Cosa Nostra
And so my mind turns, as it does at this time of year, to my Italian ancestry.
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A close friend of my father died last week and there's service for him on Friday night at St Peter's, the Italian Church in Clerkenwell. My parents were married there, I was christened there, my brother was christened there. He got married there. Pretty much everyone we know goes to this same church to mark births, marriages and deaths.
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It's been there for over a hundred years and you’d scarcely notice the place. Later building has almost completely obscured its outline to a point where all you can see are the entrance doors, flanked by a row of tall buildings and shops on either side. The design of the main entrance gives away its London-Italian origin. Unlike 98% of all other churches, mosques and temples on Earth the entrance is located immediately next to the altar. Anyone entering the church late strides into full view of the congregation who, bored with the proceedings on stage, invariably turn their attention to how the latecomers are dressed and whether their choice of shoes and jewellery is appropriate for the occasion. Being an Italian church, lots of people turn up late.
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Anyway, attending the Italian Church, is one of the few occasions when I have any contact with the London Italian community these days. I'm also thinking about my Italian background for a couple of other reasons. I'm off with Tracy to Sardinia for a few cheapo days this weekend plus the annual Christmas Day negotiations are underway.
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Every year, the thorny subject of where the extended family takes its Christmas meal is a matter of intense discussion and speculation. It's never an easy thing. Over the previous months people will have died, been born, married or fallen out with each other over some trivial dispute about who owns a couple of square metres of rock back in the Home Country. Depending on how unwell key individuals may be or the decisions of a notary back in Piacenza, there are times when I'm unsure where I will be eating Christmas lunch, or what presents to take, well into Christmas day itself. The usual routine is to get up, shave, put on something clean, arm yourself with several generic wrapped presents, complete with blank name tags, and wait, Delta Force style, for a phone call.
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The meal itself, wherever it takes place, is almost always spectacular but usually marred by the brain numbing levels of shouting that take place across the food. It’s all rather reminiscent of trying to partake of a top flight dinner, whilst sitting at an immaculately laid-out table, placed in the middle of the Chicago Futures Exchange, just after a hurricane has hit Guatemala.
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Then, after the meal, there's the regifting. The thrill of watching a high stakes poker game is but nothing compared to my Mum working her magic with her basket of last year's presents. Looking into her eyes you couldn’t possibly tell that she is feverishly working out who gave her what last Christmas, lest she give it back to them 12 months later. I don’t want to sound harsh. She grew up poor. Ever since I can remember I was encouraged to open my Christmas presents with a craft knife and leave the wrapping and ribbons in a neat pile to one side. And you can be sure that any formal meal or wedding reception my mother attends over the course of a year is systematically ransacked and looted of any recyclable centre pieces and napkin holders. What she can’t take she burns. Yes, Genghis Khan and his boys could have picked up a few new moves watching my mother at the annual Festa di Fungho dinner dance.
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Every Christmas we return home with an armful of cut-glass Bohemian paperweights, letter openers and crappy toiletry gift sets which didn’t have our names on five minutes before we arrived. After many soul-destroying years of actually buying thoughtful presents with particular people in mind, I think Tracy has got the idea this year and has already started stocking up on characterless, mass-produced junk from local chemists.
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I've already decided what to buy her this year. A pair of ear defenders.
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