[ he pointedly refrains from commenting further on the topic of friends. it isn't that he hasn't had them, or doesn't have any one now, but he's terrible at making them these days and even worse at keeping them. either he drives them off or they die. good ol' jj went down with the titanic, and twain was lost to the eventual true reports of his not so exaggerated death. and helen-- well, she was the only remotely steadfast one, and even that wavered from time to time. admittedly of his own doing; he was well deserving of the doubt and the suspicion, especially then. ]
Something like that, only a little more Mediterranean.