Amazing Disgrace (12 page)

The next ten days or so I rise early and steadily compose a graceful and also disgraceful new short chapter to insert in
Millie!
, in between waxing operatic and breaking for exquisite little snacks. I even indulge in a limited amount of DIY:
domestic
tasks I generally perform for reasons of thrift that are
somewhat
more fun to have done than they are to do. That being said, I would be falsely modest if I pretended not to have a knack for them. People expect writers to be effete creatures whose skills in the world of practical activity go little beyond falling off bar stools in the Groucho Club. In extreme cases these skills may extend to changing a light bulb, but this
nearly
always means the writer is a lesbian. (Super-lesbians like Ernest Hemingway don’t really count as writers.) It is true that when it comes to the higher reaches of joinery and
craftsmanship
my own skills are merely those of the experienced
amateur
. But I’m neither afraid nor too proud to have a go, that’s the point.  

All of which means you won’t be surprised to learn that I have decided to change not only my own front door lock but that on Marta’s back door as well. The more odious the idea becomes of strangers wandering around her house at will in my absence, the more I feel protective of both our properties. Meeting Baggy and Dumpy has reminded me that I could have many worse neighbours than a frumpish composer from beyond the River Vltava. Which reminds me, I wonder if hers is also Smetana’s neck of the Bohemian woods? I still have no real idea where Voynovia is. I think it must be to the east of Ruritania: Hentzau and John Buchan country, but not quite as
far as the thirty-nine steppes. I’m told the European Union’s latest expansionist pounce has recently brought even Voynovia within its shining bounds, although of course that still doesn’t mean it’s in Europe in any meaningful sense. After all, some of the more addled denizens of Brussels seriously consider Turkey as part of Europe despite Europe having for centuries repelled hordes of dervishes and janissaries who came in waves to bombard the walls of Vienna, seeking to expand their cruel empire. Even today an Austrian oath is
Kruzitürken!
And Turkey, mind you, a country of eighty million Muslims that only recently abjured torture and honour killing in order to qualify for EU membership, not because it thought them wrong. Think Osmin in
Il seraglio
. As Derek once remarked, the only good Ottoman is one you can lie on. I suppose by comparison Voynovia could easily come to feel as unassailably Old European as France. Anyway, so far as I’m concerned Marta’s real home is her slatternly castle here at Le Roccie rather than that of her family in the distant shadow of a
mountain
called Sluszic, and like any castle it deserves a good lock on its back door. So I go down to Viareggio where I buy
something
that looks more appropriate for a bank vault, with
tungsten
bars that simultaneously shoot upwards and downwards into sockets at the turn of a most peculiar key with raised
pimples
on it like a plucked turkey thigh.  

While I’m down there I find I’m in the mood for culinary adventure and drop by the butcher for some calves’ brains. Last night before falling asleep I dipped into one of my favourite bedside books, Emmeline Tyrwhitt-Glamis’s
Emergency
Cuisine
, written in the dark days of 1942 when heavily rationed Londoners had accustomed themselves to an unusual diet, and stray cats and dogs had all but vanished from the city’s streets. These dumb chums were pressed into service as extras in the general drama of the war effort, passing through a thousand trusty Radiation gas ovens while acting out their selfless, unauditioned parts which might accurately be described as casserole-playing. Dame Emmeline (as she later
became in recognition of her bravery while working in the resistance to Woolton Pie) believed that austerity could be taken too far. From her house in Berkeley Square a stream of recipes poured forth, the less eccentric often being espoused by the Women’s Institute and published in popular magazines. She regularly netted the gardens in the middle of the square to produce, according to season, owl tartlets, pigeon strudel, a fudge of robins, blackbird pâté and, on one notable occasion, nightingale fritters. She discovered that the anti-aircraft
battery
gunners in Hyde Park were attracting rats with their National Loaf sandwiches and latrine pits, and it wasn’t long before she was trapping the rodents in sufficient quantities to bake the celebrated Pied Piper pies she then sold to Fortnum & Mason, donating the revenue to the Red Cross. The animals’ pelts Dame Emmeline cured with alum in her airing cupboard and turned into a cloak and mittens for her chauffeur, who was too old to be called up and was living in some discomfort in her vast Hispano-Suiza, up on blocks in a mews garage in Peckham for lack of petrol.  

This sterling and free-thinking spinster was unafraid to try anything, having inherited the scientific curiosity of her distant relative Frank Buckland, the nineteenth-century naturalist and experimental gourmet who had sampled nearly all the British vertebrates and lepidoptera. She agreed with him that while earwigs were foully bitter and bluebottles unspeakable, woodlice were a plausible alternative to potted shrimp.
Emmeline
Tyrwhitt-Glamis was undoubtedly the first Englishwoman to prepare and use cockroach purée in any quantity, naming it ‘Victory Paste’. In her journal she herself described Victory Paste as having the flavour of ‘peanuts and vanilla, with a faint suggestion of sealing-wax; altogether agreeable’. It was a
popular
addition to servicemen’s wartime diet, especially in the Royal Navy where it became a staple as a sandwich filling for officers during action.
Emergency Cuisine
, first published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office in 1942, is a collector’s item these days, its rarity enhanced when most of the first edition
was destroyed by an incendiary bomb strike on the Hackney warehouse in which it was awaiting distribution. I treasure my own copy as much for the breezy Tyrwhitt-Glamis style as for her inventive recipes and her popular cry of ‘Buns Against Huns!’.  

And so it is that while I’m down in Viareggio I buy calves’ brains and one or two other impulsive odds and ends. Then, deciding I may as well eat down here, I have a delicious light seafood lunch on the front and watch the world pass by. The restaurant overlooks the beach and in the noonday glare the women come and go, probably not talking of Michelangelo but of Botox and liposuction. Nor, to judge from their
expressions
, do their escorts appear to be earnestly discussing the Mammon of Unrighteousness or even the problematic
orchestration
in the second act of
L’uomo magro
. Their whole demeanour is that of males who wish quite soon to enact the ancient ritual of passing on their DNA and are wondering how much they need spend on their girl’s lunch to ensure it
happening
. No one seems to have done much swimming. The
beachwear
of all three sexes is outrageous, revealing acres of broiled flesh and graceless bulbosities creakingly restrained by wisps of designer nylon. It all reminds me uneasily that my own
highly personal problem of packing more veal is going to have to be faced sooner or later. But still, time’s a-wasting; so with my calves’ brains in my cool-bag and some costly ironmongery to render both our homes Benedetti-proof in the boot of the car, I drive back up to Le Roccie with a sense of virtue and
purposefulness
.

Anybody who knows me at all will acknowledge that
single-mindedness
is a salient character trait of mine. I am not one of those people – and Derek, I fear,
is
– who channel-hop their way through life with attention spans that make bacteria look thoughtful. Today, for example, my priority is definitely door locks; so I put the calves’ brains in the fridge for later and take a condensation-beaded bottle of
prosecco
and a glass out onto the terrace. The afternoon is hot and the wine I drank at lunch has induced a slight drowsiness that needs chilled refreshment to chase away. Take a tip from Samper: when planning
lock-smithery
and the like the trick is never to rush but to get into the right frame of mind for the task ahead. So I sit and calmly peruse the instructions for fitting these two identical but
complex
locks that I’ve bought. In response to the usual cutaway drawings with arrows I fetch a Phillips screwdriver and remove flanged knob ‘A’ on the inside of the lock, exposing the slotted arms for attaching the two long bolts that will secure the door top and bottom. Dead straightforward. Child’s play. Time passes in which I reflect on the many successes of my DIY past. The
prosecco
is beginning to hone my concentration to a fine point so that I am able to read and reread each
sentence
of the instructions, which are written in the bizarre dialect reserved for such things. ‘Important: Knurled screw “F” is mounting in association for downstriker plate “L” only.’ What could be clearer than that? I read it many times with my enhanced attention and understand it in its fullest and deepest sense. Time for action! Leaving the empty bottle and glass on the table I dig out my toolkit, buckle on my tool belt with the power-drill holster, find the key to Marta’s back door and sally forth to her hovel.

I keep saying ‘hovel’, but in all fairness there is nothing
flimsy
about Marta’s cottage. Like mine it is built of stone and to judge from its worn thresholds it has seen centuries of peasants come and go, a tradition her occupancy in no way interrupts. In common with many Italian houses the ground-floor windows are protected by iron grilles, making it look impregnable. Still, what is the point of iron bars if in your muddleheaded Voynovian way you leave the back door unlocked? I let myself in and pause in the gloom, inhaling that familiar scent I shall for ever associate with Marta: mildew and
shonka
, a lethal Voynovian sausage, as well as a deodorant she uses called ‘Witch’, a pungent example of a cure that is worse than the disease. I check the front door, which already has a decent lock as well as one of those patent little deadbolt security things that require a separate key. I’ve no idea where that is. I think she never used her front door so it’s really only the back door that needs attention. I spread my tools out on the floor in an orderly fashion and crack my knuckles like a flying doctor preparing for a bush amputation. Technically, I suppose, it might be taking a liberty to install a lock on one’s neighbour’s door without her permission, but really: this is someone
capable
of walking out of her house for days, weeks,
months
at a stretch, leaving doors unlocked and gas rings alight. I’m
betting
the old bat is going to be pretty pleased by this token of neighbourliness.

The door itself is absurdly stout: massive chestnut planks that I can see are going to need intensive drilling to take the barrel of the lock. Hoping to throw much-needed light on the job I click the switch. Nothing. No lights anywhere. I find her fuse panel and all the switches are up as they should be. It then becomes obvious: with her stunning domestic incompetence Marta has omitted to arrange to have her bills paid by banker’s order every two months and ENEL have cut her off. I check her telephone which I eventually find beneath a pile of unironed laundry. Dead. Same problem, no doubt. Telecom Italia have lost patience. I don’t blame them. Wearily I trudge
back to my house to fetch an extension cable and see if it will reach. Needless to say it doesn’t, not by twenty metres or so. I find some other lengths of cable that will if someone can be bothered to join them all up. Sitting on the grass outside I busy myself with cutters and strippers and insulating tape. Absolutely typical, the whole thing. You get all keyed up to do a job but then find yourself having to spend hours laying on basics like electricity. To the end of the cable I wire in a block of three sockets so at least I can have light and use the drill at the same time. When finally it’s all assembled I discover it just – and only just – reaches. Good enough. At last I’m set to make a start, although by now it’s considerably later than I should have preferred.  

However, I won’t be hurried. The Samper watchword is ‘methodical’. By the time I have it all marked up and the hole has been drilled in the iron-hard door I notice that late
afternoon
has elided into early evening. I return to my own house to collect another bottle of
prosecco
, which I definitely feel I have earned. Obviously I’m not one of those slightly pathetic types who need to disguise the seriousness of an alcohol dependency by whimsically referring to the sun as being over the yardarm. Not having a drink problem myself, I certainly don’t watch the clock. Many days go by when I drink nothing but water. But sometimes a glass of
prosecco
gives a little fillip to the flagging DIY man who wants to finish a job and go off to cook his supper. Anyway, half the people who use the expression have no idea what a yardarm is. As the author of
Millie!
I can enlighten you. It is the pole attached at right angles to a mast from which a sail hangs. In northern latitudes the sun would have been high enough to clear the topmost yardarms of a square-rigged ship at around midday. The glass of
prosecco
that I’m now appreciatively sipping, sitting back on my heels in a scatter of wood chips and a small glow of achievement, is more of a sundowner. I contemplate the job I have done so far and, like the old Hebrew deity, see that it is good. The central lock is impeccably installed, if I say so
myself, the keyhole outside with its brass surround neat and straight. All I need do now is cut the two bolts to the right length so they will slot neatly into the stonework top and
bottom
, and that will be that. Chalk up another item in the Samper tally of doing good by stealth.  

Mind you, when I say ‘all I need do now’, I’m making light of the difficulty of sawing tungsten steel tubing. When I slip back to my house to fetch the angle grinder I notice how dark it’s getting. Somehow this project has swallowed up the entire afternoon. With patience and showers of sparks I eventually manage to cut the tubes to the right length, attach them to the stubby arms that flanged knob ‘A’ will eventually hide, and mark where to drill the sockets into which two metal cups (‘S’, provided) can be fixed with instant cement. I drill the holes in the stonework and painstakingly clean them up with a little chisel. The cups easily fit into them, so I close the door to see how well the bolts are going to slot in. There is nothing as
satisfying
as that oiled
snock!
of a piece of mechanism shooting home, in this case the central latch. It is a snug, precise sound that, as it echoes around Marta’s grim hallway behind me, is a tribute to one’s craftsmanship. In order to examine the top bolt better I tug the inspection lamp to get a last inch of play in the cable running in under the back door through the
hollow
of its worn threshold. The wretched thing promptly goes out and I am plunged in darkness. Goddamn. I must have pulled the plug out of the block outside. I’ll have to go out and plug it in: I only need another few minutes’ work here before I can clean up and clear out. I scrabble at the lock to let myself out but can’t find flanged knob ‘A’. In fact there’s no knob at all, just a hole. The knob is, of course, on the table on my
terrace
eighty metres away where it has been ever since I removed it. And I have nothing else with which to turn the tumblers of this very technical lock that so satisfyingly latched itself not thirty seconds ago.  

There then occurs one of those peculiar moments when the brain splits into two. One half goes whirring around like a
trapped moth, mentally visiting the locked back door, the locked front door and the barred windows in swift
succession
as realization slowly dawns that there may be no easy way out of this, while the other half remains strangely unsurprised as though it had known all along it was hopeless. By the time the two halves of my brain have united once more I am in no doubt that things have not gone according to the Samper plan. I still can’t treat this as anything other than a mild inconvenience, though. It’s simply a matter of letting myself out of one of the upstairs windows. A bit undignified, perhaps, but there’s no reason why anyone should ever find out. However, once I have groped my way upstairs and opened a window I become seriously discouraged. It is a moonless night and the ground below is a dim blur. True, this top floor is not very high, and if I hang from the window sill before letting go the drop shouldn’t be much more than two or three metres. I try to remember what’s underneath, but can’t. My impression is that there’s a certain amount of Marta’s junk scattered about. I’m not at all keen to risk jumping down without being able to see what I’m jumping on to. I have a vision of breaking an ankle on a brick or a lump of rock and having to crawl eighty metres through a pitch-black garden to my own house. It’s a risk one would take only in a dire emergency such as fire. The obviously
sensible
thing to do is to wait for rosy-fingered dawn. So well done indeed, Samper. You now have to spend the night in Marta’s unlit and unaired den, with no supper and probably nothing to drink. Nor can you call anyone for help because the phone’s dead. There may not even be any water, since I’m pretty sure she has one of those systems that work on demand and require electricity for the pump. True, she might have left a bottle of something somewhere and maybe there will be a fossilized piece of
shonka
or other Voynovian
delicacy
that I can gnaw at, but the prospect is vastly different from the one with which I was planning to reward myself and to which I had been looking forward.

Luckily she still has a functioning gas stove because it’s fed by cylinders. With a box of matches I light all the rings on the hob which throw out enough light for me to find a packet of peculiar fluted candles in a distant cupboard. At least I assume they’re candles; one can never tell in this house. The writing on the box is unhelpfully in Cyrillic script but they look like
candles
and smell like candles. Still, I know from experience that this doesn’t mean they mightn’t be a Voynovian delicacy to be served after dinner with coffee. They might equally well turn out to be particularly punitive suppositories. However, they burn, and in a minute or two Marta’s chaotic kitchen is lit with a kindly orange glow that reveals swags of cobwebs. Hoping she might have left something drinkable in the fridge I open it and immediately reel back, hastily slamming the door again. It must be months since her power was cut off, ample time for whatever she left in it to have unfrozen and brewed up. I retain the impression of a miniature landscape within: rolling hills of mould with one enormous nodding fungus gathering itself to spring. Enough of the stench has made good its escape to make one think of those crime scenes on
television
where a floater has been retrieved after many weeks in a river and detectives stand around upwind with handkerchiefs pressed to their noses while a team of medics tries to revive a police frogman with sal volatile. Whatever else, Marta is going to need a new fridge if and when she returns. Then in another cupboard I find my booby prize: two unopened bottles of Fernet-Branca, Marta’s favourite tipple. The kitchen having become uninhabitable, I retreat upstairs with a bottle and a glass together with the box of matches and a couple of spare candles and prepare myself for a long and cheerless vigil.  

Sitting on the edge of her bed I stare glumly at the black pane of the window, seeing nothing but my own reflection and that of the candle flame. It is quite bad enough to be
condemned
to pass the night on Marta’s bed, as effectively walled up as l’uomo magro was in the opera, without knowing that my own house, by contrast, is open to the four winds,
standing 
there with doors and windows gaping like a hilltop
Mary Celeste
. I pour myself a stiff tot of Fernet. It must be over a year since I last tasted the stuff and I’m clearly out of training since it comes as a shock. Never mind: be thankful there’s
anything
at all. A snatch of tune is running through my head and I recognize it as an irritating hymn my stepmother Laura used to sing around the house as she swept and dusted. Even some of the words come back: ‘Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, / Makes that and th’action fine.’ Huh. I haven’t swept a room but I
have
put a new lock on Marta’s back door and what’s more it was done as for His laws because one of them, if you remember, involves loving thy neighbour as thyself. Th’action might have been made fine but I have to admit th’outcome is something of a bugger’s muddle. Yet the more I think about it while pouring myself another glass of
masochistic
balm, the less I’m willing to accept it as my fault. Really, the whole thing is squarely down to Marta. From the moment she arrived up here she has been nothing but trouble. Benedetti misled me from the outset, of course, when he lyingly described her to me as a mouse-quiet foreigner who was hardly ever here. In my experience, limited though it is, mice do not often play the piano outside a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Neither do they viciously lampoon one’s private singing and turn it into a musical score for a film. Mice infrequently fly
helicopters
in and out at all times of day and night, destroying people’s carefully nurtured pergolas as they pass overhead. Come to that, they seldom demolish entire fences without permission; and when they go away for arbitrary periods mice do not leave incandescent coffee pots on gas stoves and back doors swinging in the breeze. In such circumstances what is the good neighbour supposed to do as for Thy laws? Reach for the warfarin?