Gerald Durrell - The Corfu Trilogy

‘You frightened it,’ said Margo.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Larry indignantly. ‘I just gave it a little push.’

The donkey skidded to a halt by my bedside and gazed at me out of enormous brown eyes. It seemed rather surprised. It shook itself vigorously so that the feathers between its ears fell off and then very dexterously it hacked Leslie on the shin with its hind leg.

‘Jesus!’ roared Leslie, hopping around on one leg. ‘It’s broken my bloody leg.’

‘Leslie, dear, there is no need to swear so much,’ said Mother. ‘Remember Gerry.’

‘The sooner you get it out of that bedroom the better,’ said Larry. ‘Otherwise the whole place will smell like a midden.’

‘You’ve simply ruined its decorations,’ said Margo, ‘and it took me hours to put them on.’

But I was taking no notice of the family. The donkey had approached the edge of my bed and stared at me inquisitively for a moment and then had given a little throaty chuckle and thrust in my outstretched hands a grey muzzle as soft as everything soft I could think of – silkworm cocoons, newly born puppies, sea pebbles, or the velvety feel of a tree frog. Leslie had now removed his trousers and was examining the bruise on his shin, cursing fluently.

‘Do you like it dear?’ asked Mother.

Like it! I was speechless.

The donkey was a rich dark brown, almost a plum colour, with enormous ears like arum lilies, white socks over tiny polished hooves as neat as a tap-dancer’s shoes. Running along her back was the broad black cross that denotes so proudly that her race carried Christ into Jerusalem (and has since continued to be one of the most maligned domestic animals ever), and round each great shining eye she had a neat white circle which denoted that she came from the village of Gastouri.

‘You remember Katerina’s donkey that you liked so much?’ said Margo. ‘Well, this is her baby.’

This, of course, made the donkey even more special. The donkey stood there looking like a refugee from a circus, chewing a piece of tinsel meditatively, while I scrambled out of bed and flung on my clothes. Where, I inquired breathlessly of Mother, was I to keep her? Obviously I couldn’t keep her in the villa in view of the fact that Larry had just pointed out to Mother that she could, if she so wished, grow a good crop of potatoes in the hall.

‘That’s what that house Costas built is for,’ said Mother.

I was beside myself with delight. What anoble, kindly, benevolent family I had! How cunningly they had kept the secret from me! How hard they had worked to deck the donkey out in its finery! Slowly and gently, as though she were some fragile piece of china, I led my steed out through the garden and round into the olive grove, opened the door of the little bamboo hut, and took her inside. I thought I ought to just try her for size, because Costas was a notoriously bad workman. The little house was splendid. Just big enough for her. I took her out again and tethered her to an olive tree on a long length of rope, then I stayed for half an hour in a dreamlike trance admiring her from every angle while she grazed placidly. Eventually I heard Mother calling me in to breakfast and I sighed with satisfaction. I had decided that, without any doubt whatsoever, and without wishing in any way to be partisan, this donkey was the finest donkey in the whole of the island of Corfu. For no reason that I could think of, I decided to call her Sally. I gave her a quick kiss on her silken muzzle and then went in to breakfast.

After breakfast, to my astonishment, Larry, with a magnanimous air, said that if I liked he would teach me to ride. I said that I didn’t know he could ride.

‘Of course,’ said Larry airily. ‘When we were in India I was always galloping about on ponies and things. I used to groom them and feed them and so forth. Have to know what you’re doing, of course.’

So, armed with a blanket and a large piece of webbing, we went out into the olive grove, placed the blanket on Sally’s back, and tied it in position. She viewed these preparations with interest but a lack of enthusiasm. With a certain amount of difficulty, for Sally would persist in walking round and round in a tight circle, Larry succeeded in getting me onto her back. He then exchanged her tether for a rope halter and rope reins.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you just steer her as though she’s a boat. When you want her to go faster, just simply kick her in the ribs with your heels.’

If that was all there was to riding, I felt, it was going to be simplicity itself. I jerked on the reins and dug my heels into Sally’s ribs. It was unfortunate that my fall was broken by a large and exceptionally luxuriant bramble bush. Sally peered at me as I extricated myself, with a look of astonishment on her face.

‘Perhaps,’ said Larry, ‘you ought to have a stick so then you can use your legs for gripping on to her and you won’t fall off.’

He cut me a short stick and once again I mounted Sally. This time I wrapped my legs tightly round her barrel body and gave her a sharp tap with my switch. She bucked several times, indignantly, but I clung on like a limpet, and to my delight, within half an hour, I had her trotting to and fro between the olive trees, responding neatly to tugs on the rein. Larry had been lying under the olives smoking and watching my progress. Now, as I appeared to have mastered the equestrian art, he rose to his feet and took a penknife out of his pocket.

‘Now,’ he said, as I dismounted, ‘I’ll show you how to look after her. First of all, you must brush her down every morning. We’ll get a brush for you in town. Then you must make sure her hooves are clean. You must do that every day.’

I inquired, puzzled, how did one clean donkeys’ hooves?

‘I’ll show you,’ said Larry nonchalantly.

He walked up to Sally, bent down, and picked up her hind leg.

‘In here,’ he said, pointing with the blade of the knife at Sally’s hoof, ‘an awful lot of muck gets trapped. This can lead to all sorts of things. Foot-rot and so forth, and it’s very important to keep them clean.’

So saying, he dug his penknife blade into Sally’s hoof. What Larry had not realized was that donkeys in Corfu were unshod and that a baby donkey’s hoof is still, comparatively speaking, soft and very delicate. So, not unnaturally, Sally reacted as though Larry had jabbed her with a red-hot skewer. She wrenched her hoof out of his hands and as he straightened up and turned in astonishment, she did a pretty pirouette and kicked him neatly in the pit of the stomach with both hind legs. Larry sat down heavily, his face went white, and he doubled up, clasping his stomach and making strange rattling noises. The alarm I felt was not for Larry but for Sally, for I was quite sure that he would extract the most terrible retribution when he recovered. Hastily I undid Sally’s rope and flicked her on the rump with the stick and watched her canter off into the olives. Then I ran into the house and informed Mother that Larry had had an accident. The entire family, including Spiro, who had just arrived, came running out into the olive grove where Larry was still writhing about uttering great sobbing, wheezing noises.

‘Larry, dear,’ said Mother distraught, ‘what have you been doing?’

‘Attacked,’ gasped Larry between wheezes. ‘Unprovoked… Creature mad… Probably rabies… Ruptured appendix.’

With Leslie on one side of him and Spiro on the other they carted Larry slowly back to the villa, with Mother and Margo fluttering commiseratingly and ineffectually around him. In a crisis of this magnitude, involving my family, one had to keep one’s wits about one or all was lost. I ran swiftly round to the kitchen door where, panting but innocent, I informed our maid that I was going to spend the day out and could she give me some food to eat. She put half a loaf of bread, some onions, some olives, and a hunk of cold meat into a paper bag and gave it to me. Fruit I knew I could obtain from any of my peasant friends. Then I raced through the olive groves, carrying this provender, in search of Sally.