Francis Bacon in Your Blood by Michael Peppiatt

to go to a queer club where there was music and we all danced,’ he says. ‘Then one evening it was raided by the police, I think they were having one of their crackdowns on what they called so appetizingly the “filthspots” of London, and about twenty of us were carted off to the station for the night. Then in the morning we had to appear before the magistrate. And at one point the magistrate said to me, “Mr Deakin, did you not find it odd to be in a club where men were dancing with men.” And I didn’t really know what to say, as he stared at me with that perfectly frightful wig on. So I simply replied: “I’ve only just arrived from Liverpool, m’Lud. How could I possibly be expected to know how people in London behave?” In the end we all got off. But those sorts of thing used to happen quite often . . . Good thing they never came to the attention of my wife.’
    â€˜Your what, John?’
    â€˜You might well take on that look of aghast surprise, my dear. Who could say you haven’t every reason? But I am a married man.’
    John enjoys my astonishment for a moment, then goes on mellifluously, ‘Yes, married, my dear. A long story – I wouldn’t dream of boring you with it.’
    Fill his glass and wait until he feels he’s built up the right suspense. There. Oh go on. Tell us.
    â€˜Well, if you really want to know, it all began in Rome, where I happened to be shortly after the war. Things were not, I might say, going altogether swimmingly. Of course I was attempting, asalways, to eke out a meagre living, to scratch a subsistence, with photography. Then I had to go and pick up some dreadful tough, and of course find myself the very next day, at dawn, lying in the gutter with nothing, ab-so-lute-ly nothing. All my money gone, need I say, but what was far far worse, the very tools of my trade. Not a sign of my beloved camera. Nor, of course, of that gruesome lout I’d had the misfortune to fall in with.
    â€˜Well, as luck would have it, that same day, while I was at my wits’ end wondering what to do, a man I knew from Milan made me what you might call a proposition. Of course at that time, there were all kinds of women, uprooted by the war, who would do anything, and I mean just anything, to get British nationality. It turned out that this man was in Rome looking for a British subject who would be willing to marry an Eastern European lady temporarily living in Milan. He asked me if I were free. Mmm. Of course, I had precious little choice in the whole affair. Stranded as I was, with neither money nor the wherewithal of my profession. That ruffian, I might add, had stripped the very coat off my back.
    â€˜In essence, what the lady proposed was the return fare, in first class of course, marriage and a cash payment. Who was I to decline so timely an offer? I thanked my lucky stars and got straight on the train to Milan.
    â€˜The whole thing might have been acutely embarrassing, but it was arranged with such discretion that it turned out to be really rather enjoyable. The lady in question was absolutely charming. We met in that very good hotel in Milan and took tea together. Very civilized. When we’d finished tea and decided on the exact, mmm, details, we went for the civil ceremony. I need perhaps not add, my dear, that we dispensed with union at the altar.
    â€˜My wife was quite marvellous throughout. We shook hands afterwards, like dear friends, and I got back on the train for Rome, clutching the money. The moment I got off at Termini, I went to my special little shop and bought the most marvellous new camera. But instead of going straight back to my miserable hotelroom, I had to go like a fool to one of those unspeakable bars where I’d sworn I’d never set foot again. Of course I got quite hopelessly drunk. Exactly what happened, my dear, like many other events in my life, remains a matter of pure conjecture.