Tag Archives: love

Perfectly Hard and Glamorous / That barrier can and will be broken

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.”

Charlie / I think you may have crossed the line from reader to hoarder

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“We have too many books,” I told Charlie. It was true, the apartment was being taken over by books that had been bought at second-hand bookshops and charity stores. They filled the shelves and were now stacked in corners. ”It’s time to get rid of some of them.”

He looked at me with disgust. “They are collectible,” he cried. “These books will increase in value.”

We had a routine, like an old married couple. We would go to affluent parts of the city looking for rare books that people had no use for anymore. Intellectuals lived here, and there was a chance that we might stumble upon old art and photography books. “You will not find a Katie Price autobiography in these shops,” Charlie explained. “These places are full of lost treasures. Remember that book you bought for ten pounds and is now worth a fortune?”

Charlie was referring to Germaine Greer’s The Boy that we’d later seen in an antiquarian bookshop for one hundred pounds. “A very controversial book,” he’d said. “It is almost paedophilic.” Except that Charlie’s French had difficulty translating it and made me smile, and this allowed him to think that I was confirming his opinion.

I secretly admit to enjoying these days out, and then retiring to a favourite cafe – the one that sold fish finger filled croissants – and examining what we’d bought. Charlie would carefully display the books on a table alongside cups of coffee with flowery patterns in the froth and take a photo that he posted on Instagram.

“I think that you have become a bibliomaniac,” I told him.

“That word sounds French,” he replied, “but I do not understand it.”

It means that you are an addict, and one day the floor of our apartment will collapse under the weight of the books.”

There was another point I wanted to make, but chose not to, because it would end in an argument. Charlie had a habit of starting novels and never finishing them, and I repeatedly found bookmarks after thirty pages or so. He denied this, but I had yet to see him read a book from beginning to end.

Charlie believed I had more books than him. This might have been true once, but I had learned to thin them out. I’d started putting them in the recycling, because it was a quick fix, but this always felt unacceptable. And then I chose charity shops to dispose of them, the same ones that we visited now. The drawback was that my friends shopped in them as well, and often gave the same books back to me. But no, I’d decided, Charlie had more books than me.

“We need to categorise the books,” Charlie explained, as if this was a compromise. “We can put art books together, likewise photography books, and so on. Then our visitors will realise how sophisticated we are.”

“There might be a short term solution,” I joked. “Levi is moving out soon, and we could turn his bedroom into a library.”

Charlie looked doubtful. “I had thought that we might rent the room out again.”

“I didn’t think that you liked anybody else living here, and I remember the fuss that you made when Levi moved in.”

“That was different,” he replied, “I didn’t know him, but now I will miss him when he is gone. And besides, the extra money is useful.”

This was a point of contention because somewhere along the way, Levi’s rent money had found its way into Charlie’s bank account, and had yet to confront him about it.

A chapter in the life of somebody who cannot go there again

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Let’s get something straight. I’m not bothered that you live in a country town and have parents that never have to worry about money. That you had a good education, and study medicine at a swanky university. I’m not fussed that you’re planning a winter skiing trip to St Moritz either. I’m presuming all these things because you speak in an educated manner and are charming with customers, which means that the owner of this cafe is fortunate to have you.

What matters is the present. I’m more interested in my latte and the fact that at any moment you’re going to bring me a pear, stilton, and walnut salad that will be the best I’ve ever tasted. Will I want balsamic or french dressing? I will choose balsamic.

I discovered this cafe years ago. It was cold and dark, the windows steamed up so that you couldn’t see in or out. I returned here two days ago, but now it is August, and the town drowns with too many tourists, but this place is out of sight and a good place to sit and write.

By coincidence, that same winter day I bought Ernest Hemingway’s memoirs at the bookshop next door. A Moveable Feast opens with a chapter called A Good Cafe on the Place-de-Michel, where he sits writing notes in lined notebooks like the ones schoolchildren used in Paris of the 1920s. Inexplicably, he stored them in a Louis Vuitton trunk which he left at the Hotel Ritz in 1928 and forgot about it. The manager reminded him of its existence when he went back in 1956, and he was reunited with his lost scribblings.

I’d look silly, because writing in a notebook is no longer stylish, so I’ve brought my laptop as an excuse. On the way here in the car, I heard a radio programme about people who never completed their work – art, writing, and even needlework. I look at the dozens of stories on my laptop that remain unfinished. I’m reinvigorated to complete them, and you might be responsible, and are the reason I’ve come back.

The other day you were sprawled across a table, scrolling through your phone, and picking at a sandwich. I was perfectly placed to notice that you were handsome. I thought that you were a customer but realised that you worked here and was on an afternoon break. It was enough for me to return and carve a memory that won’t easily be forgotten.

Have I been disappointed? Well, I’ve spotted a few things. That you’re shorter than I imagined but that is fine. There’s that nervous tick that goes almost unnoticed because you hide it with a smile. Then there’s the pale unblemished skin, that expensive haircut and that tiny earring in your left ear.

But it comes down to the pear, stilton, and walnut salad that you bring me, and I think about the gay thing, unless I’ve misread the situation.

It is a bit like my latest story called The World of Bianci, which is about an Italian boy I met on a bus in Verona. This is someone else I didn’t know and whom I also fell in love with.

Spot the problem here?

There is an American psychologist called Robert Sternberg who created the Triangular Theory of Love, which is intimacy, passion, and commitment. Love at first sight is the passion part of this simple hypothesis.

I once read that this may be a sign of something called ‘anxious attachment’ and this sense of attachment increases if I engage in conversation. I couldn’t do this on the bus because I didn’t speak Italian, but here the situation is different. This time it is about your excellent English and talking about lattes and salads and asking me if everything is to my satisfaction.

Infatuation is a terrible thing. That feeling of obsessively intense love, admiration, and the fear that I might never see you again, and that you have spoiled everything because nothing afterwards will come close.

You are on your break again, and on my way out of the cafe, you look up with coleslaw fingers and a mouthful of brie, tomato, and salad leaves, and say thank you.

Everything was going my way

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Konrad Helbig: ohne Titel, Straßenszene, 1950er Jahre (Stiftung F. C. Gundlach) / Bildlizenz: CC-BY-SA 4.0

Charlie / I could use it to paint and take photographs / That room might make me famous

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Charlie moved into the apartment without being invited. He’s now moved into my bed without being invited either. The fact is, I could have said no on both occasions, but I didn’t. I was caught up in the excitement of having him around.

The room has filled up with his belongings, the wardrobe full of his clothes, and I’m no longer the master of my own bedroom. The other day he lay in bed and decided that the walls needed repainting. “We must paint them white,” he said. “White is clean and bright. It becomes a blank canvas, and is a colour that can be influenced by light.” And then he went back to sleep because he comes to bed late and sleeps until late morning.

He’s also bought an old metal trunk that is a relic from World War Two. It is black with the name of ‘Charles Finch’ stencilled on it, and conjures up images of being shipped around the world. Charlie paid sixty quid for it in an antiques shop and thought it would be ideal to store bedding. The top of it has become a place to display his books, those that he never reads, and are a statement to show me that he is an intelligent artist.

I mentioned that his old bedroom was spare and that it might be utilised as a store room, or rented out for extra money, but Charlie insisted that he had plans for it. “It would make an excellent studio,” he said. “I could use it to paint and take photographs. That room might make me famous.” The following day he dismantled the bed and stripped the room bare, but he continued to paint sitting in his underwear on the floor of the living area, or, if the weather was sunny, on the terrace outside.

But Charlie eventually turned his attention to the ‘studio’ and set up a camera and tripod facing a bare wall that could be reinvented as stonework in the Vatican, the alter of a Basilica, or any place that looked remotely Catholic, where he could pose half-naked. Every shot was taken using a timer but occasionally I’d be asked to focus the camera and take the photos.

The other day, Levi, the Polish boy with the broad Yorkshire accent, made a rare appearance at the apartment.

“I want to know what’s happening between you and Charlie. I see that his room’s empty and that you’re sleeping together. You’ve got to admit that Charlie’s special. I’m so fucking jealous.”

I’m glad that Levi’s jealous, and it makes me feel good, but I don’t have the answer. I’ve no idea. Charlie shares an apartment, and a bed, but I can’t say that we’re lovers because we aren’t. Not once have we engaged in sexual activity, and there are no signs that we will. I’ve decided that this is one-sided love, and I will be the one who will suffer.

“Nothing is going on,” I tell him. “And considering that you’re a straight guy, don’t you realise that you sound very gay.”

From horse shit beautiful flowers can grow, with its gorgeous stem, delicate petals, and an impressive penis

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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.

He smiles back, like he fancies me, or pities me, and because I’m drunk

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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.

If legs could be called handsome, they were definitely that

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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.

Welcome to Paradiso / This is a rich Italian moment

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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.

Boyfriend and Girlfriend

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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.