Gerald Durrell - The Corfu Trilogy

I apologized for the intrusion, and then told George about the curious nests I had found.

‘Thank heavens you’re here, Theodore,’ he said to his bearded companion. ‘I shall now be able to hand the problem over to expert hands.’

‘Hardly an expert…’ mumbled the man called Theodore, deprecatingly.

‘Gerry, this is Doctor Theodore Stephanides,’ said George. ‘He is an expert on practically everything you care to mention. And what you don’t mention, he does. He, like you, is an eccentric nature-lover. Theodore, this is Gerry Durrell.’

I said how do you do, politely, but to my surprise the bearded man rose to his feet, stepped briskly across the room and held out a large white hand.

‘Very pleased to meet you,’ he said, apparently addressing his beard, and gave me a quick, shy glance from twinkling blue eyes.

I shook his hand and said I was very pleased to meet him, too. Then we stood in awkward silence, while George watched us, grinning.

‘Well, Theodore,’ he said at last, ‘and what d’you think produced these strange secret passages?’

Theodore clasped his hands behind his back, lifted himself on his toes several times, his boots squeaking protestingly, and gravely considered the floor.

‘Well… er…’ he said, his words coming slowly and meticulously, ‘it sounds to me as though they might be the burrows of the trapdoor spider… er… it is a species which is quite common here in Corfu… that is to say, when I say common, I suppose I have found some thirty or… er… forty specimens during the time I have been here.’

‘Ah,’ said George, ‘trapdoor spiders, eh?’

‘Yes,’ said Theodore. ‘I feel that it’s more than probable that that is what they are. However, I may be mistaken.’

He rose and fell on his toes, squeaking gently, and then he shot me a keen glance.

‘Perhaps, if they are not too far away, we could go and verify it,’ he suggested tentatively. ‘I mean to say, if you have nothing better to do, and it’s not too far…’ His voice trailed away on a faintly interrogative note.

I said that they were only just up the hill, not really far.

‘Um,’ said Theodore.

‘Don’t let him drag you about all over the place, Theodore,’ said George. ‘You don’t want to be galloped about the countryside.’

‘No, no, not at all,’ said Theodore. ‘I was just about to leave, and I can easily walk that way back. It is quite a simple matter for me to… er… cut down through the olive groves and reach Canoni.’

He picked up a neat grey Homburg and placed it squarely on his head. At the door he held out his hand and shook George’s briefly.

‘Thank you for a delightful tea,’ he said, and stumped gravely off along the path by my side.

As we walked along I studied him covertly. He had a straight, well-shaped nose; a humorous mouth lurking in the ash-blond beard; straight, rather bushy eyebrows under which his eyes, keen but with a twinkle in them and laughter-wrinkles at the corners, surveyed the world. He strode along energetically, humming to himself. When we came to a ditch full of stagnant water he stopped for a moment and stared down into it, his beard bristling.

‘Um,’ he said conversationally, ‘ daphnia magna .’

He rasped at his beard with his thumb, and then set off down the path again.

‘Unfortunately,’ he said to me, ‘I was coming out to see some people… er… friends of mine, and so I did not bring my collecting bag with me. It is a pity, for that ditch might have contained something.’

When we branched off the fairly smooth path we had been travelling along and started up the stony goat-track, I expected some sort of protest, but Theodore strode behind me with unabated vigour, still humming. At length we came to the gloomy olive grove, and I led Theodore to the bank and pointed out the mysterious trapdoor.

He peered down at it, his eyes narrowed.

‘Ah-ha,’ he said, ‘yes… um… yes.’

He produced from his waistcoat pocket a tiny penknife, opened it, inserted the point of the blade delicately under the little door, and flipped it back.

‘Um, yes,’ he repeated; ‘ cteniza .’

He peered down the tunnel, blew down it and then let the trapdoor fall into place again.

‘Yes, they are the burrows of the trapdoor spiders,’ he said, ‘but this one does not appear to be inhabited. Generally, the creature will hold on to the… er… trapdoor … with her legs, or rather, her claws , and she holds on with such tenacity that you have to be careful or you will damage the door, trying to force it open. Um… yes… these are the burrows of the females, of course. The male makes a similar burrow, but it is only about half the size.’

I remarked that it was the most curious structure I had seen.

‘Ah-ha! yes,’ said Theodore, ‘they are certainly very curious. A thing that always puzzles me is how the female knows when the male is approaching.’

I must have looked blank, for he teetered on his toes, shot me a quick look and went on:

‘The spider, of course, waits inside its burrow until some insect – a fly or a grasshopper, or something similar – chances to walk past. They can judge, it seems, whether the insect is close enough to be caught. If it is, the spider… er… pops out of its hole and catches the creature. Now when the male comes in search of the female he must walk over the moss to the trapdoor, and I have often wondered why it is that he is not… er… devoured by the female in mistake. It is possible, of course, that his footsteps sound different. Or he may make some sort of… you know… some sort of sound which the female recognizes.’

We walked down the hill in silence. When we reached the place where the paths forked I said that I must leave him.

‘Ah, well, I’ll say good-bye,’ he said, staring at his boots. ‘I have enjoyed meeting you.’

We stood in silence for a moment. Theodore was afflicted with the acute embarrassment that always seemed to overwhelm him when greeting or saying good-bye to someone. He stared hard at his boots for a moment longer, and then he held out his hand and shook mine gravely.

‘Good-bye,’ he said. ‘I… er… I expect we shall meet again.’

He turned and stumped off down the hill, swinging his stick, staring about him with observant eyes. I watched him out of sight and then walked slowly in the direction of the villa. I was at once confused and amazed by Theodore. First, since he was obviously a scientist of considerable repute (and I could have told this by his beard), he was to me a person of great importance. In fact he was the only person I had met until now who seemed to share my enthusiasm for zoology. Secondly, I was extremely flattered to find that he treated me and talked to me exactly as though I were his own age. I liked him for this, as I was not talked down to by my family, and I took rather a poor view of any outsider who tried to do so. But Theodore not only talked to me as though I were grown up, but also as though I were as knowledgeable as he.

The facts he told me about the trapdoor spider haunted me: the idea of the creature crouching in its silken tunnel, holding the door closed with its hooked claws, listening to the movement of the insects on the moss above. What, I wondered, did things sound like to a trapdoor spider? I could imagine that a snail would trail over the door with a noise like sticking-plaster being slowly torn off. A centipede would sound like a troop of cavalry. A fly would patter in brisk spurts, followed by a pause while it washed its hands – a dull rasping sound like a knife-grinder at work. The larger beetles, I decided, would sound like steam-rollers, while the smaller ones, the lady-birds and others, would probably purr over the moss like clockwork motor cars. Fascinated by this thought, I made my way back home through the darkening fields, to tell the family of my new discovery and of my meeting with Theodore. I hoped to see him again, for there were many things I wanted to ask him, but I felt it would be unlikely that he would have very much time to spare for me. I was mistaken, however, for two days later Leslie came back from an excursion into the town and handed me a small parcel.