Gay Before God: An Awakening Love Forbidden by the Church

by William Bruce

  For while he watched to see the dean disappear there was another voice, softer and calmer, from one who was not in a hurry.

  “Hello there,” said Terry. “Sorry I am late; I just couldn’t park the car.”

  There was no way they could show any affection in this public place, just a lingering handshake, with a finger bent in to tickle the other’s palm. They exchanged unselfconsciously exuberant smiles and the meeting of their eyes was profound enough to penetrate the other’s heart. It was at such moments James became almost faint, his faith in his dream rewarded, his belief in love so ravenously satisfied.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” spluttered James too much revealing his own insecurity.

  “You always say that, and you know I always turn up,” replied Terry as they began walking. “And I always will,” he added as he placed a comforting hand in the small of James’ back. He only held it there for a second, but it was enough to make James feel so secure he let out a laugh of relief.

  Both felt better for leaving the Close and even though the pub where they went was only a street away, the towering brooding presence of the Cathedral was out of sight. They found a table in a darkened corner, away from other people, and there they sat side by side so their knees and thighs could press against each other. It was daring being intimate in public in this way, but probably only those who were particularly observant would have noticed.

  “It took me ages to get away tonight,” sighed Terry. “I am sure Victor knows something is up. He said he checked the mileage on the car last night to see if I had really gone to that meeting in The Fens.”

  “You have got to tell him eventually,” replied James taking a drink from his beer and replacing the glass on the table with a sigh. When they were together he tended to forget about the complications of their relationship, how both of them had partners and responsibilities. It was as if their love could cure everything, making people see that nothing should stand in its way. It was a kind of folie à deux.

  “I will, when the time is right,” said Terry. “It is just not right yet. He has been so good to me, and we have lived like brothers for years now. I can’t just dump him.”

  “I know, I know,” said James. “If we are strong we can hold on for the right time, but I do so love being with you. It kills me to say good-bye every night and to know you are going back to him.”

  “And you to her,” Terry added accusatively.

  “But Rachel understands, I think,” counselled James, “and you know I would give up anything for you, except my children.”

  “Would you leave her tonight if I asked you?” challenged Terry.

  “Yes, I probably would, like a fool,” was James’ instant reply. He hadn’t even had to think about it.

  The conversation drifted on to other things, about what they had done that day and whom they had met. Several people were mutual acquaintances, worthy members of various committees, where Terry, as a youth worker, and James, as a representative of the church, had crossed paths. They rehearsed the stories of pompous clergy and councillors who jealously guarded their authority and claimed to speak for the whole community. Terry would often say “he is a pixie too, you know; you should see the way he looks at me.” It was a term he used to describe other gay men, in a way as not to offend.

  Anyone who saw Terry could not fail to think he was a handsome man. His short black hair hardly yet receding, his steely blue eyes, his perfectly formed nose, his soft welcoming mouth and manly chin, gave him the kind of face that attracted attention. James had noticed when he was with Terry in a pub, in a shop or just walking along a street, occasionally people would stop and take too long a glance. If it was a man, James knew he was probably a 'pixie', whether conscious of it or not.

  The rest of Terry was also presentable. He was not overly tall at just under six foot, and was well proportioned. He had not reached the stage where men tend to fill out too much, but kept a defined body. Most of all he was always clean, bathing twice a day, wearing only clean clothes, smelling, sometimes too much, of the most expensive cologne. His shoes might let him down, and ironically it was the scruffiness of these James had noticed on their very first meeting, but the rest of him made up for any such fault. Maybe that was the problem with Terry; he was so good looking, so much a gentleman, so intoxicating, no one could believe the harm he could create.

  “Shall we go then?” said James when he could see Terry was tired of the pub. “Let me walk you to your car.”

  This was the form of their evenings together in those days. Meeting at the West Front, having a drink in one of the pubs nearby, and then walking back to where Terry had parked. There was nearly always the same ritual. They would both get into the car; Terry would start the engine and then drive slowly. Soon they would come to a small traffic island with two choices. To the left lay James’ house, the way to take him directly home. To the right was the road out of town and into the countryside. Terry approached the island slowly applying the breaks without a sense of which way the car would go. It was if he was testing to see what was right. James would lean over and punch up the indicator stick to the right, and Terry felt a gush of excitement run over his body.

  It was nearly always the same lay-by, just a small pull-in, on a minor road a mile out, with so little traffic few would have noticed the car tucked beneath some trees. Each time they arrived James felt himself shaking, perhaps, he liked to think, because of the cool of the evening, but more through anticipation and a little fear. In one sense he hated the way they had to meet like this, but in another way it was so thrilling. Once or twice they had almost been discovered. They laughed as they remembered the time when in Terry’s village they had parked outside the church thinking it to be secluded, but the church warden on his evening walk had knocked on the car window to see who it was. Ten minutes earlier and he would have caught them at it. Terry had tried to disguise his voice so that he wouldn’t have been recognised, but he never knew if it worked.

  Making love in a car is never easy, even a large car where the seats go back. But it was enough for them in those heady days, sustaining their relationship for three months. It was a necessary part of what brought them together, providing a carnal edge to something much more profound, the insatiable and to some extent uncontrollable desire that ignited the fire burning much deeper. Although glorious, the physical contact was only the starting point of what made them so much in love with each other. Some might say sex should never be at the beginning of a relationship, but rather something you grow into over time, but for James and Terry it was the threshold, which they crossed in order to discover the wonders of being together. Both of them were such unlikely adulterers and both in their naivety failed to see the madness they courted. They had not learnt that violent delights often have violent ends.

  After making love they lay there together, as much as they could in such a setting, talking as men who have known each other for years.

  “I do so love being here with you,” said James. “It is the one thing I look forward to all day.”

  “And I tell you things,” confessed Terry, “I never ever told anyone else in my life. It is so easy to be honest with you. I feel I can talk about my father, what he did to me, about my sisters and what they are like, about Victor, who as you know I am very fond of . . . ”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And who I don’t want to hurt,” continued Terry with a seriousness in his voice. “He has been so good to me over the years. He is my comfortable slippers – can I give them up?” Terry took a deep breath as if to hold back some tears.

  Silence filled the car, and though a small slit at the top of the window came the eerie hooting of a distant owl, coming closer through the trees. James thought the sound ominous.

  “We need time,” offered James, feeling he had said it too often.

  “We haven’t got time,” Terry raised his voice, angry for the situation he found himself in. “When Victor finds out, and he will, because
he is a suspicious man, he will be so cross. In fact, I don’t know what he will do.”

  Silence filled the car again, but the owl seemed to have flown away, its job of a harbinger done.

  “Perhaps we should call it a day,” whispered Terry, surprising himself by what he said. “You are away on holiday next week, with her, and I bet you will forget about me.”

  James lay there stunned. A pain ran down his left arm, as if his muscles were freezing. He lifted his right am to rub away the ache. For a moment or two he could not speak.

  “Perhaps I should go back, and pretend none of this even happened,” Terry added.

  “Can you do that?” croaked out James. “Can you just walk away, after what you have discovered? Can you lie there after what we have just done, and say it was nothing?" He was beginning to get angry, but his anger was a cover for his pain, the ache in his side warning him he might be about to suffer the greatest loss of his life. He saw a flash of his mother dying in her hospital bed thirty years before, and for a second felt deeply bereft and alone.

  “You do love me, don’t you?” added Terry, not so much a question as a statement. He had seen the terror in James’ eyes, the look of pain in his face, and he knew how much he needed him. They came together and cried, holding each other tight, squeezing harder and harder, as if to make themselves into one whole. There was an incompleteness in their individuality that disappeared when they came together, like two pieces of a jigsaw whose separateness is gone with a click; two halves of a broken plate whose crack vanishes when pressed together. There was something unique in their union, something eternal, and to James, something divine.

  After a while they pulled gently apart and kissed, tasting the saltiness of their tears, which had turned to sniffs of relief. This was not going to be a farewell; this was another bonding experience, an expression of their deep love for each other. With such faith like this they could face the world, the distain of family, friends, whoever, . . . it did not matter.

  “I will tell him, when you come back from your holiday and you are sure, so very very sure,” said Terry. “I want to be with you, if you want to be with me. I will look after you, care for you, and always be there for you. Together, we can do anything, and there is nothing that can get in the way of ‘us’. I don’t care what people say. I don’t care what Mumsie will think, or my sisters.” He finished with a quiet whisper, “Contra Mundi!”

  “And I will talk to Rachel, perhaps when we are away,” added James, “and the bishop when I come back. I don’t care who knows about you, because you are so glorious.”

  Terry lit a cigarette, another habit so easily forgiven. Somehow it made him more masculine, and James could see how it calmed the nerves. Each intake and expulsion, rhythmically like the waves on the sand, smoothing a secure quietness.

  “If you tell the bishop, I will know you love me!” came Terry’s long considered response. He knew in time he would need that proof, that price to be paid. But for now he was satisfied, both content and surprised, to have felt for the first time unconditional love.

  Terry drove back to the city, with James sitting in an assured silence beside him. As they travelled James would place his hand on Terry’s leg and there find in a thick fold of Terry’s jeans a place for his finger, so snug and safe. It was an act of discovering a secret hiding place that needed no words to accompany it, which made it all the more poignant.

  With his other hand James switched on the CD player knowing in it was the disc he had bought a week before.

  “Track 9, that’s it,” he said. “It’s our song.”

  The music began to play. Terry smiled as he recognised it and felt deeply quenched.

  “Victor found it the other morning when he was rooting around for a cigarette lighter but he just tossed it to one side, because it is religious,” said Terry mischievously. Part of him liked the clandestine nature of their relationship, the edge it gave to everything they did.

  After the instrumental introduction the words of Psalm 42 were added to the music: ‘As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.’

  It was their song because James had heard it at a service the evening of the very day he had first met Terry. It so encapsulated how he felt and, even though he had heard it many times before, that night at the service it brought him to tears. People at the service looking on would have thought he was having a religious experience, and perhaps he was. It was if meeting Terry had touched him in every part of his being and the only way he could make sense of it was through his faith, faith in a God of love.

  ‘You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.’ Words written thousands of years before, speaking for them in that moment.

  When the song was over James switched off the CD and let the silence return to the car. There was a sense nothing more could be added.

  They reached the city streets and before long passed the Cathedral still lit against the dark sky, its main spire aggressively piercing upwards. It stood as a symbol of light fighting against the blackness but its form was austere, its proportions inhuman. In a short while the car drew to a pause at the end of James’ street. There under the cover of a tree where the street lights could not penetrate, they kissed, softly but fervently, hanging on to every precious moment together. Then they parted, the last touch was through the finger on Terry’s leg, pulled from its cocoon of happiness. James crossed the road and gave only a quick wave, just in case the neighbours were watching and having seen their parting might have speculated. On the short walk to the back door of his house James put his hand in his pocket to take out his phone.

  He texted: “love you so much xxx see you soon xxx sleep tight.”

  Before he had reached the door there came the reply: “love you more and more xxx thanks so much for loving me xxx you wonderful man xxx see you soon.”

  With that James went into his house which was in complete darkness. As he shut the door the reality of his crazy situation flooded his head. Confused he could not make sense of what he felt and what he could see to be real. He stumbled in the hall and steadied himself with a hand to the wall. Love had made him blind. He tried to remember the layout of the room and gingerly took a step towards the kitchen door; there he could put on a light and not disturb anyone. His love for Terry gave him a peculiar strength; it gave him faith in himself, faith in the future, in a way he had never known before. He reached for the handle and opened the kitchen door. His hand found the light switch and he blinked in a bright and harsh illumination.

  “James is that you?” came a shout from upstairs. The voice was coming nearer. “That was a long committee meeting, wasn’t it?”

  Rachel emerged from the darkness of the hall dressed in her dressing gown. Usually she, like the children, would be fast asleep when he came home if it was anytime after 10 o’clock.

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said wondering if there was anything about him to give away what he had been doing. Rachel was too tired to notice or if she did, she made no comment.

  Just then his phone received a text, and he could not cover the look of guilt upon his face. He thrust his hand into his pocket to muffle the sound, but it was too late.

  “Someone’s texting you late,” she said, though seemingly without much concern. She walked past him and opened the fridge door. “I’m on the white wine, would you like some?”

  “No, it’s ok?” He replied wondering if she might ask who it was. His heart was beating.

  “I had a call tonight, from the bishop’s wife, saying the bishop wants to call round to see us. I can’t think why.”

  “Just doing his duty, I suppose, making sure all the wives are happy,” he said quickly, glad the conversation had moved on.

  “Anyway, I am off to bed, good night,” she turned and left the room, back into the darkness of the hall. It was as if
she was leaving him to look at the text on his own.

  After a minute or so, as long as he could bear, he pulled out his phone.

  “Shall we meet tomorrow xxx love you xxx now and always”

  At once his heart jumped; he felt so elated, without a shadow of the awkwardness of the last few moments. Of course they would meet. James could do nothing else, and whatever price he had to pay was no consequence whatsoever.

  Chapter 3

  “Come aboard, dear chap,” said the dean dressed in his black cloak and Canterbury cap. “Don’t stand out there in the cold winds, straight off The Fens. They will freeze your monkey’s off.”

  It was Sunday afternoon and James had reached the door of the Cathedral where was to preach in the service. He was not expecting to be greeted by the man who ran the place, but it was just a coincidence the dean was arriving at the same time.

  “You know your way around, I suppose,” said the dean as he led them through the vestibule past the turnstile and out into the great vastness of the nave.

  As one of the largest cathedrals in England, with its soaring spire visible for miles, it never ceased to strike James with awe whenever he had ventured into the building.

  To the dean it was just a place of work, and not a happy one. He had been brought in to sort out it after the retirement of the previous troubled dean. Other clergy in the Cathedral, the infamous canons, had also disgraced themselves, though in less dramatic ways. The canon treasurer had taken some prize pieces of the Cathedral silver to America on an exhibition tour. That in itself was fine, but taking his wife, four daughters and families, and friends to ensure the smooth running of the trip, was going too far. Unfortunately the Americans had little interest in the treasures and very few were willing to pay to look at them. In one state capital the footfall was only 57 people in four days. The bill for the trip was more than £50,000 after all the expenses had been taken into account.