“Well, that’s the last village on this coast that I’m going to visit, and as it’s my birthday I feel that somebody ought to take my wishes into consideration,” said Mother.
“But of course, Muzzer dear,” said Max. “We vill now find you a nice place to eat.”
The anchor was pulled in, the engine was started, and above the reverberating chug-chug-chug of the engine we could hear the villagers shouting good wishes and clapping as we headed on our way down the coast.
At lunch time we found an enchanting long beach of soft white sand and as Taki, the previous evening, had put his lines out and caught some kefalia, Spiro built a charcoal fire on the beach and grilled these delicious fish.
Sven, Donald and Max, still worried by the fact that they had nothing concrete to give Mother for her birthday, concocted a sort of entertainment for her. Sven, who was a sculptor, constructed an enormous nude woman out of damp sand, which Mother was forced to admire, and he then played his accordion for her, fortunately not choosing Bach but playing quite gay and sprightly tunes.
Donald and Max went into a huddle and presently they consulted in a secretive manner with Sven, who nodded his head vigorously.
“We’re now,” said Donald to Mother, “going to dance an old Austrian dance for you.”
This, from the incredibly British and normally introvert Donald, came as such a surprise that even Larry was speechless. Sven crashed into an exceedingly vivid piece of music which was not unlike a mazurka, and the tall and gangling Max and the medium-sized, pale-faced Donald solemnly bowed to each other and then, holding hands, proceeded to dance. To our astonishment they did it remarkably well, prancing and twirling on the sand, with complicated moments where they had to slap each other’s knees and hands and then leap in the air and slap their legs, and other intricate manoeuvres of this sort. They reminded me irresistably of the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle dancing the Lobster Quadrille in Alice in Wonderland. When they came to the end of their dance, so good was it that we all spontaneously burst out clapping, whereupon, beaming and perspiring profusely, they gave us an encore with a different tune.
After our corps de ballet had had a swim to cool off, we all lay on the sand and ate delicious, succulent fish with the lovely smoky, charcoaly flavour on their charred skins, and rounded off the meal with a variety of fruits.
“Well, that really was a lovely birthday lunch,” said Mother. “I did enjoy it. And Sven’s playing and Donald and Max’s dancing made it absolutely complete.”
“Ve’ll have a birzday dinner,” said Max. “Let’s go on to anozzer beach and have a birzday dinner.”
So once again we got ourselves on the boat and headed off down the coast. The sun was just setting and the sky was beautifully smeared with red and green and gold when we came to what seemed to be the ideal spot. It was a tiny, rounded bay with a small beach surrounded by towering cliffs which glowed almost tangerine orange in the setting sun’s light.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” said Mother.
“Here ve’ll have de birzday dinner,” said Max.
It really was a breathtakingly beautiful spot in the dying rays of the sun.
Spiro had told Taki that we would make this our landfall for the night. It was unfortunate, however, that it was a bay that Taki had never been into before and so he did not realise that across one part of it was a sand bar. He nosed the benzina into the bay at a fair speed and so was upon the sand bar before he realised it. We came to a sudden and shuddering halt. At that precise moment Mother was standing in the stern admiring the sunset and so the boat’s sudden halt threw her off balance and she fell overboard. Now, although she did occasionally deign to lie in shallow water in very hot weather, she could not swim. This everybody, with the exception of Taki, knew. So in unison the entire company leapt overboard to rescue her — including Spiro, who simply adored Mother but who couldn’t swim either. The result was complete and utter chaos.
Donald and Max dived on top of each other and banged their heads together. Leonora, in diving, caught her foot on the side of the boat and gave it a nasty gash. Margo, under the impression that Mother was under the water instead of on top of it, dived deep and searched frantically for her body until her breath ran out and she was forced to surface. It was Leslie and Mactavish who seized Mother, for Larry had suddenly realised that Spiro could not swim and he was going down for the third time when Larry rescued him. But all the time he was sinking and rising in the water, Spiro was shouting, “Don’ts you worry; Mrs Durrells, don’ts you worrys!” in between spitting out great mouthfuls of seawater.
Leslie and Mactavish towed the panting, spluttering Mother to the shallow water of the sand bar where she could sit and cough up the seawater she had imbibed so freely, and Larry towed Spiro there so that he could do the same. Then, when they had recovered sufficiently, we got them back on board and had to give Mother a stiff brandy to recover from the shock and to give Spiro a stiff brandy for him to recover from the shock of seeing Mother falling into the water.
“Gollys, Mrs Durrells,” he said, “I thoughts you’d be drowns.”
“I thought exactly the same thing,” said Mother. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in such deep water in my life.”
“Neithers have I,” said Spiro seriously.
With the united efforts of us all pushing from the sand bar and Taki putting the engine into reverse, we got the benzina free and Taki, having examined the lay of the land, turned it slightly and we got into the bay without any further difficulty.
We lit a fire on the beach and ate octopus and tiny cuttlefish that had been ensconced in the ice-box and followed this up with cold chicken and fruit.
“You see what a good idea it was,” said Larry, stuffing a great tentacle of octopus into his mouth, “to bring the ice-box.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mother, “I didn’t think it was a good idea at the time, but it has turned out to be very successful, although of course the ice is melting much more quickly on board the boat than it would do in the villa.”
“Oh, it’s bound to,” said Larry. “Still, it’ll see us out.”
That night the moon was so beautiful that we all lay in the shallow warm water and drank and talked. It couldn’t have been more peaceful when, suddenly, the air reverberated and the cliffs echoed with a series of pistol shots.
Unbeknownst to us, Leslie and Mactavish had taken Mother’s pearl-handled revolver to the farther end of the bay, where Mactavish was showing Leslie how rapidly you learned to fire when you were in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“God almighty!” said Larry. “What the hell do they think they’re doing? Turning the bay into a rifle range at Bisley?”
“Gollys,” said Spiro, “I thoughts it was thems son-of-a-bitch Turks.”
“Leslie dear,” shouted Mother, “do please stop doing that.”
“We’re only practising,” Leslie shouted back.
“Yes, but you’ve no idea how much noise it’s making here,” said Mother. “It’s echoing back from these cliffs and giving me a headache.”
“Oh, alright,” said Leslie, disgruntled.
“That’s the trouble with Leslie,” said Larry. “He’s not aesthetic. Here’s a beautiful, warm sea and nice wine and a full moon, and what does he do? He rushes around firing off revolvers.”
“Well, you do things that annoy us,” said Margo indignantly.
“What have I done to annoy you?” asked Larry. “Nothing at all. I’m by far and away the sanest member of this family.”
“You’re about as sane as a..., as a lunatic,” said Margo.
“Now, now, dears, don’t quarrel,” said Mother; “you know it’s my birthday.”
“I will play for you,” said Sven, and he played a series of melodies which were soft and beautiful, even coming from an accordion, and they fitted the mood and the setting very well.