Dante’s Beach, Ravenna
‘Welcome back, signore!’ said the woman in uniform at the all-seeing security doorway which passengers must walk through to be allowed on a plane, as if it were the Holy Door of St Peter.
I was about to fly from Rimini on the Adriatic coast, not far south of my home, to Gatwick for a church service in remembrance of my father who had died two days short of his 100th birthday in July.
I was with three of my six children and felt flattered, especially in front of them, to be remembered, proudly and deservedly famous at the Aeroporto Internazionale di Rimini e San Marino Federico Fellini. Two months earlier, I had flown alone from the same airport to be with my father as he died in his sleep. His last words, according to the Polish carer, had been ‘silly old cow’ as he drifted in and out of consciousness. It was not clear which woman in his long life was the target of this parting shot.
I took off my happy hippy sandals at the airport and placed them with the rest of my stuff in the plastic container on the X-ray machine conveyor belt and strode barefoot through the doorway as if I had nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever.
When we go through airport security our lives are under the microscope, even our sins, as those too are visible to the expert eyes of the security staff and their machines who see more than priests. For some odd reason no alarms went off and once through to the other side I gathered up my stuff and sat down to put my sandals back on, feeling quietly pleased with myself.
But then my eldest son, Francesco Winston, 20, who had gone through before me, came over and said sotto voce: ‘Papà, they’ve been talking about you. That woman asked her colleagues: “Is the signore ubriaco (drunk)?”’
As you may know, I am not currently drinking, and so I thought: bloody cheek! But it got worse. ‘One of them came up to you as if to sniff you,’ my son added. ‘And went back to the others and said with a smirk: “Non puzza di alcol, solo di fogne! (He doesn’t stink of alcohol, only of sewers!)”’ Nor did it end there. ‘Then the guy on the computer looked up and said: “Solito comunista barbone! (Typical communist tramp!)”’
My wife Carla says: ‘You
do not look normal, you are
not normal.’ Well, thank God
Of course, if I had been in drink mode, I would at this point have started a conversation with the security team. But I was not and I thought: one of the great themes in life and literature is the difference between appearance and reality. For what, in fact, had those security guards got right about the reality of me – il solito comunista barbone, ubriaco e puzzolente – from my appearance?
Yes, alcohol has taken me for long periods to places worse than boredom and despair. But luckily I have somehow so far always been able to come back and give it up – and I had not touched a drop since April. To be fair to them, I suppose, I am a dormant alcoholic. And surely, if they say so, I stink, don’t I? No, not really, no more than they do.
My wife Carla says: ‘You do not look normal, you are not normal.’ Well, thank God. Normality is not quite yet compulsory and that day at Rimini International my clothes were actually rather snazzy. So ‘tramp’ cannot be the right word to define me, except in the sense that I am always skint. But they would not have known that, would they, from their machines? Communist? Italy had the largest communist party outside the Soviet Bloc in Europe, and the Emilia-Romagna where I live was its citadel whose heirs continue, just about, to rule the roost to this day. But for many years I had a column in a right-wing Italian newspaper and spent much of my time making fun of the ‘comunisti’ and the left-wing press used to call me ‘fascista’! So they got that wrong as well.
But my father would have seen life their way. For him appearance was reality. You avoid scratching the surface. You avoid… emotion.
He was hostile to all forms of religion, as so many are, but there is nowhere else suitable to hold a memorial gathering, is there, except a church? So about 50 people came to St Andrew’s, Limpsfield Chart – where my brother, who is a KC, gave an exceptional speech in which he told the story mainly of how our father managed to come from nothing to achieve success – and to the village pub afterwards.
A couple of days later, sitting alone in my father’s armchair in the conservatory of his lovely old house in the Surrey Hills with its spectacular views south, down to Ashdown Forest and beyond, I heard a frantic fluttering sound. It was a beautiful peacock butterfly that our presence in the house had awoken from hibernation. I wanted to open the windows to let it out but they were jammed and I could not find the key to the door.
And then it disappeared which was just as well, I later found out. For if I had got hold of it and put it outside it would have died.
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