Touching From a Distance Read Online Free PDF Page B

However, while Oliver was drinking at the Park Tavern, he struck up a friendship with Robert from Copperfield Antiques and John Talbot who toured the antiques fairs. They were in the habit of throwing parties rather more frequently than anyone else we knew and the atmosphere of those evenings will remain with me forever. One of the happiest times of my life ensued. An impressionable sixteen-year-old, with Keats’s ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ ringing in my ears, I fantasized that one day we could all return to the days of wizards and knights in shining armour.
    The antique shop was a listed building, barely in the town centre of Macclesfield. Each time we went to a party there, Ian tapped on the door and it was opened the smallest peep. For some reason I always anticipated rejection, but we were never refused admission. There would be a roaring coal fire in the grate, the firelight licking the stone walls and ancient paving stones, camp-sounding music and often something to eat. The food would be elaborately laid out like a feast, with a huge bowl of punch into which everyone poured whatever they had brought with them.
    As the evening wore on, guests would disrobe and squeeze into the shower together. Ian was reluctant to join in with such antics – he was more likely to be found standing in a corner smoking. One evening a rather plain but nubile young girl slid naked between us while we were in one of the four-poster beds. Ian was horrified and kicked her out again. Yet Ian wasn’t always opposed to the presence of other females. When he disappeared for a long time one night I asked Kelvin to find him for me. When Kelvin also disappeared I began to search the house myself and discovered them both in a bedroom I had never seen before with Hilary, a blonde whose beauty was marred only by eyes that looked in opposite directions.
    On one occasion, rather than make the long walk home, we slept over. The walls of the bedroom were unplastered and a wooden ‘chandelier’ with candles hung from the ceiling. Five of us tried to squeeze into bed but eventually Oliver was dispatched to sleep on the chaise longue. Ian insisted I lie on my side next to the wall and somehow he managed to lie on his back. He wouldn’t allow me to sleep next to John because he didn’t want us to touch and neither would he turn his back on John. I lay and watched the water running down the stone wall – it was a very long night. The next morning John leapt out of bed first, smeared his face with Oil of Ulay, and made coffee to warm us up. His pugs, Oscar and Bertie, were released from the kitchen and we sat shivering, the coals of the fire long dead and the revels of the party a pleasant memory.
    The atmosphere was very ‘Noel Coward’ – there was a certain pride in its elitism. One evening a couple of Macclesfield yobs were barred entry. When they asked why, John replied, ‘Because you’re disgusting!’ At times it was insisted that the guests all wore hats or a particular type of clothing. The boys posed in the Macclesfield Arms wearing tailcoats, aloof and disinterested in the rest of the customers. All those dashing and handsome young men and most of them eyeing each other!
    John Talbot regarded Ian as being quite ordinary, which he was in comparison to some of the eccentrics in the antiques world. Ian exercised a quiet enjoyment of these friendships and nobody seemed tomind when they realized he wasn’t gay. While Ian did wear make-up, it was fashionable at the time and he didn’t stand out as being overly flamboyant in his dress and manner. To John Talbot it was Ian’s strong personality that projected itself and it was clear that nobody influenced him apart from his idols. Oliver Cleaver’s parents forbade him to visit John at the shop – in John’s opinion, missing the point that Ian Curtis had a much greater effect on their son. At the same time, Ian’s parents had begun to blame Ian’s lifestyle on Oliver.
    It was well known that,