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an immaculate pressed tuxedo with bow-tie. His dark hair was slicked back with hair-oil and he’d accentuated the sharp line of his pencil-moustache. The brilliant
white light of the spots flashed along his high cheekbones and quickened the sheen in his eyes. A previously quite boisterous audience dropped into complete silence as the first few chords struck
up.
    Luca used a microphone but I sensed he didn’t need one in that small space. He performed a set of crooner type numbers all of which might have been dismissed by anyone of my generation.
Sinatra. Como. Nat ‘King’ Cole. But to hear this live performance, even I had to concede that some of these old tunes were pretty good.
    He wound up his act and went into ‘Autumn Leaves’. I did my best with the light gels, as instructed. At the climax of the song he hit a superb, soaring note and as it faded I brought
the coloured lights down through a narrowing circle. Luca finished to rapturous applause. When I killed the stage spots and bought the house lights up I noticed that amid the applause one or two
women were dabbing their eyes with a handkerchief. I wanted to laugh: not at them, but at myself. It
was
moving. Transforming, even.
    There was a small dance floor in the nightclub and the show was followed by a disco, mostly of golden oldies. The fact is that in the 1970s only kids like me listened to 70s music. The music
most people listened to in the 1970s – that is everyone over the age of twenty-five– was their preferred 60s and 50s and 40s music.
    After a while, Luca came out his dressing room, clutching a make-up case, ready to make a brisk exit. I intercepted him. I wanted to ask him if I’d done okay with the lights.
    ‘Beautiful, my boy!’ He had a strong Italian accent. He was a tiny, dapper figure who somehow managed to project himself as much larger on stage. ‘Thank you! I appreciate. Very
much.’
    I said I was glad and all that because I’d been a bit nervous. I was burbling at him. He smiled at me. ‘Come. I buy you drink.’
    ‘That’s not necessary!’
    ‘I insist.’
    We went to the bar and sat on high stools. He ordered a glass of wine for himself – which in 1976 in that place, and had he been an Englishman, was dangerously close to a declaration of
homosexuality. I opted for a manly pint of Federation Ale.
    ‘You are studenta? What you study?’
    ‘English Literature.’
    ‘Ah! Shakespeare! But you know in reply I can offer you the divine Alighieri!’
    ‘Dante. I know of Dante.’ Well, I’d heard of Dante. I can’t say I’d read him. Perhaps I’d read the book cover of a paperback.
    ‘We are all in hell,’ he said cheerfully, ‘we just don’t know what level. What a joy, to have a person of culture in a place such as this.’ He offered a hand to
shake and I told him my name. He held up his wine so that we could clink glasses.
    He asked me what I would do with my studies and with my life. I did have one half-formed and slightly ridiculous ambition, one that I tended to keep very quiet about but for some reason I
blurted it out. ‘I’d like to be a writer.’
    He widened his eyes at me and then tilted back his head. Then he stroked his chin judiciously and leaned forward close enough for me to smell his coconut-scented hair-oil. ‘Then I advise
you. If you go into this kind of life, you need a strong a-heart. And a strong liver. In some ways it is like show business. You need a strong liver because some days you only eat bread. And find a
good woman. This is terribly important. Not one of these silly girls who likes shiny necklaces and bangles and such things. No.’ He summarised this advice for me. ‘Good heart; good
liver; good woman.’
    Then he tipped back the remains of his wine, stood up and bowed formally. He wished me a
buona notte
and was gone. I stayed at the bar supping my beer. When I looked round the nightclub I
noticed quite a few women in there who seemed to like shiny necklaces and