PrologueLondon 1992
Living Alone
After years of sharing digs, Danny Smith had finally found a room of his own. Previously he made do in a basement studio with strangers and single beds separated by paper-partition screens through which he could hear every snore. After the council shut it down as illegal, he couch-surfed for a time, including one weekend where, after refusing to trade sex for a roof over his head, he ended up on a bench in Victoria Embankment Gardens, peering up at the Savoy Hotel. With the help of friends, he secured the smallest bedroom of a flat in Stockwell and to celebrate he visited a garden centre buying damaged plants at a steep discount, the unwanted ones with bent stalks and crushed leaves, convinced he could bring them back to life, the most promising of which now lined his window ledge.
The man standing in Danny’s doorway, wearing only socks and a slip, reminded him of these unwanted plants in need of water, affection and sunlight. He was a flatmate’shook-up. They had met at a weekend warehouse rave and had been partying ever since. Danny was about to settle down for an evening of diligent study when the man reappeared looking as lost as it was possible for a grown man to look. The flatmate had left him behind while on a mission to buy supplies. Though the abandoned man could barely speak, no longer sure where he was or what he was doing, he knew that he no longer wanted to be alone.
After loaning the man a pair of tracksuit trousers and a hooded top Danny ventured, ‘Here’s an idea. Don’t wait for Mark to come back. What’s going to happen? You carry on for another day? I can give you a sleeping pill and a vitamin pill. You can go home and rest.’
Concerned that the man might still live with his parents or didn’t have a home to go to, Danny double-checked, ‘Can you go home?’
The man nodded, on the verge of tears.
Danny said, ‘Please don’t cry. You’ll make me cry.’
Danny fetched a Nytol and a multivitamin, carefully wrapping them in a tissue and placing them in the man’s hand.
‘Let’s find your things.’
The bedroom resembled a crime scene. The curtains were wrenched shut. The carpet was littered with improvised ashtrays. The air stank of good times turned stale. Danny found the man’s shoes, two upturned trainers among take-outdetritus. He deposited the man’s shirt and trousers in a plastic bag, salvaging his wallet and keys. As Danny was tying the stranger’s laces, the third flatmate returned home from work, warning that Mark would fly into a rage if he came back to find his hook-up missing. Conflict-averse, Danny decided to leave too. He fetched his study material, packing a small rucksack for the evening.
On the streets of South London the freezing February air brought the stranger back to his senses. Shame seeped into his eyes and it became clear that he couldn’t be trusted with the challenge of public transport. At a minicab office Danny handed ten pounds to a driver. With the man safely in the back of a cab, he asked how he could pay Danny back. Maybe he meant it literally, the ten pounds. Maybe he meant it a broader sense, this act of kindness. Either way, Danny gave him a hug and told him, ‘People helped me.’
After watching the cab drive off Danny opted to walk into Soho rather than catch the tube, partly to save on the fare but also because he kept fit by walking everywhere, harbouring a dislike of gyms dating back to his schooldays where locker rooms were a place of ritual humiliation. Taking his Walkman from his rucksack he put on the headphones, listening to Freddie Mercury’s solo album, Mr Bad Guy. Danny’s favourite track was ‘Living on My Own’. He must have played the song a hundred times, even if it did cut a little close to the bone, or perhaps because it cut so close.
Arriving at Greek Street, Danny found that Soho was subdued, the bars were quiet, the jazz revues were closed and many of the famous theatres were shuttered by the recession. A few hardy souls sat outside the Italian coffee bars, wrapped up in thick coats, smoking like wannabe Cold War spies. Having browsed the pubs Danny spotted a free table at the back of Village Bar. Ordinarily the venue would be busy but tonight, on a Wednesday and in the middle of winter, there was enough life that he wouldn’t feel lonely but not so much that he couldn’t study. Village Bar had opened the year before, breaking with the legacy of gay venues that shielded the identity of their patrons with blacked-out windows and secluded locations. Village stood at the junction of Old Compton and Wardour Street with bright lights and clear windows, showing off its occupants rather than sheltering them.
Inside Danny ordered an Irish coffee mixed with whiskey, demerara sugar and topped with whipped cream – caffeine, alcohol and dinner all in one. Bringing it back to his table he opened his books, hoping for no more interruptions unless that interruption was a handsome stranger. An hour before closing, Danny made a call to his flat from the payphone at the back of the bar. He heard the news that Mark had returned with another guy, making no reference to the fact that his previous hook-up had been rescued. It was safe to come home. Danny said, ‘That’s great.’
Except suddenly he didn’t feel great. He was about toreach the milestone of twenty-five years old – a quarter of a century. Danny had never told another man that he loved him. And he had never been told that he was loved.
Danny was about to pack up his books and head home when a man entered the bar, wearing a tailored grey suit and a cashmere scarf, looking like an investment banker who had wandered into the wrong establishment. At a guess the man was in his late twenties. Statuesque and stoic, with broad shoulders and coal-black hair, he attracted plenty of attention. He took a spot at the bar and ordered a bottle of beer. Danny assessed his own clothes. Dressed for warmth and comfort, he was wearing Topman jeans, two pairs of coarse wool socks, a thermal undershirt and a buttercup-yellow hoodie. He didn’t stand a chance.
Holding off packing away his books Danny idled at his table watching as various guys made various moves on the well-dressed newcomer, each politely rebuffed. On most days Danny lacked the confidence to approach a stranger sober. But tonight he accepted that he needed to stop hoping for the universe to arrange charming accidental encounters. They were a fantasy. It was time to take matters into his own hands. And hadn’t he done a good deed this evening? A stranger for a stranger. Danny’s thoughts were often like this – shot through with spurious reasoning. But what was there to lose? If it didn’t work out, he was leaving anywayand he calculated the humiliation would be short lived – fading by the time he hit the street.
With no basis for believing he might succeed where the other guys had failed Danny walked to the bar under the pretext of a drink order he couldn’t afford. Standing beside the man he noticed an earthy cologne, the expensive blends made from crushed seed pods and natural oils. While waiting for his second Irish coffee to be mixed and before he lost his nerve, Danny blurted out, ‘Who are you waiting for?’
The handsome man turned to him. His eyes were forest green. Danny had been convinced they would be brown.
‘I’m not waiting for anyone.’
It was the slimmest of openings and trying not to fumble the opportunity, Danny replied, ‘I’m not waiting for anyone either.’
Though the line wasn’t bad, the timing of his Irish coffee was lousy. The overzealous bartender had decorated it with spirals of squirty cream so that it looked like a kid’s ice-cream sundae. Danny was convinced that the immaturity of his drink would snuff out this fragile connection. He should have ordered one of those amber spirits served on the rocks that men in suits sip while smoking cigars. Except this guy didn’t make fun of him. In fact, it was hard to imagine him making fun of anyone, he was so proper and polite. Danny suggested, ‘How about we not wait for anyone together?’
Seated at Danny’s table they introduced themselves.
‘I’m Luis.’
Sensing that the question was lurking Luis explained that he was Spanish, born in a small city Danny probably had never heard of.
‘Try me.’
‘Cádiz.’
Danny hadn’t heard of it. It was in the south of the country, Luis said, on the coast, a historic trading hub with whitewashed houses, ancient fortifications and a cathedral. Danny pointed out that he too was from a small town on the coast, also one Luis had probably never heard of.
‘Try me.’
