Durrell - Marrying Off Mother: And Other Stories

By the same author

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS
THE BAFUT BEAGLES
THE DRUNKEN FOREST
ENCOUNTERS WITH ANIMALS
MENAGERIE MANOR
THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE
THE WHISPERING LAND
A ZOO IN MY LUGGAGE
THE NEW NOAH
TWO IN THE BUSH
BIRDS, BEASTS AND RELATIVES
FILLETS OF PLAICE
ROSY IS MY RELATIVE
BEASTS IN MY BELFRY
THE STATIONARY ARK
THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
THE MOCKERY BIRD
CATCH ME A COLOBUS
GOLDEN BATS AND PINK PIGEONS
THE PICNIC AND SUCHLIKE PANDEMONIUM
HOW TO SHOOT AN AMATEUR NATURALIST
THE ARKS ANNIVERSARY
THE AYE-AYE AND I

Copyright 1991, 2011 by Gerald Durrell

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61145-605-9

This book is for

Teeny and Hal
T.B.M.I.L. and T.B.F.I.L.
I.T.W.

from Gerry
T.B.S.I.L.I.T.W.

With all my love

Bride
a woman with a fine prospect of
happiness behind her.

AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devils Dictionary

All of these stories are true or, to be strictly accurate, some are true, some have a kernel of truth and a shell of embroidery. Some were my own experiences, others were told to me and I appropriated them for my own purposes, which bears out the saying: Never talk to an author if you dont want to appear in print.

Which of these stories is true and which is semi-true I have, of course, not the slightest intention of telling you, but I hope this will not detract from your enjoyment of them.

Gerald Durrell

O f all the many regions in La Belle France, there is one whose very name adds a lustrous glitter to the eye of a gourmet, a flush of anticipation to his cheeks, that drenches his taste buds with anticipatory saliva, and that is the euphonious name of Prigord. Here the chestnuts and walnuts are of prodigious size, here the wild strawberries are as heavily scented as a courtesans boudoir. Here the apples, the pears and the plums have sublime juices captured in their skins, here the flesh of the chicken, duckling and pigeon is firm and white, here the butter is as yellow as sunshine and the cream on top of the churns is thick enough to balance a full glass of wine upon. As well as all these riches, Prigord has one supreme prize that lurks beneath the loamy soil of her oak woods, the truffle, the troglodyte fungus that lives beneath the surface of the forest floor, black as a witchs cat, delicious as all the perfumes of Arabia.

In this delectable part of the world I had found a small and charming village and had put up at the tiny local hostelry called Les Trois Pigeons. Here, mine host, Jean Pettione, was a jovial fellow whose face had been turned by wine to the russet colour of a pippin. At this period in autumn the woods were in their prime, a rich tapestry of colours from gold to bronze. Wishing to enjoy them, I got M. Pettione to do me a picnic lunch and drove into the countryside. I parked the car and walked off into the forest to enjoy the panoply of colours and the strange and magical shapes of the toadstools that grow everywhere. Presently, I sat down on the sturdy carcase of an elderly oak to enjoy my lunch and just as I had finished there was a rustling in the dead ginger-coloured bracken and an enormous pig appeared. She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. We gazed at each other with interest.

She weighed, I guessed, somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixteen stone. She was sleekly pink with a peach bloom of white hair and a few decorative black spots placed by Nature as carefully and seductively as the dark patches that ladies in the 1600s used to adorn themselves with. She had small golden eyes full of wisdom and mischief, her ears drooped down each side of her face like a nuns habit and then there, jutting out proudly, was her snout, delicately wrinkled, the end of it looking like one of those splendid Victorian instruments you use for clearing blocked drains. Her hooves were elegant and polished, and her tail a wonderful wind-up pink question mark, propelling her through life. She had about her an aura not, as one would assume, of pig but a delicate fragrant scent that conjured up spring meadows ablaze with flowers. I had never smelt a pig like her. I searched my mind as to where I had last encountered this magical romantic perfume and at last I remembered. I had got into the lift in the hotel I was staying at and the delicious lady who was travelling downwards with me also had wafted this delectable aroma to me as the pig was now doing. I had asked the lady in the lift if she would mind vouchsafing to me the name of her exquisite perfume, and she told me it was called Joy.

Now, I have had many strange experiences in life, but until then I had never been privileged to meet, in an oak forest in Prigord, a large and amiable pig wearing this particular and expensive scent. She moved slowly up to me, placed her chin on my knee and uttered a prolonged and rather alarming grunt, the sort of noise a Harley Street specialist makes when he is about to tell you the disease you are suffering from will be fatal. She sighed deeply and then commenced to chomp her jaws together. The sound was like the noise made by an extraordinarily agile group of Spanish dancers with an abundance of castanets. She sighed again. It was obvious the lady wanted something. She nosed at my bag, uttering small squeals of delight when I opened it to see what was exciting her. All I could see was the remains of the cheese I had been eating. I took it out, circumnavigated her efforts to seize the whole thing and cut her off a slice. It slid into her mouth and there, to my astonishment, she let it lie, enjoying the fragrance as a wine expert will let a wine lie along his tongue, breathing its perfume, tasting its body. Then slowly and carefully she started to eat it, uttering tiny mumbling noises of satisfaction. I noticed that she wore around her portly neck, as a dowager would wear a waterfall of pearls, a very elegant collar of gold chain and dangling from it was a length of chain which had been snapped in half. So elegant was she that it was obvious that my new found friend was a pig that someone valued, and had lost. She took some more cheese, uttering little grunts of thanks and pleasure, letting each fragment lie for a moment on her tongue like a true connoisseur. I saved one piece of cheese as a lure and with it got her out of the wood and alongside my station-wagon. She was obviously quite used to this form of transport and she climbed into the back and settled herself down comfortably, staring around in regal fashion, her mouth full of cheese. As I drove back towards the village which I felt sure was her home, the pig rested her chin on my shoulder and went to sleep. I decided that the mixture of the scent of Joy with that of ripe Roquefort was not a combination guaranteed to attract a member of the opposite sex. I stopped at Les Trois Pigeons, removed the redolent pigs head from my shoulder, gave her the last bit of cheese and went inside in search of the redoubtable Jean. He was busily polishing glasses with great precision, breath-ing heartily on each one to get the required shine.