The relationship between me and Morrissey is the best in the group, of the four of us. I still see him now. I called him last night. Last time I saw him was a couple of days before he went in to do his recent album. We let a bored media get the better of us, but there’s always been a certain telepathy between us even when we didn’t see each other. We played a game with the press and they played with us, but it’s not true life. No, we’re friends.
It seemed suddenly that the years were passing, and I was peering out from behind the bedroom curtains. It was the kind of quite dangerous isolation that was totally unhealthy. It was like a volunteered redundancy, in a way. Most of the teenagers that surrounded me, and the things that pleased them and interested them, well, they bored me stiff. It was like saying, ‘Yes, I see that this is what all teenagers are supposed to do, but I don’t want any part of this kind of drudgery.’
I never had an adolescence. I went straight from six to 46. Quite depressing, really. I missed out on all those things like discos at Christmas. I suppose I’ve regressed now, but I wouldn’t call it a second childhood, because it’s my first.
