Part 3 (1/2)
Do you know much about wine, Milligan?
MILLIGAN:.
Yes sir, I get p.i.s.sed every night.
The club is open from midday till the wee hours. It closes when either the guests or the staff collapse. A 'Gypsy' band plays for dancing; the leader is Enrico Spoleto, who turns out to be the Town Major's batman, Eric Collins. In his black trousers, white s.h.i.+rt and red bandanna, he looked as much like a gypsy as Mel Brooks looked like Tarzan.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
Lieutenant Oliver s.m.u.tts...
Ruler of a marbled drinking palace Ruler of a marbled drinking palace Corporal Tom Ross An untreated Scots Eunuch An untreated Scots Eunuch Gunner Milligan b.u.t.tons b.u.t.tons Maria Virgin in Waiting Virgin in Waiting Rosa Virgin not waiting too long Virgin not waiting too long Carlo Barman/Mafia Barman/Mafia Bianca Hand maiden to Pasha s.m.u.tts Hand maiden to Pasha s.m.u.tts Franco Cook and resident s.e.x Maniac Cook and resident s.e.x Maniac Various gardeners, scrubbers, dustmen.
The job is bliss, except! Pasha s.m.u.tts is jealous. Bianca, his fancy, fancies b.u.t.tons. Was it my fault that I was lovely? Lots of fun and games with Maria and Rosa. Breakfast is in bed! Brought by Rosa or Maria. Maria made a point of whipping the bedclothes off to examine my condition. I never failed her. It was a good Rabelaisian start to the day.
My duties are to make out the menus, check the wine stocks, and release anyone imprisoned in them. Apart from the gypsy orchestra, there's still a lot of fiddling. Tom balances the books so well we all pocket five hundred lire a week. The evil cook will do anything for f.a.gs except his wife. Rosa lays the tables and Tom lays Rosa. I sit at the door and book the officers in. It was a paid members.h.i.+p club, with a tendency to not remembers.h.i.+p to pay. Like Groucho Marx said: ”Never lend people money, it gives 'em amnesia...”
The Dancing Officers The terrace is cleared for these gyrations. Most of the partners are WREN or ATS Officers and the occasional upper cla.s.s Iti scrubber. Spoleto and his 'Gypsies' make woeful attempts to play 'Moonlight Serenade', 'One o'clock Jump', and 'Chattanooga Choo Choo'. The trouble is the partially deaf Italian drummer of seventy who has no damper on his ba.s.s drum so that it booms round the room like a cannon; but we are grateful for it when Spoleto takes a vocal in an appalling nanny-goat voice: ”There'll be BOOM BOOM over the BOOM BOOM of Dover To BOOM BOOM just you wait and BOOM BOOM.”
Thank G.o.d they never played the Warsaw Concerto.
Dancing. There are none worse than those swaying pump-handled Hooray Henrys. I watched the agonized gyrations of the two dancers' feet, neither pair knowing what instructions it was supposed to be receiving. The male feet getting vague messages, the female feet immediately having to adjust to their bidding. The female is being backed up like a coal lorry. To vary this the male suddenly tries to revolve her round him, ending up with Barley Twist legs and shattered knees. The female legs are now at the rear of the male legs, the male unwinds his Barley Twist legs bringing the poor female's legs back again, and the coal lorry style continues.
There can be no enjoyment in it at all, but it has to be done.
Through the warm night Spoleto and his 'Gypsies' batter through 'Little Brown Jug'. I tell Tom, ”He thinks he's Glenn Miller.” Tom says he's more like 'Max f.u.c.kin' Miller'. It had to be done.
Wow! Gentry! General Alexander and his retinue breeze in for an after-dinner drink. Immaculate in starched KDs, he was in a, shall-we-say, ”flushed' mood; he had just seen the Anzio breakout, the fall of Rome and the news of D-Day. This was a celebration. I admired him until he too started barley twisting his legs on the floor. His laughing retinue was last to leave. As I handed him his hat, he said 'What do you do?”
”I hand hats to departing officers,” I replied.
He smiled and barley twisted his way out. A great soldier, a terrible dancer.
Music Maestro Please Spoleto had given me the address of a Professor Fabrizzi. He lived in a seedy villa in Resina, a town built over the city of Herculaneum. He was about seventy and used to play the harp in the San Carlo Orchestra and I could see that it wouldn't be long before he would be playing it again. He had long white snowy hair, a gaunt shrunken smiling face and two deep-set brown eyes. Harmony and counterpoint? Of course, 500 lire an hour. ”Harmony is not easy,” he said. At 500 lire a go I agreed. His 'study' was lined with books on music and gardening. Perhaps I could learn harmony and tree growing. ”Professor Milligan will now play his tree! The compostion is in A Minor, the tree is in A garden.”
The lessons start. ”You see dis black a notes.” Can I see it? I ask him is he an optician or a music teacher? That is the note of C. I knew that. ”The notes on the line-a above is E.” I knew that. He told me how the scales went. I knew that as well. Something else I knew, I was being conned. I went away richer in life's experience and he richer by two thousand lire. I watched as he counted every single lire. It's the little things that count and he was one of them.
One night after closing I hie me to the city of Herculaneum. The dead city lies sightless in the bay light of a Neapolitan moon. I walk through the unattended entrance: 'Vietato ingresso'. The city is like Catford, after dark. Dead. I walk along the sea front from which the seas have departed that day in AD 79. This was Bournemouth to Pompeii's Blackpool. Here people sat on summer's nights drinking wine and eating figs from water-filled bowls. Now all gone. Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts.
Ohhh, Herculaneum City Ohhh, Herculaneum City Ohhh what a terrible pity Ohhh what a terrible pity All of you had gone All of you had gone Except a little tiny bitty. Except a little tiny bitty.
Back at the billet I awake Tom.
”Who's that?” he snuffled.
”Errol Flynn.”
”You silly b.u.g.g.e.r.”
”A man can dream, can't he?”
Where had I been, and did I get it? ”Nay, I'm as pure as the driven snow. I've been to Herculaneum.”
COURT FOR THE IGNORANT COURT FOR THE IGNORANT JUDGE: JUDGE: What is a Herculaneum? What is a Herculaneum? QC TARLO: QC TARLO: Herculaneum my lord is a place where any free-born slave can go and Hercu-his-laneum. Herculaneum my lord is a place where any free-born slave can go and Hercu-his-laneum. JUDGE: JUDGE: Oh, and in Hercuing-his-laneum, what benefits are derived? Oh, and in Hercuing-his-laneum, what benefits are derived? QC TARLO: QC TARLO: The swelling on the Blurzon is much reduced. The swelling on the Blurzon is much reduced. JUDGE: JUDGE: What is a Blurzon. What is a Blurzon. QC TARLO: QC TARLO: It is a small hairy area at the back of the knee where Armenian shepherds crack their nuts. It is a small hairy area at the back of the knee where Armenian shepherds crack their nuts.
Oh, what's Herculaneum? By day I have quite a lot of time on my hands; I also have it on my legs, elbows and s.h.i.+ns. There was a lot of it about.
A Colonel Intervenes Yes! One evening as I sat at the reception desk varnis.h.i.+ng walnuts and cracking them behind my knee, a man in a jeep approached. He was to be instrumental in changing my life. By instrumental I don't mean he was playing the trombone, no. The man is Colonel Startling Grope, a reddish middle-aged man, portly, used to good living, hair cuts, Horlicks, thin legs and suede desert boots. He had a body that appeared to have been inflated, and the air was escaping. When he signed in he shot me a glance full of meaning that I knew not the meaning of.
Later that night, as he and his cronies are departing, all so p.i.s.sed you could hear the cistern flus.h.i.+ng, he enquires: ”What do you do here?” I tell him on a good day I give General Alexander his hat. Otherwise I try not to whistle the Warsaw Concerto. He is intrigued; as he should be. I am quite lovely. Seriously, I'm a wine steward and resident manic depressive. ”How would you like to come and work for me as a wine steward and resident manic depressive?” I say yes. Why? Because I have been brought up to feel inferior to everybody: priests, doctors, bank managers and officers were all G.o.ds. To say no to them was a mortal sin punishable by 500 Hail Marys and an overdraft.
Within a week a jeep arrives and takes me away. The girls all cried and the men cheered. Looking through my diary I found the note I made at the time.
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Translation: ”Posted O2E Maddaloni on 8/8/44. Very depressed, same feeling as before.”
So! I was feeling myself like I had before, a duty that until recently had been performed by Maria.
What was happening to me? I didn't want to be a Manic Depressive Wine Waiter in Italy! I wanted to be a Manic Depressive Harry James in Catford. Why did a poofy Colonel need a wine waiter???
The jeep driver is an ex-paratrooper. Ted Noffs gives me the first warning: ”Yew wanna watch yer arsole wiv 'im.” My G.o.d, a Brown Hatter! We drive in silence. Speedo says 33 mph, petrol half full, all exciting stuff. Right now my last exciting stuff, Rosa, was back at Portici. An hour's dusty drive with night approaching. A sign: MADDALONI.
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Maddaloni on a Good Day ”Not far now,” said Noffs. ”We korls it Mad'n'lonely, ha ha.” He was such a merry fellow, a fellow of infinte jest and a c.u.n.t. We enter a town and slow down outside a faceless three-storeyed munic.i.p.al school. Turning left by its side we come to a rear back lot with a line of tents and parked vehicles. Noffs stops outside a ten-man tent. ”This is yourn.” I thank him and lug my kit into the tent which has an electric light, brighter than the three slobs lying on their beds, smoking and staring. These are khaki skivvies, the playthings of the commissioned cla.s.ses. One is Corporal Rossi, London Italian c.o.c.kney. ”You the new wine steward?” Yes. He's the head barman. I'll be working under him. That's my bed. I ask all the leading questions: 1. Where's the cook house?
2. The NAAFI?
3. The Karzi?
4. What day was free issue?