Gerald Durrell - The Corfu Trilogy

‘That’s just the point. I don’t want him drooling all over the place like a sex-starved spaniel.’

Mother straightened her spectacles and looked at Margo.

‘Margo, dear, I don’t think you ought to talk about Adrian like that, I don’t know where you get these expressions. I’m sure you’re exaggerating. I never saw him look like a… like a… well… like what you said. He seemed perfectly well behaved to me.’

‘Of course he was,’ said Leslie belligerently. ‘It’s just Margo; she thinks every man is after her.’

‘I don’t,’ said Margo indignantly. ‘I just don’t like him. He’s squishy. Every time you looked around, there he was, dribbling.’

‘Adrian never dribbled in his life.’

‘He did. Nothing but dribble, dribble, drool.’

‘ I never saw him dribbling,’ said Mother, ‘and anyway I can’t say he mustn’t stay just because he dribbles, Margo. Do be reasonable.’

‘He’s Les’ friend. Let him dribble over Les.’

‘He doesn’t dribble. He’s never dribbled.’

‘Well,’ said Mother, with the air of one solving a problem. ‘There’ll be plenty for him to do so I dare say he won’t have time to dribble.’

A fortnight later a starving, exhausted Adrian arrived, having cycled with practically no money all the way from Calais on a bicycle, which had given up the unequal struggle and fallen to bits at Brindisi. For the first few days we saw little of him since Mother insisted he went to bed early, got up late, and had another helping of everything. When he did put in an appearance I watched him narrowly for signs of dribbling, for of all the curious friends we had had staying with us, we had never had one that dribbled before and I was anxious to witness this phenomenon. But apart from a tendency to go scarlet every time Margo entered the room and to sit looking at her with his mouth slightly open (when honesty compelled me to admit he did look rather like a spaniel), he betrayed no other signs of eccentricity. He had extravagantly curly hair, large, very gentle hazel eyes, and his hormones had just allowed him to achieve a hairline moustache of which he was extremely proud. He had bought, as a gift for Margo, a record of a song which he obviously considered to be the equivalent of Shakespearian sonnets set to music. It was called ‘At Smokey Joe’s’ and we all grew to hate it intensely, for Adrian’s day was not complete unless he had played this cacophonous ditty at least twenty times.

‘Dear God,’ Larry groaned at breakfast one morning as he heard the hiss of the record, ‘not again , not at this hour.’

‘At Smokey Joe’s in Havana,’ the gramophone proclaimed loudly in a nasal tenor voice, ‘I lingered quenching my thirst…’

‘I can’t bear it. Why can’t he play something else?’ Margo wailed.

‘Now, now, dear. He likes it,’ said Mother placatingly.

‘Yes, and he bought it for you ,’ said Leslie. ‘It’s your bloody present. Why don’t you tell him to stop?’

‘No, you can’t do that, dear,’ said Mother. ‘After all, he is a guest.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ snapped Larry. ‘Just because he’s tone deaf, why should we all have to suffer? It’s Margo’s record. It’s her responsibility.’

‘But it seems so impolite,’ said Mother worriedly. ‘After all, he brought it as a present; he thinks we like it.’

‘I know he does. I find it hard to credit such depths of ignorance,’ said Larry. ‘D’you know he took off Beethoven’s Fifth yesterday halfway through to put on that emasculated yowling! I tell you he’s about as cultured as Attila the Hun.’

‘Sshh, he’ll hear you, Larry dear,’ said Mother.

‘What, with that row going on? He’d need an ear trumpet.’

Adrian, oblivious to the family’s restiveness, now joined the recorded voice to make a duet. As he had a nasal tenor voice remarkably similar to the vocalist’s the result was pretty horrible.

‘I saw a damsel there… That was really where… I saw her first… Oh, Mama Inez… Oh, Mama Inez… Oh, Mama Inez… Mama Inez…’ warbled Adrian and the gramophone more or less in unison.

‘God in heaven!’ Larry exploded. ‘That’s really too much! Margo, you’ve got to speak to him.’

‘Well, do it politely, dear,’ said Mother. ‘We don’t want to hurt his feelings.’

‘I feel just like hurting his feelings,’ said Larry.

‘I know,’ said Margo, ‘I’ll tell him Mother’s got a headache.’

‘That will only give us a temporary respite,’ pointed out Larry.

‘ You tell him Mother’s got a headache and I’ll hide the needle,’ suggested Leslie triumphantly. ‘How about that?’

‘Oh, that’s a brainwave,’ Mother exclaimed, delighted that the problem had been solved without hurting Adrian’s feelings.

Adrian was somewhat mystified by the disappearance of the needles and the fact that everyone assured him they could not be obtained in Corfu. However, he had a retentive memory, if no ability to carry a tune, so he hummed ‘At Smokey Joe’s’ all day long, sounding like a hive of distraught tenor bees.

As the days passed, his adoration for Margo showed no signs of abating; if anything, it grew worse, and Margo’s irritation waxed with it. I began to feel very sorry for Adrian, for it seemed that nothing he could do was right. Because Margo said she thought his moustache made him look like an inferior gentlemen’s hairdresser, he shaved it off, only to have her proclaim that moustaches were a sign of virility. Furthermore, she was heard to say in no uncertain terms that she much preferred the local peasant boys to any English import.

‘They’re so handsome and so sweet,’ she said to Adrian’s obvious chagrin. ‘They all sing so well. They have such nice manners. They play the guitar. Give me one of them instead of an Englishman any day. They have a sort of ordure about them.’

‘Don’t you mean aura?’ asked Larry.

‘Anyway,’ Margo continued, ignoring this, ‘they’re what I call men , not namby-pamby dribbling wash-outs.’

‘Margo, dear,’ said Mother, glancing nervously at the wounded Adrian. ‘I don’t think that’s very kind.’

‘I’m not trying to be kind,’ said Margo, ‘and most of cruelty is kindness if it’s done in the right way.’

Leaving us with this baffling piece of philosophy, she went off to see her latest conquest, a richly tanned fisherman with a luxuriant moustache. Adrian was so obviously mortified that the family felt it must try and alleviate his mood of despair.

‘Don’t take any notice of Margo, Adrian dear,’ said Mother soothingly. ‘She doesn’t mean what she says. She’s very headstrong, you know. Have another peach.’

‘Pig-headed,’ said Leslie. ‘And I ought to know.’

‘I don’t see how I can be more like the peasant boys,’ mused Adrian, puzzled. ‘I suppose I could take up the guitar.’

‘No, no, don’t do that,’ said Larry hastily, ‘that’s quite unnecessary. Why not try something simple? Try chewing garlic.’

‘Garlic?’ asked Adrian, surprised. ‘Does Margo like garlic?’

‘Sure to,’ said Larry, ‘you heard what she said about those peasant lads’ auras. Well, what’s the first bit of their aura that hits you when you go near them? Garlic!’

Adrian was much struck by the logic of this and chewed a vast quantity of garlic, only to be told by Margo, with a handkerchief over her nose, that he smelled like the local bus on market day.

Adrian seemed to me to be a very nice person; he was gentle and kind and always willing to do anything that anyone asked of him. I felt it my duty to do something for him, but short of locking Margo in his bedroom – a thought which I dismissed as impractical and liable to be frowned on by Mother – I could think of nothing very sensible. I decided to discuss the matter with Mr Kralefsky in case he could suggest anything. When we were having our coffee break I told him about Adrian’s unsuccessful pursuit of Margo, a welcome respite for us both from the insoluble mysteries of the square on the hypotenuse.