More often than not he was secreted away at a table in the corner of the Seagull, scribbling poetry into his notebook. With his ink-stained fingers and floppy hair, he was different from the beer-swilling Oldcliffe lads who thought they were cool just because they liked Oasis, yet decried anything more avant-garde as being for ‘poofters’. That first time I talked to him in The Basement his eyes seemed to see right into my soul. That must sound stupid to you. He was in love with you. Or was he? Was it just infatuation, Soph? You were both so young. There was always something dangerous about him. There still is. Maybe that’s part of his attraction. I’m trembling all over and grip the steering wheel, afraid I’m about to be sick. I take deep breaths and stare out of the windscreen, trying to calm myself by looking out into the horizon, at the black silhouette of Flat Holm Island in the distance. I made some mistakes back then. We both did. I thought I could escape it all and become a different person in London.
