The Umbrian Consul

By Robbie Duff-Scott

The Umbrian Consul is the first in a comic trilogy with an impending dark side. We follow Mandrake though his journey of misunderstandings begining in the small rural town of Puta in Umbria, central Italy. Praise for The Umbrian Consul and the Author: "I couldn't keep it down". Paul Pearson. Author, rock legend, restauranteur, bon viveur etc. "I have little to say concerning the literary merits or otherwise of 'The Umbrian Consul', because I have not and will not read it. But I will vouchsafe that its author is a debased petty criminal, who lies and cheats without compunction, has an unsightly mole on his thigh, is a habitual drunkard, has no sense of loyalty or honour, and what is more, is truly awful in bed." Name withheld. Author of 'My Times with a Bastard.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447563679

Book preview

Florence

THE LAWS OF DYNAMICS

Every object continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless impressed forces act on it.

Force is directly proportional to the rate of change of momentum produced.

Action and reaction are equal and opposite.

Isaac Newton

The interpretation of signs is one of the principal activities of a Man of Honour.

A Sicilian

CHAPTER 1

Mandrake had fled to Italy to escape the ruins of a love affair wreaked upon him by one of only two women who had replied to his advertisement.

Male, 33 years old, wants to meet woman. Please send photograph.

To his surprise he had received two answers and both had included a picture. The first, who was called Beth, provided an image obviously taken in a photo booth, since it comprised mostly of a grey curtain at the bottom of which the viewer caught a glimpse of blonde hair. Either the revolving seat had jammed or he was now in possession of an insurance photograph of a precious wig.

The second was much more promising. It was of a dark haired and smiling face, full of intelligence (an attribute implied by the evidence that she had understood how the revolving chair worked). She was called Naomi and this was the woman he had chosen to wreck his life.

Even now, two months after they had been separated, he still couldn't rid himself of a churning humiliation every time he remembered the diminishing returns at the end of her feelings for him. It had been akin to sticking his genitals into a hefty Newton's cradle - he couldn't stop the momentum entirely, but allowed it to gradually pulp him until it was going nowhere and he was in pain.

Sir Isaac had always had him by the balls. Mandrake's fourth law of dynamics was that every love tends towards taxidermy, where stuffing fakes a beating heart. So Mandrake had chosen Italy as his place of refuge, and rural Italy at that. He had rented a small house in a village in Umbria, chosen from a brochure for its quaint cheapness.

Since flying was one of the many things that distressed him, he had decided to drive out.

Whenever he thought of flying, which was perversely often, it was always the aftermath he imagined. He shuddered at the possibility of having his teeth confused with a stranger’s when they sifted through the wreckage, with the subsequent announcement on the news that his dental history was the worst of anybody on the flight.

He could see quite clearly in his mind's eye, the soiled and dubious contents of his luggage, hanging from a scorched tree, or himself floating in a freezing ocean whilst blowing forlornly on the whistle of his life jacket, while all around him bobbed the indestructible smiles of the airhostesses.

The voyage out through some of the most picturesque countryside in Europe had consisted of a rich variety of lay-bys, an even richer selection of petrol station toilets, and a haunting noise from the engine, just to ensure he was on edge for most of the trip.

Italy proved a reasonably big target to aim at, but once there, it seemed to require much subtle manoeuvring to find the exact spot he was looking for. If he had observed the Italian maxim "if you don't see a sign, carry straight on", he would have ended up in Palermo.

As it was, after lengthy research into the possibilities of only using tractor tracks, he eventually hoved into the village of Puta, with an elegant dado rail of mud decorating his Ford Consul and the mistaken impression that his long journey was over.

The car had behaved better than he could have ever hoped for, considering it had been driven by someone whose knowledge of cars extended as far as the windscreen. In fact the only real malfunction from which the car had suffered was with the heating, which didn't respond to being switched off.

The last leg of the trip was covered at night- time along roads that seemed to be illuminated by faulty Christmas tree lights. By the time he stopped after eight hours driving, the temperature inside the car was impressively hot. He pulled up outside the first bar in the village that looked open, anxious to escape the bubbling upholstery and to sink a cold beer. His eyes were stinging with hay fever. When he stepped from the car he announced himself on the threshold, all weepy, in a hot waft of stale air. He lurched to the counter with a desperate I-have-crossed-many-deserts-to-find-you look. This was lost on the barman, who was studiously rummaging about beneath the counter. However, he must have smelt Mandrake because he slowly and suspiciously raised his head, peered at him and said,

Buongiorno

Bonjovi Mandrake replied.

This greeting was something Mandrake had been working on for some time. Previous to his departure he had bought himself a series of teach-yourself Italian cassettes. The first one prepared the student for an arrival at the train station.

Listen carefully, it intoned and see if you can hear the platform number of the train to Florence.

At the end of the you-will-speak-Italian-in-ten-days period, Mandrake had grasped a handful of words (two of which he'd just used up), could do a passable impression of a man coughing into a loud-hailer, and could tell you that the train for Florence left from platform 3 (or was it 13)?

Oonabeeragrandy said Mandrake, using up the last of his Italian words, realising at the same moment that the clock on the wall said it was seven thirty in the morning. Surprisingly, the barman (seemingly recognising a kindred spirit) was already pouring and proved keen to take Mandrake into hitherto unexplored areas of Mandrake's Italian.

Barman: Caldo eh? (spoken with a hint of mouthwash)

Mandrake: (raising his eyebrows and shrugging)

Barman: Inglese? (spoken loudly)

Mandrake: (Shrug and The Winning Smile combination)

Barman: Capisci Italiano? (using the loudhailer)

Mandrake attempted the quadruple: (Raised eyebrows, winning smile, vigorous nodding and full shrug), which simply slopped beer out of his glass.

Just when the conversation appeared to be getting away from Mandrake, another word occurred to him. Bellow he offered, sweeping the room with a magnanimous gesture and realising as he did so that he had appeared to address this remark to a man who had just entered. The latter seemed undecided about the implication of the compliment and gave Mandrake a non-committal Buongiorno.

The newcomer scanned the bar and inspected the sole of one of his boots. Unasked, the barman poured him a glass of red wine and they exchanged a few mumbles, with a form of pronunciation that convinced Mandrake that Puta must, at sometime, have been on a trade route between Newcastle and Swaziland.

The barman and the bootsniffer made quite a contrast. The barman was big boned and overweight with the face of a man who has had a small amount of gelignite go off behind his nose in the not too distant past. The other was very thin and oak-seasoned. He was wearing a grey uniform from which poked a cravat and cuffs of body hair. He occasionally tugged at his wrist hair as if he was about to do a trick with a rabbit, but had got it caught in his shirtsleeve.

He looked hard at Mandrake. Beemo? raising his empty glass (drink?).

The universality of the gesture saved Mandrake from another fit of twitching. Dehydrated Mandrake was hoping for another beer, but two more wine glasses had appeared and all three were being filled.

Salute! (from the barman and the uniformed man together). Mandrake paused to study the etiquette. This involved throwing the entire contents of the glass into your mouth at once with a body movement like the preliminary to a sneeze.

Mandrake gave it his best shot. The pain from the glass rim hitting his gums was nothing compared to the flailing sensation in his intestines after he swallowed. He tried a nonchalant retch, which he managed to get away with because the other two were busy organising three more glasses.

Curiously Mandrake found this round slightly easier to swallow and when it was over they all gave each other a purp1e-toothed smile. He made a forlorn attempt to offer money, fumbling with his wallet, while the other two stared at the photograph of Beth, or rather the absence of Beth, which he still had about his person, having destroyed the one of Naomi, as a gesture of sadness.

The barman pointed at the long blonde fringe and two eyes that were the only visible parts of Beth, made a small gesture with his hands and said, Bellino quel cane (what a pretty little dog).

In the spirit of man talk, Mandrake adopted his heartiest locker room stance, complete with the thumbs up sign and lascivious wink. Suddenly, sadly, the man in the uniform had to go, throwing some coins on the bar and plunging out of the doorway. Mandrake sat down heavily behind another full glass.

He watched through the window as a car moved very slowly down the street with no one in it. Behind it leaned the man in uniform with the far away look and resigned posture of someone pushing a supermarket trolley. Meanwhile the barman had changed into a large woman with tightly permed hair and a dead chicken hanging from her right fist.

What a day it had been, and it was still only five to eight.

CHAPTER 2

Mandrake sat in the bar and listened to the hum of an empty glass-fronted fridge that stood in the corner. Either there had been a run on ice cream, or this was where they kept the barman at night. He was beginning to feel slightly maudlin.

Self-pity was one of the few things that came easily to him. Even his name had been a joke on his father's part; a joke that after thirty-seven years he still failed to get; but then, he didn't get a lot of things - money, sex, fish lunches and good luck in general.

He was sitting chewing over his crown of thorns, when the television on top of the fridge applauded into life to reveal a pair of scantily corseted lovelies flanking a small fat man in a suit who was holding a clipboard. The fat man was shouting, the lovelies were beaming and the audience was in hysterics. It bore all the nightmarish fascination of an airline disaster; two kitsch stewardesses and a co-pilot telling you there's nothing to worry about, it's only the black box that's on fire.

The large bar lady seemed oblivious to this and plucked at the chicken in a desultory way like someone picking at their in-flight meal. Mandrake stared at the chicken and it stared back at Mandrake as if it, too, recognised a kindred spirit. The large lady stared at Mandrake staring at the chicken. It was all starting to feel like the shoot-out scene in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ .The chicken was not going to be a problem: it was nude at both hips.

In order to break the deadlock, Mandrake pointed to the chicken, rubbed his stomach and said. Good. Wary-eyed glances continued to circulate.

The large lady 1ooked down at the chicken, which was looking at Mandrake, who decided to get up and leave before someone got shot. He rose to pay for his drinks.

How much? he asked, waving his wallet at her. She lent over and took out a blue note. Then with the speed of a gunslinger she pushed the chicken into Mandrake's chest. He made a defensive grab at it, and before he could speak, she had disappeared, and he was left to stumble out into the blazing light with a half plucked bleeding chicken in his clasp.

Death had walked arm in arm with Mandrake for so long, that this dead chicken was as nothing to him. His father was one of those hunting, shooting fishing types. Having retired early as a major from the Yemeni Light Horse as a result of a misunderstanding concerning a palm frond still, and thus having narrowly missed fulfilling his mission of purging India of all animal life, he had brought his armoury home with a vengeance.

The talk of tackle was never far from his lips, and the house of Mandrake's childhood rang with the breaking of shotgun breeches, was scented with gun oil, hanging fowl and dead fish. A green belt abattoir.

He remembered walking into the kitchen to invariably find something furry or fishy slumped over the table, his father standing over it like Torquemada in waders, while his mother prepared for the hanging, drawing and boiling. His father had pursued his obsession with such thoroughness that he had begun clearing a five-mile radius of scorched earth around his country house.

Mandrake was convinced that his mother wore floral dresses in order to blend in with the drawing room wallpaper, so (if she stood very still) his father might stalk straight past her without stopping for an argument. The meal that followed the day’s carnage would inevitably be sauced by his father's description of what animal you would get if you stuck all the slices back together again, and how it met its end was usually reserved for dessert.

Occasionally Mandrake would be fortunate enough to crack a lucky tooth on a piece of shot, and be treated to cleaning one of his father's guns. There they would sit, by the gun cabinet, together, as if preparing for a siege – man and boy, never closer than when a shotgun’s distance apart.

It was his father who had found him his only lasting employment. Mandrake had consistently proved himself incapable of any normal job and so now worked for a mail-order catalogue for hunting accessories called ‘Acteon’. ’Potter’ Pearson, the owner, was a shooting chum of his father’s and Mandrake had been taken on to handle telephone orders.

The catalogue itself comprised a series of photographs of male and sometimes female model (sporting the Diana range) posing about in a plastic forest. A typical image was one of Damian perched on a five bar gate. Damian is dressed to kill in a pair of camouflage trousers a jaunty bullet belt, and a beige flak jacket with a virus of pockets (presumably to house the flack, after it's bounced harmlessly off him). Indeed the whole ensemble suggested the wearer had heard on good authority that the animals had armed themselves to the teeth and were preparing to put up quite a struggle.

On his head, a rakish tweed cap and his feet were buried in what appeared to be a pair of diving boots. Over his arm rested a broken shotgun. Next to him Chloe was bending over in full goddess-of-hunting regalia, which picked up on the combat theme but was somehow muted. 'Gentle fatigues' was how Mandrake's employer summed up this look.

No diving boots for Chloe, instead she was wearing a pair of Burgundy Wellingtons, to allow her to wade through the gore without splashing her 'lioness" stalking trousers (ref: 55.7, price £89). She was delving into a picnic hamper (ref.23.3) containing four Royal Worcester dinner plates, cut glass decanter and two cut glass goblets, two napkins monogrammed to order (£450.00 inclusive, with complimentary 'Monarch of the Glen' redcurrant jelly).

Mandrake's was most unsettled by a picture of Damian pointing into the canopy of a tree. His shotgun was primed and was ready to start blazing. Chloe followed his gaze as she held a thermos flask; a restorative cuppa before ‘agent-oranging’ the beech wood. They were both dressed in black, and beaming through the mayhem, like two members of a SWAT team discussing forcible entry after the animals in the canopy had failed to give themselves up. Who knows what a woodcock on crack is capable of.

Most of Mandrake's day was spent fielding phone calls along the lines of;

MANDRAKE: Good morning, Acteon Publications. How can I help you?

CALLER: Good morning, I’m not sure I've got the right number. I'd like to order some equipment for my husband.

MANDRAKE: Certainly, if you'll just give me a reference number and description of what you require.

CALLER: Yes, well, I suppose so. Reference 33.1 - one pair of SAS style heath trousers. Reference 112.5 - one Mr. Woodman shirt in red. Both articles in extra large.

MANDRAKE; The Mr. Woodman shirt is strictly speaking part of our fashion rather than our field range.

CALLER: I’m not sure we intend to use any of the products outdoors, as such.

MANDRAKE: "Thank you very much and I see that your order has come to over £50, so we will also be sending you a complimentary gutting knife. Now if you would just like to leave your name and address…

Mandrake's boss, Mr. Pearson, had been very understanding about his request for compassionate leave. Mandrake argued that it could prove a perfect opportunity for 'Acteon' to break into the European market. With Mandrake's fluency in Italian and evidence of increasing numbers of Italian hunters visiting Great Britain, he could use his stay to recruit new customers.

Mr. Pearson saw Mandrake's point of view and, surprised and impressed by his ability to speak Italian, supplied him with a large selection of samples and made Mandrake promise to keep in touch with the dynamic and volatile world of hunting accessories by subscribing to all relevant magazines.

To be fair to Mandrake he was good at his job, possessing a detailed knowledge of all aspects of hunting equipment gleaned from his childhood indoctrination. He had never actually hunted himself. Although like many people, he didn't mind eating meat, he absolutely balked at killing it. It wasn't a moral dilemma he had solved and it simmered on the back burner while the roast was cooking in the oven. And he had realised from his recent encounter with the chicken that he had arrived in a place where tofu would be hard to find.

Thus, he exited from the bar bearing the chicken with a lofty indifference, but if the bird was posing no problems, the manner of Mandrake's exit was. Oiled by the wine swilling behind his eyes, he didn’t so much walk into the street as fire into it. He flashed out through the beaded curtain like a macabre vision bursting out