to rush around finding our lovely lawyer Furio, to get the right documents and open bank accounts on our behalf, and it was she who had to sit through the arcane and archaic process of handing over a house from old owner to new. Compared with the British set-up it’s a very formal process, with a notary presiding over the whole thing and making dramatic speeches (all in Italian, of course). But Italy being Italy, there is also the entrenched desire to beat the system, a desire that is not only recognized but facilitated by the authorities.
And so it was that Madeleine came to experience on our behalf our first and rather dramatic example of Italian corruption at first hand. We were anxious to be putting her in such a position though also, if we’re honest, a bit jealous. Italian corruption is by now a high art. It has been practised for centuries, its processes refined and perfected, its challengers only serving to propel it onto further cunnings and refinements, its protagonists by now accomplished professionals. It is truly an art. For this, as much as for any other reason, it is almost impossible to stop. As unimaginable as someone in England one day suggesting that the Sunday roast should be stamped out.
In our case, what the corruption meant was that there were two prices that had been agreed for the house. The first amount was the actual sum we would pay to the current owners. The second amount was the one that would be declared on all the official documents—and on which the owners and we would be liable to pay tax.
We’d had huge deliberations beforehand about whether to go along with all this. We are generally very law-abiding and, on a practical note, it seemed rather foolhardy to be letting the best part of 100,000 euros disappear into the Italian ether. But a combination of Furio telling us the owners were insisting on it—and that the sale could therefore be off if we didn’t agree to this—and a naïve excitement about learning to play by Italian rules eventually led us to decide that we would.
In practice, what all this meant was some nerve-racking minutes for my poor sister. All of a sudden, the handover proceedings stopped. The notary got up and left the room, ‘In order,’ he said, ‘that the owners, past and present, can talk.’ These were the code words to hand over the real money. So Madeleine, nudged on by Furio, had to whip out her sticky bundles of the cash needed to make the sum up to the agreed sale price and pass them under the table to the ex-owners. After a decent interval, the notary re-entered and the rest of the business of signing the official papers was completed without fuss.
And so it was that we were now the official owners of a house on the other side of the world, and Madeleine had had her first lesson in the ducking and diving ways of the Italian ‘grey market’ as they like to call it. It’s not really bad, it’s just sensible, common sense, practical. If you had a man like Berlusconi as your leader and paragon, wouldn’t you have a sceptical view of national honesty?
By the time it came to have our LA leaving party, I was so pregnant that I needed one of those stretch limos to drive me around all day. Actually, it was stretch Hummers that were the in thing in LA by now. Let’s not forget that, despite his latter-day greening, it was Arnie who inspired the purchase of these misanthropic tools of all-American one-upmanship. Our party was all-American glamour. We had been nominated for an Emmy award for Junkyard Wars in the first year of a new category called ‘Best Reality TV Show’. We despised the label but liked the idea of the invite so swallowed our reservations. It did seem the perfect setting for a Hollywood farewell.
Eloise, our wardrobe genius, made me an amazing dress out of bluey green shimmery silk, festooned with beautiful rusting nuts and bolts and rivets—it was the attire of a junk mermaid and quite lovely. Everyone else looked fantastic, too, like snakes emerging from their skins of filthy T-shirts and jeans to squeaky shoes and perfectly tied bow ties.
Our arrival was a small moment of glory. Everyone else, by tradition, arrives in stretch limos, black and sleek. We’ve all watched them on TV, the starlets and the vamps poking a perfectly tanned leg from a black limo straight onto the red carpet, met by the firework flashes of a thousand paparazzi. We knew we couldn’t compete on that level of glamour so decided instead to go our own way. We’d commandeered the Junkyard Wars truck—a massive whitish transit van with (probably) ‘Also available in white’ and ‘Clean me’ daubed in fingertip on the back door. The faces of the butterfly-tied bouncers lining the entrance route were priceless as two, five, ten of us emerged in our finery from this scabby half-broken down van. The creaky door was held open by Dominic, who, wearing white lab coat, steel toecaps, hard hat and huge red ear defenders, looked to be lodged in some uncomfortable nether region between mad scientist and mental health nurse.
I had prepared a speech which was to honour no one in television but instead everyone outside of it who has year-round dirty fingernails and a car chocked up on bricks in the front yard. But, of course, I never got to say it because Survivor won.
Goodbye LA.
Ingredients for 1 large jar
Lemons—10 unwaxed
Salt—6 teaspoons
Bay leaves—3
Peppercorns—21
Coriander seeds—21
Cloves—3
Cathy was at the uncomfortable stage of pregnancy, when the soccer-ball-size lump means that you just want the little blighter out. Most mums-to-be would have been putting their energy into nesting, but she couldn’t because our nest would be in London and we were in LA. So instead Cathy’s suddenly demon-like energies went into preserving. My favourite is her preserved lemons. She uses big, fat juicy ones and they have to be be unwaxed. You can eat the whole preserve, rind and all. The jar is whisked out of the fridge at a moment’s notice to brighten up a salad or pasta dish with tiny citrusy nuggets.
Sterilize a three-quarter-litre preserving jar by putting it in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Take 5 lemons and squeeze out as much juice as you can. Keep the juice. Cut the other lemons into wedges and remove the seeds.
Stuff the lemon wedges into the jar to make a layer, then sprinkle 2 tablespoons of salt on top, and a third of the bay leaves, peppercorns, coriander seeds and cloves. Add another layer of lemon wedges and repeat the salting and spicing. Repeat with a third layer. Now pour in the lemon juice, which must completely cover the lemon wedges. Close the jar and store it away. After a month or so the skin will start to go soft.
We usually chop half a wedge up into small bits to sprinkle on salad. The jar will keep for up to a year and it’s nice to make an extra one to give away.
Ingredients for 4 people
Spinach—400g
Olive oil—7 tablespoons
Garlic—3 cloves
Tomatoes—700g
Tagliatelle—500g fresh
Salt and pepper
Parmesan—freshly grated
