Marrying Off Mother by Gerald Durrell

rather like the miraculous survivor of a very nasty car accident.
    â€˜He is drunk,’ said the carachino driver, in case this had escaped our notice.
    â€˜He’s as pooped as an owl,’ said Leslie.
    â€˜Two owls,’ said Larry.
    â€˜It’s disgusting,’ said Margo. ‘Mother can’t marry a Greek drunkard. Dad would never have approved.’
    â€˜Marry him? What are you talking about?’ asked Mother.
    â€˜Just thought he’d bring a bit of romance into your life,’ Larry explained. ‘I told you we needed a step-father.’
    â€˜Marry him,’ exclaimed Mother, horrified. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead with him. What on earth are you children thinking about?’
    â€˜There you are,’ said Margo triumphantly, ‘I told you she wouldn’t want a Greek.’
    The professor had taken off his wine-stained Homburg, bowed to Mother and then fallen asleep on the front steps.
    â€˜Larry, Leslie, you’re making me seriously annoyed,’ said Mother. ‘Pick up that drunken fool, put him back in the carachino and tell the driver to take him back where he found him, and I never want to see him again.’
    â€˜I think you’re being thoroughly unromantic,’ said Larry. ‘How can we get you married again if you adopt this anti-social attitude? The chap’s only had a few drinks.’
    â€˜And let’s have less of this stupid talk about my being married again,’ said Mother firmly. ‘I’ll tell you when I want to get married and to whom, if ever.’
    â€˜We were only trying to help,’ said Leslie, aggrieved.
    â€˜Well you can help me by getting that drunken idiot out of here,’ said Mother, and she strutted back into the villa.
    Dinner that night was — conversationally speaking — chilly, but delicious. The professor did not know what he had missed.
    The next day, we all went for a swim, leaving a now more placid Mother pottering about the garden with her seed catalogue. The sea was bath temperature and you had to swim out and then dive down some five or six feet to find water cool enough to be refreshing. Afterwards we lay in the shade of the olives, letting the salt water dry to a silken crustiness on our bodies.
    â€˜You know,’ said Margo, ‘I’ve been thinking.’
    Larry looked at her with disbelief.
    â€˜What have you been thinking?’ he enquired.
    â€˜Well, I think you made a mistake with the professor. I don’t think he was Mother’s type.’
    â€˜Well, I was only fooling,’ said Larry, languidly. ‘I was always against this idea of her remarrying, but she seemed so convinced that she should.’
    â€˜You mean it was Mothers idea?’ asked Leslie, baffled.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Larry. ‘When you get to her age and start planting passion flowers all over the place, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
    â€˜But think of the consequences if she’d married the professor,’ Margo exclaimed.
    â€˜What consequences?’ Leslie asked, suspiciously.
    â€˜Well, she would have gone to live with him in Athens,’ said Margo.
    â€˜So, what about it?’
    â€˜Well, who would cook for us? Lugaretzia?’
    â€˜God forbid!’ Larry said, with vehemence.
    â€˜Do you remember her cuttlefish soup?’ asked Leslie.
    â€˜Please don’t remind me,’ said Margo. ‘All those accusing eyes floating there, looking up at you — ugh!’
    â€˜I suppose we could have gone to Athens and lived with her and Erisipolous, or whatever he’s called,’ said Leslie.
    â€˜I don’t think he would have taken kindly to having four children foisted on to him in his declining years,’ observed Larry.
    â€˜Well, I think we’ve got to turn Mother’s mind to other things,’ said Margo, ‘not marriage.’
    â€˜She seems hell bent on it,’ said Larry.
    â€˜Well, we