The Mystery of Mike.

"What pursuits?" asked Julian.
"Poetry."
"Why don't you publish?"
"I don't need to. I just watch it for its development. Are you still writing?"
"I've recently picked it up again, but I'm getting into trouble."
"Why? Are you writing about people?"
"Yes."
"Are you using their real names?"
"Of course not."
"But they know who they are."
"Yes. And some of them are angry."
"Who?"
"Well, Mr Lovely Goodness, who is really John. And Kansas, who is really Bradley, and Ulrich, who is Hector, who should know better. He's got a fabulous name."
"What is it?"
"Ulrich Chevalier. I'm a bit worried about him. He is procrastinating, doubting his decisions and being terribly rude and insulting to me. I'm just taking it."
"Just ride it out. He's moved back there for a reason, and he doesn't even know what that is himself."
"I am."
"Are they really angry, or is it just a put on sort of anger."
"They are really upset. For example, I wrote about Kansas. He rang his dad and asked for me. He never asks to speak to me so I knew something was up. Don't write about me, he said. How would you feel if someone wrote about you. I'd like it very much, I said. Can I write about this phone call, I said. He didn't say anything, so I wrote about the phone call. Just a brief mention in an insignificant little happy blog. Mr Lovely Goodness saw red and deleted all blogs with any mention of him or Hermione in it. Which was most of them, because they are my dear friends and we do a lot together. So, of course, there they were. In my life. A lot. "
What do you think of this John?"
"I like him very much."
"Hmmm." Radcliffe said, and went on to talk about Mike. The remedial masseur who was now living with him.
"Tell me about him." Julian said.
"I don't think so."
"This is off the record. I promise," said Julian, who really wanted to know. Had he been married. Relationships? Kids?
"I don't care what you write about me," Radcliffe asserted, "but I have to protect Mike."
"He's a remedial masseur?" asked Julian, innocently.
"Who?" said Radcliffe. '
"Had he ever been married? Got any kids?"
"I don't know who you are referring to."
Julian gave up. Rad wasn't going to come to the party where Mike was concerned. Mike was such a private person. He'd been living with his mother and father up to his mid forties, and had kept himself away from the public eye. She resolved to meet this Mike, and perhaps to have one of his remedial massages. He was working from home, and she knew where that was. Radcliffe had moved into Chlotilde's old room and given Mike his old room plus the spare room for work, so that wasn't a problem. She would have to go when Radcliffe was at work setting up another cabaret for the intellectually starved of the West End, and he was preoccupied with Toscanini. She could wait. He thought her to be impatient, but that was years ago. Now she could wait out the chocolate Taj Mahal.
Julian and Radcliffe had once been married, and had just spent a most unusual day on the Gold Coast. He had arrived at Robina train station at 9:53 am and they had caught the bus to Burleigh Heads. And walked. Along the beach front, up the hill, around the Burleigh hill, back, down the hill, through the town, along the highway, until they came to the Magic Apple, which was an idealistic, back to the 70's, vegetarian cafe. They had stopped for a drink at the memorable ocean frontage restaurant and cafe, Mermaids, for a drink.
"I'm not eating with you." He had stated, as he ordered a cappuccino with full cream milk in a mug. Julian glumly ordered a mowerski mary, which she had never heard of before. It had a touch of horseradish in it, which turned out to be just the thing. That and vodka and tomato juice. She removed the ice blocks, one by one, and dropped them onto the sand, where they took very little time to become small pools of water and to sink down to the nether regions of the earth, where it was possible that they might become small pools of colour in the rock mass. So opal is formed.
"This is one of my favourite scenes," he said, and went on to explain about a golden book that he had as a child that had pictured the ocean with the sun glinting on the water. "Like that," he said, "with the sun glinting on the water."
It was during their walk through the township, whilst looking at the shops that he admitted to being just a touch peckish. Julian, meanwhile, had been reading every menu in sight, checking out everything on offer in the little glass windows from sushi to the nasty doughnutty pastry things in bad pie shops. Radcliffe had skipped over the road to the health food shop where Julian had bought her Samson juicer from many moons ago.
"This is more my style," he announced.
That's when Julian mentioned the Magic Apple. All vegetarian. About two and a half blocks away, which turned out to be more like seven. Radcliffe was about to turn around and walk back via the beach after four blocks, but something kept him going.
He couldn't eat onion. Almost everything seemed to have onion in it. And pepper. Nevertheless, he chose a small amount of stew, a rice and a salad and a vegetable pattie. Julian chose a dahl, a korma with too much wholemeal flour in it, and two salads, one green and one creating an unpleasant flatulance of mixed beans. Then they walked some more, on the bus route back to the Robina train station. It goes without saying that in this final solution walk of theirs, they talked. Of children. Of relationships. Of regrets. Of past friendships.

end part mikey one.