by Julian Clary
‘Is he very rare?’ asked Tim, looking at me appreciatively.
‘Oh, yes, dear. As rare as hens’ teeth.’
‘Here’s to you, then,’ said Tim, raising a glass.
‘Cheers!’ said my mother. ‘Now, tell me all about yourself. Everything.’
‘I think I was probably born to boogie,’ Tim began, but he didn’t get any further.
Just then a burly figure in soiled dungarees and muddy boots appeared at the side of the house. ‘Hi, Alice, are you busy?’ he said.
‘Ooh, Frank!’ cried my mother. ‘I didn’t realize it was Thursday! Do excuse me, boys. Needs must when the devil drives. ‘She got up. ‘Let’s go inside, Frank.’
A moment later they had disappeared.
‘Well, this all looks delicious,’ Tim said, helping himself to a crab sandwich. ‘Your mother’s a good sort, isn’t she? I can’t imagine my folks being quite so welcoming to you. And I’m absolutely staring …‘
I put some food on my plate, trying to act normally, but I couldn’t help glancing up at the house to where my mother’s bedroom window was open. I had seen the spark in her eye and knew exactly what was about to happen. Sure enough, just as Tim was sampling a piece of asparagus quiche, the sound of soft sighs, stifled giggles and deep, manly moans wafted across the lawn. Before long, they were accompanied by the squeezebox eeee-aww of my mother’s ancient mattress as it was given a damn good pounding.
‘I know our cottage must seem tiny to you, after Thornchurch House. It’s only eight rooms, including the larder, if you can call that a room, but we’ve always lived here and I’m very fond of it …’ I was talking loudly, hoping to cover the noises emanating from the house, but Tim had already cocked an ear towards the open window.
‘I say — what’s that?’
‘What’s what?’ I said, trying to pretend I couldn’t hear anything. The game was up, though, when we both heard my mother say loudly, ‘Oooh, Frank! Don’t be in such a hurry! Ladles first!’
Tim was open-mouthed. He turned a sweet shade of pink. ‘Oh, my God! Your mother is … she’s … um — is this normal?’
Now that he’d guessed, I realized I might as well come clean.
‘It is for a Thursday,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘Frank is a farmer from Sellindge. On Saturday she has to make do with a supermarket manager from Maidstone. That isn’t quite so noisy, obviously. Times are hard.’
‘Clearly!’
My mother had begun her yelping routine. I was familiar with this. She sounded like a poodle having electric-shock treatment. It could go on for some time, then turn into a vibrating, meditative bleat and finally a crow’s triumphant caw. The whole process generally lasted fifty minutes — I happened to know because that was how long it took to play my Rocky Horror Show album, which I reached for each week when Frank arrived.
We tried to continue eating, but it was hard. With every shriek from the bedroom, we giggled. As Frank and my mother reached the heights of their passion, Tim’s thoughts were evidently turning in the same direction. ‘Can we go to your room and play Scrabble now?’ he asked suggestively.
‘As long as you promise not to hog the triple-word scores …‘ I breathed.
‘I promise … Now, come on!’
We went inside together.
Just under an hour later, four tousled heads and eight quivering legs met downstairs again.
‘Thanks for a charming evening, Alice,’ Tim said, with his smooth confidence, ‘and a delicious tea.’
‘Yes, hasn’t it been lovely?’ said my mother, hurriedly doing up her blouse. ‘I’m awfully glad you boys are chums. You must call in again soon, Tim.’
‘Thank you, I will.’
By the garden gate, in the deep blue of the summer night, we said goodbye.
‘Sorry about Mother,’ I said, suddenly awkward, afraid that my unusual home life might have horrified Tim.
‘Don’t be. She’s charming and very funny. You don’t know how lucky you are. See you tomorrow?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ He blew me a kiss and then sauntered up the lane, hands in his pockets, blond hair shining in the darkness. I watched him till he vanished from sight.
It was only towards the end of the summer that the mood changed. I had never thought about the future, assuming naïvely that we would stay as we were for ever. But now, as autumn approached, Tim became unusually serious.
‘You’re old before your time,’ I said to him one night, after he had stroked my face. Suddenly he looked terribly sad. We were lying on the makeshift bed we’d constructed in the summerhouse, the old mattress covered with an embroidered counterpane and silk cushions. After the weeks of scorching sunshine and no rain, the musty, damp smell had gone, replaced with a dry herb-and-moth combination. (Face down on that mattress as often as I was, I had ample opportunity to inhale every subtle change.) A candle flickered in its brass holder nearby.
‘Love is a drug,’ said Tim. ‘We’re both destined to suffer withdrawal symptoms.’
‘Why should we? Why can’t we go on as we are?’
‘Even if we did, and even if we never felt any differently from the way we do now, one of us would suffer eventually. Unless we happen to die simultaneously in a car crash — and what are the chances of that happening? — one of us will have to endure the pain of losing the other.’
‘But that’s years away, surely! We’d be old — over thirty at least. It’s so far off I don’t think we need to worry about it now.’
‘It might not be as far away as you think.’ Tim rolled on to his back and stared at the summerhouse ceiling.
A horrible pang of fear stabbed me in the stomach. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Just that … Listen, Johnny, our love is a natural disaster. It’s no one’s fault, no one’s to blame, but make no mistake, the end result will be tragedy. For you, for me, for those around us. Maybe for everyone. You and I are bad news. Sad, bad news. That much I know for sure.’ At the end of this speech Tim moved into the candlelight, and I could see that his eyes were full of tears.
‘But … why?’ I said, suddenly desperately afraid.
‘Things have to change.’
‘Is it your family?’
‘It’s … it’s everything. It’s just all too huge for the two of us to fight, that’s all. And I don’t even know if I want to fight it.’
‘Perhaps if you told your parents, explained what we mean to each other …‘
Tim laughed. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s all we need to do. I can just see Daddy being moved to tears by my plight. Oh, Johnny … you don’t understand even the half of it.’ He was quiet for a while, then said quietly, ‘I wish I could spare you, but it’s too late now to stop it. I just hope you’ll forgive me. I wish it didn’t have to be me who made you miserable.’
‘Wouldn’t you be miserable, too, if we couldn’t see each other any more?’
‘Yes — but I’m much tougher than you are, Johnny. You’re so vulnerable. You feel everything ten times more than anyone I’ve ever met.’
‘So let’s not part.’
Tim groaned.
‘Don’t dwell on the future. It’s so far away,’ I said. ‘Kiss me. That’ll make everything all right.’
‘For the moment.’
‘That’s all I care about. Glorious, wonderful now.’
‘Celia Johnson, eat your heart out.’
The following Saturday Tim’s lovemaking at dusk was particularly vigorous, and we had barely caught our breath before he began again. There was an angry energy to his lust, as if he was trying to break and batter rather than pleasure me. When, finally, he finished for the second time, he got up immediately and pulled on his clothes. ‘This is going to stop now,’ he said, wiping his forehead with his crumpled T-shirt, then shaking it and putting it on inside out.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That was the last time for us, Johnny. I’m sorry, but it can’t go on. On Mon
day I’m leaving for Cambridge. I’m starting university. It’s a new beginning and it’s the right time for us to say goodbye and get on with our real lives.’
My heart contracted with horror. ‘Isn’t this real, then?’ I whispered. I couldn’t begin to imagine life without him. For the last two months, Tim had been the centre of my universe, my whole reason for being. The idea of his leaving me was like the sun being put out — everything afterwards would be cold and dark and terrible.
‘No, it’s not real,’ Tim said. There was a callous note in his voice that I’d never heard before, a roughness that made him sound like a stranger. He wasn’t looking at me.
‘How can you say that?’
‘Grow up, Johnny! Did you really think we could go on like this for ever? You’re a fool if you did.’ Then he added quietly, ‘It’s been fun, though.’
I was still naked, lying on the floor. ‘But I love you. Don’t leave me. I know you love me too — I know it! What about all the times you’ve kissed me? What about the things you said the other night, about growing old together? Can’t I come to Cambridge with you?’
Tim stood up and stared down at me. His blue eyes were hard. ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t love you. This whole thing’s been a bit of fun, that’s all. I liked fucking you, but it’s only what boys do before they grow up and get married.’
‘I don’t think it is, Tim …’
‘Everyone does it.
‘No they don’t! Not like us, anyway! They don’t love each other like we do.’
‘Don’t be so stupid. Shut up about love, for fuck’s sake. It’s like listening to a girl. It’s over. I’m not like you, anyway. I’m not queer.’ He uttered the last word with a contemptuous sneer.
‘Don’t be like this, Tim,’ I begged. ‘I know what you’re doing but you don’t have to be like this, please …’
But he turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the flimsy door behind him. Peeling petals of old paint fluttered to the floor.
I lay there still panting, stunned into silence. Then, far too late for him to hear me, I said, ‘Remember me,’ and I began to cry.
It had been such an abrupt termination that the shock left me staggering aimlessly like a bomb-blast casualty who cannot recall his life before the explosion. I was bloodied and confused. My tears fell and fell, until the dry cushion I wept on smelt salty and damp again.
Eventually I found my clothes and wiped my eyes. I retrieved my bicycle from the hedge and free-wheeled down the hill towards home. The moon was full and high over the knoll. By the time I got to Cherry Lane I was dry-eyed but desolate.
I stumbled in through the door. My mother was sitting by the fireplace, staring at a moth on the lampshade. ‘Hush!’ she said, waving a hand in my direction. ‘I think it’s a Purple Prober. Very rare, these days.’
I sat in a chair, unable to speak, still reeling with shock.
Mother chattered on as though everything was normal. ‘I shall name him Philip. What a lovely day it’s been! Such a busy time of year in the hedgerows. That nasty Mr Jackdaw has been causing havoc. I went out there with my feather duster to shoo him away but I was too late to save the poor robins’ nest. Now they’re angry with me, as if it was all my fault.’ She looked at me, as though seeing me for the first time. ‘I wasn’t expecting you home. Is everything all right?’
I tried to speak, but couldn’t. I felt utterly distraught and the tears welled up again, spilling on to my cheeks to make way for more.
‘Whatever’s wrong, poppet?’ She sat up and reached out towards me. I got up, walked over to her and slumped on the sofa next to her. ‘Darling, darling,’ she said. ‘What’s happened? Is it Tim?’
She knew where I had been spending my evenings, and although I had never told her we were lovers, she’d obviously guessed. I had caught her studying me curiously, as if she was watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. She was pleased with me, I felt. I was continuing the good work on which she had made such an enthusiastic start.
‘It’s all over,’ I said, through my sobs. ‘He’s going away. He never wants to see me again. And he said … he said …’ My waterworks display made it hard to speak. ‘He said he’s not … queer.’
In the presence of my mother I became a child again, crying and burying my face in her chest.
‘How ludicrous. Only a homosexual would make such a claim!’ my mother said, stroking my head and face, comforting me as if I was a nervous dog at a fireworks display.
‘But how could he say something so terrible?’
‘Perhaps the only way he could deal with his pain was to hurt you worse. Perhaps he has to tell himself that. Perhaps it’s true.’
‘It can’t be …‘
‘If it’s true to him, then it all comes out the same in the wash. He doesn’t want to love you, even if he does. So he won’t.’ She hugged me tightly.
‘But he does anyway?’ I was confused.
‘Yes. But he won’t allow it. It’s like dyeing your hair. In reality I might be an unfortunate shade of mouse, but to all intents and purposes I’m brunette. It’s what I want that counts. The rules of nature can be manipulated. Love can be denied or impersonated. It’s awfully complicated. No wonder Ted Heath’s a confirmed bachelor.’ We sighed simultaneously. My mother continued, ‘Oh, it hurts, doesn’t it? But pain is good for you, in a cerebral way. Think of the poets! Suffering is beautiful, you will come to realize. It lets us know we’re alive. How else can we be sure? This is a coming-of-age for you, and I’m your proud mother.’
Her words made a strange kind of sense to me. I stopped crying and felt a calm serenity descend on me.
‘You’re so like me!’ she said, as if my tears had been a cause for celebration. ‘Far too intense, probably, but at least we experience life, you and I. We don’t do bland, do we, darling?’
I shook my head and tried to smile. She had her arm round me and gave me a long, twenty-second squeeze, so tight I could only manage shallow breaths.
‘Think of all the people who never feel a millionth of what you’ve felt for Tim. They’re missing out. They’re half-wits, effectively. The sort of people who end up reading the Daily Mail. We can only pity them. Think of Tim as a blessing in your life, not as a punishment.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Good boy.’ Mother got up languidly. ‘What a day for you! I’ve half a mind to crack open the paracetamol, but I think it’s best if you work through the pain. How about something nice from the biscuit barrel? I should be able to lay my hands on an iced ring, if you’re lucky. You’ll be right as rain in the morning. Trust me.’ She patted my knee as she went through to the kitchen. ‘Your first broken heart. How thrilling!’
Mother was wrong as, sadly, she often was. It wasn’t thrilling and I wasn’t as right as rain. For forty-eight hours I cried until I vomited. I was unable to leave the house, sure that Tim would appear at any moment to tell me he’d made the most terrible mistake of his life and beg me to take him back. But he didn’t come.
The following week, when I knew for sure that Tim had gone to Cambridge and that he had no intention of contacting me, I fell into a deep depression.
My mother tried to cheer me with little presents and my favourite food, but she couldn’t lift me out of my misery. ‘It’s time to move on, Johnny. You’re too young for such a grand malaise,’ she said, as she cleared away another uneaten dish. ‘You don’t want to peak too early. Save yourself. The tortured, emaciated look works much better in your twenties.’
She might have been reading the last rites for all I knew. I wasn’t listening. I was lost in a spiral of sadness. I couldn’t speak.
‘Is anyone at home?’ asked my mother.
‘What am I going to do with my life?’ I wondered, when at last the mists cleared enough for me to form a sentence. I sat listlessly at the table, playing with the meal she’d prepared. ‘I feel as though everything’s over for me. I’m seventeen, I’m gay and I don’t know what I want to do.’
‘Hmm. That’s the whole point of being seventeen. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be, darling. I’ve not done anything with my life — except have you, of course — and I’m perfectly happy. Follow your instinct, that’s my advice.’
‘I can’t stay here.’
‘That’s a shame. It’s so nice, just the two of us. But I do understand if you need to see a little of the world beyond Kent. Maybe you’d like to go and investigate. Go somewhere you don’t have all these memories of Tim.’
‘Like where?’
‘There’s a place called London. Young people flock there, apparently. I’ll phone your grandmother.’
The next afternoon I arrived at Grandma Rita’s. I stood on her doorstep clutching my suitcase, feeling lost and emotional. The butler showed me into the drawing room, where she sat at her desk writing a letter. She stopped, took off her glasses and came over to kiss my cheek.
‘Welcome back, Johnny. It’s been a long time.’ She looked me up and down, as if I were a piece of brisket in a butcher’s window.
‘Wipe your eyes, for goodness’ sake. If you’re choosing to be homosexual you’d better get used to being miserable. No need to cry about it. I met Nod Coward once. He covered his misery very well. Wrote a lot of silly songs to keep his spirits up. Let’s have some sherry. It’s rather good at deadening everything.’ She poured two glasses and made sure I’d downed mine before she spoke again.
‘Now. Your mother’s told me everything that’s happened and I think I’ve found the perfect solution. If you’re going to be gay you’d better go into musical theatre. That’s what Nod did, rather sensibly. I don’t suppose you’ll be very happy there either — none of them is — but at least you’ll be able to do the splits, which will be a boon in your particular avenue of life, if you call it living.’
Through my fug of misery, I vaguely understood what she was saying. Why not? I was beyond caring. Life was over for me, anyway. She could have suggested I swim the Channel in a straitjacket and I would have agreed.
Within days I found myself filling in application forms for drama schools under my grandmother’s careful supervision. I didn’t show much enthusiasm so she took over. ‘I’m going to say you were one of the chorus of Oliver! in the smash-hit Stockholm production. They’ll never check.’
