Amazing Disgrace (32 page)

Just as well, too; for my own future is a black book into whose pages not even regular tinctures of grappa and opium can yet nerve me to peer. I simply glean a debilitating
impression
of rootlessness and insurance claims. Plus, of course, the
same old toad demanding that I keep on scribbling foolishly. Still, Samper may pull through and his fifty-first year could yet turn out to have been cathartic. Worse for some, I reflect, as a verselet rises unbidden to my lips:

Not for the first time I have to thank Mrs Maribel Ongpin for her generosity in providing me with that near-impossibility: a quiet retreat in which to work in Manila. The closing chapters of this book were mostly written in her hospitable home, whose calm and serious tenor is so innocently at odds with the antics of the egregious Gerry Samper.

I equally wish to thank Mrs Monica Arellano Ongpin. Over the years her house in Italy has been a locus of friendship, improper conversation and gin: an exhilarating and frequently inspiring combination.

Once again Quentin Huggett has earned my gratitude, as have other of my friends at Geotek Ltd, in particular John Roberts and Sally Marine. Between them they have answered my
questions
while supplying ideas of their own. Those, as usual, ranged from the invaluable to the frankly barking. It is for the lack of anything in between that I most thank them. Nor can I forget that when we were aboard R/V
Farnella
fifteen years ago, Quentin and I were present at the moment The Face first manifested itself: an ineffable apparition that immediately sparked an irreverent train of thought.

Finally, Ken Thomson was an obliging and witty consultant on Australiana and Ozisms in general.

James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of
Gerontius
, winner of a Whitbread Prize;
Seven-Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds; Playing With Water;
and most recently, of the wild comic trilogy
Cooking With Fernet Branca, Amazing Disgrace
and
Rancid Pansies.

FICTION

Loving Monsters

The View from Mount Dog

Gerontius

The Bell-Boy

Griefwork

Ghosts of Manila

The Music

Cooking with Fernet Branca

Amazing Disgrace

Rancid Pansies

CHILDREN’S FICTION

Flight Underground

The House in the Waves

Hostage!

NON-FICTION

A Very Personal War: The Story of Cornelius Hawkridge

(also published as The Greedy War)

Mummies: Death and Life in Ancient Egypt

Playing with Water

Seven-Tenths

America’s Boy

Three Miles Down

POETRY

Option Three

Dutch Alps