Peace Work by Spike Milligan

Author:Spike Milligan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789085241522
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1990-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Pose showing hole in shoe.

21

Verona

The morning we are awakened by our landlady calling. ‘Sciopero! Sciopero!’ Ah, the trams and buses are on strike, lying in bed we feel the full impact. ‘Disgrazia,’ she says, ‘sempre, sempre sciopero quando Mussolini viva – non posso sciopero.’ She goes away crying over lost trams and buses, and saying the rosary; it is heart-breaking. Well, we’ve got lire, let’s to the Galleria! It’s a cold day but the Galleria is dry and alivewith fellow artists, we order two caffe lane; I better explain caffe lane is a bowl of milky coffee you dip a rum baba into. We are joined by two showgirls. Christina and Mia, unattractive, which is why they’re out of work. ‘O ‘ello Spak - ’ello Jo-nee – where you been, we no see you this time.’ They’re skint so we buy them caffe lattes. They give us the news. Ivaldi has booked us with Angelini and his orchestra for Verona. It was true, Verona!! Romeo and Juliet, a glove upon your hand!

♦

We all travel on the orchestra bus, lots of showgirls, lots of chatting up, like ‘were I a glove upon your hand’. ‘See this lot,’ said Bill Hall. ‘They’re all lining each other up for a shag.’ No, not me, I still had Toni on my mind. We pull into Verona at night and are put up at a large old-fashioned boarding house in the Via Safi. We are shown our rooms; I’m on my own, lovely! We eat en famille ina big ground-floor dining room, I’m being fussed over by a buxom dark-haired waitress, she wants to know my name. ‘Teree.’ I always give that name to girls, it sounds more romantic, because an Italian girl saying ‘Spak’ (Spike) is like a custard hitting thewall. This girl Gina is Sicilian and tells me, ‘Tutti Siciliani moltopassionato.’ Okay, well. I’m lying in bed reading, a tap at the door and in comes Gina, and so a glove upon her hand and district. Indeed City of Romeo and Juliet. Amore. Amore. ‘You very hot like Sicilian.’ she said; it was very nice to get these little unsolicited testimonials.

At breakfast next morning, I didn’t know what to say. Good morning? Sleep well? We are all rushed off to the Roman Amphitheatre, the site of our next performance – a stage has been set up with mikes and speakers. The amphitheatre was beautiful, apart from being stripped of its marble it was almost intact. It looked a bit out of place with twelve chorus girls singing ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love. Baby’ in Italian. I make friends with Carlo Santamaria, the guitarist, and we spend time at the hotel playing duets. When I wasn’t there he-did them on his own.

I been and seen it,’ says Hall.

Seen what?

‘The balcony, didn’t I, where Romeo and Juliet were. Yer.’

It would be criminal to miss it, so I take Gina, and I do the ‘oh, that I were a glove upon your hand.’ silly sod, but I was young.

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