Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It and Long for It

by Craig Taylor

  Once, while I was at university, my parents came to see me and said there was a possible match for me. I broke down in tears and actually my dad at that point told my mum to back off because I needed to finish university. My dad said no, we’re not going to force her to meet anybody, let her finish her studies. So he did stand up for me.

  When I was 23 I met the person I considered to be my first serious partner. I was beginning to settle down by that stage, and I was much more comfortable with myself. I met Ryan through friends. He was at art school in the same city, we became friends and ended up going out with each other and then we were inseparable and we both moved down to London together.

  It was a great time. We were both in our early twenties. I had just started my career. I was doing a really, really tough job and had long hours. But I loved the work that I was doing, I’d moved into Brixton with my best friend, and we had a nice flat. Before long Ryan was spending all his time in my flat, and then we just casually decided to move in together and get our own place. When you’re that young you don’t really have bad experiences to make you nervous.

  All that time my parents didn’t know that I had a boyfriend and that it was a serious relationship. We thought we were going to be together for ever and we didn’t really think about it until after he’d moved in. Then we realized there were all sorts of practical repercussions. I had to have a special ring tone on my home telephone in case my parents phoned, so he wouldn’t pick up the phone. We often kept the curtains drawn because I used to be paranoid that my parents might suddenly come unannounced. The few times that my parents made planned visits we moved all of Ryan’s stuff out of the house. He had to go round to a friend’s house. Thankfully, he didn’t have that much stuff. Or I’d have to lie and say it was my stuff, which was weird because my dad would ask why have you got a really top-spec video camera – Ryan was a video artist – and I’d have to lie and pretend that I’d just got into making films as a hobby. I had all these convoluted lies.

  All the paraphernalia that you have in a relationship: photos of each other, notes we’d written to each other, all of that had to be put away. It was tough. I did it for seven years. To someone outside they’d think, that’s crazy, how can you live like that? But you just get used to it and I’ve always had to live like that. I was essentially leading a double life.

  I’ve become much more used to leading this life, but in those days even if we went on holiday I’d be really petrified in case my parents had found out somehow. A lot of the time I’d have anxiety attacks as I came into an airport. Oh god, my dad’s going to be there. Because I had no idea how my father would react. I had no idea whether he’d be okay or whether he would disown me, which I thought was probably going to happen, or whether he would go as far as – I know this sounds ludicrous – hiring someone to come and find me and harm me. I don’t think my dad would ever do that, I’ve just been affected by representations in the media about honour killing, which is actually very very rare. But definitely that fear was there.

  Ryan’s parents couldn’t understand it. His mother would get drunk and then say to me, ‘It’s because you don’t think your parents will think my son is good enough for you.’ She couldn’t understand that had nothing to do with it. I just couldn’t reconcile being with the person I loved and also not tearing my family apart. Also, because I’m the eldest child there’s a particular responsibility. If I’d done something to bring dishonour to the family, it would have brought dishonour to my brother and my sister. I was worried that if I rebelled and told my parents then they would come down even harder on my sister and force her to marry someone, so I thought the best thing would be not to tell them.

  The funny thing is, my sister’s recently got engaged to a non-Muslim guy, and after a lot of heartache my parents have accepted it. So she’s maybe started a precedent.

  In my twenties my parents set up a match with somebody and it was disastrous. I was secretly living with Ryan, and you can imagine how awful it was for him to watch me go back home to meet somebody my parents wanted me to marry. At that point Ryan proposed to me because he just didn’t want us to be in this situation. But I thought at 25 I was too young. I didn’t want to get married yet. So I went back home and I had to meet this man. Oh, it was awful.

  Firstly what I did was deliberately dress myself down and make myself look much worse than I would do normally. I didn’t do my hair for days and days. I wanted to make myself look as physically unattractive as I possibly could. I wore this pink jumper that had baggy elbows and holes in it and a really unflattering pair of black trousers and an old pair of spectacle frames that made me look really geeky. My brother helped me. He said, ‘Yeah, you can make yourself look even worse.’ So he made me look really bad. Then this family arrived; when you have an Asian match you meet the entire family, not just the man that you’re being matched with.

  My mum made a faux pas as soon as the family arrived. There was a younger man and there was an older man who looked much older, balding and with middle-aged spread. Naturally my mum assumed it was the younger boy that I was being set up with. She said, oh, it’s very good to meet you. Then the family said, no, it’s this one, the older one with the middle-aged spread. My mum just looked horrified. I couldn’t believe it had just gone from bad to worse. This guy had no social skills whatsoever. He was still living with his parents in his late thirties and I’d had this whole other life. I could not really settle with anyone like that.

  The final nail in the coffin came when the family started talking about work. They were a really traditional and religious family. The father of this man said, ‘Well, clearly after they get married, Alina will have to give up her job to keep house.’ My dad was furious. He said, ‘I haven’t put my daughter through university for all these years for her to give up her job to become a housewife.’ So my dad again, unusually, stuck up for me and forced them to leave straightaway.

  Since then they haven’t mentioned a match again. And my relationship with Ryan ended. It went on for ages and then the strain ended up … you know, we split up for lots of reasons. We split up because the relationship ran its course and we were young when we got together. But one of the factors was the strain of having to live a double life.

  My parents occasionally make mutterings but I’m 38 now and they realize that it’s unlikely I’m going to find someone through the traditional arranged way. So it’s become less of an issue now.

  They don’t think I’ve been romantically involved with anybody. They really do believe that. They just think I’ve been immersed in my job and that I don’t want to be with anyone or I’ve been too fussy, and I think as far as they’re concerned I probably will end up being on my own and not having a family. Actually I think probably my mother would hate that and my mother’s changed a lot over the last few years. She doesn’t care who I end up with. She just wants me to be with somebody and to be happy.

  My father, I think, would much rather see me be on my own than to find out that I want to be with somebody who’s non-Muslim. As far as he’s concerned that would be two of his daughters marrying out and he’d have no more standing in the community. He says a lot of people don’t talk to him any more because he’s seen to be irreligious. He feels like he’s lost face in the community. It matters more to him what strangers think than what makes his children happy. That’s hard to defend and makes me respect him a little bit less.

  It helps to live in London. It would be horrible to be in a smaller environment. For me, London’s very anonymous. No one looks at you twice if you’re a mixed-race couple, whereas if I leave London I get stared at all the time.

  Whenever I think that it’s been tough for me, I realize it could be much tougher, actually. It’s very hard for some girls who are in London who live in smaller communities. I’ve done a lot of work in London with the Bangladeshi community and it’s difficult for young girls there to negotiate any kind of life of their own because the community’s all around them. Class and educ
ation make a massive difference in terms of how you can negotiate these things. But what’s striking is that with all the opportunity I’ve had, I’m still leading a double life, and I’m a bit older than these girls. So you can imagine for girls who aren’t in my position it’s going to be ten times worse really.

  It’s almost as though it’s incompatible to be British, Asian, Muslim, a girl and to be in a mixed-race relationship. As though the narrative is always that it ends in tragedy. But it’s not like that. Lots of us negotiate our relationships. They have to be very carefully managed but what we’re trying to do is negotiate our way to a situation where we can have both. Where we can have our family and have the partner we choose to be with. I still think that’s possible for me. I really hope it is.

  I have a new partner now, and we’re about to move in together. It feels exciting. We met and fell in love here in London. That makes a difference. I feel a sense of freedom here. I’m away from prying eyes and am allowed to get on with my life without any interference. All sorts of people with all sorts of stories find themselves in this city. I am able to show my partner some of the best aspects of my Pakistani culture like the food and the films and the music. He can share in the things that have shaped me. Things feel different now, I think it’s because I’m older. I can imagine going home and just telling my parents, look, I’ve found a guy. He’s not Muslim, but he’s decent and he’s good and we’ve got a lot in common. I mean, I don’t want them to find out but if they do, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s at times like that I get cross, because it’s a choice that many people don’t have to make. If you’re an Asian boy you wouldn’t have any of this happen to you at all. It wouldn’t even be commented on. It’s just if you’re a girl that you’re expected to behave in certain ways. It feels horribly unfair. It is horribly unfair.

  I don’t want to lose my family. If it comes to that, it would be a hard choice – but I’d choose being with my partner. I feel like I’m getting on a bit now and I deserve to have a bit of happiness in my life.

  PETER DAVEY AND MILAN SELJ

  A couple who met on Parliament Hill

  MILAN: London can be a horrible place if you’re alone. I came here twelve years ago and started with a small company, so I didn’t meet anyone through work. But then I took a walk and there he was.

  PETER: It was 3.30 p.m., August 14, ten years ago on Parliament Hill. I was walking the dog when I saw him in the distance. I made eye contact and smiled.

  MILAN: After the smile, I was so gobsmacked I said hello. He was just wearing a pair of shorts, no shirt.

  PETER: We both walked on, stopped, looked back, then walked towards each other.

  MILAN: Some people meet their prince on a horse. Mine came with a dog.

  MISTRESS ABSOLUTE

  Dominatrix

  A new, unopened electric toothbrush sits on the windowsill of her office, not far from Vauxhall station. Handbills pinned to a nearby board advertise monthly slogans for her club night: ‘The Hunt for Pink October’; ‘The Darling Butts of May’. She is wearing boots, jeans, a black top and red fingernails, and as she sips her tea she leaves small half-moons of red lipstick on her white mug.

  I wasn’t happy. I thought, I’ve got my three-bedroom house, I’ve got my corporate job, I’ve got my boyfriend with two cats – and if this is all there is I might as well top myself now. I knew there was another side of me lurking somewhere that wasn’t being looked after, fed is I guess the best way of putting it. I studied people from a very early age. My earliest drama teacher used to make me sit on park benches and watch people, which I used to love doing because then you look at how they walk and it’s actually stood me in very good stead for what I do now, being a professional dominatrix – because when people come in you have to size them up pretty quickly. You have to listen to what they say and read two or three layers into it and you have to – if they’re bound, gagged and in a body bag you have to look at the twitch of their eye and figure out if they’re in ecstasy or whether they just really want to get out.

  Everybody has a sub and a dom side. Once I was going to do a public humiliation session. I’d got the guy’s phone number and everything. I’d turned up at Bond Street Tube station, where we agreed to meet and we were going to do some public humiliation out in Selfridges area. He would be on his knees while I’m shopping, which is always quite fun. And I’m waiting at the Tube station. I phoned him and he’s not picking up his phone. I’m thinking he’s not going to turn up, he’s not going to turn up. Great, I’ve just got myself here. He’s chickened out. And then this guy comes over and says, ‘I’m really sorry, have you been waiting long?’

  I said, ‘Yes I have. Get down on your knees and kiss my boots.’

  He got down on his knees and kissed my boots and got back up and said, ‘Right, where are we going then?’

  I said, ‘As you know we’re going to do some shopping and then I’m going to have a cup of tea and you’re going to be sent on some errands.’

  ‘When are we going back to yours?’

  ‘You know there’s none of that happening today.’ But then I started to wonder … So I said, ‘How much deposit did you pay me?’

  And he went, ‘£50.’

  I said, ‘You’re not the person I’m supposed to be meeting.’

  And he said, ‘No.’

  But he’d come over to me, spoken to me, and got down on his knees when I told him to and kissed my boots in the middle of Bond Street Tube station. And he didn’t even know what a dominatrix was.

  London is one of the kinkier cities in the world. I don’t know why. It has more fetish clubs, more mistresses, the biggest fetish clubs. The difference in different countries is amazing. The Germans are really into rubber. They arrive early and leave early. I know it’s a gross generalization but it’s true and it’s so funny. The Dutch – I stage-manage an event out in Amsterdam – there’s lots of big buff men and they arrive and they all take their clothes off and fuck and go home. The French are all really rude. They’re just disrespectful. They’ll come up and grab you. ‘Maitresse!’ Get your hands off me. They all think they’re Gérard Depardieu. The Americans – if you go to LA most of the mistresses in LA want to be in films, really. A lot of the mistresses in San Francisco are very leather-bound. They have a lot of societies there. It’s quite regimented – ethical leather. The Czechs make good doms. A lot of them do cross over into the sex side of things. They come here to make money and they’ll just make it. They don’t have the same British reserve, not that the British girls have that much reserve either, actually. There is a different mindset behind it. Then you’ve got the Japanese doms, the Oriental doms. That is a whole other culture in itself, you’ve got the Japanese girls and manga culture. Each country is different, it’s very tribe-like.

  The British are very fortunate to have so much going on. There’s just so much to choose from: you can go to a school event, a body modification goth club, a straight play club, a small club, a munch. A munch – I hate the name for it – is for people who are into fetish, you go and meet up and have something to eat and you just talk about your kink and that sort of thing.

  London is big enough so that you can keep a bit of anonymity but it’s small enough that you can go to a club and see people you know. In London, I can go to the Oxo Tower in rubber for lunch, as I did on my thirtieth birthday – a rubber pencil skirt, a rubber blouse, a rubber corset and high boots. You can go and do that and some people might bat a bit of an eyelid. Being a Londoner, nothing is going to faze you. There’s a complete mix of people here so if you see something weird and outrageous, well … it’s just London.

  If London were a person it’d be Mr Ben. Do you know Mr Ben? There were only thirteen made when I was a child. Mr Ben would go into a fancy-dress shop and the owner would give him an outfit to try on and he would become whatever outfit he put on. He would put on a space outfit and go on a space adventure and give the outfit back at the end. You can reinvent yourself in
London. You can be who you want to be, which is why Mr Ben came to mind, because it’s that ability to change. Put something on and it will change you. I’m going to wear this and I’ll become a different person.

  Each experience, each street has different stories, different chapters.

  Different areas have different feelings. I’m much more comfortable in South London than I am in North. That’s just me personally. I’ve always lived in South London. There’s one dungeon in North London which evokes a lot of happy times. It’s closed down now. It’s actually near where I have my nails done. Everytime I go up and have my nails done I think, oh, I must … oh, it’s not there any more. Different pockets of London have different feels to them. That’s not something you can verbalize, it’s just a feeling. I’m sure the feeling I get will be slightly different from someone else’s. But then you wouldn’t have the specific good memories of whipping someone’s ass in Kentish Town.

  JAY HUGHES

  Nurse

  This kind of work is as far removed from the kind of nursing that I was trained to do as you could possibly get. It’s far closer to working in a bar than being a nurse. Being a nurse on a ward, it’s all very task-orientated. You have to do this, then you do this and your day’s pretty much mapped out from start to finish. With what I do, somebody opens the doors and let’s see what comes cartwheeling through.

  I think the first thing you realize and it happens pretty quickly is that sex is a great leveller. Regardless of class and culture, sex is kind of sex, no matter who you are. Pretty much everybody does it and I’ve seen people from the age of 14 to people in their eighties. Coming to the clinic is getting more normal, which is great. I mean this is what we work for. Women are always much better at it anyway. But I think that’s because girls grow up knowing that they’re going to have to get their breasts examined. They know they’re going to have to get their smear tests. They’re realistic about it. Men in general will wait until there’s an absolutely calamity before they do their first visit and then when there’s a serious danger of something falling off, that’s when they’ll come and see you.