free to sit in on the counsels of the alleged good and the alleged great.
‘I have cantered among the hyenas of the Serengeti as they brought down wildebeeste; I have danced the Wellington Boot Dance with the Zulu in the township hostels; I have tiptoed through the Bibliothèque Nationale, listening to the gummy gumming of mundane scholars; I have shelled prawns with slant-eyed androgynes in the polyglot souks of the uttermost East; I have reached the nadir of a nonsensical number of psycho-sexual trances, both in the Amazonian hinterland and the plastic cultures of the Pacific rim; I have subsumed myself to the circuitry of artificial cerebella in the silicone wadis; I have crawled down the barrels of guns on all five continents, only to spring forth again – triumphant; I have tittered in the stalls and tottered by the walls festooned with epicene opera-lovers; I have sallied forth into the salons of the old world and the new; I have hefted steins in the beerhalls and pinched flutes in the Shires; I have raced laggardly protons around the cyclotron, revelling in the sempiternal sciamachy; and – let us not forget – I have also hidden under couches whilst the moneyed pulers petted their kittenish neuroses, imagining themselves trusted, secluded.
‘To cut these many stories short, to tie a knot of reminder in this multifarious narrative: I have reacquainted myself with my domain. And now – let's eat.’
We ate at Al Forno, an Italian restaurant at the bottom of the Lanes. I was subdued after the preprandial violence. Subdued and also cowed by The Fat Controller's manner of consummate self-assurance. This was no longer a slightly eccentric seaside retiree with a portfolio of amusing tricks. He had become something other, or worse still, perhaps he had always been.
As soon as we entered the restaurant the proprietor came out to us from the kitchen, rubbing his hands oilier on a tea towel.
‘Ah! Meester Northcliffe,’ he trilled – and it was a measure of my disorientation that I took this further name-change in my faltering stride. ‘We no see you for an age. Why you no come to Al Forno? Youse find someone who makes a better pizza?’
‘Tommaso, how could that be so?’ The Fat Controller was emollient, masterful. ‘You make the finest pizzas on the Sussex coast – haven't I always said that? No, no, I have been away on business for these past few months.’
‘And who is this, your son?’ Tommaso gave me three-quarters of an ingratiating smile and The Fat Controller's good humour increased by a factor of nine. His trunk swelled up to resemble that of a baobab tree, matching for bulk the whitewashed curvature of the charcoal oven that dominated the restaurant. His voice boomed, ‘Haha, ahahaha, no, no, more like a grandson, I should say, but it's good of you to be so shamelessly flattering – to him.’ Then his good mood evaporated so entirely that it might never have been. ‘Jump to it, boy! Bring us two litres of that vile Chianti and four of your large specials – we'll be upstairs.’
We climbed up a twisting staircase past two floors of tables and then took our place in the bay window on the top floor. In due course Tommaso himself brought the wine. The Fat Controller poured me a glass.
‘Stick that in your laugh-hole,’ he said. ‘You're past the age when you can be forgiven for not holding your liquor. So pour it down your neck.’ I did as I was told.
The ‘special’ turned out to be a cartwheel-sized pizza like a slice of the earth's crust, its five feet of rim volcanically erupting. On top of it there were all the fruits of the forest, the animals of the plain, and a few of the beasts of the sea for good measure. Everything was enmired in thick globs of mozzarella cheese. The Fat Controller ate three of these and I did my best to tackle the fourth. I was stunned by this prodigious feat of consumption. I remembered Mr Broadhurst-that-was mopping up the Sally Lunns but that was a mere
‘I have cantered among the hyenas of the Serengeti as they brought down wildebeeste; I have danced the Wellington Boot Dance with the Zulu in the township hostels; I have tiptoed through the Bibliothèque Nationale, listening to the gummy gumming of mundane scholars; I have shelled prawns with slant-eyed androgynes in the polyglot souks of the uttermost East; I have reached the nadir of a nonsensical number of psycho-sexual trances, both in the Amazonian hinterland and the plastic cultures of the Pacific rim; I have subsumed myself to the circuitry of artificial cerebella in the silicone wadis; I have crawled down the barrels of guns on all five continents, only to spring forth again – triumphant; I have tittered in the stalls and tottered by the walls festooned with epicene opera-lovers; I have sallied forth into the salons of the old world and the new; I have hefted steins in the beerhalls and pinched flutes in the Shires; I have raced laggardly protons around the cyclotron, revelling in the sempiternal sciamachy; and – let us not forget – I have also hidden under couches whilst the moneyed pulers petted their kittenish neuroses, imagining themselves trusted, secluded.
‘To cut these many stories short, to tie a knot of reminder in this multifarious narrative: I have reacquainted myself with my domain. And now – let's eat.’
We ate at Al Forno, an Italian restaurant at the bottom of the Lanes. I was subdued after the preprandial violence. Subdued and also cowed by The Fat Controller's manner of consummate self-assurance. This was no longer a slightly eccentric seaside retiree with a portfolio of amusing tricks. He had become something other, or worse still, perhaps he had always been.
As soon as we entered the restaurant the proprietor came out to us from the kitchen, rubbing his hands oilier on a tea towel.
‘Ah! Meester Northcliffe,’ he trilled – and it was a measure of my disorientation that I took this further name-change in my faltering stride. ‘We no see you for an age. Why you no come to Al Forno? Youse find someone who makes a better pizza?’
‘Tommaso, how could that be so?’ The Fat Controller was emollient, masterful. ‘You make the finest pizzas on the Sussex coast – haven't I always said that? No, no, I have been away on business for these past few months.’
‘And who is this, your son?’ Tommaso gave me three-quarters of an ingratiating smile and The Fat Controller's good humour increased by a factor of nine. His trunk swelled up to resemble that of a baobab tree, matching for bulk the whitewashed curvature of the charcoal oven that dominated the restaurant. His voice boomed, ‘Haha, ahahaha, no, no, more like a grandson, I should say, but it's good of you to be so shamelessly flattering – to him.’ Then his good mood evaporated so entirely that it might never have been. ‘Jump to it, boy! Bring us two litres of that vile Chianti and four of your large specials – we'll be upstairs.’
We climbed up a twisting staircase past two floors of tables and then took our place in the bay window on the top floor. In due course Tommaso himself brought the wine. The Fat Controller poured me a glass.
‘Stick that in your laugh-hole,’ he said. ‘You're past the age when you can be forgiven for not holding your liquor. So pour it down your neck.’ I did as I was told.
The ‘special’ turned out to be a cartwheel-sized pizza like a slice of the earth's crust, its five feet of rim volcanically erupting. On top of it there were all the fruits of the forest, the animals of the plain, and a few of the beasts of the sea for good measure. Everything was enmired in thick globs of mozzarella cheese. The Fat Controller ate three of these and I did my best to tackle the fourth. I was stunned by this prodigious feat of consumption. I remembered Mr Broadhurst-that-was mopping up the Sally Lunns but that was a mere
Similar Books
