The Colour of His Hair

by David Rees

  ‘That’s awful,’ I said. ‘Awful!’

  ‘Yes. But eventually I made my peace with it … and decided I didn’t have room in my life for someone else. Apart from which … where would I have met him? I thought I was too old for the pubs and clubs and discos that have sprouted up all over the place these last few years like mushrooms; they weren’t around when I was young, of course. There were many compensations. Books, the kids I teach, my garden, travel, friends, dinner parties, this house, music … but I was wrong. Of course I need somebody else. Perhaps I’ve found him … I don’t know yet. I came to terms with the loss of Alan one evening when I was on holiday in the Greek islands, looking at the sun going down over the sea. Drinking gin and tonic, and dressed only in shorts it was so hot; my legs stretched out on the railings of a balcony. It was probably the gin … but I said to myself, my right leg ― I’m sure you’ll want to laugh at this ― is as much a miracle of creation as the sunset. Its functions, and its beauty ― if indeed it has any ―are, of course, with every minute that passes declining. But, nevertheless, it is a miracle. My me-ness, my self-ness, is a miracle! I’ve had this sense ever since that … that the point and purpose of Ted wasn’t only to be one half of Ted-and-Alan, but also to be Ted! That being Ted is good! Shame Gerard Manley Hopkins isn’t on your syllabus; he had a great deal to say on this subject. I like Hopkins; I like teaching him. I love those lines in As kingfishers catch fire:

  Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

  Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

  Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells;

  Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

  Which is what you two ― Donald, Mark ― are saying and being, aren’t you? What I do is me: for that I came. Oh yes, I’ve been aware of you both … for months!’

  ‘How on earth could you?’ Donald asked.

  ‘I haven’t spied or pried. And you haven’t been indiscreet. I just… knew.’

  ‘Now the whole world knows.’ Donald lifted his hands in a gesture of despair.

  ‘I don’t really want to discuss what happened at school today,’ Ted went on. ‘There are more worthwhile things than that. Paint can be scrubbed off. The culprit may be caught or not be caught ― the latter is the more likely, I guess. The world has a full quota of the mentally sick, alas. And though everybody’s prejudices came crawling out of the woodwork today, they’ll eventually go back in again now they’ve had an airing. Life goes on.’

  ‘What is more important,’ Mark asked, ‘than this morning’s events at school?’

  ‘You. Donald. Mark-and-Donald. I fear … that Mark-and-Donald may be damaged. Not have the nerve to go on. As if it had been attacked by some disease.’

  ‘I have the nerve.’

  ‘That was obvious when you put your arms round him in front of two hundred amazed adolescents! Shock, horror, probe! I’d never have had the courage, but … believe me … it can’t possibly hurt you in the long run. It will be respected. As well as that, you did something important for every kid there who’s potentially gay or bisexual. There are others, you know … they could be helped by that gesture for … for a lifetime!’

  Mark, blushing and disconcerted, quickly finished his scotch. ‘You’re making too much out of it,’ he said. ‘What do you mean, there are others? Who?’

  Ted stood up to refill the glass. ‘Not for me to say. But … to the point: has Donald the nerve? Can he stand the strain?’

  ‘Ah … yes … well…’ Donald said.

  ‘We have discussed this a bit,’ Mark interposed. ‘But…’

  ‘But what?’ Ted asked.

  Donald took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I haven’t got the nerve,’ he said. ‘I just thought… perhaps we shouldn’t see each other for a while … till things settle down. I’ve lost so much … friends … and there’s the football team; imagine what it will be like in the changing-room… My instinct is to bolt. Run away.’

  ‘Where to?’

  He swirled the beer round in his glass, then swallowed it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘There isn’t anywhere you can run to.’

  He was silent for some moments. ‘Can we change the subject?’ he asked, eventually.

  ‘No,’ Ted replied. ‘But you can help yourself to another beer.’ Donald did so. ‘Friends, you said. What friends? If they’re incapable of accepting you, then they weren’t worth having to begin with. But there’s Mark. Your sister. Me. Isn’t all that quite something?’

  ‘My parents too,’ Mark said.

  Donald shifted his ground. ‘I can’t bear the thought of school. Walking through those gates… Christ! Another day like this one!’

  ‘Then don’t go to school,’ Ted said. ‘Have a week off.’

  How can I do that? I couldn’t possibly tell my parents any of this … I have to leave the house in the morning, go back after school… What would I do with myself in between? Walk the streets?’

  Mark laughed. ‘That could earn us some money,’ he said. ‘Good! At least I’ve made you smile!’

  “You can come here,’ Ted said. ‘Who do you have for registration? Mrs Johnson, isn’t it? I’ll talk to her. You can have the house key … and work in this room.’

  ‘Work?’

  Ted laughed. ‘You didn’t think I was encouraging you to take a week’s holiday, I hope! You aren’t ill, Donald. No … you can do your school work here. I’m sure Mark will find time during the lunch-break to come round and see how you’re getting on. What do you say?’ He fidgeted vigorously with the back of his neck.

  ‘Thank you,’ Donald answered. ‘Thank you.’ He smiled again, but his face was no reflection of his usual, uncomplicated, happy self. The eyes were still full of hurt; the mouth was turned down, its frequently stubborn expression slack, miserable, tired.

  ‘You’re not going to do anything silly,’ Ted went on, somewhat relentlessly I thought, ‘like running away?’

  ‘There’s nowhere to hide.’

  ‘And you certainly aren’t going to stop seeing each other, I trust.’

  ‘No. Of course not. You’re right ― that was a stupid idea.’ He slipped his hand into Mark’s, and rested his head on Mark’s shoulder. I looked at Ted, wondering for a moment if he would consider two boys being affectionate in front of their English teacher was going too far― but his face showed no disapproval. His neck remained unscratched and his eyebrows were still.

  If Ted’s plan that evening was to boost Donald’s confidence, it certainly worked. Not that my brother was bounding with his usual zest for life: that didn’t happen till months later; but his will to go on was stiffened. As we walked home I was very aware, despite the darkness of the night, of the strength of feeling between him and Mark. I began to have some inkling of how they fulfilled each other’s emotional needs, though this created more puzzles in my mind than it solved mysteries. Donald had appeared to be so ordinary in nearly every aspect of his existence; his ability at sport and his enthusiasm for it ― he never objected to the knocks, injuries, and mud of the games field ― and his competitiveness I had invariably regarded as typically male. He had never rebelled against any of the constraints or expectations demanded of boys, and his friends were of a similar stamp. But with Mark his was not the strong, dominant role; it was as if there was a yearning in him to be soft, tender ― feminine almost. Feminine? Did masculine and feminine, with all the conventional meanings of those words, apply in a relationship between people of the same sex; did they correspond to the assumptions in a relationship between people of the opposite sex? I didn’t know. Nor did I understand Donald’s sexual needs. Why? Simply ― why was he attracted to men?

  That is a question, I imagine, which doesn’t have an answer. Perhaps it doesn’t require an answer. We don’t ask why we are heterosexual. We just know we are. We accept it and get on with it; Hopkins’s ‘What I do is me: for that I came.’ Was it something to do with his upbringing; Mum or Dad, or both of them, had
unwittingly caused it? But I rejected that idea as soon as it entered my head; it was nonsense: if it was true, then I would also be gay.

  ‘You puzzle me,’ I said to them. ‘But I like it.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with an enigma.’ Donald answered.

  ‘We like it too.’ Mark said.

  Saturday was a good day, the best I think since before that foggy afternoon in the park when Donald first told me. Bitter February weather that had been; it was now almost April, and, briefly, warm and spring-like. Mark borrowed his parents’ car and took us to the sea; then in the evening I met Brian and we patched up some of our differences. Mark drove us to a remote, rocky beach near Newhaven and we had it to ourselves: the weather, surprisingly, had not brought out the crowds. The sea was rough, the surf white and glittering in the sun. I sat on a rock and watched it for ages ― a beach is the only place I know where I can sit and do nothing; the whole of the self seems satisfied: the ear is lulled, the eye full, and even smell, taste, touch record only pleasant sensations. The sea soothes, heals; it is like a hospital.

  Mark decided it was warm enough to sunbathe. He found a private stretch of shingle out of the wind, took off most of his clothes, and fell asleep. Later, as if he’d read my thoughts, he said, ‘I’m feeling satisfied. Calmed.’ Donald, however, was more restless than we were. His afternoon passed ― profitably, he told us ― in ambling about the beach picking up stones, peering into rock-pools, climbing a cliff. He laid out his stone collection on the shingle beside Mark; they formed two separate shapes or patterns. ‘What are they?’ I asked.

  ‘Signs of the zodiac. His and mine.’

  ‘I can just about recognize Leo,’ Mark said.

  ‘And Libra,’ I said. ‘Balance. Have you got it back yet, Donald?’

  He nodded. ‘Today I have.’

  ‘I shall be nineteen in August,’ Mark said. ‘School over and done with. I can’t wait! Ready to go to university. Free at last. Adult!’

  ‘And I shall be eighteen in September,’ Donald said. ‘Thirteen months behind him. I’d leave school tomorrow if everyone would allow me.’

  ‘Ted would drag you back by the scruff of your neck.’

  ‘What will being away at university do to you and Donald?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing very awful,’ Mark said. ‘We won’t permit it. Donald, why don’t you come here and lie down with me?’

  ‘In front of Helen?’

  ‘You’ve seen me lying on a beach with Brian,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen me kiss him. Did you object? No, you didn’t. So what right have I to think you shouldn’t do the same?’

  Donald smiled. ‘My sister is going through a liberated phase. She is enjoying it.’

  ‘Yes, I am. What’s wrong with that?’

  We arrived home at seven o’clock. Mark ate with us, and afterwards he and Donald went out. Mum thought this very peculiar. ‘You told me you were going out this evening,’ she said.

  ‘I am. Brian is calling for me at a quarter to nine.’

  ‘Brian!’ She was astonished. ‘I thought…’

  ‘You thought I was going out with Mark.’

  ‘Well … yes…’ She seemed disappointed. Maybe Mark was better-looking than Brian, though when I thought about it not more attractive to me. Mark had become a friend, as Joanna or other girls were my friends. I couldn’t see him now as sexy, a boy in that way.

  ‘Oh … I’m playing the field,’ I said. ‘Trying to keep them all guessing.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Mum didn’t approve. ‘You can do that once too often,’ she said. ‘If you have several boyfriends on the go, you’ll lose the lot. You’ll end up on the shelf, like your poor Aunt Margaret.’

  Aunt Margaret was my mother’s elder sister. She had never married, a state of being that Mum considered worse than having a child out of wedlock. Warning me that I’d end up like Aunt Margaret was always her ultimate condemnation. ‘There’s a long time to go before I need to think about shelves,’ I said. ‘I’m only eighteen, for Heaven’s sake!’

  There was a knock on the front door: Brian, half an hour early.

  We went for a drink in a quiet pub by the river, then strolled along the towpath. A warm spring night. ‘Are your parents friendly with the parents of any of the other kids at school?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. In fact I’m sure they’re not.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought … some people might have heard about what happened. The lewd wall-poster, I mean. It’s just possible that someone has told their mum or dad ―’

  ‘Mark did.’

  ‘Well, there could be others less sympathetic, and gossip spreads like wildfire. There’d be problems if your mum and dad found out.’

  I thought about that for a while, then said, ‘It’s unlikely.’ Few kids would have mentioned such a thing at home, and no parent visiting the school would have seen the messages and drawings on the wall. They had been painted out the morning they’d first been seen; the Headmaster had got the caretaker onto that as soon as Assembly was finished.

  ‘I’m no further forward in trying to find out who’s responsible,’ Brian said.

  ‘Well… you’ve tried.’

  ‘Are we … together again?’ He stopped and put his arms round me.

  It felt good: his kisses, warm and gentle, roused me much more than those of some boys who were all tongue and thrust and pretended passion. My liking for Brian, my respect, had returned. And tonight I thought him marvellously attractive, even though I said I didn’t care for the way his face glistens where he shaves. The brown hair, the dark brown eyes. His voice.

  ‘It’s warm, but not that warm,’ he said. ‘I’ll have goose-pimples in a minute! We could go home, but… I’m not sure if the house is empty.’

  ‘Shall we … see if it is?’

  Later, when he was walking me back to my house, he said, ‘Have you asked yourself what this maniac could do next? I think we ought to keep an eye on Donald when he’s alone.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I wonder … do you think it could lead up to some kind of assault? A fight?’

  I felt a shiver of apprehension. ‘God! No!’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘But he’s almost never on his own! He and Mark are virtually inseparable, particularly since it happened. Anyway … why shouldn’t Mark be the victim? Why Donald? He’s not exactly a weak-kneed twerp! He’s tough … stronger than Mark is, physically.’

  ‘I know. It’s weird. He just doesn’t somehow exude a feeling of strength. He isn’t macho man. There’s something I can’t explain about your brother that’s very vulnerable.’

  Brian was right. But I couldn’t explain it either, beyond thinking that it had some connection with Donald almost parading his hurt, whereas Mark hid his, or didn’t worry about it so much, or had conquered it.

  SIX

  Donald’s first day back at school was not, he admitted, as appalling as he had feared. But it wasn’t exactly a marvellous experience, either. His teachers were O.K., he said; they carried on as if nothing had occurred, as if he hadn’t even been absent. Only Mrs Johnson mentioned his week off. ‘Are you better?’ she asked at registration, pretending for the benefit of the class that he’d had flu or something. Ted told us that this attitude of behaving as though everything was quite normal was a policy that had been deliberately adopted. The Headmaster had called a meeting of the whole staff to consider the matter. Some of this was devoted to speculation about the identity of the paint sprayer, and suggestions as to what to do with him if he was caught, but most of it was spent on a discussion of Donald’s and Mark’s relationship.

  ‘And a great impertinence that was too,’ Ted said. ‘We don’t have staff meetings to look into whether Helen makes love with her boyfriend or not, and, if she does, should we tell her parents.’

  I giggled with embarrassment, and said, ‘I’m glad about that!’

  ‘My own view is that if boys and gi
rls are found doing it on the school premises then we have to take some action. Otherwise it’s not always our business. The same rule should apply to homosexual kids. Fortunately this view prevailed … but it was a close-run thing.’

  ‘What did people say?’ Donald asked.

  Ted blew his nose, scratched his neck, and raised his eyebrows, nearly all at once. Then he grinned. ‘I don’t think I ought to tell you who said what. But some fairly unhelpful opinions were expressed … such as wicked Mark might be seducing innocent Donald, that it was unhealthy, that you both might influence ― or even persuade ― others to do the same … that it was a sin and the Bible condemned it ―’

  ‘That would be Miss Evans.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, as a matter of fact. Then there were those who reminded us that it was illegal, and we had a duty to discourage people from breaking the law … one person said you should be counselled by a priest or a doctor … another even said you should both be expelled … oh, it was a great display of ignorance and imperfection! Fortunately the Headmaster is a moderately enlightened man. He said that no one had proved it was true and that no one could prove it was true, therefore he was against doing anything … not the best of reasons, perhaps, but it helped to carry the day. I think as the meeting went on he convinced himself of other arguments … anyhow, when he asked for a vote on it, nearly everyone who had not spoken supported the idea of behaving as if nothing had happened. The silent majority, you see, really is silent most of the time. It’s always a vocal minority in human affairs that deludes itself into thinking it represents everybody else!’

  But Donald did have problems at school from the other kids. None of the teachers, in his absence, had said anything to their pupils concerning how they should react or behave, apart from Ted, who had repeated his lesson on the Housman poem with Donald’s class and told them that to send a man to ‘prison’ ‘for the colour of his hair’ was inhumane, indecent and disgusting. Clearly not everybody in the Lower Sixth agreed. Though Donald found he was tolerated, even by the sports enthusiasts like Gary, Jake and Andy, he was not welcomed. No one was openly rude to him now, but he was, on the whole, ignored. This still happened to Mark, but Mark refused to let it bother him.