Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“You shouldn’t have married an engineer,” said Leslie. “You know what they’re like; they have to take everything to pieces. Compulsive wreckers.”

“Well, we’ll ask him to make a special effort and have the Rolls all in one piece for Larry,” concluded Mother. “I’m sure he’ll agree.”

The Rolls in question was a magnificent 1922 model that Jack had discovered lurking shame-facedly in some remote country garage, her paint unwashed, her chrome unkempt, but still a lady of high degree. He had purchased her for the princely sum of two hundred pounds, and brought her back to the house in triumph, where, under his tender ministrations, she had blossomed, and was christened Esmerelda. Her coach-work now dazzled the eye, her walnut fittings glowed with polish, her engine was undefiled by so much as a speck of oil; she had running boards, a soft top you could put back for fine weather, a glass panel which could be wound up so that the driver could not hear your strictures on the working classes, and — best of all — a strange, trumpet-like telephone thing through which you shouted instructions to the chauffeur. It was as wonderful as owning a dinosaur. Both the back and front seats would accommodate four people with room to spare. There was a built-in walnut cabinet for drinks, and a boot that appeared big enough to contain four cabin trunks or twelve suitcases. No expense could be spared on such a vehicle, and so, by some underground method, Jack had produced a continental fire-engine horn which let out an ear-splitting, arrogant ta- ta , ta- ta . This was only pressed into service in extreme emergencies; normally, the huge, black, rubber bulb horn was employed, which made a noise like a deferential Californian sea-lion. This was suitable for hurrying up old ladies on pedestrian crossings, but the fire-engine horn could make a double-decker bus cringe into the ditch to let us pass.

Just at that moment Jack, in his shirt-sleeves and liberally besmeared with oil, came in to breakfast. He was a man of medium height with a mop of curly dark hair, prominent bright blue eyes, and a nose any Roman emperor would have been glad to possess. It was a nose that really was a nose; a nose to be reckoned with; a nose of size and substance, one that would have warmed the cockles of Cyrano de Bergerac’s heart, a nose that heralded the cold weather, the opening of the pubs, mirth, or any other important event, with a flamboyant colour change that a chameleon would have envied. It was a nose to be arrogant with, or to shelter behind in moments of stress. It was a nose which could be proud or comic, according to the mood; a nose that once seen was never forgotten, like the beak of a duck-billed platypus.

“Ah!” said Jack, and his nose quivered and took on a rubicund sheen. “Do I smell kippers?”

“There, in the kitchen, keeping warm,” said Mother.

“Where have you been?” asked Margo, unnecessarily, since Jack’s oil-covered condition stated clearly where he had been.

“Cleaning Esmerelda’s engine,” replied Jack, equally unnecessarily.

He went out into the kitchen and returned with two kippers lying on a plate. He sat down, and started to dissect them.

“I don’t know what you find to do with that car,” said Margo. “You’re always taking it to pieces.”

“I knew a man once who had a wonderful way with kippers,” remarked Jack to me, oblivious of my sister’s complaints. “He’d sort of turn them on their backs and somehow get all the bones out in one go. Very clever. They all came out, just like that. Like harp strings, you know . . . I still can’t quite see how he did it.”

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Margo.

“What’s wrong with what?” countered her husband vaguely, staring at his kippers as if he could hypnotize the bones out of them.

“The Rolls,” said Margo.

“Esmerelda?” asked Jack in alarm. “What’s wrong with her?”

“That’s what I’m asking you ,” said Margo. “You really are the most irritating man.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” replied Jack. “Beautiful piece of work.”

“It would be, if we went out in her occasionally,” pointed out Margo, sarcastically. “She’s not very beautiful sitting in the garage with all her innards out.”

“You can’t say innards out,” Jack objected. “Innards are in, they can’t be out.”

“Oh, you do infuriate me!” said Margo.

“Now, now, dear,” said Mother. “If Jack says there’s nothing wrong with the car, then everything’s all right.”

“All right for what?” asked Jack, mystified.

“We were thinking of taking Larry out for a picnic when he comes,” Mother explained, “and we thought it would be nice to do it in the Rolls.”

Jack thought about this, munching on his kippers.

“That’s a good idea,” he said at last, to our surprise. “I’ve just tuned the engine. It’ll do her good to have a run. Where were you thinking of going?”

“Lulworth,” said Mother. “It’s very pretty, the Purbecks.”

“There’s some good hills there, too,” said Jack with enthusiasm. “That’ll tell me if her clutch is slipping.”

Fortified with the knowledge that the Rolls would be intact for the picnic, Mother threw herself with enthusiasm into the task of preparing for it. As usual, the quantity of food she prepared for the day would have been sufficient to victual Napoleon’s army during its retreat from Moscow . There were curry-puffs and Cornish pasties, raised ham pies and a large game pie, three roast chickens, two large loaves of home-made bread, a treacle tart, brandy snaps and some meringues; to say nothing of three kinds of home-made chutney and jams, as well as biscuits, a fruit cake, and a sponge. When this was all assembled on the kitchen table, she called us in to have a look.

“Do you think there’ll be enough?” she asked, worriedly.

“I thought we were only going to Lulworth for the afternoon?” said Leslie. “I didn’t realize we were emigrating.”

“Mother, it’s far too much,” exclaimed Margo. “We’ll never eat it all.”

“Nonsense! Why, in Corfu I used to take twice as much,” said Mother.

“But in Corfu we used to have twelve or fourteen people,” Leslie pointed out. There’s only six of us, you know.”

“It looks like a two years’ supply of food for a Red Cross shipment to a famine area,” said Jack.

“It’s not all that much,” said Mother, defensively. “You know how Larry likes his food, and we’ll be eating by the sea, and the sea air always gives one an appetite.”

“Well, I hope Esmerelda’s boot will hold it all,” commented Jack.

The next afternoon, Mother insisted, in spite of our protests, that we all dress up in our finery to go down to the station to meet Larry. Owing to the inordinately long time Margo took to find the right shade of lipstick, Mothers plans were thwarted, for, just as we were about to enter the Rolls, a taxi drew up. Inside was Larry, having caught an earlier train. He lowered the window of the cab and glared at us.

“Larry, dear!” cried Mother. “What a lovely surprise!”

Larry made his first verbal communication to his family in ten years.

“Have any of you got colds?” he rasped, irritably. “If so, I’ll go to an hotel.”

“Colds?” said Mother. “No, dear. Why?”

“Well, everyone else in this God-forsaken island has one,” said Larry, as he climbed out of the cab. “I’ve spent a week in London running for my life from a barrage of cold germs. Everyone sneezing and snuffling like a brood of catarrhal bulldogs. You should have heard them on the train — hawking and spitting and coughing like some bloody travelling TB sanitarium. I spent the journey locked up in the lavatory, holding my nose and squirting a nasal spray through the keyhole. How you survive this pestilential island, defeats me. I swear to you that there were so many people with colds in London, it was worse than the Great Plague.”