Cooking With Fernet Branca

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  I must say the Red Cross parcel he brought from home did make me homesick. Mili sent me some jars of her blackberry kompot & a box of goose grease just as if I were still 10.

  I’m working well & all that film stuff’s coming along brilliantly. The only cloud on the horizon (and it’s a very small one, and passing) concerns my dudi neighbour. That’s my only real news, to be honest – just to tell you that a sort of temporary war has broken out between us.

  How on earth? you’re wondering. Well, the night Ljuka turned up Gerry had a guest staying with him (& although it’s hardly my business I can’t say I think much of his taste. Bald as a goose egg). Apparently they were sitting out when Uki flew in directly over their heads! I must tell him to land from a different direction next time because Gerry came across in the morning after breakfast, ratty & moaning about damage to his precious pergola. That weird roundabout way he has of saying things: had I by any chance noticed a helicopter around these parts last night? Well, Mari, you know me: Ms Mischief herself. What could I possibly do but feign complete ignorance? I mean, our little brother had practically landed several tons of howling machinery on his roof, but instead of laughing & telling me what a dreadful liar I am Gerry was completely thrown. He went all baffled and sulky. I still don’t know if it’s just him or whether all Englishmen avoid being direct (lack of courage?) and are forced instead to become tetchy. It was also unfortunate that when he came in I’d happened to be playing my pastiche of his singing. I couldn’t tell if Il Falsetto recognized it with thirty-six tracks of synthesized orchestral backing & I now suspect he can’t have: he would surely have been much angrier if he’d realized what I’ve been up to at his expense. Poor Gerry! Memo to self: in future only play those bits of the score through headphones.

  He went away still nonplussed by my literally incredible lying but came back again the following morning, slightly strutty like a cock mounting its dunghill to make an announcement to the farmyard. ‘I’ve been thinking, Marta,’ he said, ‘and it seems to me it would make sense if we established some sort of visible boundary between our two properties. Those little red pegs the geometra put in the ground when I bought my house are obviously a short-term way of marking our confini. As it cost me money to have the survey done I’m suggesting we put up a fence by way of something more permanent.’

  ‘Like the Berlin Wall?’ I couldn’t help asking.

  ‘Obviously not, Marta. No – just something rather more tangible than a few sticks of wood that any passing helicopter could blow out of the ground.’

  This showed spirit, and I mentally awarded him a point. To make things still easier for him I poured a glass of his favourite tipple which he accepted with an admirable show of reluctance. I remarked that a fence would probably be even more susceptible to helicopters than pegs.

  ‘Certainly it would if the helicopters became a habit & if they were flying low enough to contravene every possible air safety regulation, like the one the other night‚’ he said with what he probably thought was witty aplomb but which just sounded petulant. ‘But at least if our fence were blown flat we would have tangible evidence. Certainly enough to show to the carabinieri. A valuable fence destroyed. So might I ask, Marta: would you be willing to share the cost of this fence?’

  ‘No,’ I said – & I suddenly heard Father’s intransigent voice in my own. Breeding will out, ek ni? ‘No, Gerry, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I thought not,’ he said. (I then topped up his glass with Fernet & the poor addict, powerless to resist, was reduced to a social blithering: ‘Really oughtn’t … Barely ten a.m … Frightfully naughty’.) Then obviously emboldened by the stuff he went back to being ‘the coward who kills tigers in his sleep’, as our huntsmen say. ‘Marta!’ he said with an attempt at sternness that made me turn away to hide my smile, ‘This is all terribly silly! I may as well come out with it and tell you that my guest and I saw that helicopter land here. Not only that, but we came over to see if you needed help and watched you greet the pilot and bring him into this very house. So it’s useless your going on with this pretence of not knowing anything about it. Now, I don’t want to know who it was. I couldn’t care less who it was. It’s not my business who it was. As far as I’m concerned it could have been the CIA or else your groceries being delivered.’

  The poor lamb went on like this for ages. He was aching to know, positively eaten up with curiosity. In my role as Ms Mischief, of course, I just sat there with an innocent look on my face – & as you know, I’m pretty good at that. Eventually he ran out of possible identities for our little brother.

  ‘Well, we’re both adults,’ he ended incontrovertibly & opaquely. ‘Have you heard of Brill?’

  The name of a place? Something for cleaning saucepans? I said I hadn’t.

  ‘I can’t say I’m surprised‚’ said Gerry loftily. ‘No doubt in Voynovia you have a nationally famous balalaika player or something. Brill is one of the most famous pop stars in the West. His real name, actually, is Nanty Riah, but most people don’t know that. I wasn’t going to tell you any of this, of course, but I’m afraid you’re rather forcing my hand. Well, that’s who my guest was the other night. An international celebrity. And I’m not telling you this for the sake of boasting – I’m hardly a pop fan myself. He was here for professional rather than social reasons. I was supposed to be writing his life story. I say “supposed” because it’s no longer going to happen. And it’s no longer going to happen because your helicopter visitor has driven him away.’

  ‘He’s frightened of helicopters?’ I asked.

  ‘Not as such, probably. No, he’s convinced your helicopter was a UFO. UFO? You understand, from space? Like a flying saucer? Martians?’

  ‘We call them CSU,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Well, Brill’s got a thing about them. Rightly or wrongly, he’s convinced your visitor was from outer space.’

  I couldn’t help myself, Mari, I simply howled with laughter. The idea of our little Uki dropping in from Alpha Centauri … Half an hour earlier Gerry might have looked like a cock on its dunghill but by now I’m afraid he resembled the way our hens used to look when they’d got at those rotten plums in the lower orchard – you remember how alcoholic the falters used to get lying in the sun? He was woozy with Fernet & indignation. My laughter goaded a sudden squawk out of him.

  ‘Morta! It’s all very well your laughing but that’s my livelihood we’re talking about. You know: money? Earning a living? You might be able to live on a shoestring and faff around all day with your song-thingies but we ordinary folk have to work. I don’t wish to come all heavy but the fact is this visitor of yours – whose existence you so deny in the face of witnesses – has done me out of a job. Not to get all pompous about it, here in Western Europe we might consider that worth a legal enquiry with a view to compensation for loss of earnings.’

  He raised his hand as if to forestall a protest I was not about to make & then tried to perch himself on the arm of the sofa, I suppose with the idea of adopting an informal posture more suited to a change of conversational tack. Unfortunately, what with all the Fernet he misjudged it. His hip skidded off & he collapsed onto the sofa & went ‘Ooh!’ Then he began scrabbling urgently beneath him, his face very red, & came up with that antique mahogany metronome of mine that Father gave me when I went off to Moscow. I must have dumped it there off the table when the keyboard & computer arrived & some sheets had fallen over it. I was wondering where it had got to. These new keyboards turn out to have built-in electronic metronomes that go clack-clack-clack at any speed you like & I suppose pretty mechanical metronomes like mine are now antiques & obsolete. Still, I’ve got a soft spot for Father’s & evidently Gerry had, too. I’m afraid I collapsed again.

  ‘That’s a bloody dangerous thing to keep on a sofa,’ he said, grimacing & in obvious discomfort.

  I pulled myself together & hastily plied him with more Fernet ‘to take the pain away’, as we say to children, & because he had slopped what remained of his g
lassful all over his shirt. I even offered to ‘rub the place better’ & his face was a picture.

  ‘Poor Gerry,’ I said, trying to sound contrite. ‘I’m really very sorry. But I’m grateful to you for finding it. It’s a genuine Maelzel from Vienna; 1817, I believe.’

  ‘Well, I do hope I haven’t damaged it,’ he said, heavily ironic & still very tensed about the thighs.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Gerry. Maybe a fence isn’t a bad idea after all. I tell you what: if you’d like to do some research and find out roughly how much it’s going to cost I shall be happy to go halves with you. After all, we’re friends as well as neighbours.’

  At this he perked up. ‘Really? You’re sure?’ Clearly he’d been expecting bitter resistance & was surprised by my sudden capitulation. To be frank, Mari, I’d suddenly realized how inconvenient it would be to let a neighbour stew to the point where he starts wanting to sue me for damage to his livelihood, to say nothing of his bottom. As our family history brilliantly shows, it pays to know when to be emollient as well as tough. So there we left it.

  Gerry went off again, walking stiffly, to get estimates for the fence while I made myself some coffee to recover from his visit.

  Darling Marja, I shall keep you posted on this ludicrous saga. Meanwhile I was relieved to hear you were so firm with Timi. Well done. He’s not someone you should be emollient with. The news that he’s spending August in America is even better. He’s sure to meet someone he fancies more than you. Well, you know what I mean! This boy Mekmek sounds like a good ally for you. Just don’t spoil him too much too quickly. But who am I to advise you? I’m hardly a brilliant example of a successful romantic.

  Your loving sister

  Marta

  24

  Very early one morning Filippo Pacini calls for me as arranged. Somehow I squeeze myself into his red Pantera. It’s like getting into a canoe. It’s such a filmic car, wonderfully dated, one feels one ought to be Sophia Loren. I should be wearing a sleeveless dress with long white gloves and a picture hat and present a spectacle of helpless chic, letting the equally filmic Filippo hand me in with maximum male gallantry, with me in giggly mode sitting down with a bump and a little feminine squeak. Or else I should be wearing a severe dark suit and get briskly in unaided, with the air of someone equally used to slipping behind the steering wheel. Fat chance. And anyway, I doubt Sophia Loren was brought up on a diet of kasha and shonka.

  ‘My father’s flying up from Rome,’ says Filippo as he blasts round the steep hairpin in Casoli. I have a fleeting impression of a war memorial with bronze figures caught in the act of hurling grenades, though I suppose they might be Casoli’s traffic safety officers reduced to apparent slow motion by the speed of our passing. I snatch a glance at this heir to the Pacini fortune. Not at all like Cary Grant, as it happens; more like a very young Gregory Peck. I can bear that.

  We are on our way to the main set of Arrazzato, whose construction is apparently almost complete. The same could be said of my score. In a sudden burst of inspiration I have put a lot down on paper very fast and can now relax a bit. My computer skills have also come on this last month, thanks to my sweet geek Simone who is patience itself. I don’t for the life of me understand how any of it works, but by dint of writing myself copious memos and sheets of instructions I can do what I need, including e-mailing Pacini père bits of my score as sound files. He does seem very pleased so far, which is the main thing. He keeps on saying this film is going to be his masterpiece, but then this is an industry where egos seldom take a back seat. At least I can claim its score is also my masterpiece to date, being much better than Vauli Mitronovsk and really quite catchy. I’ve got a tango tune that Prokoviev would be proud of: apparent shmaltz but with something very putrid underneath. Pacini claims he’s haunted by it and already it has become the sound of his film (and this before the screenplay has even been finalized, apparently).

  Before we reach Pisorno Studios Filippo stops at a bar for coffee, which is just what I need at this hour. There are very few people about. The holidaymakers must all still be in their hotels among the dusty pines, sleepily tackling breakfast and nursing yesterday’s sunburn. He helps me out of his car with a graciousness that makes me feel sorry for him that I’m not Sophia Loren, merely a dumpy East European with a gift for tunes. I do like Italian mannerliness. I’m afraid Voynovian manners are a little rough and ready. Pretty rough and eternally ready; which is why Father automatically suspects ulterior motives when men here are just being polite. It’s an awful thing to think about one’s own parent, but he more and more strikes me as a barbarian, a thought that never occurred to me until I came here.

  ‘You’re very silent,’ Filippo says. ‘I’m sorry it’s so early.’ He dabs fastidiously at his lips with a paper napkin. ‘But it gets so hot later on.’

  ‘I was just wondering whether Sasi will be waiting for us.’

  ‘La signora Vlas has not been invited. Your Italian is so good these days we decided we wouldn’t be needing her services. Were we right?’

  ‘So far as I’m concerned.’ This is excellent news. My compatriot and I were not destined for close friendship. The mock-refined vowel sounds of her Bunki accent are enough to spoil anybody’s day. Nor am I grand enough for her, not by several orders of social magnitude.

  No sooner have I re-inserted myself into the Panther than we are turning in at the familiar gates of the fascist villa. Or rather, completely unfamiliar. Our tyres ping and crunch up a gravel drive between neatly trimmed oleanders and the car stops in front of a dazzling white house. There is a balustraded verandah shaded by a striped awning that gives a view of rich lawns ending in glimpses of the sea between a pair of cypresses. The parking space behind the house is full of vans with muscular young men in jeans and T-shirts unloading film equipment. Aluminium boxes with handles are stacked in heaps.

  ‘But …’ I begin foolishly.

  ‘It’s not the same house,’ he explains. ‘That’s next door and we haven’t touched it. This villa’s identical because Pisorno Studi deliberately built them as a matched pair. My father has decided he now wants a pre-war flashback, so we’ve restored this one and left the other. Then and now, you see.’

  ‘Incredible. Was this house in as bad condition as the other?’

  ‘No, luckily. There was a caretaker living here until recently. He was supposed to keep an eye on all these villas but it was obviously impossible and he was too old anyway. We’ve spent the last month making this place look new. Wonderful what a coat of paint will do. It’s all a bit finto,though; one oughtn’t to look too closely. Inside, we’ve only restored the room with the verandah for internal shooting. The rest of the house is pretty tatty but it’ll do temporarily for our production offices. The real money went on landscaping. Can you believe the lawn was laid only fifteen days ago? And that left-hand cypress down there towards the sea? I think it’s plastic or something. The one on the right’s genuine but my father wanted two of them. Something about the fascist bourgeois ideal of symmetry. What do I know? I was born in nineteen eighty. The umbrella pines are original. All these oleanders are new. Well, they’re transplants, of course, and as this is exactly the wrong time of year for transplanting things we’re giving them intensive care until the flashback’s in the can. There’s a squad of gardeners here practically mainlining the shrubs with fertilizer or adrenaline or whatever it is you do to keep them alive for a week or two. After that they’re on their own.’ A blue and white helicopter clatters into view. ‘That’ll be Papa now.’

  The helicopter banks and settles behind the house and presently the great Piero appears. His checked shirt and Stetson consort oddly with the reading spectacles dangling on his shirtfront from a cord. I now realize something about him reminds me of John Huston in Chinatown: just a faint flash of the reptilian patriarch, though nothing like as old and craggy. He comes to a halt in front of me and crinkles his eyes.

  ‘Behold, Filo,’ he says. ‘This is the person about to make
cine history. The lady composer of a master score. My God, how long we’ve waited for this!’

  He slips an arm warmly about my shoulders and I smell an agreeable scent like old libraries. I’m grateful that last night I skipped Mili’s goose grease and her statutory two hundred strokes of the brush. No amount of folk specifics can ever change my hair’s colour from its undistinguished mouse but no one could deny it’s looking lustrous without – I hope – giving off that faint barnyard smell I have always associated with childhood and which is so characteristic of provincial Voyde girls. Despite myself I glow a little beneath his praise while giving a deprecatory shake of my head.

  ‘Better wait until it’s all done before you become extravagant,’ I tell him.

  ‘I have one hundred per cent confidence. Two hundred. Before you began, let’s say I was eighty per cent confident. But now – it’s magnificent. That tango of yours is lethal. Talk about hooks! I’m driving my poor wife nuts with it. She says I hum it in my sleep and now she’s talking openly about divorce. Anyway, how do you think this place is looking? Don’t you expect to see Il Duce and la Clara having breakfast on that verandah? And then down to the beach where Mussolini will indulge the photographers with a bare-chested run and Petacci will stand with her dimpled knees, gazing out to sea? Come, I must show you the beach and what we’ve done there.’

  He leads the way across the lawn, the rest of us falling in with him obediently. I notice our party has been unobtrusively joined by a man and a woman with clipboards and alert expressions. They had better not miss anything the great director says.