“Very nice, small but very nice. Called La Galleria. Been for a swim yet?”
“Yes, last night with Toni.”
“Ohhhhhh, you dirty devil! Midnight swims, eh???”
Bornheim doesn’t understand the purity of this romance.
“When you going to give it to her,” he says, and I shudder.
I’m above all this. I’m no longer lecherous Gunner Mil-ligan but nice Terri Milligan.
Bill Hall thinks we need to practise and think of some new ideas. So we retire to my room for two hours, play those jazz standards I still love, ‘Georgia Brown’, ‘Poor Butterfly’, ‘What’s New’, ‘Sophisticated Lady’. We get carried away and the practice becomes a swing session, lovely.
The show that night as per usual, with glances between Toni and me whenever we passed as we rushed to change for the next scene. It’s a very warm night and the smell of frangipani is wafting through the window of our dressing-room – all very nice. Taiola Silenzi, a name to conjure with: she is our monumental Italian soprano. She and her smaller husband Fulvio Pazzaglia sing excerpts from opera and popular ballads – “Violetta’, etc. Taiola is in her early forties and must have been very pretty in her day. Alas, I wasn’t in town that day. She is overweight but insists on wearing skintight clothes. Layers of fat poke all over the place as though she is wearing a series of bicycle inner tubes. She is not far off looking like a Michelin man. She’s billed as Frisco Lil and with that name launches into ‘One Fine Day’. Tonight, as she and Fulvio are going for one of those last high screaming notes, her dress rips across her abdomen with resultant raw soldier laughter from the audience. She is furious and storms off into her dressing-room where we can hear her yelling at her innocent little husband. She was so loud in her protestations that during the Bill Hall Trio act we could hear her ranting on, to which Bill Hall yells ‘Silencio!” Which got more laughter.
Show over, we all clean up and pile in the Charabong. Toni is already in and pats the place next to her. Every time I sit next to her, there’s a sort of howl from the males in the coach. Through twenty minutes of streets to our hotel, it’s a moonlit night. From the hotel, we can see the waves breaking on the beach. A swim? A crowd of us ran up and don our costumes, then a race to the beach and splash bang into the warm waters of the Adriatic. Lots of whooping and high jinks. I swim out about a thousand yards and look back at the shore, the winking lights, the shouts of the swimmers – I swim back.
“Where you been, Terr-ee?” says a little wet thing. “It ees dangerous to swim long way.”
Ah, she’s mothering me! We dry off. I smoke a cigarette holding up a towel for Toni to change behind, seeing as much of her as I can. Contrary to the legend Bornheim has spread, I now know that Italian girls have pubic hairs like all the others.
It’s minestrone soup and scampi for dinner and a carafe of white wine. How different from my mother’s boiled hake, boiled potatoes, boiled meat and two boiled veg, and spotted dick. I was living in another world. That night, I wrote home to my parents telling them about Toni. I concluded, “How would you like an Italian as a daughter-in-law?” My mother writes, “Be careful, son. I’ve heard these Italian girls are diseased.” Never mind, she’ll be all right when she’s boiled. But then my mother would have only been satisfied if I had married a nun or the Virgin Mary. She is now ninety, I am sixty-seven and she’s still warning me: “They only want your money or your body.” If she only knew how run down both were.
∗
Our two days at Riccione over, we lump it all on the Charabong and with groans of “Oh not again” and “Che stufa” we set off for ancient Padua. Bill Hall is missing.
“We can’t wait for the bugger,” says despairing Lieutenant Priest and away we go.
Another bright, sunny but hot day. We open the windows for air, but that lets in the dust of passing cars. So it’s the alternative – shouting “Look out, here comes a bloody lorry,” slamming the windows then opening them again. Such interesting work. What if Hall doesn’t show up, inquires Mul-grew. I say he always does. But Mulgrew says, “You see, one time he won’t show. Then what?”
Then I say we become the Bill Hall Duo.
Padua is some 120 miles up the coast; the coach averages forty miles an hour; inside the coach, we seem to manage sixty miles an hour. The journey passes with some singing, smoking and me mooning over Toni. We stop every hour for leg stretches and easing of springs, etc. We drive through wonderful Rimini but don’t stop, and so much to see! A town crawling with history and us shooting right through it.
We stop at Ferrara for lunch at a large NAAFI canteen. It’s full of soldiers and when the girls enter, they get the treatment. Agggggghhhhhhhh COLD COLLATION!!!! It’s following me around Italy. In desperation I wolf it down.
“You don’t like thesse dinner,” says Toni.
“No, I don’t like it.”
“Why you no like?”
“Because it is without imagination and it’s cold – senza immaginazione anche Jreddo. Another thing, it’s not boiled.”
She smiles because I’m so serious. Why, why, why do females always laugh at males in distress????? Whenever my father struck his head on a beam in the cellar my mother, her sister and my grandmother burst into hysterical laughter and locked themselves in the sewing-room so my father wouldn’t hear. Is it the ultimate triumph of woman over man? Did Eve laugh when she first saw Adam’s willy?
No, I loathed Cold Collation mainly because it’s the English’s answer to shutting the kitchen early so the chef can get to the boozer before eleven. The number of nights I had been trapped in boarding houses with just me alone with Cold Collation in an empty seaside dining-room. The horror still lingers. How could Toni ever understand? There was only one thing worse than Cold Collation and that was the ‘Warsaw Concerto’. When the meal was over, several of the cast came and congratulated me on eating it. On, then, to Padua and away from the reek of Cold Collations!!!!
Ohhh never go to Ferrara
The curse of the nation
It’s known to weary travellers
For serving Cold Collation
Do not then you wonder
At travellers’ faces stricken
A lettuce leaf, tomato half
A lump of long-dead chicken.
Toni is telling me about how she always wanted to be a ballerina. She had started at eleven when she must have been two inches high. She was trained by Madame Cold Collation. No, no, no, I’m sorry, dear reader. It’s that terrible meal twisting my mind. No, not Madame Collation but Madame Esteve. Under her strict supervision, it was considered impolite to smile without placing a kerchief over your mouth; laughing out loud was forbidden. It was all the discipline of the ballet with Victorianism. And this training showed – Toni never raucous, always polite and, wonders for an Italian, never angry. Her gestures were always controlled. At first, she had difficulty in understanding me. I talked lunatic things all day so much that even people who spoke English didn’t understand.
MILLIGAN:
Bornheim, it’s the spludles again.
BORNHEIM:
The what?
MILLIGAN:
The spludles, they’re activating again.
BORNHEIM: (warming to it)
Ah, yes, and where are they this day?
MILLIGAN:
They are aggropilating just below the swonnicles.
BORNHEIM:
The usual place.
MILLIGAN:
The danger is they might swarm.
BORNHEIM:
Yes.
MILLIGAN:
Read all about it – man found dead in matchbox.
∗
It’s very hot inside the coach.
“Ask the driver if he knows a cooler route,” says Hall.
“Like Iceland,” I call out. “Anyone for iced swonnicles?”
We are crossing numerous Bailey bridges built on those destroyed in the fighting. The odd sign still says ‘You are crossing this
river by courtesy of 202 Royal Engineers’. I reflect on how much blood was spilt in building them. Toni is fanning herself with a piece of card.
“Che stufa,” she says.
Indeed, it is very stufa. Through the village of Polecella, the towns of Rovigo and Stranghella – the names roll by on city limits signs – past old Mussolini slogans fading on the walls, murals of the deceased dictator with his jutting jaw, now vandalized, flashes of red which are tomatoes ripening on walls.
“Not long now,” says Lieutenant Priest in a cheery voice.
Lots of things aren’t long. Mulgrew wasn’t very long, Maxie at five feet five was even less long. There was indeed a great shortage of longs.
PADUA
Let’s see, what do I know about Padua? There was St Anthony’s, and ‘Fred’ Giotto had some murals in the Palazzo della Regione. So I didn’t know much about Padua. If only the coach stopped in Catford. I knew a lot about Catford. There was the Fifty Shilling Tailors, where I had ordered a dreadful suit that made me look deformed. It was like something you get on prescription from a doctor.
It’s evening when the dusty Charabong with its passengers singing ‘Hey, Girra, Girra, Girrica’ shudders to a steaming halt outside the Leone Bianco Hotel.
“Ah, Leone Bianco,” says Bornheim, “The Blancoed Lion.”
“Che stufa,” says Toni.
It’s her twentieth che stufa of the journey. We sort out our luggage. Mulgrew says, “Oh fuck,” the handle of his suitcase has come off.
“Ah, now you can join the knotted string brigade,” I say.
We lollop into the hotel which is soon echoing to the sound of lollops. Blast! I am sharing a room with Mulgrew and his second-hand clothes store. Toni’s bedroom is the next floor up, blast again.
“It’ll never stretch that far,” says Mulgrew.
“Will you stop making suggestive remarks about me and Toni,” I said. “Our love is pure,” I said with hand over heart and the other raised heavenwards.
A tap on the door and enter a pretty girl with tea trolley.
“Signori tak tea, yes?”
Yes, please! We sipped our tea and smoked.
“Sooo,” says Mulgrew. “This is New York.”
I unpack.
“You know, Johnny, you look taller in bed.”
“What are you suggesting? I only meet people lying down?”
“Well, yes. You can get up for shaking hands and then lie down again.”
There was a silence and Mulgrew blew smoke ceiling-wards.
“I wonder where that silly bugger Hall is.”
It was a worry. Hall had this horror film visage – he was lucky no one had tried to drive a stake through his heart. We were to open in Venice tomorrow. Would Hall make it?
“I mean, the streets are made of water. No good trying to run,” says Mulgrew, scratching his groins.
“Is it the old trouble?” I say.
“That was a wee smasher who brought in the tea,” he said.
More groin scratching. Aloud, he starts to read the notice on the door – anything to save buying a book.
“Dinner between eight and ten-thirty, unless a late meal is requested.”
There it is at the bottom…Arghhhhhhh Cold Collation! It’s followed me, there are special Cold Collation units that are following me.
“Sir, he’s heading for Padua.”
“Quick, send a despatch rider with several Cold Collations, and hurry.”
I run a bath; I undress in front of the mirror. The more clothes I remove, the more I look like a Belsen victim. I immerse what is called a body in the bath. I sing merrily, adjusting the taps with my toes.
I spruce up and take the lift down to see Toni, who is walking down the stairs to meet me. I go down to meet her, she comes up to meet me, and so on until we make it. A lovers’ stroll through the town: being a university town, there are numerous book shops and the cafés are full of students talking excitedly. Toni stops at a sweet shop and buys coloured sugared almonds.
“Thee blues ones are for your eyes.”
Gad, I must have been lovely then. One thing for sure, she must never see me naked. I had a body that invited burial, that and my ragged underwear.
We walked and talked. Sometimes, we stood still and talked – that’s like walking with your legs together (eh?).
Back to the Blancoed Lion and dinner. Gnocchi? What’s a Gnocki? Who’s that Gnocking at my door? It was the first time I’d had it.
“Eeet is a Roman speciality,” says Toni.
She asks me if I’ve ever been to Venice. I say no, but I’ve seen it in a book. “All the city built on – how you say?”
“Piles,” I said.
Yes, the whole of Venice suffered from damp piles. She doesn’t understand.
Lieutenant Priest approaches, “Is everything all right?”
Yes, molto buono.
He tells us that Chalky White has gone forward with the scenery, which will be transported to the theatre by barge. Priest laughs at the thought.
“My God, he had difficulty unloading on dry land.”
We repair to the lounge bar where most of the cast are drinking.
“What will you have?” says Bornheim.
“I will have a Cognac and Toni will have a lemonade.”
“Well, I’m sure the barman will serve you,” he laughed – the swine! “Sorry, Spike, I’m broke. You’ll have to lash out.”
“You sure Bornheim isn’t a Jewish name?” I said. “So, what’ll you have?”
Of course, it’s double whisky, isn’t it. Wait, what’s this? Through the door, covered in dust, unshaven, his fiddle case under his arm, is the late Gunner Bill Hall.
“Ere, they didn’t bleedin’ wait for me,” he says. “I bin cadging lifts all day. My bloody thumb’s nearly coming off.”
He wants to know if dinner is still on. I gaze at my Aztec gold watch and, holding it in a position for the whole room to see, I tell him he is just on the right side of ten-thirty. He departs, him and his reeking battledress – the jacket is open from top to waist, over a crumpled shirt (off-white shirt). Because of his thin legs he wears two pairs of trousers – they billow out like elephants’ legs. God, what a strange man, but a genius of a musician. When he died a few years ago, I realized that a genius could die unsung.
So, as the surgeon said, we’re opening tonight. All excitement – we’re on our way to the Theatre Fenice in Venice. Toni gave my arm a squeeze but nothing came out.
“Now,” she says. “Theese is for you.”
It’s a small tissue-wrapped package.
“Oh, how lovely! It’s what I’ve always wanted, a tissue-wrapped package!”
I remove the tissue. It’s a silver cigarette case. I look for the price tag.
“Now you throw away dirty tin, eh?”
“No, no I can’t throw it away. That tin has been under mortar and shell fire with me, danced with girls with me, even had an attack of piles with me!” From now on, I’ll have to keep it out of sight.
A FAG SHOP IN CATFORD SE6
CUSTOMER:
A packet of out-of-sight cigarettes please.
SHOPKEEPER:
There, sir.
CUSTOMER:
This packet is empty.
SHOPKEEPER:
Yes, sir. That’s because they’re out of sight
VOICE:
Yes, get the new out-of-sight cigarette!
Maria Antoinetta Fontana swimming from the knees down in Riccione.
VENICE
VENICE
The Charabong is taking us through medieval Mestre and on to the causeway. The sun bounces off the yellow waters of the Lagoon. On the right, the blue-grey of the Adriatic, neither of which looked clean. We de-bus in the Piazza Roma where a CSE* barge is waiting – oh, the fun!
≡ Combined Services Entertainment.
Barbary Coast Co. on the Grand Canal. Bornheim reading the Union Jack.
“Hello sailor,” I say to a deckhand
.
I lift my guitar case carefully on board, then turn to help Toni – blast! A deckhand is helping her. I’ll kill him, he touched her, my Brockley SE26 blood boiled. He’s lucky to be alive.
We glide down the Grand Canal: on our right, the magnificent Palace Vendramin Calergi, its mottled stone catching the sun, pigeons roosting along its perimeters. We slide under the Ponte Rialto and look up people’s noses – the sheer leisure of water travel. Toni and I are in the back of the barge by the rudder; I look into the brown waters to see romantic discharge from a sewer. Slowly, we come to the landing stage for the theatre.
Our pier – at 86 Area HQ, Venice.
Our dressing-rooms are wonderful: red plush with gilt mirrors, buttoned furniture.
∗
“Och, now! Och, this is more like it,” says Mulgrew.
What it is och more like, he doesn’t say. That bugger Bill Hall is missing again! Will he turn up? Mulgrew shrugs his shoulders. Suddenly, he notices my new cigarette case.
“It’s from Toni,” I tell him.
An evil grin on his face, Mulgrew says, “Is that for services rendered.”
How dare he! Now he wants to borrow a fag.
“God, Mulgrew, you’re always on the ear’ole. What do you do with your fags?”
“Didn’t you know I smoke them!” A pause, then, “Are you thinking of marrying her?”
“Hardly, I mean my worldly savings are eighty pounds.”
Mulgrew claws the air like a beggar.
“Rich- RICH,” he says.
“I can’t take Toni from all this to a steaming sink in Deptford.”
“Why not? It’s good enough for your mother.”
“My mother’s used to it, but this girl is upper middle class. They’ve got a maid.”
“Then,” he laughs, “marry the maid. She’s used to it.”
As he speaks, he is undressing – he’s down to his vest when there’s a knock at the door.
“Just a minute,” he says, and pulls the front of his vest between his legs. “Come in.”
Lieutenant Priest sticks his head round the door.
“Any signs of your vagrant?” he says.
Memoirs 06 - Peace Work Page 3
