My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

  I waited eagerly for the baby blennies to appear, but there must have been something wrong with the aeration of the water for only two of the eggs hatched. One of the diminutive babies was, to my horror, eaten by his own mother, before my eyes. Not wishing to have a double case of infanticide on my conscience, and lacking aquarium space, I put the second baby in a jar and rowed down the coast to the bay where I had caught his parents. Here I released him with my blessing, in the clear tepid water ringed with golden broom, where I hoped that he would rear many multi-coloured offspring of his own.

  Three days later the Count appeared. He was tall and slender, with tightly curled hair as golden as a silkworm cocoon, shining with oil, a delicately curled moustache of a similar hue, and slightly protuberant eyes of a pale and unpleasant green. He alarmed Mother by arriving with a huge wardrobe trunk and she was convinced that he had come to stay for the summer. But we soon found that the Count found himself so attractive he felt it necessary to change his clothes about eight times a day to do justice to himself. His clothes were such elegant confections, beautifully hand-stitched and of such exquisite materials, that Margo was torn between envy at his wardrobe and disgust at his effeminacy. Combined with this narcissistic preoccupation with himself, the Count had other equally objectionable characteristics. He drenched himself in a scent so thick that it was almost visible and he had only to spend a second in a room to permeate the whole atmosphere, while the cushions he leaned against and the chairs he sat in reeked for days afterwards. His English was limited, but this did not prevent him from expounding on any subject with a sort of sneering dogmatism that made everyone’s hackles rise. His philosophy, if any, could be summed up in the phrase, ‘We do it better in France’, which he used repeatedly about everything. He had such a thoroughly Gallic interest in the edibility of everything with which he came in contact that one could have been pardoned for thinking him the reincarnation of a goat.

  He arrived, unfortunately, in time for lunch, and by the end of the meal, without really trying, he had succeeded in alienating everybody including the dogs. It was, in its way, quite a tour de force to be able to irritate five people of such different character apparently without even being aware of doing so, inside two hours of arrival. During the course of lunch, he said, having just eaten a soufflé as delicate as a cloud in which were embedded the pale pink bodies of freshly caught shrimps, that it was obvious that Mother’s chef was not French. Having discovered that Mother was the chef, he showed no embarrassment but merely said that she would then be glad of his presence for it would enable him to give her some guidance in the culinary arts. Leaving her speechless with rage at his audacity, he turned his attention to Larry, to whom he vouchsafed the information that the only good writers were French. At the mention of Shakespeare, he merely shrugged; ‘le petit poseur,’ he said. To Leslie, he offered the information that anyone who was interested in hunting must assuredly have the instincts of a criminal; in any case, it was well known that the French produced the best guns, swords, and other offensive weapons. To Margo he gave the advice that it was a woman’s job to keep beautiful for men and, in particular, not to be greedy and eat too many things that would ruin the figure. As Margo was suffering from a certain amount of puppy fat at that time and was on a rigid diet in consequence, this information was not at all well received. He condemned himself in my eyes by calling the dogs ‘village curs’ and compared them unfavourably to his selection of labradors, setters, retrievers, and spaniels, all French-bred, of course. Furthermore, he was puzzled why I kept so many pets, all of which were uneatable. ‘In France we only shoot zis kind of thing,’ he said.

  Small wonder then that after lunch, when he went upstairs to change, the family were quivering like a suppressed volcano. Only Mother’s golden rule that a guest must not be insulted on the first day kept us in check. But such was the state of our nerves that if anyone had started to whistle the ‘Marseillaise’ we would have torn him limb from limb.

  ‘You see,’ said Mother accusingly to Larry, ‘this is what comes of letting people you don’t know send people you don’t know to stay. The man’s insufferable!’

  ‘Well… he’s not so bad,’ said Larry feebly trying to argue against an attitude that he agreed with. ‘I thought some of his comments were valid.’

  ‘Which?’ asked Mother ominously.

  ‘Yes, which?’ asked Margo, quivering.

  ‘Well,’ said Larry vaguely, ‘I thought that soufflé was a bit on the rich side, and Margo is beginning to look a bit circular.’

  ‘Beast!’ said Margo, and burst into tears.

  ‘Now, that’s quite enough, Larry,’ said Mother. ‘How we’re going to endure this… this… scented lounge-lizard of yours for another week I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to put up with him too, don’t forget,’ said Larry, irritated.

  ‘Well, he’s your friend… I mean, your friend’s friend… I mean, well, whatever he is, he’s yours,’ said Mother, ‘and it’s up to you to keep him out of the way as much as possible.’

  ‘Or I’ll pepper his arse for him,’ said Leslie, ‘the smelly little…’

  ‘Leslie,’ said Mother, ‘that’s quite enough.’

  ‘Well, he is,’ said Leslie doggedly.

  ‘I know he is, dear, but you shouldn’t say so,’ Mother explained.

  ‘Well, I’ll try,’ said Larry, ‘but don’t blame me if he comes down to the kitchen to give you a cookery lesson.’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ said Mother mutinously, ‘if that man sets foot in my kitchen, I shall walk out… I shall go… I shall go and…’

  ‘Be a hermit?’ suggested Larry.

  ‘No, I shall go and stay in an hotel until he’s gone,’ said Mother, uttering her favourite threat. ‘And this time I really mean it.’

  To give Larry his due, he did strive manfully with Count Rossignol for the next few days. He took him to the library and museum in town, he showed him the Kaiser’s summer palace with all its repulsive statuary, he even took him to the top of the highest point in Corfu, Mount Pantocrator, and showed him the view. The Count compared the library unfavourably with the Bibliothèque Nationale, said that the museum was not a patch on the Louvre, noted the Kaiser’s palace was inferior in size, design, and furnishings to the cottage he had for his head gardener, and finally observed that the view from Pantocrator was not to be mentioned in the same breath as any view to be seen from any high spot in France.

  ‘The man’s intolerable,’ said Larry, refreshing himself with brandy in Mother’s bedroom, where we had all repaired to escape the Count’s company. ‘He’s got an obsession with France; I can’t think why he ever left the place. He even thinks their telephone service is the best in the world! And he’s so humourless about everything, one would think he were a Swede.’

  ‘Never mind, dear,’ said Mother. ‘It’s not for long now.’

  ‘I’m not sure I shall last the course,’ said Larry. ‘So far about the only thing he hasn’t claimed for France is God.’

  ‘Ah, but they probably believe in him better in France,’ Leslie pointed out.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do something really nasty to him?’ said Margo wistfully. ‘Something really horrible.’

  ‘No, Margo,’ said Mother firmly, ‘we’ve never done anything nasty to anyone that’s stayed with us – I mean, except as a joke or by accident – and we’re not going to start. We’ll just have to put up with him; after all, it’s only for a few more days. It’ll soon pass.’

  ‘Dear God!’ said Larry suddenly. ‘I’ve just remembered. It’s the bloody christening on Monday!’

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t swear so much,’ said Mother. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Can you imagine taking him to a christening?’ asked Larry. ‘No, he’ll just have to go off somewhere on his own.’

  ‘I don’t think we ought to let him go wandering off on his own,’ said Mother, as if she were talking about a dan
gerous animal. ‘I mean he might meet one of our friends.’

  We all sat and thought about the problem.

  ‘Why doesn’t Gerry take him somewhere?’ said Leslie suddenly. ‘After all, he doesn’t want to come to a boring christening.’

  ‘That’s a brainwave,’ said Mother delightedly. ‘The very thing!’

  Immediately all my instincts for self-preservation came to the fore. I said that I did want to go to the christening, I had been looking forward to it, it was the only chance I would ever have of seeing Larry being a godfather, and he might drop the baby or something and I would miss it; and anyway, the Count didn’t like snakes and tortoises and birds and things, so what could I do with him? There was silence while the family, like a jury, examined the strength of my case.

  ‘I know, take him out in your boat,’ suggested Margo brightly.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Larry, ‘I’m sure he’s got a straw hat and a striped blazer among his sartorial effects. Perhaps we can borrow a banjo.’

  ‘It’s a very good idea,’ said Mother. ‘After all, it’s only for a couple of hours, dear. You surely wouldn’t mind that.’

  I stated in no uncertain terms that I would mind it very much indeed.

  ‘I tell you what,’ said Leslie. ‘They’re having a fish drive down at the lake on Monday. If I get the chap who’s in charge to let you go, will you take the Count?’

  I wavered, for I had long wanted to see a fish drive. I knew I was going to have the Count for the afternoon so it was simply a matter of what I could get out of it.

  ‘And then we can see about that new butterfly cabinet you want,’ said Mother.

  ‘And Margo and I will give you some money for books,’ said Larry, generously anticipating Margo’s participation in the bribery.

  ‘And I’ll give you that clasp-knife you wanted,’ said Leslie.

  I agreed. If I had to put up with the Count for an afternoon I was at least being fairly compensated. That evening at dinner, Mother explained the situation and went into such detailed eulogies about the fish drives that you would have thought she had personally invented them.

  ‘Ees eating?’ asked the Count.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mother. ‘The fish are called kefalias and they’re delicious.’

  ‘No, ees eating on ze lack?’ asked the Count. ‘Ees eating wiz sun?’

  ‘Oh… oh, I see,’ said Mother. ‘Yes, it’s very hot. Be sure to wear a hat.’

  ‘We go in ze enfant’s yacht?’ asked the Count, who liked to get things clear.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mother.

  The Count outfitted himself for the expedition in pale blue linen trousers, elegant chestnut-bright shoes, a white silk shirt with a blue and gold cravat knotted carelessly at the throat, and an elegant yachting cap. While the Bootle-Bumtrinket was ideal for my purposes, I would have been the first to admit that she had none of the refinements of an ocean-going yacht, and this the Count was quick to perceive when I led him down to the canal in the maze of old Venetian salt pans below the house, where I had the boat moored.

  ‘Zis… is yacht?’ he asked in surprise and some alarm.

  I said that indeed this was our craft, stalwart and stable, and, he would note, a flat bottom to make it easier to walk about in. Whether he understood me, I do not know; perhaps he thought the Bootle-Bumtrinket was merely the dinghy in which he was to be rowed out to the yacht, but he climbed in delicately, spread his handkerchief fastidiously over the seat, and sat down gingerly. I leaped aboard and with the aid of a pole started punting the craft down the canal which, at this point, was some twenty feet wide and two feet deep. I congratulated myself on the fact that only the day before I had decided that the Bootle-Bumtrinket was starting to smell almost as pungently as the Count, for over a period a lot of dead shrimps, seaweed, and other debris had collected under her boards. I had sunk her in some two feet of sea water and given her bilges a thorough cleaning so that she was sparkling clean and smelt beautifully of sun-hot tar and paint and salt water.

  The old salt pans lay along the edge of the brackish lake, forming a giant chessboard with the cross-hatching of these placid canals, some as narrow as a chair, some thirty feet wide. Most of these waterways were only a couple of feet deep but below the water lay an almost unplumbable depth of fine black silt. The Bootle-Bumtrinket, by virtue of her shape and flat bottom, could be propelled up and down these inland waterways with comparative ease, for one did not have to worry about gusts of wind or a sudden, bouncing cluster of wavelets, two things that always made her a bit alarmed. But the disadvantage of the canals was that they were fringed on each side with tall, rustling bamboo breaks which, while providing shade, shut out the wind, so that the atmosphere was still, dark, hot, and as richly odiferous as a manure heap. For a time the artificial smell of the Count vied with the scents of nature and eventually nature won.

  ‘Ees smell,’ the Count pointed out. ‘In France ze water ees hygiene.’

  I said it would not be long before we left the canal and were out on the lake, where there would be no smell.

  ‘Ees eating,’ was the Count’s next discovery, mopping his face and moustache with a scent-drenched handkerchief. ‘Ees eating much.’

  His pale face had, as a matter of fact, turned a light shade of heliotrope. I was just about to say that that problem, too, would be overcome once we reached the open lake when, to my alarm, I noticed something wrong with the Bootle-Bumtrinket. She had settled sluggishly in the brown water and hardly moved to my punting. For a moment I could not imagine what was wrong with her; we had not run aground and I knew that there were no sand banks in this canal. Then suddenly I noticed the swirl of water coiling up over the boards in the bottom of the boat. Surely, I thought, she could not have sprung a leak.

  Fascinated, I watched the water rise, to engulf the bottom of the oblivious Count’s shoes. I suddenly realized what must have happened. When I had cleaned out the bilges I had, of course, removed the bung in the Bumtrinket’s bottom to let the fresh sea water in; apparently, I had not replaced it with enough care and now the canal water was pouring into the bilges. My first thought was to pull up the boards, find the bung and replace it, but the Count was now sitting with his feet in about two inches of water and it seemed imperative to turn the Bootle-Bumtrinket towards the bank while I could still manoeuvre a trifle and get my exquisite passenger on shore. I did not mind being deposited in the canal by the Bootle-Bumtrinket – after all I was always in and out of the canals like a water rat in pursuit of water snakes, terrapins, frogs, and other small fry – but I knew that the Count would look askance at gambolling in two feet of water and an undetermined amount of mud. My efforts to turn the leaden waterlogged boat towards the bank were superhuman. Gradually, I felt the dead weight of the boat responding and her bows turning sluggishly towards the shore. Inch by inch, I eased her towards the bamboos and we were within ten feet of the bank when the Count noticed what was happening.

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ he cried shrilly, ‘ve are submerge. My shoe is submerge. Ze boat, she ave sonk.’

  I briefly stopped poling to soothe the Count. I told him that there was no danger; all he had to do was to sit still until I got him to the bank.

  ‘My shoe! Regardez my shoe!’ he cried, pointing at his now dripping and discoloured footwear with such an expression of outrage that it was all I could do not to giggle.

  A moment, I said to him, and I should have him on dry land. Indeed if he had done what I had said, this would have been the case, for I had managed to get the Bootle-Bumtrinket to within six feet of the bamboos. But the Count was too worried about the state of his shoes and this prompted him to do something very silly. In spite of my warning shout, he looked over his shoulder, saw land looming close, got to his feet and leaped onto the Bootle-Bumtrinket’s minute foredeck. His intention was to leap from there to safety when I had manoeuvred the boat a little closer, but he had not reckoned with the Bootle-Bumtrinket’s temperament. A placid boat, she had nevertheless a few
quirks, and one thing she did not like was anyone standing on her foredeck; she simply gave an odd sort of bucking twist, rather like a trained horse in a cowboy film, and slid you over her shoulder. She did this to the Count now.

  He fell into the water with a yell, spread-eagled like an ungainly frog, and his proud yachting cap floated towards the bamboo roots while he thrashed about in a porridge of water and mud. I was filled with a mixture of alarm and delight; I was delighted that the Count had fallen in – though I knew my family would never believe that I had not engineered it – but I was alarmed at the way he was thrashing about. To try to stand up is an instinctive reaction when finding one is in shallow water, but in this case the effort only made one sink deeper into the glutinous mud. Once Larry had fallen into one of these canals while out shooting and had got himself so deeply embedded that it had required the united efforts of Margo, Leslie, and myself to extricate him. If the Count got himself wedged in the canal bottom I would not have the strength to extricate him single-handed and by the time I got help the Count might well have disappeared altogether beneath the gleaming mud. I abandoned ship and leaped into the canal to help him. I knew how to walk in mud and, anyway, only weighed a quarter of what the Count weighed so I did not sink in so far. I shouted to him to keep still until I got to him.