Author Archives: Delicto

The Hall Mirror (Ο καθρέπτης στην είσοδο)

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The Hall Mirror

The rich house had a very large, old mirror in its hall.
It could have been bought not less than eighty years ago.
One day a youth called with a parcel;
Only a tailor’s messenger, but an amateur athlete on Sundays
And a very beautiful young man.
He gave his package to someone of the house,
Who took it and went in to fetch a receipt.
The tailor’s man stood waiting alone –
He walked up to the mirror, looked at himself and set his tie straight.
In five minutes they brought him the receipt;
He took it and went away.

But the old mirror
Which in so many years
Had seen so many thousands of things and faces,
The mirror was left rejoicing
And proud to have had hold for some moments
An image of the perfect beauty in its glass.

Translated from Greek by C.H.O. Scaife in collaboration with Constantine P. Cavafy.
Originally published in The Spectator on September 27, 1935.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) was an extraordinarily influential Egyptian-Greek poet widely considered the most distinguished voice of modern Greek literature and a towering figure of 20th-century Western poetry. Born and based mostly in the cosmopolitan hub of Alexandria, Egypt, his work uniquely blended historical realism, profound skepticism, and deeply personal, intimate expressions of homosexual desire. He spent over thirty years working as a quiet clerk in the Irrigation Service of the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works while writing poetry in his spare hours

C.P. Cavafy

Shadows of Verona: Better That You Leave

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Via delle Argonne is a pleasant street, largely made up of fashionable apartments for Verona’s young professionals and a step up from the area where Signora Bruschi’s house lies. It was also a short cut to the hotel where Bianchi worked part-time.

Cola had spent the day moping around. Cinzia had been working and he was reduced to wandering between floors without any real notion of what he wanted to do. I had been writing in the shade offered by the balcony, only to be interrupted every half hour by Cola’s footsteps and his inevitable appearance beside me. He would slump into the same chair and rest his feet on the railings. A few minutes later he would wander off again.

When the light began to fade, he suggested that we walk to Hotel Italia and meet Bianchi as he finished his shift. Not so long ago, he would have jumped into that bright yellow Abarth 500 and been there within minutes. Now he seemed to regard the walk as the highlight of his day.

“I need to get a job,” he moaned as we strolled down Via delle Argonne, parked cars lining both sides. “I am going slowly mad with boredom.”

A little girl came out of a gateway riding a small scooter. She came to an abrupt halt when she noticed us. Then she turned around and shot back inside to the safety of the small yard, shielded by horse chestnuts and linden trees.

I felt sorry for Cola.

His life had been turned upside down by Sandro’s revelation that it was in his best interests to leave Signor Valenti’s employment. Cola was certain that he would land a warehouse job at Interporto Quadrante Europa. He had turned up for the interview only to be told that they couldn’t employ him without suitable references. He wasn’t in a position to ask Signor Valenti and, as I pointed out, the Agenzia delle Entrate would have no record of his employment because Cola had been paid cash in hand.

“The mighty have fallen on hard times,” Cola lamented.

“But you have somewhere to live and a mother who feeds you well.”

It was no consolation to him.

The street light hanging above the intersection with Via Rovereto flickered on.

“And in two weeks you will be leaving Verona,” Cola complained.

I regarded Cola as a little brother. I had watched him grow from boy to man. I was someone he loved and trusted. I would miss him when I went back to the UK.

We waited on the curb to allow three motor scooters to pass. They came to a halt at the crossroads and hesitated as though deciding which direction they should take. The small engines puttered; the riders looked at us, their faces hidden behind the visors of their crash helmets. One by one they killed their engines and lowered the scooters onto their kickstands.

Then they walked towards us.

“Mannaggia,” Cola muttered under his breath. “I knew this would happen.”

Perhaps I knew it too.

There was always going to be a leader. He turned out to be the tallest of them, a muscular man wearing a turquoise T-shirt. He had a metal chain wrapped around his wrist; so did the others, for that matter.

When they reached us, the leader flicked his wrist and unravelled the chain in one swift movement. He swung it at Cola, who tried to duck but was too slow. It caught him on the side of the head and immediately drew blood.

I tried to help Cola but was prevented by an equally forceful blow. One of the other riders swung his chain and smashed it against my cheek.

And then there were repeated metal links whipping through the air with a high-pitched metallic rattle.

Cola was on the floor trying to protect his face, but there was no mercy. I followed and ended up on my back. Blurred silver arcs cut through the light, the links catching the glare. My clothes were being ripped. There was the sudden shock of heavy impact crushing bone and muscle, followed by the cold, biting pinches of metal links wrapped tightly around skin.

And then it was over.

A haze through which I could see nothing clearly.

Blood splatter.

Stinging pain.

Nausea.

Moans and sobs, but whose were they?

I knew that the three riders had returned to their motor scooters, kick-started them and sped away.

I did not think that I would die. It was that I wanted to die.

And then came the two-tone sirens that I had come to recognise across European cities. I found them reassuring. Not like those wailing noises that the UK had adopted from the States.

They were coming for us.

I woke up in a brightly lit room, which hurt the one eye that I was able to see with. The swelling on the other had closed it shut.

Somebody was holding my hand and I had to turn my head to see who it was.

It was the face of an angel.

An angel with beautiful curly black hair, warm eyes that were teary, and a delicate nose. The angel had soft stubble on his chin and needed to shave.

The angel smiled.

“You are going to be fine,” Bianchi whispered.

But behind the angel was the devil, slouched in a chair.

A nurse walked into the room and noticed that I was awake.

“Fuori tutti,” came the instruction.

Bianchi and Lorenzo did as they were told.

Bianchi waved on the way out. Lorenzo nodded and muttered something.

“Ci vendicheremo.”

We will get revenge.

The nurse checked my blood pressure and stuck something inside my ear.

“Sei inglese?”

When I nodded, it hurt, as though something were banging around inside my head.

“You will live,” she said. “You are very lucky. A lot of cuts and bruises, but you will mend. You were sedated when you came in, so you will feel woozy.”

“And my friend?”

“He will also live,” she smiled. “But he has a broken arm that will take time to mend.”

Police officers came to interview me in the afternoon and asked me to provide a description of our attackers. I narrowed it down to every male who rode a scooter in Verona and wasn’t much help.

And then they asked about Signora Valenti.

I told them very little and was informed that I wasn’t being helpful by refusing to tell the truth.

I found out later that Bianchi couldn’t hold his shit.

He had already told the Carabinieri and the Polizia di Stato everything that had happened. He wanted to put the blame entirely on the Valenti family.

But not at first.

When Bianchi arrived home from work on the night of the attack, he found Signora Bruschi in a panic.

“Bianchi. Something terrible has happened. They have called from Ospedale Borgo Trento where Cola and Miles have been taken.”

Bianchi immediately called Cinzia and the three of them arrived to find that we were being treated in the Pronto Soccorso. They waited for six hours before being told to come back in the morning, when they would be allowed to visit.

Bianchi then telephoned his brother and accused him of being involved in the attack. After all, even if it wasn’t true, Lorenzo blamed me for taking Bianchi away from the family home.

Lorenzo denied any knowledge.

“Te lo giuro su mia madre!”

He turned up at Signora Bruschi’s and was told about Cola leaving his job with Alessandro Valenti and my having turned down Valentina Valenti’s offer of work.

Much to Bianchi’s surprise, Lorenzo listened patiently and became convinced that the Valenti family was responsible.

He brushed aside protests from Cinzia and Bianchi and vowed to get revenge. Lorenzo was no match for them, they said. But Lorenzo liked Cola, less so me, and he was also fearful for his little brother’s safety.

Lorenzo joined them the next morning.

Only two visitors were allowed in each room. Signora Bruschi and Cinzia sat with Cola, leaving Lorenzo to join Bianchi in my room.

At least Lorenzo is warming to me, I told myself.

Signora Bruschi, Cinzia and Bianchi took turns visiting each of us. Cola appeared to be in much worse condition, but his mother thanked the Lord that there would be no long-term effects.

Shit! I thought later. I don’t have travel insurance.

In the evening, when everybody had left, a doctor visited and said that we would both spend a few days in hospital before being allowed to go home. It was a precaution and would allow us to get the necessary rest.

He left me alone and told me to sleep.

As I was about to drop off, I was visited by Sandro, the handsome Carabiniere, who had started the night shift. He had seen Cola already, and I asked how he was.

“I have known Cola for a long time and he is headstrong. Don’t be surprised if he walks through the door at any moment.”

Sandro paused. He sat down in the chair that Bianchi had occupied for most of the day.

“How are you? I am sorry and feel responsible for what happened.”

“Do you think that it was the Valentis who were behind it?”

“Almost certainly, but it was only a warning.”

“A warning?”

“The Valentis are clever people. When Cola quit his job and you turned down an offer of work, they immediately became suspicious as to the reasons why. They realise that the Carabinieri will be behind it and will leave nothing to chance.”

I seemed to be caught up in a mafia story. The painful injuries reminded me that I wasn’t dreaming.

But, I thought, Sandro was extremely handsome.

I knew then that I was already on the mend.

“Your fiancée is very lucky.”

It was a poor attempt to flirt with Sandro, and he brushed it aside.

“It was a warning for you both to say nothing to anyone. If they thought that you had already done so, then the situation would be far more serious.”

“What do you mean?”

“You would both be dead. But that would attract too much attention.”

“That might be too late,” I told him. “Bianchi has told me that we have already featured on RAI news and ANSA.”

“But it will soon be yesterday’s news.”

“Will you arrest them?”

“There is no evidence to do so and, if I can say it politely, you are both insignificant and not worth jeopardising our investigations. Better to let things die down and be forgotten.”

I laughed.

It was almost a relief that things would not escalate further. I longed for the peace and quiet and comfort of Signora Bruschi’s home.

But Sandro hadn’t finished.

“I understand that you are returning to England.”

“Yes,” I replied, although I wasn’t certain that I would be fit enough.

“Then make sure that you do,” he warned. “It is better that you leave.”

Charles-Henri Ford: A Very Good Looking Penis

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The first time I saw Charles-Henri Ford I was immediately drawn to his penis.

I am rather proud of that opening line.

I am referring to Self-Portrait with Mirror, a nude photograph from 1937 in which Ford’s reflection appears in a gilded looking glass. Naked and reclining, he poses in a manner that recalls Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus. That was how I came to notice his penis.

Ford died in 2002, aged ninety-four, by which time that particular penis would presumably have been rather less impressive: shrivelled, fairly useless and probably best left alone.

I have since discovered a great deal about Charles-Henri Ford, including the fact that he was, as a young man, incredibly good-looking.

He also appears to have been blessed with a rather formidable sense of his own destiny. As a teenager, Ford claimed to have had a vision that he would become famous, inspired by Marie Bashkirtseff, the Russian writer and artist who had apparently declared that she would become famous within a year — and did.

“When I read that,” Ford recalled, “I said to myself, Well, if she can do it, I can do it!”

He did.

Ford became a surrealist poet, magazine editor, filmmaker, photographer, collage artist and co-author of what has been described as one of the first openly gay American novels. He was part of Gertrude Stein’s circle in Paris during the 1930s and, three decades later, became an important influence on Andy Warhol.

He had his first poem accepted by The New Yorker and eventually published sixteen books of poetry. In 1933, he co-wrote with Parker Tyler The Young and Evil, a novel based on their adventures in the high-camp homosexual underworld of Greenwich Village.

Edith Sitwell thought very little of it. She described the book as “entirely without soul, like a dead fish stinking in hell” and threw it into her fireplace.

That seems a little harsh, even by the standards of Edith Sitwell.

The book was published in Paris but banned in Britain and America until the 1960s, although smuggled copies circulated through bohemian circles.


In America, Ford was perhaps best known as the editor of two influential magazines.

In 1929, he launched Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms, an experimental poetry magazine whose subtitle was A Bi-Sexual Bi-Monthly. It lasted only a handful of issues. A decade later came View, a glossy vehicle for the surrealists, particularly the group surrounding André Breton.

Its pages featured young artists and writers alongside established figures: Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Picasso, Henry Miller, Paul Klee, Lawrence Durrell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall and René Magritte. View published the first English translations of Albert Camus and Jean Genet, as well as the first monograph devoted to Marcel Duchamp.

Ford was not, however, entirely reliable when it came to his own biography.

He claimed to have been born in 1913. In fact, he was born in 1908, in Mississippi, in one of his family’s hotels. He later altered the spelling of his middle name because he was tired of being asked whether he was related to Henry Ford.

His family owned a chain of hotels across the southern states, and much of Ford’s childhood was spent moving from one to another with his parents and younger sister, the actress Ruth Ford.

He was sent to a succession of Roman Catholic boarding schools, from most of which he claimed to have been expelled. His editorial career began there. He produced The Brass Monkey, a typewritten gossip sheet with the twin objectives of entertaining his fellow pupils and scandalising the school authorities.

It was, in retrospect, excellent preparation.

Ford moved to Paris in search of a publisher for The Young and Evil, which American publishers had rejected. “Life is short and the jails are uncomfortable,” one apparently explained.

Paris, meanwhile, was offering precisely the sort of life Ford wanted.

“Everything was exciting at the time because you could live on practically nothing and you could meet everyone. They would gather at different cafes: the queers at Le Select, the Surrealists at Les Deux Magots. It was a life that nobody knew in New York.”

Ford travelled to Tangier with his new lover, the exotic and beautiful Djuna Barnes, whose cult novel Nightwood he helped to type.

The romance, like much in Ford’s life, did not last.

The pair returned to Paris after discovering that rats had eaten their clothes.

Back in Paris, Ford abandoned Barnes and embarked on a passionate affair with the Russian artist Pavel Tchelitchew. The relationship contributed to his break with Gertrude Stein, who disliked Tchelitchew after Edith Sitwell had fallen in love with him.

Unfortunately for Sitwell, Tchelitchew did not return her feelings.

Ford and Tchelitchew made no particular effort to conceal their relationship, which merely rubbed salt into Sitwell’s wounds. Years later, the writer Philip Hoare described the pair as a “mercurial” couple. Tchelitchew once complained to Ford, “You’re eating me!” They regarded themselves as “two mad monks” and conducted their affairs with such flamboyant publicity that when Cecil Beaton encountered them in Spain in 1934, their constant altercations apparently drove him to distraction.

Ford eventually returned to New York with Tchelitchew, before going back to Europe and embarking on a new career as a photographer and artist.

His turbulent relationship with Tchelitchew finally ended with the artist’s death in Rome in 1957.

Five years later, Ford returned to America.

He was soon taken up by a new generation of artists, among them Andy Warhol. From the mid-1960s, Ford began producing what he called his Prose Poems: large, colourful collages combining poetry, painting and the visual language of pop art.

He also directed Johnny Minotaur in 1972, a film featuring Allen Ginsberg.

Ford was now an extraordinary survivor from another artistic age, but he continued to reinvent himself.

During the final decade of his life, his companion was Indra Tamang, a Nepalese artist whom Ford had met in Kathmandu.

Philip Hoare later visited Ford in his apartment and found an elegant, slightly fragile survivor of the world he had inhabited so vividly.

Hoare wrote, Ford was “vital but almost painfully thin”, with thick silver hair and immensely graceful hands. He entertained his guests to tea, served by his Nepalese companion, and told stories in a soft Southern drawl, full of self-amusement and a certain modesty.

And so the man whose penis had first caught my attention became, gradually, rather more interesting than his penis.

Although, obviously, it was a very good-looking penis.

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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Two Camus

Cool. Only one word to describe them.

The famous booksellers along the River Seine are known as les bouquinistes. Together, they form the world’s largest open-air book market, turning the banks of the Seine into a cultural landmark once described as “the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves.”

Apparently, the boîtes have to be painted Vert Wagon — Carriage Green — the same colour traditionally used for Parisian park benches, railings and Morris columns.

Deej wanted to see every single one.

Strange, really, considering he can’t understand a word of French.

“I want to buy things I can display around my flat,” he said.

The tradition of open-air bookselling dates back to the sixteenth century, when mobile peddlers sold pamphlets, engravings and second-hand books from baskets and temporary stalls on the bridges of Paris.

The regulations remain strict, with the emphasis still firmly on vintage print: antiquarian and rare leather-bound books, second-hand French literature and classic translations, old postcards, stamps, historical maps, retro advertising posters and hand-painted engravings.

Deej dragged me past what felt like every stall, stopping to browse hundreds of books.
And after all that, he bought two Albert Camus novels — L’Étranger and La Peste.

Which, given that he can’t read French, he could quite easily have bought on Amazon.


My Vocabulary Needs Work

It’s basically about improving my writing. Every post nudges it somewhere new and, hopefully, slightly more interesting. I sent a sample to David, a man who knows about these things, and asked what he thought.

“Dangerous, slightly absurd, affectionate, sexy in places, and with that very particular Miles-ish ability to notice something completely inappropriate at precisely the wrong moment. But, as someone who feeds on dictionaries and masturbates over a thesaurus, please try and extend your vocabulary.”

Fair enough.

He pointed me towards Tom Read Wilson and his gloriously camp ‘Word of the Day’ posts on Instagram. And honestly? He turned out to be charmingly eccentric, ridiculously articulate, and incredibly camp.

Tom Read Wilson


The Problem with Soungouroffs

“What is the worst thing that can happen to an artist?” asked Philippe Garnier in perfect English.

He was a distinguished gentleman and sat beside me while his golden Labrador chased other dogs around Square Georges Cain. They raced along the circular path with a freedom not usually afforded to them; dogs of every shape and size playing together as though they had temporarily forgotten their differences.

Garnier is an art expert, which seems to be a surprisingly popular profession in Paris.

I know absolutely nothing about art, except that I like certain types of paintings. Usually, those of an explicit and homoerotic nature.

“I shall tell you,” he said. “It is for your work to be attributed to somebody else entirely.”

He showed me an image on his phone. A shirtless young man was lying peacefully in the heat of an afternoon.

“La Sieste,” Garnier explained. “Painted in 1945. Relief, peace and escape from conflict. The work of an Estonian painter called Anatoli Soungouroff. Do you think he is a sailor or a fisherman?”

I studied the boy and liked him.

“He was extremely beautiful,” I said, “and I wouldn’t have cared what he did.”

The dog returned to his master and did a large shit directly in front of us.

Without hesitation, Garnier bent down and scooped it up with a poop bag. He tied the handles without once losing his train of thought.

“Soungouroff moved to France in 1930 and made his creative homes in Paris and Cannes. He became friends with Jean Cocteau, Christian Bérard and Roger Peyrefitte. But by the 1960s he was starving. He paid his bar tab at a gay bar, Le Zanzibar, by painting murals of young sailors and gypsies on the walls. One of them was thirty feet long.”

He sounded like a man of my taste and therefore worthy of further investigation.

“The point I am making,” he continued, “is that Soungouroff’s work is often attributed to another painter — Antonin Ivanovich Soungouroff — who was a different artist entirely.”

Garnier went to deposit Baguette’s poop in a nearby bin.

Yes, his dog really was called Baguette.

“But,” he continued when he returned, “if you see a painting of a young male — a fisherman, sailor or harlequin — painted by a Soungouroff, then it will almost certainly be the work of ‘Tola’. Look for the same full lips. The same baggy eyes that reveal secrets.”

I looked again at the young man on Garnier’s phone.

He certainly had lips.

And eyes.

Note:
The “eternal bachelor” was Anatoli Sergeevich “Tola” Soungouroff (1911–1982).


A Little Shelter from the World

Paris at night. Au Café du Marais.

Music plays softly in the background, which Deej describes as ‘folky-wolky’. We are tired, but clink our coffee cups together and agree that we are good friends.

Then the storm clouds gather.

Rain splatters the worn flagstones, tentative at first, then with increasing intensity. The thunder comes next, followed by sudden flashes of lightning and, finally, the great blanket of rain racing down the street towards us.

Soon, the customers are marooned beneath huge umbrellas, huddled together against the deluge. But ours feels the most comfortable, the most welcoming, as though it has been placed there especially for us. A little shelter from the world.

The sky keeps flashing. Thunder rumbles overhead, gathering force until it erupts into cataclysmic explosions. The noise drowns out the music, so the waiter turns it up.

Dylan sings Lay Lady Lay, about some girl lying across a big brass bed.

This old song haunts me wherever I go.

I know very little about Dylan, except that he once looked better than his songs and smelt worse.


Shagdough

“Nah,” said Deej. “Not my scene at all.”

But I made him go to a gay bar anyway.

“Are you shagdough?”

That’s Deej-speak for asking if I’m begging for it.

I show compassion. I take him down a backstreet to a place for older queers, where there is at least a possibility that I might become shagdough.

There is hardly anyone in.

A murderer sits staring at us from a dark corner. An abuser pretends to look at his phone but is really taking sneaky pictures. A kidnapper sings karaoke, thrusts a microphone into our faces and insists that we sing along in French. A mugger offers to buy us expensive drinks.

We’ve exhausted the entire clientele.

I love the danger.

Deej is absolutely shitting himself.


A Straight Faggot

We walked back to the hotel. The streets are wet now, cleansed of people, the city briefly emptied by the storm.

But there are voices in the distance.

Out of sight at first, but getting closer.

Then comes a shrill scream from a flamboyant queen, followed by a high-pitched cackle that seems to echo between the buildings. Four guys turn the corner. Another over-the-top scream, loud enough to wake everyone in the surrounding hotels. Then that awful cackle again.

The others tell him to be quiet, but he is clearly drunk and beyond caring.

They pass us, disappearing into the wet darkness.

Deej turns to me.

“What an annoying faggot! Why can’t he be a straight faggot like you?”


In the Silence & On the Timeline

“I think about you a great deal, and you know this without my needing to tell you, but in the silence and between the lines you must read all the affection I feel for you and all the tenderness stored in my heart.”

From a lost letter from 1936 and written by 38-year-old Federico García Lorca to his lover, Ramírez de Lucas, who was barely 16 at the time. Ramírez de Lucas may have been the lover who inspired Lorca’s ‘Sonnets of Dark Love’.

It now translates as:

me thinking about you 24/7 like it’s literally my full-time job 😭 you already know I’m down bad, so I don’t even need to say it. but pls read between the lines bc there’s actually a ridiculous amount of love and affection in my heart for you rn ❤️‍🩹 

Ramírez de Lucas aged 18, drawn by Gregorio Prieto.

Appetising Young Boys for Sale

Four boys. Boys for sale. They’re going cheap. Only ten euros. That — or thereabouts. Nice boys. Rather pale. Through lack of sleep. Feed them protein shakes. Stop them getting stout. If I should say they weren’t very greedy, I could not, I’d be telling you a tale. Four boys. Boys for sale. Come take a peep. Have you ever seen such nice boys for sale? 


On the Cute and the Willing

Hessel de jong. Photo by Renie Saliba.

The Asphalt Doesn’t Remember

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Powerful. Sad. And brutally direct.

While researching the death of Alessandro Momo, I came across an Italian article whose opening paragraph said almost everything that needed to be said. The Italians have a remarkable ability to get straight to the point — no throat-clearing, no sentimental padding, just the thing itself.

I wish I could tell you who wrote it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to identify the author. So I can only reproduce the English translation here, and leave the original writer their anonymity.

The Asphalt Doesn’t Remember

“The asphalt doesn’t remember. So many boys have been torn apart. Crushed into the streets along with their scooters. Their skin scraped away on the road. Like an apple. Like cheese scattered over pasta.

Plastic, blood, rubber, raw flesh, the cast iron of engines. Then tar. Crushed stone. The proportions change, but this is the asphalt of Rome.

A city that lives on two wheels.

And dies on them.”

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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The Boy from Thamesmead

*David remembered exactly what he was doing in the month Joshua was born.

It was October 1986, and David had just started writing for Blitz. In the same week, he also began writing for Look-In, the children’s magazine built around ITV’s seemingly endless supply of kids’ programmes. The contrast could hardly have been greater.

Blitz was all style, fashion and culture. Look-In required David to find words that might appeal to schoolchildren without making him sound like an adult trying desperately to appeal to schoolchildren. Yet, strangely enough, his best work turned out to be for the latter.

His editor praised him for bringing to life such characters as T-Bag, Super Gran and the cast of Jossy’s Giants. At twenty-two, David decided it was probably best not to put this particular achievement on his rapidly evolving CV.

His ambition was to write for The Face. That never came to fruition, but not for want of trying.

That summer, David had met Nick Kamen, whom he regarded as the most beautiful man in the world. With a confidence that now seemed almost incomprehensible, Kamen had agreed to be interviewed. There was no fee involved. They met twice in Hyde Park, where David discovered that he was a pleasant young man and, more importantly, precisely the sort of person David hoped might one day make excellent boyfriend material.

There was, however, one small problem.

Kamen was completely straight.

He also giggled whenever David flirted with him.

They recorded several hours of material, which inexplicably disappeared over the years. Kamen had dutifully talked about boxer shorts, Levi 501s and Madonna for what was probably the thousandth time, but had also opened up about his interests and ambitions.

Somewhere in a box in the attic at Cleaver Square there was, David was fairly sure, a typed manuscript of the interview, flatly rejected by The Face and, as far as he could remember, everybody else who had subsequently seen it.

There was also a chance that the box contained the fading photographs of the stunt David and his drunken friends had pulled that same year.

They had gone into a late-night launderette on Paddington Street, stripped down to their boxer shorts and attempted to recreate Kamen’s famous advert. They photographed one another with a Polaroid 600 and had the pictures developed at SupaSnaps.

The results had been less than inspiring.

Skinny white bodies. Boxers far too baggy. Not a hint of the effortless eroticism that had made Kamen famous.

Bloody hell, David thought. If Kamen had lived, he’d be sixty-four now.

Meanwhile, nine months earlier, Terry and Brenda Turner had suffered the consequences of a shag.

Joshua Turner was born.

His name had all the makings of an artist.

All of this came to light when David broached the subject of Joshua’s upcoming fortieth birthday.

David had decided to take Joshua away for his October birthday week.

They hadn’t been abroad together for a while.

When they had first met, David had spoiled Joshua with trips all over Europe. He hadn’t expected a relationship with a young man in his twenties to last, and this was his attempt to keep him for as long as possible. The boy from Thamesmead had suddenly stepped into a world that wasn’t meant for him, but he had taken to it with gusto.

Except the relationship had lasted.

Sixteen years, to be precise.

Eventually, the novelty of city breaks wore off.

In recent years, with a solid income from his artwork, Joshua had taken to travelling alone. A few days here, a few days there.

At first, David had been suspicious of these random jaunts.

There had been a photograph of Joshua on Instagram. He was leaning against a balcony rail, his back to the camera. David had immediately wanted to know who had taken it.

“A friend from Barcelona,” Joshua had said, irritated by the question.

David had been forced to accept that Joshua was entitled to live his own life.

But the fortieth birthday meant that they would travel together again.

“I’d like to go to Italy,” Joshua decided.

That got David thinking.

“Verona?”

“Absolutely not,” Joshua retorted.

“Why not?”

Joshua had looked at David with a raised eyebrow.

“If you’re suggesting that we’re going to meet up with Miles, then the answer is definitely no.”

“He’ll have left Verona by October,” David reasoned.

“No.”

Joshua had realised a long time ago that David was secretly in love with Miles.

The feeling was not reciprocated. David held no attraction for Miles whatsoever.

If only I was thirty years younger, David mused.

Joshua, however, still regarded Miles as a threat, and their friendship was cool at best.

“I’m thinking Rome or Venice. Or both.”

David began working on a plan, but Joshua had known him long enough to spot it.

“And if Miles comes anywhere near us, I shall be on the first plane home.”

David had to admit defeat.

He changed the subject.

“You do realise that it will also be your father’s seventieth birthday while we’re away?”

“That’s tough luck.”

“But won’t you be expected to see him?”

“No.”

It hadn’t been the easiest time when Joshua’s parents discovered that he was gay. After weeks of arguments, they had eventually accepted that nothing they did was going to change anything.

That fragile peace came to an end when they discovered that Joshua was moving in with David, a man twice his age.

Joshua’s father tracked David down and accosted him in the street. He had accused David of many things, but one word had hit home.

Paedophile.

David hadn’t spoken to Joshua’s parents since.

Of course, the relationship wasn’t meant to last. David’s friends had told him so. Somehow, much to their amazement, and occasionally his, it had held together.

David had struck gold.

Joshua was polite and never caused a problem. Unlike most men his age, he turned out to be a homebody, shunning wild nights out in favour of spending time at home with David.

David encouraged him to leave his job serving on the tills at Morrisons and rather enjoyed the idea of looking after Joshua financially. But it had been a strain when the family fortune nosedived and David’s income from writing dipped.

Back then, David had rented rooms in Paddington, or the edges of Tyburnia, as he liked to call it.

And then Uncle William left Cleaver Square to him.

They moved to Kennington and couldn’t quite believe the number of rooms that were suddenly available to them. Joshua insisted that they should each have a room for their work: David for his writing, Joshua for his art.

David soon realised that his young lover had talent. Sketching, photography, creating monstrosities out of almost nothing. He paid for Joshua to study at art school, which widened his horizons considerably.

Joshua was intent on becoming famous and used David’s connections to climb the social ladder.

And David watched as the passive young man he had first met turned into someone with an unwavering focus.

The boy from Thamesmead was no more.

The journey had been fun, and the two of them loved each other immensely.

But they no longer had sex.

David couldn’t remember the last time they had been intimate. He could, however, remember the last time Joshua had rejected his advances.

He had said he was tired and wanted to sleep.

David had heard that excuse before.

That was six years ago, and he vowed never to embarrass himself like that again.

For a while, David had thought it was because of his age. He compared them to Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, perhaps even Andy Warhol and Jed Johnson.

Eventually, David realised that Joshua would have to satisfy his own urges, which explained his suspicions about the brief excursions abroad.

David told himself that he no longer cared.

That was far from the truth.

His sex drive hadn’t waned. The opportunities had.

Joshua, to borrow the words of Boy George, gave the distinct impression that he would rather have a cup of tea.

Oh, to be young again, thought David.

And then he wondered whether it was youth he really missed.

Or simply being wanted. 

Alessandro Momo: The Life That Never Happened

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Almost forgotten in Italy. Completely forgotten by the rest of the world.

There was once a time when Alessandro Momo looked destined to take on the world.

But life dealt him a fatal blow.

On November 19, 1974, the 17-year-old actor was speeding along Lungotevere Maresciallo Cadorna, a prominent and scenic stretch of boulevard running alongside the Tiber in Rome’s Della Vittoria quarter, on a borrowed Honda CB850 motorcycle.

“I’m lucky. The police won’t catch me.”

When a taxi turned left into Via Roberto Morra di Lavriano, Momo swerved, hit the taxi and was thrown more than ten metres into the opposite lane, his torso crushed against the motorcycle’s handlebars and fuel tank.

He was taken to Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia with horrific injuries: a fractured fifth rib, subcutaneous emphysema of the left hemithorax, a left orbital haematoma, abrasions to the right parietal bone, bruising to his lips and nose, a contusion to the left hypochondrium, extensive contusions and abrasions to his limbs, a ruptured spleen and a lacerated stomach.

He underwent emergency surgery but died ten hours later.

There was something eerily reminiscent of James Dean in his death.

Like Dean and his fast cars, Momo regarded motorcycles as his great passion. And, like Dean, he died doing the thing he loved, at precisely the moment when his career seemed ready to take off.

The strikingly youthful, dark-haired adolescent, with his intense blue eyes, embodied the quintessential look of the brooding and magnetic 1970s Italian teenager.

He projected a mixture of innocent charm and rebellious energy that defined his breakout performances in films such as Malizia (1973) and Profumo di donna (1974).

In Malizia, Momo played an intense, observant and brooding 14-year-old boy navigating his sexual awakening.

“The sexual curiosity of Momo is perverted and sadistic,” wrote one critic.

But there was something about Momo that captured the joys, anxieties and awkwardness of sexual awakening for a generation of young Italians.

At the time of his death, he had just completed Profumo di donna, in which he played a naive young military cadet nicknamed “Ciccio” — “Babyfat” — who is assigned to serve as the personal aide to a blind, retired army captain.

Its English title was Scent of a Woman. The film received two Oscar nominations and would later become the direct inspiration and source material for the 1992 American remake starring Al Pacino and Chris O’Donnell.

Before this, Momo had appeared in several films and, reportedly, never acted with his own voice. In both Malizia and Profumo di donna, he was dubbed by Sandro Acerbo, who would go on to make a successful career as a voice actor.

Newspapers initially reported that Momo was 19 when he died.

The error was significant.

It was subsequently discovered that he was only 17, just one week short of his eighteenth birthday, and therefore not legally entitled to ride a motorcycle.

The Honda had been lent to him by his romantic partner, the 21-year-old actress Eleonora Giorgi. She was investigated over the circumstances of the accident but was never indicted, having reportedly been told by Momo that he was 21. His family confirmed that he had repeatedly lied about his age.

Years later, Giorgi said that the immense guilt and psychological trauma following his death triggered a downward spiral into heroin addiction.

“With him, we were two solitary beings. This was our understanding. We were drifting, like a raft, but with a nuclear engine. Extremely strong, healthy, famous and scary young. Enviably beautiful. Together, even more so, because we multiplied our energy tenfold.”

And then, almost in an instant, it was over.

Alessandro Momo had been given the face, the talent and the moment. What he never got was the future. At seventeen, with Malizia behind him and Profumo di donna still waiting to be seen, he disappeared just as the world was beginning to notice him. Perhaps that is why his death feels so strangely unfinished: not simply because a young man died, but because somewhere beyond that November night in Rome was a life we will never know — all the films he might have made, the man he might have become, and the career that never had the chance to begin.

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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Paris, But Make It Complicated

Deej wanted to visit Shakespeare and Company in Paris. For this, I was expected to travel 750 kilometres and hold his hand. It was probably a good idea to leave Verona for a while anyway. There is a lot I can do in Paris, but I prefer to remain elusive, slipping into the city unnoticed.

I met Deej at CDG and we caught the train to Châtelet–Les Halles, from where it was a ten-minute walk to Rue des Gravilliers. As soon as we emerged from the station, it started to pour with rain. I mean, fucking pour. Within minutes we were soaked.

The hotel was easy to miss. It occupied a collection of renovated buildings hidden behind two enormous wooden doors, with no sign to announce that we had arrived. The instructions, however, were perfect. Along a narrow path, up three flights of winding stairs and there it was: our room overlooking a tiny courtyard, with windows facing other windows on the opposite side.

Ivy had taken over the walls. It climbed around the windows, covered some of them completely and seemed intent on swallowing the whole place.

The room was tiny but modern in a very nineties sort of way, and impeccably clean. A huge double bed occupied most of the space, leaving room for a small table and two chairs, a kitchenette and a bathroom that was little more than a cubby hole.

There was an art to taking a shower. There was nowhere to manoeuvre. Drop the shower gel and you were stuffed.

We had both travelled light: the shirts we were wearing, a couple of spare T-shirts and a pair of jeans. Unfortunately, the shirts had already got wet and were now hanging up to dry. Deej had already set his sights on one of my T-shirts and begged to borrow it.

I said no.

The next moment he was wearing it.

Deej, however, liked to sleep and would disappear for hours at a time.

I would wander off to my favourite place: a shaded courtyard filled with ivy and tall bamboo that kept out the sun. It was in almost permanent gloom. After the rain, the place filled with delicious scents and for a moment it seemed like something Gabriel García Márquez might have written in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

But this was France, where the heat had been insufferable and relentless.

Deej blamed me for the rain.

Eventually the sun returned, although the courtyard was so heavily shaded that every so often I had to look upwards just to check that it was still shining.

I spent hours reading there.

I finished my Beverley Nichols biography.

Deej cannot understand my fascination with dead people, which might explain why he frequently took to his bed.

Nichols had been one of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s. Look him up if you have never heard of him.

Shortly before his death in 1983, he said:

“Osbert Sitwell said that I was the first of the young bright people and now I am the last of them.”

I would have loved to have been Beverley Nichols. He had been everything I hoped to be.

From time to time I was joined by other guests: Americans, Spanish, Italians and Germans. They all behaved differently, but always with politeness. I would listen to their conversations because strangers can be an invaluable source of inspiration.

There was a Canadian couple with a son called Sam, probably fifteen or sixteen. He was ginger and had marvellous legs.

They sat around a table eating chicken baguettes bought from a local supermarket. The father complained that the bread contained sesame seeds, which seemed to be a disappointment.

“Why do you look like you are sucking dick?” Sam asked in a soft voice.

My ears pricked up.

“My jaw hurts,” his father explained. “Years ago I was eating semi-stale peanut brittle and something snapped. It hurt for a while but eventually the pain went away. Now I sometimes struggle to eat and it looks like I might be sucking dick.”

“Sam, what do you know about sucking dick?” asked a concerned Mommy.


I told Deej that I wasn’t doing the tourist thing. It was out of the question. I hate tourists. I hate the big queues, the clogged pavements and the meaningless photographs taken on phones that will probably never be looked at again. I hate the queues outside Shakespeare and Company, where people wait patiently to buy overpriced books they could probably buy cheaper somewhere else.

I have an urge to kick tourists whenever they get in the way.

I am like the Portuguese poet and writer Fernando Pessoa, who described active tourism as an expression of restless, unimaginative misery.

Instead, we explored the backstreets of Le Marais, where I learned that the district had once been the floodplain of the Seine. The bourgeoisie moved here in the seventeenth century, encouraged by King Henri IV’s creation of the Place des Vosges, then called Place Royale, between 1607 and 1612. What had once been marshland became the trendiest residential district in Paris.

I explained to Deej that the ground beneath our feet was soaked in blood and the guillotined heads of those same bourgeois.

Like an idiot, he looked down at the pavement to see what I meant.

In the early twentieth century, Le Marais was a bit of a shit show.

The grand houses had been divided into flats. Heavy industry moved into rooms where aristocrats had once danced. It became a no-go area where crime prospered and prostitutes gathered on street corners.

It is hard to imagine that now.

The authorities eventually ploughed money into Le Marais. Its buildings were renovated, its history brought back to life and its streets transformed.

I love Le Marais.

With its beautiful buildings, cafés and pocket parks, it has become one of my favourite districts in Paris.

I must tell you about the handsome French boy who was working at a bar we visited.

He was a picture to be treasured.

Wild dark hair, eyes with a quiet spark, teeth straight and orderly whenever he spoke. There were even a few traces of teenage spots on his cheeks, which somehow added to his appeal.

Deej, who is as straight as they come, was completely uninterested in my infatuation. While I followed the boy’s every movement, Deej noticed a mouse running beneath the tables and chairs. He was so fascinated by it that he failed to notice the dirty looks the boy was giving me.

He made it quite clear that he didn’t like me.

I would like to tell you that we met the boy in the street later. That he was hopelessly drunk and vomiting into the gutter. That we walked past him, looked at each other and laughed at his misfortune.

But we didn’t.

And perhaps that is the problem with real life. It so rarely provides the ending you deserve.

Norrie Always Wins

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In matters of the heart, Beverley Nichols was no match for Norrie

Beverley Nichols, by Howard Coster, 1929. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Norrie followed him in and all reserve then broke down. This happy state of affairs lasted for two days, but invariably short lived. There will be, he told himself, ‘rocks ahead’. It is just as well that he adopted this attitude, for who should arrive to accompany them to Henley, but the detestable Eddy, with his ‘bad complexion and a Cockney accent’. Instantly, Norrie was all over him and Beverley was forgotten. The weekend, not surprisingly, was a complete disaster. Once again, he tried to put a brave face on it and when they were joined by a boy called ‘Steegy’, he made a bid for the newcomer – only to be outflanked by Norrie who finished up with both Eddy and Steegy.

From ‘Beverley Nichols – A Life’, by Bryan Connon, 1991.

Shadows of Verona: The Weight of Silence

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Sometimes I underestimate how good I can be. When all seems lost, the unexpected can happen.

The night before, Cola had argued with his mother. It had been loud and vocal, the sort of argument that made the walls seem thinner. Bianchi and I escaped outside while the exchange continued in the kitchen. Bianchi nervously bit his lip. I was glad not to be involved.

The cause was the Valenti issue.

Signora Bruschi had pleaded with Cola to leave his employment. Cola, with typical teenage stubbornness, had refused to listen.

There had been no winner.

When it was over, Signora Bruschi slammed pots around the kitchen while Cola came outside to sulk.

“What do you think about it, Miles?”

My opinion wasn’t expected to count.

“I’d rather you didn’t ask. What I say might not be what you want to hear.”

“You think I should quit working for Signor Valenti?”

“I do.”

“And so do I,” Bianchi added.

Cola looked first at Bianchi, with his familiar air of innocence, and then at me. I waited for the rebuke.

Instead, he looked defeated.

“Then I shall leave,” he announced.

There was something inevitable about it, as though he had already reached the decision before asking for our opinions.

“Good friends will always protect the ones they love,” I said, although I still didn’t quite believe him. I expected him to change his mind.

But Cola had been as good as his word.

He telephoned Signor Valenti to tell him that he was quitting and would return the car immediately. It was difficult to hear what was being said from the Torricelle, but Cola’s face suggested that the conversation had not been pleasant.

Meanwhile, Signora Bruschi could be seen smiling through the window.

She had heard everything.

“He understands,” Cola announced when the call ended.

I doubted it.

I went with Cola to return the Abarth, but the house was empty. He parked the car and left the keys on the bonnet.

Then we faced the long and uncomfortable walk home.

As we approached Montericco, a familiar car appeared in the distance. It sounded its horn and pulled alongside us.

It was Antonio, driving his old Fiat Panda.

It was a welcome sight.

Bianchi was beside him, looking concerned and relieved to have found us.

We didn’t say much on the way back.

From the back seat, I watched Antonio and Bianchi exchange occasional looks. They were brief but deliberate, as though they were sharing a secret.

The exchanges unsettled me.

For the first time, I wondered if there might be more to their friendship than I had realised.

Antonio, the typical grubby teenager, seemed far removed from the sort of person I imagined Bianchi being attracted to. Bianchi, with his clean-cut looks, would have aroused interest from almost anyone.

So far, I had done little to encourage Bianchi’s infatuation with me.

But Signora Bruschi was aware of my weakness, as she liked to call it, and I had allowed her to put that distance between us. Whether she had done it for my benefit or to protect Bianchi, only she could say.

I was forced to admit that I was jealous.

Cola interrupted my thoughts.

“Now you must do what is right.”

I took out my phone and messaged Signora Valenti. I thanked her for the offer of work and explained that I had to return to England and would not be able to complete my side of the arrangement.

Then I blocked her number.

Signora Bruschi treated us like returning war heroes.

She fussed around the kitchen table and poured wine for everyone.

“I have spoken to Signora Scala,” she announced, “and she knows of a vacancy in a warehouse at Interporto Quadrante Europa. It would suit you, Cola.”

“Does it come with a car?” Cola asked, with just enough sarcasm to make his feelings clear.

“It will pay well,” she persevered, “and we shall have peace of mind knowing that you are doing an honest day’s work.”

Cola was about to say something, probably something he would later regret, but I kicked him beneath the table.

I signalled for him to say nothing.

The bell to the front door sounded.

Bianchi volunteered to answer it.

“Who is calling at this time of night?” Cola wondered.

The expression on Signora Bruschi’s face suggested that she already knew.

Moments later, Bianchi returned with two carabinieri officers.

They removed their caps and bowed.

“Buonasera, Signora Bruschi,” Sandro said. “I received your message and came here as soon as I was able.”

She gestured for them to sit and poured them both glasses of Aranciata Rossa.

Sandro was no longer the small boy I had seen in the photograph. He had grown into a tall, muscular young man, his blond hair cut fashionably short. He was everybody’s idea of a carabiniere.

His colleague, Michele, was older and probably the senior of the two, but seemed content to let Sandro take the lead.

Signora Bruschi noticed my interest.

Or perhaps she spotted my weakness, as she liked to call it.

“Sandro is about to be married,” she revealed. “His fiancée is a lovely girl from Valdonega. They make a perfect couple.”

It was a warning.

Leave well alone.

Sandro momentarily blushed before turning to Cola.

“You are my best friend, Cola, and somebody I care about a lot. I am glad you have stopped working for the Valenti family. It is a huge weight off my mind.”

“I worked on his estate,” Cola protested. “I had nothing to do with the things people are talking about.”

“But you would have been implicated when the authorities caught up with Alessandro Valenti.”

“It was a good job.”

Michele looked at him.

“You must trust us, Cola. Big things are going on. You will be shocked when the truth comes out. But for now, I must ask you not to say anything. And that goes for everyone else in this room.”

He looked around the table.

“As far as you are concerned, we have never had this conversation. We have risked our careers by coming here. If word gets back to the Valenti family, everything could be ruined.”

“Signor Valenti is dangerous,” Sandro added. “But Signora Valenti is even more dangerous.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Valentina is a member of the Rossi family from Milan. They are feared by many. She married Alessandro, but it is suggested that she is the brains behind the Verona operation. She can be manipulative and incredibly vindictive.”

“Which is why you must have no further contact with them,” Michele said.

What have you got us into, Cola?

I didn’t sleep well that night.

The heat was stifling and a thousand things went through my mind. I must have eventually dozed off because I was woken in the early hours by the sound of somebody creeping into the room.

I expected to see Bianchi.

It was Cola.

“I cannot sleep,” he whispered. “And I don’t want to be alone.”

He lowered himself onto the bed and rested his head on my stomach.

It reminded me of the times he had done the same thing as a child.

“I have a confession to make,” he whispered.

I waited.

“I met Signor Valenti because I was selling drugs for somebody around Porta Nuova railway station. The guy I was working for double-crossed Signor Valenti. I don’t know what happened to him.”

He paused.

“I guess Alessandro liked me because I ended up working for him instead. But I only did manual labour around his estate.”

He was silent for a moment.

“I think I was the son he wanted and never had.”

“You knew what he was doing?”

“Please don’t tell my mother.”

“Cola, I thought you were better than that.”

“And I’ve seen things. Heard things. Things I didn’t want to be part of. I convinced myself that what I was doing was honest. But nobody else will see it that way.”

If Cola expected words of comfort, he didn’t get them.

Not because I didn’t want to comfort him, but because I simply had no idea what to say.

“Ti voglio bene, Miles.”

Cola fell silent.

A few moments later I realised he had fallen asleep.

I lay awake, staring into the darkness.

Outside, Verona was silent.

But somewhere in the city, the Valenti family was still awake.