Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“Would you care for a drink, sir?” I asked, playing the anxious host.

“Drinks,” said Reggie with satisfaction, “lots of bloody great drinks . . . gallons and gallons of butts of malmsey . . . you can’t dink without trinking.”

“Thank you, I will have a small, dry sherry, if I may,” said the Duke.

“That little bashtard of yours doesn’t drink,” said Reggie, “all he takes is Coca-Cola and mother’s milk . . . he is an invert . . . an invert . . . an invertebrate if ever I shaw one . . . tototally and completely shpineless.”

“Now look here, Mr Montrose,” said the Duke, tried beyond endurance, tapping his beautifully manicured fingers on the table, “I have no wish to quarrel with you. My reason for being in Venice should not strike you as inimical to your own affairs. If you will just allow me to explain, I think I can clarify the situation and, to some extent, put your mind at ease.”

“The only way you can put my mind at eash is to get your bloody little son out of my wife’s bed,” said Reggie, loudly and belligerently.

The Duke threw an embarrassed look round the restaurant. All the Italians, not being used to such uninhibited displays from Anglo-Saxons (particularly the British) were watching us with lively curiosity.

“I have come to Venice to try to do precisely that,” said the Duke.

“What you gonna do?” asked Reggie. “Get him shom one elshes wife?”

“I propose to deal with him very firmly,” said the Duke. “I dislike this liaison as much, if not more, than you do and it must end.”

“Don’ you refer to my wife as a lia . . . lia. . . liaison,” said Reggie, going a shade of angry purple that threatened imminence of cardiac arrest. “Who t’hell d’you think you are, referring to my wife as a liaison, eh?”

“I meant no disrespect,” said the Duke coldly, “but I am sure you will agree that the whole thing is most unsuitable. I will say nothing about the disparity of their ages. That in itself is appalling. But looking beyond that you must realize that the boy is after all, heir to the title and so it behoves him to be careful about whom he associates with.”

Reggie stared at him for a long moment.

“You are without doubt the biggest piesch of per . . . perambulating horse shit it has ever been my misfortune to encounter,” he said at length.

“Reggie, darling, you can’t say things like that to the Duke,” put in Ursula, shocked.

“Why not?” asked Reggie reasonably. “If he thinks my wife’s unshutable for that puke of a son of his then I shay he is indub . . . indub . . . undoubtably the biggest and smelliest piece of perambulating horse shit this side of Ascot .”

Reggie and the Duke glared at each other. It was at that precise moment that Ursula uttered another piercing squeak and we were hit by the second bolt from the blue. Perry and Marjorie, hand in hand, entered the restaurant. Marjorie was a handsome lady who did look a little like a Gauguin maiden, and Perry was a willowy, delicate, and rather beautiful young man in the Byronic style. I had just time to register this before Reggie, uttering a noise like a dyspeptic lion with a thorn in its paw, rose to his feet and pointed a quivering finger at the happy couple, who had become rooted to the spot with horror at being so suddenly confronted.

“There’s the little puke and his liaison,” shouted Reggie. “Well, I tell you what I’m going to do . . .”

Unwisely, as it turned out, I got to my feet and laid a restraining hand on Reggie’s shoulder.

“Now hang on, Reggie,” I said soothingly. “You’re three times his size and . . .”

I got no further. Gathering my coat into a bunch in one enormous hand, Reggie picked me up as though I had been a piece of thistledown and deposited me with care and accuracy on a sweet trolley that a waiter happened to be conveniently wheeling past. My contact with it did irreparable damage to several pкches melba, a very fine strawberry tart, a delicious. looking trifle of singularly clinging consistency, and a great number of different species of ice cream. Perry, at the sight of this display of violence, came out of his trance. Letting go of Marjorie’s hand, he turned and fled with the utmost speed. Uttering another lion-like roar Reggie, showing agility astonishing in one of his build, ran after him. He, in turn, was pursued by Marjorie shouting, “Murderer, don’t you dare touch him,” and by the Duke, who was calling, “Harm a hair of his head and I’ll sue you!” Dripping ice cream, trifle and strawberries in equal quantities, I did the only thing possible: I flung a huge handful of notes on to the table and, seizing Ursula’s hand, ran after everyone.

As it turned out Perry had, rather unwisely, taken the little alleyway that led to the Piazza San Marco. If he had stuck to the alleyways he would have stood a chance of shaking off the pursuit but as it was, once he was out and running through flocks of frightened pigeons in the vast square, Reggie’s superior turn of speed proved his undoing. Just as he reached the far side of the square, along which runs the Grand Canal, Reggie caught him by the scruff of the neck. The rest of us arrived in a panting mass, to find Reggie shaking Perry to and fro like a puppet, and shouting incoherently at him. I felt that I should intervene in some way but having already had proof that Reggie did not take kindly to interference, and with the Grand Canal at his elbow, I felt I owed it to myself to be a coward.

“Leave him alone, you gross bully,” shouted the Duke, between gasps for breath.

“Leave him alone, leave him alone, he’s not strong,” shrilled Marjorie, beating the flat of her hands futilely on her husband’s broad back.

“Darling, this is all your fault,” said Ursula, turning on me like a tigress. “ You do something.”

Before I could protest at her perfidy, however, Reggie pulled Perry up close to him and glowered into his face.

“I’m shick of your bloody puke of a father and I’m shick of you ,” he roared. “So your bloody father doesn’t think my wife’s good enough for you, eh? eh? eh? Well, I’ll show you! I’ll divorce and then you can bloody well marry her.”

The Piazza San Marco is always a place of interest to tourists visiting Venice and so, not unnaturally, we now had a crowd of some five thousand people, of different colours and creeds, gathered around us expectant and interested.

“What did you s-s-s-say . . . ?” asked Perry, white-faced, still being shaken to and fro in Reggie’s massive grasp.

“I’ll divorce my wife and then you can bloody well marry her,” Reggie roared.

“ Bravo! Queue diplomatie, ” said a Frenchman in the crowd.

“You can rely on my son to do the proper thing,” declared the Duke, recovering from his shock at Reggie’s announcement. “After all, he had a public school education and so knows how to behave like a gentleman.”

“But I don’t want to marry her,” gasped Perry.

“What?” said Reggie.

“What?” exclaimed the Duke.

“What?” added Marjorie and Ursula, almost in unison.

“ Ils sont trés drôles, les anglais, n’est-ce pas? ” said the Frenchman in the crowd.

“I’m too young to get married,” explained Perry, plaintively, “I’m only eighteen.”

“D’you mean to say you refuse to make an honest woman of my wife?” asked Reggie, trying to get the facts straight in his mind.

“Well, I’m not going to marry her, if that’s what you mean,” said Perry petulantly.

“I must say I agree with the boy. Most unsuitable liaison,” put in the Duke, unwisely.

Reggie looked closely into Perry’s face and then turned and stared at the Duke.