Cooking With Fernet Branca

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  On we go for several more kilometres of resort architecture. It must be bleak here in winter. The shops and restaurants and awnings – even the very pavements – seem designed to echo to the slip-slopping of beach sandals and the inanities of holiday conversation. The signposts suggest we are nearly in Tirrenia when the contemporary beach lots suddenly stop and semi-jungle takes their place behind chain-link fencing. This is dotted with decaying white fascist villas: immense concrete ruins through whose drunken shutters and windowless embrasures come glimpses of sweeping Hollywoodian staircases. It is at one of these villas that we fetch up. The rusty padlocked gates are already open and inside, among the rioting shrubs that have taken over the driveway, is parked a bright red racing car. Beside this stands a handsome young man wearing dark glasses on the top of his head, every inch a fils à papa. He is introduced to me as Filippo, Pacini’s son. He is courteous and apologizes with plausible sincerity for his father’s absence. The great Piero is in America, receiving a prize. One of those unavoidable things in the life of a film director. Fame has its tiresome obligations.

  So there we all stand in the shade of a holm oak like time-travellers dumped in the nineteen thirties while Filippo explains in English far better than mine something of the history of this jungled lot. Apparently these shattered villas once formed part of Pisorno Studios (the mixture of Pisa and Livorno was probably always a bad omen, he adds with a smile that implies a famous historic rivalry). Pisorno was an earlier, Tuscan version of Rome’s Cinecittà where in the days of Mussolini a good many films were shot. Most of these fell into the category known as ‘white telephone’ films, so called because they inhabited a fascist fantasy world of good living peopled by haut-bourgeois layabouts. After the war Cinecittà pretty much took over the Italian film industry and since the sixties no one has been able to agree what to do with Pisorno’s remains. The hundreds of acres of abandoned real estate by the sea are periodically earmarked for a projected cultural centre, a commercial centre, a theme park, even a nature reserve, but the plans have always fallen through. Maybe only fascism ever had the power to make Pisans and Livornese agree to anything and in its absence there is only indecision, stalemate and a golf course. Now where the white telephones once stood on gold-trimmed tables beside canopied double beds are the discarded condoms, cracked syringes, cigarette butts and other leavings of intruders.

  ‘But see for yourself,’ Filippo ends, taking my arm and leading us through vertical glare across a terrace rumpled with rotting concrete. The salt air of seventy years has penetrated to its reinforcing rods, puffing them up with rust.

  Oh, perfect! Scabrous! Fabulously derelict! ‘What a place to shoot a film in,’ I say appreciatively to Filippo. ‘All those decadent fascist ghosts undermined by real decay.’ At least that’s what I try to say and I think he gets the gist. Sasi has a disapproving air, perhaps at being linguistically sidestepped or to make it clear that these ballroom and dining room floors crunching with broken glass and dried turds (animal? human?) are very far from her own natural habitat. I’m taking bets that the phones in her Florence apartment are white. Filippo meanwhile is clearly pleased I’m responsive to the place. It all feels like a good omen and the almost undreamable dream of writing the score for a Piero Pacini film suddenly begins to be a practical proposition. We wander about the house, each in her or his own world, pleased by the generations of graffiti and prompted to speculation by incongruities. Why would anyone ever have used one of these rooms for storing bales of cardboard egg racks, hundredweights of them, soggy and rotting?

  When by sheer fortune Piero Pacini had seen Vauli Mitronovsk after it won Voynovia’s Gold Stoat in 1999, he had liked my score enough to write asking if I would care to do the music for a film he was going to make. I stared unbelievingly at the letter, then ran from room to room of the castle showing it to everyone I met, except of course to Mili who is illiterate. Father had never heard of Piero Pacini, predictably. Bringing him around took weeks of cajoling and careful work by both Marja and myself. He said the modern Western cinema is notoriously decadent, full of bad language and gross indecency and run by drug-addict dudis. It would be a completely unacceptable occupation for one of his stable-boys, let alone for his own daughter. Meanwhile Pacini wrote me more letters outlining a proposed plot I made sure Father never got wind of. It was about a group of left-wing liberals full of Green zeal who start a fishing commune. They are united by their loathing for the corruption of Italy’s Christian Democrats and a determination not to let the environmentally friendly way of life they are pioneering become contaminated by deep-frozen convenience foods and high-tech fishing practices. This struggle is made the more piquant because the father of one of them is a fervent democristiano, a great friend of the former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti. He owns fleets of trawlers and factory ships which have made him a multi-millionaire as well as notorious for having wiped out a particular pod of dolphins that were being observed by a nearby oceanographical institute. Gradually the communards entice back to the sea some of the local fishermen who have been driven by industrial competition to hang up their crude little nets and hand lines … It all goes wrong, of course. Industrialization and city life lurk nearby. Something spoiling seems to leach out of the very sand on which the commune is founded (and here I see Pisorno’s ruined lots with the utmost clarity). Some virulent fascist germ that has been lying dormant in the damp concrete and blown plaster infects the commune. Bit by bit the Greenery turns nasty. In one character it becomes outright racism directed at an Albanian fisherman, fuelled by bitter assertions that no immigrant ever has the least respect for the environment in his adopted country because he never really believes it’s his … There are meetings, struttings, fights. Couples break apart. Later there are orgies in the abandoned villas. I got the idea. The only important thing was to stop Father also getting it.

  Well, the simple fact of my now living in my own house high above Casoli hides the incredible effort and upheaval – not to say downright lies – it took to achieve my autonomy and independence. For the moment Father thinks Pacini makes documentary films for the Italian tourist industry, full of jaunty footloose music and heartwarming images of Benetton-clad toddlers trying to catch pigeons in the Piazza San Marco. May God help this famous director if he ever discovers otherwise. After all, Pasolini was stabbed to death by a seventeen-year-old. I dread to think what might happen to Piero Pacini if Father calls out the clan to avenge his elder daughter’s lost innocence.

  Anyway, standing here in late-June heat in the overgrown garden of the villa Pacini has apparently chosen as his main set, the whole project becomes very vivid to me. Between the acacia branches the blue sea twinkles noisily. Behind me the house glowers as if waiting for redress from the awful wrongs of history. It wants its white telephones back. The place is perfect and sinister and I can feel all sorts of suitable music elbowing out a space for itself inside me. I take some Polaroid snapshots as atmospheric aides-memoire so that when I’m back up the mountain in my kitchen trying not to be distracted by my neighbour’s singing I shall be sure to hear once again what I can hear now. That’s how it works with me. First impressions always bring music with them. Unreadable credits and titles flow upwards in my mind’s eye while my mind’s ear fills with an appropriate score.

  At last Filippo insists on driving me back to Viareggio station where I’ve left my own car. Sasi is now quite grumpy and mutters a Voyde saying about stoats of the non-golden sort. I make an attempt to take my place nonchalantly in the scarlet car but this boy-racer’s toy is not designed for nonchalance. It is like inserting oneself into a shoebox lined with cream leather. The car is called a De Tomaso Panther and is so low my bottom puckers each time we go over a bump, expecting to be abraded raw by hot tarmac. We arrive at the station with a bellow and everyone stares so hard at the car and its driver they hardly notice my struggle to get out, still less my anonymous but cheerful trudge through the heat towards my own nondescript vehicle.


  9

  Next day I clear a space on the kitchen table (I can’t quite get used to doing my own washing up. It feels far stranger than preparing one’s own food. I wish dear Mili were here) and lay out my new 16-stave score paper. Also lots of different coloured pens. My task is to renounce my songs temporarily and concentrate on this film score. I realize this is premature since I still know nothing about exactly what Pacini wants. But I’m determined at least to get down the germs of what I began to hear yesterday while crunching through those empty cement rooms at Pisorno Studios. Get it down, that’s the thing, otherwise it goes. Anyway, Pacini’s sure to need some atmospheric passages. What I have to do is invent the film’s characteristic sound. I want to do what Ennio Morricone did for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. One can’t even see Clint Eastwood’s face without hearing a single bell in the orchestra, that portentous funereal sound as from a sunblasted and crumbling Mexican church. And as for whistling …

  I’m thinking vaguely of tangos (very white-telephone, those!) and am beginning to put notes on paper when my neighbour sets up his dreadful howling. True, the sound is muffled by distance – our houses are quite fifty metres apart and screened by trees – but his voice has a plangent, intrusive quality. It insists on being heard. I suppose it doesn’t help that it’s almost July and all his doors and windows are open, as are mine. I’m about to reach for the phone and speak my mind to that silky little house agent when I suddenly realize that what I’m hearing is the sound for the film. Always, somewhere in the distance, some dudi massacring Italian opera, or else making it up as he goes along. It’s incompetent, unconscious, egotistical, yearning. Perfect ironic backing for the idealism of a failing Green commune in Italy. There’s one particular florid phrase Gerry keeps repeating that somehow manages to encapsulate the essential saccharine vapidity of Puccini without being identifiably by anyone. I can’t make out the words but the rhythm uncannily suggests the phrase ‘Telecom Italia’. Maybe I’m too influenced by the frustrations of phoning home recently. Come to that, maybe Gerry is too influenced by being able to stand on his terrace (next to that object which in Voynovia would be a peasant’s privy) and see, far away down the coast, the very lake beside which Puccini once lived. Oh dear, I wish I were fonder of Italian opera. My favourite of all Verdi’s works is his string quartet. I know that’s perverse. I know.

  In any case the florid phrase goes well with some wry tango rhythms behind it and I’m getting on like a house on fire (as we Voyde picturesquely say) when there is a knock at the open door and Gerry is outlined against the brightness.

  ‘Not disturbing, I hope, am I?’ he asks, advancing and peering. I realize he probably can’t see much after the sunlight outside, and of course his eyes won’t be adjusting as readily as they would have even ten years ago. ‘Thought I’d drop by with a little something … Ooh! You’re busy,’ for he can now make out the MS paper on the table. ‘I say, that looks awfully … Your songs, I suppose? Anyway, seeing as how you’re so fond of this stuff I just thought I’d run across and drop you off a bott.’

  It is, of course, Fernet Branca he has brought. Bemused by this sudden intrusion, I gaze dumbly at its yellowish label with the picture of an eagle clutching a bottle in its claws while teetering atop a blue globe.

  ‘I know just how you feel,’ he goes on sympathetically. ‘Sort of edging towards lunch-time and wondering whether a little snorterino mightn’t hit the spot.’

  I don’t believe I shall ever master English. I’m still trying to work out his meaning while dragging myself back from an inner soundscape. Obviously I’m too slow for he takes the initiative, finding a couple of glasses by the sink and pouring slugs of liquor that would gag a Bunki huntsman. ‘There,’ he says, downing his at a draught with only the smallest shudder. ‘Grows on you, this stuff, don’t you think? Anyway, I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘But you have, all the same.’

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t resist a discreet celebration. Fact is, I’ve just heard that my new book is going down uncommonly well with the publishers. Even its anti-hero, the appalling Mr Snoilsson, apparently thinks it’s “ace”. They foolishly sent him a copy of the typescript but it turns out he can read after all. It’s going to be previewed simply everywhere, as far as I can gather. International paperback rights about to be snapped up like hot – Good God! How could I have forgotten? Got a cake in the oven. Be right back.’

  Now that I can see him from the inside out, as it were, instead of as a black blob outlined against the glare, I notice as he trots away that he’s wearing a horizontally-striped matelot T-shirt, white shorts that beautifully emphasize the bum he doesn’t have, with a pair of those Deckers or Dockers or Dickers on his sockless feet. I reach resignedly for my glass. If there’s anything more enraging than having one’s work interrupted by news of how well a neighbour’s work is going, I can’t offhand think what it might be. Who is this importunate fellow, anyway? No doubt it will be painful but it’s high time to bring this burgeoning mateyness to a halt. Very likely he’s quite sweet really but he more and more strikes me as one of those lonely bachelors who, before you know it, start dropping in for a cup of sugar or rice on a regular basis and then stay until you can’t avoid inviting them for lunch, and there’s another day’s work down the drain. Just like poor Pavel at Moscow Conservatory. Another dudi, of course. Why do I attract them, dammit? But here he is, back again.

  ‘Saved by the bell,’ he announces, fanning himself with one hand. ‘Phew – just in time. Another minute and that skewer would have been emerging cleanly from a cinder. Ooh, our glasses are empty, look. Can’t have that on a torrid summer’s day in Toscana.’ The sound of much Fernet fills the room. ‘By and by, when it’s cooled, I’ll bring it over and we can have a naughty tea. Terribly decadent, cake and fizz in the afternoon, don’t you think? Sorry to be babbling but I can’t tell you what a relief it is when people approve of what you’ve done. Books are hellish. You can spend a year fiddling away and then at the end they say you struck the wrong note, meaning that in their view you’ve wasted twelve months of your life. Really, I envy you, Marta. At least you can dash off one of your little songs and if it turns out a dud, well, that’s only an hour or two down the drain, chalk it up to experience sort of thing. Whereas a biography …’

  Here Gerald downs another glass of Fernet with a man-of-the-world gesture. ‘Trouble is, I simply can’t make up my mind what to do next. My editor and my agent just want more of the same, of course. But I’m fed up with these sports personalities. Can you believe they’re now trying to team me up with some zonked-out South American footballer with a paunch and a cocaine habit? I suppose since he’s older he might be marginally more interesting. I’ll tell you a secret: I feel like branching out. I’m sick of people setting themselves challenges and bursting through pain barriers. I want a subject worthy of my talents.’

  ‘Someone like Luciano Pavarotti?’ I ask mischievously. ‘Your voice is remarkably similar.’

  ‘You’re joking, of course,’ he says unconvincingly. ‘Besides, Marta, he’s been done already. Dozens of times, probably. No, I was thinking more of a film director. Take Piero Pacini, for example. All those wonderful decadent films. Nero’s Birthday – I mean, anyone who could dream up some of the scenes in that film gets my vote. And did you see Mille Piselli? I shouldn’t mind investigating an imagination like that, would you?’

  I am momentarily speechless with horror. What atrocious piece of fate is this? How can this absurd creature be encroaching on my life in this way?

  ‘No!’ I hear myself say firmly. ‘Really not, Gerry. I don’t think this Pacini fellow is you at all. I don’t know you that well, of course, and it’s certainly none of my business, but I’d say it’s obvious that your talents lie more in the musical field. Not necessarily with a singer, though. Perhaps a conductor or an instrumentalist? Someone like Pavel Taneyev, maybe. Have you heard of him?’

  He looks at me pityingly. ‘Of course I ha
ve, Marta. Everyone’s heard of Pavel Taneyev. He’s world-famous. Won the Tchaikovsky Prize.’

  ‘Well, he’s had a most interesting life. His father was an aircraft designer for the Soviet air force who always kept a suitcase packed and ready in the house in case he was suddenly sent to the Gulag. If one of his aircraft crashed during testing and he had previously signed it out as airworthy he knew he should go straight home, collect the suitcase and present himself. No excuses, especially if the pilot was killed. That was the precariousness of the family in which Pavel grew up. He scarcely ever saw his father. He was always in the Gulag.’

  ‘His planes kept crashing?’

  ‘Like shot pheasants. But it was never his fault. Always some jealous engineer had made an alteration.’

  ‘Goodness, how melodramatic. How do you know this?’

  ‘Pavel told me himself.’

  ‘You mean you’ve actually met Pavel Taneyev?’

  ‘We were at Moscow Conservatory together.’

  ‘Moscow? But I thought you were from Volodiya or somewhere.’

  ‘Voynovia,’ I say with weary patience for this buffoon. ‘But in those days Voynograd Academy of Music, though excellent, taught very little composition. So I went on to Moscow. I haven’t seen Pavel for several years but we were quite close once.’

  ‘Quite close, eh?’ and I swear this idiot tries a leer, although it may be that he is losing control of his facial muscles as people do with three-quarters of a bottle of Fernet Branca inside them.