The Corfu Trilogy (35 page)

‘You want one?’ he said in surprise; ‘you like them?’

I felt this was understanding my feelings. I would have sold my soul for such a gull.

‘Well, have him if you want him,’ said the man casually, jerking a thumb at the bird.

I could hardly believe my ears. For someone to possess such a
wonderful creature and to offer him as a gift so carelessly was incredible. Didn’t he
want
the bird, I asked?

‘Yes, I like him,’ said the man, looking at the bird meditatively, ‘but he eats more than I can catch for him, and he is such a wicked one that he bites everybody; none of the other prisoners or the warders like him. I’ve tried letting him go, but he
won’t
go – he keeps coming back. I was going to take him over to Albania one week-end and leave him there. So if you’re sure you want him you can have him.’

Sure I wanted him? It was like being offered an angel. A slightly sardonic-looking angel, it’s true, but one with the most magnificent wings. In my excitement I never even stopped to wonder how the family would greet the arrival of a bird the size of a goose with a beak like a razor. In case the man changed his mind I hastily took off my clothes, beat as much of the dried mud off them as possible, and had a quick swim in the shallows. I put on my clothes again, whistled the dogs, and prepared to carry my prize home. The man untied the string, lifted the gull up, and handed him to me; I clasped it under one arm, surprised that such a huge bird should be so feather-light. I thanked the man profusely for his wonderful present.

‘He knows his name,’ he remarked, clasping the gull’s beak between his fingers and waggling it gently. ‘I call him Alecko. He’ll come when you call.’

Alecko, on hearing his name, paddled his feet wildly and looked up into my face with questioning yellow eyes.

‘You’ll be wanting some fish for him,’ remarked the man. ‘I’m going out in the boat tomorrow, about eight. If you like to come we can catch a good lot for him.’

I said that would be fine, and Alecko gave a yarp of agreement. The man leaned against the bows of the boat to push it out, and I suddenly remembered something. As casually as I could I asked him what his name was, and why he was in prison. He smiled charmingly over his shoulder.

‘My name’s Kosti,’ he said, ‘Kosti Panopoulos. I killed my wife.’

He leaned against the bows of the boat and heaved; she slid whispering across the sand and into the water, and the little ripples leaped and licked at her stern like excited puppies. Kosti scrambled into the boat and took up the oars.

‘Your health,’ he called. ‘Until tomorrow.’

The oars creaked musically, and the boat skimmed rapidly over the limpid waters. I turned, clasping my precious bird under my arm, and started to trudge back over the sand, towards the chessboard fields.

The walk home took me some time. I decided that I had misjudged Alecko’s weight, for he appeared to get heavier and heavier as we progressed. He was a dead weight that sagged lower and lower, until I was forced to jerk him up under my arm again, whereupon he would protest with a vigorous yarp. We were half-way through the fields when I saw a convenient fig tree which would, I thought, provide both shade and sustenance, so I decided to take a rest. While I lay in the long grass and munched figs, Alecko sat nearby as still as though he were carved out of wood, watching the dogs with unblinking eyes. The only sign of life were his irises, which would expand and contract excitedly each time one of the dogs moved.

Presently, rested and refreshed, I suggested to my band that we tackle the last stage of the journey; the dogs rose obediently, but Alecko fluffed out his feathers so that they rustled like dry leaves, and shuddered all over at the thought. Apparently he disapproved of my hawking him around under my arm like an old sack, ruffling his feathers. Now that he had persuaded me to put him down in such a pleasant spot he had no intention of continuing what appeared to him to be a tedious and unnecessary journey. As I stooped to pick him up he snapped his beak, uttered a loud, harsh scream, and lifted his wings above his back in the posture usually adopted by tombstone angels. He glared at me. Why, his look seemed to imply, leave this spot? There was shade,
soft grass to sit on, and water nearby; what point was there in leaving it to be humped about the countryside in a manner both uncomfortable and undignified? I pleaded with him for some time, and, as he appeared to have calmed down, I made another attempt to pick him up. This time he left me in no doubt as to his desire to stay where he was. His beak shot out so fast I could not avoid it, and it hit my approaching hand accurately. It was as though I had been slashed by an ice-pick. My knuckles were bruised and aching, and a two-inch gash welled blood in great profusion. Alecko looked so smug and satisfied with this attack that I lost my temper. Grabbing my butterfly net I brought it down skilfully and, to his surprise, enveloped him in its folds. I jumped on him before he could recover from the shock and grabbed his beak in one hand. Then I wrapped my handkerchief round and round his beak and tied it securely in place with a bit of string, after which I took off my shirt and wrapped it round him, so that his flailing wings were pinioned tightly to his body. He lay there, trussed up as though for market, glaring at me and uttering muffled screams of rage. Grimly I picked up my equipment, put him under my arm, and stalked off towards home. Having got the gull, I wasn’t going to stand any nonsense about getting him back to the villa. For the rest of the journey Alecko proceeded to produce, uninterruptedly, a series of wild, strangled cries of piercing quality, so by the time we reached the house I was thoroughly angry with him.

I stamped into the drawing-room, put Alecko on the floor, and started to unwrap him, while he accompanied the operation raucously. The noise brought Mother and Margo hurrying in from the kitchen. Alecko, now freed from my shirt, stood in the middle of the room with the handkerchief still tied round his beak and trumpeted furiously.

‘What on earth’s that?’ gasped Mother.

‘What an
enormous
bird!’exclaimed Margo.‘What is it, an eagle?’

My family’s lack of ornithological knowledge had always been
a source of annoyance to me. I explained testily that it was not an eagle but a black-backed gull, and told them how I had got him.

‘But, dear, how on earth are we going to
feed
him?’ asked Mother. ‘Does he eat fish?’

Alecko, I said hopefully, would eat anything. I tried to catch him to remove the handkerchief from his beak, but he was obviously under the impression that I was trying to attack him, so he screamed and trumpeted loudly and ferociously through the handkerchief. This fresh outburst brought Larry and Leslie down from their rooms.

‘Who the hell’s playing
bagpipes?
’ demanded Larry as he swept in.

Alecko paused for a moment, surveyed this newcomer coldly, and, having summed him up, yarped loudly and scornfully.

‘My God!’ said Larry, backing hastily and bumping into Leslie. ‘What the devil’s
that?
’

‘It’s a new bird Gerry’s got,’ said Margo; ‘doesn’t it look
fierce?
’

‘It’s a gull,’ said Leslie, peering over Larry’s shoulder; ‘what a whacking great thing!’

‘Nonsense,’ said Larry; ‘it’s an albatross.’

‘No, it’s a gull.’

‘Don’t be silly. Whoever saw a gull that size? I tell you it’s a bloody great albatross.’

Alecko padded a few paces towards Larry and yarped at him again.

‘Call him off,’ Larry commanded. ‘Gerry, get the damn thing under
control;
it’s attacking me.’

‘Just stand still. He won’t hurt you,’ advised Leslie.

‘It’s all very well for you; you’re behind me. Gerry, catch that bird at once, before it does me irreparable damage.’

‘Don’t shout so, dear; you’ll frighten it.’

‘I like that! A thing like a roc flapping about on the floor attacking everyone, and you tell me not to frighten it.’

I managed to creep up behind Alecko and grab him; then, amid his deafening protests, I removed the handkerchief from his beak. When I let him go again he shuddered indignantly, and snapped his beak two or three times with a sound like a whip-crack.

‘Listen to it!’ exclaimed Larry. ‘Gnashing its teeth!’

‘They haven’t got teeth,’ observed Leslie.

‘Well, it’s gnashing
something
. I hope you’re not going to let him keep it, Mother? It’s obviously a dangerous brute; look at his eyes. Besides, it’s unlucky.’

‘Why unlucky?’ asked Mother, who had a deep interest in superstition.

‘It’s a well-known thing. Even if you have just the
feathers
in the house everyone goes down with plague, or goes mad or something.’

‘That’s peacocks you’re thinking of, dear.’

‘No, I tell you it’s albatrosses. It’s well known.’

‘No, dear, it’s peacocks that are unlucky.’

‘Well, anyway, we can’t have that thing in the house. It would be sheer lunacy. Look what happened to the Ancient Mariner. We’ll all have to sleep with crossbows under our pillows.’

‘Really, Larry, you do
complicate
things,’ said Mother. ‘It seems quite tame to me.’

‘You wait until you wake up one morning and find you’ve had your eyes gouged out.’

‘What nonsense you talk, dear. It looks quite harmless.’

At this moment Dodo, who always took a little while to catch up with rapidly moving events, noticed Alecko for the first time. Breathing heavily, her eyes protruding with interest, she waddled forward and sniffed at him. Alecko’s beak flashed out, and if Dodo had not turned her head at that moment – in response to my cry of alarm – her nose would have been neatly sliced off; as it was she received a glancing blow on the side of the head that surprised her so much that her leg leaped out of joint. She threw
back her head and let forth a piercing yell. Alecko, evidently under the impression that it was a sort of vocal contest, did his best to out-scream Dodo, and flapped his wings so vigorously that he blew out the nearest lamp.

‘There you are,’ said Larry in triumph. ‘What did I say? Hasn’t been in the house five minutes and it kills the dog.’

Mother and Margo massaged Dodo back to silence, and Alecko sat and watched the operation with interest. He clicked his beak sharply, as if astonished at the frailty of the dog tribe, decorated the floor lavishly, and wagged his tail with the swagger of one who had done something clever.

‘How nice!’ said Larry. ‘Now we’re expected to wade about the house waist deep in guano.’

‘Hadn’t you better take him outside, dear?’ suggested Mother. ‘Where are you going to keep him?’

I said that I had thought of dividing the Magenpies’ cage and keeping Alecko there. Mother said this was a very good idea. Until his cage was ready I tethered him on the veranda, warning each member of the family in turn as to his whereabouts.

‘Well,’ observed Larry as we sat over dinner, ‘don’t blame
me
if the house is hit by a cyclone. I’ve warned you; I can do no more.’

‘Why a cyclone, dear?’

‘Albatrosses always bring bad weather with them.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve heard a cyclone described as bad weather,’ observed Leslie.

‘But it’s
peacocks
that are unlucky, dear, I keep telling you,’ Mother said plaintively. ‘I know, because an aunt of mine had some of the tail-feathers in the house and the cook died.’

‘My dear Mother, the albatross is world famous as a bird of ill-omen. Hardened old salts are known to go white and faint when they see one. I tell you, we’ll find the chimney covered with Saint Elmo’s fire one night, and before we know where we are we’ll be drowned in our beds by a tidal wave.’

‘You said it would be a cyclone,’ Margo pointed out.

‘A cyclone
and
a tidal wave,’ said Larry, ‘with probably a touch of earthquake and one or two volcanic eruptions thrown in. It’s tempting Providence to keep that beast.’

‘Where did you get him, anyway?’ Leslie asked me.

I explained about my meeting with Kosti (omitting any mention of the water-snakes, for all snakes were taboo with Leslie) and how he had given me the bird.

‘Nobody in their right senses would give somebody a present like that,’ observed Larry. ‘Who is this man, anyway?’

Without thinking, I said he was a convict.

‘A
convict?
’ quavered Mother. ‘What d’you mean, a convict?’

I explained about Kosti’s being allowed home for the weekends, because he was a trusted member of the Vido community. I added that he and I were going fishing the next morning.

‘I don’t know whether it’s very wise, dear,’ Mother said doubtfully. ‘I don’t like the idea of your going about with a convict. You never know what he’s done.’

Indignantly, I said I knew perfectly well what he’d done. He killed his wife.

‘A
murderer?
’ said Mother, aghast. ‘But what’s he doing wandering round the countryside? Why didn’t they hang him?’

‘They don’t have the death penalty here for anything except bandits,’ explained Leslie; ‘you get three years for murder and five years if you’re caught dynamiting fish.’

‘Ridiculous!’ said Mother indignantly. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so scandalous.’

‘I think it shows a nice sense of the importance of things,’ said Larry. ‘Whitebait before women.’

‘Anyway, I won’t have you wandering around with a murderer,’ said Mother to me. ‘He might cut your throat or something.’

After an hour’s arguing and pleading I finally got Mother to agree that I should go fishing with Kosti, providing that Leslie
came down and had a look at him first. So the next morning I went fishing with Kosti, and when we returned with enough food to keep Alecko occupied for a couple of days, I asked my friend to come up to the villa, so that Mother could inspect him for herself.

Mother had, after considerable mental effort, managed to commit to memory two or three Greek words. This lack of vocabulary had a restrictive effect on her conversation at the best of times, but when she was faced with the ordeal of exchanging small talk with a murderer she promptly forgot all the Greek she knew. So she had to sit on the veranda, smiling nervously, while Kosti in his faded shirt and tattered pants drank a glass of beer, and while I translated his conversation.