Cooking With Fernet Branca

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  ‘Gerry? This is Nanty. Returning yer call?’

  ‘Bit bright and early for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nah, it’s only just after midnight. I’m in the States, aren’t I?’ Music in the background, voices, laughter. ‘Mick says to come on round.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’ I ask with sarcasm that sinks and is lost in the night that lies between us.

  ‘This pad in, er,’ and the line scuffs and crackles as he turns to ask someone, ‘Denver, I think. But it’s easy to get to. Just ask the cab driver for Olympics subdivision and it’s where that becomes Therapists’ Village, actually right on the corner of Slam Dunk and Oedipus? You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Oh, that house. Funny, I’d always thought of it as being on Home Run and Penis Envy.’

  It’s going to be OK working with Nanty after all. We’re just testing each other out, really, like potential lovers. Suddenly I suspect he no more believes in the death agonies of potatoes than I do. But UFOs? ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘You know Piero Pacini? I remember you admiring Nero’s Birthday. Get this: he wants you and the boys to do a short gig for a scene in his new film. I know you’re all booked solid for the next twenty-eight years but we wondered if you could squeeze it in. It could be useful, Nanty. Give you some weight.’

  ‘We’re busy, Gerry, but we’re not that busy. Pacini? Wow – tell him he’s on. We’ll find time, don’t worry.’

  ‘I’ll have to check, but we may be talking about the next few weeks.’

  ‘We’ll work it in. Jeez, appearing in a Pacini film. Is this one anything like Nero’s Birthday?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. There’s certainly a beach orgy.’

  ‘Done a few of those, mate, but always in the market for more. Christ, Gerry, at this rate you’ll have to become my manager. Pacini. How’d you do it?’ A short pause and then, ‘Gerry? Is that a chopper I can hear?’

  Well, yes, incredibly it is. The familiar noise has been growing steadily louder these last twenty seconds. Now the thing passes smack over the house and I can see yellowing vine leaves raining down on the terrace outside. It may be too late in the season to matter but we’re talking principle here. When I can hear myself speak I say: ‘It’s landed. Er, Nanty? What do you think a strong smell of ozone means?’

  ‘Ozone? Are you kidding, man? Listen, Gerry, you’ve got to get the hell out of there, I mean like now!’

  ‘I … Nanty, I think I may have left it too late. There’s this huge shadow on the kitchen door and … Oh-my-God-it’s … it’s so big and incredibly old! No, no! Help! It’s an alien paedophile! I’m underage, mister! I’m not even forty – aaaargh …!’

  I break off and knock the receiver around a bit before replacing it. We’re going to get on just fine. But this sodding helicopter business has reached the giddy limit. Le Roccie is turning into a veritable oil rig. I’ve been far too kind to Marta, just as I was infinitely too polite to Benedetti. Well, the Samper worm is about to turn. A stop has to be put to this. I wrench open the back door and set off through the trees with purposeful stride. As I approach her hovel the sound of raised voices comes from inside the kitchen. I catch glimpses of sunlight winking off metal and perspex over in the paddock. Suddenly I don’t give a damn what I’m about to intrude on. I bang on the door and throw it open, at the last moment registering the carabinieri patrol car parked off to one side. Too late. I’m in.

  The first person I notice is the gorgeous Filippo, standing by the back door looking incredulous. Marta is slumped on the sofa looking wronged. Beside her yet another handsome young man is looking murderous. There is something faintly familiar about him but my attention is distracted by the two carabinieri, obtrusive in full fig. Tableau.

  ‘Oh hello, Gerry,’ Marta says dully.

  ‘Hello, Gerry,’ Filippo echoes in an aside. Then, obviously resuming the sentence I had interrupted, he adds: ‘It’s utterly ludicrous. Preposterous.’ This is addressed to the senior of the two officers who from his uniform must be at least a Field Marshal.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ I say. ‘I just came over to, well, I heard the helicopter and, you know, it came slap over my house.’

  ‘This gentleman is my neighbour,’ Marta explains to the policeman.

  ‘Piacere.’ We nod to each other and then he frowns for a moment and says, ‘Mr Samper? Is that correct?’

  ‘Um, yes. Yes, that’s me.’

  He looks me over as if measuring me for a shroud and then returns to Filippo. ‘I’m sorry, sir. A serious allegation was made against this lady and we are duty bound to investigate, especially since she is an estracomunitaria. Voynovia is not yet a part of the EU. As you’re surely aware, these activities of which our informant spoke are politically highly sensitive these days. The international trade in human lives is not something we can ignore.’

  Filippo merely hands the officer his ID card. It is obviously he who has just arrived in the family chopper. ‘My father is Piero Pacini.’

  ‘Il maestro Pacini?’ The two carabinieri examine the card and then glance at each other, clearly taken aback.

  ‘Exactly. Check the helicopter’s registration. I’m not trying to impress you but to tell you that this is a straightforward case of mistaken identity. Marta, the lady you’re foully accusing, so far from being a common lucciola is an internationally distinguished composer who is writing the musical score for my father’s latest film currently in production down at Pisorno Studi. I’ve just come straight from him to fetch Marta because he needs her on the set this morning. This is also something you can very easily check. In fact, maresciallo, I think you had better go away and do that before you make a serious mistake you will later regret.’

  And all this time I’m standing here trying to get my head around this. I didn’t at all like the way the maresciallo looked at me when I came in, and the bizarre conversation certainly indicates I’m an intruder. God knows what all this is about. I’m on the point of making an apology and drifting unobtrusively away when Filippo thinks of something else. I’m impressed by the way the boy handles these minions of the law. For a kid his age he’s certainly got confidence. That’s what comes of having a father who is world-renowned and a Cavaliere or a Commendatore or something. A good few zillions in the bank must help, too.

  ‘It seems to me the very least you can do for Marta is to tell her exactly who laid these grotesque charges,’ he is saying. ‘She has a legal right to know that. Who made this denuncia against her? My father will need to know when he briefs our lawyer,’ Filippo adds significantly.

  For a moment it looks as though the maresciallo is about to cave in before this unexpected heavyweight attack. Apparently, though, he has a last little something tucked away, and when it comes his timing shows he has a streak of the thespian in him.

  ‘Very well, signore,’ he begins. ‘I agree it is only fair and proper to identify this lady’s accuser, although as I have said several times already this was not an official denuncia but a serious rumour that was brought to the attention of a senior officer of the Ufficio dei Stranieri at the Questura in Lucca. It was reported purely in the public interest by ingegnere Benedetti, an estate agent in Camaiore. As a matter of fact he was the gentleman who sold this and the neighbouring house to its present occupants.’ He indicates Marta and myself and produces a notebook. Finding the right page he reads out: ‘Ingegnere Benedetti swore in deposition that his informant said: “What do I care if she’s an East European call girl?”.’ He pauses before delivering the coup de grâce. ‘His informant, of course, was Signor Samper here,’ and he turns to me with a little flourish.

  As a rule I hate to be literal, but when I say ‘all eyes are on me’ they really are, Marta’s in particular. She is nodding to herself with a sad half-smile of bitter resignation. What with her hair the old frump looks like Mona Lisa being handed her first Senior Citizen’s bus pass. I can see I need to put my case swiftly and well.

  ‘The ingegnere is quite correct,’ I tell the maresciall
o. ‘That is pretty much what I said to him – although since I believed it was a private conversation it never occurred to me he would be passing it on to his police cronies. If it had, I would have made myself clearer. We were having this private conversation because I felt that Marta’s social life with visiting helicopters hardly fitted Benedetti’s promise to me when I bought my house that my neighbour was a mousy recluse who would only be in residence one month of the year. My tone was one of protest and Benedetti himself said he wondered what Marta was up to. And then I said: “What do I care? What do I care if she’s an East European call girl?” – something like that. Obviously it was a rhetorical gesture. I didn’t mean she was a call girl, for heaven’s sake. I meant I didn’t care what she was, so long as life up here became a little quieter. And that’s it. If Benedetti mistook a figure of speech for an informal denuncia he has only himself to blame for being both mean-spirited and abnormally stupid. I believe poor Marta will bear me out in this since her own dealings with the ingegnere have probably led her to a similar diagnosis. Frankly, the man’s a cretin.’

  A cretino sounds even better in Italian and I can see my nifty explanation has gone over well. Marta Lisa is looking as though the bus pass was a bureaucratic error and she can go back to being eternally thirty-three. The maresciallo, too, is looking relieved.

  ‘So, Signor Samper, you expressly deny that you made any specific accusation regarding this lady’s profession?’

  ‘Of course I do. What’s more, since that conversation with Benedetti I’ve learned that she is indeed the composer for maestro Pacini’s latest film. Consequently the helicopter visits were a necessary part of her distinguished professional connection with the production. Once that became clear there was no further problem. As I’ve just said, I never made any charges so I can’t withdraw them. My charge against ingegnere Benedetti still stands, of course.’

  ‘Of being a cretin?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘To take action on that, signore, lies beyond the scope of the carabinieri. But we shall certainly explain his mistake to him.’

  ‘And caution him, I hope, against making malicious and actionable allegations in the future?’

  Instead of replying, the maresciallo bows his head sadly and says to Marta, ‘I am truly sorry, signora, to have troubled you over this matter. But I hope you understand that in the present political climate we could hardly take no action at all once we’d heard the allegation. At the very least we were bound to come up here and make enquiries. However –’ and he shuts his notebook with a decisive snap that clearly implies the closing of the case against Marta.

  Almost instantly she is transformed from crushed victim to gladhanding hostess. She bustles about the room with smeary glasses and a villainous-looking bottle.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she says, sounding bizarrely like a CEO at a moment of boardroom triumph in a made-for-TV series about oil moguls. ‘This calls for a drink. A very special drink from Voynovia.’ The maresciallo and his colleague look apprehensive in the way Italians do when threatened with foreign food. ‘Just an amaro. If you like Fernet you’ll love our galasiya.’

  ‘Well, just a small one, signora. We’re really still on duty.’

  I have the impression that under any other circumstances the maresciallo would have declined politely but firmly. However, surrounded by Piero Pacini affiliates and in the wake of what nearly proved a seriously bad career move on his part, he is in no position to refuse. The glasses of dense black liquid are passed around. It looks like sump oil.

  ‘Salute!’ everyone echoes and takes an obligatory quaff.

  Holy bicycling Christ, I think as projectile tears leap from my eyes and splash into the glass. I dimly recall Marta having mentioned this stuff as being a more butch version of Fernet Branca made by huntsmen or something. Actually tasting this distillation of gall and lighter fuel simply confirms what I’ve long known, that Voynovians lack an essential element of human physiology. A central nervous system, possibly. Through dancing lenses of tears I can see the maresciallo has been equally hard hit but is bearing up with noble shreds of dignity.

  ‘Madonna puttana della Madonna, ma quanti gradi ha?’ he rasps at last, his vocal cords evidently cauterized.

  ‘Ninety-two, I believe,’ says Marta brightly, examining the bottle. ‘But they seldom put it on the label. Everyone in Voynovia knows galasiya. In our language it means “mother’s milk”.’

  Score one for Voynovia. Filippo is clearly beyond speech and I deduce that the handsome saturnine ruffian next to Marta must be Voynovian since he is smacking his lips judiciously as though he’d just taken a mouthful of Château Yquem. The maresciallo’s sidekick, I notice, is looking thoughtfully at his empty glass and shaking his head with an incredulous smile. A serious drinker. When his commanding officer has recovered enough to walk, the two men take their leave. Hands are shaken all round. I notice the maresciallo pause by Marta’s mysterious companion and croak something like ‘I shouldn’t delay too long, signore,’ before they go out, replacing their caps. Watching through the window I’m touched to see the second carabiniere solicitously take his senior comrade’s elbow well before he finishes his totter to the car. All very mystifying, but the interlude has taught me one thing: that in a world containing galasiya the brothers Branca must look to their laurels.

  Yet now the police have gone the atmosphere in the room scarcely lightens. Marta and her young visitor still look strained, while Filippo has recovered enough to be contemptuous.

  ‘It’s disgraceful, the way these vagabondi harass law-abiding citizens,’ he fumes, suddenly sounding elderly. The experience of galasiya is curiously ageing. ‘I’m mortified you should have been put through this, Marta. Also you, Gerry. A frivolous misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with a phone call. It’s no way for artists from other countries to be treated. I’ll have my father lodge a formal complaint. We’ll get that maresciallo busted down a rank or two before we finish.’

  ‘Oh no, Filippo, don’t do that,’ Marta urges with what I assume is a mixture of relief and tender-heartedness brought on by galasiya. ‘Far better not. No, really, I shall be most upset. No harm’s been done and they’ve gone away. Please do nothing.’ But underneath I detect something like genuine fear. I suppose if you’re an immigrant from one of those vague ex-Soviet countries the last thing you need is police attention.

  Filippo is shaking his head dubiously. ‘If you insist,’ he says. ‘But I still think it would be better. Anyway, Dad sent me up here to ask if you and Gerry would like to come down to the set today and watch the shooting. He didn’t actually say he needs you urgently, Marta; that was for the benefit of the police. But if you’d like to come?’ He glances awkwardly at the dark young man beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry, how very rude of me,’ Marta says. ‘I’d forgotten you’d not been introduced. This is my brother Ljuka.’ We all shake hands. ‘I believe, Gerry, it was your pop-music friend who mistook Ljuka for an alien some weeks ago.’

  Ah, that’s why he looks vaguely familiar. When I picture him in flying kit as Barbie’s better half, Ken, I can see it exactly. Well, well. The unwitting cause of a boy band’s re-branding. He looks as though he could be deliriously mean but at the moment he seems more uneasy. Marta and he launch into urgent conversation in a language that sounds like sand being poured onto a kettledrum. Filippo and I gravitate together as sole representatives of the known world.

  ‘Speaking personally,’ I say, ‘I’d be delighted to come. Would that really be all right?’

  ‘Sure it would. We can go at once.’

  ‘And I can tell your father that Brill and the boys will be happy to do a gig for the film. In fact, they’re dead keen.’

  ‘That’s great news. Dad’ll be pleased about that. Me, too. To tell you the truth, that part of the film probably could do with a bit of a lift.’

  From outside at that moment there comes the sound of airhorns and a wheeze of hydraulics. An enormous lorry
has arrived full of timber and men. At long last they have come to put the fence back up. Marta already seems to know the foreman so she and Filippo make arrangements until the foreman sensibly remembers to ask where it should go. Having spent so long putting up the original masterpiece I know exactly where the boundary runs and the line is quickly marked again with orange tape. Meanwhile the men have begun to unload the truck.

  ‘I think we might get away now,’ Filippo says as Marta joins us. She and her brother have been deep in discussion while I was re-establishing our boundary.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Filippo, but Ljuka and I have decided we should stay here. Our kid sister’s on her way from Venice and we’re waiting for her either to call or to arrive. Will your father mind if I don’t come down today?’

  ‘Of course not, Marta.’

  ‘Then please offer him my thanks and apologies. Family matters, you know.’

  ‘Perfectly understood.’

  Better and better. I shall have Filippo Pacini all to myself while Marta and her dangerous brother can slump in a huddle of Slavic gloom and galasiya. I hardly expect much in the way of gratitude but it may eventually occur to Marta that it was Samper who just saved her from a future of treadmills, mailbag-sewing and assisted showers with lesbian skinheads. After a few more minutes’ delay to allow me to nip home, slip into my Homo Erectus jeans and shut the front door, I find myself sitting beside Filippo in his pretty blue and white helicopter. He presses a button, the turbine at our backs whines into life and the rotor blades overhead cast shadows across the canopy that slowly chase each other, scamper, flicker and finally blur out of existence. Best move I ever made, coming to live up here at Le Roccie, I think happily as the ground tilts and we hang nose down over an abyss of air.

  Marta

  43