My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

  The Magenpies liked the dogs, although they seized every opportunity to tease them. They were particularly fond of Roger, and he would frequently go and call on them, lying down close to the wire netting, ears pricked, while the Magenpies sat on the ground inside the cage, three inches away from his nose, and talked to him in soft, wheezy chucks, with an occasional raucous guffaw, as though they were telling him dirty jokes. They never teased Roger as much as they teased the other two, and they never attempted to lure him close to the wire with soft blandishments so that they could flap down and pull his tail, as they frequently did with both Widdle and Puke. On the whole the Magenpies approved of dogs, but they liked them to look and behave like dogs;so, when Do do made her appearance in ourmidst the Magenpies absolutely refused to believe that she was a dog, and treated her from the beginning with a sort of rowdy, jeering disdain.

  Dodo was a breed known as a Dandy Dinmont. They look like long, fat, hair-covered balloons, with minute bow legs, enormous and protuberant eyes, and long flopping ears. Strangely enough it was due to Mother that this curious misshapen breed of dog made its appearance among us. A friend of ours had a pair of these beasts which had suddenly (after years of barrenness) produced a litter of six puppies. The poor man was at his wits’ end trying to find good homes for all these offspring, and so Mother, good-naturedly and unthinkingly, said she would have one. She set off one afternoon to choose her puppy and, rather unwisely, selected a female. At the time it did not strike her as impudent to introduce a bitch into a household exclusively populated by very masculine dogs. So, clasping the puppy, like a dimly conscious sausage, under one arm, Mother climbed into the car and drove home in triumph to show the new addition to the family. The puppy, determined to make the occasion a memorable one, was violently and persistently sick from the moment she got in the car to the moment she got out. The family, assembled on the veranda, viewed Mother’s prize as it waddled up the path towards them, eyes bulging, minute legs working frantically to keep the long, drooping body in motion, ears flapping wildly, pausing now and then to vomit into a flower bed.

  ‘Oh, isn’t he sweet?’ cried Margo.

  ‘Good God! It looks like a sea-slug,’ said Leslie.

  ‘Mother! Really!’ said Larry, contemplating Dodo with loathing. ‘Where did you dig up that canine Frankenstein?’

  ‘Oh, but he’s sweet,’ repeated Margo. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘It’s not a him, it’s a her,’ said Mother, regarding her acquisition proudly; ‘she’s called Dodo.’

  ‘Well, that’s two things wrong with it for a start,’ said Larry. ‘It’s a ghastly name for an animal, and to introduce a bitch into the house with those other three lechers about is asking for trouble. Apart from that, just look at it! Look at the shape! How did it get like that? Did it have an accident, or was it born like that?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, dear; it’s the breed. They’re meant to be like that.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mother; it’s a monster. Who would want to deliber-ately produce a thing that shape?’

  I pointed out that dachshunds were much the same shape, and they had been bred specially to enable them to get down holes after badgers. Probably the Dandy Dinmont had been bred for a similar reason.

  ‘She looks as though she was bred to go down holes after sewage,’ said Larry.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting, dear. They’re very nice little dogs, and very faithful, apparently.’

  ‘I should imagine they have to be faithful to anyone who shows interest in them; they can’t possibly have many admirers in the world.’

  ‘I think you’re being very nasty about her, and, anyway, you’re in no position to talk about beauty; it’s only skin deep after all, and before you go throwing stones you should look for the beam in your eye,’ said Margo triumphantly.

  Larry looked puzzled. ‘Is that a proverb, or a quotation from the Builders’ Gazette?’ he inquired.

  ‘I think she means that it’s an ill wind that gathers no moss,’ said Leslie.

  ‘You make me sick,’ said Margo, with dignified scorn.

  ‘Well, join little Dodo in the flower bed.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Mother, ‘don’t argue about it. It’s my dog and I like her, so that’s all that matters.’

  So Dodo settled in, and almost immediately showed faults in her make-up which caused us more trouble than all the other dogs put together. To begin with she had a weak hind-leg, and at any time during the day or night her hip joint was liable to come out of its socket, for no apparent reason. Dodo, who was no stoic, would greet this catastrophe with a series of piercing shrieks that worked up to a crescendo of such quivering intensity that it was unbearable. Strangely enough, her leg never seemed to worry her when she went out for walks, or gambolled with elephantine enthusiasm after a ball on the veranda. But invariably in the evening when the family were all sitting quietly, absorbed in writing or reading or knitting, Dodo’s leg would suddenly leap out of its socket and she would roll on her back and utter a scream that would make everybody jump and lose control of whatever they were doing. By the time we had massaged her leg back into place Dodo would have screamed herself to exhaustion, and immediately fall into a deep and peaceful sleep, while we would be so unnerved that we would be unable to concentrate on anything for the rest of the evening.

  We soon discovered that Dodo had an extremely limited intelligence. There was only room for one idea at a time in her skull, and once it was there Dodo would retain it grimly in spite of all opposition. She decided quite early in her career that Mother belonged to her, but she was not over-possessive at first until one afternoon Mother went off to town to do some shopping and left Dodo behind. Convinced that she would never see Mother again, Dodo went into mourning and waddled, howling sorrowfully, round the house, occasionally being so overcome with grief that her leg would come out of joint. She greeted Mother’s return with incredulous joy, but made up her mind that from that moment she would not let Mother out of her sight, for fear she might escape again. So she attached herself to Mother with the tenacity of a limpet, never moving more than a couple of feet away at the most. If Mother sat down, Dodo would lie at her feet; if Mother had to get up and cross the room for a book or a cigarette, Dodo would accompany her, and then they would return together and sit down again, Dodo giving a deep sigh of satisfaction at the thought that once more she had foiled Mother’s attempts at escape. She even insisted on being present when Mother had a bath, sitting dolefully by the tub and staring at Mother with embarrassing intensity. Any attempts to leave her outside the bathroom door resulted in Dodo’s howling madly and hurling herself at the door-panels, which almost invariably resulted in her hip’s slipping out of its socket. She seemed to be under the impression that it was not safe to let Mother go alone into the bathroom, even if she stood guard over the door. There was always the possibility, she seemed to think, that Mother might give her the slip by crawling down the plug-hole.

  At first Dodo was regarded with tolerant scorn by Roger, Widdle, and Puke; they did not think much of her, for she was too fat and too low slung to walk far, and if they made any attempts to play with her it seemed to bring on an attack of persecution mania, and Dodo would gallop back to the house, howling for protection. Taken all round they were inclined to consider her a boring and useless addition to the household, until they discovered that she had one superlative and overwhelmingly delightful characteristic: she came into season with monotonous regularity. Dodo herself displayed an innocence about the facts of life that was rather touching. She seemed not only puzzled but positively scared at her sudden bursts of popularity, when her admirers arrived in such numbers that Mother had to go about armed with a massive stick. It was owing to this Victorian innocence that Dodo fell an easy victim to the lure of Puke’s magnificent ginger eyebrows, and so met a fate worse than death when Mother inadvertently locked them in the drawing-room together while she supervised the making of tea. The sudden and unexpected arrival of the Englis
h padre and his wife, ushering them into the room in which the happy couple were disporting themselves, and the subsequent efforts to maintain a normal conversation, left Mother feeling limp and with a raging headache.

  To everyone’s surprise (including Dodo’s) a puppy was born of this union, a strange, mewling blob of a creature with its mother’s figure and its father’s unusual liver-and-white markings. To suddenly become a mother like that, Dodo found, was very demoralizing, and she almost had a nervous breakdown, for she was torn between the desire to stay in one spot with her puppy and the urge to keep as close to Mother as possible. We were, however, unaware of this psychological turmoil. Eventually Dodo decided to compromise, so she followed Mother around and carried the puppy in her mouth. She had spent a whole morning doing this before we discovered what she was up to; the unfortunate baby hung from her mouth by its head, its body swinging to and fro as Dodo waddled along at Mother’s heels. Scolding and pleading having no effect, Mother was forced to confine herself to the bedroom with Dodo and her puppy, and we carried their meals up on a tray. Even this was not altogether successful, for if Mother moved out of the chair, Dodo, ever alert, would seize her puppy and sit there regarding Mother with starting eyes, ready to give chase if necessary.

  ‘If this goes on much longer that puppy’ll grow into a giraffe,’ observed Leslie.

  ‘I know, poor little thing,’ said Mother; ‘but what can I do? She picks it up if she sees me lighting a cigarette.’

  ‘Simplest thing would be to drown it,’ said Larry. ‘It’s going to grow into the most horrifying animal, anyway. Look at its parents.’

  ‘No, indeed you won’t drown it!’ exclaimed Mother indignantly.

  ‘Don’t be horrible,’ said Margo; ‘the poor little thing.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s a perfectly ridiculous situation, allowing yourself to be chained to a chair by a dog.’

  ‘It’s my dog, and if I want to sit here I shall,’ said Mother firmly.

  ‘But for how long? This might go on for months.’

  ‘I shall think of something,’ said Mother with dignity.

  The solution to the problem that Mother eventually thought of was simple. She hired the maid’s youngest daughter to carry the puppy for Dodo. This arrangement seemed to satisfy Dodo very well, and once more Mother was able to move about the house. She pottered from room to room like some Eastern potentate, Dodo pattering at her heels, and young Sophia bringing up the end of the line, tongue protruding and eyes squinting with the effort, bearing in her arms a large cushion on which reposed Dodo’s strange offspring. When Mother was going to be in one spot for any length of time Sophia would place the cushion reverently on the ground, and Dodo would surge onto it and sigh deeply. As soon as Mother was ready to go to another part of the house, Dodo would get off her cushion, shake herself, and take up her position in the cavalcade, while Sophia lifted the cushion aloft as though it carried a crown. Mother would peer over her spectacles to make sure the column was ready, give a little nod, and they would wind their way off to the next job.

  Every evening Mother would go for a walk with the dogs, and the family would derive much amusement from watching her progress down the hill. Roger, as senior dog, would lead the procession, followed by Widdle and Puke. Then came Mother, wearing an enormous straw hat, which made her look like an animated mushroom, clutching in one hand a large trowel with which to dig any interesting wild plants she found. Dodo would waddle behind, eyes protruding and tongue flapping, and Sophia would bring up the rear, pacing along solemnly, carrying the imperial puppy on its cushion. Mother’s circus, Larry called it, and would irritate her by bellowing out of the window, ‘Oi! Lady, wot time does the big top go up, hay?’

  He purchased a bottle of hair restorer for her so that, as he explained, she could conduct experiments on Sophia and try to turn her into a bearded lady. ‘That’s wot your show needs, lady,’ he assured her in a hoarse voice – ‘a bit of clarse, see? Nothing like a bearded lady for bringin’ a bit o’ clarse to a show.’

  But in spite of all this Mother continued to lead her strange caravan off into the olive groves at five o’clock every evening.

  Up in the north of the island lay a large lake with the pleasant, jingling name of Antiniotissa, and this place was one of our favourite haunts. It was about a mile long, an elongated sheet of shallow water surrounded by a thick mane of cane and reed, and separated from the sea at one end by a wide, gently curving dune of fine white sand. Theodore always accompanied us when we paid our visits to the lake, for he and I would find a rich field of exploration in the ponds, ditches, and marshy pot-holes that lay around the shore of the lake. Leslie invariably took a battery of guns with him, since the cane forest rustled with game, while Larry insisted on taking an enormous harpoon, and would stand for hours in the stream that marked the lake’s entry into the sea, endeavouring to spear the large fish that swam there. Mother would be laden with baskets full of food, empty baskets for plants, and various gardening implements for digging up her finds. Margo was perhaps the most simply equipped, with a bathing-costume, a large towel, and a bottle of sun-tan lotion. With all this equipment our trips to Antiniotissa were something in the nature of major expeditions.

  There was, however, a certain time of the year when the lake was at its best, and that was the season of lilies. The smooth curve of the dune that ran between the bay and the lake was the only place on the island where these sand lilies grew, strange, misshapen bulbs buried in the sand, that once a year sent up thick green leaves and white flowers above the surface, so that the dune became a glacier of flowers. We always visited the lake at this time, for the experience was a memorable one. Not long after Dodo had become a mother, Theodore informed us that the time of the lilies was at hand, and we started to make preparations for our trip to Antiniotissa. We soon found that having a nursing mother in our midst was going to complicate matters considerably.

  ‘We’ll have to go by boat this time,’ Mother said, frowning at a complicated, jigsaw-like jersey she was knitting.

  ‘Why, by boat it takes twice as long,’ said Larry.

  ‘We can’t go by car, dear, because Dodo will be sick, and anyway there wouldn’t be room for all of us.’

  ‘You’re not going to take that animal, are you?’ asked Larry in horror.

  ‘But I have to, dear… purl two, cast off one… I can’t leave her behind… purl three… you know what she’s like.’

  ‘Well, hire a special car for her then. I’m damned if I’m going to drive about the countryside looking as though I’ve just burgled Battersea Dogs’ Home.’

  ‘She can’t travel by car. That’s what I’m explaining to you. You know she gets car-sick… Now be quiet a minute, dear, I’m counting.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous…’ began Larry exasperatedly.

  ‘Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,’ said Mother loudly and fiercely.

  ‘It’s ridiculous that we should have to go the longest way round just because Dodo vomits every time she sees a car.’

  ‘There!’ said Mother irritably, ‘you’ve made me lose count. I do wish you wouldn’t argue with me when I’m knitting.’

  ‘How d’you know she won’t be sea-sick?’ inquired Leslie interestedly.

  ‘People who are car-sick are never sea-sick,’ explained Mother.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Larry. ‘That’s an old wives’ tale, isn’t it, Theodore?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say,’ said Theodore judicially. ‘I have heard it before, but whether there’s any… um… you know… any truth in it, I can’t say. All I know is that I have, so far, not felt sick in a car.’

  Larry looked at him blankly. ‘What does that prove?’ he asked, bewildered.

  ‘Well, I am always sick in a boat,’ explained Theodore simply.

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ said Larry. ‘If we travel by car Dodo will be sick, and if we travel by boat Theodore will. Take your choice.’

  ‘I didn’t kn
ow you got sea-sick, Theodore,’ said Mother.

  ‘Oh, yes, unfortunately I do. I find it a great drawback.’