Much alcohol has been consumed and the bitterness of the earlier evening persists. Our hosts are excellent amateur viola da gamba and viola d'amore players but can take it all a bit seriously. Mr Host claims that if anyone who takes their original instruments seriously should make their own strings from wire or gut as required. The Scottish contingent chip in that there would be little time left to actually play the virginals if they had to make all the strings as well. I should have been content with the remnants of the mescal bottle but no, I had to shove in my six pennyworth.
'How difficult can it be?' I heard myself saying as I entered the minefield. Forgetting the vegan repast to which we had been so recently subjected, I blundered on. 'I've got a terrier who kills several cats a year so there'll be no shortage of raw materials.'
At this, Mrs Hostess bursts into tears (more fuelled, I suspect, by gin than sentiment).
Mr Host glares at me.
'Really, Quentin. You can be such a bore at times. She's only just got over the loss of Gassman.'
I should have just hung my head in shame and said nothing but the mention of the recently deceased cat's name (after Leopold Florian Gassman, the eighteenth century, Bohemian composer) suddenly struck me as very funny. My ill-concealed sniggering only threw petrol on the flames. I then remembered that the unfortunate creature's mortal remains had been peremptorily exhumed by the dog next door and had to be re-interred amidst more wailing and lamentation from the bereft owner.
'You really are a shmug shon of a bitch, Quentin.' said the glossy-faced, red-haired virginal player from the north of the border. 'To teach you a leshon, I'm going to make you a bet. If it'sh sho easy to make gut shtrings for original inshtruments, let'sh shet a date and shee who can actually make a useable string by that time. I'll put £500.00 on the table now just to shee you eat a huge dollop of humble pie.'
'In any case,' added his remarkably unattractive wife whose face glowed red like the buttocks of a sexually aroused capuchin monkey, 'any fool knows that gut strings are made of goat, sheep or cow intestine. The 'cat' in 'catgut' is short for 'cattle' and has nothing to do with cats.' (more wimpering from our hostess).
There was nothing for it. I'd been called out. My honour was at stake. I had to take up the challenge. Also, there was nothing else left to drink. I duly bet the Scottish party that I could produce a more playable gut string than he could in seven days.
Despite our disagreement, we all muck in and in carry the recumbent form of Mrs V. to a kerbside cab. The cabbie stung me an extra £20 (You told me it was for a train fare! Ring me. Ed.) to take the starboard side of Mrs V to our doorway while I steered the port side.
I awoke early and set to my research. By 0900hrs I was something of an expert on the theory of manufacting gut strings for divers instruments between 1450 to the present day. Mrs V. announced that she had come down with a bad attack of neurasthenia overnight and would be staying in bed. The day was mine to get on with the great project.
A couple of phone calls to the local abattoir and I returned with a tub of raw material that had recently been the innards of a lean, young, male sheep. Lean beasts, the slaughter-man assured me, have the toughest guts.
By 1400hrs I had divided the batch into two reserving one half for a plan B situation in our utility room fridge. I cleaned the intestines in cold water, removed any trace of fat and then washed them again thoroughly. The next morning I scraped off the external membrane and high-tailed it down to a local chemist friend to pick up a caustic agent to cure the prepared lengths of gut. Twenty four hours later they ready for drawing out to a sufficient length for smoothing and equalizing.
Day Three and it's off to the potting shed to fumigate the strings with sulfur dioxide. Do not try this at home. A couple of test runs twisting the strings and my gut strings were ready and about the length that could be fitted to a small cello.
Day Three and it's off to the potting shed to fumigate the strings with sulfur dioxide. Do not try this at home. A couple of test runs twisting the strings and my gut strings were ready and about the length that could be fitted to a small cello.
I returned to the house exhausted by my labours to find that Mrs V. had once again joined the world of the living... but not in a good way. She was being sick in the downstairs loo. I also noticed a vaguely unpleasant odour hanging in the air centred around a frying pan which showed signs of recent use.
'How long were have you left those sweetbreads in the utility room fridge? They were revolting!'
Mrs V. slumped down at the kitchen table.
'What sweetbreads?' I reply. To this day she doesn't know or even suspect.
And what of the competition? It was all a waste of time! Edinburgh's glossy-faced virginal fingerer claims that he had consumed too much drink and that he only had the dimmest of recollections regarding the evening in question. He certainly doesn't remember making such an odd bet and attests that he has never bet £500.00 on anything in his life. I thought about contacting the other party in Belsize Park to back me up but decided, in the end, to let sleeping dogs lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment