Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

When we finally left I thanked the D.C. once more for his courage in helping me catch the mamba.

“Nothing, my dear fellow,” he said, waving his hand airily. “Nothing, I assure you. Glad to have been of assistance.”

The following day, Martin, in spite of all our efforts, was inconsolable. The D.C., he said, had been rather frosty when he had left and he was convinced that his next posting would be back to the hellhole of Umchichi. There was nothing we could do but write polite notes to the D.C. thanking him for the disastrous dinner party. I did manage to insert in mine additional thanks for the considerable help that his D.O. had given me. I said that in my experience in West Africa Martin was one of the best and most efficient D.O.s I had come across.

Shortly after that I had to move my animals down-country to catch the ship back to England and the whole incident faded from my mind.

Then, some six months later, I got a brief note from Martin, In it he said,

“You were quite right, old boy, about this dining out on stories stuff. The D.C. is now telling everybody how he caught a green mamba for you on the dining-room table while you were apparently so petrified with fright that you couldn’t do anything sensible. I’ve got a promotion and go to Enugu next month. I can’t thank you all enough for making the dinner party such a success.”

THE family doctor shook his head mote in sorrow than in anger.

“Strain,” he repeated. “Over-work and over-worry. What you need is three weeks in Abbotsford.”

“You mean the loony bin?” I asked.

“It isn’t a loony bin. It’s a highly respectable nursing home that specialises in nervous complaints,” he said severely.

“In other words a loony bin,” I said.

“I thought that you would have known better,” said the family doctor sadly.

“A loose generic term,” I said. “Is it that sprawling Strawberry Hill Gothic edifice that looks like Dracula’s castle — the thing straight out of Hollywood — on the way to Surbiton?”

“Yes, that’s the place.”

“Well, I don’t suppose that will be so bad,” I said judiciously. “I can nip up to town to see my friends and the odd show...”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” the family doctor interrupted firmly. “Complete rest and quiet is what you need.”

“Couldn’t I have a going-in party?” I pleaded.

“A going-in party?”

“Well, debs have their coming-out parties. Why can’t I have a going-in party? Just a select band of friends to wish me God Speed on my way to the padded cell.”

The family doctor winced and sighed.

“You will probably have it even if I tell you not to,” he said in a resigned manner, so I suppose you can.”

The party was a small one held in an excellent curry restaurant in Soho. It was during the course of the evening that I felt something trickling down my chin and, on wiping my mouth with my napkin, I was surprised to see it stained with blood. It was obvious that my nose was bleeding. Fortunately, both the lighting and the décor of the restaurant lent themselves well to this manifestation and I managed to staunch the flow without any untoward comment. I was not so lucky on the following day.

It was a week before Christmas and it was therefore necessary for me — on my way to Abbotsford — to deviate from my route slightly so as to call in at the Kings Road to deliver an almost life-sized Teddy bear who squatted regally in a transparent plastic bag and wore nothing except a handsome maroon-coloured tie.

I got out of the taxi, clasping the bear round its ample middle, rang the front door bell, and my nose started to bleed copiously. It was well-nigh impossible, I discovered, to hold the bear under one arm while staunching the flow of blood with the other, so I put the bear between my legs, thus freeing my hands.

“What are you doing ?” inquired my wife from the interior of the taxi.

“By dose is bleeding again,” I said through my blood-stained handkerchief.

With the bear between my legs and the blood streaming down my face, I presented an arresting sight even by Kings Road standards. A small crowd collected.

“Give the bear to the sweet-shop next door and ask them to give it to Peter,” my wife hissed. “You can’t stand there like that.”

The crowd had hitherto been silent, digesting this slightly macabre spectacle. Now a new woman joined them and gaped upon the mystery.

“Wot’s ’appening?” she inquired of the world in general.

“ ’E was bit by ’is Teddy bear,” said a man and the crowd laughed uproariously at the joke.

I dived into the sanctuary of the sweet shop, deposited the Teddy bear and then rushed panting out to the taxi.

“You shouldn’t rush about so,” said my wife as the taxi got under way. “You’re supposed to take it easy.”

“How can I dake it easy?” I inquired aggrievedly, “when by bloody dose is bleeding and I’m holding a sodding great Deddy bear?”

“Just lie back and relax,” said my wife soothingly.

Relax, I thought, yes, that was it, relax. I would have three glorious weeks to relax in, being ministered unto by kindly nurses, only having to make momentous decisions like what I would have for lunch or the exact temperature of my bath water. Relax, that was it. Complete peace and quiet. So, with this thought firmly in my mind, I entered Abbotsford.

I had little time to register anything (except that the furniture and décor of my room were best Seaside Boarding House, circa 1920, and that the nurses were remarkably pretty) before I was wrapped in a golden cocoon of drugs and remained thus, sleeping and twitching in this delectable hibernation for twenty-four hours. Then I awoke, bright and brisk as a squirrel, and surveyed my new world. My first impression of the nurses had not, I decided, been erroneous. They were all in their individual ways remarkably attractive. It was rather like being looked after by the entrants for a Miss World competition.

Of the day staff there was Lorraine, the Swedish blonde, whose eyes changed colour like a fiord in the sun; Zena, half English and half German, who had orange hair and completely circular and perpetually astonished blue eyes; and Nelly, a charmer from Basutoland, carved out of fine milk chocolate and with a little round nose like a brown button mushroom. Then there was the night staff. Breeda, short, blonde as honey and motherly, and, without doubt the most attractive of them all, Pimmie (a nickname derived from God knows what source), who was tall, slender and elf-like, with enormous greeny-hazel eyes the colour of a trout stream in spring. They were young and cheerful and went about their work with all the gaiety and eagerness to please of a litter of puppies. Their gambollings were presided over by two Sisters, both French, whose combined accents would have made Maurice Chevalier sound as though he had been brought up at Oxford and had worked for the BBC for a number of years. These were the Sisters Louise and Renée. and their blunt French practicality in action was a pleasure to watch and to listen to.

It was on the second day, still slightly drugged, that, partly from desire and partly from a need for new scenery, I made my way down the corridor to the lavatory. Here I squatted, thinking deep thoughts, when suddenly my attention was attracted to a large blob of blood on the floor. Hallo, I thought to myself, with the rapid perception of the semi-drugged, someone’s cut themselves... been bleeding. Shaving, no doubt. But, shaving here? In the lavatory? Surely not. At that moment another blob of blood joined the first one on the floor and I suddenly realised that my nose was bleeding again. By the time I had grasped this, my nose was in full flood. Clasping several yards of lavatory paper to my face, I sped back to my room and rang the bell frantically. My nose was now bleeding so fast that a paper handkerchief applied to it became sodden and useless almost immediately.