Touching From a Distance by Deborah Curtis Read Free Book Online Page A

engaged was ‘uncool’. Ian lived his life by a conflicting code that changed depending on who was there at the time and what he could gain from it.
    Ian left his relatively secure job at Rare Records and hired a stall on Butter Lane antique market, round the corner from the record shop. This was an obvious bad move. I don’t think he ever made enough money to cover the rent. Initially all the stock came from Ian’s personalrecord collection. He bought new stock only once and the proprietors of the market complained that Ian’s goods were not strictly antique. I had taken a job at Macclesfield Borough Council and was working in an office next door to an auctioneers’. One lunch hour I bought a job lot of 78 r.p.m. discs, hoping that they would satisfy Ian’s critics. I don’t know if Ian actually sold any records while he had the stall. His collection diminished, but he never made any money. Even his prized copy of Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World, with the cover picturing David Bowie wearing a dress, was allowed to go. Jubilantly, he told me he had sold it to a young boy, but it transpires that he had given it to Helen Atkinson Wood. He had managed to keep in touch with some of his old friends, despite forbidding me to see mine – including a male penfriend I’d had since I was thirteen.
    Eventually, Ian could no longer pay for his seat on the indoor market and began looking for a job. He applied to the Civil Service and was given a post at the Ministry of Defence in Cheadle Hulme. Just before he took up the post, he spent a day in Manchester with Aunty Nell. She helped him to sort out his wardrobe for his new job and he had his hair cut in a smarter, more spiky style. They had their photographs taken in a photo booth and they both looked so happy. Ian laughed when he told me later that Aunty Nell was pleased about his new job, but warned him that there might be homosexuals in the Civil Service. After a few months with the Ministry of Defence, he was offered another job working for the Manpower Services Commission in Sunley Building, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, which was much nearer home.
    We spent almost every weekend at Ian’s parents’ house. This occasionally annoyed his father but he lost his temper only once and even then nothing was said to me directly. Ian liked to take me to the gay pubs and clubs around Manchester, especially the Rembrandt, Napoleon’s and the Union. There was an old transvestite at the Union who called himself ‘Mother’ and sang bawdy songs. It embarrassed me that we behaved in such a voyeuristic manner, but I was embarrassed even more when one night we bumped into a couple of friends from Macclesfield. When the flustered ‘Helios’ were over, weembarked upon a gay pub crawl. Our friends introduced us to some of the regulars and Ian was able to talk to them for a long time. He had an intense interest in the way other people lived, especially those who led lives which were out of the ordinary. I didn’t want to know about the poor unfortunate man who was beaten up in the toilets on Park Green in Macclesfield.
    Other times we would go to the Bier Keller on Saturday nights and get legless before catching the last bus home. Ian’s mum and dad would wait up for us. I would sleep in Ian’s bed and he would sleep on the living-room settee. At bedtime, Ian always insisted on going to the bathroom first. He was still obsessed with his complexion. He wore antiseptic cream most of the time like thick make-up, adding an extra layer when he went to bed. His friends and mine thought it rather funny, but he never went anywhere without checking his skin.
    Ian liked to laugh with his parents and he pulled his mum’s leg all the time. He would say something utterly ridiculous while just out of earshot and she would pop her head out of the kitchen with a look of disbelief, to see Ian sliding down into the chair in a silent, quivering laugh. His jokes were always teasing, but never