Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“ Havelock says a lot about marriage,” I said. “What had you in mind?”

“Does he say anything about p-p-p-prop-p-posing, sir?”

“Proposing maniage? Well, I’m not sure. I don’t think he gives any definite instructions. It’s more a general account of how to behave after you’re married.”

“But you h-h-have to p-p-p-propose first, sir,” he pointed out.

“Of course. But that’s easy enough. Who do you have in mind to propose to?”

“S-s-s-s-s-andra,” he said, and my heart sank. Sandra was the last girl for him, even if he looked a million dollars which, with his acne and his chin covered with yellow down like a newly-hatched pigeon, he certainly did not, Add to this his impediment, and his chances of winning Sandra’s hand were about equal to his chances of becoming Prime Minister.

“Well, it’s simple enough,” I said heartily. “You take her out, give her a good time, and then, at the end of the evening, you pop the question. Simple. It’s after she says ‘yes’ that your difficulties begin.”

“I’ve got s-s-s-spots,” said Dennis, dolefully.

“Everyone’s got spots,” I replied. “I’m not going to disrobe for you, but I’ve got spots all over my whole back. It looks like an aerial photograph of the higher peaks of the Andes .”

“That’s on your b-b-b-back,” pointed out Dennis. “M-m-mine are on my f-f-face.”

“It’s scarcely noticeable,” I lied. “I wouldn’t have seen them if you hadn’t drawn my attention to them.”

“I s-s-stammer,” he said. “How can you p-p-p-propose if you s-s-stammer?”

“A slight impediment,” I reassured him firmly. “When you come to the great moment, you’ll be so excited you’ll forget to stammer.”

“I b-b-blush, too,” went on Dennis, determined to lay out all his faults for my examination.

“Everyone blushes,” I pointed out. “Even I blush, but you can’t see it because of my beard and moustache. It shows a nice, delicate nature. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Actually Havelock has a bit about blushing in volume eight.”

“Does he s-s-say anything about s-s-s-stammering and s-s-spots?” asked Dennis, hopefully.

“Not spots. That’s really not his scene. Do you want to borrow this to read what he says?”

“Yes, p-p-please,” said Dennis, eagerly.

He seized volume eight and scuttled off with it. The whole interview had left me feeling as limp as a psychiatrist at the end of a heavy day. I hoped that Havelock would produce a panacea for Dennis, for he was a nice, earnest boy, but I doubted it; the dice were too heavily loaded against him.

The next person to seek the advice of Havelock was Giovanni, one of the restaurant waiters, a tall, handsome, sleek, dark man, like a well-groomed antelope with melting eyes. He looked so supremely full of self-confidence that it was hard to believe he had any problems at all, let alone sexual ones. But he waited one lunch time until I had lingered rather long over my meal and was the last person in the restaurant, then took up a station within six feet of my table and stared fixedly at me until I stopped writing.

“Yes?” I sighed. “What’s your problem, Giovanni?”

“Well,” he said, coming forward eagerly. “I justa wanta aska you . . . thata book, er . . . she tells you about sadism?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why? Do you feel an overwhelming urge to beat up Innocenzo?”

“No, no! It’s notta me. It is-a my girl-friend.”

“Oh,” I said cautiously. “What’s the problem?”

He glanced around furtively to make sure we were alone.

“She bitas,” he said, in a hushed whisper.

“She bites?”

“Yessa.”

“She bites what?” I asked, slightly confused, as this was the last thing I had expected.

“She bita me,” he explained.

“Oh!” I felt somewhat at a loss, for even Havelock had not prepared me for a girl who bit large Italian waiters. “What does she bite you for?”

“She say I tasta good,” he said, solemnly.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. Itta hurts,” he pointed out. “Soma-tima I’m afrald she bita veina, and I bleeds to death.”

“Surely not. You couldn’t bleed to death from a few love-bites.”

“It is notta few love-bitas,” he said, indignantly. “She issa sadism.

“A sadist,” I corrected.

“She’s thatta too,” he agreed.

“But love-bites are very common,” I explained. “They are really a sign of affection, of love.”

He glanced round once more to make sure we were alone, then unbuttoned his shirt.

“Issa thissa love, or is she sadism?” he enquired, displaying to me a chest covered with an astrakhan-like pelt of fur, through which could be seen several neat red circles of teeth marks. In several places the skin had been broken, and at one point a piece of sticking-plaster was applied.

“Well, it may be painful,” I commented, “but I don’t really think it qualifies as sadism.”

“No?” he queried, indignantly. “Whatta you wanta that she should do? Eata me?”

“Why don’t you bite her back?” I suggested.

“I cannot do. She would not like it.”

He certainly seemed to have a problem and his chief problem was that he had no idea what a real sadist was.

“Would you like to borrow the book that talks about sadism?” I asked. “Would that help?”

“Yessa,” he beamed. “Then I reada it to her, and she will see she is a sadism.”

Well, I wouldn’t read it all to her,” I said, in a precautionary way. “After all, you don’t want to start her on whips and things.”

“I reada it first,” he said, after a moment’s thought.

“Yes, I would just censor it first if I were you. I’ll bring it down this evening, Giovanni.”

“Thanka you, Mr Durrell,” he said, and bowed me out while re-buttoning his shirt.

Two days later, he returned the book, looking worried.

“Is all aright,” he whispered.

“Good,” I said. “What happened?”

“She thoughta when I’m reading her these things he say, thata I wants to do it to her. So she say, ‘no, no way’. So I say ‘you willa give up being sadism, and I willa too’.”

“And she agreed?”

“Yessa. She agree.”

“And does it work?”

“Lasts night,” he said, closing one eye and looking at me. “Lasta night, she was gentle like a bird, like a beautiful bird . . . so softa.”

“Very nice,” I said.

“No. She is angry with me.”

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“She was so beautiful, so softa, so gentle, that I bit-a her,” he confessed. “Now she say she no sleepa with me again.”

“She’ll change her mind,” I reassured him, comfortingly. But he looked doubtful, and by the time I left the hotel his beautiful biter had not given in to his importuning.

In the unfortunate case of the kitchen porter and the cellar-man, I was, quite unwittingly (with the aid of Havelock), the cause of some upset, of which, I am glad to say, the only really detrimental aspect was that the soup of the day, minestrone, was burnt black. It started because I’d found a short-cut through the cellars underneath the hotel, which led me straight out on to the cliffs instead of having to walk along miles of road. Here, since my short-cut led past the dustbins, I would frequently meet the kitchen porter or the cellarman. The porter was a nice Irish lad, with a lazy smile, very blue eyes, a crop of auburn hair and a face freckled as thickly as a blackbird’s egg. In direct contrast, the cellarman was a rather dark, saturnine individual, whose face, in repose, looked sulky but was transfigured when he smiled. He had a most attractive, deep, husky voice with a real Dorset accent. The news of my apparent endless fund of sexual knowledge (as represented by Havelock Ellis), filtered down into the cellars and both these attractive young men brought their troubles to me. The first one was the cellarman, David.