Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new. (Parts 1 to 15 are available to read in the menu)

Part 16

August 2023

Back in the nineties, I was living in a seedy Camden bedsit because that was all I could afford, and its shabby appearance reminded me of home. It hadn’t always been like that. For a decade, I’d earned good money, gratifying rich London blokes who considered a slim northern lad exotic. The thicker I came across, the dirtier I acted, the more cuts and bruises I showed, the more beatings I accepted, the more money I earned.

I knew that nothing lasted forever, and as I slipped into the second half of my twenties, I realised that I’d passed my prime. The older guys didn’t want me anymore, and I became one of many who hung around King’s Cross earning nothing.

I moved into that bedsit because it was owned by a market trader who promised to charge a nominal rent in exchange for sex. When someone younger came along, his attention turned, the rent went up, and I was desperate.

I barely managed to survive, and decided to let a dodgy mate sleep on the sofa because he had no place to go and stole food for the both of us. One day he disappeared, and so did most of my possessions.

Why did I think about this today?

Tom is asleep on the sofa, his clothes strewn across the floor. and for the first time I notice two mobile phones. One of them lit up and a message appeared on the screen. “Call me bro’.” 

For the past two months, Tom had turned up two or three times a week. He’d call around midnight, and ask to stay, and I always let him, even though I suspected that he was mixed up with a bad crowd. Who am I to judge? We’d talk and then he’d fall asleep, and I’d put a blanket over him.

In the morning, I’d watch him from the table where I worked. I always wrote better when he was around. At lunchtime he’d wake up, stretch, stick his hands down the front of his underpants and stare at the ceiling.

Today he caught me looking at him. “What?” he asked.

“I’m asking myself why you want to sleep on my sofa. I’m also wondering why you need two mobile phones.”

“I’ll go then”

“I’m not telling you to go.”

“I like it here. I’m not causing you any trouble.”

“That’s for me to find out.”

Tom got up and wandered to the kitchen area. Kettle on. Teabag in a mug. A bowl of bran flakes. I saw that he was wearing brand new Calvin Kleins. 

“Are you eyeing me up?”

I laughed and realised that I was doing exactly that. “I forgot what an arsehole you are when you wake up.”

He attacked the cereal and sulked like a petulant child. When the bowl was empty, he put the spoon down and stared at me. “Why do you let me stay here?”

“Maybe it’s because you remind me of myself when I was your age. But that would mean that you were in trouble.”

Tom opened a jar of peanut butter, stuck his finger inside, and licked the contents off it. Then he helped himself to the pack of Marlboro Gold on the table. “I can look after myself.”

This was the problem.

In the short time that I’d known Tom I had come across the barrier that he’d built around himself. I tried to break through it, but he was tough.

Being as he was, he perhaps thought it was the best thing to do. He was unwilling to listen, not ready to compromise, super competitive, and often frustrated. I thought that he was struggling beneath the surface, and sometimes I believed that he was trying to get a rise out of me.

It was as if Tom was grappling with control over something – rejection, pain, or loss – or was it something deeper, like love, or a relationship? Getting close to someone might hurt him. Maybe he was issuing a challenge. Did I care enough to break that barrier down?

I wanted to tell him that I could be that person who might draw him out but was aware that I was only doing it for my own gratification.

Tom sat, half naked and beautiful in the morning sun, and I saw myself all those years ago. This was how Paolo might have seen me then, with hidden sentiments, secrets, dreams, sorrows, trouble, and pain.

“I can help you if you want me to.”

Tom sat back in the chair and flicked cigarette ash into the empty mug. “If I accepted your help, that would ruin everything.”