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A Venetian Affair

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Part 2 – The Venetian Complication 


“Ciao,” said Bianchi.

“Ciao,” I replied.

“S-ciào vostro,” he grinned.

I am your slave.

He had discovered that ciao was derived from an old Venetian expression and couldn’t resist repeating it whenever he had the opportunity.

Venice woke early and seemed determined to wake us with it. The vibrating hum of delivery boats bounced off the brick façades of the Renaissance buildings, followed by the dull thunk of their hulls against the wooden mooring piles. Then came the metallic rattle of carrelli being pushed along the wooden decks.

“Slaves don’t sleep in the same bed as their masters.”

“But I have a good master and I must surrender to his wishes,” Bianchi replied cheekily.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Cola.

My mother is furious with you both. She knew that you would sleep together.

I smiled.

Bianchi crawled to the end of the bed and opened the curtains. He was naked, unlike the night before, and it was the first time I had seen him that way. He turned towards the window, completely oblivious to the effect he was having on me.

He had got his wish. Almost.

I had remembered Signora Bruschi’s warnings and allowed nothing more than a few kisses and cuddles. Nothing beyond that. Bianchi had no idea how much willpower it had taken not to give in to him.

But he was playing the long game and, for now, seemed perfectly happy.

Alas, the inevitable would happen eventually.

Sunrise had brought a soft morning light and a rising canal fog that would soon burn away.

“I shall make coffee,” Bianchi declared as he scrambled down the spiral staircase to the kitchen below.

I stayed in bed and closed my eyes.

I listened to the patter of his feet across the terrazzo, followed by the rattling of cups. Then came the sound of the French doors opening onto the stone balcony.

“Cazzo!”

He scuttled back inside.

“I did not know there were apartments overlooking us… and you can see everything.”

I peered through the newel posts and watched him grab a large towel and wrap it around himself.

I am going to struggle here, I thought.

The message from Charlie came at midday.

Ponte delle Guglie. 8pm?

I sent a thumbs-up.

Nothing more.

We shall see you then, he replied.

We.

My mind was made up.

I would definitely be taking Bianchi with me.

When I told him, I detected a nervousness that hadn’t been there earlier. But, as he explained, Signora Bruschi had sent him to accompany me and he would respect her wishes.

We resisted the urge to kick tourists into the nearest canal, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were tourists too.

We spent the day wandering narrow calli, crossing little bridges and drinking too much coffee outside cafés.

It was a way of killing time.

I was apprehensive about seeing Charlie again. The outcome was uncertain. Was this going to be closure for both of us, or the beginning of a new chapter?

I was mindful that I had instigated our enforced absence, although I hadn’t intended it to turn out the way it had. Not for the first time, I had ruined something that, on the surface at least, had seemed special.

But I had forgotten that Charlie was stubborn. And if he believed he had been wronged, nothing would alter his mind.

An observer might have regarded the whole mess as six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Quite true.

Charlie had inexplicably posed naked for a French gay magazine, confident that I would never find out.

On the other hand, I had slept with his brother.

And that, it appeared, was a far greater sin.

The other question I kept asking myself was whether we were still in love with each other.

There had been an unwillingness on both sides to resolve the mess and move on. Months apart had only strengthened our positions.

Part of me hoped that our meeting would lead to reconciliation.

But another part told a different story.

That story involved Thomas in Paris.

The uncertainty wasn’t helped by Bianchi, who had become uncharacteristically subdued. His early-morning brightness had gradually faded until he slipped into an awkward silence.

It wasn’t until we were heading back that I understood why.

We had reached the end of a ramo — a dead-end alley overlooking the Rio de la Pleta — and stopped to watch the boats passing below.

“There is a boy at work called Cesco,” Bianchi began.

He paused.

“He doesn’t say much. When I first met him, I tried to make conversation. He simply nodded. Now he sometimes smirks and occasionally speaks. We are slowly getting there. I think he trusts me.”

I tried to understand where the conversation was heading.

“The other staff say that Cesco is a handsome boy. Such a shame about the spots. They wish he’d do something better with his hair. They want him to be more sociable. They often lose patience with him.

“But when he smirks, they think he is smiling. My friends say, ‘How do you get him to do that?’”

Bianchi sat on the stone step and rested his elbows on his knees.

“And so they send me to collect the orders. I stand and wait. I make small talk. Sometimes I get a reaction.

“I tell my colleagues that I enjoy the challenge.

“‘You’re always so calm and collected,’ they say. ‘What’s your secret? Why doesn’t he speak to us? Why do you make time for his bad habits?’

“The answer is easy,” Bianchi continued. “I like handsome people. I can do spots. I can accept bad haircuts.

“I look at him in his black jeans, black T-shirt and black apron. Everything about him is black.

“But underneath all that black there is something attractive.”

I sat beside him, suddenly unsure that I was going to like what came next.

“What is that?”

“I imagine him standing behind his counter,” Bianchi replied. “I imagine him transformed in my mind, and suddenly I can wait patiently.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

L’erba del vicino è sempre più verde, he said sadly.

I tried to translate it.

The grass is always greener.

It was Bianchi’s way of sending a warning shot, and I was determined not to react.

“I cannot wait forever, Miles.”

One of my failings is that I sometimes fail to see what is right in front of me.

Bianchi was in love.

He had quietly persevered, waiting for me to return his affection.

I wanted to tell him that I loved him too.

But I would become a liar if my reunion with Charlie ended positively.

Life can be complicated.

Charlie.

Thomas.

Bianchi.

They all had a hold on me.

“I am not looking forward to meeting your boyfriend,” he added.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected.

“But what if you decide to get back together? Where does that leave me? I might never see you again.”

He bit his lip.

“I am not sure that I would want to see you again if you did.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you don’t have to come with me.”

“I will come,” he decided. “But it is difficult for me to accept.”

“I know you have feelings, Bianchi, and I’m sorry that you’re caught up in all this. But please realise that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”

“Then tell me there is hope. Tell me I am not wasting my time. If not, for my own sanity, I must look somewhere else.

“Even if it is the boy with spots and a bad haircut.”

I laughed, not unkindly, and squeezed his arm.

“You are not wasting your time, Bianchi.”

I wanted to hold him.

I wanted nothing more.

And he would gladly have let me.

But then the nose of a gondola appeared and glided silently into view.

Three women of various ages and sizes looked startled to see us sitting on the steps. Then they looked at us with curiosity.

Standing behind them, a young gondolier made light work of propelling the boat along.

“Buonasera,” Bianchi called.

And the gondola disappeared around the corner.

A Venetian Affair

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Part 1 – The Venetian Arrangement 


I have only been to Venice twice before.

The first time I was thirteen years old, and it was a cold, damp, misty day. I seem to remember wandering around alone for most of the day, although it was extremely unlikely that I actually did.

The second time was a couple of years ago, when I caught the train from Verona with Cola and stayed for only a few hours before returning. That day it was bright and sunny and completely different from the Venice I remembered. A thunderstorm rolled across the lagoon just as we were about to leave.

And now, for the third time, I have returned to Venice.

This time I will be staying considerably longer.

It was not by choice. There are too many things to do in the UK, and a trip back to Italy seemed more of a distraction than it would be to most people.

I think it was Truman Capote who said: “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that, but I imagined that a stay here was more than most people could stomach.

For a start, there are the tourists.

On a typical day there may be as many as 60,000 of them. I hate tourists. Particularly those who wander around not so much looking at the sights as looking at the sights through a mobile phone. Hundreds of photographs they will never look at again. And if they do, it will probably be to bore the pants off an uninterested friend.

It’s not so much of a problem in Verona, but I imagined that you couldn’t escape them in Venice, which is, after all, a series of small islands.

If tourists get in my way, I will unashamedly kick them into the nearest canal.

But my visit is not for the purpose of being a tourist either.

I am above that.

Venice is neutral territory for a reunion with my long-lost lover, Charlie.

I’ll not bore you with the details, but we went our separate ways after my ill-fated trip to Paris in April. I took the advice of his father, who suggested that I play hard to get and Charlie would follow.

He never did.

Neither did he answer my messages.

He simply disappeared for the summer.

I moved on to Verona and my adventures with Signora Bruschi et al.

There comes a point when you think you have finally got someone out of your system. It is usually at precisely that moment that the least expected thing happens.

I received a message.

You okay?

I made the mistake of replying out of curiosity and allowed the floodgates to open.

Charlie had mistakenly believed that I had spent most of my time not in Verona but in Venice, and expressed a wish to meet up with me there.

For my sins, Verona had always been a secret I kept from Charlie. I wanted it to remain that way for as long as possible. Charlie’s older brother, Thomas, had subscribed to my wishes and, when pressed, had lied that I had settled in the floating city.

And so, we were to meet in Venice.

Signora Bruschi got in touch with an old school friend who lived in Venice, and I was allowed to stay in rooms close to the Ponte di Rialto.

“For as long as you wish,” Signora Bruschi told me.

But she had concerns about me staying on my own.

Alas, Cola had to remain in Verona for treatment on his broken arm. Instead, she insisted that Bianchi jump on a Trenitalia train and arrive at Venezia Santa Lucia in time for my own arrival by Alilaguna Linea Arancio from Marco Polo.

My heart leapt at the thought of Bianchi joining me.

But it would also cause complications for any reconciliation with Charlie, if reconciliation was actually on the agenda.

After all, Charlie had probably been the love of my life.

But I suspected that I had not been the love of his.

And there were too many secrets between us.

Before I set off, an English friend told me to watch The Comfort of Strangers because it would put me in the mood for Venice.

I did as I was told.

He was right.

It put me in exactly the right frame of mind if I wanted to get my throat cut by a psychotic stranger.

I met Bianchi near Rialto.

We had only been apart for a few weeks, but it seemed much longer.

Bianchi threw his arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks.

“I have missed you, Miles,” he cooed excitedly. “But we are together again, and we are going to have a good time.”

Signora Bruschi had told me that it hadn’t taken much to persuade Bianchi to come.

None at all.

He had jumped at the opportunity without hesitation.

But she had also warned him that I was unavailable and that we must sleep in separate beds.

“Signora Bruschi says that I am too young for you,” Bianchi moaned.

Perhaps so, I thought.

But I also knew that teenage boys have a habit of ignoring good advice.

We manoeuvred through the hordes of ignorant tourists I had already taken a dislike to. Like Piazza San Marco, they descend on Rialto as though these are the only two places worth visiting in Venice.

At last we found the quieter calli and crossed small bridges until we reached the place where we would be staying.

Palazzo Pesaro Labia dalle Rose had been described to me as a small but elegant two-room apartment overlooking the canals and located in a fifteenth-century palace.

From the outside, it looked as though it hadn’t been touched since the fifteenth century, with its weathered appearance and crumbling brickwork.

We accessed it through a private courtyard and climbed a set of steps leading to a locked door, beyond which another staircase led upwards to a pair of old double doors.

But as soon as we saw inside, we both loved it.

It was so far removed from Signora Bruschi’s house in Verona, which, up to this point, I had always considered grand. It was even further removed from Bianchi’s modest family home in San Giorgio in Salici.

For a start, it wasn’t small.

Its two rooms dwarfed my own apartment back home.

I would describe it as grand Italian.

The living room was stylishly furnished with antiques, and the walls were covered with tasteful prints. The second room consisted of a kitchen space, a huge dining area, and a small bathroom attached.

The roof space was so vast that a half-mezzanine floor had been built, with a circular staircase leading to the sleeping area.

And there, occupying most of it, was a huge double bed.

Bianchi looked at it.

I looked at Bianchi.

It was plain to see.

We would both have to sleep together.

“I hope that this doesn’t disappoint you,” Bianchi said rather sheepishly.

“It doesn’t,” I told him. “But we must be careful not to tell Signora Bruschi.”

“I do not think that either of us has the courage to do so,” he innocently replied.

The Lost Room

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Two lovers. One forbidden night. And a ghost who remembers everything 


The room was lined with cork. The air smelled of dried lavender, lime-blossom tea and the faint, sweet decay of old paper.

A pale light filtered through the heavy curtains, and dust motes danced in a single beam.

The bed was narrow and firm, made of brass and covered with a blue satin bedspread. Beneath it, a mattress of coiled steel springs offered no comfort.

“It’s cold,” said Jean-Luc, snuggling further beneath the sheets. “Why are we doing this? What if we’re discovered?”

“Relax,” said Marc-Andre, sitting upright and scrolling through his phone.

All he could see was the top of Jean-Luc’s head on the pillow. He reached down and stroked his thick black hair, an affectionate gesture of reassurance.

Marc-Andre knew they were safe.

When Jean-Luc turned on his side, the bed creaked and the sound echoed around the room. He ran his fingers over Marc-Andre’s stomach.

“Are we going to have sex?” he asked hopefully. “We’ve had sex in many strange places, so why not here?”

“No,” said Marc-Andre, resisting the temptation. “I have to write three thousand words before we leave. You must be quiet, Jean-Luc, or I won’t be able to concentrate.”

Jean-Luc sighed and contented himself with sniffing Marc-Andre’s armpit instead.

Marc-Andre felt the deep quiet of the room, the place where the great writer had shaped his memories.

Time felt slow and heavy here.

The scratchy texture of the vintage wool blanket contrasted with the sleek, cold glass of the smartphone in Marc-Andre’s hands. Occasionally he looked up from the screen and felt that the shadows in the corners had deepened and shifted.

Jean-Luc fell silent. He drifted between wakefulness and sleep. He felt safe with Marc-Andre; safe from the fragments of dreams that made no sense but which he could still somehow control.

“Are you asleep?” Marc-Andre asked.

“Hmmm,” Jean-Luc murmured drowsily.

Marc-Andre smiled and tapped furiously at the screen. He wrote about the excitement of being there, about how he felt, about how the completed work would look to others.

If it was successful, he knew they would be in serious trouble.

But that was the thrill of it.

Jean-Luc woke with a start, but Marc-Andre hadn’t noticed.

The air had become thick and cloudy. It smelled of strong cigarettes.

Marc-Andre had switched on the bedside lamp with its green shade and was lying back with his head resting on two pillows.

“Turn the light off,” Jean-Luc whispered. “It will draw attention to us.”

While Jean-Luc had been sleeping, Marc-Andre had found the school exercise books he carried in his backpack. He was writing in one now, propped against his bent knees. The others were scattered across the bed.

“Don’t worry. I’ve nearly finished.”

“How can you possibly write like that?” Jean-Luc asked. “It looks extremely uncomfortable. I thought you preferred using your phone.”

Marc-Andre looked at him with annoyance.

“He took it away with him.”

“Who did?”

“I did.”

The voice startled Jean-Luc.

A figure had materialised beside the small writing desk.

He wore a dark, heavy overcoat. His large, dark, melancholic eyes were fixed upon them both. He gestured faintly towards the glowing screen with a pale hand.

“Ah,” he whispered in a soft, rasping French voice. “Do you carry your entire past in a tiny glowing box as well? Do you also look for lost time there?”

“Who are you?”

The man gestured towards Marc-Andre, who was still scribbling in his exercise book.

“I did not write in bed out of laziness. By shutting out the sensory details of the modern world, I was able to plunge deeply into the world of my own memories. I did not need a magic box.”

“Wake up, Jean-Luc. I’ve finished.”

Marc-Andre was shaking him by the shoulder.

Jean-Luc blinked several times.

The room was cold and dark. The smell of cigarette smoke had disappeared.

“It’s time to leave,” Marc-Andre declared.

“Shit,” said Jean-Luc. “Who was that man?”

“You were dreaming,” Marc-Andre told him. “It will soon be light, and we must leave everything exactly as we found it.”

Shadows of Verona: Better That You Leave

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Via delle Argonne is a pleasant street, largely made up of fashionable apartments for Verona’s young professionals and a step up from the area where Signora Bruschi’s house lies. It was also a short cut to the hotel where Bianchi worked part-time.

Cola had spent the day moping around. Cinzia had been working and he was reduced to wandering between floors without any real notion of what he wanted to do. I had been writing in the shade offered by the balcony, only to be interrupted every half hour by Cola’s footsteps and his inevitable appearance beside me. He would slump into the same chair and rest his feet on the railings. A few minutes later he would wander off again.

When the light began to fade, he suggested that we walk to Hotel Italia and meet Bianchi as he finished his shift. Not so long ago, he would have jumped into that bright yellow Abarth 500 and been there within minutes. Now he seemed to regard the walk as the highlight of his day.

“I need to get a job,” he moaned as we strolled down Via delle Argonne, parked cars lining both sides. “I am going slowly mad with boredom.”

A little girl came out of a gateway riding a small scooter. She came to an abrupt halt when she noticed us. Then she turned around and shot back inside to the safety of the small yard, shielded by horse chestnuts and linden trees.

I felt sorry for Cola.

His life had been turned upside down by Sandro’s revelation that it was in his best interests to leave Signor Valenti’s employment. Cola was certain that he would land a warehouse job at Interporto Quadrante Europa. He had turned up for the interview only to be told that they couldn’t employ him without suitable references. He wasn’t in a position to ask Signor Valenti and, as I pointed out, the Agenzia delle Entrate would have no record of his employment because Cola had been paid cash in hand.

“The mighty have fallen on hard times,” Cola lamented.

“But you have somewhere to live and a mother who feeds you well.”

It was no consolation to him.

The street light hanging above the intersection with Via Rovereto flickered on.

“And in two weeks you will be leaving Verona,” Cola complained.

I regarded Cola as a little brother. I had watched him grow from boy to man. I was someone he loved and trusted. I would miss him when I went back to the UK.

We waited on the curb to allow three motor scooters to pass. They came to a halt at the crossroads and hesitated as though deciding which direction they should take. The small engines puttered; the riders looked at us, their faces hidden behind the visors of their crash helmets. One by one they killed their engines and lowered the scooters onto their kickstands.

Then they walked towards us.

“Mannaggia,” Cola muttered under his breath. “I knew this would happen.”

Perhaps I knew it too.

There was always going to be a leader. He turned out to be the tallest of them, a muscular man wearing a turquoise T-shirt. He had a metal chain wrapped around his wrist; so did the others, for that matter.

When they reached us, the leader flicked his wrist and unravelled the chain in one swift movement. He swung it at Cola, who tried to duck but was too slow. It caught him on the side of the head and immediately drew blood.

I tried to help Cola but was prevented by an equally forceful blow. One of the other riders swung his chain and smashed it against my cheek.

And then there were repeated metal links whipping through the air with a high-pitched metallic rattle.

Cola was on the floor trying to protect his face, but there was no mercy. I followed and ended up on my back. Blurred silver arcs cut through the light, the links catching the glare. My clothes were being ripped. There was the sudden shock of heavy impact crushing bone and muscle, followed by the cold, biting pinches of metal links wrapped tightly around skin.

And then it was over.

A haze through which I could see nothing clearly.

Blood splatter.

Stinging pain.

Nausea.

Moans and sobs, but whose were they?

I knew that the three riders had returned to their motor scooters, kick-started them and sped away.

I did not think that I would die. It was that I wanted to die.

And then came the two-tone sirens that I had come to recognise across European cities. I found them reassuring. Not like those wailing noises that the UK had adopted from the States.

They were coming for us.

I woke up in a brightly lit room, which hurt the one eye that I was able to see with. The swelling on the other had closed it shut.

Somebody was holding my hand and I had to turn my head to see who it was.

It was the face of an angel.

An angel with beautiful curly black hair, warm eyes that were teary, and a delicate nose. The angel had soft stubble on his chin and needed to shave.

The angel smiled.

“You are going to be fine,” Bianchi whispered.

But behind the angel was the devil, slouched in a chair.

A nurse walked into the room and noticed that I was awake.

“Fuori tutti,” came the instruction.

Bianchi and Lorenzo did as they were told.

Bianchi waved on the way out. Lorenzo nodded and muttered something.

“Ci vendicheremo.”

We will get revenge.

The nurse checked my blood pressure and stuck something inside my ear.

“Sei inglese?”

When I nodded, it hurt, as though something were banging around inside my head.

“You will live,” she said. “You are very lucky. A lot of cuts and bruises, but you will mend. You were sedated when you came in, so you will feel woozy.”

“And my friend?”

“He will also live,” she smiled. “But he has a broken arm that will take time to mend.”

Police officers came to interview me in the afternoon and asked me to provide a description of our attackers. I narrowed it down to every male who rode a scooter in Verona and wasn’t much help.

And then they asked about Signora Valenti.

I told them very little and was informed that I wasn’t being helpful by refusing to tell the truth.

I found out later that Bianchi couldn’t hold his shit.

He had already told the Carabinieri and the Polizia di Stato everything that had happened. He wanted to put the blame entirely on the Valenti family.

But not at first.

When Bianchi arrived home from work on the night of the attack, he found Signora Bruschi in a panic.

“Bianchi. Something terrible has happened. They have called from Ospedale Borgo Trento where Cola and Miles have been taken.”

Bianchi immediately called Cinzia and the three of them arrived to find that we were being treated in the Pronto Soccorso. They waited for six hours before being told to come back in the morning, when they would be allowed to visit.

Bianchi then telephoned his brother and accused him of being involved in the attack. After all, even if it wasn’t true, Lorenzo blamed me for taking Bianchi away from the family home.

Lorenzo denied any knowledge.

“Te lo giuro su mia madre!”

He turned up at Signora Bruschi’s and was told about Cola leaving his job with Alessandro Valenti and my having turned down Valentina Valenti’s offer of work.

Much to Bianchi’s surprise, Lorenzo listened patiently and became convinced that the Valenti family was responsible.

He brushed aside protests from Cinzia and Bianchi and vowed to get revenge. Lorenzo was no match for them, they said. But Lorenzo liked Cola, less so me, and he was also fearful for his little brother’s safety.

Lorenzo joined them the next morning.

Only two visitors were allowed in each room. Signora Bruschi and Cinzia sat with Cola, leaving Lorenzo to join Bianchi in my room.

At least Lorenzo is warming to me, I told myself.

Signora Bruschi, Cinzia and Bianchi took turns visiting each of us. Cola appeared to be in much worse condition, but his mother thanked the Lord that there would be no long-term effects.

Shit! I thought later. I don’t have travel insurance.

In the evening, when everybody had left, a doctor visited and said that we would both spend a few days in hospital before being allowed to go home. It was a precaution and would allow us to get the necessary rest.

He left me alone and told me to sleep.

As I was about to drop off, I was visited by Sandro, the handsome Carabiniere, who had started the night shift. He had seen Cola already, and I asked how he was.

“I have known Cola for a long time and he is headstrong. Don’t be surprised if he walks through the door at any moment.”

Sandro paused. He sat down in the chair that Bianchi had occupied for most of the day.

“How are you? I am sorry and feel responsible for what happened.”

“Do you think that it was the Valentis who were behind it?”

“Almost certainly, but it was only a warning.”

“A warning?”

“The Valentis are clever people. When Cola quit his job and you turned down an offer of work, they immediately became suspicious as to the reasons why. They realise that the Carabinieri will be behind it and will leave nothing to chance.”

I seemed to be caught up in a mafia story. The painful injuries reminded me that I wasn’t dreaming.

But, I thought, Sandro was extremely handsome.

I knew then that I was already on the mend.

“Your fiancée is very lucky.”

It was a poor attempt to flirt with Sandro, and he brushed it aside.

“It was a warning for you both to say nothing to anyone. If they thought that you had already done so, then the situation would be far more serious.”

“What do you mean?”

“You would both be dead. But that would attract too much attention.”

“That might be too late,” I told him. “Bianchi has told me that we have already featured on RAI news and ANSA.”

“But it will soon be yesterday’s news.”

“Will you arrest them?”

“There is no evidence to do so and, if I can say it politely, you are both insignificant and not worth jeopardising our investigations. Better to let things die down and be forgotten.”

I laughed.

It was almost a relief that things would not escalate further. I longed for the peace and quiet and comfort of Signora Bruschi’s home.

But Sandro hadn’t finished.

“I understand that you are returning to England.”

“Yes,” I replied, although I wasn’t certain that I would be fit enough.

“Then make sure that you do,” he warned. “It is better that you leave.”

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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A Better Story

Murder had played an unexpectedly large part in David’s life. Not because he had murdered anyone—he hadn’t even come close—but because he enjoyed telling people about the occasions when he had very nearly been murdered himself. As the years passed the stories acquired new details, sharper dialogue, darker motives. Each retelling nudged them a little further from the truth until even David struggled to remember where fact ended and invention began. He had discovered that almost any story improved if murder was lurking just off the page.

The first attempt on David’s life, if it could be called that, happened when he was fifteen and at Harrow.

By then his sexual inclinations were no secret. They had earned him plenty of abuse, but they also gave him a certain currency. Hormonal boys were inventive when privacy was scarce, and David, more curious than ashamed, was often willing to oblige. It was a contradiction he understood only years later: the same boys who mocked him in daylight often sought him out after lights-out.

For a long time he toyed with writing a novel set during those years. The Edwardian public-school romances had always struck him as curiously bloodless, as though adolescence consisted entirely of cricket, Latin and noble sacrifice. His version would be rather different. His boys listened to the Boomtown Rats and John Peel on Radio 1, smoked where they shouldn’t, and discovered one another in darkened dormitories after the masters had gone to bed. It would have been a scandalous book, especially as David himself had been expelled only weeks later. Better, perhaps, that it remained unwritten.

Harrow still clung to customs that belonged to another century. Boys leaving the school grounds were expected to wear full uniform and touch their hats to passing adults. David found the ritual faintly ridiculous. Rules, after all, acquired their greatest attraction once they were forbidden.

He waited until the evening bill had been taken and supper was over. After lock-up, when nobody was supposed to leave the building, he slipped into civvies, climbed the wall at the edge of the grounds and disappeared into the darkness beyond. October had stripped the evenings of warmth, and beneath the heavy oaks and sycamores that crowned the hill he could move almost unseen.

The escapade itself was childish. Getting back in was the dangerous part. It depended on the loyalty of the other boys, who envied his nocturnal excursions even if they had little interest in accompanying him. Nobody informed. To dob in another boy was to spoil the game for everyone. If he had been caught, the punishment would probably have been a few strokes of the cane—a prospect David found less alarming than he cared to admit.

When he finally crept back into his room, there were always faces waiting in the darkness.

“Well?”

The truth was usually disappointing. Harrow on the Hill was remarkably uneventful after dark, looking much like any other sleepy English suburb. But that hardly mattered. David had already begun to understand that the adventure itself was never as satisfying as the story told afterwards.

David often visited the washrooms at the underground station on College Road. Someone had told him it was where people like him eventually ended up. He rarely found anyone of interest. This time there was an older boy, probably in his late teens, pretending to take a piss. David fancied him immediately: tall, fair-haired, slim, with the easy build of someone who played sport. He knew at once why the boy was there.

David felt the familiar surge of excitement. He busied himself by tucking his shirt into his trousers for the third time, then crouched to retie a shoelace that didn’t need tying. The older boy glanced around before slipping into one of the cubicles. David followed without hesitation.

The cubicle wasn’t what he’d imagined. It reeked of piss and shit, and the floor was ankle-deep in sodden toilet paper. It was enough to puncture the fantasy.

“How old are you?” the boy asked, pinning David against the back of the door.

“Eighteen,” David lied.

The boy thrust his tongue into David’s mouth. His breath tasted of cheap fags and Mars Bars.

David had waited a long time for this moment.

Then something gave way inside him.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the graffiti on the wall. Names. Telephone numbers. Obscenities. He suddenly didn’t want the boy touching him. He shoved him backwards. For a split second he thought the boy might hit him. Instead, David fumbled with the lock, yanked the door open and bolted from the cubicle. Seconds later he was out of the station and running.

He ran most of the way back to school, stopping only once to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The street behind him was empty. He realised he had been frightened. More than that, he was furious with himself for making such a fool of himself.

He scrambled over the school wall, knowing that once he was inside he would be safe. But in his haste he mistimed the drop on the other side and crashed into a stack of bricks piled beneath it. Pain shot through his knee. When he looked down he saw that his jeans had ripped. He touched the tear and his hand came away covered in blood.

“Shit.”

He limped back to Bradbys and slipped in through a fire door he had wedged open earlier. The room he shared with Gilles was on the top floor, and by the time he reached it his knee was throbbing.

As expected, Gilles was in bed reading a paperback by the light of a torch. David was still out of breath. When Gilles shone the torch at him, it was obvious he’d been crying.

“What on earth has happened?” Gilles demanded.

“Somebody tried to murder me,” David said.

He hadn’t meant to lie. It was simply that the story sounded better than the truth.

So he told Gilles about the man who had lured him back to a room near the station and held a Swiss Army knife to his throat. During the struggle, the blade had caught David’s knee before he somehow managed to break free.

“You mustn’t tell anyone,” he said.

The following morning David visited Matron to have the wound dressed. He explained that he had fallen while running down the stairs. She listened patiently, although the look on her face suggested she had heard rather better lies from schoolboys over the years.

After that, the story escaped him.

By the end of breakfast David was the talk of the school. Gilles had never been capable of keeping a secret. Boys stopped David in corridors and on staircases, eager to hear about his brush with death.

“It was nothing,” David said with studied modesty. “The man told me he was going to kill me, but I fought him off and got away. Just don’t tell anyone.”

Over the following days the tale grew with each retelling. The knife became longer. The struggle more violent. The escape more miraculous. Every version won him a little more admiration, especially from boys who had barely noticed him before.

By an extraordinary coincidence, events beyond the school gates began to lend David’s invention an air of credibility.

One evening he returned to his room to find Gilles waving a copy of Harrow Midweek.

“Listen to this,” he shouted excitedly.

He read aloud.

“We are aware of certain incidents in the Harrow area. People have been threatened—one involving a knife—and several have been assaulted. In June and August, the ‘Gay Ripper’ stabbed two men to death in their homes in Enfield and Kingston.”

Gilles lowered the newspaper and stared at David.

“That might have been you.”

David merely shrugged, although not without a flicker of guilt.

It never occurred to him that a story of this magnitude might eventually reach the masters. Had anyone believed it, the police would almost certainly have been called, leaving David with some awkward explanations to make.

But there were signs that the staff had already decided exactly what it was: another elaborate schoolboy fantasy.

One afternoon David was crossing the quad when his English master, Mr Potts—a bearded man known to generations of boys as Caractacus Potts—called him over.

“I hear you’ve been making up stories, David.”

He paused just long enough for David to wonder whether he was in trouble.

“Very entertaining,” Mr Potts said with a smile. “Perhaps you should think about writing a book.”

Decades later, David would tell the story again. The knife had become sharper, the struggle longer, and the escape even narrower. He had long since forgotten where the truth ended and the story began. But whenever he reached the part about the Swiss Army knife, people always leaned forward. And that, he decided, was what really mattered. 

Shadows of Verona: Those We Trust

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Signora Bruschi looked flustered.

She sat at the kitchen table with her arms folded. An unfinished crossword from La Settimana Enigmistica lay open in front of her.

When Bianchi and I walked in, relief washed across her face.

“Is something wrong, Signora Bruschi?”

“You’ve just missed Sandro,” she said. “Cola’s friend in the carabinieri. They’ve known each other since they were little boys.”

The name rang a bell. I remembered meeting him on Braccobaldo Beach the previous summer.

The look on her face suggested his visit had been anything but social.

“Sandro is a good boy,” she continued. “A good Catholic boy. He has grown into exactly the sort of man I always knew he would.”

She spoke as though she were trying to convince herself of something.

There was coffee simmering on the stove. I poured three cups while Bianchi, unusually quiet, sensed there was more to come and waited.

Signora Bruschi crossed to the dresser and opened one of the drawers. She took out a well-worn photograph album and laid it on the table before us.

Inside were photographs of Cola as a child. In one, he stood beside another boy, both grinning broadly, both missing their two front teeth.

“That’s Cola and Sandro on their first day at school,” she said, smiling despite herself. “Cheeky little devils. Now look at them. Two strapping young men.”

The smile lingered only briefly.

“Why did Sandro come?” I asked.

She sighed and glanced towards Bianchi, weighing whether to trust him.

After a moment, she made up her mind.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said quietly. “Sandro told me because Cola won’t listen to him. He hopes I might be able to make him see sense.”

“What did he say?”

“He wants Cola to stop working for Signor Valenti.”

Bianchi, absent-mindedly snapping the rubber band around his wrist, froze.

I wasn’t as surprised.

If Sandro had sought out Cola’s mother, it meant he was frightened enough to abandon discretion.

“Sandro says Signor Valenti is coming under scrutiny from the authorities,” Signora Bruschi continued. “He says Cola should cut all ties with him while he still can.”

“Zio pera,” Bianchi muttered.

“What exactly did Sandro tell you?” I asked.

“As you know, Signor Valenti is a wealthy man. He owns vineyards and olive groves, and everyone knows about his property developments around Verona. But Sandro says there are rumours he has connections with the ‘Ndrangheta.”

A chill settled over the room.

I knew enough about the ‘Ndrangheta to understand what that meant.

They were Italy’s most powerful criminal organisation, trafficking drugs, extorting businesses and washing vast amounts of money through legitimate investments across the country.

When I had first met Pietro Mancini, the police had already executed twenty-six arrest warrants and seized fifteen million euros in assets connected to the Verona network. Antonio Giardino—known as Totareddu—had eventually been sentenced to thirty years in prison, yet rumours persisted that someone else had quietly stepped in to fill the vacuum.

“Sandro is taking a tremendous risk by warning Cola,” I said. “If his superiors discover he’s discussing an active investigation, he’ll find himself in serious trouble.”

“And if Cola suddenly walks away,” Bianchi added, “Valenti will wonder why. Men like him don’t like people asking to leave.”

His words did nothing to steady Signora Bruschi’s nerves.

“Do you really think so?” she asked.

The truth was, I did.

What worried me most was how much Cola already knew.

From everything I had seen, his work seemed limited to maintaining Valenti’s estate, yet I still didn’t know how the two had become acquainted in the first place. If Sandro was right, perhaps the gardening was only what could be seen from the outside.

“Cola and Sandro argued about it,” Signora Bruschi said. “My son refuses to believe him. He says he’s not walking away from good money because of rumours.”

“What do you think, Signora?” Bianchi asked gently.

She lowered her eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Sandro has nothing to gain by inventing this,” I said. “He’s trying to protect his friend. If he’s willing to risk his career, then he believes the danger is real. We have to persuade Cola to leave.”

Even as I said it, another thought gnawed at me.

If the rumours about Signor Valenti were true, where did that leave Valentina?

Her generous offer of work suddenly looked different. Had it been simple kindness—or had I been drawn into something without realising it?

I was no innocent. I’d cut corners often enough in my own life. But the mafia was another world entirely. Once you crossed paths with people like that, walking away wasn’t always an option.

Across the table, Bianchi chewed thoughtfully at his lip, waiting for me to say something else.

Being the oldest seemed to carry an unspoken responsibility.

I searched for words that might ease Signora Bruschi’s fear.

None came.

Instead, all I wanted to do was put my arms around both of them.

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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The Boy in the Pink Socks

David decided to spend the afternoon on his own. Moments like this had become rare.

He had spent the morning writing, but his concentration had deserted him. Leaving Joshua creating something unidentifiable in the studio, he wandered towards Little Portugal and ended up nursing a cappuccino outside Starbucks.

Portuguese families had first settled around Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove before rising rents gradually pushed many south of the Thames. The neighbourhood around South Lambeth Road eventually became known as Little Portugal, although, today, there seemed remarkably few Portuguese about.

Places like this had always fed David’s imagination.

He would settle into his chair and watch the procession of strangers pass by; ordinary people following lives known only to themselves. He would invent those lives as they walked.

His attention always drifted towards solitary young men moving with effortless confidence. Summer had finally arrived and they appeared in shorts, T-shirts and trainers, a backpack slung casually over one shoulder. David had never quite lost his fascination with male legs.

Not long ago he had stumbled across an idea for a book.

It would require an entirely different kind of research.

He imagined choosing a young man at random. There was only one rule: he had to be someone David found beautiful enough to want to sleep with. Realistically, he thought, the feeling would almost certainly not be mutual. Most would be straight, but that hardly mattered. David would give each one a name, follow discreetly behind and see where life carried him. Every journey would become a chapter. Every stranger, a story.

So far, the idea had remained just that.

When he mentioned it to Joshua, he had received a look of genuine concern.

“You do realise you’re describing stalking?”

David had laughed, but the accusation lingered.

Even so, the idea continued to delight him.

When a handsome young man with thick dark curls appeared at the end of the street, David briefly wondered whether today might finally be the day.

Instead, his attention shifted to the table beside him.

An older man and a much younger one had just sat down together.

A couple? Father and son?

Before David could decide, a woman appeared carrying coffees.

Mother.

The younger man was exceptionally handsome. Tallish, blond, wearing a designer top, blue shorts and unexpectedly bright pink socks. The socks made David smile. Stretching his legs in front of him, the young man absent-mindedly stroked the smooth skin of one shin before rubbing the back of his knee as though it had begun to ache.

David found himself listening.

Only the boy’s voice carried.

It was unmistakably Home Counties.

“She’s strange,” he said. “And she walks funny too.”

His parents laughed. His mother replied too quietly for David to catch.

“I know what you’re saying,” the boy answered, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

David suspected she was trying to engineer a romance.

The father smiled with quiet satisfaction.

David recognised the expression immediately.

It was the face of a man who knew exactly how handsome his son was.

The longer David looked at him, the more he could imagine the father at the same age. Once equally beautiful. Once perhaps exactly the kind of man David might have taken home without a second thought.

The mother passed over a muffin.

The boy demolished it without the slightest concern for calories. Crumbs scattered down the front of his T-shirt before he brushed them away.

“We obviously flirt with each other,” he said, “but what’s the point of flirting with someone who doesn’t want you?”

My God.

How could anybody not want you?

He was exactly the kind of boy David loved to be seen beside. Someone impossibly attractive who might patiently sit in a garden listening to his stories while pretending to prune roses.

Then again, David suspected the illusion would disappear the moment he started talking about girlfriends.

Once upon a time, David had been that boy.

Only now did he realise how fortunate he had been.

At the time, he never knew.

His mother resumed talking while the boy scrolled through his phone, somehow managing to follow both conversations at once.

“It’ll take a month or so to grow,” he said, barely looking up.

Life would be much easier if parents never got in the way.

The father, who had spoken hardly at all, glanced towards David.

David instinctively lowered his eyes to his own phone.

The screen was still open on an interview with a twenty-something influencer from New York.

“The guys I fuck outside my relationship don’t look anything like my boyfriend. They’re all, like, fifty-five with massive tits. Why would I eat what I can get at home?”

David smiled despite himself.

Why don’t I ever meet people like that?

The thought faded almost as quickly as it arrived.

Another, quieter one took its place.

He was growing old.

Not suddenly.

Not dramatically.

Simply, unmistakably.

He imagined himself in ten years time.

An old man sitting alone on a bench. Shoulders rounded beneath the weight of time. Hands resting on his knees, or wrapped around the handle of a walking stick. A faded wool jacket buttoned to the neck. A flat cap pulled low across his brow. Scuffed trainers tied with thick laces.

Watching the world continue without ever asking him to join in.

Shadows of Verona: An Offer Too Easily Accepted

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Cola returned from Torricelle with important news. Signora Valenti had asked him for my mobile number. Why she wanted it, he had no idea, but he had seen no reason not to give it to her.

I could think of several.

“She will contact you,” Cola said before tucking into the meatballs his mother had prepared. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of the matter.

Bianchi sat opposite, his bare foot brushing against my knee beneath the table. He hadn’t quite followed the conversation and raised an eyebrow, waiting for someone to explain.

Signora Bruschi stood at the hob, stirring a pan with her back to us. Even so, I knew she was listening to every word.

She was a wily woman.

When Cinzia had pleaded for Bianchi to stay with me because Lorenzo was making life difficult for him at home, Signora Bruschi had seen straight through the lie. She allowed him to remain, but not with me. While I had been banished to Cola’s room, Bianchi had temporary use of mine. Now she was clearing out a room in the attic that would soon become his.

Signora Valenti wasted no time.

Later that evening a message arrived asking whether I was free to meet her for coffee the following day.

I read it aloud and was about to reply that I wasn’t available when Signora Bruschi wiped her hands on her apron and joined us at the table.

“It would be rude to refuse,” she said. “After all, you have no reason not to go.”

Signora Bruschi invariably had the final word.

“But,” she added after a pause, “I think it would be better if Bianchi came with you.”

Bianchi’s face lit up.

Cola grinned.

“She wants your body,” he said.

At eleven the following morning we arrived at Liston 12 on Piazza Bra, its terrace overlooking the Roman Arena. It was crowded with tourists, most of whom had no idea they could have paid half the price simply by walking a few streets farther.

I scanned the tables until I spotted Signora Valenti sitting in the shade. She raised a hand to attract our attention.

She wasn’t alone.

Edoardo sat beside her.

Valentina Valenti looked effortlessly glamorous. Her long blonde hair was tied back and oversized designer sunglasses concealed much of her face. She wore a pale pink summer dress and white Jimmy Choo heels.

She rose to greet us, kissing each of us lightly on the cheek. Bianchi’s appearance seemed not to concern her in the slightest as she motioned for us to sit before signalling a waiter for four espressos.

Edoardo remained where he was, idly turning the pages of a menu. He looked profoundly bored by the ritual of introductions.

After I introduced Bianchi, Signora Valenti inclined her head politely.

“I had expected you to send me samples of your work,” she said. “When you didn’t, I was forced to find it online. It wasn’t easy.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I write under a pen name.”

“I know,” she said with a faint smile. “But I am well connected. I know people who are very good at finding whatever I need.”

She reached into an expensive handbag and produced a leather notebook filled with beautifully handwritten notes.

“I know you’re a travel writer. I’ve read several of your articles. They’re well written…” She looked up. “If a little dull.”

Across the table Edoardo gave a quiet snort of amusement.

His dark hair was slicked back as though he had only just stepped out of the shower. A faint scar ran across one cheek. The moment he realised I had noticed it, he covered it with his hand. It was his eyes that lingered with me, however—cold, watchful and instinctively unfriendly.

“I’d like to offer you a job,” Signora Valenti continued.

“A job?”

“My husband’s business has become extremely successful and is expanding internationally. I want you to write the history of the estate—from its modest beginnings to what it has become today.”

“Why me?”

The waiter arrived balancing our coffees with exaggerated care, placing each cup before us as though performing on stage. Signora Valenti dismissed him with an impatient flick of her hand.

“Why not?”

I searched for a polite way to decline without giving offence.

“Everything you need will be available to you,” she continued. “There are boxes of historical records at Torricelli that must be sorted through. Edoardo has agreed to help.”

Judging by the expression on his face, Edoardo had agreed to nothing. He was here because his mother had decided he would be.

The project held little appeal. Neither did the prospect of spending weeks in Edoardo’s company.

“I’m delighted that’s settled,” she said brightly. “I should have been very disappointed had you refused.”

She waited, knowing perfectly well no objection was coming.

“Excellent,” she concluded. “Then it’s agreed.”

A cigarette appeared from nowhere. She lit it with practised elegance and leaned back looking entirely satisfied with herself.

Bianchi looked equally pleased.

“This means you’ll stay in Verona longer.”

“Which creates one problem,” I said. “The rules say I have to leave Italy soon. I’m only here as a tourist.”

“Problems like that don’t exist in our world.”

It was the first time Edoardo had spoken. His voice was flat, almost bored.

“Exactly,” said his mother. “Now, let’s discuss your fee.”

The offer was generous.

Three thousand euros was considerably more than I had ever been paid for a commission, and although the project would take time, it would still leave me free to accept other work.

An Alfa Romeo belonging to the Carabinieri was parked outside Signora Bruschi’s house when we returned.

“Che ci fanno qui?” Bianchi asked.

Two uniformed officers were just leaving. The younger of the pair held the front door open as we approached, taking a moment longer than necessary to look us up and down.

He seemed vaguely familiar.

Tall. Handsome. Short-cropped hair.

Our eyes met for several seconds, as though each of us felt we ought to recognise the other.

“Buongiorno,” he said quietly.

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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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.

Shadows of Verona – Where I Belong

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Cinzia had come up with the solution to a problem that Signora Bruschi had created. 

I slept with Cola while Bianchi slept alone in my bed.

Cola was now nineteen, tall and slim, and drove a bright yellow Abarth 500 that sounded loud, throaty and aggressive when he arrived back home in the early hours after spending the evening with Cinzia.

He had climbed into his own bed, almost forgetting that somebody had gatecrashed.

“I thought that the bed would be empty,” he teased. “I was certain that you would have crept upstairs to be with Bianchi.”

“And suffer the sharp tongue of your mother? Not likely. I half expected her to be sitting outside the door to make sure that we didn’t.”

Morning brought little relief. Cola’s room was much smaller than my apartment and the heat of the night had been unbearable. Neither had slept well. Cola kicked me to make sure that I was awake and whispered in my ear.

“It is time to get up. I must go and see Signor Valenti and would like you to come along with me.”

“Who is Signor Valenti?” I groaned.

“He is the man that I work for,” he explained, “and he will have a list of jobs that need doing.”

During the night I wondered whether Bianchi had explored my apartment. He had always been curious, the sort of boy who wanted to know everything. I hoped I hadn’t left anything incriminating lying around. Then I remembered the crumpled copy of Le Pénis beside my bed. I had little doubt he would have read it from cover to cover. 

“I’d expected to spend the day with Bianchi,” I muttered.

“That is not going to happen. Cinzia and Bianchi have arranged to go to the summer festival at Gardaland today and will not be back until late. Unfortunately, they do not have tickets for us and so we shall be left behind to drive one another crazy.”

I was disappointed.

“We must go to church,” Cola announced.

I pulled a face.

“Why?”

“I have things to confess.”

Cola burst out laughing and hit me hard on the arm. 

Bianchi was subdued at breakfast. He refused to eat or drink while he waited for his lift that would take him to Gardaland. He made polite conversation but his usual brightness had deserted him 

“Is everything okay, Bianchi?”

He nodded but didn’t reply.

I’m not sure why it is, but silence makes me feel uneasy. But when he held his gaze a moment longer than necessary, it suggested the problem might not have been with me.

We waited on the pavement for the arrival of his friend, Antonio, who, Cola had explained, was Bianchi’s best friend. 

He turned up in a noisy old Fiat Panda with Cinzia beside him.

Antonio was messy, with dark curly hair, soulful brown eyes, and a slightly crooked nose. He wore a worn-out denim jacket and football shirt sporting the blue and yellow of Hellas Verona. 

He got out of the car and kissed Bianchi on the cheek before hugging him tightly. Bianchi blushed.

Cinzia hurried them into the car.

“We shall see you this evening,” she called from the car window.

Bianchi waved as they drove off and soon afterwards sent a message on his phone.

I hoped we might have spent more time together today. Gardaland was Cinzia’s idea. We shall talk this evening.

Cola drove me to Torricelle in the hills north of Verona. I had once been here with Pietro and remembered the panoramic views of the Adige River and the city below. It was also where I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets. He blasted Sfera Ebbasta through the speakers, making conversation almost impossible. But he seemed proud to be taking me to see Signor Valenti.

“He is a very rich man and lives in a wonderful house in its own grounds. I have told him all about you.”

“How did you meet, and what is it that you do for him?”

“Oh, I work around his house and do jobs around the estate,” he replied. 

It all seemed an unlikely world for someone like Cola, and that he had not explained how he had met Signor Valenti had not gone unnoticed.

Away from the historic centre, the land turned green with olive groves, vineyards and lush vegetation. We climbed the hillside and eventually came to a set of stone pillars on the right. Cola spun off the road and dropped down a long winding driveway that was cast in deep shadow by a rich canopy of giant oak trees.

When we burst back into the sunlight it revealed a large house that seemed to be made up of adjoining boxes with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Parked in front of it was another bright yellow Abarth 500 that was identical to the one that Cola drove.

As Cola parked beside it, I received a message on my phone. It was from Cinzia.

I have an idea. I shall speak with Cola’s mother tomorrow.

For the second time in 24 hours Cinzia had devised a solution to a problem. I grinned and Cola looked at me with bemusement.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I don’t know your girlfriend well, but I am starting to realise that she can be very cunning when she wants to be.”

I had the feeling that whoever lived inside this house would never enjoy the privacy that lesser folk in poorer houses enjoyed. The outside was everywhere you looked. 

The house felt strangely empty. Expensive homes often do. Every room had space to breathe, yet there was little evidence that anybody truly lived there. 

I longed for the comfort and simplicity of Signora Bruschi’s modest home. 

Cola led me through rooms that contained modern sofas and stylish chairs, sleek tables with contemporary sculpture and lots of fresh flowers in huge vases – but little else.

Signor Valenti looked like he was in his forties, with the first signs of grey showing in his black hair. He had once been handsome but still retained the trim figure of somebody who might once have been an athlete. He was smartly dressed with white chinos and an azure blue shirt and seemed stereotypical of the Italian businessman; casual but with a sense of importance.

A woman sat with him around a glass-topped table that had been set up outside. This, I presumed, was Signora Valenti who had once been a beautiful woman. She looked about the same age as her husband with long blonde hair that had been carefully tied back. 

“Nicola.” Signor Valenti seemed pleased to see Cola and gestured for us to be seated. A faint smile showed on Signora Valenti’s lips but she seemed uninterested in our arrival.

Cola poured coffee for us both and spoke in fluent Italian to his host – fast and furious and I had difficulty keeping up. Eventually, Signor Valenti turned towards me and offered his hand.

“I am delighted to meet you, Miles. Please call me Alessandro, and this is my wife, Valentina.” It had a ring to it – Valentina Valenti. “And that,” he nodded towards the swimming pool,” is my son Edoardo.”

A young man swam the length of it before coming to a stop. Only his head could be seen, his wet hair plastered back, as he treaded water. He looked at us with curiosity, but, like his mother, never uttered a word. I waved a greeting but Edoardo didn’t acknowledge it. He, too, it seemed, was devoid of pleasantries.

While Alessandro and Cola talked business, I enjoyed the view.

Finally, Valentina came to life.

“My husband owns everything that you see before you.”

“Impressive,” I replied.

“These are our vineyards and olive groves, and in the buildings to the right is where wine and olive oil is manufactured.”

The Valenti family enjoyed fabulous wealth.

“My husband is also a property developer and has a vast portfolio around Verona.”

Valentina spoke matter of factly, as though defending the reasons for their good fortune. It was as if she was trying to make a point. She put on large sunglasses and I could no longer tell whether she was looking at me or her son.

Cola had the habit of making me appear like somebody I wasn’t. In his eyes, I was unique, although he had no idea what it was that I wrote. 

“Nicola tells us that you are a writer,” she said with a little more warmth.

Alessandro and Cola left us and walked to the edge of the terrace. Alessandro pointed to various parts of his estate, and Cola nodded in understanding.

“Poor Cola is receiving a long list of jobs. It will keep him occupied for weeks which is exactly what my husband wants. And when those jobs are completed, he will give Cola another long list of things to do. Cola is your friend. But he is also Alessandro’s plaything.”

I didn’t quite understand.

“He enjoys having Cola around because he is everything that Edoardo is not. Cola is the son that he wanted. Edoardo is not. My son is spoiled and has no desire to work.”

Edoardo had climbed out of the pool and was rubbing himself down with a towel. I expected him to join us but he walked straight into the house with a scowl.

“Edoardo is jealous of Cola because he gets exactly the same privileges as he does. Edoardo does not consider that Cola works hard for what he gets, whilst he does little.”

“Where did your husband meet Cola?”

She brushed a hand through her hair.

“Oh, I do not know,” she sighed.

Alessandro and Cola disappeared onto the next garden terrace and now we were alone. Valentina flicked through Italian Vogue, not once stopping to read anything; the actions of a bored housewife. 

A WhatsApp message from Bianchi flashed up. It was a photograph from Gardaland – a selfie. Cinzia was grinning while Bianchi had his arm around his friend. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

Antonio was not conventionally handsome, but his grin was infectious; he looked happiest of all. 

“You are frowning, Miles,” said Valentina, without looking up from the magazine. 

“No, signora.”

“I would like you to send me some of your work.” It was a command rather than a request. 

We returned to the car after Alessandro had finished with Cola.

Edoardo was checking his gelled hair in the wing mirror of the second Abarth. He had showered and dressed and wore a fragrance that reminded me of  bergamot and pineapple. He was dressed entirely in white; his shirt was loose and unbuttoned to show the smoothness of his chest. 

“Arrivederci,” I said to him.

Edoardo said nothing, started the car and sped away. 

“I seem to bring out the worst in people,” I suggested to Cola as we drove back to Verona. “First Lorenzo, and now Edoardo.”

“Edoardo is strange. He resents that I work here but will not complain because he relies on his father’s wealth. He is not a problem.”

“But he stands to inherit everything one day.”

“No,” Cola quipped. “He will get nothing. They will leave it all to me.” 

He laughed, but I had known Cola since a boy, and knew that when he joked it was to hide something serious.

After Torricelle, the streets of Verona provided welcome relief; I was returning to where I felt comfortable and could act myself again. But Cola was able to step effortlessly between contrasting worlds. 

Verona was in slumber. The pavements were empty;  everyone had retreated into the shadows to find whatever coolness remained. Shopkeepers sat on chairs and fanned themselves. Dogs slept under tables. Teenage boys removed their shirts and lounged on street corners.

Bianchi sent another photo.

The photograph showed Bianchi and Antonio eating ice cream with great blobs balanced on the ends of their noses. It was gloriously childish. Whatever melancholy had shadowed Bianchi that morning had disappeared. 

“We are all small boys at heart,” Cola remarked while looking at my phone and driving far too fast.