Faith #GBArmy ❤ @FaithVincent3 - Twitter Profile

21 days ago

Hello, Vicky. First things first: those trousers were a mistake. Yes, I know you loved them. And yes, I know that says far more about me than it does about you. People still talk about you, you know. Though perhaps that’s not surprising. You had a remarkable talent for collecting people and, more importantly, keeping them. Some of the friends you made when you were four years old were still your closest friends at twenty-three. I think about that often. Not because it’s unusual. Because it’s beautiful. Then again, there were always people. The friends from school. The friends from university. The people you lived with whose lives we somehow knew in extraordinary detail despite never having met them. The California friends. The travelling friends. You’d talk about all of them with such affection and curiosity that they became familiar long before they became real. I never found any of it boring. I loved the updates. The stories. The endless cast of characters. People who’d never met somehow became familiar because you’d already brought them to life. A sort of heavenly soap opera. And when Dancing Queen comes on, you’re still somehow in the room. Actually, I think that’s because stories outlive the people who tell them. Talking of which, I can still remember your number. 4568. I was fourteen when it became a ritual. I’d get home from school and, sooner or later, dial those four numbers. Not because anything had happened. Not because I needed anything. Just because that was what I did. Looking back, I don’t think I appreciated what a gift that was. Having somebody who makes you feel seen. Somebody who makes the world feel a little safer. You did that for me. When I came out, your complete lack of interest in making a fuss was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. You somehow managed to make it seem entirely unremarkable. Which, of course, was precisely the point. I still have your painting hanging on my wall. The A-level one. It’s a fish and a bottle of Jif. Which sounds ridiculous until you see it. The composition is beautiful. The light is beautiful. And there is something quietly poetic about the whole thing. The sort of poetry that can’t be taught. Perhaps that’s what talent looks like. I’ve spent years looking at art and yet that painting still stops me. Not because it belongs to you. Because it deserves to. Do you remember that tiny box room? Of course you do. You were studying your palm and announcing that your life line meant you’d have a short life. I remember rolling my eyes. I still don’t believe a word of it. But this year it will be twenty-five years since you died. And there are moments when that feels impossible. Not because time has stood still. Quite the opposite. Because so much life has happened since. I have stood on that beach in Malaysia. I have looked out at the same sea. And even now it feels impossible to reconcile the suddenness of it all with the scale of what followed. You were twenty-three. And somehow the world just carried on. The children who never got to call you Mum. The grandchildren you never got the chance to spoil rotten. The catastrophically unsuitable men who would undoubtedly have continued appearing in your life accompanied by persuasive arguments as to why everyone else had judged them unfairly. The stories we never got to hear. The people we never got to meet. The chapters that never arrived. “O Robert.” Yes. I know. I worry sometimes that I’ll forget things. Not the important things. The little things. The sound of your voice. The smell of Dewberry. The earrings you were wearing when I said goodbye. I know. Of all the things. But there they are. And perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps people don’t disappear all at once. Perhaps they survive in fragments. A painting. A perfume. A phone number. A story. A pair of trousers that were never remotely to my taste. A way of saying someone’s name.

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Faith #GBArmy ❤

@FaithVincent3

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