Gerald Durrell: The Corfu Trilogy

Mother peered over the top of a large volume entitled Easy Recipes from Rajputana .

‘Indeed I’m not,’ she said indignantly.

‘You are ,’ Larry insisted; ‘you’re beginning to look like an Irish washerwoman… and your family looks like a series of illustrations from a medical encyclopædia.’

Mother could think of no really crushing reply to this, so she contented herself with a glare before retreating once more behind her book.

‘What we need is sunshine,’ Larry continued; ‘don’t you agree, Les?… Les… Les! ’

Leslie unravelled a large quantity of cotton wool from one ear.

‘What d’you say?’ he asked.

‘There you are!’ said Larry, turning triumphantly to Mother, ‘it’s become a major operation to hold a conversation with him. I ask you, what a position to be in! One brother can’t hear what you say, and the other one can’t be understood. Really, it’s time something was done. I can’t be expected to produce deathless prose in an atmosphere of gloom and eucalyptus.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Mother vaguely.

‘What we all need,’ said Larry, getting into his stride again, ‘is sunshine… a country where we can grow .’

‘Yes, dear, that would be nice,’ agreed Mother, not really listening.

‘I had a letter from George this morning – he says Corfu’s wonderful. Why don’t we pack up and go to Greece?’

‘Very well, dear, if you like,’ said Mother unguardedly. Where Larry was concerned she was generally very careful not to commit herself.

‘When?’ asked Larry, rather surprised at this cooperation.

Mother, perceiving that she had made a tactical error, cautiously lowered Easy Recipes from Rajputana .

‘Well, I think it would be a sensible idea if you were to go on ahead, dear, and arrange things. Then you can write and tell me if it’s nice, and we all can follow,’ she said cleverly.

Larry gave her a withering look.

‘You said that when I suggested going to Spain,’ he reminded her, ‘and I sat for two interminable months in Seville, waiting for you to come out, while you did nothing except write me massive letters about drains and drinking water, as though I was the town clerk or something. No, if we’re going to Greece, let’s all go together.’

‘You do exaggerate , Larry,’ said Mother plaintively; ‘anyway, I can’t go just like that. I have to arrange something about this house.’

‘Arrange? Arrange what, for heaven’s sake? Sell it.’

‘I can’t do that, dear,’ said Mother, shocked.

‘Why not?’

‘But I’ve only just bought it.’

‘Sell it while it’s still untarnished, then.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear,’ said Mother firmly; ‘that’s quite out of the question. It would be madness.’

So we sold the house and fled from the gloom of the English summer, like a flock of migrating swallows.

We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our luggage for customs inspection, the contents of our bags were a fair indication of character and interests. Thus Margo’s luggage contained a multitude of diaphanous garments, three books on slimming, and a regiment of small bottles, each containing some elixir guaranteed to cure acne. Leslie’s case held a couple of roll-top pullovers and a pair of trousers which were wrapped round two revolvers, an air-pistol, a book called Be Your Own Gunsmith , and a large bottle of oil that leaked. Larry was accompanied by two trunks of books and a briefcase containing his clothes. Mother’s luggage was sensibly divided between clothes and various volumes on cooking and gardening. I travelled with only those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids. Thus, by our standards fully equipped, we left the clammy shores of England.

France rain-washed and sorrowful, Switzerland like a Christmas cake, Italy exuberant, noisy, and smelly, were passed, leaving only confused memories. The tiny ship throbbed away from the heel of Italy out into the twilit sea, and as we slept in our stuffy cabins, somewhere in that tract of moon-polished water we passed the invisible dividing line and entered the bright, looking-glass world of Greece. Slowly this sense of change seeped down to us, and so, at dawn, we awoke restless and went on deck.

The sea lifted smooth blue muscles of wave as it stirred in the dawn light, and the foam of our wake spread gently behind us like a white peacock’s tail, glinting with bubbles. The sky was pale and stained with yellow on the eastern horizon. Ahead lay a chocolate-brown smudge of land, huddled in mist, with a frill of foam at its base. This was Corfu, and we strained our eyes to make out the exact shapes of the mountains, to discover valleys, peaks, ravines, and beaches, but it remained a silhouette. Then suddenly the sun lifted over the horizon, and the sky turned the smooth enamelled blue of a jay’s eye. The endless, meticulous curves of the sea flamed for an instant and then changed to a deep royal purple flecked with green. The mist lifted in quick, lithe ribbons, and before us lay the island, the mountains as though sleeping beneath a crumpled blanket of brown, the folds stained with the green of olive groves. Along the shore curved beaches as white as tusks among tottering cities of brilliant gold, red, and white rocks. We rounded the northern cape, a smooth shoulder of rust-red cliff carved into a series of giant caves. The dark waves lifted our wake and carried it gently towards them, and then, at their very mouths, it crumpled and hissed thirstily among the rocks. Rounding the cape, we left the mountains, and the island sloped gently down, blurred with the silver and green iridescence of olives, with here and there an admonishing finger of black cypress against the sky. The shallow sea in the bays was butterfly blue, and even above the sound of the ship’s engines we could hear, faintly ringing from the shore like a chorus of tiny voices, the shrill, triumphant cries of the cicadas.

We threaded our way out of the noise and confusion of the customs shed into the brilliant sunshine on the quay. Around us the town rose steeply, tiers of multi-coloured houses piled haphazardly, green shutters folded back from their windows like the wings of a thousand moths. Behind us lay the bay, smooth as a plate, smouldering with that unbelievable blue.

Larry walked swiftly, with head thrown back and an expression of such regal disdain on his face that one did not notice his diminutive size, keeping a wary eye on the porters who struggled with his trunks. Behind him strolled Leslie, short, stocky, with an air of quiet belligerence, and then Margo, trailing yards of muslin and scent. Mother, looking like a tiny, harassed missionary in an uprising, was dragged unwillingly to the nearest lamp post by an exuberant Roger and forced to stand there, staring into space, while he relieved the pent-up feelings that had accumulated in his kennel. Larry chose two magnificently dilapidated horse-drawn cabs, had the luggage installed in one and seated himself in the second. Then he looked round irritably.

‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What are we waiting for?’

‘We’re waiting for Mother,’ explained Leslie. ‘Roger’s found a lamp post.’

‘Dear God!’ said Larry, and then hoisted himself upright in the cab and bellowed, ‘Come on , Mother, come on. Can’t the dog wait?’

‘Coming, dear,’ called Mother passively and untruthfully, for Roger showed no signs of quitting the post.