by David Rees
‘James wants to know if he can leave his car outside. He has to do some major repairs and it isn’t possible where he’s living now. Do you mind?’
‘I don’t own the house. Or the road, for that matter.’
‘But do you mind?’
‘Not at all. Are you. . . the two of you. . . any closer now?’
‘If we were, I wouldn’t have agreed to all this refurbishing of our room. Our room, Ewan.’
He was telling the truth, but the moment James parked his decrepit, rusty Triumph Herald by our front door, I felt my days in the attic were now numbered. His leaving it there seemed to me a kind of claim being staked, an unspoken message that said if he couldn’t yet resume permanent quarters inside the house, he was only a foot or two from the door bell, waiting. At weekends and on several evenings — it was now high summer again; Robin and I had been living together for a whole year, and I had just celebrated my nineteenth birthday — James’s long legs protruded from under his car while the rest of him, invisible, banged away at whatever it was that he had to do to his exhaust box or his track-rod ball joints or the bottom of his oil sump. Invisible, but not inaudible: he was always either singing or swearing. Then coming indoors to wash, and sometimes he would stay and eat with us, or accompany us to the pub.
I could understand what Robin saw in him. Very sexy, and all of a piece, without any problems of any sort. He was more relaxed inside his own skin that any white person I had met. Mentally and physically serene, but given to marvellous extrovert outbursts of energy, whether dancing, arguing, or just laughing and joking: it was an exhilaration that left me envious, made almost everybody else I knew look anaemic. I could easily imagine him in the place where I thought his origins were, some tropical island paradise, so I was very surprised when he said he came from Stroud in Gloucestershire. A native West Country boy like me. He was twenty-five, a postgraduate student at London University, doing a Ph.D. in physics. Another error: I had assumed a West Indian immigrant job, on the buses or a porter at a railway station.
I liked dancing with him. Indeed I liked dancing, period: now I could be on the floor with other boys rather than with girls, I stopped worrying about clumsiness, or what did she want from me. Inhibitions that had sometimes spoiled straight discos at the age of sixteen vanished and I found my legs and my arms, my whole person, more and more part of the music. It was an unwinding process in which the self ultimately became an expressive instrument, moving, moving, moving, in patterns and sequences that perpetually changed and developed, grew simpler or more complex; body and music, dancer and dance, an inseparable entity. The gay clubs: their ridiculous names, suggestive of all sorts of heaven on earth, their cheap glitter and high prices, their lights subtle enough to deceive everyone into thinking everyone else was good-looking (‘Never stay till the finish,’ Robin said. ‘Unless you want to see how unattractive the boy you’ve landed up with really is’), the crowds of lonely men waiting for Mr Right to walk through the door, eyeing every newcomer and only seeing Mr Compromise, the pick-ups, the rejections, the certainty for most of only a one-night stand at best: oh yes, it was easy enough for me to feel superior, going as I always did with Robin and James and a crowd of our friends (their friends, in fact; without Robin, would they include me?) and never being at a loss for someone to dance with. James in particular.
When I found that I very much wanted to go to bed with James, I thought long and hard about my relationship with Robin. It was obviously time to go, and leave the two of them together. Lovers: we hardly knew any lovers, not in the proper sense of that word. And it wasn’t surprising: they didn’t haunt the pubs and the clubs as we did. They stayed at home, entertained their friends, sat in front of the television, and whatever the multitude of activities and hobbies they might pursue, they only occasionally needed to be part of the gay scene, or indeed any kind of scene. They were, simply, themselves and each other. The feelings James produced in me were dangerous: I was beginning to fall in love, a dizzy, delirious sensation that made me gasp for breath. And wasn’t I using Robin as a crutch, my entrée to the gay world? I ought to stand on my own two feet. I watched James and Robin at a distance as I danced with somebody else and saw glimpses of long, serious conversations, noticed them touch each other, a caress on the arm or a kiss.
And as Robin said nothing, I decided it was up to me to broach the subject.
‘You’re right in what you’ve thought,’ he said. ‘We could be together again tomorrow.’
‘Well. . . why aren’t you?’
He frowned. ‘We haven’t exactly worked out what the relationship should be. Though I know what I want.’
‘One to one, no casual sex with other people, and to hell with pubs and clubs and discos?’
‘Yes. That’s certainly part of it. I don’t know about James. He says that’s what he wants, but I’m not sure.’
‘Why not try?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Look. . . don’t take this the wrong way. I haven’t met anybody else, nothing like that. But I think I need to move on. Be alone for a bit. . . stop doing everything as if I was your shadow. Can you understand? I’m sort of. . . flexing my muscles or something.’
‘It was inevitable, right from the day you moved in here. But. . . where are you going to live?’
‘I’ll find a place.’
‘If what we’re talking about really does happen, I should be the one who goes. Not you. I’ve already discussed it with James. He agrees.’
I stared at him. ‘You really are incredible!’
‘Why?’
‘You’re so. . . what’s the word I want?. . . good.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I don’t think I shall ever meet anyone I’ll respect so much.’
‘Balls! And shut up, will you! You’re making me feeling acutely embarrassed!’
A week later he went. I couldn’t decide if it had come about because of our own inner needs, or whether we’d manipulated each other into a situation from which it was impossible to withdraw. James arrived to help with the packing; he was in an odd mood, uncommunicative and a little morose. At one point, when Robin was in the kitchen, he looked up from what he was doing — fixing the travelling screws in the record player — and gazed at me, a solemn, mournful expression in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to say something, but what it was I couldn’t fathom. Surely he didn’t regret what was happening now? Robin for his part, could scarcely conceal his excitement. James knows I fancy him, I said to myself. It must indeed be obvious. I blushed, and turned away.
When they had gone the room looked pitiful. Almost empty, except for the basic furniture — the bed, the table, the chairs and the wardrobe belonged to the landlord — and I suddenly realised how little of this place had been mine. It was as if some beautiful thing, that had become what it was by a slow process of organic growth, had been mutilated. Robin-and-Ewan was dead, James-and-Ewan impossible. I didn’t like the idea of living here now. Absurd! I was just as responsible for the present situation as Robin or James. Hell! It’s what we all wanted! Or thought we did.
I was absolutely free to do as I wished. I was on my own, and the dance company was not working for the next month; it was having its summer break. What to do with this freedom, this ability to choose anything, accountable to nobody, unencumbered by any obligations? I had a little cash in the bank. I could go abroad if I felt like it. Another new experience! I had never left England. Or I could throw myself into a frenzy of pubbing and clubbing, play the scene for all it was worth.
What I did was on the spur of the moment; indeed if I’d stopped to think I wouldn’t have done it. I went home to Bude, arriving without any prior announcement on my parents’ doorstep.
To say they were delighted to see me would be a gross understatement. It was the return of the Prodigal Son. They cross-examined me about my job, what shows I had seen in London, whether I was looking after myself and eating properly; was my living accommodation ade
quate: all the usual questions any parent might ask of a son who has been away a long time. I was told the local gossip — a year’s births, deaths, marriages, separations and divorces. My father proudly showed me his garden (a good summer for soft fruit, apparently) and my mother explained why she had re-arranged all the furniture. Conversational small talk flowed with ease. The important subjects were avoided.
Mum, however, was anxious to find out why I had selected this particular moment to reappear; she obviously thought that something of a serious nature had happened: and one evening when Dad was out of the way she asked if I was in any sort of trouble.
‘No,’ I answered with a smile. ‘What trouble should I be in?’
‘I don’t know, Ewan. But is there? Anything. . . you feel you should tell us. . . the law, for instance.’
‘The law?’ For a moment I was baffled, then I understood: no sex before twenty-one. A more idiotic, cruel law, in my opinion, would be hard to imagine. A boy and a girl were legal at sixteen; why not people like me? ‘I told you already,’ I said. ‘I’ve a month’s holiday. I’ve come down for a few days; that’s all.’
‘What’s happened to. . . to your friend, the one you share with?’
‘Robin? He’s moved. I live on my own now.’
‘Well. . . maybe that’s for the best.’
‘Why?’
‘Not a very good influence, I imagine.’
‘You don’t know anything about it, Mum. And for heaven’s sake, I’m beyond the age of being influenced! Would you like. . . to discuss it? Robin?’
‘No. No! I don’t want to hear! Ever!’ The deep feeling in her voice saddened me. Appalled me. Only a Ewan who could utter decent platitudes about the weather or the neighbours was acceptable; what was beneath could not be mentioned in case she discovered it really did exist. Ours would always be a pathetic apology of a relationship. Mother and son! More like a couple of acquaintances who might talk to each other because they happened, once, to have lodged under the same roof.
‘You’re still making it difficult for me to want to come back,’I said.
I had inadvertently touched a very raw nerve. She flared up: ‘I think that is an extremely unkind thing to say, Ewan! After all we’ve done for you, to tell us you don’t want to be here! The ingratitude of it! It leaves me. . . speechless!’
‘But you don’t want me. You want Ewan, yes, but someone quite other than what I am, some imaginary child of your own invention, not the real me!’
‘I’ll say this: whatever trouble you’re in, we’ll stand by you. We love you.’
Silence. I should have left it there; I should have been tactful, discreet — and dishonest. ‘You don’t love me,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe you do. Because if you did. . . you’d take me as I am. Love should be stronger than all your loathing that I’m gay.’ She burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry; I went too far. I shouldn’t have said that.’ I wished I could touch her, hold her hands: I thought of the easy warmth between so many people I knew, but in my family we never touched. It wasn’t considered proper behaviour.
‘I don’t think you’re a bad person.’ She sniffed and dried her eyes. ‘Only. . . very muddled. Very bewildered.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Tell me. . . can you honestly say that you’re happy? I don’t mean in the sense of ordinary everyday things going right or wrong. I mean really happy.’
‘Yes. Now.’
‘I just can’t believe that.’
I sighed. The conversation was over. But it was the first of several, all more or less the same. The gulf was impossible to bridge.
Leslie was at home. I was glad to escape and seek out his company. He had injured his back, surfing; the only cure for it was to rest. He disliked losing even one day on the beach, and this enforced holiday meant that he was not only missing the best part of the season, but several championships as well; nor could he continue with the job he had had the previous summer — teaching people to surf. He was fed up, angry with himself, and therefore delighted when I appeared. He had come a long way since we’d shared first prize two years ago; he was now the junior champion of England. I had hardly touched a board in that time, whereas he, apart from hod-carrying in the winter, had spent almost all his daylight hours in the sea.
He’d filled out; a man now. Bronzed skin, hair almost white from the sun, salt in the lines on his face: the healthy, all-male beach-boy. He’d taken to smoking a curly pipe, which made him look not quite himself. It was a pose, a macho signal. I surfed, a clumsy amateur now, while he, the cool professional, stood on the sand, commenting on my mistakes. In the evenings we went out drinking. He was going on holiday next week, to Greece, island-hopping. By himself; he didn’t really know anyone he wanted to go with. Except me. ‘Greece is cheap,’ he said. ‘Much cheaper than here. I’d like you to come! We. . . seem to have picked up the threads. I don’t know anybody else I’d rather be with. Ms Right, I suppose, but she doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the horizon.’
“I’ll think about it. I’m not sure I can afford it.’ That wasn’t quite true: I’d done a rapid mental calculation, and discovered I had just about enough money. The idea, in fact, appealed to me very much. But. . . and it was a big but. . . how would we get on with each other? I was determined that never again would I be put in a position where I’d feel second-rate, jealous, angry with both myself and him.
‘You’ve changed, Ewan.’
‘How so?’
‘Much more sure of who you are.’
I told him some of the things that had happened in the past twelve months, and I listened to the story of his nineteenth year. There had been no time, he said, for a proper love life; it had all been hard work, earning money and surfing. A few sexual adventures, but nothing that had lasted more than a week. He was tired of that kind of thing: ready for something totally different.
Next day I said I would go with him. He wasn’t able, any longer, to make me feel inferior: I was enjoying his company as much as I had when we were kids. We were equals now. I felt elated, a surge of joy, when I realised that not one flicker of jealousy remained. What happened in Greece has already been written about in The Lighthouse, so there’s no need to repeat it here. Leslie found what he’d wanted all his life, or what he thought he’d wanted — a girl called Victoria — then panicked when he came back to England, feeling he couldn’t cope with having achieved his heart’s desire, and he nearly lost her for ever. Indeed he did lose her; it was only the accident of his mother’s sudden death that brought them together again. I met Christos, a man so hairy you could hardly see any skin. He took me to Rhodes, which I’d never have visited otherwise. A holiday companion. Nothing more.
In the autumn, when Leslie returned to London, we decided to share the attic. It wasn’t a good idea, and he moved out after only a week; he couldn’t stand my life-style, he said. It might be truer to say that our very different life-styles would never make it easy for us to occupy the same room: a house, yes. Which we now do, very amicably. But a gay and a straight in one room! It was stupid even to think it would be possible. I was behaving a bit madly at the time, I suppose. I plunged briefly into a hectic life of pub, club, and promiscuity. I dyed my hair yellow, and wore all sorts of outrageous gear borrowed from the dance company’s wardrobe. I got used to waking up in other people’s flats in various parts of London. Or, when I found nobody to go back home with, I’d limp into the attic in the small hours of the morning, and crash out in one of the armchairs. Was I now trying to prove something to myself? No. It was a bit like the reason why people tackle Everest: because it’s there. I was lucky not to get the clap, or worse.
But maybe it’s something everybody has to do at least once in their lives. There is an excitement: every first time has promise, anticipation; maybe this man tonight will fulfill all your dreams. And, though he never performs that function, you can say you were not rejected, not one of the ugly and unwanted, left unchosen at two a.m., going back alone to your unlove
ly bedsitting-room. Why do the unchosen almost always remain unchosen? Not necessarily because they are hideous to look at, but in some indefinable way the mysterious processes of sexual selection mark them out as flawed. Is it inhibiting shyness that makes it impossible for them to approach or to be approached? Or age: forty plus in the gay world can be as grotesque a disfigurement as lacking an eye.
I soon grew tired of it. I said to myself, I’ve done it; I know what it’s like: it’s time to stop. The repetitive rituals became so tedious. Bath, choosing clothes and after-shave, drinks in tatty dimly-lit dancing-places at absurdly inflated prices; who would I pick, who would pick me, your place or mine? A naked body, particularly in the intimacy of the bedroom, is always interesting; none is quite like any other. But the procedure, when it’s possible to have sex with almost anyone, was for me becoming sterile and meaningless, not even physically very exciting.
I don’t care if I never see the inside of a gay club again, I said to myself as I danced one Saturday evening, wanting to leave the floor but not doing so because it was Gloria Gaynor, and, old though it is, everyone invariably dances to that one. Why? The words, I suppose; they speak so directly to gays: I will survive. Leaving my partner rather abruptly when it finished, I cannoned head-on into a very tall black man. James! ‘Dance with me,’ he said. Lullaby of Broadway. Well, I couldn’t resist that one either. Or James, for that matter. My stomach knotted up; I felt dizzy. ‘Where’s Robin?’ I yelled over the music.
He shook his head. ‘Not here.’
‘How is he?’
‘Later. We can’t talk against this.’ Goodnight, baby; goodnight, the milkman’s on his way. ‘Your song,’ he said, smiling.
