I look up from my phone and see you looking. And then you turn away. I glance at my phone again, and make out that I have a life that doesn’t involve you. When I’ve done scrolling shit, you are looking at me again, and I see the colour in your cheeks, like you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t have been. I realise that you are still a child who wants to be a man, a boy from a scabby family whose mother still buys his underwear. But from horse shit beautiful flowers can grow, with its gorgeous stem, delicate petals, and an impressive penis. You walk away and sling a bag over your shoulder and I like to think that it contains a copy of The Boys on the Rock, a book I once read about the coming out and first love of a gay sixteen-year-old swimmer.
Charlie reappears after an hour and talks to me about London and the fantastic things he’s done in the three hours that he’s been there. I can tell that he is tired. I ask him if he’s OK, but he turns away and disappears again. The barman, who is fit, but skinny as fuck, looks at me, and I smile like I’m the friendliest guy in the world. He smiles back, like he fancies me, or pities me, and because I’m drunk. I’m convinced that he thinks I’m the best looking guy in the place, but he goes to mop the floor.
That change from boy to man was both natural and beautiful. His legs were described as handsome, and I’d never heard legs called this before. But if legs could be called handsome, they were definitely that. Long, salty, and tanned, with perfectly shaped blonde hairs washed by the Atlantic ocean and toes that were kissed by fine grains of sand from the beach. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
A big wooden door leads off the street. A cobbled walkway leads into a courtyard. In the middle is an old stone fountain and the flowing waters echo against the walls and make it sound grander than it is.
A large door opens inside and we are in a cool dark entrance hall that has a great big marble statue of a naked boy laying on his side. I stare at its erect penis that is tiny but evocative. “That is Gaddo,” he says, “by Torquato della Torre, a secret known only to the Santorelli family, so tell nobody.” He nods, even though I haven’t said anything, and he takes it for granted that I have understood. “Come,” he says, grabbing my hand. “My rooms are upstairs.”
We climb a terrazzo staircase, trodden by a thousand virgin boys, and worn down by their brave footsteps. “You must trust me,” he says. I know nothing about the Santorelli family, and realise that he is very wealthy, and I don’t trust him, yet I still follow.
Halfway up the staircase is a veranda that looks out over the rooftops. He stops and faces me, a shadow against the evening sun that is slipping behind the clock tower. “Do you think I am handsome?” he asks. I say that he is.
We climb higher, twisting steps that lead somewhere, until we can go no further. He opens a door and pulls me inside. “I am a Santorelli,” he boasts, “and I claim you as my own.” It is beautiful, poetic and fucking weird.
He tells me to take my shirt off, and when I do, I hear a thousand boys laughing at my pale skinny body.
At which point did it happen? There must have been a defining moment, an instant when I unwittingly crossed a line, and didn’t know that I could not return. I stand on the other side now, a ghost watching innocent revelry continue without me. That makes me sad, angry, and jealous.
What is the matter little boy? Troubled and restless. What is the matter little girl? Angry and frustrated. There is tension between you both. What is your problem? He doesn’t want to talk and ignores her. He leans on a barrier and stares into the distance. He knows he is being watched but pretends not to notice. You are ruining my night. He’s not in the mood. In years to come, he realises that his petulant behaviour was unreasonable, but by then he will have become the person he wanted to be.
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 14 are available to read in the menu)
Part 15
July 1982
My date with Louise was a disaster.
An Officer and a Gentleman had sold out, and we watched Porky’s instead. She wasn’t impressed, complaining about the hoots and whistles from the audience that greeted each unruly scene.
Louise had a cold, and sniffed her way through the film, and I was in a lousy mood. We didn’t say much to each other, and I tried to make up for the silence by holding her hand.
My heart wasn’t in it, and I didn’t know what I would rather have been doing, but it wasn’t being with the girl that everyone on Park Hill fancied.
I kept thinking about the conversation I’d had with Paolo in the Brown Bear. Nobody had spoken to me like that before, and certainly hadn’t made me question myself.
As I sat in that dark cinema, I thought about Paolo a lot. If I could have chosen where I wanted to be, it might have been with him, and that concerned me.
I tried to kiss Louise, but she pulled away, and when I tried to put my arm over her shoulder, she elbowed me in the ribs. There was a ripple of laughter from behind; somebody was taking the piss. I turned around and there was a nerdy kid smirking at me. I reached over, grabbed him by the shirt until the buttons popped off, and headbutted him on the nose. That was when Louise got up to leave.
When we got back to her flat, Jack was laid on the settee watching the World Cup on TV.
Louise went to her bedroom without saying anything, and that meant that I was unpopular. Jack shunted along the settee and made room for me to sit down. “I take it that your big date didn’t go well.”
Jack was wearing only a pair of black football shorts, and I saw how athletic his body was. He sat with his knees bent, his smooth legs covered in cuts and bruises that he’d got on the football pitch, and for the first time, I noticed how tiny his feet were. These little feet could tickle a football better than anyone.
He pressed his toes into my thigh, and massaged the top of my leg, and I kind of liked it.
“You’re acting like a bum-bandit.” Jack ignored me and didn’t stop.
He looked serious. “The coppers have been around to check that I hadn’t done a runner. They went to see Andy too, but he was out, and that made them freak out a bit. They found him at the shops.”
“What did they say?”
He flashed his famous cheeky smile. “They said that if the Falklands War hadn’t already ended, they’d have sent me to fight the Argentines. That’s what should happen to all bad lads.”
I thought that Jack would make a good soldier one day. He was brave, quick witted, and always eager to please, and joining the army might get him away from here.
“Something’s up Harry, because you’ve been acting strange.”
“Yeah, I guess there is.”
“You can talk to me if you want.”
I desperately wanted to tell Jack everything, about Frank Smith, Paolo and the bad guys who took advantage of me. I looked helplessly at him and could see that he cared and wanted to help. I couldn’t fight back that feeling of love – brotherly love – for someone I’d known most of my life, but there was something else too.
“I’m in trouble Jack and I don’t know what to do about it. And I can’t tell you anything, because if I did, I’m afraid that I’d lose you, and that’s something I couldn’t cope with.”
Jack rubbed his toes harder against my leg. “You’d never lose me. No matter how bad it is. We’re mates, and mates stick together… like we’ve always done.”
Back home, there was an envelope with my name on it that had been pushed through the letterbox. There was a note inside telling me to ring a telephone number.
My parents were in bed, and I had to talk quietly while I made the call in the hallway.
“It’s Harry. What do you want?”
“Harry. Good of you to call. Your next job awaits you.”
I’ve had time to reflect on the time that Thomas spent with us. The blonde French boy had gone back to Paris, and I missed him. I’d forgotten how emotional I could be and fought back tears when he’d said goodbye. The question I asked myself, was why I’d become so attached to him.
Thomas was flirtatious and for the two weeks I thought that it would only be a matter of time before I got to sleep with him. But the two brothers turned out to be alike, teasing, and seductive, without ever doing anything. Charlie had made me believe that Thomas was straight. Either he was lying or couldn’t see that his brother had a different agenda.
Thomas’s unexpected advances went unnoticed by Charlie. Before he left, Thomas had made me promise to visit him in August and was keen that Charlie shouldn’t come with me.
I thought about their parents, and how proud they must be to have two fine looking boys, even if there was doubt over Thomas’s parentage. Did they realise that both sons were philanderers? And would they smile, or be horrified, to discover that a man they didn’t know, had fallen in love with both?
Thomas’s departure made the apartment seem empty, and each time I walked into the living area, I expected to see him with his pale long legs sprawled across the coffee table.
“I am glad he has gone,” Charlie said. “I told you that he would cause trouble, and I was right.”
“What trouble did he cause?”
“You are moping around the apartment because he has gone, and that means that my brother has played with your mind, and you did not resist.”
I could feel myself colouring up and made a pretence of tidying cushions on the sofa. “I’ve no idea what you are talking about.”
Charlie sat cross-legged on the floor and spread his latest paintings in front of him. “Did you think that I could not see what was happening?”
“Nothing happened,” I replied. “I tried to be hospitable towards your brother, that’s all.”
“And yet, you still managed to fall in love with him. You are no different to all the other people that he has tricked.”
“Charlie, you said that your brother was straight, and that turned out to be a lie.”
“My brother will sleep with anybody if he thinks that he can benefit from it. He will sleep with men and women. There is no distinction between them.”
I thought about the private conversation I’d had with Thomas and the stories that he’d told me about Charlie. “It seems to me that you are both alike, and besides, I didn’t sleep with your brother.”
“Then you are fortunate because he does not love you. He loves only himself.”
I slumped on the sofa and watched him make a show of rearranging the canvases. “Charlie, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you’re jealous.” He tutted but didn’t reply.
I spent the rest of the day writing and tried to keep away from him. We were annoyed with each other, and the limited contact we had, turned out to be frosty. I realised that this was the first time that we’d fallen out.
I went to bed around midnight and expected Charlie to sleep in his own room, the one that Thomas had slept in for a fortnight. I couldn’t sleep, and about one in the morning I heard the patter of feet in the hallway. The door opened quietly, and Charlie came into the bedroom to undress. He slipped into bed beside me, and I felt the warmth from his body.
“I do not like it when we fall out,” he said gently. I didn’t reply. “And I was hoping that I could sleep here all the time, if that is okay with you?”
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 13 are available to read in the menu)
Part 14
July 2023
It was Thursday night, and my mobile rang. I didn’t recognise the number and considered ignoring it. But curiosity got the better of me and I answered.
“ It’s Tom,” said the voice. I’d given him my number, but I never expected to hear from him. “Can I come around?”
I’d met Tom, eighteen and anxious, outside Sheffield Station, and had been flattered that he knew about my writing, even though he hadn’t liked my books.
When the doorbell rang, I buzzed him upstairs, and when he didn’t appear, I presumed that he’d changed his mind and left. Fifteen minutes later, he apologised for losing his way. Tom didn’t seem the kind of person to apologise.
He was dressed once more in matching grey hoodie and sweatpants, smartly finished with flashy white Nike trainers. His blonde hair had been cut short and for the first time, I noticed the faint trace of a scar that ran down his right cheek. .
“Hello faggot,” he said.
“In view of the fact that you’ve not brought your girlfriend, I presume that I can call you a faggot too.” He blushed and sat on the sofa. His eyes wandered around the apartment, taking in the books and magazines, and the laptop that was open on the table.
“There are no pictures,” he observed. I couldn’t be bothered to explain that they weren’t allowed in the apartment. He looked through the large window that framed the city below. “You’ve got a nice view and must be loaded to live in an apartment like this.”
“I don’t know many writers who are rich,” I replied, “and the apartment’s not mine, it’s rented, and that’s about all I can afford.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?” He moved a copy of A Rabbit’s Foot on the coffee table and put his feet on the glass top. If I did mind, it was too late, because he’d already lit a cigarette and offered it to me. He lit another one and blew smoke into the air. He was the first visitor since I’d moved in, and he’d made himself comfortable. “Have you been writing?”
“Would you like to see it?”
“I’m not really bothered,” he replied, but I saw a flicker of interest.
“Why are you here?”
“I thought I might be able to find something to steal.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said, “but I might have to throw you off the balcony if you did. Where have you been tonight?”
“Out with my mates, but I got bored and remembered that you’d given me your number, and I thought that seeing as I was in the area, I’d look you up.”
My thoughts turned to Andy and Jack, and all the time, years ago, when I’d made similar comments. That was another lifetime.
“Would you like a glass of red wine?”
“I don’t drink wine,” he said.
“Then go without, because that’s all I have.”
He turned his nose up when I gave it to him, and then nursed it, not quite sure what to expect.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m writing that book I told you about.”
“The one with the Italian guy in it? The one you fell in love with. What did you call him?
“Paolo,” I replied. “But he’s only a part of it. Lots of things happened.”
“Care to tell me about them?”
I passed him the laptop and invited him to read it. I watched his facial expressions to determine whether he approved, or not, but he didn’t give anything away. He occasionally drank his wine, and each time he did so, he winced.
I made myself busy and left him reading, always keeping an eye out, because I didn’t trust him, and then I asked myself why I’d even let him read it in the first place. He was too young to understand the importance of it; the people, the places, and the stories, all from a different time. It wasn’t likely to interest somebody his age. Yet, I realised, I was still seeking his approval.
Tom kept reading, stopping only once to ask for more wine, until it was after midnight, and he shut the laptop. “It’s time for me to go.”
He was unaware that his lips and mouth were stained red, and I thought that only a short time ago, these would have been the lips of a small boy who had been drinking his Ribena.
“Well? What do you think about it?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. It’s about you and your mates, and how you were a complete nightmare, and should have been locked up, and then you start to get all faggoty with an Italian, who seems like a snowflake, and there are parts that I don’t understand at all.”
“Such as?”
“Like what you were doing in those people’s houses that seemed so bad.”
“It’s late,” I agreed. “You can sleep on the sofa if you want.”
He kicked off his Nike’s and I noticed that there was a hole in his white sock.
“I must be honest with you,” said Thomas. “There was a reason for my visit.” He sat opposite me outside the bar and puffed on a vape. “I came here because my mother asked me to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She asked me to check up on Charlie because she was concerned about him.”
“Charlie is fine,” I said. “He seems quite happy here.”
“I know that, mon ami, but he is very secretive and tells us nothing. I am sure that he has said little about his life in Paris.”
Thomas was right about that. Ever since he moved in, Charlie had given little away.
He drank from a glass of wine and continued. “Charlie had a difficult childhood. After he was born, my mother became ill, and found it difficult to raise two children. For the most part, Charlie was raised by my mother’s sister, Aunt Celine, and that meant that we were apart for many years.”
Thomas had requested that we have a drink together and had made it clear that he didn’t want his brother around. When Charlie had said that he was going out to sketch, it was the opportunity for us to get together. But I had misinterpreted the situation.
“Aunt Celine allowed Charlie too much freedom and he grew up believing that he was entitled to everything. He was a wild child. He came back to us but found it difficult to settle at home and in school. My grandparents said that Charlie took after his father who was also a wild child.”
“Not like you.”
Thomas laughed. “You might have noticed that I am very unlike my brother. I suspect that I am not my father’s child, and so I did not inherit my father’s genes.”
It was a lot to take in.
“Charlie is clever, very artistic, but he was expelled from school when he was a teenage boy.”
“Why was he expelled?” I asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable about Charlie’s troubled past.
“Charlie is a seducer, he always has been, and he thought that he could have anybody he wanted. Let me say that he chose wrong and ruined a man’s life. When he was old enough, he moved out of the family apartment and started living his bohemian existence.”
“Where did he go at Christmas?”
“I do not know,” he said.
“He told me that he was seeing his family, but now I know that he lied.”
“He was in Paris, that I do know, but with whom he stayed is something he will keep to himself.”
“I suspect that he was with a guy called Matis.”
“Matis?” Thomas laughed again. “What do you know about Matis?”
“That he is a photographer from Lille and took erotic images of Charlie.”
“I don’t doubt it. Matis is an excellent photographer. I introduced him to Charlie at Christmas because he came into my bar. But I am sure that Charlie will not have mentioned that Matis is married with two young children and is as straight as a ruler. ”
“He didn’t,” I said, “but I suppose that makes me feel better.”
“Charlie wants to be famous, as an artist, a model or by any other means. He may be my little brother but he is also a dreamer.”
It was an afternoon of revelations. “What about you? Where do you fit into all this? I’m finding it difficult to know which brother to love.”
Thomas poured two more glasses of wine, and looked me in the eye. “I shall be gone soon, and I will tell my mother that Charlie is living with someone who loves and cares for him. That he is very fortunate. That she must not worry.” He hadn’t answered my question. “And I hope that you will visit me in Paris, and I can show you exactly the type of person that I am.”
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 