We were all drawn together on one occasion when Jonathan’s parents had rented a house one summer in Hythe. And when they were going to be away for a few days Jonathan invited Eric up, and he invited the two of us up, and the three of us then went on a fishing boat on a trip. The fishermen caught lots of cuttlefish which they started throwing overboard because people don’t eat sepia, cuttlefish, in... in England, but I love the cuttlefish, and I said, 'Keep them'. And so they got two or three and they started to throw them overboard. I said, 'No, I want them all', and we got a huge tub of cuttlefish, about a hundred of them. I thought it would be very nice if we could take them back to Sid. I... I knew how his eyes would glow, and he’d have the whole class dissecting cuttlefish. But they had to be preserved, and I found some large jars and we put in... put them in water plus a little alcohol – I think this was probably brandy which had belonged to... to Jonathan’s father.
But anyhow, it wasn’t enough alcohol, and one day we heard explosions in the basement and we found that these jars... that the cuttlefish insufficiently pickled had fermented and the gases had burst the jars. There were bits of cuttlefish on the ceiling and all over the walls, and the place stank inconceivably. I mean, I think that putrefied cuttlefish is as bad as you get, and Jonathan’s parents were coming back that day. And we... Eric hastily bought a large bottle of lavender water which we... we tried to conceal things... and then his parents came, and they were... and they were very puzzled, because they would sniff and smile at the lavender water, they would sniff and grimace; there were strange alternating zones of lavender water and putrefied cuttlefish.
Anyhow, we were... we were in very bad odour, I especially, since it had been my greed in the first place and folly in getting so many cuttlefish, and I think there was actually difficulty renting the house after that. I’m sorry – that was a story I told of Uncle Tungsten - I’ve no right to tell it again, but having written Uncle Tungsten I can’t help repeating myself somewhat, and Uncle Tungsten was partly a written version of what I’m doing now.
