A baseball cap and a touch of peach fuzz on his chin. He sat at the bar and I saw flashes of flesh around his ankles. At that moment, he might have been the sexiest person in the world. But then he started talking to somebody who wasn’t there, and argued with somebody else who wasn’t there either. He didn’t say anything to me and I WAS there, but I was grateful for that.
I saw you several times and you ignored me. Why do I remember that? It was because I thought you were handsome. But ignorance turned into friendship, and I hadn’t realised how generous you were. And that generosity came from Robin Hood. Steal from the wealthy, and give it to others. I met you tonight, fresh faced and smart, a tap on the shoulder, a cheeky wink, and you gave me a bottle of beer. I doubted that you had ever ignored me.
“Amidst the babble and the cackle,
A voice shouts loudest,
I am Romeo and you must come to me.
And I hear that voice,
I say, Verona, at last I am coming to thee.”
That moment was meant to be. A crackle of excitement that bubbled up and brought with it the unwatered lust of these desert years
It’s been a long time. Almost ten months, but the story resumes. Harry Oldham is an author whose last book bombed. He has been encouraged to return to Sheffield and write about his past. His agent finds him an apartment not realising that it takes Harry closer to his shocking past than she realises. Will his readers want to know the type of person he used to be? (Parts 1-6 are available to read in the menu)
Part 7
It had been months, and I hadn’t added any new chapters to the book. Meghan was horrified. She didn’t understand that the creative process could be painful. I’d opened my notes several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any further. Instead, I wrote anonymous blog posts that nobody read.
Winter turned to spring, and Sheffield seemed cleaner and brighter. By the time June came, I was also alarmed. I had until the end of the year to submit the first draft and I’d barely scratched the surface.
But something happened.
I had walked into the city centre and called at WH Smith. I remembered it as being a vibrant place, but on that sunny morning there was barely a soul inside. I didn’t get what the shop was supposed to be. There were only so many pens you could buy, the choice of magazines had diminished, and it was a place that didn’t sell my books. You also had to serve yourself, and if I’d been a young lad, I wouldn’t have paid for anything.
On the way home, I cut through the station that was empty because the train drivers were on strike again, and I bought the latest copy of Granta at the news stand because WH Smith didn’t stock it. I decided it might give me the inspiration to write, because everything in it was better than mine.
I walked over the footbridge and saw a young guy walking towards me. He seemed vaguely familiar and made eye contact. As we passed, I smiled, and he blushed. I looked around and realised that he’d done the same and quickly turned away.
I climbed the steps and sat on the grass in South Park. From here, I could look at the skyline with its cranes and emerging tower blocks. I lit a cigarette and thumbed through the magazine. Then I found a vape in my pocket and puffed on it. I was alternating between smoking the cigarette and the vape, but the sweetness of grape edged out the harshness of the tobacco.
I saw the guy walking up the steps from the station. He wore a grey hoodie and sweatpants and looked about eighteen or nineteen. Grey sweatpants are always an attraction. I sensed that he’d sat on the grass behind, and I resisted the urge to turn around. I began reading a story, it was written in strong Glaswegian about a young kid caught up with gangs that I found hard to understand. Londoners had once struggled to understand me too.
The young lad had moved and was sitting to my right. I looked across and he held my gaze. Those anonymous blog posts are about moments like these, the brief encounters that I embellish with happy endings, when they rarely are.
“I know who you are,” he called. “You’re Harry Oldham.”
I’m never recognised and the fact that he knew me was disconcerting because I’m more comfortable as a name and not a face.
“Have we met?”
“Yeah, we have, and you owe me a cigarette.”
He shifted to my side, and I gave him the cigarette he wanted. He had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and peachy stubble.
“What’s your name?”
”Tom.”
“Does Tom have a surname?”
“Everybody just calls me Tom.”
“Are you always shy?” He coloured up, his crimson cheeks glowing on a pale complexion.
“I’m only shy in front of people I’ve just met.”
“But you know who I am. Have you read my books?”
“‘I’ve read all of them. I suppose I know a lot about you. I’m not scared. Just curious.”
“I’m curious about you too. Tell me about yourself.”
“There’s nothing to say. I’m me.”
He looked down like he’d done once before, and I remembered that he’d once given me a cigarette.
”There are times when you have to tell somebody something.”
“I think you’re approachable, but you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”
“It’s not often I get to meet my biggest fan.”
“I didn’t say that I liked the books. I’ve just read them, that’s all.”
“Why read all three then?” He didn’t answer.
“I thought you and your two mates were going to mug me.”
“That wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have let it.”
“When I was your age, me and my mates would have sat outside the flats and been up to no good.”
He didn’t reply straightaway and seemed ill at ease. He blinked in the sunshine and concentrated on a passing tram. “We’re not all bad. No threat to you. Park Hill’s not a bad place.”
“Do you live there?”
His answer was decisive. “No!”
“Where do you live?”
“Hillsborough. I caught the tram.”
“Cool,” I said, and felt like a dork for saying it. “I once knew someone who lived there.”
“I won’t know them.”
“No, you won’t, because he’s been dead a long time.”
Tom looked inquisitive.
“He was called Paolo and one of the most beautiful boys I’ve ever known.”
“Old people die all the time.”
“I’m not that old, but yes, they do. In my mind, Paolo isn’t old. He never was. He still looks the same. Like James Dean… ”
“Like Heath Ledger?”
“Yes, like Heath Ledger. They’re frozen in time, but we get older, and they don’t, and we remember them from movies and photographs, except with Paolo there are no photos. He lives in my head, but I’m afraid that each time I think about him, the memory is more fragile.”
“Are you a faggot?”
“Yes, I am, but it takes another faggot to recognise one.”
“Not me, I have a girlfriend.”
“And what’s this girlfriend called?”
He hesitated. “She’s not important, and I want to hear more about Paolo.”
I bought a book for £6.99 that was only thirty-five pages long. It was so short that I read it in a hot bath in only ten minutes. But I liked the cover, and what I read resonated with me.
Things like:
“I was aware that this entailed a kind of cruelty towards this younger man who was doing things for the first time. Invariably when he spoke of his plans for a future with me, I replied, ‘The present is enough,’ never mentioning that for me the present was only a duplicate of the past.”
and,
“The people he greeted on the street were always young, often other students. When he stopped to talk, I stood aside; they watched me sidelong. He tore me away from my generation, but I was not part of his.”
The Young Man / Annie Ernaux / 2022
Sometimes, late at night, Mark messages and asks me what I’m up to. It means that he’s bored and wants somebody to share the boredom with. He’ll pick me up in his purple BMW and we’ll drive into the countryside.
He always drives with one hand on the steering wheel, the other scrolling the touch screen, constantly skipping tracks on Apple Play. The driver’s seat is as far back as it will go because of his long legs, and the seat reclines at an odd angle. He’s not afraid of dark and unfamiliar roads and says it’s safer driving at night. He’ll step on the accelerator and talk about anything, his Yorkshire bluff switching subjects as often as the music. Mostly, I’ll sit in silence.
Mark looks like any other lad in his twenties, but I’ve seen through that disarray. The eye can’t see what lies beneath, but I can speculate. With a bit of tidying up, smart haircut, and a good shave, he could be a male model.
I expect that his parents didn’t expect him to be so tall. They are both average height and probably surprised that he outgrew his bed and slept most nights with his feet sticking over the end. He’s over six-foot and lean, not skinny, and certainly not lanky.
In another life, he’d be photographed in his underwear for a glossy magazine and called something like Callum or Luke.
I keep wanting to say this to him, but it sounds pervy and he might think that I’m coming onto him. That’s why I’m mostly quiet.
We’ll drive into the night and might come across an all-night garage where he’ll disappear inside and emerge with arms full of bad things like crisps, chocolate, and cans of Monster.
Then we’ll park in a layby where he’ll switch off the engine so that we’re in complete darkness and demolish it all. He’ll always ask for a cigarette and will get out of the car because he doesn’t want it smelling of smoke, but seemingly oblivious to the empty cans and wrappers that litter the footwells.
We’ll often arrive back in the city during the early hours, say our goodbyes, and I might not see him again for months.
Jordan Firstman, American writer, producer, and comedian, in a Zoom conversation with Robert Pattinson.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 