Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

“No, no,” said Spiro impatiently, “they’re foreigners. But the point is that...”

“Oh, foreigners,” said the fisherman, “I like foreigners.”

He delicately shifted off his foot a dead octopus which had somehow bounced on to it when he had come alongside.

“Would they like to buy fish?” he inquired.

“We don’t want to buy fish,” roared Spiro.

“But foreigners like fish,” the fisherman pointed out.

“Fool!” roared Spiro, tried beyond endurance. “We don’t want fish. We want petrol.”

“Petrol?” said the fisherman in surprise. “But what do you want petrol for?”

“For this boat,” roared Spiro.

“I’m afraid I haven’t got enough for that,” said the fisherman, glancing at his tiny petrol tin in the bows of his boat. “Tell me, where do they come from?”

“They’re English,” said Spiro, “but now listen. What I want...”

“The English are a good people,” said the fisherman. “There was one only the other day... bought two kilos of fish off me and I charged him double and he didn’t notice.”

“Look!” said Spiro, “what we want is petrol and what I want you to do...”

“Is it a family?” the fisherman inquired.

“No, it’s not a family,” said Spiro, “but what I want you to do...”

“It looks like a family,” said the fisherman.

“Well, it’s not,” said Spiro.

“But he and she look like the mama and the papa,” said the fisherman, pointing at Sven and Mother, “and the rest look just like their children. The one with the beard, I suppose, must be the grandfather. What part of England do they come from?”

It was quite obvious that if this went on much longer Spiro would seize an empty wine bottle and bash the fisherman over the head with it.

“Do you think perhaps I ought to have a few words with him?” said Mactavish.

“No,” said Larry. “Here, Spiro, let me deal with him.” He leaned over the side of the benzina and in his most mellifluous voice said in Greek,

“Listen, my soul, we are an English family.”

“Welcome,” said the fisherman, smiling broadly.

“We have come here in this boat,” said Larry slowly and clearly, “and we have run out of petrol. Also we have run out of food.”

“Run out of petrol?” said the fisherman. “But you can’t move if you haven’t got petrol.”

“That is exactly the point,” said Larry. “So would you be kind enough to let us hire your boat so that we may go down to Metaloura, get some petrol and bring it back here?”

The fisherman absorbed this information, wiggling his brown toes in the pile of red mullet, squid and octopus that was lying in the bottom of his boat.

“You will pay me?” he inquired anxiously.

“We will pay you fifty drachmas to take one of us to Metaloura and another fifty drachmas to bring that person back.”

Briefly the man’s eyes widened with astonishment at this lavish offer.

“You wouldn’t give me fifty-five drachmas, would you?” he inquired, but without much hope in his voice, for he realised that the price was a very large sum of money for such a simple task.

“Oh, now, my soul,” said Larry, “my golden one, you know I’m offering you a fair price and that I will not cheat you. Would you have it said that you would try and cheat us? You, a Greek, to strangers in your country?”

“Never!” said the fisherman, his eyes flashing, having forgotten the story of the Englishman he had cheated. “A Greek never cheats a foreigner in his country.”

“Now, here,” said Larry, extracting two fifty-drachnia notes, “is the money. I am giving it to this man who is a Greek like yourself and he will carry it with him, and when you come back with the petrol I will make sure that he gives it to you without cheating you.”

So touched was the fisherman by this that he agreed instantly and Larry carefully placed the two fifty-drachma notes in the pocket of Spiro’s shirt.

“Now, for God’s sake, Spiro,” he said in English, “get into that bloody boat and go and get us some petrol.”

With something of an effort, for he was a portly man, Spiro lowered himself gingerly over the side of the benzina and got into the fisherman’s boat, which sank several inches farther into the water with the addition of his weight.

“Do you want me to go now or this evening?” inquired the fisherman, looking up at Larry.

“Now!” said all the Greek-speaking members of the party in unison.

The fisherman started his engine and they headed out into the bay, Spiro sitting like a massive, scowling gargoyle in the bows.

“Oh, I say!” said Donald, as the little boat disappeared round the headland. “How frightfully remiss of us!”

“What’s the matter now?” inquired Larry.

“Well, if we had bought all his octopus and fish and things we could have had some lunch,” said Donald plaintively.

“By God, you’re right,” said Larry. “Why didn’t you think of it, Mother?”

“I don’t see why I should be expected to think of everything, dear,” she pretested. “I thought he was going to tow us down the coast.”

“Well, we can always have limpets for lunch,” I said.

“If you mention those disgusting things once more, I shall be sick,” said Margo.

“Yes, shut up,” said Leonora. “We’ve got enough problems on our hands without you interfering.”

So we tried to distract our minds from our empty stomachs. Mactavish gave Leslie lessons in how to draw the pearl-handled revolver rapidly from his hip. Leonora and Margo alternately sun bathed and swam. Larry, Sven, Donald and Max argued in a desultory fashion about art and literature. Mother completed some complicated piece of knitting, dropping more than the regulation number of stitches. Theodore, having remarked to everybody’s irritation once again that it was a good thing that he was a small eater, pottered off to collect some more specimens in the stagnant pool at the bottom of the cliffs. I took my penknife round to the rocks and fed ravenously on limpets.

Having nothing to eat, we all got rather drunk on the large supply of wine which we still had left, so towards evening Donald and Max were dancing another complicated middle-European dance while Larry was endeavouring to teach Sven to play “The Eton Boating Song” on his accordion. Mother, now secure in her mind at the idea of rescue, had slept peacefully throughout this raucous party, but it got later and later and all of us, although we didn’t say anything, had the same thought in mind. Had Spiro, in fact, accompanied by the mad fisherman, reached his destination or were they marooned as we were in some remote bay? For the fisherman had looked as though his knowledge of navigation was practically nil. As the light was fading even the effects of the wine did not make us convivial and we sat in a morose bunch, exchanging only an occasional and generally acrimonious remark. It was like the tail end of a good party when everybody wishes everybody would go home. It was the dying embers of pleasure, and the approach of night was putting ash on them to kill them. Even the sky, which had decided that night to be like burnished copper streaked with gold, elicited no response.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the little fishing boat slid round on the gold-blue water into the bay. There in the stem sat our mad fisherman and there in the bows, like a massive bulldog, sat Spiro. Immediately all the complicated and beautiful patterning the sunset had made upon the sea and the sky became twice as vivid. Here was rescue. They had returned!

We gathered in an anxious bunch at the end of the beach as the little boat drew nearer and nearer. Then the fisherman switched off his engine and the boat, under its own impetus, headed towards us.