Gerald Durrell - The Corfu Trilogy

‘Good heavens! Dear, what have you been doing?’ asked Mother, peering round the wrecked room.

‘Mother, I am in no mood to answer imbecile questions.’

‘Must be the Magenpies,’ said Leslie, with the relish of a prophet proved right. ‘Anything missing?’

‘No, nothing missing,’ said Larry bitterly; ‘they spared me that.’

‘They’ve made an awful mess of your papers,’ observed Margo.

Larry stared at her for a moment, breathing deeply. ‘What a masterly understatement,’ he said at last; ‘you are always ready with the apt platitude to sum up a catastrophe. How I envy you your ability to be inarticulate in the face of Fate.’

‘There’s no need to be rude,’ said Margo.

‘Larry didn’t mean it, dear,’ explained Mother untruthfully; ‘he’s naturally upset.’

‘Upset? Upset? Those scab-ridden vultures come flapping in here like a pair of critics and tear and bespatter my manuscript before it’s even finished, and you say I’m upset? ’

‘It’s very annoying, dear,’ said Mother, in an attempt to be vehement about the incident, ‘but I’m sure they didn’t mean it. After all, they don’t understand… they’re only birds.’

‘Now don’t you start,’ said Larry fiercely. ‘I’ve already been treated to a discourse on the sense of right and wrong in the crow tribe. Its disgusting the way this family carries on over animals; all this anthropomorphic slush that’s drooled out as an excuse. Why don’t you all become magpie worshippers, and erect a prison to pray in? The way you all carry on one would think that I was to blame, and that it’s my fault that my room looks as though it’s been plundered by Attila the Hun. Well, I’m telling you: if something isn’t done about those birds right away, I shall deal with them myself.’

Larry looked so murderous that I decided it would probably be safer if the Magenpies were removed from danger, so I lured them into my bedroom with the aid of a raw egg and locked them up in their basket while I considered the best thing to do. It was obvious that they would have to go into a cage of sorts, but I wanted a really large one for them, and I did not feel that I could cope with the building of a really big aviary by myself. It was useless asking the family to help me, so I decided that I would have to inveigle Mr Kralefsky into the constructional work. He could come out and spend the day, and once the cage was finished he would have the opportunity of teaching me how to wrestle. I had waited a long time for a favourable opportunity of getting these wrestling lessons, and this seemed to me to be ideal. Mr Kralefsky’s ability to wrestle was only one of his many hidden accomplishments, as I had found out.

Apart from his mother and his birds I had discovered that Kralefsky had one great interest in life, and that was an entirely imaginary world he had evoked in his mind, a world in which rich and strange adventures were always happening, adventures in which there were only two major characters: himself (as hero) and a member of the opposite sex who was generally known as a Lady. Finding that I appeared to believe the anecdotes he related to me, he got bolder and bolder, and day by day allowed me to enter a little farther into his private paradise. It all started one morning when we were having a break for coffee and biscuits. The conversation somehow got onto dogs, and I confessed to an overwhelming desire to possess a bulldog – creatures that I found quite irresistibly ugly.

‘By Jove, yes! Bulldogs!’ said Krafelsky. ‘Fine beasts, trustworthy and brave. One cannot say the same of bull-terriers , unfortunately.’

He sipped his coffee and glanced at me shyly; I sensed that I was expected to draw him out, so I asked why he thought bull-terriers particularly untrustworthy.

‘Treacherous!’ he explained, wiping his mouth. ‘ Most treacherous.’

He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and placed the tips of his fingers together, as if praying.

‘I recall that once – many years ago when I was in England – I was instrumental in saving a Lady’s life when she was attacked by one of those brutes.’

He opened his eyes and peeped at me; seeing that I was all attention, he closed them again and continued. ‘It was a fine morning in spring, and I was taking a constitutional in Hyde Park. Being so early, there was no one else about, and the park was silent except for the bird-songs. I had walked quite some distance when I suddenly became aware of a deep, powerful baying.’

His voice sank to a thrilling whisper and, with his eyes still closed, he cocked his head on one side as if listening. So realistic was it that I, too, felt I could hear the savage, regular barks echoing among the daffodils.

‘I thought nothing of it at first. I supposed it to be some dog out enjoying itself chasing squirrels. Then, suddenly, I heard cries for help mingling with the ferocious baying.’ He stiffened in his chair, frowned, and his nostrils quivered. ‘I hurried through the trees, and suddenly came upon a terrible sight.’

He paused, and passed a hand over his brow, as though even now he could hardly bear to recall the scene.

‘There, with her back to a tree, stood a Lady. Her skirt was torn and ripped, her legs bitten and bloody, and with a deckchair she was fending off a ravening bull-terrier. The brute, froth flecking its yawning mouth, leaped and snarled, waiting for an opening. It was obvious that the Lady’s strength was ebbing. There was not a moment to be lost.’

Eyes still firmly closed, the better to see the vision, Kralefsky drew himself up in his chair, straightened his shoulders and fixed his features into an expression of sneering defiance, a devil-may-care expression – the expression of a man about to save a Lady from a bull-terrier.

‘I raised my heavy walking-stick and leaped forward, giving a loud cry to encourage the Lady. The hound, attracted by my voice, immediately sprang at me, growling horribly, and I struck it such a blow on the head that my stick broke in half. The animal, though of course dazed, was still full of strength; I stood there, defenceless, as it gathered itself and launched itself at my throat with gaping jaws.’

Kralefsky’s forehead had become quite moist during this recital, and he paused to take out his handkerchief and pat his brow with it. I asked eagerly what had happened then. Kralefsky reunited his finger-tips and went on.

‘I did the only thing possible. It was a thousand-to-one chance, but I had to take it. As the beast leaped at my face I plunged my hand into his mouth, seized his tongue, and twisted it as hard as I could. The teeth closed on my wrist, blood spurted out, but I hung on grimly, knowing my life was at stake. The dog lashed to and fro for what seemed like an age. I was exhausted. I felt I could not hold on any longer. Then, suddenly, the brute gave a convulsive heave and went limp. I had succeeded. The creature had been suffocated by its own tongue.’

I sighed rapturously. It was a wonderful story, and might well be true. Even it if wasn’t true, it was the sort of thing that should happen, I felt; and I sympathized with Kralefsky if, finding that life had so far denied him a bull-terrier to strangle, he had supplied it himself. I said that I thought he had been very brave to tackle the dog in that way. Kralefsky opened his eyes, flushed with pleasure at my obvious enthusiasm, and smiled deprecatingly.

‘No, no, not really brave,’ he corrected. ‘The Lady was in distress, you see, and a gentleman could do nothing else. By Jove, no!’

Having found in me a willing and delighted listener, Kralefsky’s confidence grew. He told me more and more of his adventures, and each became more thrilling than the last. I discovered that, by skilfully planting an idea in his mind one morning, I could be sure of an adventure dealing with it the following day, when his imagination had had a chance to weave a story. Enthralled, I heard how he and a Lady had been the sole survivors of a shipwreck on a voyage to Murmansk (‘I had some business to attend to there’). For two weeks he and the Lady drifted on an iceberg, their clothes frozen, feeding on an occasional raw fish or sea-gull, until they were rescued. The ship that spotted them might easily have overlooked them if it had not been for Kralefsky’s quick wit: he used the Lady’s fur coat to light a signal fire.