The 19.24 from Penzance

London. Summertime. The sun blazed and the city baked.

For weeks David had been bracing himself for the Wilhelm von Gloeden exhibition at the McDonald Gallery. He had written notes for the sixty photographs on display, along with an agonisingly long biography of the German photographer for the catalogue.

Now it was opening night. His work was done, and as he strolled along the Strand he felt an unfamiliar sense of relief. All that remained was to survive the evening. He hated social gatherings and would much rather have been sharing a quiet drink with Joshua.

Joshua, however, thrived on occasions like this. He would work the room, dropping discreet hints that he was an emerging force in the contemporary art world, and leave with a pocketful of phone numbers and invitations. David, inevitably, would be expected to accompany him.

His own intention was to remain firmly in the background.

He had already instructed the exhibition’s curator, an American called Nathaniel Wilson, not to mention his presence. David wrote under a pen name and was determined to keep his identity hidden. He had even insisted that his name be removed from all the exhibition material.

Joshua had also insisted on bringing Freddie.

As they approached the gallery, Freddie stopped in his tracks.

“They’ve shot the elephant,” he announced solemnly, “and now there’s a dead elephant in the road.”

Freddie claimed to see the dead.

“Fuck me,” David muttered. “That’s all we need.”

The McDonald Gallery was new. Its owner had installed enormous glass windows and joked that they allowed those without invitations to see exactly what they were missing. David hoped they wouldn’t see too much. Von Gloeden’s photographs were bound to provoke controversy.

His heart sank when he spotted Pamela Hutchinson standing just inside the entrance.

He had warned Nathaniel not to invite her. The warning had been ignored.

David slipped past her and leaned towards Nathaniel.

“She’s a fucking do-gooder,” he whispered.

Nathaniel merely smiled. The New Yorker possessed an enviable ability to brush off negativity. David, by contrast, briefly entertained the idea of punching Pamela in the face before remembering that doing so would rather compromise his anonymity.

They had arrived fashionably late. The gallery was already crowded with people balancing glasses of expensive wine and conducting earnest conversations. The art had become secondary.

David excused himself and wandered over to the photographs he had spent weeks studying. They felt strangely familiar now, almost as though they belonged to him.

His favourite hung at the end of the room: Peppino Scavo, photographed in 1901, reclining nude beside the sea with his eyes closed, serene and oblivious to the camera preserving him for posterity.

“Beautiful,” said a voice behind him.

Another lecherous queen, David thought.

Even so, he found himself agreeing. He had expressed the same opinion countless times while preparing the catalogue notes, but always in private. Hearing someone else voice it left him oddly possessive of the exhibition.

“I’ve been told the notes were written by a famous author,” the man continued. “Any idea who? Hollingworth, perhaps. They have his style. If not him, I’d put money on Tóibín.”

David sighed inwardly.

If the man had done his homework, he would already have known exactly who had written them.

David checked his watch. Daniel should have arrived by now.

They had met on a nudist beach in Cornwall, where an awkward conversation about the paintings of Henry Scott Tuke had somehow blossomed into a friendship. David still winced at the memory of telling Daniel that he looked as though he had stepped out of one of Tuke’s canvases.

Their conversation had eventually turned to the von Gloeden exhibition, and David had invited him to London. The invitation had naturally included a bed at Cleaver Square. To David’s delight, Daniel had accepted and should have been on the 19.24 from Penzance. The 19.24 from Penzance, he thought. It sounded like the title of a crime novel.

His attention was drawn to Nathaniel and Joshua, who were talking to a tall young man with his back to him. There was something oddly familiar about him.

David threaded his way through the crowd.

“Owen,” he said, breaking into a smile.

The young man turned immediately.

“I was just chatting to my new neighbour,” Owen said, “and now the other one’s arrived. How are you, David?”

“New neighbour?”

“My grandmother left me her house, so I’ve decided to move in. At least for the time being.”

He meant the house next door, which had belonged to the Countess until her death a few months earlier.

David and Joshua had known Owen since he was a child and had always been the only neighbours to visit the family regularly. David was fond of the handsome young man, though he also knew about his unpredictable temper.

Approach with caution, he reminded himself.

“That’s wonderful,” David said. “But what brings you here?”

“A friend of a friend,” Owen shrugged. “I’m not convinced it’s really my sort of thing.”

Nathaniel’s eyes had already settled on Owen’s outfit.

“What a fantastic look,” he purred, admiring the suit worn over a plain white T-shirt. “You put the rest of us to shame. Come on, let me show you around. I’ll explain von Gloeden to you.”

He took Owen gently by the arm.

Owen glanced back at David as though asking to be rescued.

“There’s only one reason he wants to show him round,” Joshua murmured. “And I think we can all guess whose knickers he’d like to get into tonight.”

“Nathaniel can be remarkably shallow,” David replied.

At that moment Freddie appeared clutching a full bottle of wine. David glanced at the label—Domaine William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos—and suspected it cost more than he cared to imagine. Freddie had abandoned his crystal glass altogether and was drinking straight from the bottle.

“You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen,” he announced.

His voice had already risen several decibels.

“Please don’t get drunk,” Joshua sighed.

“Who’s drunk?” Freddie protested. “I’ve just seen Charles Dickens in the toilet.”

Several heads turned in their direction.

“Freddie, I would gladly kick you in the balls if it weren’t for the fact that you’re annoyingly handsome.”

David knew exactly how the evening would end. Before the exhibition was over, Freddie would have found someone willing to take a chance on him. The only uncertainty was whether he would sabotage his own good fortune by telling his latest conquest that Charles Dickens was standing behind them.

Only then did David notice Daniel.

The young man stood in the middle of the gallery, rucksack slung over one shoulder, quietly taking everything in.

David resisted the temptation to call across the room, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on. It was a dreadful cliché, but also true. The last time they had met, Daniel had been sitting naked on Sunny Cove, hugging his knees against the sea breeze.

He realised there was one question he had never asked.

What had brought Daniel to a nudist beach in the first place?

Fully dressed, he looked broader than David remembered. His mousey hair had grown a little longer and a small stud glinted in one ear. Dressed like one of the skateboarders David often watched in Kennington Park, he looked entirely out of place among London’s art crowd.

Joshua, of course, had seen through everything.

On the drive back from Cornwall he had suggested, with infuriating accuracy, that David had taken a shine to him. Ever since, David had made a point of sounding carefully indifferent whenever Daniel’s name arose.

The irony was impossible to ignore.

Twenty years earlier David had written a novel about an older man who convinced himself that a much younger one was secretly in love with him. At the time he had never understood where the idea had come from.

Now, with some alarm, he recognised it.

He had become the man he’d invented.

At last Daniel spotted them and waved.

David pretended not to notice. Better to let Joshua take the lead.

“We’re glad you could make it,” Joshua said warmly.

“How are film studies?” David asked.

“They’re good. We’ve broken up for the summer now.”

“And who,” purred a familiar voice, “is this delightful creature?”

Nathaniel had evidently given up on Owen and returned with a new target.

Joshua made the introductions.

“So you’ve travelled all this way to see our exhibition,” Nathaniel said. “Tell me, are you familiar with von Gloeden?”

“Not at all.”

“Excellent. By the end of the evening you’ll be an authority. I trust you won’t be rushing straight back to Cornwall?”

“Daniel’s staying with us,” Joshua replied.

“And after that,” Daniel added, “I’m spending a few days in Henley-on-Thames with my girlfriend.”

The word landed like a punch.

David hoped his face betrayed nothing.

“We can all mourn the fantasy of what might have been,” Nathaniel laughed.

Joshua looked positively delighted.

When Nathaniel whisked Daniel away to deposit his rucksack in the cloakroom, Joshua turned to David.

“Feeling a bit bummed?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Oh, get over it, David.”

As if matters weren’t bad enough, Pamela Hutchinson appeared.

“There you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you. No more hiding behind emails. At last I get to meet the writer in person.” She glanced around the gallery. “I notice your name is nowhere to be seen.”

“I’d rather the attention stayed on the photographs.”

“Or have you finally decided von Gloeden’s work really is pederastic?”

Fucking do-gooder, David thought.

Before he could reply, someone burst into song on the far side of the room.

“La da dee, la dee da…”

Pamela raised an eyebrow.

“I’d say somebody’s had rather too much to drink.”

Freddie.

Joshua hurried off to rescue the evening, eventually managing to shepherd him outside before he serenaded the entire gallery.

“If you’ll excuse me,” David said.

He escaped into the crowd, drifting through a succession of forgettable conversations before finding Daniel standing in front of another photograph. A glass of champagne rested in one hand, a smoked salmon blini in the other.

“Are these originals?” Daniel asked.

“Hardly. They’re modern prints. Even so, they’ll sell for a small fortune.”

“Do people really buy them?”

“More people than you’d imagine.”

Daniel smiled.

“And do you still think I stepped out of one of his photographs… the way you said I stepped out of that painter’s?”

“Tuke,” David reminded him.

The same mischievous smile.

David’s thoughts began to race.

Create some distance. Leave space. Find something else to occupy your mind. Half a loaf was better than none.

“You still haven’t answered.”

“What would you like me to say?”

“Nathaniel thinks I’d make a good male nude. Apparently he knows people in the film industry.”

David had encountered men like Nathaniel all his life. Charming. Persuasive. Always on the lookout for the next beautiful distraction.

But nobody could steal what had never belonged to you.

“Be careful of Nathaniel Wilson,” David said. “Men like him can be very persuasive. Stay close to Joshua and me instead. We’ll make sure you survive the evening. Besides…” He smiled. “What would your girlfriend have to say?”

He felt quietly pleased with himself.

The point had been made.

But Daniel was no longer the shy young man David had met on the beach. Somewhere over the past few weeks he had realised the effect he had on people and was perfectly content to let them compete for his attention.

“That’s funny,” Daniel said, grinning.

“That’s exactly what Nathaniel said about you.”

Daniel wasn’t choosing sides.

He seemed perfectly happy to sit on the fence and watch everyone else do the choosing.