'I hope you don't mind eating in the kitchen,' said the Countess, making it sound as though it were really the most degrading thing to eat food in such humble surroundings.

I said I thought eating in the kitchen was a most sensible idea, especially in winter, as it was warmer.

'Quite right,' said the Countess, seating herself as Demetrios-Mustapha held her chair for her. 'And, you see, if we eat upstairs I get complaints from this elderly Turk about how far he has to walk.'

'It isn't the distance I complain of, it's the weight of the food,' said Demetrios-Mustapha, pouring a pale green-gold wine into our glasses. 'If you didn't eat so much, it wouldn't be so bad.'

'Oh, stop complaining and get on with serving,' said the Countess plaintively, tucking her serviette carefully under her dimpled chin.

I, filled with champagne and brandy, was now more than a little drunk and ravenously hungry. I viewed with alarm the number of eating utensils that were flanking my plate, for I was not quite sure which to use first. I remembered Mother's maxim that you started on the outside and worked in, but there were so many utensils that I was uneasy. I decided to wait and see what the Countess used and then follow suit. It was an unwise decision for I soon discovered that she used any and every knife, fork, or spoon with a fine lack of discrimination and so, before long, I became so muddled I was doing the same.

The first course that Demetrios-Mustapha set before us was a fine, clear soup, sequinned with tiny golden bubbles of fat, with fingernail-sized croutons floating like crisp little rafts on an amber sea. It was delicious, and the Countess had two helpings, scrunching up the croutons, the noise like someone walking over crisp leaves. Demetrios-Mustapha filled our glasses with more of the pale, musky wine and placed before us a platter of minute baby fish, each one fried a golden brown. Slices of yellow-green lemons in a large dish and a brimming sauce-boat of some exotic sauce unknown to me accompanied it. The Countess piled her plate high with fish, added a lava flow of sauce, and then squeezed lemon juice lavishly over the fish, the table, and herself. She beamed at me, her face now a bright rose-pink, her forehead slightly beaded with sweat. Her prodigious appetite did not appear to impair her conversational powers one jot, for she talked incessantly.

'Don't you love these little fish? Heavenly! Of course, it's such a pity that they should die so young, but there we are. So nice to be able to eat all of them without worrying about the bones. Such a relief! Henri, my husband, you know, started to collect skeletons once. My dear, the house looked and smelt like a mortuary. "Henri," I said to him. "Henri, this must stop. This is an unhealthy death-wish you have developed. You must go and see a psychiatrist." '

Demetrios-Mustapha removed our empty plates, poured for us a red wine, dark as the heart of a dragon, and then placed before us a dish in which lay snipe, the heads twisted round so that their long beaks could skewer themselves and their empty eye-sockets look at us accusingly. They were plump and brown with cooking, each having its own little square of toast. They were surrounded by thin wafers of fried potatoes like drifts of autumn leaves, pale greeny-white candles of asparagus and small peas.

'I simply cannot understand people who are vegetarians,' said the Countess, banging vigorously at a snipe's skull with her fork so that she might crack it and get to the brain. 'Henri once tried to be a vegetarian. Would you believe it? But I couldn't endure it. "Henri," I said to him, "this must stop. We have enough food in the larder to feed an army, and I can't eat it single-handed." Imagine, my dear, I had just ordered two dozen hares. "Henri," I said, "you will have to give up this foolish fad." '

It struck me that Henri, although obviously a bit of a trial as a husband, had nevertheless led a very frustrated existence.

Demetrios-Mustapha cleared away the debris of the snipe and poured out more wine. I was beginning to feel bloated with food and I hoped that there was not too much more to come. But there was still an army of knives and forks and spoons, unused, beside my plate, so it was with alarm I saw Demetrios-Mustapha approaching through the gloomy kitchen bearing a huge dish.

'Ah!' said the Countess, holding up her plump hands in excitement. 'The main dish! What is it, Mustapha, what is it?'

'The wild boar that Makroyannis sent,' said Demetrios-Mustapha.

'Oh, the boar! The boar!' squeaked the Countess, clasping her fat cheeks in her hands. 'Oh, lovely! I had forgotten all about it. You do like wild boar, I hope?'

I said that it was one of my favourite meats, which was true, but could I have a very small helping, please?

'But of course you shall,' she said, leaning over the great, brown, gravy-glistening haunch and starting to cut thick pink slabs of it. She placed three of these on a plate obviously under the impression that this was, by anyone's standards, a small portion and then proceeded to surround them with the accoutrements. There were piles of the lovely little golden wild mushrooms, chanterelles, with their delicate, almost winy flavour; tiny marrows stuffed with sour cream and capers; potatoes baked in their skins, neatly split and anointed with butter; carrots red as a frosty winter sun, and great tree trunks of white leeks, poached in cream. I surveyed this dish of food and surreptitiously undid the top three buttons of my shorts.

'We used to get wild boar such a lot when Henri was alive. He used to go to Albania and shoot them, you know. But now we seldom have it. What a treat! Will you have some more mushrooms? No? So good for one. After this, I think we will have a pause. A pause is essential, I always think, for a good digestion,' said the Countess, adding naively, 'and it enables you to eat so much more.'

The wild boar was fragrant and succulent, having been marinaded well with herb-scented wine and stuffed with garlic cloves, but even so I only just managed to finish it. The Countess had two helpings, both identical in size, and then leaned back, her face congested to a pale puce colour, and mopped the sweat from her brow with an inadequate lace handkerchief.

'A pause, eh?' she said thickly, smiling at me. 'A pause to marshal our resources.'

I felt that I had not any resources to marshal, but I did not like to say so. I nodded and smiled and undid all the rest of the buttons on my shorts.

During the pause, the Countess smoked a long thin cheroot and ate salted peanuts, chatting on interminably about her husband. The pause did me good. I felt a little less solid and somnolent with food. When the Countess eventually decided that we had rested our internal organs sufficiently, she called for the next course, and Demetrios-Mustapha produced two mercifully small omelets, crispy brown on the outside and liquid and succulent on the inside, stuffed with tiny pink shrimps.

'What have you got for a sweet?' inquired the Countess, her mouth full of omelet.

'I didn't make one,' said Demetrios-Mustapha.

The Countess's eyes grew round and fixed.

'You didn't make a sweet?' she said, in tones of horror, as though he were confessing to some heinous crime.

'I didn't have time,' said Demetrios-Mustapha. 'You can't expect me to do all this cooking and all the housework.'

'But no sweet,' said the Countess despairingly. 'You can't have a lunch without a sweet.'

'Well, I bought you some meringues,' said Mustapha. 'You'll have to make do with those.'

'Oh, lovely!' said the Countess glowing and happy again. 'Just what's needed.'

It was the last thing I needed. The meringues were large and white and brittle as coral and stuffed to overflowing with cream. I wished fervently that I had brought Roger with me, as he could have sat under the table and accepted half my food, since the Countess was far too occupied with her own plate and her reminiscences really to concentrate on me.

'Now,' she said at last, swallowing the last mouthful of meringue and brushing the white crumbs from her chin. 'Now, do you feel replete? Or would you care for a little something more? Some fruit perhaps? Not that there's very much at this time of the year.'

I said no thank you very much, I had had quite sufficient.

The Countess sighed and looked at me soulfully. I think nothing would have pleased her more than to ply me with another two or three courses.

'You don't eat enough,' she said. 'A growing boy like you should eat more. You're far too thin for your age. Does your Mother feed you properly?'

I could imagine Mother's wrath if she had heard this innuendo. I said yes, Mother was an excellent cook and we all fed like lords.

'I'm glad to hear it,' said the Countess. 'But you still look a little peaky to me.'

I could not say so, but the reason I was beginning to look peaky was that the assault of food upon my stomach was beginning to make itself felt. I said, as politely as I could, that I thought I ought to be getting back.

'But of course, dear,' said the Countess. 'Dear me, a quarter past four already. How time flies!'

She sighed at the thought, then brightened perceptibly.

'However, it's nearly time for tea. Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay and have something?'

I said no, that Mother would be worried about me.

'Now, let me see,' said the Countess. 'What did you come for? Oh, yes, the owl. Mustapha, bring the boy his owl and bring me some coffee and some of those nice Turkish delights up in the lounge.'

Mustapha appeared with a cardboard box done up with string and handed it to me.

'I wouldn't open it until you get home,' he said. 'That's a wild one, that.'

I was overcome with the terrifying thought that if I did not hurry my departure, the Countess would ask me to partake of Turkish delight with her. So I thanked them both sincerely for my owl, and made my way to the front door.

'Well,' said the Countess, 'it has been enchanting having you, absolutely enchanting. You must come again. You must come in the spring or the summer when we have more choice of fruit and vegetables. Mustapha's got a way of cooking octopus which makes it simply melt in your mouth.'

I said I would love to come again, making a mental vow that if I did, I would starve for three days in advance.

'Here,' said the Countess, pressing an orange into my pocket, 'take this. You might feel peckish on the way home.'

As I mounted Sally and trotted off down the drive, she called, 'Drive carefully.'

Grim-faced, I sat there with the owl clasped to my bosom till we were outside the gates of the Countess's estate. Then the jogging I was subjected to on Sally's back was too much. I dismounted, went behind an olive tree, and was deliciously and flamboyantly sick.

When I got home I carried the owl up to my bedroom, untied the box and lifted him, struggling and beak-clicking, out onto the floor. The dogs, who had gathered round in a circle to view the new addition, backed away hurriedly. They knew what Ulysses could do when he was in a bad temper, and this owl was three times his size. He was, I thought, one of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen. The feathers on his back and wings were honeycomb golden, smudged with pale ash-grey; his breast was a spotless cream-white; and the mask of white feathers round his dark, strangely Oriental-looking eyes was as crisp and as starched-looking as any Elizabethan's ruff.

His wing was not as bad as I had feared. It was a clean break, and after half an hour's struggle, during which he managed to draw blood on several occasions, I had it splinted up to my satisfaction. The owl, which I had decided to call Lampadusa, simply because the name appealed to me, seemed to be belligerently scared of the dogs, totally unwilling to make friends with Ulysses, and viewed Augustus Tickletummy with undisguised loathing. I felt he might be happier, till he settled down, in a dark, secluded place, so I carried him up to the attic. One of the attic rooms was very tiny and lit by one small window which was so covered with cobwebs and dust that it allowed little light to penetrate the room. It was quiet and as dim as a cave, and I thought that here Lampadusa would enjoy his convalescence. I put him on the floor with a large saucer of chopped meat and locked the door carefully so that he would not be disturbed. That evening, when I went to visit him, taking him a dead mouse by way of a present, he seemed very much improved. He had eaten most of his meat and now hissed and beak-clicked at me with outspread wings and blazing eyes as he pitter-pattered about the floor. Encouraged by his obvious progress, I left him with his mouse and went to bed.

Some hours later I was awakened by the sound of voices emanating from Mother's room. Wondering, sleepily, what on earth the family could be doing at that hour, I got out of bed and stuck my head out of the bedroom door to listen.

'I tell you,' Larry was saying, 'it's a damned great poltergeist.'

'It can't be a poltergeist, dear,' said Mother. 'Poltergeists throw things.'

'Well, whatever it is, it's up there clanking its chains,' said Larry, 'and I want it exorcised. You and Margo are supposed to be the experts on the after-life. You go up and do it.'

'I'm not going up there,' said Margo tremulously. 'It might be anything. It might be a malignant spirit.'

'It's bloody malignant all right,' said Larry. 'It's been keeping me awake for the last hour.'

'Are you sure it isn't the wind or something, dear?' asked Mother.

'I know the difference between wind and a damned ghost playing around with balls and chains,' said Larry.

'Perhaps it's burglars,' said Margo, more to give herself confidence than anything else. 'Perhaps it's burglars and we ought to wake Leslie.'

Half-asleep and still bee-drowsy from the liquor I had consumed that day, I could not think what the family were talking about. It seemed as intriguing as any of the other crises that they seemed capable of evoking at the most unexpected hours of the day or night, so I went to Mother's door and peered into the room. Larry was marching up and down, his dressing-gown swishing imperially.

'Something's got to be done,' he said. 'I can't sleep with rattling chains over my head, and if I can't sleep I can't write.'

'I don't see what you expect us to do about it, dear,' said Mother. 'I'm sure it must be the wind.'

'Yes, you can't expect us to go up there,' said Margo. 'You're a man, you go.'

'Look,' said Larry, 'you are the one who came back from London covered with ectoplasm and talking about the infinite. It's probably some hellish thing you've conjured up from one of your seances that's followed you here. That makes it your pet. You go and deal with it.'

The word 'pet' penetrated. Surely it could not be Lampadusa? Like all owls, barn owls have wings as soft and as silent as dandelion clocks. Surely he could not be responsible for making a noise like a ball and chain?

I went into the room and inquired what they were all talking about.

'It's only a ghost, dear,' said Mother. 'Larry's found a ghost.'

'It's in the attic,' said Margo, excitedly. 'Larry thinks it followed me from England. I wonder if it's Mawake?'

'We're not going to start that all over again,' said Mother firmly.

'I don't care who it is,' said Larry, 'which one of your disembodied friends. I want it removed.'

I said I thought there was just the faintest possibility that it might be Lampadusa.

'What's that?' inquired Mother.

I explained that it was the owl the Countess had given me.

'I might have known it,' said Larry. 'I might have known it. Why it didn't occur to me instantly, I don't know.'

'Now, now, dear,' said Mother. 'It's only an owl.'

'Only an owl!' said Larry. 'It sounds like a battalion of tanks crashing about up there. Tell him to get it out of the loft.'

I said I could not understand why Lampadusa was making a noise since owls were the quietest of things... I said they drifted through the night on silent wings like flakes of ash...

'This one hasn't got silent wings,' said Larry. 'It sounds like a one-owl jazz band. Go and get it out.'

Hurriedly I took a lamp and made my way up to the attic. When I opened the door I saw at once what the trouble was. Lampadusa had devoured his mouse and then discovered that there was a long shred of meat still lying in his saucer. This, during the course of the long, hot day, had solidified and become welded to the surface of the saucer. Lampadusa, feeling that this shred of meat would do well as a light snack to keep body and soul together until dawn, had endeavoured to pick it off the plate. The curve of his sharp amber beak had gone through the meat, but the meat had refused to part company with the saucer, so that there he was, effectively trapped, flapping ineffectually round the floor, banging and clattering the saucer against the wooden boards in an effort to disentangle it from his beak. So I extricated him from this predicament and carried him down to my bedroom where I shut him in his cardboard box for safe-keeping.

PART THREE.

Criseda.

This place is wonderfully lovely. I wish you could see it; if you came I could put you up beautifully, and feed you on ginger-beer and claret and prawns and figs.

EDWARD LEAR.

8.

Hedgehogs and Sea-dogs.

When spring came, we moved to a new villa, an elegant, snow-white one shaded by a huge magnolia tree, that lay in the olive groves not far from where our very first villa had been. It was on a hillside overlooking a great flat area marked out like a gigantic chess-board by irrigation ditches, which I knew as the fields. They were in fact the old Venetian salt-pans used long ago for collecting the brine that floated into the channels from the big salt-water lake on whose shores they lay. The lake had long since silted up and the channels, now flooded by fresh water from the hills, provided a grid-work of lush fields. This was an area overflowing with wildlife, and so it was one of my happiest hunting grounds.

Spring in Corfu never seemed to be half-hearted. Almost overnight, it seemed, the winter winds had blown the skies clean of clouds, so that they shone a clear delphinium blue, and overnight the winter rains had flooded the valleys with wildflowers; the pink of pyramid orchids, yellow of crocus, tall pale spikes of the asphodels, the blue eyes of the grape hyacinths peering at you from the grass, and the wine-dipped anemones that bowed in the slightest breeze. The olive groves were alive and rustling with the newly arrived birds: the hoopoes, salmon-pink and black with surprised crests, probed their long, curved beaks at the soft earth between the clumps of emerald grass; goldfinches, chiming and wheezing, danced merrily from twig to twig, their plumage glowing gold and scarlet and black. In the irrigation ditches in the fields, the waters became green with weed, interlaced with the strings of toad spawn, like black-pearl necklaces; emerald-green frogs croaked at each other, and the water tortoises, their shells as black as ebony, crawled up the banks to dig their holes and lay their eggs. Steel-blue dragon-flies, slender as threads, hatched and drifted like smoke through the undergrowth, moving in a curious stiff flight. Now was the time when the banks at night were lit by the throbbing, green-white light of a thousand glow-worms and in the day-time by the glint of wild strawberries hanging like scarlet lanterns in the shade. It was an exciting time, a time for explorations and new discoveries, a time when an overturned log might reveal almost anything from a field-vole's nest to a wriggling glitter of baby slow-worms, looking as though they were cast in burnished bronze.

I was down in the fields one day, endeavouring to catch some of the brown water-snakes that inhabited the irrigation ditches, when an old woman, whom I knew slightly, called me from some six fields away. She had been digging up the ground with her short-handled, broad-bladed hoe, standing up to her ankles in the rich loam, wearing the thick, ungainly sheep's-wool stockings the peasants put on for this operation.

'I've found you something,' she called. 'Come quickly.'

It was impossible for me to get there quickly, for each field was surrounded by an irrigation ditch on all four sides and finding the bridges across these was like finding your way through a maze.

'Quickly! Quickly!' screamed the old woman. 'They are running away. Quickly!'