Rancid Pansies

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  A lot of this drivel is visible, reversed out in the bathroom mirror, as I shave. If this is how millions of people begin their day it’s small wonder they’re full of stress and ill informed. I leave the hotel without breakfast, knowing too well what awaits me. Amazing to think that in my lifetime we’ve sunk so low that even in supposedly good hotels guests are now expected to fetch their own breakfast, not to mention put up with a miniature dustbin in the middle of the table for all the nasty little plastic pots, butter wrappers and pieces of foil – and, what is more, join a conspiracy to pretend that this is gracious living. I cross to the station and in the bar have a blissful espresso (why is Italian coffee so distinctively good?) that sends a glow through me and makes me feel I’m home at last. I salute a stalwart group of dungaree-clad workmen beginning their day with croissants and Fernet-Branca and commandeer a taxi to drive me to where I belong. The driver, relieved at not having to do the five-minute run to the airport that he could do – or give a realistic imitation of doing – with his eyes closed, warns me that he expects the trip to cost €90, depending on whether I want him to go via the autostrada where I will also have to pay the toll, or the old Aurelia coast road, which is slower but free. I tell him airily that since I’m an eccentric millionaire I don’t care which way he goes. I then slump back in silence to contemplate exactly what I need to do. First, find a suitable local hotel as a base to work from, then set about discovering what the position of a homeowner is whose house has been reduced to rubble – rubble that I increasingly feel I should search to see what of my former life has survived. There is also the pressing question of insurance. Suddenly having abundant money seems to be making me less fatalistic about Le Roccie. From time to time I glance up from my reverie and finally notice that whenever I have done so I have seen the Leaning Tower, now on our left and later on our right, sometimes leaning towards us and sometimes away.

  ‘Had you maybe thought to leave Pisa at some point this morning?’ I ask with amiable restraint.

  ‘It’s the one-way traffic system.’ The driver unwraps a stick of gum and places it on an extended grey-coated tongue the colour and texture of mouldy bread. We watch one another in the mirror. ‘Also, I’m an eccentric taxi driver.’

  Touché, I suppose. Normally this would provoke Samper to stinging repartee but I am still fighting the influence of BBCNN’s breakfast television. I very much want to be calm. The rest of the world may, if it wishes, dissolve into schizophrenia, frantically whirling to confront a madcap slurry of voices and images. But this is not Samper’s way, especially not after a spell in the cool backwaters of East Anglica where, as we know, feeling you’re whole is deeply refreshing and the Rev. Daphne Pitt-Bull is quietly auditioning her Pontius Pilates. I therefore renounce all contentiousness with taxi drivers and concentrate instead on my silent plans, which may yet turn out to encompass a certain amount of mayhem and revenge.

  As we approach familiar terrain the air becomes hazier until it is almost foggy. The town itself is shrouded in a muffling grey sea mist. Or mountain mist? Adrian would know. But it is familiar enough at this time of the year to be nostalgic. I experience a pang of pleasure immediately swamped by melancholy. It is three months since I was last here and the sheer familiarity of the wet mountain smell coming through the driver’s window feels like homecoming. Ordinarily, I would stop here and lay in provisions suitable for some astounding and inventive dishes before heading out past Mosciano and up to Greppone, beyond which is my private eyrie. But today I view the place through a grey lens of sorrow, brimming with the irony of a homecoming without a home to come to. Unavoidably adding to my rue, I have the taxi stop outside a hotel. Nothing feels quite so wrong as checking into a hotel in one’s home town. Owing to a bizarre set of circumstances I once had to stay overnight in a hotel at Liverpool Street station and couldn’t rid myself of the idea that, because I was a Briton living and working in London, I ought to have been able to stay there for free, or at least pay a fraction of what it was costing foreigners and outsiders. As I disembark on the pavement the taximeter shows exactly €90, strangely enough, and I wonder if my gum-chewing chauffeur hasn’t fixed it somehow. However, I derive a certain bleak pleasure from staying within my role. Many years ago Nubar Gulbenkian, on a whim, commissioned Rolls Royce to build him a London taxi. ‘I’m told,’ he famously observed, ‘that it will turn on a sixpence. Whatever that may be.’ In this same spirit I now hand my driver €120, saying ‘Do keep the change. You might find a use for it.’ Everyone ought to allow himself a little vulgarity now and then, and the driver’s expression makes it all worthwhile.

  Once checked in and my bag dumped, I head off along the Corso to my favourite bar. It feels both inevitable and right that before I can reach it I nearly collide with a misty figure briskly rounding the corner and suddenly I’m face to face with my old Moriarty, signor Benedetti, the dapper, shifty little estate agent who sold me my house some years ago. Because he had assured me that my sole neighbour was almost never there and was anyway mouse-quiet, I bought the house from him without a qualm. More fool I. When I tell you that the neighbour turned out to be a piano-bashing Voynovian in permanent residence – to wit, the egregious Marta – you will understand why relations between Samper and Benedetti have at best been distantly civil over the years. It turned out that the unscrupulous little rodent had told Marta exactly the same thing about me and it was not long before she was countering my polite remonstrations about her piano playing with gratuitous remarks about my singing: an impasse that led to all sorts of unpleasantness. Ever after, the difficult civility that Benedetti and I have maintained has been based on a kind of parody of elaborate Renaissance manners such as Castiglione’s ideal courtier would have approved. On my side it has also been inspired by the enjoyment I get from watching his losing battle with male pattern baldness, a field on which noblesse and chivalry are sadly powerless. Benedetti’s startling new tactics in his trichological campaign are, in fact, the first thing I notice as we courteously side-step before recognising one another as old foes. Gone is the old hair-weaving ploy. In its place, exactly as I predicted, is a glossy, shameless rug. It’s a very good rug, and must have cost him a lot of money. It reminds me that this man ought really to be cherished for the gaiety he brings to our lives. I had similar feelings about Jerry Falwell, the late American evangelist. Anyone who can accuse one of the Teletubbies of being homosexual, and do it with a straight face, is a priceless asset to the human race. Benedetti’s rug is perfect in that it is very slightly wrong: just a shade too black, just a little too full, and only barely avoiding the pompadour look of Elvis Presley or President Marcos, which makes me think he hoped to add a much-needed inch to his stature. The sight of it gives me immediate strength.

  ‘Signor Benedetti!’ I cry. ‘Dottore! How is it that the pleasure of running into you always exceeds my liveliest anticipation? And how young you’re looking! Truly, you must allow me to say there is something almost uncanny about your refusal to age like the rest of us. Sometimes it crosses my mind that you may have sold your soul to Satan in exchange for eternal youth. If you have, I would be much in your debt for an introduction to His Infernal Majesty.’

  ‘Signor Samper! Maestro! How greatly I have missed that wicked English humour of yours – so piquant, yet so urbanely expressed! As you know, we do have a few other English residents here, including a couple with a blind daughter who arrived last year. But where the art of conversation is concerned they’re simply not in your league. As an honest man I tell you, this winter has been all the drearier for your absence, and no less so for knowing its cause. I have been counting the days until at last I would be able to commiserate with you on the loss of your beautiful home. Believe me, even when I heard you were safe I felt a shaft pierce my heart in sympathy.’

  Brilliant! Well up to the little weasel’s usual standard of florid insincerity. He has even managed to suggest the image of the statue in a church only a few hundred metres away of the Virgin w
ith her heart transfixed by a ring of gilded tin swords representing seven distinct dolours, any one of which would have been enough to spare her the other six: the Baroque version of overkill. We both smile at the same moment, happy to be sparring partners once again.

  ‘In confidence, I was hard hit myself,’ I admit. ‘As a gentleman of your exquisite sensibility may imagine, the shock was life-threatening.’ (I use the word micidiale, which can cover anything from the unwelcome attentions of a mosquito to assault by a knife-wielding maniac.) ‘To lose one’s entire house and very nearly several dear friends with it – not to mention one’s own life – in a whiff of brimstone, how can mere words do it justice? The incident provoked in me the gravest medical repercussions. I was prostrated for many weeks.’ That’s enough dramatic pathos. Time now to give him a taste of Samper redivivus. ‘For endless hours I lay and contemplated the dire event. Yet do you know, in all that time it never crossed my mind that even so brilliantly qualified and experienced a property surveyor as yourself could have guessed that the site at Le Roccie hid a fundamental geological weakness.’

  Benedetti gets the point at once. His raven plumage may be borrowed but his mind is still very much his own. ‘Naturally not, maestro. There was, of course, a meeting in the Comune only days after the tragedy because the tremors were also felt down here, although thanks to the Blessed Virgin we were spared damage. As a courtesy you were invited to attend this meeting yourself, but we gathered that you never received the invitation, being by then back in England. It was our loss. But the region’s geological assessor gave evidence, recorded in the minutes, stating clearly that any suggestion that such a weakness could have been suspected in advance would amount to slander and misprision. The truth is we were all taken completely by surprise, and new geological surveys are now urgently in progress. There is of course concern for Greppone. As you know, there have been several landslides up there in the past, although in general these were caused by heavy rain rather than seismic tremors. But, signore, if I may presume to enquire: what are your plans now?’

  ‘I was going to a bar for coffee.’

  ‘But what a coincidence! So was I. I pray you would not think it presumptuous if I joined you and had the privilege of offering you the coffee? I feel there are still matters we might profitably discuss.’

  Obviously the crafty bastard wants something from me. He has certainly been quick to soften me up. To find out if there actually was a previous geological survey of the area that he could have known about I shall probably have to go to the central records in Lucca and dig them out. He must also know I could never be bothered. Meanwhile, I badly need coffee.

  The surprised barman gives me a welcome reassuringly free of hyperbole. Indeed, he manages to make me feel something of a local celebrity. I suppose I am, really, but it’s nice to know at least one of the tradespeople is pleased to see me. Benedetti elects to sit at a table instead of standing at the bar, and the barman duly brings us our coffees and chocolate-filled croissants.

  ‘You must forgive me for harping on it, maestro,’ Benedetti dabs at his lips with a tiny square of tissue paper, ‘but I feel myself privileged to be sitting here not merely with an esteemed client and valued friend but with the authentic beneficiary of a miracle. I remember in one of our previous conversations you were, dare I say it?, somewhat Protestant in your scepticism about the powers of Our Lady. But I understand that the ex voto intercession of the Blessed Diana was your salvation. It is my firm belief that she is simply another aspect of the maternal principle embodied by Our Lady who watches over this sad world of ours. At some level they are surely indivisible.’

  Huh? What nonsense is this? I have come prepared for coffee, not for a theological discussion. ‘You must forgive me, dottore. I hadn’t taken you for so profoundly religious a person.’

  ‘Oh, I am, signor Samper, I truly am. For a while as a student I even wondered whether I might have a calling. But as scripture soberingly points out, many are called but few are chosen. I, alas, was not chosen.’

  I resist saying this showed a novel fastidiousness on the deity’s part. ‘My stepmother assures me that anyone may serve, regardless of profession. Even a humble prostitute or estate agent or’ – I add hurriedly, for I like to be fair – ‘a mere writer can, I gather, be an instrument of glory. But I’m puzzled by your mention of a Blessed Diana. I’m afraid I’m not very well up on your Catholic saints. Is this to do with hunting? The Roman goddess?’

  ‘Oh, but surely?’ Benedetti raises his eyebrows and I am intrigued to see how his rug almost (but not quite) imperceptibly floats like a dark continent above shifting tectonic plates. ‘The newspapers here were full of it. A police helicopter pilot reported you as saying that you and your friends were saved by an apparition of the Blessed Diana, the late British princess, the wife of il Principe Carlo. It was all in Il Tirreno and other newspapers. Did you not see it? You told the pilot she appeared in your kitchen surrounded by a halo of light and warned you to leave the house at once. Already, I believe, her followers are visiting the place, and not all of them British, either. Many Italians are –’

  ‘What? Signor Benedetti, this is utter nonsense! This is truly the first I’ve ever heard of it. No such thing happened and I assure you I said nothing of the kind. I’m afraid the entire incident is a complete invention by the pilot and the press. A total fabrication. What I think I said was –’ But although I’m in full expostulatory mode I now can’t remember exactly what I did say at the time. It had hardly been a moment for great coherence, dangling underslept and overwrought above the ruins of my house. ‘Whatever I said, I most certainly didn’t claim we saw an apparition. I’ve never heard such rubbish. And I’m quite sure that if I were going to see an apparition it wouldn’t be of a public figure I never met and who, at best, moved me to utter indifference. In any case you can’t possibly describe her as “Blessed” as though she were a candidate for sainthood. She was a Protestant and certainly no saint.’

  It’s infuriating how difficult it is to deny something vehemently without incurring the suspicion of over-protesting. I hope that in these chronicles I have painted a self-portrait of Samper the inflexible rationalist. Quirky and passionate on occasion, maybe, as befits an artist; but someone who has no truck with the sordid cop-outs and infantile comforts of religious belief and similar superstitions. I generally treat transcendental assertions with pained impatience, hoping to get back quickly to a subject worthy of intelligent conversation. But this tactic can also be overplayed and appear too casual by half, just a little too studiedly indifferent. Here and now, back in my favourite home-town bar and hearing outrageous lies imputed to me by a weasel in a wig, I can’t stop myself from lapsing into furious denial.

  Meanwhile, the bewigged weasel is looking rather shocked. He collects himself enough to begin blustering, ‘Of course, signore, these are matters for the individual, and I’m sure in the confusion of that terrible night …’ But then he changes gear as though he has suddenly thought of something. ‘Might I humbly suggest it would be to your advantage if you didn’t express such views too widely?’

  ‘You think it might put me on the Vatican’s hit list? Papal assassins stalking me and lacing my coffee with polonium?’

  Benedetti turns around and with a graceful gesture indicates to the barman that he should bring us fresh supplies. Turning back, he says in a suddenly businesslike tone, ‘Rompo il discorso. To change the subject ever so slightly, my friends at the post office tell me there are a good many letters waiting for you that they were unable to deliver. I would expect some of them to be the usual tiresome bills from ENEL and Telecom Italia since here one still pays for services like electricity and the telephone even if the cables are snapped off and dangling in space. One has a vision of volts and voices just dribbling out into the void,’ he adds with a surprising flight of whimsy. ‘You know how it is with these companies: if you wish to discontinue a service you are required to give suitable notice in advance. They ar
e relentless.’

  ‘I’m sure a good lawyer will sort that out in thirty seconds.’

  ‘Oh, then there’s nothing for you to worry about. An agent of your insurance company has also been trying to find you quite urgently. In her frustration she was even reduced to calling on me to see if I could give her your address. But alas! Still, I’m sure a man of your astuteness will long since have had such matters in hand and I have no business even mentioning them. No doubt your good lawyer will easily be able to cancel whatever financial penalties accrue from a failure to notify a loss as soon as it has occurred. I am impertinent even to mention it.’

  ‘No, no,’ I say magnanimously, while sipping hot espresso cautiously. I don’t suppose polonium has any taste. ‘These are all things I shall be attending to now that I’m back.’