Fillets of Plaice

3 A Transport of Terrapins

TOWARDS the end of 1939, when it looked as though war was inevitable, my family uprooted itself from Corfu and came back to England. We settled for a time in a flat in London while my mother made repeated forays into different parts of the English countryside in search of a house. And while she was doing this I was free to explore London. Although I have never been a lover of big cities I found London, at that time, fascinating. After all, the biggest metropolis I was used to was the town of Corfu, which was about the size of a small English market town, and so the great sprawling mass of London had hundreds of exciting secrets for me to discover. There was, of course, the Natural History Museum, and the inevitable visits to the Zoo, where I got on quite intimate terms with some of the keepers. This only strengthened my belief that working in a zoo was the only real vocation for anyone, and confirmed me in my desire to possess a zoo of my own.

Quite close to the flat where we were staying was a shop which always had my undivided attention. It was a place called “The Aquarium”, and its window was full of great tanks full of brightly coloured fish and, what was even more interesting, rows of glass-fronted boxes that contained grass snakes, pine snakes, great green lizards and bulbous-eyed toads. I used to gaze longingly in the window at these beautiful creatures and I had a great desire to possess them. But as I already had a whole host of birds, two magpies and a marmoset in the flat, I felt that the introduction of any other livestock of any shape or form would bring down the wrath of the family upon me, and so I could only gaze longingly at these lovely reptiles.

Then, one morning, when I happened to pass the shop, my attention was riveted by a notice that was leaning up against an aquarium. It said, “Wanted: Young, reliable assistant”. I went back to the flat and thought about it for some time.

“They’ve got a job going in that pet shop down the road,” I said to my mother.

“Have they, dear?” she said, not really taking any notice.

“Yes. They say they want a young, reliable assistant. I... I thought of applying for it,” I said carelessly.

“What a good idea,” said Larry. “Then, perhaps, you could take all your animals there.”

“I don’t think they’d let him do that, dear,” said my mother.

“How much do you think they’d pay for a job like that?” I asked.

“Not very much, I shouldn’t think,” said Larry. “I doubt that you are what they mean by reliable.”

“Anyway, they’d have to pay me something, wouldn’t they?” I said.

“Are you old enough to be employed?” inquired Larry.

“Well, I’m almost sixteen,” I said.

“Well, go and have a shot at it,” he suggested.

So the following morning I went down to the pet shop and opened the door and went in. A short, slender, dark man with very large horn-rimmed spectacles danced across the floor towards me.

“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning, sir!” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“You, um..., you want an assistant...,” I said.

He cocked his head on one side and his eyes grew large behind his spectacles.

“An assistant,” he said. “Do you mean to say you want the job?”

“Er..., yes,” I said.

“Have you had any experience?” he inquired doubtfully.

“Oh, I’ve had plenty of experience,” I said. “I’ve always kept reptiles and fish and things like that. I’ve got a whole flatful of things now.”

The little man looked at me.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Sixteen... nearly seventeen,” I lied.

“Well,” he said, “we can’t afford to pay very much, you know. The overheads on this shop are something extraordinary. But I could start you off at one pound ten.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “When do I start?”

“You’d better start on Monday,” he said. “I think on Monday because then I can get all your cards stamped up and straight. Otherwise we get in such a muddle, don’t we? Now, my name’s Mr Romilly.”

I told him my name and we shook hands rather formally, and then we stood looking at each other. It was obvious that Mr Romilly had never employed anybody before and did not know quite what the form was. I thought perhaps I ought to help him out.

“Perhaps you could just show me round,” I suggested, “and tell me a few things that you will want me to do.”

“Oh, what an excellent idea,” said Mr Romilly. “An excellent idea!”

He danced round the shop waving his hands like butterfly wings and showed me how to clean out a fish tank, how to drop the mealworms into the cages of frogs and toads, and where the brush and broom were kept that we swept the floor with. Under the shop was a large cellar where various fish foods, nets and other things were kept, and it included a constantly running tap that dripped into a large bowl containing what at first glance appeared to be a raw sheep’s heart. This, on close inspection, turned out to be a closely knitted ball of threadlike tubifex worms. These bright red worms were a favourite food of all the fish and some of the amphibians and reptiles as well. I discovered that as well as the delightful things in the window there were hosts of other creatures in the shop besides — cases full of lizards, toads, tortoises and treacle-shiny snakes, tanks full of moist, gulping frogs, and newts with filled tails like pennants. After having spent so many months in dry, dusty and desiccated London, the shop was, as far as I was concerned, a Garden of Eden.

“Now,” said Mr Romilly, when he had shown me everything, “you start on Monday, hm? Nine o’clock sharp. Don’t be late, will you?”

I did not tell Mr Romilly that nothing short of death would have prevented me from being there at nine o’clock on Monday.

So at ten to nine on Monday morning I paced the pavement outside the shop until eventually Mr Romilly appeared, clad in a long black coat and a black Homburg hat, waving his bunch of keys musically.

“Good morning, good morning,” he trilled. “I’m glad to see you’re on time. What a good start.”

So we went into the shop and I started on the first chores of the day, which were to sweep the comparatively spotless floor clean and then to go round feeding little knots of wriggling tubifex to the fishes.

I very soon discovered that Mr Romilly, though a kindly man, had little or no knowledge of the creatures in his care. Most of the cages were most unsuitably decorated for the occupants’ comfort and, indeed, so were the fish tanks. Also, Mr Romilly worked on the theory that if you got an animal to eat one thing, you then went on feeding it with that thing incessantly. I decided that I would have to take a hand both in the cage decoration and also in brightening up the lives of our charges, but I knew I would have to move cautiously for Mr Romilly was nothing if not conservative.

“Don’t you think the lizards and toads and things would like a change from mealworms, Mr Romilly?” I said one day.

“A change?” said Mr Romilly, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. “What sort of a change?”

“Well,” I said, “how about wood lice? I always used to feed my reptiles on wood lice.”

“Are you sure?” said Mr Romilly.

“Quite sure,” I said.

“It won’t do them any harm, will it?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” I said, “they love wood lice. It gives them a bit of variety in their diet.”

“But where are we going to get them?” asked Mr Romilly despondently.

“Well, I expect there are plenty in the parks,” I said. “I’ll see if I can get some, shall I?”

“Very well,” said Mr Rornilly reluctantly, “if you’re quite sure they won’t do them any harm.”

So I spent one afternoon in the park and collected a very large tin full of wood lice, which I kept in decaying leaves down in the cellar, and when I thought that the frogs and the toads and the lizards had got a bit bored with the mealworms, I would try them on some meal-worm beetles, and then, when they had had a surfeit of those, I would give them some wood lice. At first, Mr Romilly used to peer into the cages with a fearful look on his face, as though he expected to see all the reptiles and amphibians dead. But when he found that they not only thrived on this new mixture but even started to croak in their cages, his enthusiasm knew no bounds.

My next little effort concerned two very large and benign Leopard toads which came from North Africa. Now, Mr Romilly’s idea of North Africa was an endless desert where the sun shone day and night and where the temperature was never anything less than about a hundred and ninety in the shade, if indeed any shade was to be found. So in consequence he had incarcerated these two poor toads in a small, glass-fronted cage with a couple of brilliant electric light bulbs above them. They sat on a pile or plain white sand, they had no rocks to hide under to get away from the glare, and the only time the temperature dropped at all was at night when we switched off the light in the shop. In consequence, their eyes had become milky and looked almost as though they were suffering from cataract, their skins had become dry and flaky, and the soles of their feet were raw.

I knew that suggesting to Mr Romilly anything so drastic as putting them into a new cage with some damp moss would horrify him beyond all bounds, so I started surreptitiously to try and give the toads a slightly happier existence. I pinched some olive oil from my mother’s kitchen for a start, and when Mr Romilly went out to have his lunch hour, I massaged the oil into the skin of both toads. This improved the flakiness. I then got some ointment from the chemist, having explained — to his amusement — why I wanted it, and anointed their feet with it. This helped, but it did not clear up the foot condition completely. I also got some Golden Eye Ointment, which one normally used-for dogs, and applied it to their eyes with miraculous results. Then, every time Mr Romilly had his lunch hour I would give them a warm spray and this they loved. They would sit there, gulping benignly, blinking their eyes and, if I moved the spray a little, they would shuffle across the floor of their cage to get under it again. One day I put a small section of moss in the cage and both toads immediately burrowed under it.

“Oh, look, Mr Romilly,” I said with well-simulated surprise, “I put a bit of moss in the toads’ cage by mistake, and they seem to like it.”

“Moss?” said Mr Romilly. “Moss? But they live in the desert.”

“Well, I think some parts of the desert have got a little bit of vegetation,” I said.

“I thought it was all sand,” said Mr Romilly. “All sand. As far as the eye could see.”

“No, er..., I think they’ve got some small cactuses and things,” I said. “Anyway, they seem to like it, don’t they?”

“They certainly do,” said Mr Romilly. “Do you think we ought to leave it in?”

“Yes,” I said. “Shall we put a little more in, too?”

“I don’t suppose it could do any harm. They can’t eat it and strangle themselves with it, can they?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t think they will,” I said reassuringly.

So from then onwards my two lovely toads had a bit of moss to hide under and, what was more important, a bed of moss to sit on, and their feet soon cleared up.

I next turned my attention to the fish, for although they loved tubifex dearly I felt that they, too, should have a little variety in their diet.

“Wouldn’t it be possible,” I suggested to Mr Romilly in a tentative sort of way, “to give the fish some daphnia?”

Now, daphnia were the little water fleas that we used to get sent up from the farm that supplied the shop with all its produce, like waterweed and water snails and the fresh water fish that we sold. And the daphnia we used to sell in little pots to fish lovers to feed their fish with.

“Daphnia?” said Mr Romilly. “Feed them on daphnia? But they wouldn’t eat it, would they?”

“Well, if they won’t eat it, why do we sell it to people to feed to their fish?” I inquired.

Mr Romilly was powerfully struck by this piece of logic.

“You’re right, you know,” he said. “You’re right. There’s a little left over down in the cellar now. The new supply comes to-morrow. Try some on them and see.”

So I dropped about a tablespoonful of daphnia into each tank and the fish went as mad over them as the toads and frogs had gone over the wood lice.

The next thing I wanted to do, but I had to do it more cautiously, was to try and decorate the cages and tanks to make them look more attractive. Now, this was a task that Mr Romilly always undertook himself, and he did it with a dogged persistence. I do not think he really enjoyed it, but he felt that, as the senior member of the firm, as it were, it was his duty to do.

“Mr Romilly,” I said one day. “I’ve got nothing to do at the moment, and there are no customers. You wouldn’t let me decorate a fish tank, would you? I’d love to learn how to do them as well as you do.”

“Well, now,” said Mr Romilly, blushing. “Well, now. I wouldn’t say I was all that good...”

“Oh, I think you do it beautifully,” I said. “And I’d like to learn.”

“Well, perhaps just a small one,” said Mr Romilly. “And I can give you some tips as you go along. Now, let’s see..., let’s see... Yes, now, that mollies’ tank over there. They need clearing out. Now, if you can move them to the spare tank, and then empty it and give it a good scrub, and then we’ll start from scratch, shall we?”

And so, with the aid of a little net, I moved all the black mollies, as dark and glistening as little olives, out of their tank and into the spare one. Then I emptied their tank and scrubbed it out and called Mr Romilly.

“Now,” he said. “You put some sand at the bottom and..., um..., a couple of stones, and then perhaps some, er..., Vallisneria, I would say, probably in that corner there, wouldn’t you?”

“Could I just try it on my own?” I asked. “I, er..., I think I’d learn better that way — if I could do it on my own. And then, when I’m finished you could criticise it and tell me where I’ve gone wrong.”

“Very good idea,” said Mr Romilly. And so he pottered off to do his petty cash and left me in peace.

It was only a small tank but I worked hard on it. I piled up the silver sand in great dunes. I built little cliffs. I planted forests of Vallisneria through which the mollies could drift in shoals. Then I filled it carefully with water, and when it was the right temperature I put the mollies back in it and called Mr Romnilly to see my handiwork.

“By Jove!” he said, looking at it. “By Jove!”

He glanced at me and it was almost as though he was disappointed that I had done so well. I could see that I was on dangerous ground.

“Do... do you like it?” I inquired.

“It... it’s remarkable! Remarkable! I can’t think how you. how you managed it.”

“Well, I only managed it by watching you, Mr Romilly,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for you teaching me how to do it I could never have done it.”

“Well, now. Well, now,” said Mr Romilly, going pink. “But I see you’ve added one or two little touches of your own.”

“Well, they were just ideas I’d picked up from watching you,” I said.

“Hmmm... Most commendable. Most commendable,” said Mr Romilly.

The next day he asked me whether I would like to decorate another fish tank and I knew that I had won the battle without hurting his feelings.

The tank that I really desperately wanted to do was the enormous one that we had in the window. It was some four and a half feet long and about two foot six deep, and in it we had a great colourful mixed collection of fish. But I knew that I must not overstep the bounds of propriety at this stage. So I did several smaller fish tanks first, and when Mr Romilly had got thoroughly used to the idea of my doing them, I broached the subject of our big show tank in the window.

“Could I try my hand at that, Mr Romilly?” I asked.

“What? Our show piece?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s... it’s in need of... of a clean, anyway. So I thought, perhaps, I could try my hand at redecorating it.”

“Well, I don’t know...,” said Mr Romilly doubtfully. “I don’t know. It’s a most important piece that, you know. It’s the centrepiece of the window. It’s the one that attracts all the customers.”

He was quite right, but the customers were attracted by the flickering shoals of multi-coloured fish. They certainly were not attracted by Mr Romilly’s attempts at decoration, which made it look rather like a blasted heath.

“Well, could I just try?” I said. “And if it’s no good, I’ll do it all over again. I’ll even... I’ll even spend my half day doing it.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” said Mr Romilly, shocked. “You don’t want to spend all your days shut up in the shop, you know. A young boy like you... you want to be out and about... Well, alright, you try your hand at it, and see what happens.”

It took me the better part of a day to do, because in between times I had to attend to the various customers who came to buy tubifex or daphnia or buy a tree frog for their garden pond or something similar. I worked on that giant tank with all the dedication of a marine Capability Brown. I built rolling sand dunes and great towering cliffs of lovely granite. And then, through the valleys between the granite mountains, I planted forests of Vallisneria and other, more delicate, weedy ferns. And on the surface of the water I floated the tiny little white flowers that look so like miniature water-lilies. With the aid of sand and rocks I concealed the heater and thermostat and also the aerator, none of which were attractive to look at. When I had finally finished it and replaced the brilliant scarlet sword-tails, the shiny black mollies, the silver hatchet fish, and the brilliant Piccadilly-like neon-tetras, and stepped back to observe my handiwork, I found myself deeply impressed by my own genius. Mr Romilly, to my delight, was ecstatic about the whole thing.

“Exquisite! Exquisite!” he exclaimed. “Simply exquisite.”

“Well, you know what they say, Mr Romilly,” I said. “That a good pupil needs a good master.”

“Oh, you flatter me, you flatter me,” he said, wagging his finger at me playfully. “This is a case where the pupil has surpassed the master.”

“Oh, I don’t think that,” I said. “But I do think that I’m getting almost as good as you.”

After that, I was allowed to decorate all the tanks and all the cages. I think, secretly, Mr Romilly was rather relieved not to have to urge his non-existent artistic sense into this irksome task.

After one or two experiments I always used to take my lunch hour at a little cafe not very far away from the shop. Here I had discovered a kindly waitress who, in exchange for a little flattery, would give me more than my regulation number of sausages with my sausages and mash, and warn me against the deadly perils of the Irish stew on that particular day. It was one day when I was going to have my lunch that I discovered a short cut to the cafe. It was a narrow little alleyway that ran between the great groups of shops and the towering houses and flats. It was cobble-stoned and as soon as I got into it, it was as though I had been transported back to Dickensian London. I found that part of it was tree-lined and farther along there was a series of tiny shops.

It was then that I discovered that we were not the only pet shop in the vicinity, for I came across the abode of Henry Bellow.

The dirty window of his shop measured, perhaps, six feet square by two deep. It was crammed from top to bottom with small square cages, each containing one or a pair of chaffinches, green finches, linnets, canaries, or budgerigars. The floor of the window was inches deep in seed husks and bird excrement, but the cages themselves were spotlessly clean and each sported a bright green sprig of lettuce or groundsel and a white label on which had been written in shaky block letters “SOLD”. The glass door of the shop was covered with a lace curtain which was yellow with age, and between it and the glass hung a cardboard notice which said “Please Enter” in Gothic script. The reverse side of this notice, I was to learn, stated equally politely “We regret we are closed”. Never, in all the days that I hurried for my sausages and mash up this uneven flagged alley, did I ever see a customer entering or leaving the shop. Indeed, the shop seemed lifeless except for the occasional lethargic hopping from perch to perch of the birds in the window. I wondered, as the weeks passed, why all the birds in the window were not claimed by the people who had bought them. Surely the various owners of some thirty assorted birds could not have decided simultaneously that they did not want them? And, in the unlikely event of this happening, why had the “Sold” signs not been removed? It was a mystery that in my limited lunch hour I had little time to investigate. But my chance came one day when Mr Romilly, who had been dancing round the shop singing “I’m a busy little bee”, suddenly went down into the basement and uttered a falsetto screech of horror. I went and peered down the stairs, wondering what I had done or left undone.

“What’s the matter, Mr Romilly?” I asked cautiously.

Mr Romilly appeared at the foot of the stairs clasping his brow, distraught.

“Stupid me!” he intoned. “Stupid, stupid, stupid me!”

Gathering from this that I was not the culprit, I took heart.

“What’s the matter?” I asked solicitously.

“Tubifex and daphnia!” said Mr Romilly tragically, removing his spectacles and starting to polish them feverishly.

“Have we run out?”

“Yes,” intoned Mr Romilly sepulchrally. “How stupid of me! What negligence! How very, very remiss of me. I deserve to be sacked. I really am the stupidest mortal...”

“Can’t we get some from somewhere else?” I asked, interrupting Mr Romilly’s verbal flagellation.

“But the farm always sends it up,” exclaimed Mr Romilly, as though I were a stranger in need of an explanation. “The farm always sends up the supply when I ask for it, every weekend. And I, crass idiot that I am, never ordered any.”

“But can’t we get it from somewhere else?” I asked.

“And the guppies and the sword-tails and the black mollies, they so look forward to their tubifex,” said Mr Romilly, working himself into a sort of hysterical self-pity. “They relish it. How can I face those tiny pouting faces against the glass? How can I eat my lunch while those poor little fish...”

“Mr Romilly,” I interrupted firmly. “Can we get some tubifex from somewhere other than the farm?”

“Eh?” said Mr Romilly, staring at me. “Other than the farm? But the farm always sends... Ah, wait a bit. I see what you mean... Yes...”

He climbed laboriously up the wooden stairs, mopping his brow, and emerged like the sole survivor of a pit disaster. He gazed round him with vacant, tragic eyes.

“But where?” he said at last, despairingly. “But where?”

“Well,” I said, taking the matter in hand. “What about Bellow?”

“Bellow? Bellow?” he said. “Most unbusinesslike chap. He deals in birds. Shouldn’t think he’d have any.”

“But surely it’s worth a try?” I said. “Let me go round and see.”

Mr Romilly thought about it.

“Alright,” he said at last, averting his face from the serried ranks of accusing-looking fish, “take ten shillings out of petty cash, and don’t be too long.”

He handed me the key and sat down, gazing glumly at his highly polished shoes. I opened the tin petty cash box, extracted a ten shilling note, filled in a petty cash slip — “IOU 10/— Tubifex” — and slipped it into the box, locked it, and pushed the key into Mr Roniilly’s flaccid hand. A moment later I was out on the broad pavement, weaving my way through the vacant-eyed throng of shoppers, making my way towards Bellow’s shop, while the mountainous red buses thundered past with their gaggle of attendant taxis and cars. I came to the tiny alleyway and turned down it, and immediately peace reigned. The thunder of buses, the clack of feet, the honk and screech of cars became muted, almost beautiful, like the distant roar of the surf. On one side of the alley was a blank soot-blackened wall; on the other, the iron railings which guarded the precious piece of ground that led to the local church. Here had been planted — by someone of worth — a rank of plane trees. They leant over the iron railings, roofing the alley with green, and on their mottled trunks looper caterpillars performed prodigious and complicated walks, humping themselves grimly towards a goal about which even they seemed uncertain. Where the plane trees ended the shops began. There were no more than six of them, each Lilliputian in dimensions and each one forlornly endeavouring.

There was Clemystra, Modes for Ladies, with a rather extraordinary fur in their window as the piиce de résistance ; a fur which, with its glass eyes and its tail in its mouth, would have curdled the heart of any anti-vivisectionist should one pass that way. There was the Pixies’ Parlour, Light Luncheons, Teas and Snacks, and next door to it, once you had refreshed yourself, was A. Wallet, Tobacconist, whose window consisted entirely of cigarette and pipe advertisements, the predominant one being a rather Holman Hunt type of placard for Wills’ Wild Woodbines. I hurried past all these and past William Drover, Estate Agent, with its host of fascinating pale brown pictures of desirable residences, past the shrouded portal, decorated rather severely and somewhat surprisingly by one rose-pink lavatory pan, of Messrs M. & R. Drumlin, Plumbers, to the end of the row of shops where the faded notice above the door stated simply and unequivocally: Henry Bellow, Aviculturist. At last, I thought, I had the chance of getting inside the shop and solving, if nothing else, the mystery of the birds with the “SOLD” notices on their cages. But as I approached the shop something unprecedented happened. A tall, angular woman in tweeds, wearing a ridiculous Tyrolean hat with a feather, strode purposefully down the alley and, a brief second before me, grasped the handle of the door marked “Enter Please” and swept in, while the bell jangled melodiously. I was astonished. It was the first time I had ever seen a customer enter any of the shops in the alley. Then, anxious to see what happened once she had entered the shop, I rushed after her and caught the closing door on the last jangle.

In an almost lightless shop the woman with the Tyrolean hat and I were caught like moths in some dingy spider’s web. The melodious chimes of the door, one felt assured, would have someone running to attend the shop. Instead of which there was silence, except for the faint cheeping of the birds in the window and the sudden shuffling of feathers from a cockatoo in the corner, a sound like un-ironed washing being spread out. Having shuffled its feathers to its satisfaction, it put its head on one side and said, “Hello, hello, hello,” very softly and with complete lack of interest.

We waited what seemed a long time but was probably only a few seconds. My eyes gradually grew accustomed to the gloom. I saw that there was a small counter and behind it shelves of bird seed, cuttle-fish and other accoutrements of the aviculturist’s trade, and in front of it were a number of large sacks containing hemp and rape and millet seed. In one of these perched a white mouse eating the seeds with the frantic speed of a nervous person nibbling cheese straws at a cocktail party. I was beginning to wonder whether to open the door and make the bell jangle again when, suddenly, a very large and ancient retriever padded its way solemnly through the door at the back of the shop and came forward, wagging its tail. It was followed by a man I took to be Henry Bellow. He was a tall, stout man with a great mop of curly grey hair and a huge bristling moustache, like an untamed gorse bush, that looked as though it were a suitable nesting site for any number of birds. From under his shaggy eyebrows his tiny blue eyes stared out, brilliant as periwinkles, through his gold-rimmed spectacles. He moved with a sort of ponderous slowness rather like a lazy seal. He came forward and gave a little bow.

“Madam,” he said, and his voice had the rich accents of Somerset, “Madam, your servant.”

The Tyrolean hat looked rather alarmed at being addressed in this fashion.

“Oh, er..., good day,” she said.

“What may I get you?” inquired Mr Bellow.

“Well, actually, I came to get your advice,” she said. “Er..., it’s about my young nephew. He’s going to be fourteen soon and I want to buy him a bird for his birthday... He’s very keen on birds, you know.”

“A bird,” said Mr Bellow. “A bird. And what kind of bird, what particular species of birds, have you got in mind, madam?”

“Well, I, er..., I don’t really know,” said the lady in the Tyrolean hat. “What about a canary?”

“I wouldn’t touch canaries at this time of the year,” said Mr Bellow, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I wouldn’t touch them myself. And I would be a dishonest man if I sold you a canary, madam.”

“Why at this time of the year?” asked the lady, obviously impressed.

“It’s a very bad time of the year for canaries,” said Mr Bellow. “Bronchial trouble, you know.”

“Oh,” said the lady. “Well, what about a budgerigar?”

“Now, I wouldn’t advise those either, madam. There’s a lot of psittacosis around,” said Mr Bellow.

“A lot of what?” inquired the lady.

“Psittacosis, madam. You know, the parrot’s disease. Most of the budgerigars have got it at this time of the year. It’s fatal to human beings, you know. I had an inspector from the Ministry of Health only the other day, come to check on mine. He said they were sure to get it sooner or later, so I couldn’t possibly sell you one of mine.”

“Well, what bird would you suggest, then?” said die woman, getting rather desperate.

“Actually, madam, it’s a very, very bad time of the year to sell birds,” said Mr Bellow. “They’re all in moult, you see.”

“Then you wouldn’t advise me to get a bird?” she said. “How about something else, like a... like a white mouse, or something similar?”

“Ah, well, I’m afraid you’d have to go somewhere else, madam. I’m afraid I don’t deal in them,” said Mr Bellow.

“Ah,” she said. “Oh. Well, I suppose I can always go to Harrods.”

“A very fine emporium, madam,” said Mr Bellow. “A very fine emporium indeed. I am sure they will be able to satisfy your wants.”

“Well, thank you so much,” she said. “Most kind of you.” And she left the shop.

When the door closed Mr Bellow turned and looked at me.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “And what can I have the pleasure of doing for you?”

“Well, actually, I came to see whether you had any tubifex,” I said. “I work at the Aquarium and we’ve run out of tubifex.”

“At the Aquarium, eh? With that fellow Romilly?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well, well,” said Mr Bellow. “And what makes you think that I would have tubifex? I deal in birds.”

“That’s what Mr Romilly said, but I thought there was just a chance that you might have some, for some reason or other, and so I thought I’d come and see.”

“Well, it so happens that you’re right,” said Mr Bellow. “Come with me.”

He led me through the door at the back of the shop and into the small and untidy but comfortable sitting-room. It was quite obvious, from the look of the chair and sofa covers, that the dog enjoyed them as much as Mr Bellow did. He led me through the back into a little paved yard where the plane trees from the churchyard hung over, and there was a small pond with a tap dribbling into it, and in the middle of it a plaster cupid standing on a mound of rocks. The pond was full of goldfish and at one end of it was a big jamjar in which was a large lump of tubifex. Mr Bellow fetched a jam jar and ladled some of the tubifex out into it. Then he handed it to me.

“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”

“Oh, you don’t pay me for it,” said Mr Bellow. “Don’t pay me for it. Take it as a gift.”

“But... but it’s awfully expensive,” I said, taken aback.

“Take it as a gift, boy. Take it as a gift,” he said.

He led me back into the shop.

“Tell me, Mr Bellow,” I asked, “why are all the birds in your window labelled ‘SOLD’?”

His sharp little blue eyes fastened on me.

“Because they are sold,” he said.

“But they’ve been sold for ages. Ever since I’ve been coming down this alley. And that’s a good two months. Doesn’t anybody ever come and claim them?”

“No, I just... keep them, well, for them, until they’re able to have them. Some of them are building their aviaries, constructing cages, and so forth and so forth,” said Mr Bellow.

“Did you sell them when it was the right time of year?” I asked. A faint flicker of a smile passed over Mr Bellow’s face.

“Yes, indeed I did,” he said.

“Have you got other birds?” I asked.

“Yes, upstairs,” he said. “Upstairs.”

“If I come back another day when I’ve got more time, can I see them?”

Mr Bellow gazed at me thoughtfully and stroked the side of his chin.

“I think that might be arranged,” he said. “When would you like to come?”

“Well, Saturday’s my half day,” I said. “Could I come then? Saturday afternoon?”

“I’m normally closed on a Saturday,” said Mr Bellow. “However, if you’ll ring the bell three times, I’ll let you in.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. “And thank you for the tubifex. Mr Romilly will be very grateful.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Mr Bellow. “Good day to you.”

And I went out and made my way down the alley and back to the shop.

For the next couple of days I thought very deeply on the subject of Mr Bellow. I did not believe for one moment that the birds in his window were sold, but I could not see the point of having them labelled as such. Also, I was more than a little puzzled by his obvious reluctance to sell a bird to the woman in the Tyrolean hat. I determined that on Saturday I would do my best to prise the answer to these secrets from Mr Bellow himself.

When Saturday came I made my way down the alleyway and arrived at Mr Bellow’s shop sharp at two o’clock. The notice on the door said “We regret that we are closed”. Nevertheless, I pressed the bell three times and waited hopefully. Presently Mr Bellow opened the door.

“Ah,” he said. “Good afternoon to you.”

“Good afternoon, Mr Bellow,” I said.

“Do come in,” he said hospitably.

I went in and he locked the shop door carefully after me.

“Now,” he said, “you wanted to see some birds?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

He took me out through his living-room and up a very tiny rickety staircase. The top part of the shop consisted of, as far as I could see, a minute bathroom, a bedroom and another room which Mr Bellow ushered me into. It was lined from floor to ceiling with cages and they were full of birds of all shapes, sizes, colours and descriptions. There were groups of tiny vivid little seed-eaters from Africa and Asia. There were even one or two of the gorgeous Australian finches. There were parakeets, green as leaves, and Red Cardinals that were as crimson as royal robes. I was fascinated. Mr Bellow proved to be much abler at his job than Mr Romilly, for he knew the name of each and every bird and its scientific name as well, where it came from, what its food preferences were, and how many eggs it laid. He was a mine of information.

“Are all these birds for sale?” I asked, fixing my eyes greedily on a Red Cardinal.

“Of course,” said Mr Bellow, and then added, “But only at the right time of year.”

“What’s all this about the right time of year?” I asked, puzzled. “Surely if you’re selling birds you can sell them at any time of the year?”

“Well, some people do,” said Mr Bellow. “But I have always made it a rule never to sell at the wrong time of the year.”

I looked at him and I saw that his eyes were twinkling.

“Then when is the right time of the year?” I asked.

“There is never a right time of year as far as I am concerned,” said Mr Bellow.

“You mean you don’t sell them at all?” I asked.

“Very rarely, said Mr Bellow. Only occasionally, perhaps to a friend.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t let that woman have a bird the other day?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And all those birds in the window marked ‘SOLD’, they aren’t really sold, are they?”

Mr Bellow gazed at me, judging whether or not I could keep a secret.

“Actually, between you and me, they are not sold,” he admitted.

“Well, then how do you make a profit?” I asked.

“Ah,” said Mr Bellow, “that’s the point. I don’t.”

I must have looked utterly bewildered by this news for Mr Bellow gave a throaty chuckle and said,

“Let’s go downstairs and have some tea, shall we? And I’ll explain it to you. But you must promise that it will go no further. You promise, now?”

He held up a fat finger and waved it at me.

“Oh, I promise!” I said. “I promise.”

“Right,” he said. “Do you like crumpets?”

“Er..., yes, I do,” I said, slightly bewildered by this change of subject.

“So do I,” said Mr Bellow. “Hot buttered crumpets and tea. Come... Come downstairs.”

And so we went down to the little living-room where Mr Bellow’s retriever, whose name, I discovered, was Aldrich, lay stretched, sublimely comfortable, across the sofa. Mr Bellow lit a little gas ring and toasted crumpets over it and then buttered them quickly, and when he had made a tottering, oozing pile of them, he placed them on a little table between us. By this time the kettle was boiling and he made the tea and set out thin and delicate china cups for us to drink it out of.

“Do you like milk?” he inquired.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Sugar?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

We sipped our tea and then he handed me a crumpet, took one himself and sank his teeth into it with a sigh of satisfaction.

“What... what were you going to tell me about not making a profit?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands and his mouth and his moustache fastidiously with his handkerchief, “it’s rather a long and complicated story. The whole of this lane — it’s called Potts Lane, by the way — once belonged to an eccentric millionaire called Potts. He was what would be known nowadays, I suppose, as a socialist. When he built this line of shops he laid down special rules and regulations governing them. The people who wanted the shops could have them on an indefinite lease and every four years their rent would come up for revision. If they were doing well, their rent was raised accordingly; if they were not doing so well, their rent was adjusted the opposite way. Now, I moved into this shop in 1921. Since then I have been paying five shillings a week rent.”

I stared at Mr Bellow disbelievingly.

“Five shillings a week?” I said. “But that’s ridiculous for a shop like this. Why, you’re only a stone’s throw away from Kensington High Street.”

“Exactly,” said Mr Bellow. “That is exactly the point. I pay five shillings a week, that is to say one pound a month rent.”

“But why is the rent so ridiculously small?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, “I make no profit. As soon as I discovered this section in the lease I immediately saw that it would provide me with a convenient loop-hole. I had a little money put by — not very much, but enough to get along on. And what I really wanted was a place to live where I could keep my birds. Well, this provided me with the ideal opportunity. I went round to see all the other people in Potts Lane and explained about this clause to them, and I found that most of them were in a similar predicament as myself; that they had small amounts of money to live on, but what they really wanted was a cheap abode. So we formed the Potts Lane Association and we clubbed together and we got ourselves a very good accountant. When I say ‘good’ I don’t mean one of these wishy-washy fellows who are always on the side of the law; those are no good to man nor beast. No, this is a very sharp, bright young man. And so we meet once every six months or so and he examines our books and tells us how to run at a loss. We run at a loss, and then when our rents come up for revision they either remain static or are slightly lowered.”

“But can’t the people who own the property change the leases?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr Bellow, “that’s the beauty of it. I found out that by the terms of Mr Potts’s will these conditions have to stand.”

“But they must have been furious when they found out that you were only paying them a pound a month?”

“They were indeed,” said Mr Bellow. “They did their very best to evict me, but it was impossible. I got a good lawyer. Again, not one of the wishy-washy sort that thinks more of the law than he does of his customers. He soon put them in their place. They met with an equally united front from all the other shops in the lane, so there was really nothing they could do.”

I did not like to say anything because I did not want to hurt Mr Bellow’s feelings, but I felt sure that this story was a complete make-up. I had once had a tutor who lived a sort of schizophrenic existence and who used to tell me long and complicated stories about adventures that had never happened to him but which he wished had. So I was quite used to this form of prevarication.

“Well, I think it’s fascinating,” I said. “I think it was awfully clever of you to find it out.”

“One should always read the small print,” said Mr Bellow, wagging a finger at me. “Excuse me, but I must go and get Mabel.”

He went off into the shop and reappeared with the cockatoo on his wrist. He sat down and, taking the bird in his hands, laid it on its back. It lay there as though carved out of ivory, quite still, its eyes closed, saying “Hello, hello, hello”. He smoothed its feathers gently and then placed it on his lap where he tickled the feathers over its tummy. It lay there drowsing in ecstasy.

“She gets a bit lonely if I keep her out in the shop too long,” he explained. “Have another crumpet, my dear boy?”

So we sat and ate crumpets and chatted. Mr Bellow I found a fascinating companion. In his youth he had travelled widely round the world and knew intimately a lot of places that I longed to visit. After that I used to go and have tea with him about once a fortnight, and they were always very happy afternoons for me.

I was still disbelieving about his story of Potts Lane, so I thought I would conduct an experiment. Over a period of days I visited in turn each shop in the lane. When I went to Clemysira’s, for example, I went to buy a hat for my mother’s birthday. They were terribly sorry, said the two dear old ladies who ran it, terribly sorry indeed; I couldn’t have come at a worse time. They had just run out of hats. Well, had they got anything else, I inquired? A fur, or something? Well, no, as a matter of fact, they said, all the stuff they had in the shop was bespoken at the moment. They were waiting for a new consignment to come in.

When was my mother’s birthday? Friday week, I said. Oh, we think it will be in by then, they said; yes, we’re sure it will be in by then. Do come again.

Mr Wallet, the tobacconist, told me that he did not stock the brand of cigarettes I wanted. He also did not stock any cigars, nor did he stock any pipes. Reluctantly, he let me buy a box of matches.

I next went to the plumbers. I had called, I said, on behalf of my mother because there was something wrong with our cistern and could they send a man round to look at it?

“Well, now,” said Mr Drumlin, “how urgent is it?”

“Oh, it’s quite urgent,” I said. “We’re not getting any water into the lavatories or anything.”

“Well, you see, we’ve only got one man here,” he said. “Only one man and he’s out on a job... quite a big job. Don’t know how long it will take him... Maybe a day or two.”

“Couldn’t he come round and do a bit of overtime?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think he’d like to do that,” said Mr Drumlin. “There’s a very good plumber in the High Street, though. You could go to them. They might have a man free. But I’m afraid I couldn’t guarantee anything, not for... oh, two or three days — at the earliest, that is, at the earliest.”

Thanking him, I left. I next went to William Drover, the estate agent. He was a seedy little man with glasses and wispy hair like thistledown. I explained that my aunt was thinking of moving to this part of London and had asked me, since I lived in the vicinity, if I would go to an estate agent and find out about flats for her.

“Flats? Flats?” said Mr Drover, pursing his lips. He took off his glasses and polished them, replaced them and peered round the shop as though expecting to find a flat hidden there.

“It’s an awkward time for flats,” he said, “a very awkward time. Lots of people moving into the district, you know. Most of them are snapped up before you have a chance.

“So you’ve got nothing on your books? No details that I could show to my aunt?” I said.

“No,” he said, “nothing at all. Nothing at all, I’m afraid. Nothing at all.”

“Well, how about a small house, then?” I asked.

“Ah, they’re just as bad. Just as bad,” he said. “I don’t think I have a single small house on my books that would suit you. I’ve got a ten-bedroomed house in Hampstead, if that’s any use?”

“No, I think that would be a bit big,” I said. “In any case, she wants to live in this area.”

“They all do. They all do. We’re getting crowded out. We’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder,” he said.

“Surely that’s good for business?” I inquired.

“Well, it is and it isn’t,” he said. “You get overcrowded and the tone of the neighbourhood goes down, you know.”

“Well, thank you very much for your help, anyway,” I said.

“Not at all. Not at all. Sorry I couldn’t help you more,” he said. I next went to the Pixies’ Parlour. They had quite an extensive menu but all they could offer me was a cup of tea. Most unfortunately — and they were terribly apologetic about it — their van, carrying all their supplies for the day, had broken down somewhere in North London and they were bereft of food of any description.

After this I believed Mr Bellow’s story about Potts Lane.

It was at about this time that another rather strange character appeared in my life. I had been working for some time with Mr Romilly and he trusted me implicitly. Periodically he would send me down to the East End of London to collect fresh supplies of reptiles, amphibians and tropical fish. These we got from the wholesalers, whereas, as I have explained, the farm (which really ran the shop) sent us all the freshwater stuff that we needed. I enjoyed these jaunts where, in gloomy, cavernous stores in back streets I would find great crates of lizards, basketfuls of tortoises and dripping tanks green with algae full of newts and frogs and salamanders. It was on one of these forays into the East End that I met Colonel Anstruther.

I had been sent down to Van den Goths, a big wholesaler who specialised in importing North American reptiles and amphibians, and I had been given instructions by Mr Romilly to bring back 150 baby painted terrapins — those enchanting little freshwater tortoises with green shells and yellow and red markings on their skins. They were each about the size of a half crown. We did quite a brisk trade in these for they were a good and simple pet to give a child in a flat. So I made my way down to Van den Goths and saw Mr Van den Goth himself, a great heavily-built man who looked like an orang-utan carved out of tallow. He placed my terrapins in a cardboard box with moss, and then I asked him if he would mind if I looked round.

“Help yourself,” he said. “Help yourself” And he lumbered back to his chair and picked up a Dutch newspaper which he was reading, stuck a cigar in his face and ignored me. I pottered round for some time examining some of the beautiful snakes that he had and became breathless with admiration over a crate full of iguanas, bright green and frilled and dewlapped like any fairytale dragon. Presently I glanced at my watch and saw to my alarm that I had over-stayed my time by at least half an hour. So, grabbing my box of terrapins, I said a hurried good-bye to Mr Van den Goth and left to catch the bus.

What I had not noticed, and it was very remiss of me, was that both the terrapins and the moss which Mr Van den Goth had put in the box were excessively moist. During my wanderings round the shop this moisture had soaked through the bottom of the cardboard box with the not unnatural result that as I climbed up the stairs to the top of the bus and was just about to take my seat, the entire bottom of the box gave way and a cascade of baby terrapins fell on the floor.

It was fortunate for me that there was only one other occupant on the top of the bus and he was a slender, military-looking man, with a grey moustache and a monocle, wearing a very well-cut tweed suit and a pork-pie hat. He had a carnation in his buttonhole and a malacca cane with a silver knob. I scrabbled madly on the floor collecting the terrapins, but baby terrapins can move with extraordinary speed when they want to and I was heavily outnumbered. Suddenly, one of them rushed up the central alley of the bus and turned in by the military-looking man’s foot. Feeling it clawing at his well-polished shoe, he glanced down. God, I thought, now I’m for it! He screwed his monocle more firmly into his eye and surveyed the baby terrapin which was making a laborious effort to climb over the toe of his shoe.

“By George!” he said. “A painted terrapin! Chrysemys picta! Haven’t seen one for years!”

He looked round to see the source from which this little reptile had emanated and saw me crouched, red-faced, on the floor with baby terrapins running madly in all directions.

“Hah!” he said. “Is this little chap yours?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m sorry, but the bottom has fallen out of the box.”

“By George, you’re in a bit of a stew, what?” he shouted.

“Er..., yes..., I am, actually.”

He picked up the baby terrapin that had managed to get on the toe of his shoe and came down the bus towards me.

“Here,” he said, “let me help. I’ll head the bounders off.”

“It’s very kind of you,” I said.

He got down on his hands and knees in the same position that I was in, and we crawled together up and down the bus collecting baby terrapins.

“Tally-ho!” he would shout at intervals. “There’s one going under that seat there.”

Once, when a small terrapin approached him at a run, he pointed his malacca cane at it and said, “Bang! Bang! Back, sir, or I’ll have you on a charge.”

Eventually, after about quarter of an hour of this, we managed to get all the baby terrapins back into the box and I did a rough splinting job on it with my handkerchief.

“It was very kind of you, sir,” I said, “I’m afraid you’ve got your knees all dusty.”

“Well worth it,” he said. “Well worth it. Haven’t had sport like that for a long time.”

He screwed his monocle more firmly in his eyes and gazed at me.

“Tell me,” he said. “What are you doing with a great box full of terrapins?”

“I... I work in a pet shop and I’ve just been down to the wholesalers to get them.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Do you mind if I come and sit near you and have a chin-wag?”

“No, sir,” I said. “No.”

He came and planted himself firmly on the seat opposite mine, put his malacca cane between his knees, rested his chin on it and gazed at me thoughtfully.

“Pet shop, eh?” he said. “Hmmm. Do you like animals?”

“Yes, very much. They’re about the only thing I do like.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “What else have you got in this shop?”

He seemed genuinely interested and so I told him about what we had in the shop and about Mr Romilly, and I was wondering whether to tell him about Mr Bellow, but I had been sworn to secrecy on that so I decided not to. When we reached my stop I got to my feet.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I’ve got to get off here.”

“Hah,” he said. “Hah. Yes, so have I. So have I.”

It was perfectly obvious that this was not his stop and that he wanted to continue talking to me. We got down on to the pavement. My rather liberal and eccentric upbringing had left me in no doubt as to the arts and wiles of a pederast. I knew, for example, that even military-looking gentlemen with monocles could be thus inclined, and the fact that he had got off at a stop that was not his argued an interest in me which I felt might possibly turn out to be unsavoury. I was cautious.

“Where’s your shop, then?” he said, swinging his cane between his finger and thumb.

“Just over there, sir,” I said.

“Ah, then I’ll walk there with you.”

He strolled down the pavement gazing intently at the shops as we passed.

“Tell me,” he said, “what do you do with yourself in your spare time?”

“Oh, I go to the zoo and the cinema and to museums and things,” I said.

“Do you ever go to the Science Museum?” he inquired. “All those models, and things like that?”

“I like that very much,” I said. “I like models.”

“Do you? Do you?” he said, screwing his monocle in and glaring at me. “You like to play, do you?”

“Well, I suppose you could call it that,” I said.

“Ah,” he said.

We paused outside the door of the Aquarium.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, sir,” I said. “I’m... I’m rather late as it is.”

“Wondered,” he said. “Wondered.”

He pulled out a wallet and extracted from it a card.

“There’s my name and address. If you’d like to come round one evening, we could play a game.”

“That’s, er..., very kind of you, sir,” I said, keeping my back firmly to the wall.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Hope to see you, then. Don’t bother to ring up... just call. I’m always there. Any time after six.”

He strolled off down the street, very much the military man. There was no trace of mincing or of effeminacy about him but I was not so innocent as not to know that these were not essential manifestations of homosexuality in a person’s character. I stuffed his card into my pocket and went into the shop.

“Where have you been, you naughty boy?” asked Mr Romilly.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “But... but I... I had a little accident on the bus. The bottom fell out of the box and all the terrapins got out, and a Colonel chappy helped me to pick them all up but it delayed us a bit, I’m very sorry, Mr Romilly.”

“That’s alright, that’s alright,” he said. “It’s been a very quiet afternoon. Very quiet... very quiet. Now, I’ve got the tank ready for them if you’d like to put them in.”

So I put the baby terrapins in the tank and watched them swimming about, and then I took out the colonel’s card and looked at it. “Colonel Anstruther” it said, “47 Bell Mews, South Kensington ” and it had a telephone number. I mused on it for a bit.

“Mr Romilly,” I said. “You don’t know a Colonel Anstruther, do you?”

“Anstruther? Anstruther?” said Mr Romilly, frowning. “I can’t say that I do... Ah, but wait a bit, wait a bit. Where does he live?”

“Bell Mews,” I said.

“That’s him. That’s him!” said Mr Romilly, delighted. “Yes, yes... yes. That’s him. A fine soldier. And a very fine man, too. Was he the person who helped you pick up the terrapins?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Ah, just like him. Always a man to help a friend in need,” said Mr Romilly. “They don’t breed them like that nowadays, you know. They don’t breed them like that at all.”

“So he’s..., um..., well-known and, er..., respected?” I said.

“Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Everyone knows him in that area. They’re all very fond of the old Colonel.”

I pondered on this information for some time, and then I thought that perhaps I would take the Colonel up on his invitation. After all, I thought, if the worst came to the worst I could always scream for help. In spite of the fact that he had told me not to ring I thought I had better be polite, so a few days later I phoned him up.

“Colonel Anstruther?” I asked.

“Yes. Yes,” he said. “Who’s that? Who’s that?”

“It’s, um..., my name is... Durrell,” I said. “I met you on the bus the other evening. You were kind enough to help me catch up my terrapins.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes. How are the little chaps?”

“Fine,” I said. “They’re... they’re doing fine. I wondered if, perhaps, I could... take you up on your kind offer of coming round to see you?”

“But of course, my dear chap. Of course!” he said. “Delighted! Delighted! What time will you be here?”

“Well, what time would be convenient?” I asked.

“Come round about six-thirty,” he said; “come to dinner.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

Bell Mews, I discovered, was a short, cobbled cul-de-sac with four small houses on each side. What confused me to start with was that I did not realise that the Colonel owned all four houses on one side which he had knocked into one, and he had, with a brilliant display of the military mind, labelled each door “ 47”. So after some moments of confusion I finally knocked on the nearest door marked “ 47” and waited to see what would happen. While I waited I reflected upon the stupidity of having four houses in a mews a hundred feet long all labelled “ 47”, and if it came to that, where were all the other numbers? They were presumably scattered round the various roads and other similar mews in the vicinity. The postman’s lot in London, I felt, must be a very unhappy one.

At that moment, the door marked “ 47” that I had knocked on was flung open and there stood the Colonel. He was dressed, to my consternation, in a bottle-green velvet smoking jacket with watered silk lapels, and he brandished in one hand a carving knife of prodigious dimensions. I began to wonder whether I had been wise to come after all.

“Durrell?” he said inquiringly, screwing his monocle into his eye. “By Jove, you’re punctual!”

“Well, I had a little difficulty,” I began.

“Ah!” he said. “The forty-seven foxed you, did it? It foxes them all. Gives me a bit of privacy, you know. Come in! Come in!”

I edged my way into the hall and he closed the door.

“Good to see you,” he said. “Come along.”

He led the way, at a brisk trot, through the hall, holding the carving knife in front of him as though leading a cavalry charge. I had a brief glimpse of a mahogany hatstand and some prints on the wail, and then we were in a large, spacious living-room, simply but comfortably furnished, with piles and piles of books everywhere and colour reproductions on the walls of various military uniforms. He led me through this and into the large kitchen.

“Sorry to rush you,” he panted. “But I’ve got a pie in the oven and I don’t want it to get burnt.”

He rushed over to the oven, opened it and peered inside.

“Ah, no, that’s alright,” he said. “Good... good.”

He straightened up and looked at me.

“Do you like steak and kidney pie?” he inquired.

“Eh, yes,” I said, “I’m very fond of it.”

“Good,” he said. “It’ll be ready in a moment or two. Now, come and sit down and have a drink.”

He led me back into the living-room.

“Sit you down, sit you down,” he said. “What’ll you drink? Sherry? Whisky? Gin?”

“You, er..., haven’t got any wine, have you?” I said.

“Wine?” he said. “Yes, of course, of course.” He got out a bottle, uncorked it, and poured me a glass full of ruby red wine which was crisp and dry. We sat chatting, mainly about terrapins, for ten minutes or so and then the Colonel glanced at his watch.

“Should be ready now,” he said, “should be ready. You don’t mind eating in the kitchen, do you? It saves a lot of mucking about.”

“No, I don’t mind at all,” I said.

We went into the kitchen and the Colonel laid the table; then he mashed some potatoes and heaped a great mound of steak and kidney pie onto them and put the plate in front of me.

“Have some more wine,” he said.

The steak and kidney was excellent. I inquired whether the Colonel had made it himself.

“Yes,” he said. “Had to learn to cook when my wife died. Quite simple, really, if you put your mind to it. It’s a wonder what you can do with a pinch of herbs here and there, and that sort of thing. Do you cook?”

“Well, in a rather vague sort of way,” I said. “My mother has taught me various things, but I’ve never done it very seriously. I like it.”

“So do I,” he said. “So do I. Relaxes the mind.”

After we had finished off the steak and kidney pie he got some ice-cream out of the fridge and we ate that.

“Ah,” said the Colonel, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach, “that’s better. That’s better. I only have one meal a day and I like to make it a solid one. Now, how about a glass of port? I’ve got some rather good stuff here.”

We had a couple of glasses of port and the Colonel lit up a fine thin cheroot. When we had finished the port and he had stubbed his cheroot out, he screwed his monocle more firmly in. his eye and looked at me.

“What about going upstairs for a little game?” he asked.

“Um..., what sort of game?” I inquired cautiously, feeling that this was the moment when, if he was going to, he would start making advances.

“Power game,” said the Colonel. “ Battle of wits. Models. You like that sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Um..., yes,” I said.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Come on.”

He led me out into the hall again and then up a staircase, through a small room which was obviously a sort of workshop; there was a bench along one side with shelves upon which there were pots of paint, soldering irons, and various other mysterious things. Obviously the Colonel was a do-it-yourselfer in his spare time, I thought. Then he threw open a door and a most amazing sight met my gaze. The room I looked into ran the whole length of the house and was some seventy to eighty feet long. It was, in fact, all the top rooms knocked into one of the four mews houses that the Colonel owned. The floor was neatly parqueted. But it was not so much the size of die room that astonished me as what it contained. At each end of the room was a large fort made out of papier mâché. They must have been some three or four feet high and some four or five feet across. Ranged round them were hundreds upon hundreds of tin soldiers, glittering and gleaming in their bright uniforms, and amongst them there were tanks, armoured trucks, anti-aircraft guns and similar things. There, spread out before me, was the full panoply of war.

“Ah,” said the Colonel, rubbing his hands in glee, “surprised you!”

“Good Lord, yes!” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many toy soldiers.”

“It’s taken me years to amass them,” he said, “years. I get ’em from a factory, you know. I get ’em unpainted and paint ’em myself. Much better that way, Get a smoother, cleaner job... More realistic, too.”

I bent down and picked up one of the tiny soldiers. It was quite true, what the Colonel had said. Normally a tin soldier is a fairly botchy job of painting, but these were meticulously done. Even the faces appeared to have expression on them.

“Now,” said the Colonel. “Now. We’ll have a quick game — just a sort of run-through. Once you get the hang of it we can make it more complicated, of course. Now, I’ll explain the rules to you.”

The rules of the game, as explained by the Colonel, were fairly straightforward. You each had an army. You threw two dice and the one who got the highest score was the aggressor and it was his turn to start first. He threw his dice and from the number that came up he could move a battalion of his men in any direction that he pleased, and he was allowed to fire off a barrage from his field guns or anti-aircraft guns. These worked on a spring mechanism and you loaded them with matchsticks. The springs in these guns were surprisingly strong and projected the matchsticks with incredible velocity down the room. Where every matchstick landed, in a radius of some four inches around it, was taken to be destroyed. So if you could gain a direct hit on a column of troops you could do savage damage to the enemy. Each player had a little spring tape measure in his pocket for measuring the distance round the matchstick.

I was enchanted by the whole idea, but principally because it reminded me very much of a game that we had invented when we were in Greece. My brother Leslie, whose interest in guns and boats is insatiable, had collected a whole navy of toy battleships and cruisers and submarines. We used to range them out on the floor and play a game very similar to the Colonel’s, only we used to use marbles in order to score direct hits on the ships. Rolling a marble accurately over a bumpy floor in order to hit a destroyer an inch and a half long took a keen eye. It turned out, after we had thrown the first dice, that I was to be the aggressor.

“Hah!” said the Colonel. “Filthy Hun!”

I could see that he was working himself into a warlike mood.

“Is the object of the exercise to try and capture your fort?” I inquired.

“Well, you can do that,” he said. “Or you can knock it out, if you can.”

I soon discovered that the way to play the Colonel’s game was to distract his attention from one flank so that you could do some quick manoeuvring while he was not aware of it, so I kept up a constant barrage on his troops, the matches whistling down the room, and while doing this I moved a couple of battalions up close to his lines.

“Swine!” the Colonel would roar every time a matchstick fell and he had to measure the distance. “Dirty swine! Bloody Hun!” His face grew quite pink and his eyes watered copiously so that he had to keep removing his monocle and polishing it.

“You’re too bloody accurate,” he shouted.

“Well, it’s your fault,” I shouted back, “you’re keeping all your troops bunched together. They make an ideal target.”

“It’s part of me strategy. Don’t question me strategy. I’m older than you, and superior in rank.”

“How can you be superior in rank, when I’m in command of an army?”

“No lip out of you, you whippersnapper,” he roared.

So the game went on for about two hours, by which time I had successfully knocked out most of the Colonel’s troops and got a foothold at the bottom of his fort.

“Do you surrender?” I shouted.

“Never!” said the Colonel. “Never! Surrender to a bloody Hun? Never!”

“Well, in that case I’m going to bring my sappers in,” I said.

“What are you going to do with your sappers?”

“Blow up your fort,” I said.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “Against the articles of war.”

“Nonsense!” I said. “The Germans don’t care about articles of war, anyway.”

“That’s a filthy trick to play!” he roared, as I successfully detonated his fort.

“Now do you surrender?”

“No. I’ll fight you every inch of the way, you Hun!” he shouted, crawling rapidly across the floor on his hands and knees and moving his troops frantically. But all his efforts were of no avail; I had him pinned in a corner and I shot him to pieces.

“By George!” said the Colonel when it was all over, mopping his brow, “I’ve never seen anybody play that game like that. How did you manage to get so damned accurate when you haven’t played it before?”

“Well, I’ve played a similar game, only we used marbles for that,” I said. “But I think once you’ve got your eye in... it helps.”

“Gad!” said the Colonel, looking at the destruction of his army. “Still, it was a good game and a good fight. Shall we have another one?”

So we played on and on, the Colonel getting more and more excited, until at last I glanced at my watch and saw to my horror that it was one o’clock in the morning. We were in the middle of a game and so we left the troops where they were and on the following night I went back and finished it. After that I would spend two or three evenings a week with the Colonel, fighting battles up and down the long room, and it gave him tremendous pleasure — almost as much pleasure as it gave me.

Not long after that, my mother announced that she had finally found a house and that we could move out of London. I was bitterly disappointed. It meant that I would have to give up my job and lose contact with my friend Mr Bellow and Colonel Anstruther. Mr Romilly was heart-broken.

“I shall never find anybody to replace you,” he said. “Never.”

“Oh, there’ll be somebody along,” I said.

“Ah, but not with your ability to decorate cages and things,” said Mr Romilly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

When the day finally came for me to leave, with tears in his eyes, he presented me with a leather wallet. On the inside it had embossed in gold “To Gerald Durrell from his fellow workers”. I was a bit puzzled since there had been only Mr Romilly and myself, but I suppose that he thought it looked better like that. I thanked him very much and then I made my way for the last time down Potts Lane to Mr Bellow’s establishment.

“Sorry to see you go, boy,” he said. “Very sorry indeed. Here... I’ve got this for you — a little parting present.”

He put a small square cage in my hands and sitting inside it was the bird that I most coveted in his collection, the Red Cardinal. I was overwhelmed.

“Are you sure you want me to have it?” I said.

“Course I am, boy. Course I am.”

“But, is it the right time of year for giving a present like this?” I inquired.

Mr Bellow guffawed.

“Yes, of course it is,” he said. “Of course it is.”

I took my leave of him and then I went round that evening to play a last game with the Colonel. When it was over — I had let him win — he led me downstairs.

“Shall miss you, you know, my boy. Shall miss you greatly. However, keep in touch, won’t you? Keep in touch. I’ve got a little, um..., a little souvenir here for you.”

He handed me a slim silver cigarette ease. On it had been written “With love from Margery”. I was a bit puzzled by this.

“Oh, take no notice of the inscription,” he said. “You can have it removed... Present from a woman... I knew once. Thought you’d like it. Memento, hmmm?”

“It’s very, very kind of you, sir,” I said.

“Not at all, not at all,” he said, and blew his nose and polished his monocle and held out his hand. “Well, good luck, my boy. And I hope I’ll see you again one day.”

I never did see him again. He died shortly afterwards.