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Authors: James Hamilton-Paterson
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lavatory. I left the hut a good deal more gingerly than I had entered it, now having the leisure to note its true nature as a place of easement cantilevered out on bleached poles over an abyss.
What days! And what I wouldn’t give to be able to return to them, though less for the conventional reason of erotic adventuring when sap was high than because even fifteen years ago the prospects still seemed good for living a reasonably serious life in my native land. I looked forward to becoming neither a wage slave nor a tycoon. But that was before British culture slumped to an infantile consensus obsessed with cash and fashion. New Labour and wall-to-wall football have left only exile, the stoic’s way out. If one is not allowed to be serious one may as well emigrate. Even mockery is an art form requiring discipline and sacrifice.
So now I sally forth from my pointless house above pointless Casoli with a song on my lips to do away with a privy I have just recognized as a spectre from my own, as much as from the house’s, past. Obviously the Ecuadorean and Italian peasantry had thought along the same lines when viewing a handy precipice. Why dig when the hand of nature has already dug for you? However, the gulf in this case is nowhere near as deep or as steep, and as I run a practised eye over the job I realize for the first time that this privy was never built out over anything but was merely an earth closet at the edge of a hillside terraced for vines and vegetables. Gradually the hillside has been eroded by winter rains and a minor earthslip some time ago has left the hut’s outer wall dangling and sagging over thin air. Good: it shouldn’t take long to complete the job and send the remains down into the cleared patch below, where I’ve made a start on reclaiming the terraces from the jungle that has buried them over the years of abandonment.
Do you find that certain pieces of music automatically suggest themselves as the only possible accompaniment toparticular tasks? Well, I do, although I can’t always say why. As I contemplate the murder of this hut I find myself locked into that dramatic scene where Massaro confronts the terrifying Brasi who has sold him poison to kill Don Antonio, Erminia’s guardian, who refuses to countenance Massaro’s courting her. But the poison hasn’t worked although Don Antonio’s hair has fallen out and his skin has acquired a curious metallic sheen. Being a man of lively intelligence he has become suspicious. In terror and fury Massaro returns to Brasi to protest that the poison he sold him has itself expired. ‘Vedi!’ he sings with a passion provoked by his impending arrest and Erminia’s taking the veil, ‘vedi la data indicata sul fondo del barattolo! Perfido! Oimè!’
Decisively I insert the end of the crowbar between the hut’s floor and the ground and lever upwards with a fine gesture imitative of Massaro’s rage and passion. Unfortunately the floorboards are rotten and spongelike. Since I am standing a little higher than the hut I am flung forward by the unexpected lack of resistance and go crashing through the doorway itself, thudding against the far wall. There is a sudden lurch, a lot of noise and a confused tumbling, shot through with streaks of sunlight and bright pain. Silence. The world recedes and reapproaches, lulling like waves in tropical shallows. For a timeless period I am suspended, then unceremoniously cast up on dry land. When I open my eyes something terrible has happened and I am blind. I try some weak screaming but it hurts my side so I stop. I’m blind and going to die and the melodramatic effusions of halfwits like Massaro are not in the slightest bit consoling, any more than are the prospects of Hot Seat! selling a million. What do such trivia matter when I’m pinned to the earth and about to be pecked to death by the circling vultures? More time passes while I miserably drift, then without warning there is a neck-ricking wrench and the
What days! And what I wouldn’t give to be able to return to them, though less for the conventional reason of erotic adventuring when sap was high than because even fifteen years ago the prospects still seemed good for living a reasonably serious life in my native land. I looked forward to becoming neither a wage slave nor a tycoon. But that was before British culture slumped to an infantile consensus obsessed with cash and fashion. New Labour and wall-to-wall football have left only exile, the stoic’s way out. If one is not allowed to be serious one may as well emigrate. Even mockery is an art form requiring discipline and sacrifice.
So now I sally forth from my pointless house above pointless Casoli with a song on my lips to do away with a privy I have just recognized as a spectre from my own, as much as from the house’s, past. Obviously the Ecuadorean and Italian peasantry had thought along the same lines when viewing a handy precipice. Why dig when the hand of nature has already dug for you? However, the gulf in this case is nowhere near as deep or as steep, and as I run a practised eye over the job I realize for the first time that this privy was never built out over anything but was merely an earth closet at the edge of a hillside terraced for vines and vegetables. Gradually the hillside has been eroded by winter rains and a minor earthslip some time ago has left the hut’s outer wall dangling and sagging over thin air. Good: it shouldn’t take long to complete the job and send the remains down into the cleared patch below, where I’ve made a start on reclaiming the terraces from the jungle that has buried them over the years of abandonment.
Do you find that certain pieces of music automatically suggest themselves as the only possible accompaniment toparticular tasks? Well, I do, although I can’t always say why. As I contemplate the murder of this hut I find myself locked into that dramatic scene where Massaro confronts the terrifying Brasi who has sold him poison to kill Don Antonio, Erminia’s guardian, who refuses to countenance Massaro’s courting her. But the poison hasn’t worked although Don Antonio’s hair has fallen out and his skin has acquired a curious metallic sheen. Being a man of lively intelligence he has become suspicious. In terror and fury Massaro returns to Brasi to protest that the poison he sold him has itself expired. ‘Vedi!’ he sings with a passion provoked by his impending arrest and Erminia’s taking the veil, ‘vedi la data indicata sul fondo del barattolo! Perfido! Oimè!’
Decisively I insert the end of the crowbar between the hut’s floor and the ground and lever upwards with a fine gesture imitative of Massaro’s rage and passion. Unfortunately the floorboards are rotten and spongelike. Since I am standing a little higher than the hut I am flung forward by the unexpected lack of resistance and go crashing through the doorway itself, thudding against the far wall. There is a sudden lurch, a lot of noise and a confused tumbling, shot through with streaks of sunlight and bright pain. Silence. The world recedes and reapproaches, lulling like waves in tropical shallows. For a timeless period I am suspended, then unceremoniously cast up on dry land. When I open my eyes something terrible has happened and I am blind. I try some weak screaming but it hurts my side so I stop. I’m blind and going to die and the melodramatic effusions of halfwits like Massaro are not in the slightest bit consoling, any more than are the prospects of Hot Seat! selling a million. What do such trivia matter when I’m pinned to the earth and about to be pecked to death by the circling vultures? More time passes while I miserably drift, then without warning there is a neck-ricking wrench and the
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