Memoirs 06 - Peace Work

  “You give lot of money,” says Toni.

  “I know,” I say, “everyone in the piazza is talking about me.”

  The waiter brings us a bottle of ‘any special wine’, a white, fruity Capri. We clink glasses and clink eyes; after a long, lingering, loving, lasting look with just a touch of the lascivious, we drink.

  “This time we stay here most happy in my life,” she says.

  “Anche me,” I reply. She inclines her head to one side – this would make me appear to be sitting at an angle.

  “I very sorry when tonight finish.”

  Amen.

  “When I first meet you I girl, now I woman.”

  Gad, two for the price of one!

  The crackling waiter arrives with out first course. “Signori,” he says and sets it down. “Buon appetito,” he says with a grin, a Germanic half-bow and a click of his heels. Why doesn’t he just piss off?

  Quick, my false beard and dark glasses and my Quasimodo hump! Gracie Fields has entered the piazza with three other people! One blessing, she’s not singing. Thank God, she’s jj sitting at the far end of the square. Her penetrating voice rises above the music. “Buona sers ee bai gum,” she is saying. People are turning and staring, she is big in England and known on Capri as Nostra Gracie. The question is, will she sing?

  There is no scampi like Italian scampi and this scampi is not like Italian scampi. I call over a waiter who looks like Hermann Goering. “Vot is ronk vid it?” I tell him it’s scampi à la hard as bloody bullets. He sweeps it away and returns with scampi à la still as hard as bloody bullets. Would I like something else? Toni tells me her sole is very nice. OK, I’ll have that. Meantime, I’ll have another little tipple of wine. It’s happened! The musicians have reached Gracie Fields’s table and soon she is warbling ‘Vedo Mare, Quanto Bello’ in the sitting position. She has a strong penetrating voice; it can penetrate walls, battlements and eardrums. When she finishes, the whole square gives her generous applause. Is it with appreciation or relief?

  The Dover sole is just as I like it, dead. The more I drink, the more I tell Toni I love her and sometimes I tell her I love the wine, I tell her I love the white-coated waiter, that horse across the square. I also love that square across the horse and the waiter’s white coat; I love the white square with the waiter across the horse’s coat and another bottle please. What’s the time? Midnight, we’d better be getting back to the hotel or my mother will be wondering where I am. As I accompany Toni to the funicular, I hear Gracie Fields singing again: it’s ‘Ave Maria’. The noise of the funicular drowns her out as we descend for the last time – goodbye, little piazza.

  I desperately want to sleep with Toni and Toni is desperate not to. “No no no no, Terr-ee, no no no no, you go sleep. Stop that, no no no no no, please stop that,” she finally breaks my stranglehold on her and pushes me in the direction of away. All right, Toni, there’s always Lily Dunford of Brockley, Bette from Bexhill and Norwood Beryl!!! One last bedtime cigarette: I lie on my back under the covers with a slight steam on, enjoying the process of getting lung cancer, then fall into a delicious sleep. Arggghhhhhhhhhhh! I awake as the cigarette has burnt down to my fingers, bloody fool! I blow furiously on the burn and get light-headed. I run my finger under the tap – bloody fool, it’s somebody’s fault. To sleep for the second time, then. What a waste of time: eight hours laid out like a corpse. The trouble with sleep is that nothing happens.

  NAPLES AGAIN

  NAPLES AGAIN

  I awake to the sound of various church bells, wassatime? Nine o’clock. We have to catch the eleven o’clock ferry. I leap from my bed and hastily pack my suitcase, then collect Toni for breakfast. Is she packed? No, but her clothes are, ha ha ha. Mario knows we are leaving today – most important to him is how much. I settle the bill with Mr Brinati.

  “I hope you enjoy Capri,” he says.

  “Apart from the shit-strewn sea, we have.”

  It’s cost us ten thousand lire.

  As we leave the hotel, Mr Brinati stands at the door and waves us goodbye.

  Lugging Toni’s suitcase and mine, I lead down the little path to the Marina Grande. We can see that the ferry has docked. From where we are the ship looks like a toy. As we get nearer, it gets bigger. Not many people boarding. At the top of the gangplank, I present our return tickets to a scruffy-looking sailor with all the animation of a wooden leg. He is to sea travel what Charles Manson was to vegetarianism.

  We go into the saloon and sit on the bench seat like lost children. At the bar, the barman is polishing glasses. “I hope I no sick this time,” says Toni. It would certainly be a messy end to the holiday. She sits in anticipation, I give her hand a squeeze, she smiles back. A few more passengers are hurrying up the gangplank – an Italian family with two young children. They enter the saloon, the woman whoops out one of her boobs and starts to feed the baby. You don’t get that on the 74a tram going to Forest Hill.

  The engines throb into life and there are shouts from the bridge as the tie-off hawsers are freed from the bollards. Slowly, the ferry appears to turn on its axis and the vessel heads out to sea. Thank God, it’s totally calm and by the time we are halfway across, Toni is still all right. We have made our way to the deck above and stand at the rails in the ship’s slipstream. It’s a hot day but the sea air is delightfully cool, like real cool, man. Behind us Capri is getting smaller; we stay the same size. We must have got off just in time. Napoli and its giant Mount Vesuvius are appearing through a morning haze. Naples is getting bigger – by the time we arrive, it’s the right size to accommodate us. I realize that all through the trip, neither of us had said a word. As we are docking, Toni looks at me: “All finish,” she says with a note of sadness. “Never mind,” says Merry Milligan, tomorrow we journey to the Eternal City and stay with ‘Momma’ where our sex life will come to a grinding halt. Still, there are other things – ice-cream, spaghetti, rug-weaving and light groping.

  After Capri, Naples is like a madhouse – the noise! And a variety of smells, from stale fish to guardsmen’s socks.

  “Che massa?” says Toni, as we thread our way through the dockside crowds.

  “Scusi, scusi,” I repeat ad nauseam.

  The taxi we catch is a scream: at the back, it’s down on its springs; the front points up so the driver has to permanently elongate his neck to see the road. We at the back are in the semi-prone position. All my life I’d been prone to semis (Eh?). Toni and I discuss tomorrow’s arrangements. We have to catch the 10.30 train to Rome in the morning; I’ll call for her at etc., etc., etc. I drop her at the Albergo Rab-icino; a goodbye kiss, and I’m off to mine.

  When I arrive I go straight to Bill Hall’s bedroom – my God, he’s still in bed! Has he been up since I left him? “Ow you get on with your bird in Capri?” he says, searching for his fags. “Shagged out, are you?” What has he been doing? “I done some local gigs with Bornheim and Mulgrew. We got one tomorrer night at the Officers’ Club. You want to sit on guitar?”

  “No, Bill, I’m off to Rome with Toni. Any news about the boat passage?”

  “No, it’s being arranged through Major Philip Ridgeway at CSE. ‘Ee thinks it will be on the Dominion Monarch. ‘Ee said ‘ee thinks it will be sailing on 15 September.”

  “He thinks? Doesn’t he know?”

  “Don’t ask me, mate. That’s wot ‘ee told me.”

  15 September – that would give me a good clear week of rug-making and light groping in Roma, and a few days to spare in Naples.

  When I get to my room, there is a load of mail on my bed. My father has sent me a roll of newspapers, a real treat. I spend the afternoon finding how the rest of the world is faring. How good to see English newspapers again!

  BREAD RATION; NO CHANGE YET

  Ah, here’s a good one:

  Gerry Merry, father of twenty-two children, fined for stealing from chemist’s shop

  —he must have been after condoms.

  Heath for Trial on Chine Murder Charge br />
  —so someone’s been murdering Chines. Are they small China-men? I loved seeing the ads again. ‘Biscuits Keep You Going’.

  Did this mean the runs? Then, “Repair War-Damaged Hair with Silvikrin!”

  ‘For Inner Health, Take Bile Beans’.

  Evening. Hall wants to know if I want to come down to a club on the Via Roma.

  “It’s a nightclub. Lot of ‘Mericans down there, plenty of Eyetie birds – got a good Eyetie band. They let me sit in.”

  I’m at a loose end and it’s frayed, so OK. Yes, Bill, let’s go in there and beat up a storm – yeah, wow, beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar. I’ll bring my guitar along.

  We duly enter the door of a place called The Den. We descend stairs to a basement, where a band is trying to be heard above the noise of the customers. It’s a postage-stamp-sized room, the smoke so thick the band on the far side are hardly visible. Everyone is on the floor jiving. Around the perimeter are chairs and tables; we manage to get a couple in the corner by the band. The leader, one Franco Pattoni, plays tenor sax. He sees Bill and waxes lyrical.

  “Ah, Beel, vieni, vieni,” and beckons him to come up.

  “We drink first,” says Bill, miming the action.

  “Ello, big boy.” I look up at an overmade-up but very pretty Italian girl of statuesque proportions, smiling down at me. “You buy drink, I dance weese you,” she says.

  I’m looking up at her directly under her prominent boobs that give a promise of pneumatic bliss. No, I won’t dance but she can sit and have a drink. She pulls up a chair and crosses her legs, a good safety move.

  “You American?” she asks.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Straight away, I lose marks. Can she have a cigarette? Yes. Can she have a light? Yes, anything else? Is there any laundry she wants doing? Yes, she’d like a brandy and coke. She also Wants to know if I’m married. No, I’m single and have to depend on Swedish massage. Her name is Bianca Bianci, mine is Spike Milligan.

  Bill Hall leans over with a gleam in his eye. “If you play your cards right, you could catch it off her,” he says.

  After a drink, we both get on the stand and join in the jazz. It’s a very good combo, playing music of a professional standard. Bianca sits and watches – I hope she also listens. She recrosses her legs; it must be hell in there. She is whisked away by a drunken GI and waves me goodbye over his shoulder. Another woman in my life gone! How they pile up.

  By midnight no one has asked us to play ‘Lay That Pistol Down, Babe’ – it must be some kind of record. I’ve had enough. As I put my guitar away, I’m confronted by both of Bianca Bianci’s.

  “You want good time?” she says.

  No, thank you, I’ve just had one but don’t let me stop you having one. She really likes me, lays a hand on my lapel.

  “Oh, why you say no,” she says, pouting.

  “Pouting is such sweet sorrow,” I say.

  I leave – it had been a near thing for Toni. By taxi, back to the hotel where I ask the night porter could he get me some food. “No, signore.” I hold up a hundred lire note and “Yes, signore.” He raids the kitchen and comes into my room with – Arghhhhhhhhhhhh, no, it’s Cold Collation! It’s better than nothing, but only just! I eat it by closing my eyes and thinking of England. I next indulge in a hard night’s sleeping in the kneeling load position. (What am I talking about? Helppppp.)

  ROME YET AGAIN

  ROME YET AGAIN

  Monday morning finds me packing my best clothes for the Rome trip. I pack my Bing Crosbys, my Robert Taylors and my Leslie Howards. At breakfast Bill Hall, who in the morning looks like a mummy with bandages off, wants to know do I want a gig tonight. No, I’m going to Rome with Toni.

  “Aven’t you had enough rumpo?” he says. How can he be so crude about my love affair? It’s not rumpo I’ll be after in Rome, it will be ice-cream, spaghetti, rug-weaving and light groping in between mother-in-laws. Will he still be in Naples when I get back?

  “I suppose so. ‘Oo wants to go back to bloody England in the winter?”

  “Oh, don’t you want to see the old folks at home?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they don’t want to bloody well see me. They only written to me once – that was to tell me they’d let my room.”

  I take my leave, scoot upstairs three at a time, trip and fall down four at a time. I’ve hurt myself, elbows, shins and all parts south of the meridian. Clutching my injuries I go to me room and get the porter to order me a taxi. Limping, I lug my heavier-than-me suitcase to the waiting vehicle. “Albergo Rabicino” I tell the unshaved, bleary-eyed taxi driver. He’s one of those slow-witted drivers that lose control at speeds over twenty miles an hour. Painfully slow, he chugs down the streets of the Vomero. He’s very good at shouting, excellent. He shouts at all and sundry, for what reason is beyond me, but then he is beyond reason.

  Toni is waiting at the front door of the hotel. I collect her and her two suitcases and we are on our way to the Central Station. The crowds there are frightening. I book two first-class tickets, “Piattaforma numero due” says the ticket office man. Through a nightmare of people with a high garlic content, we struggle to the platform where the train is now standing. We find two seats in a non-fumare carriage. Thank God, we’re early. Soon the train fills up with what appear to be peasant families and their furniture fleeing the wrath of Saracen invaders. Fathers shout, mothers scream, children howl. Obvious third-class passengers crowd into our carriage and the corridors. I look at Toni, who seems quite cool and undisturbed.

  “Is it always like this?”

  “No,” she says, “this is a good day.”

  I’d never seen congealed people before.

  To shouts, whistles and flag waving, the train pulls out. Everybody seems to be in a rage. The nicest part is I’m squashed up next to Toni. On my left is a huge, heavy-breathing, fat woman with a huge basket on her lap. From it protrudes bread and the neck of a wine bottle. The thought of trying to get to the toilet fills me with dread. I pray God that my bladder will hold out for the trip. After half an hour Toni wants just that. She disappears into the crowded corridor. I don’t see her again for nearly half an hour. When she comes back, she tells me there’s a queue a mile long for the loo. I say, I know, I’m on the end of it. It takes me half an hour to get there. The loo is in an appalling state; no one appears to have holed in one. Back to Toni. The journey will last two hours – the question is, will we?

  It is with a gasp of relief that we steam into Rome Central and fall out of the carriage. We throw ourselves in a taxi and thank God it’s all over. On on on to Via Appennini! Signora Fontana is waiting at the door with sister Lily and maid Gioia. There’s endless embracing and kisses on each cheek. “Benvenuto, Terr-ee,” they all say as the kissing roundelay continues.

  “Come, Terr-ee, I show you your room.”

  Toni leads me to a neat, small bedroom at the back of the apartment. I dump my bags.

  Mangiare mezzogiorno has been laid on. Fussing like a mother hen, Signora Fontana shows us our seat placings. “Terr-ee, qui,” she gestures.

  “How did the show go in Naples?” asks sister Lily, who will have to be killed.

  “Oh, the show in Naples? Very well. Oh, yes, my word, the show in Naples, ha ha, it was splendid.”

  Signora Fontana tells us there has been a one-day strike of tram drivers. Oh, really? How interesting. Does Signora Fontana know that the price of butter has gone up in Poland, and there are no dry-cleaners in Peru, and a Negro vicar has crossed Scotland on one leg, medicine is now free in England and so is illness? Soon I’m left out of the conversation as they all talk in Italian at a speed too fast for me by far. I just sit and when they all laugh I join in like an idiot. When the meal ends, Toni remembers me again. “My mother have bought ticket for opera tomorrow night. You like see?” Yes, I’d like see. The meal ends with zabaglione. “Gioia make for you, she know you like,” says Toni. Delicious! No
w it’s announced that all the ladies are going to afternoon mass. Do I want to come, too? No, I’ve got this bad leg.

  I spent a relaxing afternoon listening to the Allied Forces Network which played unending programmes of big band music. This afternoon, I remember, it was Artie Shaw. I didn’t know at the time that the days of the big band were numbered (I think this was number six). Swing music was the ‘in’ thing and I was part of the scene, man. When the ladies returned from mass, they found me stretched out on the sofa, asleep, with the radio on. It had been a boring service with an old priest who couldn’t enunciate well and dribbled. Now some tea: Gioia disappears into the kitchen. The Signora wants to give me a present, a book, Italia Paese dell’Arte – was this Artie Shaw?

  Dedication by Toni’s mother in the book.

  We sit round drinking tea and drumming up conversation. What will I be doing when I get back to England? As I step off the boat, I will immediately become famous – that’s what. The Bill Hall Trio will be up there in lights, London will be at our feet, shins and groins! Toni tells her mother how successful we are. Oh yes, her mother knows, had she not seen us triumph at the Argentine Theatre, even if she herself was a bit baffled by the act? I remember her mother had no idea ofjazz and couldn’t understand why we all wore rags, and why were people laughing at us? It wasn’t fair. How is my mother? My mother is very well. And my father? He’s well, too. What about my brother? Would you believe he’s well as well. The phone goes, Lily rushes to it. It’s her beau. Immediately her body turns to jelly and she speaks sotto voce, blushing and giggling, running her finger up and down the wall. Toni smiles, “This new boyfriend.” Lily is now rocking backwards and forwards and her finger is going up and down the wall faster. What is he saying to her?