Crossing the line - 3. Donald Mitchell and the naked policeman

The artist Donald Mitchell was something of a gay icon; sometimes billed as the ‘gay Lucien Freud’, in public he tended to bridle at this epithet and say that he was The Donald Mitchell. But Mitchell did nudes, principally male nudes, unflinching and sometimes akin to Freud’s work, though with Mitchell there was a twist. It wasn’t simply the rumours that he slept with his models; the pictures had a strong sexual air, some of promise, others of rejection, and some positively post-coital with significant tumescence. In other words, Mitchell cultivated the image of a dirty old man, albeit one who could dazzle with his handling of paint.

In the new show, Mitchell was going to be paired with a young photographer, Mirko whose black and white images of naked men were done in stunning close-up, heavily cropped and unflinchingly intense. It promised to be an interesting juxtaposition. The doors to the Tramshed Gallery proclaimed that the show involved graphic nudity and images of a sexual nature.

“Oh, good!”

Dan’s response was a nervous smile.

Thankfully, the gallery was still quiet. Heads turned briefly, but then everyone went back to their conversations. I was aware that we were a somewhat mismatched pair. Dan tall, blond, and rather handsome, but wearing his M&S work suit, though with a shirt I’d never seen before, and which I suspected might be new for the occasion. I was shorter, mousy yet rather lively and wearing my favourite corduroy suit, rather an old-fashioned cut, stylish and roomy with plenty of pocket room for pens and notebooks.

Amanda greeted us effusively and introduced us to Mae, 40-something with long grey hair and an intimate and confiding manner. She was an old mate of Amanda’s; they’d been at art college together and certainly I counted her as a friend. But she was the show’s curator, so I had my duty chat with her, whilst Dan went off to the temporary bar that had been set up at the end of the room. In fact, Mae was lovely company and full of fascinating gossip, much unrepeatable in my articles, about both artists and the complexities of dealing with them.

The main room with the bar had the tamer images; Amanda’s eyes twinkled as she explained that the spicier stiff was in a back room. Things were still relatively quiet, just knots of people with drinks. None of the images had acquired a cluster round them, I thought that might happen later, so a duty tour of the pictures first and socialise later. The images were well chosen, creating some intriguing juxtapositions and plenty of flesh, oodles of it. There were penises galore, all shapes and sizes lovingly detailed in paint by Mitchell or captured in alarming close-up by Mirko.

I found Dan standing transfixed in front of a large Mitchell of a black-haired young man, trim and very well endowed, looking wary but sexy in a scene clearly set in Mitchell’s studio. The model had a sort of ‘how much will you pay’ kind of look; it frankly wasn’t one of Mitchell’s best, but it was striking.

“I know him”, Dan gestured to the guy in the picture.

“As in carnally or a mate?”

“Carnally? Fuck no. I worked with him at my second nick, he was 100% straight, girlfriend, kiddie and another on the way, saving up to get a house. I’d have never guessed. Where d’you think Donald Mitchell met him?”

“I gather he frequents bars, and simply asks interesting guys.”

Amanda appeared, “Amazing how many people said yes to Donald. And yes again”, she wiggled her eyebrows.

“You mean?”, Dan struggled to put the image Amanda conjured together with his idea of his colleague.

“If Donald asks, few say no.”

“But Greg was straight.”

“You know him?”

“Knew, yea. Worked with him. He was a copper, straight as a die.”

Amanda looked amused, “People are not always as straight as you think. There’s another of him in the back room, check it out before things get too crowded”.

With that she evaporated, like the Cheshire Cat, and I wondered about her comment, was she admitting to a queer flirtation of her own. We made our way to the back room and there in all his tumescent glory was Greg again. It was definitely post-coital, and those eyes were now anything but wary.

“Fuck me, the sly bastard.” I forbore from saying anything. “He was a nice enough bloke, but, you know, nothing special, yet here...”

“He looks alive. Mitchell did that, does that to people.”

“You think he simply met Greg in a pub and asked?”

I shrugged, “Or one of Greg’s mates’d done it already. Might have fixed them up and if Mitchell liked what he saw…”, I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.

“So, Greg might have known what he was getting into?”

“And may be thought he was resistant to Mitchell’s charms. But the old bugger seems to have something. In spades.”

We moved on, and I tried to forget these were sexy images of nubile men with visible erections, and think of them as art. I failed. By the time we returned to socialise, I was already planning my article in my head. Dan went over to talk to Mae, I think hoping to learn more about Mitchell’s working methods, but I gather all Mae know was the finished result.

“Well, he’s very cute and not unintelligent I gather. But my dear, a policeman!”

Ron was a blast from my activist days, and whereas most people I’d known then had evaporated into a more suburban life, Ron had remained, larger than life and twice as bitchy. He was tall, and very bulky, wearing one of his trademark highly patterned sweaters and toning cords.

“An ex-policeman, and a literate one. He gardens too.”

“Ooh, aren’t you lucky!” Part of Ron’s camp manner was protective. He’d say the unsayable and pretend it was funny, which it could be, if you weren’t on the receiving end of his barbs. He smiled down at me sweetly, “You know what they say, once a copper, always a copper.” I simply glared and turned away but not before I heard a final riposte, “Getting touchy in our old age?”.

Ron’s goad was deliberate; he might cultivate the image of the old roué (he was a good ten years older than I), but I knew he still harboured the passion and the political imperatives from our younger days. I walked over to the bar and was half-way down a glass when a voice whispered in my ear, “Talking to bitter old queers is bad for your health.”

I grinned. I didn’t see a lot of Bart and Martin nowadays, but always enjoyed their company. You wouldn’t rely on them in a crisis, but they could be guaranteed to lighten a mood.

“In a right mood, isn’t he?”

“What’s narked Ron this time?”

I gestured over to Dan, who seemed to have happily settled in the group around Mae; he saw me, and I waved him over.

“Who’s he?”

But Martin was quicker than Bart on the uptake, “No! Your latest? My, my…”

“He’s an ex-copper.”

They both smirked, “Bet Ron didn’t like that.”

Bart and Martin had knocked around way back with Ron and I. Bart had aged gracefully, tall and slim, his blond hair shading to an elegant grey. By contrast, Martin had bulked up and was alarmingly like Mr Pickwick (luckily Dickens was his favourite author).

We were all still, technically, friends but Bart and Martin’s politics had mellowed over the years. They found Ron too fond of pushing left-wing points of view, and he found them alarmingly indifferent to what he regarded as key issues.

Dan appeared; introductions were made. To break the ice and because I knew Bart would react, I dropped the topic straight in, that Dan knew one of the sitters. The result was gratifyingly immediate, and we were soon talking about Mitchell’s methods, taking Dan out of the direct spotlight.

“Where have you been hiding him?”

I knew Martin would be curious, “You remember the fuss last year with Arthur Winston’s show?”, Martin looked puzzled, “The spitting?”

“Bloody hell. Don’t tell me that he’s THE policeman? I’m surprised he’s still speaking to you, let alone letting you bonk him.”

“He wasn’t and we weren’t, but then we met at a party and…”

“Love blossomed”, Martin grinned, he knew I’d never been a great one for romance.

“Lust more like. We had it away in Tony and Judith’s shrubbery.”

“Dirty buggers.”

“Precisely, I’m still trying to get the grass stains out!”

We all laughed. “And?”

“Well, he came for the weekend, and we just clicked. Sort of started in the middle. The sex was great and despite the differences it works. He’s fixed my garden, can cook and likes reading Father’s books.”

“Is he still a copper?”

“No, had a bit too much aggro about being gay.”

“I thought the Force was all liberal now?”

“Up to a point, Lord Copper.” Martin was an Evelyn Waugh fan, so would get the literary reference.

“Yeah, figures.”

“He works for Francis Heyward now, heading up security.”

Martin gave a low whistle, “Bart knows someone who was asked to go to one of Heyward’s parties, to provide entertainment”. We both knew what sort of entertainment that meant. Bart and Martin’s relationship was wide open.

“And?”

“He got the clap, had to drop out. So, sorry, no hot gossip. But surely Dan?”

“Strictly outdoor stuff, security on the gate and such.”

“You wait. Heyward has quite and eye and I’ll say this for Dan, he’s very easy on the eye.”

I’ve never been involved in Bart and Martin’s sexual escapades, the only parties of theirs that I’ve attended are the ones where people keep their clothes on. And I’ve never really understood how that sort of open relationship worked. But the advent of Dan might change things, we’d have to see.

As was usual with them, Bart and Martin were soon waxing lyrical about their latest project, an early Victorian house in South-East London. Following total gutting, new period style features had been installed. Needless to say, I was expected to sympathise with the iniquities of their various tradesmen.

“I don’t know how you have the energy”, and I didn’t. Bart’s eye for detail (and faults) was positively obsessive and tiring even just to listen to.

“You must come round?”

“Before you sell!”

Martin hummed and looked at Bart, “Well, we may use it ourselves and sell the existing house, as it’s getting a bit tired.”

The renovations on their existing house must be all of two years old. And I’d had the ‘you must come round’ plenty of times before, the invitation never happened. We’d meet for a meal, somewhere on neutral ground, no doubt.

--oOo—oOo—

“So how do you know them?”

Dan and I were having a post-mortem over a take-away with our feet up.

“Martin is an old university friend. Studying completely different subjects, but we clicked and stayed in contact. I don’t see them so much now; they’ve moved so far out of London they’re almost at the Channel. Still, they like it. Martin’s an accountant, a clever one, and Bart is his toy boy, house husband. Though now rather less of a boy and in fact a dab hand at doing up houses and flipping them for profit.

“Nice. They seemed friendly enough, not as bitchy as Ron.”

“Ron’s OK if you stick to art and music.”

Dan laughed, “I’ll bear that in mind next time. If there is one?”

Introducing Dan to my friends at the gallery had proved a relatively painless and gradual process, there had been a few more faces that I’d been able to present him to, but I knew that at a certain point everyone had blurred. One advantage of having friends like Ron, Bart and Martin, they stood out.

There was a corollary. Inevitable, I suppose. I met Dan’s mates.

Someone got in contact, one of the guys who still worked at his previous station, the one where he’d been most happy. A former colleague, Jerry was, finally, getting married and they were having drinks for him, a mix of men and women who currently worked with Jerry and former mates. There was a pub in town, one of the big commercial ones where you can book space, and which was convenient for trains.

I had an exhibition to view, which would give Dan a chance to natter with friends and mates. Then I’d turn up and we could use that as an excuse to leave, or not as the case may be. I admit that I rather whizzed round the gallery, I was curious about Dan’s work mates.

The pub was in a converted bank, and when I entered the main room was wonderfully elaborate, still with lots of marble, gilt and fancy plasterwork, but the noise was deafening. The sound of all these folk, chattering ninety to the dozen and the noise reverberating was stupendous. I made my way to the back, where thankfully things calmed down. The rear room was large, pretty featureless with some daubs which seemed to be being passed off as art. I heard a shout, and at the rear, sitting round a group of tables, was a bunch of blokes with a few women.

The ages were more mixed than I’d imagined, they looked happy and lively and if it wasn’t for the rather boring clean-cut nature of the men’s hair and determinedly polo-shirt, smart-casual type dress, they could have been anyone. Dan stood up and there was shuffling, room was made, and a drink appeared.

I was introduced, but I couldn’t begin to remember the faces. And the conversation was rather batting back and forth between topics, too. I seemed to have arrived in the middle of an argument about The Match, by which I presumed the recent Premiership Cup match. I was able to chip in and soon found myself in an enjoyable argument about the merits of various players. Father had been dead keen on football, and I had grown up with the game as a constant, and whilst I watched far less of it now, I still kept abreast of things and enjoyed it. And still, in theory supported Sheffield United. Dan, I think, was less interested and whilst we had a lively discussion across the table, he was talking rather more quietly to a couple, man and a woman next to him. I remembered enough that she was Kerry, and he was Mark; they were former colleagues who had moved on.

The prospective groom, Jerry, was a big, sturdy bloke who seemed rather shy of the attention. A move to toast him, led to another round of drinks. I eyed Dan and we seemed to agree to stay for a while, which was Ok. The move led me to end up with different neighbours, two guys who had been to Arthur Winston’s show with Dan the previous year and had registered that I was the guy who had written about the show. In one of those serendipitous cross currents which can occur in such chatter, Dan ended up mentioning about Greg and having seen his painting in a show, but no-one seemed to be in contact with him or knew anything of him, so it was simply an interesting anecdote.