THE QUACK

LISTEN TO THE QUACK (also available on podcast platforms) skip introduction 3:40.

Thursday afternoon, Roman and I were on the London to Penzance train, rapidly losing confidence as we competed in a game of Friends Trivia Pursuit. Who the hell knows Joey’s sister’s name? 

It was time for Roman to be introduced to my Cornwall life. We’d met each other’s friends, gone on holiday, and moved in; the last thing on the table was staying at Mum’s. She had moved to Cornwall when I was twenty years old, creating a whole new branch to my life. Since meeting Roman, I have spoken about the places and the characters in my Cornish world, as if it were all from a TV series I was heavily invested in.

‘Guess what? Woody saved someone from drowning yesterday!’ 

 And Roman would nod and act interested, even though he had no idea who I was talking about. 

It was the launch of Richard Nott’s exhibition at the Anima Mundi gallery. Mum had been determined to make the show happen after he passed, and it had now finally come together. True to family nature, there was going to be an after party too. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to throw Roman into the mix. 

 It just so happened to be the week of the launch of my second novel, Bad Dates Club. When we arrived at Mum’s house in the evening, she had a stack of my books and champagne waiting for us. She also had cooked a whole chicken, because I may have mentioned Roman kind of likes chicken.

I decided it would be fun to give Roman a tour of the famous, quaint St Ives before the exhibition.  He had never been so far down the country, so I was excited to be the guide of the deep southwest.

 Even though this wasn’t my town, I had spent a significant amount of time there as an adult. Mum and Rich had lived for a few years in a place called Primrose Cottage overlooking the turquoise sea at Porthminster Beach. It was quite a magical and quirky home; they’d stored their gin in a vintage pigeon hole cabinet and made fire pits in the garden. But soon, the mayhem of the tourist season and the lack of space got the better of them, and so they moved a few miles out of town.

I had described St Ives as this charming little seaside town, filled with pasty shops, fudge and friendly fisherman pubs. But I had forgotten how much it had changed since my early twenties, when I was tottering along the cobbles in Top Shop heels on a mission to find a cosmopolitan cocktail. There were no cocktail bars back then, but now, there were millions. There were also a Pokémon store and a bear factory. 

‘It’s not as quaint as I thought it would be,’ Roman said, trying to be polite. 

Like an elderly person, all I could do was speak of what was there before. ‘Last time I was at The Rum and Crab Shack there were lobsters in that tank!’ ‘This café was half the size in 2014!’ ‘I don’t know why there is a pizza van on the wharf!’  

I was fully aware that my fun ‘touristy tour’ was more like a history one, but I couldn’t help it. The town was a memory landmine. And there was sadness there when reflecting on the old days. It’s almost tempting to never go back to a place like that, to just keep the town locked away as a moment in time, like a snow globe on the shelf. 

The one place which hadn’t changed was the pub, The Sloop, where Roman and I sat with a drink and watched a grumpy long faced dog shout at every other dog that went by. 

We then headed to the exhibition. 

The previous exhibition Rich had at Anima Mundi was way back in 2017. He had sat outside for most of it, smoking. It’s only now that I’ve been published that I could appreciate just how uncomfortable a private view would be for an artist. At least with me, I don’t have to watch readers read my book. 

This exhibition, ‘Etemenanki’, was the final pieces Rich ever made. He spent the last years going up to his studio whenever his body allowed and remarkably made an impressive collection. I had seen the work, but when art gets displayed in a gallery, it comes out of itself in a whole new way. The top floor, especially, where you are confronted with the three biggest pieces, lit with a single spotlight, seemed to show the suffering more than I’d like to acknowledge.

Roman and I stayed up on the top floor for a while, just talking about the piece in front of us. 

Rich and Roman never got the chance to meet. I had spent years offloading to Rich about my tragic dating life. He had thoughts about the guys I was giving time to, and got angry, like a dad would, whenever I was messed around. I once was texting some f boy who played the keyboard. Rich began to do an impression over the dinner table, making the sound of a retro beat from a Casio and miming chords. If his goal was to give me the ick, it worked. 

When I showed Rich Roman’s Hinge profile, he said, ‘Now, that’s what I am talking about!’   In our last conversation, Rich asked me to introduce him to Roman next time, and I said I would, even though I had a feeling we were too late by that point.  

A year on, Roman and I were surrounded by his paintings, and it was almost like an introduction – as if I were saying, ‘Hey, so this is Rich.’  

There were still circles of people standing around the gallery at closing time: friends, family and peers of Richard’s. Roman had met most of them and would meet them again, and some more, at Mum’s house party the next day.

The party was already shaping up to be very ‘Julia’ with 7 kg of prawns being delivered and a magician. But it was the alcohol and Dirty Dancing that was going to cause most of the drama of the party. That will all be on next week’s Quack. 

Etemenanki will be showing at the Anima Mundi Gallery until 31st October 2026.

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