Finish Line

Faaaackin' hell, I feel like Frodo at the end of Return of the King. I'm at the top of a flaming Mount Doom and I couldn't give a monkeys because I've finished. It is finished (sorry had to go Biblical). I am done! Funnily enough, I had a pre-completion cry because stupid me decided to listen to Grey Havens. My nerdishness around those films knows no bounds. Apart from the Titanic soundtrack, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King will guarantee me to cry. I used to think that if I ever became an actress (still a chance, Lady London will tell you about my dramatics) I would be able to cry on command by just recalling that music. "Miss London, you need to be emotional in this scene. Do you need some fake tears?"
"Move man. Bring my my phone and my Beats!"
Back to the main event. You know I write out of order. I don't write a story from A - Z because... well that's kinda boooorrriiiiing (Villanelle yell). I write the bits that are interesting first. So usually sex. Fight scenes. Banter. Food. Oh my god, so much food! More banter, and probably my favourite dinner scene between two characters ever. Obvs because Giuseppe Nardiello is one of them. Actually, there are two and Nonna Mamione is one of them.
I can be honest about why this book was so hard to finish. In between traumatic events which have been far too frequent, I'd like to end my trial period of trauma until 2031 please and thank you God, I didn't really want to say goodbye to these folks.
Nick and Gina have been my bezzies for the better part of a decade. Tony has been winding up Lydia for eight years. Rocco has succeeded in taming his storm, Anna, Luca has found his peace with Frankie, Auntie Belinda is getting it good and regular from OG Massimo (my true sugar daddy) Sofia is making herself content with Paul who is concentrating on being a good husband, a good son to a woman who never had her own children and keeping his wife in booze. Durante Da Canaveze has made Ella settle down. Ella! The freest of free spirits who couldn't give a fuck about anything but her son and Arlo Vitale. Speaking of, that little fucker is a big boy now. With a degree and everything! I've wrapped everyone up with Paperchase wrapping paper, with nice little bows and invisible sellotape.
So Beppe and Mimi were both like, "Excusi, what the fuck about us?"
Hot Muse Hank totally told me "Tell them both to do one, we're not ready! Too much junk is happening right now."
So I did. In the middle of all the shit that goes down for both of them, I needed a break. It was too much and too close to home and you all know I can't and don't write when I'm emotional. I cannae do it, Captain, I just don't have the power!
After Hot Muse Hank told me to get rid sharpish, Beppe and Meems were like "Well, fine. Fuck you too!" And disappeared into the night, never to be seen. Until Jack motherfucking Garrett and his voice of knicker-wetting gold. There's one song, and it rocks up on the soundtrack for Murano and the story came at me again, like it was playing at the IMAX. I saw Beppe and Mimi falling in love. I saw their wedding in Technicolor, down to the type of shoes Bep wears and the colour of Mimi's dress. I saw everyone backing Beppe up when he needed it. Anna being such a badass and yet fearful of losing the only friend she really has (Rocco doesn't count, he pounds her). Mimi told me where her piercings were and Beppe his favourite holiday. I love these people like they are family and half of why I burst into tears last night, wasn't just relief, or happiness, it was goodbye. I didn't want to let them go, they're bloody hilarious!
Anyway! It's done. Finito. Hot Muse Hank gave himself a pat on the back and snored off. I stayed awake until 2am, thinking what I'm going to do with myself, now my babies are all grown up causing havoc in their own world without me.
It woke Hot Muse Hank enough to remind me to finish my Japanese dragon story. To finish Carole and Aneurin's tale. To sort out Taemar and Jack. Or do that murder at a wedding story which has written itself bar a few details. Or deal with those four women and a gun in East London. Maybe I could think about that fantasy novel I started years ago or fill out the short story about a director and her Irish seducer. And now that the biggest weight is off my shoulders with Murano, I feel I can dedicate that time to those tales.
Until edits. I mean, it could be 112,400 of utter shit and needs a hella load of work to even begin to be read-worthy (you read that right. 112,400 words). Or I'm just gaslighting myself and I need to chill out. I'm chilled. I'm happy. Truly, for the first time in a long time with the words I've typed to reach my "The End"...
Happy. Me.
I feel... I feel... I feel pretty good.

Beloved

“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

Chloe Anthony Wofford “Toni” Morrison. It’s been a few weeks since she passed away, and it’s taken just as long for me to put what I felt into some semblance of understanding. That quote, one of many that blossomed from her fingertips, from her lips, from her beautiful mind, convinced me and I know thousands of others to put pen to paper and write what they wanted to read.

Toni Morrison epitomised the black American female experience. She wrote for black women and won Pulitzer Prizes (1988) and Nobel Prizes (1993). To a young black girl in England writing about girls getting lost in a shopping centre to get into secondary school, she was aspirational. Her calm and grace and the beauty in her work, the evocation that whispered like a memory, the pain felt chronic, the world tangible to the point where I lived the lives of the women she wrote about.

In a world where we are being suffocated with the “fake news” narrative, to lost Ms Morrison now, when we are so much in desperate need of her wisdom, of her truth, of her ability to cut straight through nonsense (sexist and racist) it cuts like a knife to know she’s no longer of this world. The words that remain are just as important, if not even more so now.

It reminds me to keep going, to keep writing, to speak the truth, to make my voice, Black and British as it is, be heard. There are still books that I want to read. There are still books that haven’t been written. Ms Toni told me to write it. I’m gonna write.

Perfume

Little known fact about me. I have about thirty odd bottles of perfume. My olfactory senses are legendary. I can tell what a woman and sometimes a man is wearing if they drift past me. I’ve scented Philosophy, Gucci and Byredo on people sitting next to me on the tube – often because they’re wearing far too much of it and I’m slowly suffocating while an episode of The Good Place reminds me about treating my fellow human beings, rather than throwing said person off at the next stop.

I have my Spring fragrances like Jo Malone’s Red Roses or Peony and Blush Suede, my Autumn fragrance, Miller Harris’ Peau Santal, my winter moves Tom Ford’s Tuscan Leather and YSL’s Black Opium and my Summer vibes are about Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her Musc for the evenings and daytime is about Calvin Klein’s Truth an oldie but a goodie.

I used to wear Armani’s Code and was called “Dangerous” by a guy who passed me. Insulting and complimentary. It reminds me of some great times, when I was running around London like a dervish, causing all kinds of trouble. I had to stop my mother from “borrowing” my bottles because she decided she liked the smell. I used to wear Coco Mademoiselle non-stop until Lady London nicked it and then bought her own bottle. So now the scent is associated with arguing with Lady London that you can’t replace perfume without buying a new bottle. She disagreed; basing her counter argument on the fact that she’d given birth to me. So I owed her. I reminded her that she’d been fine until she had my brother. So it’s his fault.

On the masculine side, I’m a fan of sandalwood. Nothing gets the knickers off faster than the scent of wood and leather. I don’t know what it is, like it’s similarity to the working man, getting his hands dirty, working his muscles to chop wood, how good an open fire smells on a fireside rug… Tom Ford has a knack for scents that emphasise a man’s virility. Helmut Lang has the cleanest male scent – it’s the scent equivalent of a tailored suit. I put this in An Art To It, how Art used fresh lime as his fragrance. I swear to you, it works, smells incredible and it tastes nicer than a squirt of Gucci.

Smell is such an important sense, not only that it creates intense sensations instantaneously, but it revives memories, leads one into temptation, clears the mind, transports you across the world and sends a tingle from your throat, through your tummy to give your buttocks a squeeze, tickle your knees and caress your ankles.

Now I’ve talked myself into a horny pretzel, I’m going to apply this to an Italian or two.