Here, I would like to say a few words about money, for as my relationship with Francis developed I came to realize how foolish it is to believe that you cannot love someone for their fortune. Of course, in the shallowest sense, this is true, but there is rarely an instance where someone spends a great deal of time with someone else in the pure pursuit of their material wealth. The effort of being with another, and of constantly concealing one’s motives, comes to outweigh any enjoyment that might be had from the cash itself. Rather, it is the cause and effect of money that can form the basis of enduring love between people. Francis had been raised all his life in the midst of a fortune the like of which I had only encountered in books and glossy magazines. He had come into it at the age of four from a poverty which, whilst not extreme by the standards of east Africa, was also beyond the realms of my experience, and which he himself remembered only as he remembered his mother: an intellectual fact disconnected from his own memories, and an indelible impression with no specific recollections to act as handholds, a sheer face in his own mind which he could not scale. It left him free to enjoy what he had to the full, without ever forgetting the privilege of doing so. He lived so easily, and with such freedom from the grinding little concerns which informed my day-to-day existence, such as whether I could pay my rent that term, or peering into my wallet the night after a binge and wincing at the empty leather, that it made his soul beautiful. His family’s extraordinary fortune, to which he himself had access only by permission, served to elevate him above the world in the same way a monk seeks to free himself through a vow of poverty. When I say we loved Francis for his money, I do not mean for one moment to diminish our friendship, for it was part of the bedrock of his nature.

6

AS I GAVE my account of my memories, night had set in, and there was noise again from Hoxton Square. The ceiling of the living room flashed blue as a police van rolled past, the lights on and the sirens off. A car pulled up outside the restaurant below, and someone jumped out of the passenger side, unleashing a wave of hip hop against the window. The new arrivals were intent on Friday night pleasure. It was a strange crowd, beautiful and loutish, a mixture of models and fashionistas fresh from warehouse shoots, bankers and journalists from Canary Wharf and local boys and girls from the housing estates. The area around my square was composed of a warren of dead ends and one-way streets. The freezing rain drove them quickly on towards 333 and Jaguar Shoes, to live hip hop, eighties electronica and cheap ecstasy. It felt good to have this concrete proof that we were not alone in the city.