by Chris Birch
‘No, I don’t think you made it up, I just think that maybe you are confused,’ he said, diplomatically.
‘So, you think i’m a liar?’
My voice was shaking.
Jack’s words had hurt me more than anything I had read about me because his opinion mattered the most. Jack stroked my arm, his face softened and he shuffled up towards me on the sofa.
‘Of course I don’t think you’re a liar …’
‘I just think that you might have been gay before the stroke and didn’t realise that
you were,’ he said slowly.
I nodded.
I could see his point. Jack didn’t know me before the stroke so it was hard for him to imagine a straight version of me. To me what had happened made perfect sense but it was clear that everyone else didn’t find it quite as easy to accept.
‘I just wish I could show you what I was like before, then you would see,’ I said.
Jack put his arm around me and gave me a cuddle but as Jack focused on the TV that was blaring away in the background, I struggled to put our conversation behind us. I thought back. Could there be any way that this person was lurking within me all along? That behind the womanising bravado was a homosexual man too scared to come out? I wriggled free from Jack’s cuddle and started searching the flat for something, manically opening all the cupboards, rattling through the contents and then closing them again.
‘What are you doing?’ Jack huffed.
‘You’ll see.’
I rushed into the bedroom and lay on the floor to reach under the bed.
‘What on earth..’ Jack sighed.
Minutes later I trudged back into the room with a little cardboard box and Jack looked at me in confusion.
‘Should I be worried about you? you’re being weird,’ he laughed.
I opened the box and started pulling out it’s contents, photos, toys, teddies. It was the box of memories I had collected together just after the stroke. I had found it inside one of the bin bags full of clothes that Mum had dumped in the car park. There was a photograph of me with an ex-girlfriend at a theme park, a photo of me with my boy mates, another of me in a bar surrounded by girls.
‘That man, was not gay?’ I said.
I pointed to an image of me kissing a girl.
‘Well, how do you know he wasn’t?’ Jack replied.
I took a keyring in my hand and looked at the figure of a man on his motorbike and then held it up to Jack.
‘What about this? I used to love watching motorbikes and I couldn’t think of
anything worse now. Why did that suddenly change?’
Jack shrugged, ‘people’s hobbies change all the time,’ he said.
Once, memories of old Chris had haunted me and I couldn’t wait to escape them, now, I realised that those stories were going to be my much-needed proof. I’m going to show them that I’m telling the truth, I thought. I knew in my heart that the stroke had made me gay and I was going to prove it.
Chapter Twenty: Proof
The patch of green grass in front of me looked totally inconspicuous. Decorated with trails of snow that hadn’t yet thawed and white rugby posts which were dotted in the background, it resembled any park in Wales. But as I stood and took in my surroundings, on that icy cold January morning, it felt like I had returned to my own grave.
I hadn’t been back to Bargoed Park since I had suffered my stroke and now the weight of everything that had happened here made the park have an almost supernatural atmosphere. It felt like there should be a plaque to mark the spot where I had tumbled, or a headstone, to record the place where old Chris died and the new me was born. But before I had the chance to contemplate the poignant moment a camera was pointed in my face.
‘So, this is the bit where we want you to talk about what happened here,’ the director said, the air was so cold you could see his breath.
I waited a moment, for him to go back behind the camera and then started to speak.
‘My life changed at the bottom of the hill, it was completely different at the top,’ I said, as the camera followed my steps up the grassy verge.
‘If I hadn’t of done the second forward roll then I would still be old Chris,’ I explained and nervously stroked my hair into place.
It had happened to me and yet, as I said the words, I could hardly believe them.
A few weeks before I had been contacted by the BBC, they had read about my story and wanted to make a documentary about what had happened to me. They sent their producer to meet me and we had a chat in a coffee shop near the hair salon.
‘We think your story is fascinating Chris,’ the producer gushed, as she warmed her hands on a coffee mug.
I nodded.
‘Thank you, it certainly seems to have got people talking. Not all of it good.’
‘Ah, yes, you’ve probably had your fair share of negative comments, it comes with the territory unfortunately,’ she said and gave me a sympathetic smile.
‘We can pay you a fee to take part, to make it worth your while,’ she explained.
I looked around the coffee shop, a lady in the corner kept glancing at me and then whispering to her friend. She must have read about me, I thought and imagined what she was saying, ‘there’s that boy from Bargoed who was so scared of telling his mum he was gay that he blamed it on a stroke’. As I scanned the small but bustling coffee shop it felt like every eye in the room was on me. But when I turned to check no-one was looking, my mind was playing tricks on me.
‘I didn’t do it for money,’ I said firmly.
‘Oh, of course not Chris, sorry.’
‘I thought telling my story would help people, other people like me,’ I explained.
‘It will. We can meet with specialists and doctors who might be able to shed new light on what’s happened.’
‘Oh, really?’
She nodded quickly, she could probably sense that I was warming to the idea.
‘Yeah, we can even meet with other people who have had strokes and had severe changes in their personalities.’
The lady on the other side of the room who had been staring at me was reading a paper, she’s probably looking at another person’s real-life story, judging them without knowing them either, I thought. I didn’t want to be just another outlandish tabloid story that people assumed was fake. My life and everything I had been through since the stroke had to mean more than that. If something positive could come from the hell I had been through that would somehow make all the struggles I had faced worthwhile. If I could prove that I was telling the truth, that the stroke really did make me gay, then I could pave the way for others. I had always suspected there were lots more people who had experienced a change in sexuality after a stroke but hadn’t realised why. I could help them get answers.
‘I’ll do it, on one condition, you help me show everyone that I’m telling the truth,’ I said, confidently.
Four weeks later filming started and after visiting Bargoed Park, the director wanted to see the memory box I had told him about. We went to the flat and Jack and I perched nervously on the sofa as a huge camera pointed towards us, with so many bodies in our sitting room it suddenly felt very small.
‘So, this is my memory box,’ I said and held it up so the camera could see the contents.
‘In here I have photos and memories that prove that the stroke turned me gay.’
The director gave me a thumbs-up sign and then motioned for the cameraman to stop filming.
‘What’s that Chris?’ the director asked and pointed to a plastic tub that was inside my memory box.
I looked down, through the clear plastic I could see old camera films.
‘Oh, just some undeveloped films, they must be pictures I took before the stroke but I’ve never got them developed.’
I started packing all the items away but felt the room fall silent, I looked up and the director was staring at me with a big grin.
‘I’ve got a great idea,’ he said, wide-ey
ed.
The next day, at the local photo shop, with the cameraman filming behind me, I collected the developed films just as I had been told to do.
‘Old Chris is inside here,’ I said, holding up the wallet of photographs.
We went to a coffee shop so I could flick through the photo whilst being filmed. Inside the wallet of freshly developed photos was a guy who looked a bit like me but he was fatter, terribly dressed and acted like a complete fool. In one picture he was wearing luminous swimming shorts on a beach, surrounded by his mates, with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head.
‘God I look chavvy,’ I said.
It was hard to accept that the person in the pictures was me. It made me realise just how far I had come, old Chris seemed so distant that it was like looking at a long-lost relative. But the most haunting thing in the pictures wasn’t the distorted version of myself. It was the person next to me. In so many of the pictures Mum was there, posing at my side.
After filming had finished the director approached me.
‘Have you heard from your Mum?’ he asked.
I knew what he meant. Before we had started filming they had asked me to write to Mum to tell her about the documentary and ask her if she had wanted to take part. I had ignored their request. I had mourned the loss of my Mum and I didn’t want to rake up old feelings again, besides, as far as I was concerned the documentary was about me, not her.
‘Erm, no,’ I said.
‘Well, shall we try again? We need to contact her to offer her a chance to comment.’
I couldn’t argue with any legal requirements they had to follow and so begrudgingly agreed and planned to write to her that evening.
‘We can film you writing her a letter now if that’s okay?’ the director suggested.
I bit my lip, it immediately made me feel uncomfortable.
‘That way, we’ve dealt with the topic of your Mum for the viewers,’ he said.
There are many times in my life that the politeness Mum instilled in Simon and I has been of benefit. This was not one of them. Rather than tell him I didn’t want to do it, that it seemed too personal to share that on screen, I politely nodded. To me, the idea of being rude was far worse than any alternative.
‘So, we want to see a lot of emotion in this,’ the director said and passed me a pen and paper.
I nodded and took the lid off the pen.
‘Y’know, what we want to see is how hurt you are that your Mum rejected you, all of that pain we want to see on screen, so, just totally let that out,’ he said and gave me a sympathetic smile.
He wants me to cry, I realised, he’s trying to upset me to make a better programme.
But as the camera’s light went on I had resolved to myself that I wasn’t going to give them, or Mum, the satisfaction. I had moved on with my life, I was happy now, I didn’t want anyone to think what Mum did had broken me.
I grabbed the pen and wrote a letter for the sake of the documentary
Dear Mum, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, I wrote. It would be great if we could meet up and have a chat.
I folded the letter up and raised my face, the director was looking at me, it could have been my imagine but it looked like he was slightly disappointed at the lack of emotion he had got from me.
‘We can post that tonight,’ he said and then crossed his fingers and held them up to me.
Hopefully she won’t reply, I thought.
The documentary had made me ask awkward questions and I became more and more convinced that they were setting up scenes just to try and get me to show some emotion on screen. One afternoon they filmed me taking my painkillers and probed me about the long-lasting effects of the stroke.
‘Well, I still can’t go swimming, or running, I have to be careful not to do too much, or, that could bring on a mini-stroke. I still have to have annual check-up’s and I take painkillers pretty much every day to combat the headaches I get,’ I explained.
I hated the fact I had to take medication still, it was like a daily reminder that I was odd, that my body couldn’t do what it was supposed to but I was determined not to get upset on TV. In the back of my mind I knew my mother might see the programme and I wanted her to know that I was happy with who I was.
‘Oh and obviously there is the droop in my left-eye and, bizarrely, my left nipple,’ I said, in an attempt to make the conversation more light-hearted.
‘Why don’t you show us?’ the director called from behind the camera.
I shook my head.
‘Do you want to show us?’ he repeated.
‘No, thank you.’
Although I had to do some things I wasn’t comfortable with I knew it would be worth it if I could finally prove to people that I was telling the truth. Part of my plan to do that was to introduce the world to Terri. She was my friend from school, since we had got back in touch a few months before I had regularly cut her hair. Terri was one of very few people who knew old Chris and new Chris, in my eyes, she was a key witness.
The director loved the idea and so we visited Terri at her house to do a short interview for the documentary. As soon as the camera started rolling Terri began chatting away and I listened, nervously.
‘There is no way the Chris I knew in school was gay,’ she said to the camera.
After speaking to Terri the director wanted to get in touch with one of my old girlfriends.
‘If we can meet one of the girls you used to date and they can vouch for how much you liked girls, well, that proves your point,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
I sighed. I knew he was right but the idea of contacting an ex was an uncomfortable one. No-one wants to get in touch with previous partners, it’s awkward and usually, you broke up for a reason. But on top of that I had a whole other set of worries to navigate. I wasn’t even the same person they used to date.
‘We really need to do an interview with an ex, why don’t you make a list of a few girls who you could contact,’ he suggested.
It was clear he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, I begrudgingly thought back to the girlfriends I remembered, or, had been told about. The main one was Lauren but it just seemed way too insensitive to contact her. I still hadn’t spoken to her since I had suffered the stroke and didn’t think now was the appropriate time. But my knowledge of other girlfriends was patchy, so I went through my photographs in the hope it would jog a memory. I found one photograph where I was stood next to a blonde girl, there were life-size cutouts of famous actors behind us. That’s Lynsey, she was the girl I went out with before Lauren, I realised. In fact, she was the one who made me do the play where I met Lauren. It still took time for memories to come back to me and even then it wasn’t like they were mine, it was like I was revisiting the scene from a film I had seen. I sent Lynsey a message on Facebook.
I suffered a stroke and ever since then I’ve become a different person, I was hoping you might be able to meet up with me and answer some questions I have about how I used to be. I wrote.
Lynsey replied quickly and asked what had happened, I explained and then told her about the documentary and why I was doing it. Lynsey wasn’t keen to appear on camera but after some persuasion she finally agreed to help me. The only problem was, we were on a strict schedule, the only available day to shoot Lynsey was a few days later, which just happened to be Valentine’s Day. Understandably, Jack was not exactly thrilled at the idea of me spending Valentine’s Day with an ex but he understood it was important for the programme.
When I arrived at the pub to film my meeting with Lynsey the whole room was covered in decorations. There were paper hearts, little cut-outs of cupid with a bow and arrow and a big love is in the air banner which hung from the ceiling.
‘We need to take that down,’ I told the director.
He looked at me with a confused expression.
‘Why?’ he said.
I rolled my eyes.
‘Well, I’ve already had to explain to my fiance that I’m spendi
ng Valentine’s day with my ex-girlfriend. I think if he finds out we were meeting in a room decorated like a wedding he might actually break-up with me,’ I joked.
‘Good point,’ the director smiled.
As I watched him remove the decorations I tried to settle my nerves. I hadn’t seen Lynsey in ten years and my memory was still foggy on how we ended things. Obviously, I went off with Lauren but I wasn’t sure how annoyed Lynsey had been. For all I know she could hate me and be coming here to have a go at me, on camera, I thought. What if she slaps me? or, throws a drink over my head?
Then, a blonde girl approached me, I instantly recognised her face from the picture.
‘Hi,’ I said.
I waved awkwardly as she walked towards me. She shot me a half-hearted smile back. It was obvious she didn’t want to be there. The director got her a drink and as she approached the table and sat next to me, she was clearly uncomfortable with the camera being pointed at her. I felt guilty that I was putting her through such an ordeal but I knew how important it was that she appear in the documentary.
‘God, you look different,’ she said.
In my mind I compared the overweight, scruffy man she had dated with myself now, with blonde highlights, botox and a new slim figure. It was odd for me to see her, like a photograph that had come to life but I realised, for Lynsey, it was even weirder.
I placed the photograph of the two of us in front of her and the camera light beamed back at us, they had started filming.
‘My memory of this is appalling,’ I said and showed Lynsey the picture I had of us on holiday.
‘What, you don’t remember being there?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I admitted.
It felt cold to tell her the truth, as if I had somehow rejected the memories we had by not remembering them, like they meant nothing to me.
‘Well, I have something to show you,’ she said.
Lynsey pulled out a photograph of a large group of people posing together, to the side was me and her. She was sat on my lap and my arm was placed protectively around her waist. The photo had clearly been cut around, as if he had been taken from a memory book, or, had once been stuck on her wall. I got a pang of guilt as I realised the memories I had lost had clearly once meant a lot to her.