Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

Mary glowed like a rosebud.

“Oh, but of course,” she said, “I’ll do anything. What have you got in mind?”

“Martin,” I said, “I assume that he’s only here for one day so we only have three meals to consider. What time will he be arriving?”

“I should think probably about seven or eight o’clock,” said Martin.

“Right,” I said, “what do you suggest, Mary?”

“Well, the avocados are absolutely perfect at the moment,” said Mary. “And if you stuffed them with shrimps and did a sort of mayonnaise sauce which I’ve got the recipe for...”

“Mary, dear,” interrupted Robin, “I have no tinned shrimps in the store and if you think I’m going to spend the next two days wading round in the river with a shrimp net, being attacked by hippos, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Well, let’s just settle on avocados,” I said. “Does he like tea or coffee?”

“I don’t really know,” said Martin, “You see, the last time we didn’t get on very intimate terms and so I couldn’t find out his preferences.”

“Well then; provide both tea and coffee,” I said.

“And then, said Mary excitedly, something simple — scrambled eggs.”

Martin solemnly wrote this down on his pad.

“That should keep him going for a bit,” I said. “I suppose you have to show him round the place and so on?”

“Yes,” said Martin, “that’s all organised.”

We all leaned forward and peered into his face earnestly.

“Are you sure?” I enquired.

“Oh yes, yes,” said Martin, “honestly, I’ve got everything organised from that point of view. It’s just this bloody entertaining business.”

“Well, presumably he’ll want to go and look at some of the outlying areas?” I enquired.

“Oh yes,” said Martin, “he always likes to poke his nose in everywhere.”

“Well then, I suggest a picnic lunch. After all, if you have a picnic lunch you don’t expect the Ritz standards, do you?”

“As in this remote place,” said Robin, “we spend our lives living on picnic lunches and dinners and breakfasts, I don’t think it would come as a great surprise to him.”

“I’ll do the picnic lunch,” said Mary. “I’ll get a haunch of goat and you can have that cold. And I think there are two lettuces that I can give you. That poor dear boy forgot to water them for four days and so I’ve lost almost all of them but I think these two will be alright. They’re a little withered but at least they’re lettuce.”

Martin wrote this solemnly down on his pad. “And for afters?” he said, looking up anxiously.

“Why not sour-sour?” I suggested. This was an extraordinary fruit that looked like a large, deformed melon with knobs on, the contents of which were white and pulpy but, whipped up and served, had a delicious lemony sort of flavour which was very refreshing.

“Wonderful,” said Mary, “what a good idea.”

“Well, that’s taken care of breakfast and lunch,” I said. “Now we come to dinner and I think this is the most important thing. I’ve discovered that Martin has got a very elegant dining-room.”

“Martin’s got a dining-room?” said McGrade.

“Yes,” I said, “an extremely elegant one.”

“Well, why is it then,” said McGrade, “on the rare occasions when this parsimonious bastard asks us up here to chop, we’re forced to eat on the veranda like a set of gipsy Protestants?”

“Never mind the why’s and wherefore’s,” I said, “come and look at it.”

We all trooped in solemnly and examined the dining-room.

I was glad to see that in the interim — though how he had found time for it I didn’t know — Pious had had the table and chairs polished so that they glowed. Peering at the table top you could see your face reflected in it as though you were looking into a brown pool of water.

“Oh, but it’s delicious,” said Mary. “Martin, you never told us you had a room like this.”

“It’s certainly a marvellous table,” said McGrade, bashing his enormous fist down on it so that I feared that it would split in two.

“But you can have a simply splendid dinner here,” said Mary. “What an absolutely marvellous setting. I only wish we had some candelabras.”

I was just about to suggest that she did not complicate the issue when Robin unexpectedly said, “I have four.”

We all looked at him in complete astonishment.

“Well, they’re not silver or anything as posh as that,” he said, “but they are rather nice brass ones that I bought up in Kano. They need a bit of polishing, but I think they’d look pretty good.”

“Oh splendid,” said Mary, her eyes shining. “Dinner by candlelight. He couldn’t resist that.”

“If an honest Irish Catholic is allowed to get a word in edgeways with a lot of jabbering heathens,” said McGrade, “could I ask you all a question?”

We all looked at him expectantly.

“Where are we going to get the candles?”

“Dear, yes, I didn’t think of that,” said Mary. “You can’t very well have candelabras without candles.”

“I don’t know why it is that people always tend to underestimate my intelligence,” said Robin. “I bought the candelabras because I liked them and I intended to use them. The house I’m occupying at the moment doesn’t lend itself to such medieval splendour but I did, however, take the precaution of importing a considerable quantity of candles which have been steadily melting away in a cupboard since I was moved to Mamfe. If they have not congealed into a solid mass, we might be able to salvage one or two. However, leave that part of the thing to me.”

Knowing Robin as we did, we knew that the candles would not be a horrid sticky mess as he implied, for I was sure he would have checked on them four times a day.

“Well now, Mary,” I said, “will you do the flower arrangements?”

“Flower arrangements?” said Martin, startled.

“But of course,” I said, “a few bunches of begonias or something hung around the place always tart it up a bit.”

“Well, it’s rather difficult,” said Mary, “at the moment; There’s not really much in bloom. There’s hibiscus, of course...”

“Holy Mary,” said McGrade, “we’re surrounded by bloody hibiscus all the time. That’s not a flower arrangement. That’s just bringing the bloody jungle into the house.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got a hunter who’s extremely good at climbing trees, and as well as bringing me some animals the other day he brought me a rather beautiful orchid which he’d got from the top of a tree. I’ll contact him and get him to go out into the forest and see what orchids and other things he can get. And then, Mary dear, you do the flower arrangements.”

“Oh, I love arranging flowers,” said Mary, “and if they are orchids it will be absolutely marvellous.”

Martin scribbled frantically on his pad.

“Now,” I said to him, “what have we got organised so far?”

“Well,” he said, “we’ve checked on the beds and furniture, we’ve got the staff under control, we’ve organised the breakfast. Mary is organising the picnic lunch and the flower arrangements and that’s really as far as we’ve got.”

“Drinks,” I said.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Robin. “Being in charge of the only emporium that supplies you with the stuff I know that Martin is a complete dipsomaniac and I could tell you almost down to the last bottle how much he’s got here.”

He glanced down into his empty glass pensively.

“Parsimoniousness is a thing that I could never suffer gladly,” he added.

“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up,” said Martin. “If you want another drink, call Amos.”