Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“It’s the only really piquant way of doing tomatoes,” insisted Larry. “And think what fun you’ll have picking the bits of charred napkin out of your teeth afterwards.”

“Don’t be so disgusting, Larry,” protested Mother. “I’m certainly not eating that.”

Two other waiters had joined the first and all three were trying to beat out the flames with napkins. Bits of tomato and flaming toast flew in all directions, landing indiscriminately on tables and customers alike. One of our fat ladies of the night before was blotched with a succulent section of tomato, and an old gentleman, who had just sat down, had his tie pinned to him with a piece of flaming toast like a red hot Indian arrow. The Purser, emerging from the kitchen, took in the situation at a glance. He seized a large jug of water and running forward, threw it over the stove. It certainly had the effect of extinguishing the flames, but all the closer tables were immediately enveloped in steam, and clouds spread over the dining saloon containing the blended scents of tomato, burnt bread and charred napkin.

“It smells just like minestrone,” said Larry. “I do think after all the boy’s efforts you ought to try just a little, Mother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Larry,” cried Mother. “They’ve all gone mad.”

“No,” said Leslie, “they’ve all gone Greek.”

“The terms are synonymous,” observed Larry.

One waiter had now hit another for some inexplicable reason, the Purser was shaking the original waiter by his lapels and shouting in his face. The scene was further enlivened by vociferous cries of complaint and annoyance from the surrounding tables. The threatening gestures, the pushing, the rich invective, were fascinating to watch but, like all good things, they eventually ended with the Purser slapping the original waiter over the back of his head and the waiter ripping off his badge of office, his dingy white coat, and hurling it at the Purser, who threw it back at him and ordered him out of the saloon. He curtly told the other waiters to clean up the mess and made placating noises to all and sundry as he made his way over to our table. He stopped, drew himself up to his full height beside us, plucked a fresh carnation from his buttonhole and put it in Mother’s left hand, while seizing her right hand and kissing it gracefully.

“Madam,” he said, “I am apologetic. We cannot give you grillid tomatoes. Anything else you want, we do, but grillid tomatoes, no.”

“Why not?” asked Larry, in a spirit of curiosity.

“Because the grill in the kitchen it is broken. You see,” he added by way of explanation, “it is the maiden voyage.”

“It seems the most unmaidenly voyage to me,” commented Leslie.

“Tell me,” enquired Larry, “why was the waiter trying to grill on that stove?”

“The boy very stupid,” said the Purser. “We have only experienced personnel on this ship. He will be dismantled in Piraeus .”

“How do you dismantle a waiter?” asked Larry, fascinated.

“Larry, dear, the Purser is a very busy man, so don’t let’s keep him,” said Mother hastily. “I’ll just have a boiled egg.”

“Thank you,” replied the Purser with dignity and he bowed and disappeared into the kitchen.

“I would have settled for raw tomatoes if I’d been you,” said Larry. “You saw what they did with the grilled tomatoes. I dread to think what they are going to do with the boiled eggs.”

“Nonsense, Larry,” answered Mother. “There isn’t anything they can do to spoil a boiled egg.”

She was wrong. When the eggs arrived (two of them, which were put before her ten minutes later), not only were they hard but they had been carefully deprived of their shells by loving but unwashed fingers.

“There!” exclaimed Larry. “What a treat? Cooked to a turn and covered with fingerprints that Sherlock Holmes would have found irresistible.”

Mother had to conceal these strange avian relics in her bag and then throw them overboard after breakfast when she was sure no one was looking, for, as she observed, we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

“There’s one thing to be said for it,” said Larry, watching Mother casting the eggs upon the waters. “Three days on a diet of nothing but red-hot ouzo will render us slim as minnows and we’ll all be as convivial as Bacchus by the time we land.”

But he was wrong too.

The evening meal was, by Greek standards, almost epicurean. There were three courses, the first of which was cold by intention, being an hors d’oeuvre , and the other two cold because they were served on cold plates accompanied by the usual altercation between the waiters. However, everything was edible and the only imbroglio was caused by Margo discovering a baby cuttlefish’s eye in her hors d’oeuvre . We unwisely drank far too many bottles of Domestika and arose from the table unsteadily and benignly.

“You go night-cloob?” asked the Purser, as he bowed us out.

“Why not,” said Larry, struck by the idea. “Let’s go and have an orgy among the palms. Do you remember how to do the Lancers, Mother?”

“I’m not going to make an exhibition of myself,” replied Mother with dignity. “But I will have a coffee and perhaps a small brandy.”

“To the evil depths of the palm enshrouded night-cloob, then,” said Larry, steering Mother rather unsteadily along the deck, “where who knows what opium titillated oriental maidens await us. Did we bring a jewel for Margo’s navel?”

As we had lingered over our meal, we found that the night club was in full swing. Our three fat ladies, and an assortment of other passengers, were, to the strains of a Viennese waltz, jostling for position on the minute square of parquet, like fish crowded in the tail end of a seine net. Although all the luxuriously uncomfortable chairs and sofas and tables appeared to be occupied, an eager steward materialized at our elbows and showed us to the most illuminated and conspicuous table and chairs in a place of honour. They were, we were told to our alarm and despondency, specially reserved for us by the Captain. We were just about to protest that we wanted a dim and obscure table when, unfortunately, the Captain himself appeared. He was one of those very dark, romantically melting Greeks, slightly on the fleshy side but giving the impression that this made him more nubile and attractive, in that curious way Levantines have.

“Madam,” he said, making it seem like a compliment, “I am enchanted to have you and your most beautiful sister on board our ship on her maiden voyage.”

It was a remark that, had the Captain known it, was calculated to offend everyone. It made Mother think he was what she always used to call darkly “one of those sort of men”, while one could see that Margo, though fond of Mother, felt that there was some difference between her seventy-odd summers and Margo’s well-preserved thirties. For a moment the Captain’s fate hung in the balance; then Mother decided to forgive him as he was, after all, a foreigner, and Margo decided to forgive him because he was really rather handsome. Leslie judged him with suspicion, obviously feeling that the hole in the bows proved his nautical standards to be of a low order.

Larry had reached that benign state of intoxication when everyone seemed tolerable. With the suavity of a professional head waiter, the Captain arranged us round the table, seating himself between Mother and Margo, and beamed at us, his gold fillings twinkling like fireflies in his dark face. He ordered a round of drinks and then, to Mother’s horror, asked her for the first dance.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I’m afraid my dancing days are quite over. I leave that sort of thing to my daughter.”