Goodbye Soldier (16 page)

I break open the chocolate bar, giving some to Mulgrew. “Fruit and Nut,” he mutters, “my favourite.” But then, if it was free,
anything
was favourite with him. What is he going to do today? If he can get an advance of wages he’ll go the vino bar and then the Alexander Club. Then? Then back to the vino bar.

I buzz Toni on the interphone. “Good morning, Toni,
buon giorno
,” what time are we going to Mother’s?
Mezzogiorno
. Good, that gives me time for a job long overdue – the cleaning of my trumpet and guitar. I dismantle the trumpet and run hot water through it. I dry and polish the valves, re-oil them and put them back in the cylinders. A general overall polish and that’s that. The guitar, I give a thorough polishing and a set of new strings. What a busy little bee I am. Midday and Toni, all shining and new, is waiting in the foyer. We stroll out and flag down an ancient Fiat taxi. Toni gives him the address and we sit back and watch Rome flash by. It’s a city of unending interest. We pass the great piazzas with their vibrant gushing fountains, the Colosseum, the National Monument, then into the suburbs.

Via Appennini is on a slight slope. The taxi stops at 53 but starts to roll back as his brakes are dodgy, so we have, to leap out at the run. Mrs Fontana is at the window looking out for us. Gioia, the maid, opens the door, is all blushes and embarrassment.

Toni’s mother greets us. “Ah, Terr-ee,
come sta
?” I am
sta beni
and running out of Italian.

We are seated in the lounge where we are joined by her sister Lily. “Ah, Terr-ee,
come sta?
” I am still
sta bent
.

Soon I am lost to view as Toni and her mother exchange all their news. I can understand bits of the conversation with words like,
si, no, buona
. Now and then Toni translates bits concerning me. Rather like discussing the dog with an occasional ‘Good boy’ and a pat on the head. Lily speaks broken English. She wants to come to the show. Neither she nor her mother have seen it. I promise two tickets. Toni’s mother works in an Italian tourist agency called CIT which, when pronounced, sounds like shit. Lily works as a secretary and between the three of them they earn enough to live modestly well.

It’s a splendid lunch: spaghetti then chicken liver risotto with white wine. Mrs Fontana asks about my family. I explain my brother is still in the Army and
almost
an officer. My father is in Fleet Street and
was
an officer. Only my mother has never been an officer. I plug the fact that my mother is a very good Catholic. This is well received as Mrs Fontana is herself a good Catholic. As yet, I haven’t told her I am a bloody awful Catholic. When do I want to come and stay? Is tomorrow all right,
domani? Si si buona allora domani
.

Toni and I taxi back to the hotel. I want to write some letters, so retire to my room. I dash one off to Mother and another for Lily Dunford. I tell my mother that not only am I putting paper on the seat but, just in case, I do it standing up. Dear Lily Dunford, I commiserate with her over the loss of her husband (HA HA HA). After carrying the torch for her for nearly nine years, like an evil swine I felt some measure of revenge. I didn’t tell her I was in love again, but said perhaps we could meet when I came back to London and see what happened. Good luck (HA HA HA). Yes, revenge is sweet but not fattening.

∗

Maria Marini from Vol. 5 has turned up! I can’t quite recall how she knew I was in Rome, but she did. I supply her with two seats for the show. Will I see her after? Yes, for a little while. Can I come home with her so she can be like ‘A waf to you’? (See Vol. 5, p. 138 or ring the police.) So that I’m not trapped, I tell Toni about Maria and explain that we are ‘just good friends from the waist up’. She accepts my story, but after my Vienna episode she is a little bit suspicious and, for that matter, so am I.

∗

First night at the Teatro Argentina: very good show and a great first-night audience. Feel very good, feel lively, feel Toni. I’m healthy with lire, so I ask her if she’d like to go out to dinner. Yes, she knows a place I would like. Great. We grab a taxi with a driver who sings all the way, badly. The restaurant is the Trattoria San Carlo. It is small, bustling with waiters and pretty full. Nevertheless, we get a table in a corner near the resident accordion player. He plays, very
sostenuto
, Italian favourites.

“
Che desidera signore?
” says an
allegro
waiter.

I’m desperate for a drink to bring me down from my post-show ‘high’. “
Una bottiglia di Orvieto abboccata, perfavore
,” I say in ill-pronounced Italian.

It’s to be a lovey-dovey evening. It’s difficult for us two to be alone like this; now we are, and it’s beautiful.

“You lak it here, Terr-ee?”

Yes,
si, si
, it’s lovely and you are lovelier.

We spend a lot of time looking at each other. I won’t try to describe the feeling in detail, but it caused vibration of the Swonnicles.
Allegro
waiter pours the wine. Toni and I touch glasses. All is sweetness and light. As I spill some down my shirt, in a flash the
allegro
waiter is at my side with a napkin. Toni giggles as he helps me mop up. We sit drinking, enjoying the music and the ambience. At this time of night Rome comes alive and takes you with it.

Time to order: I’m a sucker for it, spaghetti Neapolitan please! Chicken à la romane for Toni. This latter is baked in clay, the mould broken open at your table. “You try,” she says, passing a piece on her fork. Mmmmm, delicious, but it can’t seduce me from my spaghetti. Paradise would be to be buried under a mound of spaghetti, having to eat my way out. Toni complains, “You eat much food but you never get like fat.” Who do I take after, my mother or father? For piles, I take after my father; for thinness, it’s my mother. My mother has legs thinner than Gandhi. If my mother stands with her legs together, it looks like one normal leg.

I’ve had four glasses of wine and am feeling good. God, I fancy Toni like mad. Oh, for a room at the Grand, Brighton! I tell Toni, “I want you very much.”

She gives a small understanding smile, which doesn’t give any relief. “Not possible, Terr-ee.”

There is the last resort, a secret knee-trembler – but no, I couldn’t introduce her to that. That was for taller women. Of course, there was always the orange box. No! These were all sexual fantasies. I don’t want the evening to end, but end it does and we take a taxi back to Albergo Universo. It’s one o’clock. “Good morning,” I say, as I kiss her goodnight.

Mulgrew is still awake. “Did you get it?”

“Oh, Mulgrew, must you?”

“Yes, I must keep a check on the state of play.”

I undress, still with a warm glow from the evening with Toni.

“You know, I’m a better size for Toni,” says Mulgrew.

“What do you mean, better size?”

“I’m the right height.”

“Height? You haven’t got any, you’re doomed to be a short-arse.”

“Listen, Napoleon was short.”

“Napoleon never went short. There was Josephine for a start.”

“Well, he had to start somewhere.” Mulgrew giggles reflectively. “He must have looked funny with his clothes off.”

It was a thought. Mind you, most of us look funny with our clothes off.

“Could he have conducted his battles nude?” said Mulgrew.

“Not unless he wore his sideways hat.” I pull the covers over me and turn off the light. “Goodnight, Johnny.”

Another day in my life had ended. It was all going by so quick, but it was in the main very enjoyable. I didn’t know it but these were to be among the most memorable days.

∗

We awake to another sunny Roman morning. We mustn’t waste the day. Johnny and I confer – the zoo, that’s it we’d all go to the zoo. Is Toni interested? I buzz her room. Yes, she’d love to go to the zoo. She loves me and my beautiful eyes and can Luciana come to? Why, is she unconcious? OK then,
dopo prima colazione
. We all wear our khaki, messing-about clothes. After breakfast we meet in the foyer.

“Morning, Spike,” says Lieutenant Priest. “Where did you disappear to last night?”

“Toni and I dined out.”

“Somewhere nice?”

“Yes.”

Then he lost interest. He is phoning CSE HQNapoli. They want to know when I am returning to the UK, as they have to book my passage back. To date, I haven’t made up my mind. I must give them a month’s warning. OK. What’s this noise I hear approaching, screaming, chattering and blowing raspberries? God, it’s Secombe. It’s a new show booking in. In his high-pitched nasal voice, he greets me with a rapid gabble. “Hello Spike, hey ho hupla raspberry.” He dashes off to reception to baffle the receptionist with chattering, screaming and blowing raspberries. Norman Vaughan comes in; he’s with Secombe in a new show. Forty years on, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the show; neither can Vaughan or Harry Secombe.

The zoo party assemble. We take a taxi. “
Giardino Zoological
,” we tell him and we lurch off. The taxi is like someone after a curry, prone to backfiring. At each explosion, we all give out an ‘OH’. The driver is not amused. He crouches over the wheel while we do every bit of twenty-five miles an hour.

The Rome zoo is set in splendid gardens, with numerous flowerbeds all in summer bloom with a prolificacy of roses that leave a strong bouquet in the summer air. We wander through the cages, watching creatures which have been torn from their native land and imprisoned. In those days my conscience wasn’t as awake as it is today and I enjoyed the sight of wild animals at close range.

We pass an ice-cream kiosk and buy four cornets, “
Quattro gelati
”. In a leisurely fashion we stroll, all immersed in licking our ice-creams like schoolkids.

In the chimpanzee cage, there are about a dozen specimens. We are witness to what Mulgrew finds hysterically-funny. A male chimp is trying to screw a female, but two other jealous males are trying to stop him by hitting him. The chimp continues banging away under a rain of blows. “My God,” says Mulgrew, “I hope I never want it that bad.” The two girls haven’t said anything but are convulsed with laughter, as are other spectators. They don’t write shows like that any more.

Would anyone like a ride on the Indian elephant? Yes, four of us climb up to the mounting platform and get into the wicker howdah. It seems to sway perilously as the beast moves off. The girls scream with enjoyment. The driver asks Johnny and me to extinguish our cigarettes. I suppose travelling on a non-smoking elephant was a first. The elephant waddles on a circular route; the driver calls out instructions. Mulgrew wants to know how an Indian elephant understands Italian.

“Sitting on an elephant makes you look taller, Mulgrew.”

He agrees, he must get one when he gets back to Scotland. He tells me his father once owned an elephant hunting dog. When people inquired how it killed an elephant, he said: “He waits.” What do you mean he waits, they asked. “Well,” he said, “they got to die sometimes.”

I took a few photographs. Alas, over the passage of time they all got lost, except these two of Mulgrew and Luciana, me and Toni.

“Ah ha,” says Mulgrew as we reach the boa constrictor cage. “Here’s a good present for mother-in-laws.” Toni shudders at the sight of the thirty-foot-long creature. “Just think,” says Mulgrew, “there’s thirty pairs of shoes there.” It’s feeding-time and the keeper releases a live white rabbit into the cage. Before the grisly meal starts, we move on – into the cool of the aquarium, with its light diffused through the fish tanks.

“I like this,” says Toni, putting her face close to the glass of the octopus cage. “Ah yes,” she realizes the meaning of the name, “eight leg, yes?” Yes, Toni. Really, it only needs two. The rest are spares, I suppose. We watch as the octopus changes colours – it’s a miracle, and those human eyes! The piranha are being fed! They attack the food like bullets from a gun. Several attack the same piece of food until it vanishes.

“
Che barbaro
,” says Luciana, putting her hand over her mouth.

In the carp tank, the keeper holds the food above the water line and they take from his hand – some hang on, and are lifted out of the water. “What a turn on,” says Mulgrew.

So, on through the afternoon. Towards evening we seek relief for aching feet at the restaurant. We sit outside. What would we all like? Cold drink? Yes yes yes, four lemonades please. No no no, Mulgrew wants a red wine. Bacchus to the rescue. The girls chatter away in Italian. “I think we’ve all had enough zoo, don’t you?” says Mulgrew. Yes, agreed, so it’s to the taxi rank and the journey back through rush-hour traffic. The noise! Italian drivers seem to live with their hands on the horn, plus they shout for the most trivial of reasons.

Luciana and Johnny at the Rome zoo.