An Ode to Oliver

This week, we lost a family friend.

Oliver was one of the first friends we made when we moved to Barcelona in 1992. He was from the UK but had been living in his apartment in the old quarter of Barcelona for years. He was tall, witty and had the flamboyant, gentlemanly flair of Noel Coward, if Noel Coward had worn tight jeans and sported a buzz cut.

Oliver always spoke to me like I had a place in the room, just as much as anyone else, even though I was barely nine years old when we met.

He talked to me about my ambitions to be a writer, informing me that short stories could be hard to write because of the precision required, he shared his opinions on films we had both seen (one of my favourite memories is Oliver standing in our kitchen, mimicking Jack and Rose in the ‘draw me like your french girls’ scene), he had been listening to Blur since the late eighties (he was cool before anyone else was), the walls of his toilet cubicle (in the old Barcelona apartments, the shower was sometimes over the kitchen sink) was a paper and paint collage of dead film stars, newspaper cuttings and photos of parties.

For a friend’s 40th birthday, who before moving to Spain and taking on her husband’s bar had travelled the world as a showgirl, he decorated a pair of marigold gloves with fake nails and rhinestones, because if she insisted on always doing the washing up, she may as well do it with glitz and glamour.

Oliver was a light. He was razor sharp. Generous, thoughtful, in love with life and films and Eartha Kitt. What he didn't know about kitsch popular culture was not worth knowing.

I hadn’t seen him in decades but we had exchanged messages on facebook. The last time we did, he challenged me to write a 200 word explanation on why I hate cheese containing fruit. I must find it, it was an efficient writing exercise.

Mum saw him last year and sent me a selfie of their faces squished up together, happy, comfortable, the visible relief of being in the company of someone who has known you forever.

I have been thinking about how unfathomable it is to truly understand that someone can simply go.

There was a person, full of light, walking around the Santa Caterina market, sitting on our balcony with my brother on his lap, posing for the camera in a leopard print dress and blonde ringlets, fighting legal battles against the owners of his building (he made the news), dropping earth shattering quips, sharing videos of Eartha Kitt singing with stallholders at Batley market.

And now they are gone.

Oliver is no longer here. I will not see another funny facebook status or recent selfie of him and mum.

Oliver made our lives richer, fuller, funnier. He made me, makes me, want to be a better writer, a more discerning critic, a more flamboyant creative. A more loyal friend.

He helped me understand that fun and silliness do not cancel out intellect. That an appreciation of bad taste is an indication of understanding exquisite taste. That when you promise to feed someone’s cats over Christmas, you better not leave the apartment key on the kitchen counter before closing the self locking door on yourself, leaving the cats to fend for themselves for a week (they survived, although Oliver never quite looked at me the same again).

Thank you Oliver. Thank you for being your wonderful, brilliant, scandalous self.

We are so very, very lucky.

Java x