Amazing Disgrace

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  But the thought that I shall soon see Christ banishes these few trivial clouds, and as I go about preparing something with which to greet Derek when he deigns to come home (for house guests have certain obligations), I find myself singing. Did you ever see L’uomo magro when they did it at the ENO as The Thin Man? It was one of Ficarotta’s early short operas and it’s sometimes paired with Cavalleria rusticana or I pagliacci. Good plot, with all sorts of Sicilian banditry and lost inheritances to spice things up, but the central story is that of Lieutenant Gasparo who wants to marry Cinzia. Gasparo has recently returned to his town after a year away fighting the Turks, but hardly anyone recognizes him because he has become prodigiously fat. Last year’s willowy young officer now resembles Monty Python’s Mr Creosote. His military campaign was highly successful and his troops won all sorts of victories and booty, which included a number of eager, hairy women and a Turkish delight factory. But Gasparo has a weakness that soon betrayed him and, leaving the women to his equally hairy and eager men, he took to spending entire days in the deserted factory, pining for Cinzia and comforteating his way through hundredweights of sugar-dusted, gelatinous cushions of lokoum. The result is that when Cinzia first glimpses him rolling like a dirigible across the town square she is so horrified by his appearance she swears a solemn oath she will never marry him until he is once more as slender as when they had first met by moonlight. To that end his family, keen on her dowry, walls him up in an old fort, leaving a single entrance to his cell so narrow that only a thin man could squeeze through. Until he loses enough weight to come forth as l’uomo magro, Cinzia will remain unwed.

  Normally the role of Gasparo is played by a tenor wearing a fat costume, and after his spell in the fort they pull his bungs out behind the scenery and he whistlingly deflates in time for the triumphant last wedding scene. There is a great studio recording of L’uomo magro by Pavarotti and Muti with the La Scala orchestra, but for obvious reasons Pavarotti has never been able to play Gasparo on the stage. The aria I like best, and the one I choose to sing this morning as I bustle about trying to spruce up Derek’s grubby little kitchenette, is Cinzia’s ‘Seguire’, which she sings to Gasparo outside his cell one night. It is an aria of plaintive longing and encouragement, while not lacking in a degree of admonition. She is a very determined young lady who doesn’t relish the prospect of waiting so long for him to slim down that she loses her looks before he can regain his. ‘Seguire,’ she urges him, ‘seguire un’alimentazione quotidiana sana ed equilibrata è importante per mantenersi in forma.’ Towards the end her words are punctuated by her starving lover’s pitiful howls from inside the cell in a masterly tragi-comic duet.

  As I sing and scrub away my mind is busily flicking through a mental card index of recipes to find something suitable for greeting Derek on his return from work. He has pretensions to being a gourmet, despite the condition of his stove which he has certainly not cleaned since my last visit many months ago. Remembering that he particularly likes fish, and recognizing that it will require some deft shopping in the excellent fish shop around the corner, I decide on a Samper classic:

  Eels Flottantes

  Ingredients

  1 kg eels

  Whites of 5 eggs

  400 gm samphire

  Thumbnail-sized lump of fresh ginger

  2 large sticks of rhubarb

  Small piece of nutmeg

  400 gm okra

  1 tbsp gelatine

  Lime juice (optional)

  The eels I find this morning are alive but disheartened and, back in Derek’s kitchen, squirm sullenly in their mucus. It is possible that by some misunderstanding you have formed the impression that Samper’s approach to the natural world is callous and uncaring, especially where it intersects with gastronomy. This is a calumny, as will be evidenced by my concern to take these poor eels’ lives in a way that causes me no pain even as it kills them instantly. I reject at once both the commonly used methods. The first is to put them in a deep bowl and sprinkle them liberally with salt. This is claimed to do for them inside two hours and to remove much of their slime as well. I submit that any method of execution that takes up to two hours to work is dismally inefficient. Also, it is improper to punish still further any wild creature that has already had the misfortune to wind up in a zinc tank off Marylebone High Street. What is more, eels that have been ‘brined’ in this way have often been found still alive eighteen hours later. They are vertebrates with an advanced sensory system and it is safe to assume they suffer. A more popular way of despatching eels is simply to chop their heads off, probably using for the first time that chopper bought on impulse in a supermarket in Chinatown because it looked so professional and was so cheap. It will come as a shock, however, to learn that severed eel heads may still be showing signs of life up to eight hours later. That’s what comes of anthropomorphism. We assume that what seems to kill us quite reliably will do the same for any other creature. You will note I say ‘seems’ to kill us, because in 1905 an unsqueamish French doctor named Beaurieux conducted experiments with the freshly guillotined heads of condemned murderers. One involved a convict named Languille with whom Beaurieux had previously agreed a code whereby the victim promised to try to respond to questions by opening and closing his eyes. The blade fell and the doctor addressed Languille’s head, twice calling out his name. Languille’s eyes duly opened twice. On the second occasion, ‘the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time.’ (This is a true story, although I grant it’s an odd coincidence that Languille is French for ‘the eel’.) Presumably if a very sharp blade transects the spinal cord precisely between two cervical vertebrae, thereby causing minimal physical shock, consciousness would not necessarily be lost instantaneously. All of which goes to show that cooks should think twice before reaching for their Chinese choppers and lopping off bits of live animal under the impression that they are being humane. They should try to imagine what goes through an eel’s mind when it suddenly finds itself missing from the neck down and then swept away into the aromatic darkness of a kitchen pedal bin, being intermittently doused with showers of onion peelings and coffee grounds for eight hours until things mercifully begin to fade.

  To kill eels instantly, strike them smartly on the back two-thirds of the way down with a rolling pin. Then cut their heads off. Wash the headless corpses thoroughly in cold water for up to half an hour, carefully scraping the slime off. Gut them normally, not forgetting to prolong the cut to an inch beyond their arseholes because a sort of kidney-like organ is lying doggo down there. Wash them again and cut into slices about as thick as the length of the top joint of your middle finger. Now lightly boil the okra, samphire and rhubarb separately in barely enough unsalted water to cover them, in the samphire’s case until the leaves slide off the stalk (probably 10 mins. but depends on the season). When all three are done, put them without draining into a liquidizer together with the small lump of root ginger, blend them, add salt and pepper with a sparing hand (samphire is already quite salty) as well as a squeeze of lime juice if you have any, and put the mixture aside to cool in a large bowl you would not be ashamed to see on a dining table. The colour will be predominantly greenish; the shade can be intensified by stirring in a few drops of food colouring.

  Now fry the eel slices gently in the merest smear of olive oil (their own fat will mobilize as they heat up) until they begin to brown and the skin is easy to separate. Still without removing the skin, set them aside as well to cool. When they are cold enough put them in the fridge and go out and buy yourself the tie you noticed on the way to the fish shop and have been thinking about ever since. It costs nearly eighty pounds, and it has taken the fit of introspection caused by slaughtering innocent eels to talk yourself into deciding that it is a killer item essential to the Samper wardrobe. A summery little number, it resembles Shredded Wheat in both colour and texture and is allegedly made from the undyed silk secreted by caterpillars fed
on biologically farmed mulberry leaves, if you can believe the blarney on the little card attached. For eighty pounds they should have fed them on honeydew and the milk of Paradise; but it’s a spiffy tie and represents the up-side of my dismal literary activities.

  Back in the kitchen once more, take two cups of the green broth and heat one-and-a-half of them. Soften the tablespoon of gelatine in the remaining half-cup of cool liquid and then dissolve it completely in the hot. Stir it well into the rest and put the bowl in the freezer to set. I know full well that this gelatine method is cheating. In the authentic original version I pioneered some years ago (on the same day as my exquisite Mackerel & Blackberry Loaf), I used freshly made chicken stock for cooking the vegetables. When rendered from a whole chicken gently simmered for three hours, this stock sets naturally when refrigerated and is unquestionably preferable. This present version is a slightly disgraceful makeshift for those pressed for time: a recourse that I realize is perilously close to TV cheffie cookery. Banish this thought if you can by taking five eggs from inside the door of Derek’s fridge and praying they were laid later than 2004. Separate the whites and beat them until they stand up (the Robert Mugabe approach to cookery). Bring a little milk to the boil and grate barely enough nutmeg on the surface to leave a fine film. Then with a wet spoon toss blobs of the egg foam onto its surface for a few seconds. They cook almost at once and turn into quenelles of meringue imbued with the merest ghost of nutmeg.

  By now you are home and dry, which is more than can be said for Derek who has just rung to say he’s been caught in a shower near Berkeley Square and is presently huddled in a doorway because, not having his brolly with him, he daren’t risk getting his hair wet. Rugged outdoorsman that I am, I do my best to keep any contempt for such feebleness out of my voice. Still, I suppose when you haven’t much hair to start with and what remains has been frisked and dolloped into a texture considerably like meringue, you do better to lurk in doorways rather than risk collapse. This gives me ample time to remove the now-set bowl of liquid from the freezer and admire its trembling, rubbery surface as well as its beautiful deep green colour. On it I now dispose with the utmost artistry the roundels of cold eel, topping each with a cap of meringue. And there we are: Eels flottantes! Now the point of leaving the skin on the slices becomes apparent. It is entirely a matter of aesthetics. The meringues seem to float like icebergs on their little black rafts of eel meat, themselves buoyed up on a fathomless green ocean. And maybe the scrupulous addition of one or two of those famous silver balls to the meringues’ peaks will give this great dish its final touch of fantasy.

  It is true to say that when Derek finally does arrive and has restored himself with a hair dryer and gin he is not in the ideal mood for gastronomic adventure. I now realize that in his way he is really rather unenterprising. He certainly eats what I have spent so much of the day preparing in his honour, but in a pettishly tentative and dispirited manner (‘like snacking out of a pond’). But he perks up on hearing that I shall soon see Christ. ‘We are moving in exalted circles these days, Gerry,’ he says with elaborate unconcern, and then can’t stop himself adding: ‘Did I tell you I styled Pavel Taneyev the other day? He’s over here for ages because he’s doing a complete Bach at Wigmore Hall over the next six weeks. Difficult, difficult hair. I think ideally he wants to look Byronic – you know, shoulder-length, wide open collar. But it’s far too fine and he’s really just too old for that look, poor boy. His is that wretched kind of hair that lacks all body, and he really shouldn’t wear it long at all because otherwise it has to be whizzed up to make it look bigger and he risks turning into Dame Edna Everage. Whatever else she did, she never played the Goldberg Variations in Wigmore Hall. He’s so sweet, though, ever so generous with complimentary tickets to his concerts. We all call him Pauline. Leslie who washes him says he adores being shampooed. By the time I get to cut and style him he’s all flushed and rosy. I always think Russians are so sensitive.’

  Stories about sensitive Russians always make me think of Stalin and the account given by his dentist. Being Stalin’s dentist must have rated as the world’s least desirable job, with the gulag or the executioner’s bullet lurking behind one’s every move with the little silver probe. And as for drilling … Years after Stalin’s death his dentist admitted it had been nerve-racking, and made worse by the dictator’s own terror of having his teeth seen to which led him to babble endless Georgian jokes to postpone having to open his mouth. A dental appointment with Stalin ran to several hours. Knowing Blowjob, I expect hair appointments with Pavel Taneyev take quite as long. It’s typical of Derek that he feels compelled to try to upstage me, even as he must know that Max Christ easily outranks Taneyev in terms of visibility and general recognition. But there we are, and it costs me nothing to allow for poor Derek’s being a hairdresser with collapsed nether cheeks. Still, I can’t quite bring myself to admit that I should very much like an introduction to Taneyev myself, and it’s a bit of a shock to hear that a person I would adore to write about has so easily swum into Derek’s ken. I suppose I was still hoping to reach him via Marta. Taneyev remains a hero of mine; and while it’s all very fine pinning my immediate hopes on Max Christ, it may well be that some earnest German is already halfway through writing the conductor’s official biography. So I certainly ought to have an alternative subject up my sleeve. As if I needed reminding of the awful fate that awaits me if I fail, Frankie mentioned the other day that Champions Press has had an enquiry from an international rugby player who wants his story told and they thought of me. Can it get more humiliating than this? The essential Socratic dignity of suicide is something that is beginning to take hold of me with quiet conviction.

  ‘I must say, Derek, if you can lay your hands on any of those complimentary tickets I shouldn’t at all mind going along to hear Taneyev at least once. When does he start?’

  ‘Next week sometime. The first evening’s the Partitas, I think. He’s booked me for that afternoon. He says nobody in the whole world understands his hair as I do.’

  ‘A well-earned compliment on your intellectual achievement.’ I’m not about to give gratuitous hostages to Derek’s malice so I shall say nothing about my wanting to meet his illustrious client – not unless he first tries to wangle an introduction to mine. I shall simply buy a ticket to one of Taneyev’s less popular evenings, such as when completeness obliges him to play those dreary early toccatas, and then slip off backstage afterwards. I expect I shall go in a corduroy suit of a restrained shade – probably that bitter chocolate one I noticed when I bought the tie this afternoon. It’s vital to understate when choosing ultra-soft fabrics, otherwise one risks looking like Big Lord Fauntleroy or plain flamboyant. Discretion is the better part of velour.

  The next day, a Wednesday, Adrian’s sister Jennifer rings to say there’s a sudden loophole in her husband’s calendar and could I manage dinner with Max this Friday? Can I ever?, I think as I gracefully accept with a tiny lurch of the stomach. My apprehension becomes more marked when Jennifer explains that unfortunately Adrian won’t be coming as well because he has just rung to say he’s flying straight off to join some survey vessel that’s having instrument problems. Naturally, I’ve been relying on the promise of his moral support for this critical evening. Well, that does it: I shall go out and buy that corduroy suit right now. What is seven hundred pounds when one’s future is at stake? No sooner have I put the phone down than Frankie calls to say Millie Cleat’s keen to reach me but doesn’t have Derek’s number. Certainly she doesn’t, I say, and nor must she. I suggest he tells her I shall be out of touch for the rest of the week. ‘She’s not used to being kept waiting,’ says Frankie delightedly. ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  Cities inhibit me. I look out over the cobbled mews at the back of the flat and feel trapped. Just before he left for work this morning Derek found a letter pushed beneath his front door from his imperfectly literate landlord, a smarmy, tone-deaf immigrant who lives upstairs. He was complaining about ‘a very b
ad yoweling’ yesterday morning that disturbed his patients. ‘Were you singing, Gerry?’ Derek asked me crossly. ‘After I asked you not to?’

  ‘I forgot,’ I admitted. ‘Only a little aria from L’uomo magro. Why shouldn’t I? What patients, anyway? What is he – an analyst? An abortionist?’

  ‘An irrigator. He insists on absolute calm when doing it. He offered me a freebie once after I’d just moved in but he’s too creepy. He eats those Japanese breath-freshener pastilles all the time. Also, his flat’s obsessively neat and full of deodorizers and incense burners. I simply fled. He’s not pushing rubber tubes up me, not even to reduce the rent. How can one be an anal retentive and an irrigator, that’s what I want to know. But I don’t need trouble, Gerry, so no more singing, please.’

  Thus admonished I now creep silently about, gathering my wits before sallying forth to buy clothes suitable for dining with Christ. I’m already sick of London and miss Le Roccie, where I can wear what I like and sing what I like and cook what I like. With a small pang I find myself wondering if old Marta’s back yet. But then, she wasn’t too keen on my singing, either, and took a terrible revenge for which, if I live long enough, I may yet forgive her.

  9

  ‘I hope you don’t mind taking the train to Woodbridge,’ my hostess had said, ‘but Max has to be in Colchester on Friday afternoon and it seemed more logical.’ For them, yes. I buy the best bottle of prosecco I can find and wrap it myself because shops here won’t wrap anything properly, not even gifts. It is only when one has lived abroad for any length of time that one appreciates what a peculiar place England actually is. I catch a late-afternoon train, allowing masses of time because I hate being rushed and flustered. I’m hoping to arrive early enough to spend an hour or two in a friendly hostelry at the other end, putting my thoughts in order over some Dutch courage. Before catching the train I remind myself to sit bolt upright for fear of creasing my new corduroy suit, which I have to say is drop-dead luscious and flatters the Samper physique to the point of sycophancy. And my new dull-Shredded-Wheat tie is simply made to go with it. However, these precautions have turned out to be wholly irrelevant. Not only is the train so dawdling and delayed that I become seriously alarmed, it is also so crammed with commuters that the question of how or even where to sit is purely academic. With a certain hauteur I resign myself to standing the whole way and try to minimize physical contact with my fellow strap-hangers to keep my beautiful suit unsullied. In any case I shouldn’t have dared sit because almost as soon as they got on most of the passengers began tearing open plastic packages of noisome snacks and have dripped and spurted mayonnaise or ketchup over each other ever since.