Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [46]
Diary: September 6
Last day! MUST do something. Breakfast, lazing, swim, lunch, lazing, breakfast, cold collation, screaming, wanking, lunch — elephant strangling in rum (eh?). I’d found a great ‘Cinema Vérité’ film, Città. Aperta. No one wants to see it. “It’s in bleedin’ Iti, isn’t it?” says The Jim Manning. Yes, dear lad, would he like Cockney sub-titles? No — he’s going to have egg, chips and the horn. It’s a marvellous film, very, very moving, a wonderful performance by Aldo Fabrizi, and I came out depressed but elated.
I hie me to the Alexander Club, and there pleasure myself with choice teas and buns. A ‘Naafi’ pianist is playing, an assassination job; he does for music what Dracula did for anaemia. I stand and listen to the horror and realize what a good thing assassination is. To recover I have a carafe of wine and head for home.
Outside the streets are bright, shops are open late, streets bustle with night life. I’m looking in a ladies’ lingerie shop with my memories. A voice behind me. “Are you looking for a dirty girl?” It’s a very beautiful thirty-year-old female.
No, I wasn’t looking for a dirty girl, I was looking for some clean underwear. She smiled a ravishing smile and showed teeth as white as piano keys. She looked at me with huge brown eyes, a stunner. I had never been accosted before, I didn’t know what to say; this was real men’s stuff. My mother said I never should play with the gypsies in the wood. To hell with that.
Her name is Maria Marini (all gypsies not in the wood in Italy are called Maria). A high degree of naughty was possible! I asked her why she had chosen me. I looked kind. Kind? What kind? Her words: “You looka nice.” The bottom drops out of the naughty when she tells me she’s not a tart, this is the first time! Why, dear girl, are you doing this dreadful thing? Doesn’t she know I’m trying to cure myself of Cold Collation, screaming and wanking? She’s a teacher from the University of Milan, she was holidaying in Rome when the Germans put a curfew on all civilian movements. She was broke and desperate. I said so was I, I’d just had egg and chips. A friend had suggested there were two ways to make money, tarting or counterfeiting. Both ways you get fucked. When we got to her small but tidy flat overlooking the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (all Basilicas not called Franco are called Maria in Italy), she broke down. Should I call the AA? I couldn’t bring myself to do it folks. I slept on that sofa!
After a good night’s Cold Collation and somnambulism, she brings me coffee and a slice of cake. I would have done better at the Rest Camp! “Ta for not shagging me, now can I have the money,” she says, in so many words. She has thought twice about it, she wants me to stay! Has she caught a glimpse of it in the night? “I ken be lak a waf to you,” she says. “I ken cock for you.” Well, I’d love her to cock for me, but I have to leave — the people in Maddaloni are dancing to a man banging a dustbin lid as he whistles. Will I write to her? Yes, and send soap, chocolate and a few million lire. She will wait for me. As I leave she grabs me, kisses me, then slams the door on my fingers. I return to the camp with a bandaged hand and am greeted with, “Did she ‘ave barbed wire round it?” Tell them all, every sordid little detail.
I upgraded the story. She was a distressed Countess, she wanted me to live with her. Corrrrrrrr! I could be the distressed Count. You count. She made me dress as Mussolini and make love to her! Corrrr! I wrote to Maria for nearly two years and I met her again in Volume VI (Order your copy now — due 1986).
September 6
It’s back to Maddaloni and straight into the Junior Ranks Dance. The ATS are allowed to wear dresses, frocks, and what look like broken army blankets stitched together with boot laces. At the door they are all given a flower. The lighting would have done credit to any swish night club, and so much food and drink seemed