The Corfu Trilogy (54 page)

‘Rubbish,’ said Larry airily. ‘It’s puppy fat.’

‘Puppy fat!’ squeaked Margo. ‘Do you know how much I weigh?’

‘What you want is more exercise,’ said Leslie. ‘Why don’t you take up sailing?’

‘Don’t think the boat’s big enough,’ said Larry.

‘Beast,’ said Margo, bursting into tears. ‘You wouldn’t say things like that if you knew how I felt.’

‘Larry dear,’ said Mother placatingly, ‘that wasn’t a very kind thing to say.’

‘Well, I can’t help it if she’s wandering around looking like a water-melon covered with spots,’ said Larry irritably. ‘One would think it was
my
fault the way you all go on.’

‘Something will have to be done,’ said Mother. ‘I shall see Androuchelli tomorrow.’

But Androuchelli repeated that he thought her condition might be glandular and that in his opinion Margo ought to go to London for treatment. So, after a flurry of telegrams and letters, Margo was dispatched to London and into the tender care of two of the only worth-while relatives with whom we were still on speaking terms, my mother’s cousin Prudence and her mother, Great-Aunt Fan.

Apart from a brief letter saying she had arrived safely and that she, Cousin Prue, and Aunt Fan had taken up residence at a hotel near Notting Hill Gate and that she had been put in touch with a good doctor, we heard nothing further from Margo for a considerable length of time.

‘I do wish she would write,’ Mother said.

‘Don’t fuss, Mother,’ said Larry. ‘What’s she got to write about, anyway, except to give you her new dimensions?’

‘Well, I like to know what’s going on,’ said Mother. ‘After all, she’s in
London
.’

‘What’s London got to do with it?’ asked Larry.

‘In a big city like that anything can happen,’ said Mother darkly. ‘You hear all sorts of things about girls in big cities.’

‘Really, Mother, you do worry unnecessarily,’ said Larry in exasperation. ‘What do you think’s happened to her, for Heaven’s sake? Do you think she’s being lured into some den of vice? They’d never get her through the door.’

‘It’s no joking matter, Larry,’ said Mother severely.

‘But you get yourself into a panic about nothing,’ said Larry. ‘I ask you, what self-respecting white slaver is going to look at Margo twice? I shouldn’t think there’s one strong enough to carry her off, anyway.’

‘Well, I’m worried,’ said Mother, ‘and I’m going to send a cable.’

So she sent a cable to Cousin Prudence, who replied at length
saying that Margo was associating with people she didn’t approve of, that she thought it would be a good thing if Mother came to talk some sense into her. Immediately pandemonium reigned. Mother, distraught, dispatched Spiro to buy tickets and started packing frantically, until she suddenly remembered me. Feeling it would do more harm than good to leave me in the tender care of my two elder brothers, she decided that I should accompany her. So Spiro was dispatched to get more tickets and yet more packing was done. I regarded the whole situation as heaven-sent, for I had just acquired a new tutor, Mr Richard Kralefsky, who was endeavouring – with grim determination in the face of my opposition – to instruct me in irregular French verbs, and this trip to England, I thought, would give me a much-needed respite from this torture.

The journey by train was uneventful, except that Mother was in constant fear of being arrested by the Fascist carabinieri. This fear increased a thousand fold when, at Milan, I drew a caricature of Mussolini on the steamy window of the carriage. Mother scrubbed at it for quite ten minutes with her handkerchief, with all the dedication of a washerwoman in a contest, before she was satisfied that it was obliterated.

Coming from the calm, slow, sunlit days of Corfu, our arrival in London, late in the evening, was a shattering experience. So many people were at the station that we did not
know
, all hurrying to and fro, grey-faced and worried. The almost incomprehensible language that the porters spoke, and London aglitter with lights and churning with people. The taxi nosing its way through Piccadilly like a beetle through a firework display. The cold air that made your breath float like a web of smoke in front of your mouth as you talked, so that you felt like a character in a cartoon strip.

Eventually the taxi drew up outside the fake, soot-encrusted Corinthian columns of Balaklava Mansions. We got our luggage into the hotel with the aid of an elderly, bowlegged, Irish porter,
but there was no one to greet us, so apparently the telegram signaling our arrival had gone astray. The young lady, we were informed by the porter, had gone to her meeting, and Miss Hughes and the old lady had gone to feed the dogs.

‘What did he say, dear?’ asked Mother when he had left the room, for his accent was so thick that it sounded almost as though he were talking a foreign language. I said that Margo had gone to a meeting and that Cousin Prue and Aunt Fan were feeding the dogs.

‘What
can
he mean?’ said Mother, bewildered. ‘What meeting has Margo gone to? What dogs is he talking about?’

I said I did not know but, from what I had seen of London, what it needed was a few more dogs around.

‘Well,’ said Mother, inexpertly putting a shilling in the meter and lighting the gas fire, ‘I suppose we’ll just have to make ourselves comfortable and wait until they come back.’

We had waited an hour when suddenly the door burst open and Cousin Prue rushed in, arms outstretched, crying ‘Louise, Louise, Louise,’ like some strange marsh bird. She embraced us both, her sloe dark eyes glowing with love and excitement. Her beautiful face, delicately scented, was soft as a pansy as I kissed her dutifully.

‘I began to think that you were never coming,’ she said. ‘Mummy is on her way up. She finds the stairs trying, poor dear. Well, now,
don’t
you both look well. You must tell me everything. Do you like this hotel, Louise? It’s so cheap and convenient, but full of the most peculiar people.’

A gentle wheezing sound made itself heard through the open door.

‘Ah, there’s Mummy,’ cried Prue. ‘Mummy! Mummy! Louise’s here.’

Through the door appeared my Great-Aunt Fan. At first glance she looked, I thought rather uncharitably, like a walking tent. She was enveloped in a rusty-red tweed suit of incredible style
and dimensions. It made her look like a russet-red pyramid of tweed. On her head she wore a somewhat battered velveteen hat of the style that pixies are reputedly wont to use. Her spectacles, through which her eyes stared owlishly, glittered.

‘Louise!’ she cried throwing her arms wide and casting her eyes up as though Mother were some divine apparition. ‘Louise and Gerald! You have come!’

Mother and I were kissed and embraced heartily. This was not the feathery, petal-soft embrace of Cousin Prue. This was a hearty, rib-cracking embrace and a firm kiss that left your lips feeling bruised.

‘I am so sorry we weren’t here to greet you, Louise dear,’ said Prue, ‘but we weren’t sure when you were arriving and we had the dogs to feed.’

‘What dogs?’ asked Mother.

‘Why, my Bedlington puppies, of course,’ said Prue. ‘Didn’t you know? Mummy and I have become dog-breeders.’ She gave a coy, tinkling laugh.

‘But you had something else last time,’ said Mother. ‘Goats or something, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, we’ve still got those,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘And my bees and the chickens. But Prudence here thought it would be a good thing to start dog-breeding. She’s got such a head for business.’

‘I really think it’s a paying concern, Louise dear,’ said Prue earnestly. ‘I bought Tinkerbell and then Lucybell…’

‘And then Tinybell,’ interrupted Aunt Fan.

‘And Tinybell,’ said Prue.

‘And Lucybell,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet. I’ve already said Lucybell.’

‘And there’s Tinkerbell too,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Mummy is a little hard of hearing,’ said Prue unnecessarily, ‘and they have all had puppies. I brought them up to London to sell and at the same time we have been keeping an eye on Margo.’

‘Yes, where is Margo?’ asked Mother.

Prue tiptoed over to the door and closed it softly.

‘She’s at a
meeting
, dear,’ she said.

‘I know, but what sort of meeting?’ asked Mother.

Prue glanced round nervously.

‘A
spiritualist
meeting,’ she hissed.

‘And then there’s Lucybell,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet.’

‘Spiritualist meeting?’ said Mother. ‘What on earth’s she gone to a spiritualist meeting for?’

‘To cure her fatness and her acne,’ said Prue. ‘But mark my words, no good will come of it. It’s an evil power.’

I could see Mother beginning to get alarmed.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I sent Margo home to see that doctor, what’s his name?’

‘I
know
you did, dear,’ said Prue. ‘Then, after she came to this hotel, she fell into the grasp of that evil woman.’

‘What evil woman?’ said Mother, now considerably alarmed.

‘The goats are well too,’ said Aunt Fan, ‘but their milk yield is down a little this year.’

‘Oh, Mummy, do shut up,’ hissed Prue. ‘I mean that evil woman, Mrs Haddock.’

‘Haddock, haddock,’ said Mother, bewildered. Her train of thought was always liable to be interrupted if anything culinary was mentioned.

‘She’s a medium, my dear,’ said Prue, ‘and she’s got her hooks on Margo. She’s told Margo that she’s got a guide.’

‘A guide?’ said Mother feebly. ‘What sort of guide?’

I could see, in her distraught condition, that she was now beginning to think Margo had taken up mountaineering or some similar occupation.

‘A spirit guide,’ said Prue. ‘It’s called Mawake. He’s supposed to be a Red Indian.’

‘I have ten hives now,’ said Aunt Fan proudly. ‘We get twice as much honey.’

‘Mother, be quiet,’ said Prue.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Mother plaintively. ‘Why isn’t she still going to the doctor for her injections?’

‘Because Mawake told her not to,’ said Prue triumphantly. ‘Three séances ago, he said – according to Margo, and of course the whole thing comes through Mrs Haddock so you can’t trust it for a moment – according to Margo, Mawake said she was to have no more punctures.’

‘Punctures?’ said Mother.

‘Well, I suppose it’s Red Indian for injections,’ said Prue.

‘It is nice to see you again, Louise,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘I think we ought to have a cup of tea.’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ said Mother faintly.

‘I’m not going down there to order tea, Mummy,’ said Prue, glancing at the door as if, behind it, were all the fiends of Hell. ‘Not when they’re having a meeting.’

‘Why, what happens?’ asked Mother.

‘And some toast would be nice,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet,’ said Prue. ‘You have no idea what happens at these meetings, Louise. Mrs Haddock goes into a trance, then becomes covered with ectoplasm.’

‘Ectoplasm?’ said Mother. ‘What’s ectoplasm?’

‘I’ve got a pot of my own honey in my room,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘I’m sure you will enjoy it, Louise. So much purer than these synthetic things you buy now.’

‘It’s a sort of stuff that mediums produce,’ said Prue. ‘It looks like… Well, it looks like, sort of like – I’ve never actually
seen
it, but I’m told that it looks like
brains
. Then they make trumpets fly about and things. I tell you, my dear, I never go into the lower regions of the hotel when they are holding a meeting.’

Fascinated though I was by the conversation, I felt the chance of seeing a woman called Mrs Haddock covered with brains, with a couple of trumpets floating about, was too good to miss, so I volunteered to go down and order tea.

However, to my disappointment, I saw nothing in the lower regions of the hotel to resemble remotely Cousin Prudence’s description, but I did manage to get a tray of tea brought up by the Irish porter. We were sipping this, and I was endeavouring to explain to Aunt Fan what ectoplasm was, when Margo arrived, carrying a large cabbage under one arm, accompanied by a dumpy little woman with protruding blue eyes and wispy hair.

‘Mother!’ said Margo dramatically. ‘You’ve come!’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Mother grimly. ‘And not a moment too soon, apparently.’

‘This is Mrs Haddock,’ said Margo. ‘She’s
absolutely marvellous
.’

It became immediately apparent that Mrs Haddock suffered from a strange affliction. For some obscure reason she seemed to be incapable of breathing while talking. The result was that she would gabble, all her words latched together like a daisy chain and would then, when her breath ran out, pause and suck it in, making a noise that sounded like ‘Whaaaha.’

Now she said to Mother, ‘I am delighted to meet you Mrs Durrell. Of course, my spirit guide informed me of your coming. I do hope you had a comfortable journey… Whaaaha.’

Mother, who had been intending to give Mrs Haddock a very frigid and dignified greeting, was somewhat put off by this strange delivery.

‘Oh, yes. Did we?’ she said nervously, straining her ears to understand what Mrs Haddock was saying.

‘Mrs Haddock is a spiritualist, Mother,’ said Margo proudly, as though she were introducing Leonardo da Vinci or the inventor of the first aeroplane.

‘Really, dear?’ said Mother, smiling frostily. ‘How very interesting.’

‘It gives one great comfort to know that hose who have gone before are still in touch with one… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock earnestly. ‘So many people are unaware… Whaa… aha… ofthe spirit world that lies so close.’

‘You should have seen the puppies tonight, Margo,’ observed Aunt Fan. ‘The little tinkers had torn up all their bedding.’

‘Mummy, do be quiet,’ said Prue, eyeing Mrs Haddock as though she expected her to grow horns and a tail at any moment.

‘Your daughter is very lucky in as much as she has… Whaa… aha… managed to obtain one of the better guides,’ said Mrs Haddock, rather as though Margaret had riffled through the
Debrett
before settling on her spirit counsellor.

‘He’s called Mawake,’ said Margo. ‘He’s
absolutely marvellous!
’

‘He doesn’t appear to have done you much good so far,’ said Mother tartly.