The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

THE HAVOC OF HAVELOCK

Coming from a family which treated books as an essential ingredient of life, like air, food and water, I am always appalled at how little the average person seems to read or to have read. That the dictators of the world have always looked upon books with mistrust had appeared to me peculiar, for books, I considered, provided a myriad of friends and teachers. That books could influence people, I knew — The Origin of Species, Das Kapital, the Bible — but to what extent a book could wreak havoc was never really brought home to me until I introduced Haveloek Ellis to the Royal Palace Highclifle Hotel.

On arrival in Bournemouth, I had made my way as rapidly as possible to my favourite bookshop, H. G. Cummin in Christ-church Road . Here, in a tall, narrow house, is housed a vast and fascinating collection of new and second-hand books. On the ground floor and in the basement all the new books glare at you somewhat balefully in their multicoloured dust-jackets, but climb the creaking, uneven staircase to the four floors above, and you are transported into a Dickensian landscape. Here, from floor to ceiling in every room are amassed arrays of old books. They line the walls of the narrow staircases, they surround you, envelop you, a wonderful, warm, scented womb.

Pluck the books out; and each smells different. One smells not only of dust but of mushrooms; another, autumn woods or broom flowers in the hot sun, or roasting chestnuts; and some have the acrid, damp smell of coal burning; and others smell of honey. And then, as if smells alone were not enough, there is the feel of them in the heavy leather bindings, sleek as a seal, with the golden glitter of the type buried like a vein in the glossy spine.

Books the dimensions of a tree trunk, books as slender as a wand, books printed on paper as thick and as soft as a foxglove leaf, paper as white and as crisp as ice, or as delicate and brittle as the frost layer on a spider’s web. Then the colours of the bindings: sunsets and sunrises, autumn woods aflame, winter hills of heather; the multicoloured, marbled end-papers like some Martian cloud formation. And all this sensuous pleasure to drug and delight you before you have even examined the titles: (The Great Red Island — Madagascar; Peking to Lhasa; Through the Brazilian Wilderness; Sierra Leone — it’s People, Products and Secret Societies ), and come to the splendid moment when you open the book as you would a magic door.

Immediately the shop around you disappears and you stand, smelling the rich smell of the Amazon with Wallace, you bargain for ivory with Mary Kingsley, you face a charging gorilla with du Challu, you make love to a thousand beautiful women in a thousand novels, you march to the guillotine with Sidney Carton, you laugh with Edwardian gentlemen in a boat, you travel to China with Marco Polo; all this you do standing on the uneven, uncarpeted floor, with a magic passport in your hands, without the expenditure of a penny. Or perhaps I should say one can do this without the expenditure of a penny, but I seem incapable of entering a bookshop empty-handed or of leaving it in the same condition. Always, my cheque book is slimmer, and I generally have to order a taxi to transport my purchases.

On this particular occasion, I had already spent much more than I had intended (but who if he has any resolve in his makeup, strength in his character, can refuse to buy a book on Elephants or the Anatomy of The Gorilla?), when I suddenly saw, squatting peacefully on a shelf level with my eyes (so I could not possibly miss it) a series of volumes I had long wanted to acquire. This set was bound in a dark maroon coloured cloth and, apart from the difference in the thickness of each volume, they were identical. The title, in block, was so obscure as to be almost unreadable, and indeed I might easily have missed this Pandora’s box of books if a stray shaft of winter’s sunlight had not wandered through the dusty window at that precise moment and illuminated the volumes and their tides: The Psychology of Sex, by Havelock Ellis.

Now, anyone who studies, keeps or, most important, breeds, rare animals knows how important sex is, and the study of sexual impulses in an animal which can talk and write of its experiences and feelings — the human animal, man — is of enormous help in the study of the less articulate members of the animal kingdom. Though I possessed a fairly extensive library on the subject of human sex, it was lacking one master work for which I had been searching for some time — the classic Havelock Ellis, to a large extent now superseded by modern research but still an important early study on that subject, and certainly a wealth of information.

The young lady who helped me carry the books downstairs obviously thought that a man of my age should not be buying nine volumes on the subject of sex. John Ruston, the owner of the shop who had known me for a good many years, was more sympathetic.

“Yes,” he said, swaying to and fro like a dancing bear. “Yes, Ellis. We don’t get him in often.”

“I’ve been trying to find him for ages,” I replied. “I’m delighted.”

“It’s a nice, clean copy,” said John, with unconscious humour, picking up the volume dealing with homosexuality and examining it.

So my Havelock Ellis was packed up, together with a few last-minute purchases (who, with red blood in his veins, could resist The Speech of Monkey ; or A Slave Trader’s Journal or The Patagonians ?), and John Ruston had me driven round to the hotel where, for the next week, I devoted myself almost exclusively to Havelock, carrying him around, a volume at a time, and marking with a pencil those parts which I thought applicable to animal breeding generally. What I didn’t realize was that, at mid-winter in a nearly deserted hotel, my movements were studied by the staff about as carefully as I studied my own animals. What they saw was me deeply absorbed in a book (since all the volumes looked much the same), in which I kept marking passages as I drifted from cocktail bar to restaurant, from restaurant to deserted lounge. When they brought up my breakfast at seven-thirty, I was lying in bed reading Havelock and the night porters would find me still engrossed in him at two o’clock in the morning. Obviously there must be something about the book that kept me riveted and silent for such long periods.

I was totally unaware of the interest that my absorption with Havelock was arousing, until Luigi, the Italian barman, said to me:

“That seems to be a very interesting book you are reading, Mr Durrell.”

“It is,” I said vaguely. “ Havelock Ellis.”

He said no more, not wishing to confess that he did not know who Havelock Ellis was. Then Stephen Grump, the Viennese Under-Manager, said to me:

“That seems to be an interesting book you are reading.”

“Yes,” I said. “ Havelock Ellis.”

He, too, not wishing to appear ignorant, merely nodded his head wisely.

So enchanted was I, not only by the research work that Havelock had done, but by the character that seemed to emerge from his prose — earnest, pedantic, humourless, as only Americans can be when they take a subject seriously; an omelette made up of the meticulousness of a Prussian officer, the earnestness of a Swedish artist, and the cautiousness of a Swiss banker — that I was oblivious of the fact that all around there were people who were dying to know what I was reading. The dull red cover, the almost undecipherable title, gave them no clue. Then one day, quite by accident, my secret was out, and immediately pandemonium broke loose on a scale that I had rarely seen equalled. It all happened quite innocently in the restaurant, where I was reading Havelock as I demolished an avocado pear and an excellent lasagne (for the restaurant was exclusively run by Italians though some of the kitchen staff were English). In between mouthfuls of pasta heavily laced with Parmesan cheese, I was reading Havelock on the different aspects of beauty in women, and what attracts and does not attract in different parts of the world. I came to a phrase used in Sicily which I suspected would provide much food for thought if only I had the remotest idea what it meant.

Irritatingly, Havelock assumed that everyone spoke fluent Italian and so there was no footnote with a translation. I puzzled over the phrase for a moment and then recalled that the head waiter, Innocenzo, was from Sicily . Little realizing I was setting alight the fuse that led to a powder keg, I called him over to my table.

“Is everything all right?” he enquired, his large hazel eyes flashing round the table to make sure.

“Delicious,” I said. “But that’s not what I called you for. You said you came from Sicily, didn’t you?”

“Yes, from Sicily,” he nodded.

“Well, can you just translate that for me?” I asked, pointing to the relevant passage.

It had a curious and quite unprecedented effect on him. His eyes widened unbelievingly as he read. Then he glanced at me, walked away from the table a few steps in embarrassment, came back, read the passage again, looked at me, and retreated from the table as though I had suddenly grown another head.

“What is that book?” he asked me.

“ Havelock Ellis. The Psychology of Sex. ”

“You read it now for one week,” he said accusingly, as though he’d caught me in some underhand dealing.

“Well, there are nine volumes,” I protested.

“Nine?” he exclaimed. “Nine ? All on sex?”

“Yes. It’s a big subject. But what I’m interested in is whether this is true. Is this what you say about women in Sicily ?”

“Me? No, no !” said Innocenzo, hurriedly, living up to his name. “Me, I never say that,”

“Never?” I asked, disappointed,

“Maybe sometimes my grandfather may have said it,” said Innocenzo, “but not now. Oh, no, no! Not now .” He gazed at the books fascinated. “You say this man write nine books?” he asked again. “All on the sex?”

“Yes,” I said. “Every aspect of it.”

“And this is what you are reading all this week?”

“Yes.”

“So now you are an expert,” he said, laughing embarrassedly.

“No, he’s the expert. I’m just learning.”

“Nine books,” he repeated wonderingly, and then dragged his mind back to his job. “You want some cheese, Mr Durrell?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “Just some more wine.”

He brought a bottle, uncorked it, and poured out a drop for me to taste, his eyes fixed fascinatedly on the book. I approved the wine, and he poured it out.

“Nine books,” he mused, carefully untwisting the cork from the corkscrew. “Nine books on sex. Mama Mia! ”

“Yes,” I concluded. “ Havelock did the job properly.” Innocenzo left me, and I returned to Havelock, earnest and meticulous in his investigations among the hot-blooded Sicilians. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my hot-blooded Sicilian had passed on to the waiters the news that Mr Durrell possessed nine volumes on sex, surely a record for any hotel guest. The news spread through the hotel like fire through summer gorse-land. When I returned from a shopping expedition that afternoon, two of the porters rushed to open the doors of the hotel for me, and behind the desk not one but four receptionists blinded me with their smiles, their faces as pretty as a flower-bed. I was somewhat startled by all this sudden enthusiasm, but, in my innocence, did not connect it with my owning Havelock Ellis. I went up to my room, ordered some tea, and lay on the bed reading. Presently, my tea was brought to me by the floor waiter, Gavin, a tall, slender boy with a delicate profile, a mop of blond hair like the unkempt mane of a Palomino, and large blue eyes.

“Afternoon,” he said, his eyes fixed on my book.

“Good afternoon, Gavin,” I said. “Just bung it on the table, will you?”

He put the tea on the table and then stood looking at me.

“Yes?” I asked. “Do you want something?”

“Is that your dirty book, then?”

“Dirty book!” I replied, indignantly. “This is Havelock Ellis; the definitive work on the psychology of sex. Dirty book, indeed!”

“Well, that’s wot I mean,” said Gavin. “Sex.”

“Sex — contrary to what the English think — is not dirty,” I pointed out, with some asperity.

“Naw, well . . . you know . . . I know it’s not,” said Gavin. “But, well . . . Imeantersay . . . everyone else thinks so, don’t they?”

“Fortunately, there is a small minority that holds other views,” I retorted. “You among them, I trust.”

“Oh, yeah. Imeantersay, I’m all in favour of it, like. What I say is, let everyone do what they like, more or less,” said Gavin, adding, “providing it’s not somefing you’re not supposed to do . . . you know, like drugging girls and sending them off to Buenos Aires and places like that . . . that sort of thing.”

“Yes, even in sex one should have fair play,” I agreed gravely.

He twisted the napkin he carried in his hands and sighed gustily. It was obvious that he had a problem.

“Wot’s it say, then?” he asked at last.

“About what?”

“About sex, of course.”

“Which particular aspect?”

“Wot you mean? Aspect?” he asked, puzzled.

“Well, do you want to know about ordinary sex, or lesbianism, homosexuality, sadism, masochism, onanism?”

“ ’Ere!” interrupted Gavin. “Does ’e write about all those? Honest?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s all sex in one shape or form.”

“Gawd Almighty!” exclaimed Gavin, with feeling. “Yeah . . . well, I suppose you’re right. Live and let live is wot I say.”

“Quite.”

Gavin tied a knot in the napkin and beat it against the palm of his hand. It was obvious he was dying to ask something.

“Have you a problem?” I asked.

Gavin jumped.

“Who me?” he cried, backing away towards the door. “No, no! I’ve got no problem. Not me. Not a problem,”

“So, Dr Havelock Ellis can’t help you?” I enquired.

“Oh, no,” said Gavin. “Imeantersay . . . I got no problems. Not like wot some people ’ave . . . I’ll be back for your tray presently. All right?”

He made a hasty exit.

By now, I judged, the whole hotel would be throbbing, as a jungle throbs with talking drums, with the news of Havelock Ellis. I sipped my tea and waited expectantly. Within the hour, Gavin was back.

“Enjoy your tea?” he asked.

He’d never asked this before.

“Yes, thank you,” I said, and waited.

There was a pause while he juggled the tea tray dexterously on to one palm.

“Read any more, then?” he asked at last.

“A few pages.”

He blew out his cheeks and sighed.

“I suppose it’s a good book to read if you’ve got . . . well, problems?”

“Very soothing,” I said. “He treats everything sensibly, and doesn’t give you a guilt complex.”

“Yeah, well . . . that’s good. It’s bad to have a complex, isn’t it?”

“Detrimental. Very detrimental.”

Silence fell. He shifted the tray from his right hand to his left.

“Yeaa . . .” he said, thoughtfully. “I got a friend wot’s got a complex.”

“Really? What sort of complex?”

“Well, it’s sort of difficult to explain, like; he’s quite a good-looking fella, like . . . Well, Imeantersay, ’e’s not bad-looking, ya know. I mean, all the girls like ’im. In fact, to tell ya the truth, there’s, er, two of ’em wot’s come ta blows over ’im,” he said, with modest satisfaction. “Two of them Portuguese chambermaids . . . Yea, didn’t arf hurt each other. Pulled each other’s hair and punching each other. ’Ot tempered, these foreigners are, don’t ya think?”

“Very,” I said. “Is that your friend’s problem? Too many hot-blooded Portuguese girls to take to bed?”

“No, no! No . . . no . . . it’s not that. ’E don’t like ’em, see.”

“You mean, he’s got a girl-friend already?”

“No, no! Wot I’m saying . . . ’e don’t like girls, see?” he blurted out, desperately. “I mean ta say, ’e doesn’t like . . . well, you know . . . muckin’ about with ’em.”

“You mean he likes boys?” I asked.

He reddened.

“Well, no . . . I mean . . . well, ’e says ’e’s . . . you know, mucked about with a few boys and . . . well, ’e says . . .”

His voice trailed away uncertainly.

“He says he prefers them to girls?” I enquired.

“Well . . . yeah . . . sort of. That’s wot ’e says .”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. Does It worry him?”

“You mean, it’s all right being . . . sorta queer, like?” he asked.

“If you’re born like that, it’s no sin. You can’t help it, any more than you can help the colour of your eyes.”

“Oh,” he said, struck by this thought. “No . . . I suppose ya can’t really.”

“Would your friend like to borrow Havelock Ellis and see what he says about homosexuality?”

“I expect he would,” said Gavin, but slightly defensively. “I should think he probably would. I’ll . . . um, ask ’im, like, and let you know.”

“You wouldn’t like to take it now, just in case?”

“Well,” he said, his eyes fastened on the book I held out. “Well, I might just take it an’. . . if ’e doesn’t want to read it . . . well, I’ll . . . I’ll just bring it back. All right?”

“All right,” I said. “Tell him not to spill beer all over it.”

“Oh, no,” he said, as he made for the door with the book under his arm. “I won’t do that.”

The door closed behind my first patient.

On the fifth morning, Gavin brought my breakfast up to me. He entered the room jauntily.

“Well?” I asked. “Did your friend derive any comfort from the book?”

“My friend?” asked Gavin, blankly, “Yes. Your friend with the complex.”

“Oh, ’im . . . Yes, well . . . ’e said it was very interesting. I took a glance at it meself. Very interesting. Imeantersay, ’e writes about it . . . well, sensible. I mean, ’e doesn’t sorta say your a bloody poof, or anything.”

“As it should be,” I agreed, sipping my tea.

“Yeah,” said Gavin. “I’ll tell you wot, though — all of them receptionists aren’t arf worked up about that bit wot ’e says in there abaht lesbians.”

“You lent it to them?” I asked. “You realize that if the manager catches you, I shall be thrown out and you’ll lose your job for peddling pornographic literature.”

“Naw, ’e won’t catch me,” said Gavin, with fine scorn.

“Well, what did the receptionists say?” I enquired, wondering if it would ever be safe for me to venture downstairs again.

“Ya know Sandra? The blonde one? The one wot’s quite good looking? Well, she shares a flat with Mary . . . Mary, the one wot’s rather fat, with glasses. Well, after reading wot ’e says in that book, Sandra says she’s goin’ to get ’er own flat. She says she wondered why Mary always wanted to scrub ’er back in the bath, and now she knows, and she’s not ’aving none of that. Mary’s ever so cut up about it . . . crying all over the place and saying she’s not a lesbian. She says it’s very difficult for people to keep their own backs clean, and she’s only trying to be ’elpful; but Sandra says she’s got enough trouble with ’er boy-friends without ’aving Mary in the bath with ’er.”

“She’s got a point there,” I said, judiciously. “And what about the other two?”

“Aw, well, ol’ Miss ’Emps, she says she’d share a flat with Mary, cos she liked having ’er back scrubbed and didn’t see any ’arm in it. And Sandra said Miss ’Emps was tryin’ to seduce Mary, and so Miss ’Emps got ever so angry an’ said she’d rather have ’er back scrubbed by a girl than ’er front scrubbed by a man, which is wot Sandra seemed to like. So Sandra got livid and said she was just as much a virgin as Miss ’Emps, but she stayed that way ’cos she wanted to, while Miss ’Emps was virgin ’cos she ’ad to be. So none of ’em is speaking to each other now.”

“I’m not surprised,” I observed. “Don’t you think you ought to take them the volume on pure motherhood?”

“Naw, they’ll be all right,” said Gavin. “Does ’em good, a bit of a row; clears the air.”

“But it also deprives Mary of her one pleasurable activity,” I pointed out.

“She’ll be all right,” said Gavin. “They’re all going to a party tonight, so that’ll be OK for ’em.”

“Are you going to this party?” I asked, hoping for a firsthand report.

“Naw,” said Gavin, looking me in the eye with a certain pugnacity. “I’m goin’ out with me friend, Rupert.”

“Well, have a good time.”

“You bet I will,” said Gavin, as he swaggered from the room. Later that day, when I went to cash a cheque at the reception desk, they were all red-eyed and tight-lipped. I was treated with a frigid courtesy that would have intimidated a polar bear. However, Havelock had not yet completed the full cycle of havoc. Soon I had a steady flow of patients. There was the young porter, Dennis, a nice but regrettably unattractive Scots lad, made more so by two physical defects. He had a speech impediment and a fine and fiery relief-map of acne across his face, from which his round brown eyes peered shyly. He brought me a telegram and then stood fidgeting in the doorway.

“N-n-n-no reply, sir?” he asked.

“No thank you, Dennis.”

“Is there anything else I c-c-can g-g-get you, sir?”

“Not at the moment. Not unless you have an exceptionally pretty sister of loose morals.”

“N-n-n-no, sir. My sister’s m-m-married, sir.”

“Good for her,” I said, heartily. “It’s nice to know that the old institution’s still surviving. It’s as heart-warming as finding a dinosaur.”

“That b-b-b-book you lent Gavin, sir . . . Does it say much about m-m-marriage, sir?”

“ Havelock says a lot about marriage,” I said. “What had you in mind?”

“Does he say anything about p-p-p-prop-p-posing, sir?”

“Proposing maniage? Well, I’m not sure. I don’t think he gives any definite instructions. It’s more a general account of how to behave after you’re married.”

“But you h-h-have to p-p-p-propose first, sir,” he pointed out.

“Of course. But that’s easy enough. Who do you have in mind to propose to?”

“S-s-s-s-s-andra,” he said, and my heart sank. Sandra was the last girl for him, even if he looked a million dollars which, with his acne and his chin covered with yellow down like a newly-hatched pigeon, he certainly did not, Add to this his impediment, and his chances of winning Sandra’s hand were about equal to his chances of becoming Prime Minister.

“Well, it’s simple enough,” I said heartily. “You take her out, give her a good time, and then, at the end of the evening, you pop the question. Simple. It’s after she says ‘yes’ that your difficulties begin.”

“I’ve got s-s-s-spots,” said Dennis, dolefully.

“Everyone’s got spots,” I replied. “I’m not going to disrobe for you, but I’ve got spots all over my whole back. It looks like an aerial photograph of the higher peaks of the Andes .”

“That’s on your b-b-b-back,” pointed out Dennis. “M-m-mine are on my f-f-face.”

“It’s scarcely noticeable,” I lied. “I wouldn’t have seen them if you hadn’t drawn my attention to them.”

“I s-s-stammer,” he said. “How can you p-p-p-propose if you s-s-stammer?”

“A slight impediment,” I reassured him firmly. “When you come to the great moment, you’ll be so excited you’ll forget to stammer.”

“I b-b-blush, too,” went on Dennis, determined to lay out all his faults for my examination.

“Everyone blushes,” I pointed out. “Even I blush, but you can’t see it because of my beard and moustache. It shows a nice, delicate nature. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Actually Havelock has a bit about blushing in volume eight.”

“Does he s-s-say anything about s-s-s-stammering and s-s-spots?” asked Dennis, hopefully.

“Not spots. That’s really not his scene. Do you want to borrow this to read what he says?”

“Yes, p-p-please,” said Dennis, eagerly.

He seized volume eight and scuttled off with it. The whole interview had left me feeling as limp as a psychiatrist at the end of a heavy day. I hoped that Havelock would produce a panacea for Dennis, for he was a nice, earnest boy, but I doubted it; the dice were too heavily loaded against him.

The next person to seek the advice of Havelock was Giovanni, one of the restaurant waiters, a tall, handsome, sleek, dark man, like a well-groomed antelope with melting eyes. He looked so supremely full of self-confidence that it was hard to believe he had any problems at all, let alone sexual ones. But he waited one lunch time until I had lingered rather long over my meal and was the last person in the restaurant, then took up a station within six feet of my table and stared fixedly at me until I stopped writing.

“Yes?” I sighed. “What’s your problem, Giovanni?”

“Well,” he said, coming forward eagerly. “I justa wanta aska you . . . thata book, er . . . she tells you about sadism?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why? Do you feel an overwhelming urge to beat up Innocenzo?”

“No, no! It’s notta me. It is-a my girl-friend.”

“Oh,” I said cautiously. “What’s the problem?”

He glanced around furtively to make sure we were alone.

“She bitas,” he said, in a hushed whisper.

“She bites?”

“Yessa.”

“She bites what?” I asked, slightly confused, as this was the last thing I had expected.

“She bita me,” he explained.

“Oh!” I felt somewhat at a loss, for even Havelock had not prepared me for a girl who bit large Italian waiters. “What does she bite you for?”

“She say I tasta good,” he said, solemnly.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. Itta hurts,” he pointed out. “Soma-tima I’m afrald she bita veina, and I bleeds to death.”

“Surely not. You couldn’t bleed to death from a few love-bites.”

“It is notta few love-bitas,” he said, indignantly. “She issa sadism.

“A sadist,” I corrected.

“She’s thatta too,” he agreed.

“But love-bites are very common,” I explained. “They are really a sign of affection, of love.”

He glanced round once more to make sure we were alone, then unbuttoned his shirt.

“Issa thissa love, or is she sadism?” he enquired, displaying to me a chest covered with an astrakhan-like pelt of fur, through which could be seen several neat red circles of teeth marks. In several places the skin had been broken, and at one point a piece of sticking-plaster was applied.

“Well, it may be painful,” I commented, “but I don’t really think it qualifies as sadism.”

“No?” he queried, indignantly. “Whatta you wanta that she should do? Eata me?”

“Why don’t you bite her back?” I suggested.

“I cannot do. She would not like it.”

He certainly seemed to have a problem and his chief problem was that he had no idea what a real sadist was.

“Would you like to borrow the book that talks about sadism?” I asked. “Would that help?”

“Yessa,” he beamed. “Then I reada it to her, and she will see she is a sadism.”

Well, I wouldn’t read it all to her,” I said, in a precautionary way. “After all, you don’t want to start her on whips and things.”

“I reada it first,” he said, after a moment’s thought.

“Yes, I would just censor it first if I were you. I’ll bring it down this evening, Giovanni.”

“Thanka you, Mr Durrell,” he said, and bowed me out while re-buttoning his shirt.

Two days later, he returned the book, looking worried.

“Is all aright,” he whispered.

“Good,” I said. “What happened?”

“She thoughta when I’m reading her these things he say, thata I wants to do it to her. So she say, ‘no, no way’. So I say ‘you willa give up being sadism, and I willa too’.”

“And she agreed?”

“Yessa. She agree.”

“And does it work?”

“Lasts night,” he said, closing one eye and looking at me. “Lasta night, she was gentle like a bird, like a beautiful bird . . . so softa.”

“Very nice,” I said.

“No. She is angry with me.”

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“She was so beautiful, so softa, so gentle, that I bit-a her,” he confessed. “Now she say she no sleepa with me again.”

“She’ll change her mind,” I reassured him, comfortingly. But he looked doubtful, and by the time I left the hotel his beautiful biter had not given in to his importuning.

In the unfortunate case of the kitchen porter and the cellar-man, I was, quite unwittingly (with the aid of Havelock), the cause of some upset, of which, I am glad to say, the only really detrimental aspect was that the soup of the day, minestrone, was burnt black. It started because I’d found a short-cut through the cellars underneath the hotel, which led me straight out on to the cliffs instead of having to walk along miles of road. Here, since my short-cut led past the dustbins, I would frequently meet the kitchen porter or the cellarman. The porter was a nice Irish lad, with a lazy smile, very blue eyes, a crop of auburn hair and a face freckled as thickly as a blackbird’s egg. In direct contrast, the cellarman was a rather dark, saturnine individual, whose face, in repose, looked sulky but was transfigured when he smiled. He had a most attractive, deep, husky voice with a real Dorset accent. The news of my apparent endless fund of sexual knowledge (as represented by Havelock Ellis), filtered down into the cellars and both these attractive young men brought their troubles to me. The first one was the cellarman, David.

“You see, sur,” he confessed, blushing slightly. “I think she’s bloody wonderful. ’ Ur knows I do; ’ ur knows I want to marry ’ ur . But ’ ur won’ let me do it, sur. Not no which way. But ’ ur durn’t want me to do it with anyone else, see? Not tha’ I want to, understand? But what I say is, either she do it wi’ me, or I does it wi’ some’un else. Fair’s fair, sur, don’ you think?”

“She thinks abstinence makes the heart grow fonder,” I said, and regretted it when he gave me a reproachful look.

“It’s no jokin’ matter, stir. It’s gettin’ me down, “onest. I wunnered if thur was anythin’ in your book, like, I could give ’ ur to read? Sort of, well . . . encourage ’ ur, I suppose.”

“I’ll lend you the volume on sexual education and abstinence,” I promised. “Though I don’t guarantee the results.”

“Of course not, sur. I unnerstand,” he said. “I jus’ want somethin’ to git ’ ur started, like.”

So I lent him volume six.

Next, I was approached by the auburn-haired Michael. He had exactly the same problem with his girl-friend. I reflected that we were supposed to live in a promiscuous and permissive society, and yet everyone in the hotel seemed to behave like early Victorians. Certainly the girls appeared to cling to their maidenheads with the tenacity of limpets.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the queue, Michael,” I said. “I have just lent the volume you want to David.”

“Oh, him. Sure, he’s a bloody wash-out,” said Michael. “I didn’t even know he had a girl. He doesn’t even look as though he’d the strength for a pee, let alone anything else.”

“Well, he has a girl, and he’s suffering just as you are. So, show some sympathy.”

“It’s sympathy I’m needing,” he replied. “This girl’s driving me mad. She’s ruining me health. Even me religion is suffering and that’s a terrible thing to do to an Irishman.”

“How is she affecting your religion?” I asked, astonished by this revelation.

“Sure, an’ I’ve nothing to confess,” he said, indignantly.”And Father O’Malley won’t believe me. The other day, he asked me what I had to confess, and when I said ‘nothing, Father’, he told me to say fifty Hail Marys for lying. The shame of it!”

“I’ll give you the book the moment I get it back,” I promised. “With luck, it might help you and David.”

How was I to know that they were courting the same girl, since neither of them knew it either?

I had been for a walk along the cliffs, visiting that monstrously macabre monument to bad taste, the Russell Coates Museum and Art Gallery, and was taking my short-cut back into the hotel when I came upon an arresting tableau. Michael and David faced each other, each puce in the face, Michael with a bleeding nose and David with a cut on his forehead, being held back from attacking each other again by the rotund chef and his second-in-command. Face downwards on the ground lay my precious copy of Havelock, and nearby lay the trampled, blood-stained chef’s hat and the wickedly sharp meat cleaver. I rescued my book as the two antagonists still strained to get at each other and yelled abuse. I gathered, from the in-coherent mouthings of both of them, that Michael had been shown Havelock by his girl-friend and, knowing it could only have come from one source, had laid in wait for David and chased him with the meat cleaver. David, being agile, had dodged the cleaver, hit Michael on the nose, and run for it. Michael had flung a bottle at him and hit him on the forehead. Before they could get to grips, however, they had been pulled apart by the two chefs.

“Don’t you think you are behaving stupidly?” I enquired.

“Stupidly?” roared Michael. “With that creeping Protestant toad giving filthy books to my Angela!”

“Your Angela!” snarled David. “ ’ Ur ’s not your Angela; ’ ur ’s as good as said she’ll marry me. An’ it’s not a filthy book, neither. It’s Mr Durrell’s.”

“She wouldn’t marry you, you Protestant carrion. And if that’s not a filthy book, may I never breathe again,” said Michael. “If you’ll excuse me sayin’ so, Mr Durrell, you ought to feel a wave of shame, so you ought, at having helped this conniving bastard to try and despoil one of the fairest and daintiest girls I’ve ever seen outside Ireland . May God strike me dead if it’s not the truth.”

“But you wanted to borrow the book to give to Angela yourself,” I pointed out.

“Sure! An’ it’s all right for me; I’m her fiancé,” said Michael.

I knew better than to argue with Irish logic.

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t mind you fighting and killing each other; that’s your affair. You’re both equally guilty, since you both wanted the book for the purpose of getting Angela to bed. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I will not have my property flung about like this. If I report this to the manager, then you’d both get the sack and neither of you would be able to many Angela. Anyway, I don’t think either of you stand a chance. I saw her out at dinner last night with Nigel Merryweather.”

Nigel was a handsome young director of the hotel.

“Nigel Merryweather?” said Michael. “That swine! What’s she doin’ with him?”

“Merryweather?” said David. “She said ’ ur didn’t like ’im.”

“Yes,” agreed Michael. “She said he made her feel sick.”

“Well, there you are,” I concluded. “It looks as though you’ve both had it.”

“That settles it,” said Michael. “I’ve finished with women. Like a bleedin’ monk I’ll be livin’ from now on.”

“After all I did for ’ ur,” complained David. “To play me false with Merryweather, who makes ’ ur feel sick, like she told me.”

A strong smell of burning now started to emanate from the kitchen.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” said Michael.

“My minestrone! My minestrone! You bloody bog Irish,” screamed the chef, and he grabbed Michael’s arm and hauled him back into the kitchen at a run.

The second chef, Charlie, a rubicund cockney from Hammersmith, relinquished his hold on the other heart-broken lover.

“I don’t know what to think about ’ ur, I really don’t,” said David.

“Don’t think,” I advised. “Go and have a drink and tell Luigi to put it on my bill.”

“You’re very kind, sur,” he said, brightening, as he moved towards the upper floors and the bar.

“Lucky you came along when you did,” said Charlie, when David had disappeared. “They were all set to kill each other, silly idiots — using a bleedin’ meat cleaver, an’ all.”

“Tell me,” I asked, “who is Angela?”

Charlie stared at me for a moment. “You mean to say.” he began. Then he started to laugh.

“Well, I had to say something,” I explained, “or we’d have been here all day.”

“An’ I suppose you. never seen no Nigel Merryweather neither?” he chortled.

“I haven’t seen him,” I said, “but I was told he was the most handsome of the younger directors, with something of an eye for the girls, and no shortage of cash.”

“Quite right,” said Charlie. “A regular gun dog, ’e is.”

“Gun dog?” I asked, puzzled.

“Ah, yes, you know, always after the birds,”

“Yes,” I agreed. Gun dog. What a good description. Well, all’s well that ends well.”

“Tell me,” said Charlie. Wot was that book they was all so excited about?”

I explained. “It’s an excellent series of volumes when used properly,” I said, “but in this place, everyone who reads them seems to go berserk.”

“Would it give advice on marriage in wot one would call an . . . intimate way?” asked Charlie, a pensive look in his eye.

My heart sank. “Well . . . yes,” I said, “but you must remember that it’s sort of a text-book really.”

“Yes,” went on Charlie. “It might be just wot I want. A textbook — like a school-book, you might say?”

“Oh, dear. Are you sure?”

“Well,” said Charlie confidentially. “Me an’ the missus ’aven’t been rubbin’ along too sharp recently. She’s been a bit depressed, like — an’ a bit naggy, if you get my meaning. Nothin’s right. She went to see one of those blue phonographic films a couple o’ weeks back, an’ now she says I don’t do it right. She says it’s the same old way every time and it’s drivin’ ’er mad. She says I ’aven’t got no imagination. I told ’er she wasn’t no Kama-bleedin’-Sutra, neither — but she says it’s all my fault.”

“Well, it could be.”

“Now, this book of yours . . . does it tell you about them things? You know, different ways, and such like?”

“Yes,” I said, cautiously.

“Well, then — can I borrow it for a bit?” he pleaded. “To improve me technique, like?”

How could I resist this pudgy, middle-aged man pleading for the text-book to improve his passionate overtures to his wife? It would have been sheer cruelty.

“All right,” I said, resignedly. “I’ll lend you volume two.”

“Thank you, sir.” He grinned. “Con I’ll bet this’ll liven the old girl up. I’ll bet she’ll be ever so pleased.”

He was wrong. Two days later, as I was having lunch, he limped out of the kitchen and came over to my table, carrying volume two. His right eye was half-closed and swollen and of an interesting series of colours ranging from purple on his cheekbone to scarlet and pink around his eyebrow.

“Hello,” I said. “What have you done to your eye?”

He laid Havelock on the table with care.

“I never done it,” he said. “It’s the old woman wot’s done it. After all that nag, nag about bleedin’ sex, she up and catches me a wollop like a bleedin’ pile-driver. And d’you know why, sir?”

“Why?” I asked, fascinated.

He sighed, the weary sigh of a man faced by a woman’s logic. “ ’Cos I brought a dirty book into the house, sir. That’s why,” he said.

I decided that Havelock had caused quite enough problems and so I would call in all the volumes I had out on loan. Besides, I was leaving in twenty-four hours and, such was the success of Havelock as light reading, I was afraid that I might not get all the books back.

I had just been round the hotel leaving messages for Dennis, Gavin and Stella (a chambermaid who was worried about her boy-friend: “All ’e ever thinks about is sex. Honest, ’e doesn’t even take an interest in football.”), when I ran into the manager, Mr Weatherstone-Thompson.

“Ah! Good afternoon, Mr Durrell,” he said. “I understand that you are leaving us the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, alas,” I said, “I have to get back to Jersey .”

“Of course, of course, you must be so busy with all your gorillas and things,” he laughed unctuously. “But we have enjoyed having you here.”

“And I’ve enjoyed being here,” I replied, backing towards the lift.

“And the staff will all miss you,” said Mr Weatherstone-Thompson, adroitly getting between me and the lift, “and I they will even miss your little . . . Ha, ha! . . . library.”

I groaned inwardly, Mr Weatherstone-Thompson was an overweight, wheezing, always-slightly-moist fifty, who smelt strongly of whisky, Parma violets and cheap cigars. He was married to a suicide blonde (dyed by her own hand) some twenty-five years his junior. She did not just have an eye for the men, she had a seine net out for them. Mr Weatherstone-Thompson had problems, but I was not going to let him borrow Havelock to solve them. Skilfully, I got round him and in line with the lift again.

“Oh, yes, Havelock Ellis,” I said. “A most interesting series of volumes.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” said Mr Weatherstone-Thompson eagerly. “I was wondering if perhaps, when the rest of the staff have finished . . . er . . . drinking at this fountain of knowledge, if I might . . .”

“Oh, what a pity!” I said, remorsefully. “You should have told me before. I’ve just packed them up and sent them on ahead to Jersey .”

His disappointment was pathetic, but I hardened my heart. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, well. Never mind. It can’t be helped. What I always say is that that sort of book is interesting in its way, but really, if you’re an experienced man like you and I are . . . well, there’s not much it can teach us.”

“No, indeed,” I said, “I should think it would take more than a book to add to your knowledge.”

Mr Weatherstone-Thompson laughed and his eyes brightened as he mentally reviewed his imaginary prowess.

“Well, I’ll not deny I’ve had my moments,” he said, chuckling.

“I’m sure you have,” I agreed, as I got into the lift. “In fact. you should be writing the books, not reading them.”

I left him (Casanova, Mark Antony, Ramon Navarro rolled into one) laughing protestingly at my compliment to his powers as a seducer.

By the following morning I had retrieved all my Havelock Ellis except the one I had lent to Gavin. Havelock, I found, was still weaving his spell. Dennis confessed that he was now thoroughly confused. Before Havelock, he had always thought there was only one sort of sex and that was chaste and pure. Stella said that, instead of Havelock making her boy-friend take an interest in football, it made him worse than ever, and she had had a terrible time the previous night retaining her virginity.

It only remained to get back the volume I had lent Gavin. This was the one dealing with normal sex, since Gavin had been working his way steadily through all nine volumes. They told me that he had gone up to Sheffield for the week-end but was due back the Monday morning I was supposed to leave.

The morning of my departure dawned bright and clear and I was awakened by the door of the passage-way leading into the suite opening, followed by a thump. Then the door closed again. I thought perhaps they had brought my breakfast.

“Come in,” I called sleepily, but there was no response. I decided it was probably some over-enthusiastic chambermaid, waiting to do out the room at the crack of dawn, rolled over and went back to sleep again.

It was not until I got up later to go and have a bath that I saw the copy of Havelock Ellis lying just inside the doorway in the hall. So it had been Gavin I had heard, returning volume eight. As I picked it up, a note fell out.

“Thanks for book,” it said. “Wish I’d never borrowed the bloody thing. Lent it to Rupert and got back to find him in my bed with a girl. Am giving up sex. Yours truly, Gavin.”

Havelock, game to the last, had struck his final blow.