I suddenly feel a little overcome. Genuine remorse for having hurt this occasionally sweet ninny and now equally genuine gratitude for his soliciting on behalf of my probably faltering career. Evidently Gerry fears I might suddenly become gooey because he springs to his feet and says:
‘Never mind about poor singed Piero. Time enough to find out about him tomorrow. You’re back and I’m unblown-up so let’s celebrate. What other excuse do we need?’
And until that moment I promise I hadn’t realized that today, yes, the last day of September, is my birthday, which seems like an excuse in itself. When I tell him Gerry gives a little scream and tells me not to go away for ten minutes and he’ll be right back. When he does return he’s carrying a bottle of champagne and a plate with a cake on it.
‘You see? I’ve baked just the thing for a present. Fresh sponge. Smell that.’
The cake has icing of a strange Spam colour. In its centre he has traced a large letter M in bright red wet icing.
‘Bit fresh, that‚’ he says apologetically. ‘I’ve only just done it. I didn’t have enough left over to write “Marta”.’
I’m afraid this time I do weep a little as I reach for his hand and squeeze it. He looks so touching standing there with his cake. How can I be angry with him for virtually shopping me to the police? And how can I not be slightly anxious about what might be in the cake? Gerry’s cooking is, I have to say, an acquired taste.
Gerald
48
Poot
Poot
T. S. Eliot, casting around for onomatopoeic words to suggest what the thunder said, came up with Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata, three Indian Test cricketers of the early nineteen twenties. When it comes to verbal equivalents for my own personal thunder, I can only produce
Poot
and a bit later
Pheeee … truff-wuff
Consciousness begins to coagulate gently around the notion I am. Opening my eyes is not yet an option so I assume I’m once again lying on the ground outside my own front door, helplessly venting gas after many hours’ oblivion beneath the stars. Well, well, Samper. Stocious again. When I do get an eye open I see roses. That can’t be right, but I don’t really care.
Blutter
This time I open both eyes and notice the roses are painted on some sort of pale green surface. More, I find I am not on the ground at all but lying on a bed looking up at its headboard. Curious. Slowly I roll over and find beside me a dead camel.
Strange. That beige colour … No! My God, that’s … that’s Marta lying right next to me, blinking at the ceiling. The Bedouin traffic warden herself. This is her bed.
‘You woke me up‚’ she says.
‘I didn’t speak‚’ I croak.
‘Quite.’
Oh my God. We can’t have … No, impossible. Unthinkable. No, no, no. Please God, no. ‘That’s the very last time I drink galasiya‚’ I promise, rolling away and falling painfully to the brick floor where I find an empty black bottle.
It’s all right, Samper. Don’t panic. All you need do is get yourself home, take lots of Alka-Seltzers, put on a pair of dark glasses and sit quietly under your pergola for the next few years. Then everything will get back to normal.
About the Author
James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of Gerontius, winner of a Whitbread Prize; Seven-Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds; Playing With Water; and most recently, of the wild comic trilogy Cooking With Fernet Branca, Amazing Disgrace and Rancid Pansies.
Copyright
This ebook edition published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© James Hamilton-Paterson, 2004
The right of James Hamilton-Paterson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26767–5
Cooking With Fernet Branca Page 28
