Alan Smith commands my pen

I woke up in the middle of the night, again. This had become quite a common occurrence in the last few months; ever since I had met Nigel. I remember the first time I saw him. He was sitting at the piano at a fundraiser I was attending. Being a public figure this is something I have to do quite often, and they’re usually very dull; but not with Nigel. He took me to one side, said something in French, and we proceeded out of the door, ignoring everyone on our way. When we got outside, we climbed into his old Morris Minor and he took out a spliff. I had only smoked once before, at university, but there was something so reassuring about Nigel I felt it would be stupid not to. He was a most peculiar man. I told me he lived with his parents, but worked as a freelance reporter for a confectionary magazine. I didn’t even realise there were confectionary magazines. He told me of his upbringing in Salford, and of the subsequent move to Kensington his parents had made as soon as he had left for university. He had attended Reading University and had read Sociology with Political Sciences, but that ultimately working as a freelance confectionary reporter was his goal in life. As far as I could gather, his father had been a closet homosexual and had worked as a mechanic, which I thought must have been very difficult. His mother had been a chef in her early twenties, but had retired when he was born and, apart from a brief spell where she taught at a public school, hadn’t really worked since.
I told him of my insanely dull life. Of my typically ‘born-in-the-sixties’ hippy parents and the consequent pains of camping with people called Merlin, Galahad and Star. I told him more than even my closest friends knew. He was weird enough to have no ulterior motive, which was my main reason for liking him; and yet we couldn’t be more different. He was so exciting, and seemed to exude a certain confidence that just blew me away. I really liked him. I think I loved him.
It was a purely plutonic, you must understand. It was a purely innocent sort of love that we shared; we would talk for hours on end about everything and anything, and when there was nothing left to talk about we would go outside and lie under the stars, admiring their beauty. It was not uncommon for use to fall asleep together under a blanket right there in the garden.
I woke up with a start after one such night with a soft drizzle falling on my face. Nigel was nowhere to be found so I went into the house. We always stayed at mine what with him only having a small flat in Hackney. The kitchen was a terrible mess, though he had made me a cup of tea and some crumpets. Under the pot of jam was a note; it read, ‘John, might see you soon, though I am quite busy. Hope to stay in touch, Nigel’. The words confused me as I read them. He was quite busy? He had always made time for me, ever since our first chance encounter at the fundraiser I had always been his priority. I had loved him.
I shrugged off the note, assuming I had just misunderstood whatever was meant by it. I took a big sip from the mug of tea and picked up the smaller of the two crumpets as I advanced through the halls and into the lounge, where we had always taken breakfast. As I entered the room my heart sank. Where once there had been my priceless collection of seventeenth century vases there was now a void; a space that screamed of treachery and deceit. As I scanned the room I noticed most of my prized possessions were now gone, including my grandfather’s war medals and countless other pieces that only he knew were valuable. Where one particularly important jade ornament had stood there was another note. This time it read, ‘Never trust the weird ones, John. I love you’.