Amazing Disgrace

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  There must be something of the old Eve in me because although Le Roccie is in many ways a paradise there is not much in the way of society up here for those rare evenings when one feels the itch of sociability. Very occasionally the mood does come upon me and I have the urge to shine a bit. Frankly, certain people are better at playing host than others and I rather fancy I have underused talents in that direction. If I can temporarily overcome my utter disdain for most of the human race I can generally enter into the spirit of the thing and lay on a memorable occasion.

  On the day of my grand dinner – yes, my birthday party if you insist – I find I am definitely in the mood, having arranged everything to perfection. My cantina is stuffed with prosecco and other drinkables. My larder shelves groan with edibles. The house is clean without being prim. The beds are made. And as the day progresses my guests start arriving. By means of cash, cajolery and threats the local taxis have managed to bring some; others I have fetched myself with split-second timing. So by the time we sit down to dinner I at last feel I can relax and indulge the spirit of revelry that liberal quantities of prosecco have already done much to encourage. Everyone I invited is present and correct, even Derek, who has earned additional Brownie points by arriving with the celebrated Pavel Taneyev and not with some ragamuffin stranger he has scooped up en route. The crostini topped with the gun-dog pâté that I cannily intermingled with the ordinary liver ones have vanished with cries of rapture. I have now served the first two bottles of Chianti Classico, San Fabiano Calcinaia’s Cellole Riserva 2000, which is a superb blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes. With a muscular alcohol content of 13.5% it falls companionably into step with a robust meat dish. And so it is that I finally help myself to a sturdy portion of badger Wellington and sit down at the head of my candle-lit dinner table. I still can hardly believe it has all come to pass.

  It is a charming, even glittering, scene. I have to admit it is the first time this house has really come into its own as a setting for the sort of company I have always known to be my proper milieu (except for Derek). So if you detect a note of preening in my description you will have to excuse it. Picture a large farmhouse kitchen with chestnut beams and an open log fire on a raised stone hearth along one wall. Seated on my left, the world-renowned conductor Max Christ, whose startling presence made Derek’s jaw drop satisfyingly when he arrived. It was just as I’d foreseen. Taneyev is no doubt a royal card but my ace in the hole was Max, who trumped him perfectly. Neither Max nor Taneyev had known the other was going to be here so it came as a surprise to them, too, a mere couple of days after they had played the Bartók concerto together in Florence. Last night, of course, Christ stopped at Empoli (which now I think wouldn’t be a bad title for a movie). On my right is Adrian, who arrived first and has provided sterling help with the food. Derek, to his intense pleasure, is sitting on the left hand of Christ while opposite him in a miasma of Allure is his Byronic Russian hero, whose performance two nights ago was so wildly acclaimed by the Florentines. A daemonic poet at the keyboard he may well be, this prodigy son of a Soviet aeronautical engineer, but at the festive board he is revealed as a solid trencherman of peasant-like proportions. I keep trying to forget that the staff at Corcoran’s know him as ‘Pauline’. As for Derek’s verdict on his hair, I can only concur. Pavel’s genes have unfortunately fated that his hair go the same way as Sig. Benedetti’s. Still, he has one great advantage over that smooth little estate agent. If someone can play Balakirev’s Islamey electrifyingly you don’t bother about his expertly tousled hair being less substantial than its dimensions pretend. On the other hand it is precisely the finicky grooming and utter ordinariness of someone like Benedetti that makes the eye zoom in cruelly on his woven web.

  Opposite me at the far end of the table is Nanty, perched on cushions to ease his gluteal zone. He is in high old form, I’d say, now and then giggling to himself or inviting Max to join him in renditions of some classic rock number from the Sixties. To everybody’s pleasure Max minds not at all, and having actually been alive in the Sixties (unlike Nanty, who was born in 1973) and blessed with a musical memory of stunning accuracy, he performs better than the boy-band leader. I imagine that after Nanty’s previous experiences in my house two years ago, when he foolishly arrived without a single pharmacological crutch, he has made sure on this occasion to pack plenty of mood-elevating substances. My own experience of recreational drugs is that, like drunkenness and senility, they do not encourage some startling new character to emerge. On the contrary, they simply display the same old character but in a form no longer inhibited by shame, social mores or self-censorship. If people appear to become suddenly mean in their cups or nursing home the chances are the meanness was always there, which may well make their friends and family look back with new insight. In Nanty’s case he simply disseminates an amiable, comfortable presence much like that of a prolapsed old family Labrador, now following the conversation (and people’s forkfuls) with a sort of blank alertness, and now staring at the fire with something approaching alert blankness. I am more than ever convinced my judgement of his character is sound and that he will prove a comparative delight to work with. Compared with Millie Cleat, I mean. I shall always need to remember that Nanty is also a public figure, with the drawbacks that entails. But at the very least he has a lovable streak. Just before dinner he came downstairs with a present for me: a flat presentation box of polished walnut in which, on velvet lining, lay a bright metal disc. This turned out to be a platinum pressing of his band’s theme song, ‘Alien Pie’, which was in the charts for a near-record number of months some time ago.

  ‘’Ere y’ar, mate,’ he said as he thrust the box into my hands. ‘Didn’t want you to think we’d nicked your idea without any acknowledgement.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It was your idea, remember? It was you came up with Alien Pie as the new name for Freewayz. In the business they say it’s the most successful-ever exercise in rebranding. Ever, Gerry. That’s not nothing, mate. So ’ere y’ar.’

  This gift is not only touchingly useless but has the additional virtue of being unplayable on any audio equipment I own. But I suppose you don’t play platinum discs. Quite what you do with them I’m not sure. Presumably you stick them on the wall of your downstairs lavatory to intrigue and impress your guests, much as Benjy Birnbaum advertises his repute in the field of ethical latex to give nervous patients a talking point before he starts to loosen their clothing.

  As to the food on this auspicious evening, the badger Wellington is an unqualified success. The fillet is tender and delicious, the hound-and-foie-gras pâté in which it is lapped intriguingly unidentifiable and divinely rich. The only tiny deviation I have made from the stated list of ingredients concerns the mushrooms, which I picked in the woods myself since absolute freshness is essential. Chanterelles are unfortunately nonexistent around here because it’s simply too dry for most of the year. Blewits, both wood and field varieties, are also quite uncommon. What we usually have is an abundance of parasols, although on my early morning ramble I failed to find a single one. But I did gather a mixed bag of woodland goodies, including a couple of small porcini or ceps and six or seven chestnut boletus – which each year grow sparsely beneath a particular group of oak trees near here. These have a delicious hazelnut flavour and I was pleased to have found them. On the way back I also spied three fresh, leggy specimens of Panaeolus semiovatus growing on a mildewed lump of what may have been fox dung, and just as I skirted the grassy area Marta had once cleared for her brother’s helicopter I found two sound survivors from a deliquescing group of Liberty Caps (Psilocybe semilanceata, in case you need to know). Both these last varieties are of small dimensions and somewhat hallucinogenic. I have found that when cooked together they induce a most agreeable euphoria combined with mild but interesting sensory disturbances which last a couple of hours or so: long enough to ensure an evening’s success. It is, of course, utterly irresponsible to incorporate such things
into innocent guests’ badger Wellington but I trust no one has ever accused Samper of responsible behaviour except in identifying the fungi I pick in these woods. I never take chances. There is nothing in this dish that could cause even passing queasiness, let alone projectile diarrhoea, and still less kidney failure. Don’t worry – we country boys may be out of our depths in big cities but up here in the wilds we are in our element.

  As any good hostess knows, the presence of an illustrious guest at the dinner table can sometimes actually dampen the occasion because the other guests hardly dare strike up a conversation with him or her for fear of appearing either sycophantic or stupid. Tonight, of course, we have no fewer than three bona fide celebrities, at least two of whom easily qualify as household names, depending on your household. This is really an advantage because none of them needs to impress anyone else so they can turn with relief to the sort of ordinary topics that make for light conversation. If Derek hoped he was going to hear gems of stage-door gossip from the two classical musicians present tonight he must be disappointed. Over the main course Max and Pavel suddenly discover each other to be Tom and Jerry aficionados. Pavel is not seriously let down by his English, the holes in which he patches with an occasional French or German word.

  ‘Non, Max, the first is “Puss Gets the Boot” and is from 1940. The cat, he is not yet Tom.’

  ‘Quite right, he’s called Jasper, and Jerry is Jinx. The producer was Rudolf Ising. But from the second cartoon onwards, in 1941, they were all produced by Fred Quimby until the mid-Fifties. The great years.’

  ‘Genau. The best of animation, the best of dessin.’

  ‘But what interests me,’ says Max, who is now beginning to conduct his own words with a fork and a pronged roast potato, ‘is the use of classical music in cartoons of that period. Right from Fantasia onwards, which was 1940, you get that Hollywood urge to set cartoon antics to well-known classics.’

  ‘Fantasia is a travestissement, ganz geschmacklos, terrible.’

  ‘Agreed. But did you ever see Bugs Bunny in “Bunny Baton”? He has to conduct Suppé’s ‘Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna’ and the matching of the music with his actions is simply wonderful, especially when a fly starts to pester him. In the space of about five minutes he parodies every conceivable “great conductor” mannerism. I tell you, Pavel, if ever I feel I’m becoming pompous in front of an orchestra I remind myself of Bugs Bunny.’

  I endeavour to punctuate this scholarly exchange with offers of stronger wine and madder badger. Substantial though my dish may be, nobody’s appetite seems to have slackened yet and everyone comes back for seconds. I pluck the gleaming brass cartridge base out of the puff pastry and begin carving the badger’s second half with the inner glow of the host who suddenly sees his much-dreaded dinner party becoming a great success. There are other reasons, too, for pride. Like both Derek and Pavel, Max Christ has obviously been bowled over by the house and on arrival paid me some very pretty compliments. Coming from the owner of a grand pile like Crendlesham Hall such enthusiasm was doubly gratifying and made me suddenly feel that all that hard labour I put into the place when I bought it has at last been fully rewarded. And throughout the evening, I’ve been noticing, Max seems completely at home and at ease. I can’t not believe that this makes our future working partnership substantially more likely. I already imagine long sessions taking place in this very room, Max leaning back in his chair while I take careful notes as a tape recorder slowly twirls its spools between us. Once I’ve got Nanty’s book out of the way I can at last embark on a project I needn’t feel ashamed of.

  But enough of the satisfactions of the future; the good host must attend to satisfying the present. There is a good deal of merriment around the table, I notice, with bits of salacious repartee threading their way amongst the Christ – Taneyev thesis of Hollywood cartoons. There is also a moment of potential awkwardness when Derek – it would be Derek – finds a piece of lead shot in his meat and asks if it is usual for Italians to hunt cows. Not at this time of year, I tell him, so the pellet must have fallen out of one of the mushrooms, which Tuscans hunt assiduously in November. The moment is mercifully lost in giggles and conversation continues.

  ‘… parodie of Italian opera. Example: “The Cat Above and the Mouse Below”. Tom, he is Figaro singing “Largo al factotum” and Jerry, he is under the stage and trying to sleep. But by the end they have changed places. Once more, the action is so beautifully synchronisiert with the music.’

  ‘They also used The Barber of Seville earlier in the series. If I remember correctly it was in “Kitty Foiled” …’

  Once normally unpompous people start saying things like ‘if I remember correctly’ at a dinner party it’s time for the host to start worrying that the conversation is in danger of becoming a monologue. But right on cue Nanty, who has been singing ‘The Blue Danube’ to himself in a falsetto at the end of the table, now remembers a Tom and Jerry cartoon in which Tom retires to an attic to teach himself to play the piano. This is so he can lure Jerry out of his hole because the mouse can’t resist waltzing by himself when he hears music.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Max says at once, ‘“Johann Mouse”. It won an Academy Award. In that one the musical satire’s aimed at extreme pianism. You have Tom playing these incredible roulades à la Josef Hofmann or Horowitz but with his feet, even as he tries to hit Jerry over the head with a poker. It was actually Jakob Gimpel playing his own paraphrase of “The Blue Danube”. He was a sadly underrated pianist.’

  ‘But much earlier than that is “Cat Concerto”,’ Pavel puts in, his hair an enthusiastic aureole that seems to give off a glow. ‘Tom, he is in tails, par excellence the romantic maestro. I think that is from 1947 …’

  Adrian and I discreetly lurch to our feet to open more wine and fetch a second tray of rosemary potatoes from the oven. I notice the floor suddenly seems unstable and bright shimmers frame everything I look at. It’s a very pleasant sensation, this dreamy swaying and the opulence of my vision. We both simultaneously clutch at the marble work surface.

  ‘I’m afraid I must be getting a bit pissed,’ Adrian confesses. ‘Also, do you know, I feel mildly stoned.’

  ‘Me too. Don’t tell anyone,’ I say conspiratorially, ‘but not everything lurking beneath that puff pastry would have been approved by Mrs Beeton.’

  He catches on fast. ‘You rotten sod,’ he says with a giggle. ‘You’ve doctored it.’

  ‘Nothing much. Just a little something to help th–’

  But at this moment there is an imperious knocking on the front door. By now Max is holding forth about how American culture in the Forties and Fifties had felt itself still overshadowed by the grand European artistic canon and sometimes felt obliged to poke gentle fun at it with an artistry all its own. But at this knocking he, too, breaks off and a sudden hush falls. ‘Who on earth can that be at this time of night?’ he asks for all of us. ‘This is hardly the sort of place where neighbours just drop in.’

  ‘It’s probably the Grim Reaper,’ says Derek. ‘He’s come to tell Gerry that he’s actually sixty after all and that his time is up.’

  More people laugh at this tasteless remark than I should have wished, but I suppose alcohol dulls the wits. I’m out in the passageway and opening the door to a squat lump with a halo. Can this be the Marian apparition I have long dreaded? I then notice that everything I look at has a halo, which probably has more to do with magic mushrooms and Chianti than with innate divinity, but who can tell the difference? The figure’s features come suddenly into focus and –

  ‘Marta!!’

  ‘Gerree! I’m sorry to –’

  ‘You’re back! At last!’ and incredulously I fall on her and give her a great big hug. She smells faintly of Etro’s Gomma, a remarkably sophisticated scent for her to be wearing and by several light years an improvement on her usual Musky Temptress or whatever it was called. ‘Oh, Marta, I’m so pleased to see you! I – I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Dead?’<
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  ‘Well, I mean, you just walked out leaving your house unlocked and the gas on and your car in the garage and bloodstains in the kitchen; what else were we to think? I was sure you’d been kidnapped and taken off to one of those horrible CIA “black zones” to be tortured to death.’

  ‘But I was in California. Writing film music.’

  ‘California? How was I supposed to know that? You might have left me a note, Marta. I do think it was mean of you not to tell me. I’ve been off my head with worry.’

  ‘Oh, Gerree, I’m so sorry. I remember now, the taxi arrived early and muddled me and I cut myself taking the trash out.’ And she squeezes my hand. Hers, I notice, is stone cold.

  ‘Never mind that.’ What is there to say to anybody as absent-minded and ditzy as Marta? ‘You poor thing, you’re frozen. Come in, come in. When did you arrive? We’re having a bit of a party here. Some quite distinguished people, actually,’ by way of preparing her for the social disparity she’s bound to feel. I am, of course, ecstatic to see her again but I do rather wish she had chosen any evening other than this for her resurrection. Though doubtless distinguished in her way, I’m not sure that Marta exactly fits into Samper’s natural milieu of world-class artists, not to mention a world-class scientist and, less probably, a world-class hairdresser. Frankly, old Marta diffuses about as much glitz and glamour as a debtors’ prison. Still, all this while I’m leading her into the kitchen and in the doorway I pause and raise my voice like a butler announcing a late arrival.

  ‘Er, guess what, everyone? This is my neighbour Marta, returned from the dead. I still can’t believe it.’ But my disbelief has only just begun because Max rises courteously from his chair with the easy warmth of an old acquaintance.

  ‘Hullo, Marta,’ he greets her. ‘This is a surprise! I didn’t realize you were Gerry’s neighbour. Long time no see.’

  ‘You know each other?’