The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [386]
make my own way without influence — otherwise I should have been an Admiral I expect by now….’
The fidelity of her rendering was absolutely impeccable. The little old man stepped straight out of his tomb and began to stalk about in front of us with his lopsided walk, now toying with his telescope on the cake-stand, now opening and shutting his battered Bible, or getting down on one creaking knee to blow up his fire with the tiny pair of bellows. His birthday! I recalled finding him one birthday evening rather the worse for brandy, but dancing around completely naked to music of his own manufacture on a comb and paper.
Recalling this celebration of his Name Day I began, as it were, to mimic him back to Clea, in order to hear once more this thrilling new laugh she had acquired. ‘Oh! it’s you, Darley! You gave me quite a turn with your knock. Come in, I’m just having a bit of a dance in my tou tou to recall old times. It’s my birthday, yes. I always dwell a bit on the past. In my youth I was a proper spark, I don’t mind admitting. I was a real dab at the Velouta. Want to watch me? Don’t laugh, just ber corse I’m in puris. Sit on the chair over there and watch. Now, advance, take your partners, shimmy, bow, reverse! It looks easy but it isn’t. The smoothness is decep-tive. I could do them all once, my boy, Lancers, Caledonians, Circassian Circle. Never seen a demi-chaine Anglais, I suppose?
Before your time I think. Mind you, I loved dancing and for years I kept up to date. I got as far as the Hootchi-Kootchi — have you ever seen that? Yes, the haitch is haspirated as in ‘otel. It’s some fetching little movements they call oriental allurements. Un-dulations, like. You take off one veil after another until all is revealed. The suspense is terrific, but you have to waggle as you glide, see?’ Here he took up a posture of quite preposterous oriental allurement and began to revolve slowly, wagging his behind and humming a suitable air which quite faithfully copied the lag and fall of Arab quartertones. Round and round the room he went until he began to feel dizzy and flopped back triumphantly on his bed, chuckling and nodding with self-approval and self-congratulation, and reaching out for a swig of arak, the manu-facture of which was also among his secrets. He must have found the recipe in the pages of Postlethwaite’s Vade Mecum For Travellers in Foreign Lands, a book which he kept under lock and
key in his trunk and by which he absolutely swore. It contained, he said, everything that a man in Robinson Crusoe’s position ought to know — even how to make fire by rubbing sticks together; it was a mine of marvellous information. (‘To achieve Bombay arrack dissolve two scruples of flowers of benjamin in a quart of good rum and it will impart to the spirit the fragrance of arrack.’) That was the sort of thing. ‘Yes’ he would add gravely, ‘old Postle-thwaite can’t be bettered. There’s something in him for every sort of mind and every sort of situation. He’s a genius I might say.’
Only once had Postlethwaite failed to live up to his reputation, and that was when Toby said that there was a fortune to be made in Spanish fly if only Scobie could secure a large quantity of it for export. ‘But the perisher didn’t explain what it was or how, and it was the only time Postlethwaite had me beat. D’you know what he says about it, under Cantharides? I found it so mysterious I memorized the passage to repeat to Toby when next he came through. Old Postle says this: “Cantharides when used internally are diuretic and stimulant; when applied externally they are epispastic and rubefacient.” Now what the devil can he mean, eh?
And how does this fit in with Toby’s idea of a flourishing trade in the things? Sort of worms, they must be. I asked Abdul but I don’t know the Arabic word.’
Refreshed by the interlude he once more advanced to the mirror to admire his wrinkled old tortoise-frame. A sudden thought cast a gloom over his countenance. He pointed at a portion of his own wrinkled anatomy and said: