The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION

Venice is one of the most beautiful of European cities and one that I had visited frequently but never stayed in. I had always been on my way to somewhere else and so had never had the time for proper exploration. So, one red-hot summer when I had been working hard and was feeling tired and in need of a change, I decided that I would go and spend a week in Venice and relax and get to know her. I felt that a calming holiday in such a setting was exactly what I needed. I have rarely regretted a decision more; if I had known what was going to happen to me I would have fled to New York or Buenos Aires or Singapore rather than set foot in that most elegant of cities.

I drove through the beautiful and incomparable France, through orderly Switzerland, over the high passes where there were still ugly piles of dirty grey snow at the edge of the roads and then down into Italy and towards my destination. The weather remained perfect until I reached the causeway that leads into Venice . Here the sky, with miraculous suddenness, turned from blue to black, became veined with fern-like threads of intense blue and white lightning, and then disgorged a torrent of rain of such magnitude that it made windscreen wipers futile and brought a great chain of traffic to a standstill. Hundreds of hysterically twitching Italians sat there, nose to tail, immobilized by the downpour, trying to ease their frustration by blowing their horns cacophonously, and screaming abuse at each other above the roar of the rain.

At length, edging forward inch by inch I finally managed to get the car to the garage at the end of the causeway. Having successfully berthed her, I found myself a burly porter to carry my bags. At a run we galloped through the teeming rain to the docks where the speedboat belonging to the hotel into which I had booked lay waiting. My suitcases were drenched with rain, and by the time they had been put on board the boat, and I had tipped the porter and got on board myself, my thin tropical suit was a limp, damp rag. The moment, however, that the speedboat started up the rain died down to a very fine, drifting mizzle which hung across the canals like a fine veil of lawn, muting the russets and browns and pinks of the buildings so that they looked like a beautifully faded Canaletto painting.

We sped down the Grand Canal and when we reached my hotel the boat put into the hotel jetty. As the engine stuttered and died we were passed by a gondola, propelled in a rather disconsolate fashion by a very damp-looking gondolier. The two people occupying it were shielded from the inclemencies of the weather by a large umbrella and so I could not see their faces, but, as the gondola passed us and sped down a narrow side canal that led to Marco Polo’s house, I heard a penetrating female English voice (obviously the product of Roedean, that most expensive of public schools), float out from under the umbrella.

“Of course, Naples is just like Venice only without so much water,” it observed in flute-like tones.

I stood riveted on the landing stage outside the hotel, staring after the retreating gondola. Surely, I said to myself, I must be dreaming, and yet in my experience there was only one voice in the world like that; only one voice, moreover, capable of making such a ridiculous statement. It belonged to a girlfriend of mine whom I had not seen for some thirty years, Ursula Pendragon-White. She, of all my girl-friends, I think I adored the most, but she was also the one who filled me with the most alarm and despondency.

It was not only her command over the English language that caused me pain (it was she who had told me about a friend of hers who had had an ablution so she would not have an illegitimate baby), but her interference in the private lives of her wide circle of acquaintances. When I had last known her she was busy trying to reform a friend of hers who, she said, was drinking so much that he was in danger of becoming an incoherent.

But no, I thought to myself, it could not be Ursula. She was safely and happily married to a very dull young man and lived in the depths of Hampshire. What on earth would she be doing in Venice at a time of year when all good farmer’s wives were helping their husbands get the harvest in, or organizing jumble sales in the village. In any case, I thought to myself, even if it was Ursula I did not want to get tangled up with her again. I had come here for peace and quiet, and from my past experience of her I knew that dose contact with her brought anything but that. Speaking as one who had had to pursue a Pekinese puppy through a crowded theatre during a Mozart concert, I knew that Ursula could get one involved in the most horrifying of predicaments without even really trying. No, no, I thought, it could not have been Ursula, and even if it had been thank God she had not spotted me.

The hotel was sumptuous and my large and ornate bedroom overlooking the Grand Canal was exceedingly comfortable. After I had changed out of my wet things and had a bath and a drink I saw that the weather had changed and the sun was blazing, making the whole of Venice glitter in a delicate sunset of colours. I walked down numerous little alleyways, crossed tiny bridges over canals, until I came at length to the vast Piazza San Marco, lined with bars, each of which had its own orchestra. Hundreds of pigeons wheeled and swooped through the brilliant air as people purchased bags of corn and scattered this largess for the birds on to the mosaic of the huge square. I picked my way through the sea of birds until I reached the Doge’s Palace where there was a collection of pictures that I wanted to see. The Palace was crammed with hundreds of sight-seers of a dozen different nationalities, from Japanese, festooned like Christmas trees with cameras, to portly, guttural Germans and lithe blond Swedes. Wedged in this human lava flow I progressed slowly from room to room, admiring the paintings. Suddenly I heard the penetrating flute-like voice up ahead of me in the crowd.

“Last year, in Spain,” it said, “I went to see all those pictures by Gruyиre . . . so gloomy, with lots of corpses and things. So depressing, not like these. I really do think that Cannelloni is positively my favourite Italian painter. Scrumptious!”

Now I knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it was Ursula. No other woman would be capable of getting a cheese, a pasta and two painters so inextricably entwined. I shifted cautiously through the crowd until I could see her distinctive profile, the large brilliant blue eyes, the long tip-tilted nose, the end of which looked as if it had been snipped off — an enchanting effect — and her cloud-like mass of hair still, to my surprise, dark, but with streaks of silver in it. She looked as lovely as ever and the years had dealt kindly with her.

She was with a middle-aged, very bewildered-looking man, who was gazing at her in astonishment at her culinary-artistic observation. I felt, from his amazement that he must be a comparatively new acquaintance, for anyone who had known Ursula for any length of time would take her last statement in his stride.

Beautiful and enchanting though she was, I felt it would be safer for my peace of mind not to renew my acquaintance with her lest something diabolical resulted to ruin my holiday.

Reluctantly, I left the Palace, determined to come back the following day when I felt Ursula would have had her fill of pictures. I made my way back into the Piazza San Marco, found a pleasant café and sat down to a well-earned brandy and soda. All the cafés around the square were packed with people and in such a crowd I was, I felt, certain to escape observation. In any case I was sure Ursula would not recognize me, for I was several stone heavier than when she had last seen me, my hair was grey and I now sported a beard.

Feeling safe, I sat there to enjoy my drink and listen to the charming Strauss waltzes the band was playing. The sunshine, my pleasant drink and the soothing music lulled me into a sense of false security. I had forgotten Ursula’s ability — a sense well developed in most women but in her case enlarged to magical proportion — to walk into a crowded room, take one glance around in a casual way and then be able to tell you, not only who was in the room but what they were all wearing. So I shouldn’t have felt the shock and surprise I did when I suddenly heard her scream above the chatter of the crowd and the noise of the band.

“Darling, darling,” she cried, hurrying through the tables towards me. “Darling Gerry, it’s me, Ursula!”

I rose to meet my fate. Ursula rushed into my arms, fastened her mouth on mine and gave me a prolonged kiss accompanied by humming noises, of the sort that (even in this permissive day and age) were of the variety which one generally reserved for the bedroom. Presently, when I began to think that we might be arrested by the Italian police for disorderly behaviour, Ursula dragged her mouth reluctantly away from mine and stood back, holding tightly on to my hands.

“Darling,” she cooed, her huge blue eyes brimming with tears of delight, “darling . . . I can’t believe it . . . seeing you again after all these years . . . it’s a miracle . . . oh, I am so happy, darling. How scrumptious to see you again.”

“How did you know it was me?” I asked feebly.

“How did I know, darling? You are silly . . . you haven’t changed a bit,” she said untruthfully. “Besides, darling, I’ve seen you on television and your photos on the covers of your books, so naturally I would recognize you.”

“Well, it’s very nice to see you again,” I went on guardedly.

“Darling, it’s been simply an age,” she said, “far too long.”

She had, I noticed, divested herself of the bewildered-looking gentleman.

“Sit down and have a drink,” I suggested.

“Of course, sweetie, I’d love one.” She seated herself, willowy and elegant, at my table. I beckoned the waiter.

“What are you drinking?” she asked.

“Brandy and soda.”

“Ugh!” she cried, shuddering delicately. “How positively revolting . You shouldn’t drink it, darling, you’ll end up with halitosis of the liver.”

“Never mind my liver,” I said, long-sufferingly. “What do you want to drink?”

“I’ll have one of those Bonny Prince Charlie things.” The waiter stared at her blankly. He did not have the benefit of my early training with Ursula.

“Madam would like a Dubonnet,” I said, “and I’ll have another brandy.”

I sat down at the table and Ursula leant forward, gave me a ravishing, melting smile and seized my hand in both of hers.

“Darling, isn’t this romantic ?” she asked. “You and me meeting after all these years in Venice ? It’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard of, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I said cautiously, “how’s your husband?”

“Oh, didn’t you know? I’m divorced.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” she explained. “It was better really. You see, poor dear, he was never the same after he got foot and mouth disease.”

Even my previous experience of Ursula had not prepared me for this.

“Toby got foot and mouth disease?” I asked.

“Yes . . . terribly,” she said with a sigh, “and he was never really the same again.”

“I should think not. But surely cases of humans getting it must be very rare?”

“Humans?” she said, wide-eyed. “What d’you mean?”

“Well, you said that Toby . . .” I began, when Ursula gave a shriek of laughter.

“You are silly,” she crowed. “I meant that all his cattle got it. His whole pedigree herd that had taken him years to breed. He had to kill the lot, and it seemed to affect him a lot, poor lamb. He started going about with the most curious women and getting drunk in night clubs and that sort of thing.”

“I never realized that foot and mouth disease could have such far-reaching effects,” I said. “I wonder if the Ministry of Agriculture knows?”

“D’you think they’d be interested ?” Ursula asked in astonishment. “I could write to them about it if you thought I ought to.”

“No, no,” I said, hastily, “I was only joking.”

“Well,” she said, “tell me about your marriage.”

“I’m divorced, too,” I confessed.

“You are ? Darling, I told you this meeting was romantic,” she said misty-eyed. “The two of us meeting in Venice with broken marriages. It’s just like a book, darling.”

“Well, I don’t think we ought to read too much into it.”

“What are you doing in Venice ?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, unguardedly. “I’m just here for a holiday.”

“Oh, wonderful, darling, then you can help me,” she exclaimed.

“No! ” I said hastily, “I won’t help you.”

“Darling, you don’t even know what I’m asking you to do,” she said plaintively.

“I don’t care what it is, I’m not doing it.”

“Sweetie, this is the first time we’ve met in ages and you’re being horrid to me before we even start,” she said indignantly.

“I don’t care. I know all about your machinations from bitter experience and I do not intend to spend my holiday getting mixed up with whatever awful things you are doing.”

“You’re beastly,” she said, her eyes brimming, blue as flax flowers, her red mouth quivering. “You’re perfectly beastly . . . here am I alone in Venice, without a husband, and you won’t lift a finger to help me in my distress. You’re revolting and unchivalrous . . . and . . . beastly .”

I groaned. “Oh, all right, all right, tell me about it. But I warn you I’m not getting involved. I came here for peace and quiet.”

“Well,” said Ursula, drying her eyes and taking a sip of her drink, “I’m here on what you might call an errand of mercy. The whole thing is fraught with difficulty and imprecations.”

“Imprecations?” I asked, fascinated in spite of myself.

Ursula looked around to make sure we were alone. As we were only surrounded by some five thousand junketing foreigners she felt it was safe to confide in me,

“Imprecations in high places,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s something you must not let go any further.”

“Don’t you mean implications?” I asked, wanting to get the whole thing on to a more or less intelligible plane.

“I mean what I say,” said Ursula frostily. “I do wish you’d stop trying to correct me. It was one of your worst characteristics in the old days that you would go on and on correcting me. It’s very irritating, darling.”

“I’m sorry,” I said contritely, “do go on and tell me who in high places is imprecating whom.”

“Well,” she said, lowering her voice to such an extent that I could hardly hear her in the babble of noise that surrounded us, “it involves the Duke of Tolpuddle. That’s why I’ve had to come to Venice because I’m the only one Reggie and Marjorie will trust and Perry, too, for that matter, and of course the Duke who is an absolute sweetie and is naturally so cut up about the whole thing, what with the scandal and everything, and so naturally when I said I’d come they jumped at it. But you mustn’t say a word about it to anyone, darling, promise?”

“What am I not to say a word about?” I asked, dazedly, signalling the waiter for more drinks.

“But I’ve just told you,” said Ursula impatiently. “About Reggie and Marjorie and Perry. And, of course, the Duke.”

I took a deep breath: “But I don’t know Reggie and Marjorie and Perry or the Duke.”

“You don’t?” asked Ursula, amazed.

I remembered then that she was always astonished to find that you did not know everyone in her wide circle of incredibly dull acquaintances.

“No. So, as you will see, It is difficult for me to understand the problem. As far as I am aware, it may range from them all having developed leprosy to the Duke being caught operating an illicit still.”

“Don’t be silly, darling,” said Ursula, shocked. “There’s no insanity in the family.”

I sighed. “Look, just tell me who did what to whom, remembering that I don’t know any of them, and I have a feeling that I don’t want to.”

“Well,” said Ursula, “Peregrine is the Duke’s only son. He’s just eighteen and a really nice boy, in spite of it.”

“In spite of what?” I asked, muddled.

“Adulteration,” said Ursula, ominously and incomprehensibly.

I decided not to try to disentangle this one.

“Go on,” I said, hoping that things would become clearer.

“Well, Perry was at St Jonah’s . . . you know, that frightfully posh school that they say is better than Eton or Harrow ?”

“The one that costs ten thousand pounds a term without food? Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

“My dear, only the very best people’s children get sent there,” said Ursula, “it’s as exclusive as . . . as . . . as . . .”

“Harrods?”

“Well, more or less,” agreed Ursula, doubtfully.

“So Perry was at St Jonah’s,” I prompted.

“Yes, and doing frightfully well, so the headmaster said. And out of the blue came this bolt,” she said, lowering her voice to a penetrating whisper.

“Bolt?” I said, puzzled. “What bolt?”

“Out of the blue, darling,” went on Ursula impatiently, “You know how bolts come. I do wish you’d stop interrupting, darling and let me get on with the story.”

“I wish you’d get on with the story, too,” I said. “So far all I’ve got out of it is an adulterated Duke’s son with a bolt, and I have no means of knowing whether this is an affliction or not.”

“Well, be quiet and let me tell you. If you’d stop talking for a moment I could get a word in sideways.”

I sighed.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll be quiet.”

“Thank you, darling,” said Ursula, squeezing my hand. “Well, as I say, Perry was doing frightfully well when along came this bolt. Reggie and Marjorie went to the school. Reggie was employed as their art master because, you know, he is awfully good at oil-painting and etching and things like that, although I do think he’s rather eccentric and so I was surprised at St Jonah’s taking him, really, because it’s so posh that they don’t really go in for eccentrics, if you know what I mean?”

“Why is he eccentric?”

“Well, my dear, don’t you think it’s eccentric to have an oil-painting of your wife in the nude hung over the mantelpiece in your drawing-room ? I told him I thought it was more suitable for the bathroom, if you had to put it on the wall, and he said that he had thought of hanging it in the guest bedroom. I ask you, darling, if that’s not eccentric, what is?”

I did not say so, but I rather warmed to Reggie.

“So Reggie was the bolt?” I enquired.

“No, darling, Marjorie was the bolt. The moment Perry saw her he fell violently in love with her, because she a rather beautiful — if you like those women from the South Seas that Chopin used to paint.”

“Gauguin?” I suggested.

“Probably,” said Ursula vaguely. “Anyway, she really is quite pretty, but I think she’s just a weeny bit stupid. Well, she behaved very stupidly with Perry because she encouraged him. And then came another bolt.”

“Another bolt?” I queried, steeling myself.

“Yes,” she said. “My dear, the silly girl went and fell in love with Perry, and as you know she’s almost old enough to be his mother and has a baby. Well, perhaps she’s not old enough to be his mother, exactly, but he’s eighteen and she’s thirty if she’s a day, although she always swears she’s twenty-six, but anyway, it doesn’t alter the fact that the whole thing was most unsuitable. Naturally, Reggie got very despondent.”

“He could have solved the problem by giving Perry the portrait of Marjorie,” I suggested.

Ursula gave me a reproving look.

“It’s no laughing matter, darling,” she said severely. “We have all been in a complete turmoil, I can tell you.”

I was fascinated by the thought of seeing a Duke in a turmoil, but I did not say so.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Well, Reggie tackled Marjorie and she confessed that she had fallen in love with Perry and that they had been having an affair behind the gym, of all uncomfortable places. So, not unnaturally, Reggie got fearfully annoyed and gave her a black eye, which was really quite uncalled for, as I told him. He then went looking for Perry to give him a black eye, I suppose, but luckily Perry had gone home for the week-end, so Reggie couldn’t find him, which was just as well because Perry’s not a very strong boy, poor dear, whereas Reggie is built like an ox, as well as having a terrible temper.”

Now that the plot had started to unfold, I found myself starting to take an interest in it, in spite of myself.

“Go on,” I said, “what happened next?”

“This is the worst part of the whole thing,” said Ursula, in her penetrating whisper. She took a sip of her drink and glanced around to make sure that the whole of Venice, now assembled around us for a pre-lunchtime drink, was not eavesdropping. She leant forward and pulled me towards her by my hand. I leant across the table and she whispered in my ear. “They eloped,” she hissed, and sat back to see the effect of her words.

“You mean Reggie and Perry eloped?” I asked, in well-simulated astonishment.

“Idiot,” said Ursula angrily, “you know perfectly well what I mean, Perry and Marjorie eloped. I do wish you would stop making fun of this, it’s very serious.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “do go on.”

“Well,” said Ursula, slightly mollified by my apology, “of course this really put a cat among the pigeons. Reggie was simply furious because Marjorie had not only eloped but had taken the baby and the nannie with her.”

“It certainly sounds like a very overcrowded elopement.”

“And naturally,” Ursula continued, “Perry’s father took it very hard. As you can imagine it’s difficult for a Duke to condone his only son’s adulteration.”

“But adultery is when the husband is at fault, as a rule,” I protested.

“I don’t care who’s at fault,” said Ursula firmly, “it’s still adulteration.”

I sighed. The problem itself seemed complex enough without the additional difficulty of having Ursula’s interpretation of it.

“In any case,” she went on, “As I told Marjorie it was as good as incest.”

“Incest? ”

“Yes,” said Ursula, “after all the boy was under age and in any case, as she well knew, adulteration has to be done by adults.”

I took a deep drink of my brandy to steady myself. It was obvious that Ursula had grown worse over the years.

“I think I had better take you to lunch while you tell me the rest of this.”

“Oh, darling, will you? How wonderful. But I mustn’t be late because I’ve got to go to Marjorie’s, because I don’t know where Reggie is and the Duke’s arriving.”

“You mean,” I said slowly and carefully, “that all these people you have been talking about are here, in Venice ?”

“But of course, sweetie,” she said, wide-eyed. “That’s why I want you to help me. Didn’t you understand?”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t understand. But just remember that I have not the slightest intention of getting muddled up in this affair. Let’s go and have lunch . . . where would you like to go?”

“I’d like to go to the ‘Laughing Cat’,” said Ursula.

“Where the hell’s that?”

“I don’t know, but I was told it was very good,” she said, powdering her nose.

“All right, I’ll find out,” I said. I called the waiter over, paid for the drinks and asked the way to the ‘Laughing Cat’. It turned out to be within easy walking distance of the Piazza San Marco, a small but well-appointed little restaurant which, judging by the fact that most of its clientele were Venetians, was going to provide us with pretty substantial fare. We found a pleasant table out on the pavement under an awning, and I ordered mussels simmered in cream and parsley, followed by stuffed shoulder of kid with a chestnut purée the way they serve it in Corsica . We were — fortunately — just demolishing the kid (which melted in your mouth), and were thinking in terms of some Dolcelatte cheese to be followed, perhaps, by some fresh fruit, when Ursula, looking over my shoulder, gave a gasp of horror. I looked round to see a very powerful, and exceedingly drunk gentleman approaching our table, tacking from side to side like a yacht.

“Oh, my God, it’s Reggie,” said Ursula. “How did he know they were in Venice ?”

“It’s all right, they’re not here,” I pointed out.

“But they will be in a minute,” wailed Ursula. “I’ve arranged to meet them and the Duke here. What shall I do? Quick, darling, think of something.”

Whether I liked it or not it seemed inevitable that I was going to get embroiled in this whole ridiculous saga. I took a deep draught of wine to steady myself and rose to my feet as Reggie, more by good luck than good management, arrived at our table.

“Reggle, darling,” cried Ursula, “what a lovely surprise. What are you doing in Venice ?”

“ ’Lo, Ursula,” said Reggie, swaying gently and having difficulty in focusing his eyes and enunciating with clarity, “amin Ven . . . Vennish to kill a dirty rat . . . a dirty loushy little rat, thass what I’m in Vennish for . . . thass what, see?”

Not only was Reggie a large man, built on the lines of an all-in wrestler, but he had a large pithecanthropic face with a straggling beard and moustache. He was partly bald and wore his hair at shoulder length. To add to this singularly unattractive appearance he was wearing a bright ginger, ill-fitting tweed suit, a scarlet roll-top pullover and sandals. Nevertheless, he did look quite capable of killing young Perry if he could get hold of him, and I began to give serious thought to the problem of luring him out of the restaurant before the other protagonists arrived.

“Reggie, darling, this is a friend of mine, Gerry Durrell,” said Ursula, breathlessly.

“Pleeshtermeetyer,” said Reggie, holding out a hand like a Bayonne ham and wringing mine in a vice-like grip.

“Do join us for a drink?” I suggested and Ursula gave me a warning look. I winked at her.

“Drink,” said Reggie throatily, leaning heavily on the table. “Thash what I want . . . a drink . . . sheveral big drinks . . . all in a big glash . . . hunereds and hunereds of drinks . . . I’ll have a double whishky and water.”

I got him a chair and he sat down heavily. I beckoned the waiter and ordered whisky.

“Do you think you ought to drink any more?” asked Ursula, unwisely. “It seems to me you’ve had rather a lot already, darling.”

“Are you surghesting I’m drunk?” asked Reggie ominously.

“No, no,” said Ursula, hastily, realizing her error. “I just thought perhaps another drink wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

“I,” said Reggie, pointing a finger the size of a banana at his chest so that we should be in no doubt as to whom he was referring, “I’m as jober as a sudge.”

The waiter arrived with the drink and placed it in front of Reggie.

“Drink, thash what I want,” said Reggie, lifting the glass somewhat unsteadily. “Here’s death to all miser . . . miserubbubble creeping little arish . . . arishtocratic pimps.”

He drained the glass and sat bath with a look of satisfaction on his face. “Lesh have another one,” he suggested cheerfully.

“Why don’t we toddle along to the Piazza San Marco and have another drink there?” I suggested smoothly.

“Ooo, yes, what a good idea,” chimed in Ursula.

“I’m not narrow minded,” said Reggie earnestly. “I don’ mind where I drink.”

“Right, San Marco it is,” I decided, beckoning the waiter for the bill.

Before he could bring it, however, we were (as Ursula would, no doubt, have put it) hit by a bolt from the blue. I heard her give a despairing squeak of alarm, and turned to find a tall, thin, rather aristocratic gentleman at my elbow, who looked not unlike a grey praying mantis in a Savile Row suit and shoes that had obviously been made for him at Lobb’s. In addition he was wearing an old Etonian tie, and had a triangle of Irish linen handkerchief, the size of a rabbit’s scut, peeping out of his breast pocket. He had silver grey hair, a silver grey face and a silver grey monocle in one silver grey eye. This, I decided, could only be the Duke of Tolpuddle.

“Ursula, my dear child, I am so sorry to be late, but my wretched vaporetto broke down. I do apologize,” he said, beaming at Reggie and me, exuding well-bred charm, secure in the knowledge that, with the blue blood that flowed in his veins, he would always be sure of a welcome, however late he was.

“Oh, oh . . . er . . . oh, don’t mention it,” said Ursula faintly.

“And who are your friends?” asked the Duke, benignly, ready to treat Reggie and I as if we were members of the human race. I realized, with delicious satisfaction, that the Duke and Reggie did not know each other. I sat back and beamed at Ursula, who gave me a despairing look out of her huge, hunted blue eyes.

“Do introduce us, darling,” I said.

Ursula glared at me.

“Well,” she said at length, “this is an old friend of mine, Gerry Durrell and this is . . . and this is . . . er . . . this is Reggie Montrose.”

The Duke stiffened, and his benign expression slipped for a brief moment. Then he straightened up and screwed his monocle more firmly into his eyes, preparing himself to do the decent thing.

“Whoes thish?” enquired Reggie, focusing the Duke with difficulty.

Ursula looked at me desperately. I shrugged. There was, after all, nothing I could do to fend off the crisis.

“Whoes thish blighter?” asked Reggie, pointing a banana finger at the Duke.

“This is . . . a . . . this is . . . er . . . the Duke of Tolpuddle,” said Ursula in a small voice.

It took a moment or so for the news to sink into Reggie’s brain cells through the layers of alcohol, but it got there eventually.

“Tolpuzzle? Tolpuzzle?” he said. “D’you meantershay tnish ish the father of that little bashtard?”

“I say,” said the Duke, looking about the restaurant in the furtive fashion of an English gentleman, hating any sort of altercation in public. “I say, old man, steady on, what? No cause for that sort of language in front of ladies.”

Reggie rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet and waggled an enormous finger under the Duke’s aquiline nose.

“Don’ you tell me what language to use,” he said belligerently. “Don’ you go giving me advish! Why don’ you go and give advish to that little bashtard fart you shired, if indeed you did shire him, becaushe from where I’m shtanding, you don’ look ash if you could shire a mentally retarded Chihuahua.”

To my relief he sat down again, rather heavily, and for a moment I thought he was going to topple the chair over backwards. With an effort he managed to right it. The Duke had gone a dull red. It must have been irritating to know that Reggie, however badly behaved, was after all the plaintiff and that his son was the guilty party.

“I think,” said the Duke, bringing to bear the centuries of aristocratic breeding that was his birthright, “I think we ought to sit down and talk about this in a civilized manner, and not descend to vulgar abuse.”

“Frog’s ovaries,” said Reggie, loudly and clearly.

“Reggie, darling, please behave,” said Ursula.

“Who?” asked Reggie, as earnestly as one seeking knowledge from a sage, “who does this old fart think he ish, eh?”

“Do sit down and join us, sir,” I said heartily.

Ursula gave me a look that would — if I had not been enjoying myself so much — have withered me root and branch.

“Thank you,” said the Duke, icily, “but there does not seem to be a chair, and your friend is making it more than apparent that I am, to say the least, de trop .”

“I’ll get a chair for you,” I said hospitably, and beckoned the waiter. A chair being procured the Duke sat down rather gingerly, as if expecting it to give way under his weight.

“Would you care for a drink, sir?” I asked, playing the anxious host.

“Drinks,” said Reggie with satisfaction, “lots of bloody great drinks . . . gallons and gallons of butts of malmsey . . . you can’t dink without trinking.”

“Thank you, I will have a small, dry sherry, if I may,” said the Duke.

“That little bashtard of yours doesn’t drink,” said Reggie, “all he takes is Coca-Cola and mother’s milk . . . he is an invert . . . an invert . . . an invertebrate if ever I shaw one . . . tototally and completely shpineless.”

“Now look here, Mr Montrose,” said the Duke, tried beyond endurance, tapping his beautifully manicured fingers on the table, “I have no wish to quarrel with you. My reason for being in Venice should not strike you as inimical to your own affairs. If you will just allow me to explain, I think I can clarify the situation and, to some extent, put your mind at ease.”

“The only way you can put my mind at eash is to get your bloody little son out of my wife’s bed,” said Reggie, loudly and belligerently.

The Duke threw an embarrassed look round the restaurant. All the Italians, not being used to such uninhibited displays from Anglo-Saxons (particularly the British) were watching us with lively curiosity.

“I have come to Venice to try to do precisely that,” said the Duke.

“What you gonna do?” asked Reggie. “Get him shom one elshes wife?”

“I propose to deal with him very firmly,” said the Duke. “I dislike this liaison as much, if not more, than you do and it must end.”

“Don’ you refer to my wife as a lia . . . lia. . . liaison,” said Reggie, going a shade of angry purple that threatened imminence of cardiac arrest. “Who t’hell d’you think you are, referring to my wife as a liaison, eh?”

“I meant no disrespect,” said the Duke coldly, “but I am sure you will agree that the whole thing is most unsuitable. I will say nothing about the disparity of their ages. That in itself is appalling. But looking beyond that you must realize that the boy is after all, heir to the title and so it behoves him to be careful about whom he associates with.”

Reggie stared at him for a long moment.

“You are without doubt the biggest piesch of per . . . perambulating horse shit it has ever been my misfortune to encounter,” he said at length.

“Reggie, darling, you can’t say things like that to the Duke,” put in Ursula, shocked.

“Why not?” asked Reggie reasonably. “If he thinks my wife’s unshutable for that puke of a son of his then I shay he is indub . . . indub . . . undoubtably the biggest and smelliest piece of perambulating horse shit this side of Ascot .”

Reggie and the Duke glared at each other. It was at that precise moment that Ursula uttered another piercing squeak and we were hit by the second bolt from the blue. Perry and Marjorie, hand in hand, entered the restaurant. Marjorie was a handsome lady who did look a little like a Gauguin maiden, and Perry was a willowy, delicate, and rather beautiful young man in the Byronic style. I had just time to register this before Reggie, uttering a noise like a dyspeptic lion with a thorn in its paw, rose to his feet and pointed a quivering finger at the happy couple, who had become rooted to the spot with horror at being so suddenly confronted.

“There’s the little puke and his liaison,” shouted Reggie. “Well, I tell you what I’m going to do . . .”

Unwisely, as it turned out, I got to my feet and laid a restraining hand on Reggie’s shoulder.

“Now hang on, Reggie,” I said soothingly. “You’re three times his size and . . .”

I got no further. Gathering my coat into a bunch in one enormous hand, Reggie picked me up as though I had been a piece of thistledown and deposited me with care and accuracy on a sweet trolley that a waiter happened to be conveniently wheeling past. My contact with it did irreparable damage to several pкches melba, a very fine strawberry tart, a delicious. looking trifle of singularly clinging consistency, and a great number of different species of ice cream. Perry, at the sight of this display of violence, came out of his trance. Letting go of Marjorie’s hand, he turned and fled with the utmost speed. Uttering another lion-like roar Reggie, showing agility astonishing in one of his build, ran after him. He, in turn, was pursued by Marjorie shouting, “Murderer, don’t you dare touch him,” and by the Duke, who was calling, “Harm a hair of his head and I’ll sue you!” Dripping ice cream, trifle and strawberries in equal quantities, I did the only thing possible: I flung a huge handful of notes on to the table and, seizing Ursula’s hand, ran after everyone.

As it turned out Perry had, rather unwisely, taken the little alleyway that led to the Piazza San Marco. If he had stuck to the alleyways he would have stood a chance of shaking off the pursuit but as it was, once he was out and running through flocks of frightened pigeons in the vast square, Reggie’s superior turn of speed proved his undoing. Just as he reached the far side of the square, along which runs the Grand Canal, Reggie caught him by the scruff of the neck. The rest of us arrived in a panting mass, to find Reggie shaking Perry to and fro like a puppet, and shouting incoherently at him. I felt that I should intervene in some way but having already had proof that Reggie did not take kindly to interference, and with the Grand Canal at his elbow, I felt I owed it to myself to be a coward.

“Leave him alone, you gross bully,” shouted the Duke, between gasps for breath.

“Leave him alone, leave him alone, he’s not strong,” shrilled Marjorie, beating the flat of her hands futilely on her husband’s broad back.

“Darling, this is all your fault,” said Ursula, turning on me like a tigress. “You do something.”

Before I could protest at her perfidy, however, Reggie pulled Perry up close to him and glowered into his face.

“I’m shick of your bloody puke of a father and I’m shick of you,” he roared. “So your bloody father doesn’t think my wife’s good enough for you, eh? eh? eh? Well, I’ll show you! I’ll divorce and then you can bloody well marry her.”

The Piazza San Marco is always a place of interest to tourists visiting Venice and so, not unnaturally, we now had a crowd of some five thousand people, of different colours and creeds, gathered around us expectant and interested.

“What did you s-s-s-say . . . ?” asked Perry, white-faced, still being shaken to and fro in Reggie’s massive grasp.

“I’ll divorce my wife and then you can bloody well marry her,” Reggie roared.

“Bravo! Queue diplomatie, ” said a Frenchman in the crowd.

“You can rely on my son to do the proper thing,” declared the Duke, recovering from his shock at Reggie’s announcement. “After all, he had a public school education and so knows how to behave like a gentleman.”

“But I don’t want to marry her,” gasped Perry.

“What?” said Reggie.

“What?” exclaimed the Duke.

“What?” added Marjorie and Ursula, almost in unison.

“Ils sont trés drôles, les anglais, n’est-ce pas? ” said the Frenchman in the crowd.

“I’m too young to get married,” explained Perry, plaintively, “I’m only eighteen.”

“D’you mean to say you refuse to make an honest woman of my wife?” asked Reggie, trying to get the facts straight in his mind.

“Well, I’m not going to marry her, if that’s what you mean,” said Perry petulantly.

“I must say I agree with the boy. Most unsuitable liaison,” put in the Duke, unwisely.

Reggie looked closely into Perry’s face and then turned and stared at the Duke.

“Horse shit, both of you,” he said. Before anyone could do anything sensible, he had picked up Perry as if he were a child and tossed him into the Grand Canal, and then turned, seized the Duke, and sent him flying after his son. The sight of a real Duke and his only son and heir surfacing, spluttering, in the Grand Canal was, I must confess, such a rarity that I savoured it to the full. Two carabinieri, who until then had been standing in the crowd quietly enjoying the drama as any true Italian would, now, with the utmost reluctance, decided that, as representatives of law and order, they ought to make some sort of a gesture. Elegant as peacocks they drifted up to Reggie.

“Pardon, signor,” said one of them in excellent English, “but are you having any trouble?”

It was Reggie’s big moment and I was lost in admiration at the way that he rose to the occasion.

“It is kind of you to ask, but I do not require assistance,” he said regally, if unsteadily. “My wife has been seduced by the son of a Duke. I am here to take my wife back home shince I now believe her to be cured of her infatuation. The Duke and his son are that strange couple you see disporting themselves in the Canal there. I have no wish to prefer charges against them. Come, Marjorie, let us away.”

So saying he took the by then bewildered and submissive Marjorie by the hand and walked off through the crowd, leaving me with a very damp and angry Duke and his son and two courteous but interested members of the Italian police force. It took us two hours to explain what it was all about, who the Duke was, who Perry was, who I was, who Ursula was and who (if they could only have been found) Reggie and Marjorie were. In addition we had to vouchsafe all the extra information that the bureaucratic machine demands: date of birth, whether our grandmothers had in-growing toenails and so on. Eventually, limp with exhaustion, we left the Duke and his sulky son and heir, and Ursula and I repaired to a pleasant bar on the Piazza San Marco.

“Darling, I do think you handled that wonderfully,” she said, her big blue eyes melting as she gazed at me. “You handled those awful policemen with such aplumb.”

“Aplomb,” I corrected automatically.

“That as well,” she agreed. “I was so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” I said, “what’ll you have to drink?”

“I’ll have a Graffiti,” she said, “with ice.”

“Madam will have a Martini and ice and I’ll have a double brandy and soda,” I translated for the waiter.

“I’m so glad that I managed to sort out Reggie’s problem,” said Ursula, with satisfaction.

“I was under the impression that he solved his own problem.”

“Oh, no, darling,” explained Ursula. “If it hadn’t been for me and the Duke, and, of course, all your help, Reggie wouldn’t have known what to do.”

“Why don’t you stop trying to help your friends?” I asked. “Why don’t you just leave them alone?”

“You can’t just leave them alone,” said Ursula. “You don’t know what they’re going to do when you leave them alone . . . Now, you must admit that if I hadn’t taken part in the whole affair Reggie and Marjorie wouldn’t be happily together again. In this instance I was a sort of catapult.”

“Catalyst?” I suggested.

“I do wish you would stop trying to correct me, darling,” said Ursula. “I think you’re ravishing but this constant correcting becomes very irritating.”

“You think I’m ravishing?” I asked, intrigued.

“I always thought you were ravishing, but I really don’t see what that’s got to do with Reggie and Marjorie,” said Ursula hurriedly.

“Frankly, at this precise moment, I am unmoved by anything that may, or may not, happen to Reggie and Marjorie in the future. I feel they deserve each other. I feel that the Duke and his son ought to get married and, to encapsulate the whole incredibly futile affair in a nutshell, I came to Venice to enjoy myself and you are a very beautiful woman. So why don’t we stop talking about the incredibly dull landed gentry of England, and you tell me what we are going to do tonight . . . and I warn you, it’s got to be sexy.”

Ursula went pink, partly with embarrassment and partly with pleasure.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said, to my unmitigated delight. “I had thought of going to bed early.”

“Darling, you couldn’t have suggested anything better,” I exclaimed with enthusiasm.

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” she went on, bridling.

“Now that you have solved the various problems of Reggie, Marjorie, Perry and the Duke,” I said, “why don’t you relax? Come and have a disgustingly sexy dinner with me and then decide whether or not you want to spend the next two days of your stay in Venice in that squalid pension of yours or whether you want to have a bedroom the size of a ballroom overlooking the Grand Canal .”

“Oooo!” she said. “You haven’t got a bedroom looking out over the Grand Canal . . . you perfect pig .”

“Why don’t you go back to your hotel and change, and I will go back to my hotel and try to get them to resurrect this suit, and I will then pick you up at seven thirty. By that time, I feel, you can have made up your mind whether or not you are going to exchange your squalid abode for one of the finest bedrooms in Venice .”

We had a splendid dinner, and Ursula was at her best. While we dawdled over coffee and brandy, I asked her whether she had given any thought to her change of abode.

“Darling, you are romantic,” she said archly, “just like Pasadouble.”

“Who?” I asked, puzzled.

“You know, the great Italian lover,” she said.

“You don’t mean Casanova?” I asked, out of interest.

“Darling, you’re correcting me again,” pointed out Ursula, coldly.

“I’m so sorry,” I said contritely, “but I’m terribly flattered that you should think I am as romantic as Pasadouble.”

“You always were romantic in a peculiar sort of way,” said Ursula candidly. “Tell me, is your bedroom really as big as that and does it really look out over the Grand Canal ?”

“Yes to both questions,” I said ruefully, “but I must confess that I would be happier if your motivation was based on my personal charms rather than the size and site of my bedroom.”

“You are romantic,” she murmured vaguely. “Why don’t we go back to your hotel for a nightcap and look at your room?”

“What a splendid idea,” I agreed heartily. “Shall we walk?”

“Darling, now you’re being unromantic,” she said. “Let’s go by water.”

“Of course,” I said.

She insisted on a gondola, rather than a speedboat.

“You know,” she said sighing luxuriously, “I’ve only been in Venice for four nights but I’ve had a gondolier every night.”

“Don’t tell a soul,” I said, kissing her.

In her sweeping white dress she looked so attractive ihat even the gondolier (a notoriously hard-bitten and cynical breed of mammal) was impressed.

“Darling,” said Ursula, pausing theatrically in the lamp light on the jetty, “I think I’m going to enjoy our affair.”

So saying she went to get into the gondola, broke the heel off her shoe and fell head first into the Canal. I would, with only a modicum of gentlemanly concern have let her struggle out of the water on her own (since I knew she could swim like an otter), but the voluminous dress she was wearing — as soon as it got wet — wrapped itself round her legs and, doubting its weight with water, dragged her down. There was nothing for it: I had to shed my coat, kick off my shoes and go in after her. Eventually, having inadvertently drunk more of the canal water than I thought necessary or prudent, I managed to get her to shore where the gondolier helped me to land her.

“Darling, you were brave to rescue me . . . I do hope you didn’t get too wet,” she said.

“Scarcely damp,” I said, getting her into the gondola.

By the time we got to the hotel she was shivering, and so I made her take a hot bath. By the time she had done this she was running a temperature. In spite of her protests that there was nothing wrong with her I made her go to bed in my ballroom-sized bedroom. By midnight her fever was such that I was seriously worried and called a doctor, a sleepy and irritated Italian who did not appear to have ever come within spitting distance of the Hippocratic oath. He gave her some tablets and said she would be all right. The next day I procured a doctor of my own choice and discovered that Ursula had pneumonia.

I nursed her devotedly for two weeks until the medical profession agreed that she was well enough to travel. Then I took her down to the airport to see her off. As the flight was called she turned to me, her huge blue eyes brimming with tears.

“Darling, I did so enjoy our affair,” she said. “I hope you did too.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” I agreed, kissing her warm mouth.

Even Passadouble, I felt, could not have been more tactful than that.