I saw you several times and you ignored me. Why do I remember that? It was because I thought you were handsome. But ignorance turned into friendship, and I hadn’t realised how generous you were. And that generosity came from Robin Hood. Steal from the wealthy, and give it to others. I met you tonight, fresh faced and smart, a tap on the shoulder, a cheeky wink, and you gave me a bottle of beer. I doubted that you had ever ignored me.
They said he was a prodigy, and I didn’t doubt it. Pour le piano. He played notes that were delicate and haunting. But those gentle sounds had meaning and showed that he recognised beauty but didn’t know what to do with it, and this was the cause of his torment.
He peered from underneath a baseball cap, sad frightened eyes, that looked at the door behind.
“When Debussy died on March 25, 1918, in Paris, it was being bombarded by the Germans….” He stopped playing, “ … “and it was raining.” I’d heard this line before but couldn’t remember where.
He walked towards the bookshelf and pulled out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes that were hidden behind Patti Smith’s A Book of Days. The holy egoism of genius. He blew smoke into the air. “I am repaired, reconstructed, remodelled, remixed, rethought, reimagined, reinterpreted, rekindled, reactivated, but not rebooted!”
***
Almost everything here is inspired by Art of Noise
A girl who was supposed to be Ian Van Dahl mimed Castles in the Sky on stage. We wandered along the dark balcony and thought that it was incredibly good. Balloons rained down and the crowd shrieked. She reached the chorus line – Oh tell me why. Are the castles way up high. Please tell me why. Do we build castles in the sky? – and it all went wrong. I tripped over a hidden step and fell twenty feet below. I felt nothing because I was happy. I lay there and heard a guy say, “That was a fucking big balloon!”
Do you fall for the defective man-boy, someone who is devious and dangerous? And you believe that you can change him? The challenge becomes exciting. You know it is a mission that will fail, but the swelling in your pants sweeps aside any shred of common sense.
Something stopped me in my tracks.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
I had to think before answering.
“The role that concealment plays in the eroticism of underwear calls attention to the body beneath. But at this moment, there is so much writing on the waistband of your Calvin Kleins that I need to make sure that there isn’t a warning attached.”
The summer ended and everything good about it disappeared too. Long days gave way to decline and by the time the leaves had turned the colour of brown leather, my world was unbearably melancholic.
Last night, I crawled through the undergrowth and scaled the stone wall like a hundred times before. Then I squatted under the horse chestnut tree from where I could see your bedroom. Third floor. Two windows from the left. There was no light, all darkness, and I knew that you’d gone.
“Remember the first day I saw you? When you stepped out of the sea and walked confidently towards where I lay on the sand. Beach blonde. Tanned. Swim shorts clinging tightly around your arse cheeks. The hairs on your body damp, glistening, and irresistible to a fourteen year old boy.”
I became a trophy, somebody to show off, to tease, and a plaything to practice on. I was the shadow that followed you, intoxicated when you were there, and bereft when you weren’t.
“They said you were called Theo, which seemed right for someone who came from a wealthy family and lived in a big house with iron gates and a long drive. Theo who liked to surf, chat with girls, and listen to indie music until the sun came up.”
Your friends tolerated me because I belonged to you and were obliged to include me in everything. Those days in the sun, laying on the beach, and going into town when you looked out for me and made sure that I didn’t go without. Sometimes we did nothing at all. But the days I enjoyed most were the ones when there were only the two of us. When you put your arm around my shoulders and treated me like an adult.
“Remember when I snapped my surfboard? It hit the rocks and drifted out to sea, and I nearly cried because all I could think about was not being able to ride the waves anymore. The next day you bought me a bright yellow Thunderbolt Slasher board that cost you well over a grand.”
I didn’t want to share you with anyone, but I could never say that, and when you ended up with a girl, I’d scramble through the undergrowth and wait with the foxes and rabbits until you came home. And I would look with envious eyes as you undressed and strutted naked around the room that was bigger than our cottage by the harbour.
“Theo likes you, they said. He loves you like a little brother. The kind who throws you over his salty shoulders and squeezes until you become aroused. Except that I didn’t want to be a little brother, I wanted to be a lover. A girl called Olivia, who smelled of Unicorn farts, said that I was far too young.”
The last thing you did before going to bed was shower, and with damp hair and a big fluffy towel around your waist, you’d open the window and survey the land that one day would be yours. Then the light would go out, and I’d wander around that massive garden. I would strip naked and swim lengths of the pool that you said you pissed in when you were drunk. Then, I’d imagine climbing the ivy and slipping into your bedroom.
You asked me about the scratches on my arms and legs. When I blushed and said that I’d got them playing football, you’d winked and said that it looked like I’d been fighting with brambles. That was the moment when I realised that you’d known all along, and despite my best efforts at concealment, you’d seen me in the shadows. But then I knew that those nightly performances had been for my benefit.
“I hated the girls who talked with you and hated the boys even more. They were enthralled that you rode a fast Ducati down narrow country lanes, that you could play Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and would be going to Trinity College.”
The room is sulking in your absence. Memories won’t last forever. When I sat under the tree last night, I watched your parents coming and going in their flash cars. Were they thinking about you? Were they worrying? They didn’t seem to care. But I knew that you’d be charming the posh boys and girls of Cambridge, and I fretted about whose boxer shorts or knickers might come off first.
“Theo is going away, they said. He must prepare for a life worthy of his ancestors. The last thing you did was to give me a peck on the cheek, a scent of Aqua di Gio, and a trace of pepperoni pizza on your breath.”
A crowded city bar. Night.
ALEX, a tall dark guy, drinks beer and sits opposite MARK, who is absorbed with his mobile phone. MARK drinks from a bottle of vodka.
*****
ALEX: Why are you always on your phone whenever we go out together?
MARK: It is because you make me drink too much and I get drunk.
ALEX: That doesn’t explain why you ignore me.
MARK: That is not technically true.
ALEX: But you are on your phone now and the only reason that you’re talking to me is because I’ve asked you a question.
MARK: Was I ignoring you earlier in the evening?
ALEX: No, you were good fun then. But now it seems that I’m boring you.
MARK: That was before it got dark.
ALEX: You’re not making any sense.
MARK: It is simple. I spend days in the sun thinking about what to write and getting nowhere. The moon rises over the horizon and I become evil and inspirational. A few minutes is all it takes.
ALEX: I don’t understand.
MARK: I’m a writer who writes best at night.
ALEX: Then spare me the embarrassment of sitting in silence.
MARK: You are an extremely important part of the process, but you don’t realise that.
ALEX: What are you writing on your phone?
MARK: Something amazing.
ALEX: Would you care to show me?
MARK: No, I can’t do that. I need time to rewrite and edit it, and I can only do that in the daytime. Otherwise, people will think I’m a bad writer.
ALEX: I give up.
MARK: Keep talking. I’m listening. I call my notes the Penis Monologues but somebody already used that title.
ALEX: Penis Monologues?
MARK: My phone is full of notes. Observations. Conversations. Ideas. I turn them into something wonderful. Right now I have a menace energy that comes when I drink vodka by itself. I get so drunk and the craziest thoughts bounce between my ears and then I write brilliant things… over and over again. Vodka is my best friend.
ALEX: Where do I come into it?
MARK: This conversation. It might end up in a book, a short story, or maybe an entry in my secret diary. I don’t ignore you, because you are an important part of the Penis Monologues.
Charlie is reading an old book about an old French actress called Arletty. It was face down on the floor while he painted something that looked like mashed-up graffiti. He noticed me looking at it. “The book is called Je Suis Comme Je Suis – which means I Am As I Am,” he said.
“I’ve never heard of her,” I replied, flicking through its yellowing pages. Lots of tired text and black and white photographs. Charlie stopped painting and looked at me. “A madame after my own heart. Mon cœur est français, mais mon cul est international.”
I asked him to translate because he speaks too fast for me to understand. “It is quite simple,” he smirked. “It means that my heart is French, but my arse is international.”
He was provoking me, a crude attempt to make me jealous, that had succeeded.
I googled the name Arletty and discovered that she was accused of treason and imprisoned in 1945 for her wartime liaison with a German Luftwaffe officer, during the occupation of France.
Charlie’s face became sad. “Did you know that by the nineteen sixties she was almost blind?” He sat up on his knees and began fiddling inside his underwear. This was something he tended to do a lot. “She was blind in one eye but put the wrong eye drops in her good eye and destroyed that one too.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was a recluse, blind, and living alone in a dark Parisian apartment, which is how I will end up.” He peered at me with mournful eyes and waited for me to respond. It was a ploy that he used when he wanted attention.
“I’m sure that you’ll manage to find somebody who will be dumb enough to take you in.”
His face brightened. “That is correct. I will always be okay.” He jumped up and studied his unfinished canvas on the floor. “By the time I am old, I will be a famous artist, and there will be a long line of people wanting to take me in.” He waved his hand in front of my nose. “Would you like to smell my fingers?”
“It’s been a tough day,” Tom said. “Let’s take a walk and we’ll sit outside a coffee shop.” And in that cold winter sunshine things started to look up.
He sat back, put his long legs on the table, and drank his latte. I noticed that he had extraordinarily big feet.
“I’ve just realised that I didn’t put on clean underwear,” he remarked, and then he took one of ten thousand puffs on a blackberry, blueberry and raspberry vape. Tom was the coolest guy in the world.
I tried to say something clever, but it sounded like “mwah,” and he gave me a funny look.
And so, I made discreet notes on my phone before realising that the guy standing behind me was reading everything, and I hoped that he wouldn’t say anything that might embarrass me.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 