Marrying Off Mother by Gerald Durrell Read Free Book Online Page A

colourblind.
    â€˜No,’ she continued. ‘My great-grandfather bought Fred’s grandfather back in 1850. Ah’ve still got the receipt. Fred was born here. Fred’s no nigger. Fred’s family.’
    I gave up trying to understand the Southern mind.

Retirement
    I n my travels I have met with many events that have saddened and distressed me. But of this multitude of happenings there is one incident that is engraved on my mind and fills me with sorrow whenever I think of it.
    He was a very small man with no more bulk than a forlorn fourteen-year-old boy. His bones seemed as fragile and delicate as the stems of ancient clay pipes. He had a strange head perched on his slender neck like a Greek amphora upside down. In this were framed gigantic liquid eyes the size and shape of a doe’s, a nose as finely chiselled as a bird’s wing and a mouth beautifully formed, generous and compassionate. His ears, delicate as parchment, were large and pointed as a pixie’s are supposed to be. He was the Scandinavian Captain of the merchant vessel we were travelling on from Australia to Europe.
    In those lovely far-off days you could travel on such vessels, which took six weeks and carried only eight or maybe twelve passengers. This was no QE2. It was really like having your own personal yacht. However, it had its pitfalls because you could not choose your fellow passengers. But out of twelve you were sure to meet at least two who vaguely resembled the human race and with whom you could strike up a friendship and thus ignore the others without causing offence. On this particular occasion I was the only male passenger on board. The other eleven were elderly Australian ladies who — with much twittering and excitement — were venturing on their very first voyage on a ship, their very first trip to Europe and their very first venture to the homeland of England where the Queen lives. So, as may be imagined, everything was so new and exciting to them that it had to be crooned over. The cabins were wonderful, with real beds, the showers and baths had real water, in the saloon they were served with real drinks and at meals they sat at a large table (polished) while they were served real food. They were like children at their first picnic and it was a joy to watch their enjoyment. However, the source of their most profound enjoyment was the Captain. They took one look at him and fell immediately, deeply, seriously and irrevocably in love with him. For his part, the Captain displayed such charm and consideration that he became, instantly, a sort of nautical Pied Piper. He would go the rounds of everybody basking in deck-chairs to check that the breakfast had been to their liking, that the beef tea (served at eleven o’clock precisely) had been of the right temperature, later in the saloon he would personally attend to the rites so necessary for fabricating that nauseating drink, the dry martini. He would send sailors a-running to alert the ladies to a flock of flying fish, a whale spouting like a fountain in the distance or an albatross floating on ruler-taut wings at our stern as if pinned there to an invisible wire. He took them up to the bows (with an escort of crew members to ensure nobody fell) to watch the dolphins keeping pace with the ship or suddenly zooming ahead in a breathtaking burst of speed and then throwing themselves out of the blue water like exuberant arrows. He took them down to the glittering engine room, where you could have eaten off the floor, and explained to them the internal organs of a ship. He took them up to the bridge from which the ship was run and explained how radar could let you be a ship that passed in the night and not a nasty accident. He took them down to the kitchens and the deep freezes, showing them where the food for their meals was kept and prepared, and they were enchanted. With each revelation they became more and more deeply in love with the Captain and he,