Are you saving Gerry?’ shouted Mother again from behind the crowd.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ said Larry.

  He strode forward, seized Mactavish, delved into his pocket, produced the notes, and handed them to the mayor.

  ‘Here! But I say! That’s my money!’ said Mactavish.

  ‘Yes, and it’s my life that you’re mucking about with,’ said Larry.

  He turned to the mayor.

  ‘Now,’ he said in Greek, ‘that is the money that this kyrios by his magic found in your beard.’

  He turned to Mactavish, seized him by the shoulders, looked him straight in the eye and said,

  ‘You are to nod your head hard to whatever I say to you, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mactavish, startled by this sudden display of belligerence on the part of Larry.

  ‘Well.’ said Larry. He paused and placed his hand carefully over the part of Mactavish’s anatomy that presumably concealed his heart.

  ‘ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.’

  Mactavish, not only startled by Larry’s sudden masterly command of the situation but also by the fact that he didn’t understand since he had never heard the poem before, nodded his head vehemently at the end of every line. Larry turned to the mayor.

  ‘The kyrios,’ he said, placing his hand once more upon Mactavish’s heart, ‘because he has a great heart, has agreed that you should have all the money, but on one condition. You all know how there are certain people that can find water in the ground.’

  There was an ‘ah’ of affirmation from the crowd.

  ‘These people are paid for their work,’ said Larry.

  There was much
nodding and ‘yes, yes, yes’.

  ‘But when they find the water,’ Larry continued, ‘the water must belong to everyone.’

  Now he was speaking a language they understood, for water and bread were the two life-giving things of any community.

  ‘Sometimes the people who search for water find it and sometimes they don’t,’ said Larry. ‘This kyrios sometimes finds money in people’s beards and sometimes does not. He was lucky that you have a good mayor here and that he found money. He found nearly nine thousand drachmas. Now, because he is a good man and a kind man, he has agreed not to charge his normal fee.’

  There was an ‘ah’ of pleasure, mixed with incomprehension at such generosity, from the crowd.

  ‘But there is one thing he would ask you as a favour,’ said Larry; ‘that the mayor spends this money for the good of the whole village.’

  This was the point where the mayor looked extremely glum and the crowd applauded.

  ‘Because,’ said Larry oratorically, having consumed vast quantities of wine, and getting into stride, ‘when you find money, as when you find water, it should belong to everyone.’

  The applause was so great that the few words the mayor mumbled were completely lost in it.

  ‘I think, you know, perhaps now is the time to go,’ said Theodore, ‘on a high note, as it were.’

  We marched down the village street with the entire crowd following us, all of them jostling to pat Mactavish on the back or shake his hand. And so by the time we reached the jetty Mactavish was beginning to feel that he was the Mountie to end all Mounties and it had been well worth the loss of fifteen pounds to have this adulation. In fact, our take-off was delayed for some minutes because the mayor insisted on kissing him on both cheeks and embracing him, whereupon all the other elders of the village had to do the same.

  At last he joined us on board, flushed with success.

  ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ he said, ‘it’s just a matter of knowing how to deal with primitive people.’

  ‘Well, that’s the last village on this coast that I’m going to visit, and as it’s my birthday I feel that somebody ought to take my wishes into consideration,’ said Mother.

  ‘But of course, Muzzer dear,’ said Max. ‘Ve vill now find you a nice place to eat.’

  The anchor was pulled in, the engine was started, and above the reverberating chug-chug of the engine we could hear the villagers shouting good wishes and clapping as we headed on our way down the coast.

  At lunch time we found an enchanting long beach of soft white sand and as Taki, the previous evening, had put his lines out and caught some kefalia, Spiro built a charcoal fire on the beach and grilled these delicious fish.

  Sven, Donald and Max, still worried by the fact that they had nothing concrete to give Mother for her birthday, concocted a sort of entertainment for her. Sven, who was a sculptor, constructed an enormous nude woman out of damp sand, which Mother was forced to admire, and he then played his accordion for her, fortunately not choosing Bach but playing quite gay and sprightly tunes.

  Donald and Max went into a huddle and presently they consulted in a secretive manner with Sven, who nodded his head vigorously.

  ‘We’re now’, said Donald to Mother, ‘going to dance an old Austrian dance for you.’

  This, from the incredibly British and normally introvert Donald, came as such a surprise that even Larry was speechless. Sven crashed into an exceedingly vivid piece of music which was not unlike a mazurka, and the tall and gangling Max and the medium-sized, pale-faced Donald solemnly bowed to each other and then, holding hands, proceeded to dance. To our astonishment they did it remarkably well, prancing and twirling on the sand, with complicated moments where they had to slap each other’s knees and hands and then leap in the air and slap their legs, and other intricate manoeuvres of this sort. They reminded me irresistibly of the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle dancing the Lobster Quadrille in Alice in Wonderland. When they came to the end of their dance, so good was it that we all spontaneously burst out clapping, whereupon, beaming and perspiring profusely, they gave us an encore with a different tune.

  After our corps de ballet had had a swim to cool off, we all lay on the sand and ate delicious, succulent fish with the lovely smoky, charcoaly flavour on their charred skins, and rounded off the meal with a variety of fruits.

  ‘Well, that really was a lovely birthday lunch,’ said Mother. ‘I did enjoy it. And Sven’s playing and Donald and Max’s dancing made it absolutely complete.’

  ‘Ve’ll have a birzday dinner,’ said Max. ‘Let’s go on to anozzer beach and have a birzday dinner.’

  So once again we got ourselves on the boat and headed off down the coast. The sun was just setting and the sky was beautifully smeared with red and green and gold when we came to what seemed to be the ideal spot. It was a tiny, rounded bay with a small beach surrounded by towering cliffs which glowed almost tangerine orange in the setting sun’s light.

  ‘Oh, this is beautiful,’ said Mother.

  ‘Here ve’ll have de birzday dinner,’ said Max.

  It really was a breathtakingly beautiful spot in the dying rays of the sun.

  Spiro had told Taki that we would make this our landfall for the night. It was unfortunate, however, that it was a bay that Taki had never been into before and so he did not realise that across one part of it was a sand bar. He nosed the benzina into the bay at a fair speed and so was upon the sand bar before he realised it. We came to a sudden and shuddering halt. At that precise moment Mother was standing in the stern admiring the sunset and so the boat’s sudden halt threw her off balance and she fell overboard. Now, although she did occasionally deign to lie in shallow water in very hot weather, she could not swim. This everybody, with the exception of Taki, knew. So in unison the entire company leapt overboard to rescue her – including Spiro, who simply adored Motherbutwho couldn’t swim either. The result was complete and utter chaos.

  Donald and Max dived on top of each other and banged their heads together. Leonora, in diving, caught her foot on the side of the boat and gave it a nasty gash. Margo, under the impression that Mother was under the water instead of on top of it, dived deep and searched frantically for her body until her breath ran out and she was forced to surface. It was Leslie and Mactavish who seized Mother, for Larry had suddenly realised that Spiro could not swim and he was going down for the third time when Larry rescued him.

  But all the time he was sinking and rising in the water, Spiro was shouting, ‘Don’ts you worrys, Mrs Durrells, don’ts you worrys!’ in between spitting out great mouthfuls of seawater.

  Leslie and Mactavish towed the panting, spluttering Mother to the shallow water of the sand bar where she could sit and cough up the seawater she had imbibed so freely, and Larry towed Spiro there so that he could do the same. Then, when they had recovered sufficiently, we got them back on board and had to give Mother a stiff brandy to recover from the shock and to give Spiro a stiff brandy for him to recover from the shock of seeing Mother falling into the water.

  ‘Gollys, Mrs Durrells,’ he said, ‘I thoughts you’d be drowns.’

  ‘I thought exactly the same thing,’ said Mother. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in such deep water in my life.’

  ‘Neithers have I,’ said Spiro seriously.

  With the united efforts of us all pushing from the sand bar and Taki putting the engine into reverse, we got the benzina free and Taki, having examined the lay of the land, turned it slightly and we got into the bay without any further difficulty.

  We lit a fire on the beach and ate octopus and tiny cuttlefish that had been ensconced in the ice-box and followed this up with cold chicken and fruit.

  ‘You see what a good idea it was,’ said Larry, stuffing a great tentacle of octopus into his mouth, ‘to bring the ice-box.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Mother, ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea at the time, but it has turned out to be very successful, although of course the ice is melting much more quic
kly on board the boat than it would do in the villa.’

  ‘Oh, it’s bound to,’ said Larry. ‘Still, it’ll see us out.’

  That night the moon was so beautiful that we all lay in the shallow warm water and drank and talked. It couldn’t have been more peaceful when, suddenly, the air reverberated and the cliffs echoed with a series of pistol shots.

  Unbeknownst to us, Leslie and Mactavish had taken Mother’s pearl-handed revolver to the farther end of the bay, where Mactavish was showing Leslie how rapidly you learned to fire when you were in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  ‘God almighty!’ said Larry. ‘What the hell do they think they’re doing? Turning the bay into a rifle range at Bisley?’

  ‘Gollys,’ said Spiro, ‘I thoughts it was them son-of-a-bitch Turks.’

  ‘Leslie dear,’ shouted Mother, ‘do please stop doing that.’

  ‘We’re only practising,’ Leslie shouted back.

  ‘Yes, but you’ve no idea how much noise it’s making here,’ said Mother. ‘It’s echoing back from these cliffs and giving me a headache.’

  ‘Oh, alright,’ said Leslie, disgruntled.

  ‘That’s the trouble with Leslie,’ said Larry. ‘He’s not aesthetic. Here’s a beautiful, warm sea and nice wine and a full moon, and what does he do? He rushes around firing off revolvers.’

  ‘Well, you do things that annoy us,’ said Margo indignantly.

  ‘What have I done to annoy you?’ asked Larry. ‘Nothing at all. I’m by far and away the sanest member of this family.’

  ‘You’re about as sane as a . . ., as a lunatic,’ said Margo.

  ‘Now, now, dears, don’t quarrel,’ said Mother; ‘you know it’s my birthday.’

  ‘I will play for you,’ said Sven, and he played a series of melodies which were soft and beautiful, even coming from an accordion, and they fitted the mood and the setting very well.

  Presently we brought our mattresses ashore, spread them along the beach and, one by one, dropped off to sleep.

  After breakfast the next morning we had a quick swim and got on board the boat. The anchor was pulled up and Taki started the engine. It coughed into life, we moved some six inches and then the engine died.