1994

This is a polaroid taken by infamous fashion ogre Karl Lagerfeld during a Paris fashion shoot for (I think; my memory is very shaky on this point) Vanity Fair. Its beautiful subject is another of my exes -- the second of the only two who matter. His name is Matthew. The photo was taken just a few days after we met.

He wasn't officially modelling, though he did wind up in some of the published pictures: blurry, in the background, wearing a kilt, jumping in the air. Officially, he was some sort of assistant. The real model was Wallis Montana, wife and muse of another fashion heavyweight, Claude Montana. The shoot had her impersonating her namesake, the Duchess of Windsor, in exile; Matthew's distant figure was meant, absurdly, to be the disgraced ex-King Edward.

The fashion industry is a hateful thing, a whiffling, slavering jabberwock of vanity, greed and deceit. It feeds on youth and hope, luring them in with pretty, glittering bait and then devouring, tossing aside the tattered remnants and grinding them underfoot. Its hunger for new victims is constant and unassuagable. Matthew was just one tiny morsel. The monster probably didn't even feel him going down.

Which is partly responsible for what happened. Partly, I am. For the most part, probably, it was nobody's fault. Matthew says the latter, but in my heart I don't believe him.

There are some stories it may not be possible to tell; certainly not all at once. Probably they are better left untold. Still, this is the tiny, glancing start of one of them. A vague hint. A tease. A rumour.

Rumour might say: this darling boy is one of the gaping black holes in my life. Well -- not him, perhaps, but what happened. I dare not get too close or it will suck me in. Things live in that darkness. They do not forget and will never forgive. Bitter, guilty, awful things, that know the true extent of my treachery and weakness and failure; and hate me for it. Things that remember the mundane horrors of the locked psychiatric ward. Things that remember that bottomless well of pain. That remember walking away from it.

"Why didn't you save him?" they hiss.

Why didn't I?

Of course, we survived -- we were the heroes after all, and it was only halfway through the book. We are still friends, sort of. We don't see each other often: he doesn't cope well with the city and visits only rarely; and in the country there is Nigel, his other half, who is always civil but sees me, understandably and perhaps rightly, as the enemy.

But we survived.
Posted by matt at September 4, 2003 11:12 PM

Comments

The strange, so called "civilised" society that we live in, and that complex, confusing thing called "life" can do the most monstrous things to individuals from time to time.

It's easy as a bystander (or indeed as an active participant) especially with the dubious benifit of hindsight, to feel responsible when these things happen. But often, we are as much the victims of these events ourselves.

If we really understood what was going on at the time and fully grasped what course of action we might take to avoid the terrible outcome, or maybe to rescue someone from it before it was too late, would we not choose that route?

If we acknowledge that denial is a sometimes necessary and useful tool to allow us to make the most of our transient existence, then we must also accept that hindsight is an evil weapon with which we beat ourselves.

It should be reprocessed to extract any small morcels of understanding that can be gained from it, then consigned to the fiery furnace to be melted down.

Posted by: Shyboy at September 5, 2003 10:25 AM
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