Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

I knew that suggesting to Mr Romilly anything so drastic as putting them into a new cage with some damp moss would horrify him beyond all bounds, so I started surreptitiously to try and give the toads a slightly happier existence. I pinched some olive oil from my mother’s kitchen for a start, and when Mr Romilly went out to have his lunch hour, I massaged the oil into the skin of both toads. This improved the flakiness. I then got some ointment from the chemist, having explained — to his amusement — why I wanted it, and anointed their feet with it. This helped, but it did not clear up the foot condition completely. I also got some Golden Eye Ointment, which one normally used-for dogs, and applied it to their eyes with miraculous results. Then, every time Mr Romilly had his lunch hour I would give them a warm spray and this they loved. They would sit there, gulping benignly, blinking their eyes and, if I moved the spray a little, they would shuffle across the floor of their cage to get under it again. One day I put a small section of moss in the cage and both toads immediately burrowed under it.

“Oh, look, Mr Romilly,” I said with well-simulated surprise, “I put a bit of moss in the toads’ cage by mistake, and they seem to like it.”

“Moss?” said Mr Romilly. “Moss? But they live in the desert.”

“Well, I think some parts of the desert have got a little bit of vegetation,” I said.

“I thought it was all sand,” said Mr Romilly. “All sand. As far as the eye could see.”

“No, er..., I think they’ve got some small cactuses and things,” I said. “Anyway, they seem to like it, don’t they?”

“They certainly do,” said Mr Romilly. “Do you think we ought to leave it in?”

“Yes,” I said. “Shall we put a little more in, too?”

“I don’t suppose it could do any harm. They can’t eat it and strangle themselves with it, can they?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t think they will,” I said reassuringly.

So from then onwards my two lovely toads had a bit of moss to hide under and, what was more important, a bed of moss to sit on, and their feet soon cleared up.

I next turned my attention to the fish, for although they loved tubifex dearly I felt that they, too, should have a little variety in their diet.

“Wouldn’t it be possible,” I suggested to Mr Romilly in a tentative sort of way, “to give the fish some daphnia?”

Now, daphnia were the little water fleas that we used to get sent up from the farm that supplied the shop with all its produce, like waterweed and water snails and the fresh water fish that we sold. And the daphnia we used to sell in little pots to fish lovers to feed their fish with.

“Daphnia?” said Mr Romilly. “Feed them on daphnia? But they wouldn’t eat it, would they?”

“Well, if they won’t eat it, why do we sell it to people to feed to their fish?” I inquired.

Mr Romilly was powerfully struck by this piece of logic.

“You’re right, you know,” he said. “You’re right. There’s a little left over down in the cellar now. The new supply comes to-morrow. Try some on them and see.”

So I dropped about a tablespoonful of daphnia into each tank and the fish went as mad over them as the toads and frogs had gone over the wood lice.

The next thing I wanted to do, but I had to do it more cautiously, was to try and decorate the cages and tanks to make them look more attractive. Now, this was a task that Mr Romilly always undertook himself, and he did it with a dogged persistence. I do not think he really enjoyed it, but he felt that, as the senior member of the firm, as it were, it was his duty to do.

“Mr Romilly,” I said one day. “I’ve got nothing to do at the moment, and there are no customers. You wouldn’t let me decorate a fish tank, would you? I’d love to learn how to do them as well as you do.”

“Well, now,” said Mr Romilly, blushing. “Well, now. I wouldn’t say I was all that good...”

“Oh, I think you do it beautifully,” I said. “And I’d like to learn.”

“Well, perhaps just a small one,” said Mr Romilly. “And I can give you some tips as you go along. Now, let’s see..., let’s see... Yes, now, that mollies’ tank over there. They need clearing out. Now, if you can move them to the spare tank, and then empty it and give it a good scrub, and then we’ll start from scratch, shall we?”

And so, with the aid of a little net, I moved all the black mollies, as dark and glistening as little olives, out of their tank and into the spare one. Then I emptied their tank and scrubbed it out and called Mr Romilly.

“Now,” he said. “You put some sand at the bottom and..., um..., a couple of stones, and then perhaps some, er..., Vallisneria, I would say, probably in that corner there, wouldn’t you?”

“Could I just try it on my own?” I asked. “I, er..., I think I’d learn better that way — if I could do it on my own. And then, when I’m finished you could criticise it and tell me where I’ve gone wrong.”

“Very good idea,” said Mr Romilly. And so he pottered off to do his petty cash and left me in peace.

It was only a small tank but I worked hard on it. I piled up the silver sand in great dunes. I built little cliffs. I planted forests of Vallisneria through which the mollies could drift in shoals. Then I filled it carefully with water, and when it was the right temperature I put the mollies back in it and called Mr Romnilly to see my handiwork.

“By Jove!” he said, looking at it. “By Jove!”

He glanced at me and it was almost as though he was disappointed that I had done so well. I could see that I was on dangerous ground.

“Do... do you like it?” I inquired.

“It... it’s remarkable! Remarkable! I can’t think how you. how you managed it.”

“Well, I only managed it by watching you , Mr Romilly,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for you teaching me how to do it I could never have done it.”

“Well, now. Well, now,” said Mr Romilly, going pink. “But I see you’ve added one or two little touches of your own.”

“Well, they were just ideas I’d picked up from watching you,” I said.

“Hmmm... Most commendable. Most commendable,” said Mr Romilly.

The next day he asked me whether I would like to decorate another fish tank and I knew that I had won the battle without hurting his feelings.

The tank that I really desperately wanted to do was the enormous one that we had in the window. It was some four and a half feet long and about two foot six deep, and in it we had a great colourful mixed collection of fish. But I knew that I must not overstep the bounds of propriety at this stage. So I did several smaller fish tanks first, and when Mr Romilly had got thoroughly used to the idea of my doing them, I broached the subject of our big show tank in the window.

“Could I try my hand at that, Mr Romilly?” I asked.

“What? Our show piece?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s... it’s in need of... of a clean, anyway. So I thought, perhaps, I could try my hand at redecorating it.”

“Well, I don’t know...,” said Mr Romilly doubtfully. “I don’t know. It’s a most important piece that, you know. It’s the centrepiece of the window. It’s the one that attracts all the customers.”

He was quite right, but the customers were attracted by the flickering shoals of multi-coloured fish. They certainly were not attracted by Mr Romilly’s attempts at decoration, which made it look rather like a blasted heath.

“Well, could I just try?” I said. “And if it’s no good, I’ll do it all over again. I’ll even... I’ll even spend my half day doing it.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” said Mr Romilly, shocked. “You don’t want to spend all your days shut up in the shop, you know. A young boy like you... you want to be out and about... Well, alright, you try your hand at it, and see what happens.”