” Do you see that little guy at the next table ?”
What might have been called a ‘wizend old crone’ – if it were a woman, and in a different era – gave us a three-toothed smile and uttered a cloying bonjour madame to me. His face was sly and he had an impish physique, though he must have been about 90.
” He was one of Francis Bacon’s lovers, you know. “
I suspect I wasn’t the first person Jono had told this story to, and I was of course thrilled with this unlikely link to genius, but I recoiled slightly because the wizend man crone was beggarly and leering and I wsn’t too keen on any chitchat with him.
Immediatley aware of my uneasiness, and with the mischievousness that was such an attractive part of his character, Jono smiled over at the improbable lothario, who was picking tobacco off his gey lips and about to spit it onto the dirty pavement.
” Ahmed dear – come over here and meet my new friend Jo.”
Out There & In Here 