by Sam Lock
Well, I’m very pleased to be able to say that he is coming here for supper tonight. We met only a month ago, in a bar near Piccadilly. It’s not a very attractive place, but I go there from time to time because it is used by men who like men – in the way that I like men myself; and we had a chat and seemed to like each other. So we arranged to meet again – in the same bar – a week later.
Then (this was just a few days ago) we went to a film together – not a very good one – and had a bite to eat afterwards. And then – well, I asked Mark if he’d like to come here, and he said that he would. For supper, I said, rather rashly, for I’m not a good cook; with the result that I spent much of the day yesterday wondering what I might give him. Spaghetti bolognese, I thought – but then decided against it, because it means doing things at the last moment. So I’ve settled on a soup (a tinned one with a dash of wine in it) and then cold meats and things like that, and an Arctic Roll for a pudding.
I’m hoping it will be all right, because I like Mark a lot. He is as tall as I am, which is a relief; a year or two older, which rather appeals to me; works in Fulham (in a wine bar, I gather) and lives there too, so he’s not very far away. And, to my surprise, he finds me quite good-looking, which I am not. I’m not bad-looking – not ugly; but good-looking is not what I am, which at times adds to my lack of confidence, I suppose. Anyway, he’s coming, and it’ll be the first chance we’ve had to be intimate together, of which I can honestly say there is every sign of our wanting to be, but one can never tell.
Right now, though, when there’s a little time to spare before Mark arrives, I’m going to write about something else – something I’ve not spoken about as yet – which is how very bright I was at school when I was small: at primary school, that is, where I was always top of the class and when the reports that I used to bring home each term to my parents said that I excelled in almost everything.
Looking back at it now, it seems impossible to believe that this was so: but it was: and I am sure that both my parents must have been proud of me. Not that either of them actually said that they were; but I used to learn, either through Amy or through my aunt, that they were pleased; and I’m sure that it gave them reason to think that I had some kind of academic future ahead of me – which perhaps at the time was true. Where, in this regard, I felt that I became a disappointment to them both was later, when, after having won a scholarship that took me on to a good grammar school, where I knew that they expected me to do well, things began to change. Not immediately, but within a year or so of my being there. For by then I was no longer getting good reports from my teachers, and ‘unable to concentrate’ or ‘very poor’ began to be the type of comment made about my performance. And soon, from being considered bright and very intelligent, I was thought of – and, indeed, came to think of myself – as being something of a dunce.
I can now see that this sudden change in my status as a scholar was caused by two quite different things. One was that, as I approached puberty, I became confused about my sexuality and had no one with whom to discuss it; and the other was that, by then, the compulsive desire to steal had become something much more serious and more disturbing than the occasional childish prank that I had always made it out to be when I was small. Instead, it had became something that seemed to take hold of me and possess me. Also, of course, the punishment that I received each time from my father (each time I was caught, that is) had gradually become more violent and had taken on an element of shade – of shadow – far beyond what might be considered normal. For I knew perfectly well that what I was doing was wrong; and I knew as well that it would often lead to quite painful physical punishment. But that seemed almost to egg me on; as though I desired unconsciously to provoke my father into humiliating me, which is – was – I suppose, a form of masochism.
And, to a certain extent, both these things still play a part in my life today. I am still not at peace with myself as far as my sexuality is concerned; still feel guilty that I am not what is called normal; still feel – even now, when they are dead – that I don’t want my parents to know what my sexual tastes and preferences are, which makes a decent relationship virtually impossible. And although I do genuinely hope each day that things will change and improve, and that I will somehow master my obsessions, there are no signs as yet that I shall, and it appears to be something that I am stuck with and might have to endure for all my life.
Having said that, however, I have noted of late – really recently, I mean; almost since meeting Mark, now that I come to think of it – that certainly as far as my thieving is concerned, the compulsion has slackened its grip on me a little. For there have been times during the past couple of weeks when I have managed to control it for a while, and have been able to withdraw whatever projection I have formed upon what, for a brief moment, has become the object of my desire. And that is a noticeable change. Yet I am far from mastering it. I am sure of that. The habit has now become so ingrained in me that it is much like the habit of smoking, which people find so difficult to give up; and it makes me see myself as someone in a real mess. However, I do form friendships – at least, of a kind – such as the one that I have formed with Len and Thelma; so I can feel proud of myself about that. Proud in their case because they are both such lovely people, and because, no matter what, the three of us know that we will always be there to support each other, should the need for it arise.
I’ve just read through some of the things that I have written down so far, and realise that they give an impression of me as being someone rather sad. Well, I suppose I am, in a way – or I am underneath, at least: but I don’t think that I give the effect of being so on the surface. And certainly I have never heard anyone say of me that I am a sad person. In fact, I think that while most people see me as being a little sober, perhaps, in character, they also see me as quite a cheerful person on the whole; and quite a humorous one as well; so it would seem that the act of writing things down brings out the sides of us that are hidden – or it can do. Oddly – because I didn’t plan to set down these thoughts, but just fell into doing so, as it were – I now realise that at the very back of my mind – buried in the subconscious, I suppose one could say – I’ve always had ideas about becoming a writer. My failures at school, however, which were a part of my reason for leaving home (and why I had said in the letter I left for my parents that I had been a disappointment to them both) led me away from the possibility of ever fulfilling that desire. Yet I do like books and words, and I read a lot. One of my favourite authors at the moment is a writer called Ivy Compton-Burnett (the stress is on the first syllable of the last name, by the way; or so I am told by a friend of mine who admires her work). She’s not very popular, and she has even said of her books that if someone should happen to pick one of them up they will find it difficult not to put it down. A strange figure she is, but a respected one, and she has an unusual style of writing that appeals to me. She’s now very old, but I used to see her at times in the street, when I’d been visiting Len and Thelma in Kensington, just to the west of Gloucester Road, which is where she lives; and I’ve heard her talk on the radio, in an interview, in which she was being questioned about her work, and I found her fascinating. Her books are full of quips and quotable sayings, such as ‘Happiness is not the only thing in life … and laxness and liberty may not always be conducive to it’ – which, it would seem, as far as happiness is concerned, is something I might think about.
IV
It must have been three weeks after I had left home and moved in with Rufus and Charlie that I again wrote to my aunt giving her my address, and repeating what I had said in my previous letter – that, dramatic though it had been, I was sure that what I had done had been right – and assuring her that not only did I have a comfortable room of my own in Battersea, but that I had regular work as well. I didn’t say what type of work it was, because I didn’t think that my aunt would approve very much of my washing dishes in a restaurant; nor did I mention Rufus and Charlie. I
did say that if she wanted to write to me from time to time I would always answer her – and that if my mother wished to write too (I said nothing about my father) I would answer her as well. And this arrangement has continued until this day, and I am grateful to my aunt for it. My mother did write once, saying how upset she and my father had been made by my decision to leave home, but she didn’t plead with me to come back and I had the impression that she was in some way relieved by what had happened, in that it had reduced the tension there was in the house, and that this had made her life more comfortable.
‘You know we will always be pleased to see you,’ she had written, but it somehow didn’t ring true; and through my aunt I learned that after the initial upset of the event, and the temporary scandal caused in the local community by my suddenly leaving home, my parents’ life soon settled into a quiet, non-eventful one.
‘We go there sometimes at Christmas,’ my aunt wrote, ‘and we have quite a pleasant time. But if I mention you, or say you have written, I get very few words in reply.’
Did I miss my parents? Yes – I did, at times: my mother in particular; and at night, during my early days in London, as I was settling down to sleep, I would often picture her pushing open my bedroom door and crossing towards my bed, then bending over me to pat me lightly upon the forehead before saying goodnight. Who I missed more was Amy; and at the end of my letters to my aunt, I always sent her my love. (And I’ve always sent Amy a card at Christmas, to which she always replies; usually with a brief note giving me her news, and sometimes adding that Tom, her elder son, sends wishes.) But neither Amy nor my aunt ever spoke of my father in their messages. That seemed to be a subject best avoided; and it was one, I have to admit, that I never raised. For the division between us was so great that it seemed a topic best forgotten; and the only time that I ever saw my father again was on his deathbed, when, having lost his voice and unable to communicate through words, he looked at me with a fierce, impersonal stare; as if to say that my having entered this world as his offspring was beyond his power of comprehension. I think that I did attempt to smile at him – and, for a brief moment, I felt a desire to take hold of one of his hands; but I succeeded in doing neither, and recall how he suddenly turned away from me to stare across the room; then drew his legs up towards his chest to lie curled beneath the sheets, as the room began to darken, with me waiting patiently for the night nurse to arrive and for my bedside vigil to end.
That was a year ago, and my father’s death had been preceded by that of my mother, who, having gone to bed one night with no sign of being unwell, had simply slipped away.
‘She just faded out,’ my aunt wrote in a note she posted me that same day. ‘But you will come – won’t you, Edwin?’ she had added (meaning to my mother’s funeral). ‘Your father’s illness weakened her, and he can no longer speak. So do come – come and make peace with us,’ she said, ‘before it’s too late.’
And it was this plea from my aunt that finally broke my resolve, and helped me to take the difficult decision to return to the house in which I grew up, and in which, in fact, I had been born; now, no longer young and into my thirties, and looking, alas, rather too much like my father for comfort.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ my aunt declared, as I stepped off the train at Taunton, where she and my uncle had come to meet me. ‘You look exactly like your father.’ Then she broke into tears and threw her arms around my neck and kissed me; and I did my best to adapt to the shock of seeing them both again, and of how savagely time had affected them. Then to the further shock of only recognising with some effort that the stout, elderly lady standing behind them was Amy, dressed in a thick, tweed coat and a knitted Fair Isle beret.
I can still see her large, watery eyes, searching desperately in the person she saw confronting her for the boy I had been when I left home.
‘Tom’s here,’ she said nervously, nodding towards the station car park; and she accepted the formal kiss I gave her, then wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Your aunt and uncle don’t drive any longer,’ she added.
‘Too old,’ my uncle said, with a quick laugh.
‘Not senile, though,’ my aunt then added.
‘No, no,’ my uncle replied, ‘far from it!’
All three of them burst into laughter and the blood rose quickly to colour their paper-thin cheeks, as, from behind the hazy mist of a dull November sky, the sun attempted to smile at us.
‘Oh, my God!’ exclaimed Amy with a shrug, her younger self breaking through the barriers time had imposed upon it, ‘it’s bloody cold!’ Affecting a shiver, she trotted along more quickly until, beyond us, close to the car park’s entrance, I could see a burly man in his mid thirties, perhaps, who was standing close to the bonnet of a large station-wagon, and staring at me in a rather puzzled way.
‘Eddie?’ he asked, as he stepped towards us, and a dark lock of hair that suddenly tumbled over his forehead helped me to realise who it was.
‘It’s Tom,’ he said as he shook my hand, as if confirming his identity. ‘We’ll put the oldies in the back, shall we?’ he added with a warm smile and a nod of his head. And then, to my surprise, once he had settled the three of them into the roomy seats at the back, and once he himself had climbed into the driver’s seat, where I was seated beside him, he placed a hand lightly upon my thigh to give it a quick, affectionate squeeze. Then he laughed, asked if the passengers at the back were all comfortable, before, with a sudden roar of the car’s engine, he drove off.
How painfully difficult it is for me to write about this, for I did feel shamed by my long absence from home. Had my parents really been so negative? I kept asking myself. Hadn’t I been too severe – too harsh – on them both? and on Amy too? These thoughts came flooding into my mind as Tom drove us away from the car park to head for the heart of the countryside; until suddenly, as we turned a sharp corner topping a hill, we were given a view in the near distance of a great valley – where, nestling among the moorland hills that surrounded it, I recognised the town in which I had been born, and the familiar sturdiness of a church tower that soared free of its smoking chimney-stacks. And all the emotions of my childhood years returned to me, filling my mind with memories of things past.
But was it really that to me – home? I asked myself. It had been so long since I had been there that I found myself half dreading the thought of seeing my parents’ house again, and of encountering in it its all too familiar rooms; and I knew too, of course, that my father lay there ill and unable to speak, and that soon I would have to find a means of relating to him.
‘Well, you’ve come back at last,’ my aunt stated quietly, breaking the silence that had fallen between all five of us in the car.
‘About time, too,’ Amy added reproachfully.
‘Oh,’ said Tom. ‘He’s had his own life to get on with, haven’t you, Eddie?’
Again he put out a hand to pat me upon the thigh. At which point I noticed a golden band on one of his fingers, which might have been a wedding ring, and sensed, at the same time, that he had some kind of intuitive understanding of exactly what I had become. It was a type of knowledge that he appeared to share with his mother; one that was independent of words – of language, of any kind of verbal exchange; and I couldn’t help wondering why it was that he sometimes sent wishes to me at Christmas. Was it because I entered his thoughts from time to time, as someone who held a meaning for him? A sentimental one, no doubt, but a meaning, none the less; and one that I felt glad of.
Thelma has called to see me again, which makes it the second time this week. She just ‘popped in’, she said, ‘for a cuppa’ – which wasn’t a very apt description of what she did. Blew in, or bounced in, would be more accurate – and, using all the spill of her matronly charm, took over the place in no time.
‘You all right, pet?’ she had asked, as she was busy dumping her things and making herself at home.
‘Don’t I look it?’ I answered, wondering what she was thinking.
‘O
h, yes. You do. You look fine. Different, though. Definitely. Something’s happened – hasn’t it?’
‘Such as?’ I asked.
‘Well, how would I know, sweetheart? But something has, by the looks of it.’
‘I’ll make some tea,’ I said, ‘or coffee.’
‘Oh, will you? … Well, that will be nice. Coffee for me, though, at this time of day.’
‘Coffee then,’ I said, as I slipped away into the kitchen.
‘Mark been here?’ Thelma called out.
‘What?’ I asked, pretending I hadn’t heard.
‘That Mark,’ she said. ‘Has he been here yet?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, not wanting to lie.
‘Oh – has he!’ she said. ‘Well, how did it go? You two in love or something?’
‘Thelma!’ I answered, pushing my head around the open kitchen door; ‘Mind your own business, please,’ not wanting to betray the fact that Mark and I had spent the previous night together and had realised that we liked each other a lot.
‘But it is my business,’ Thelma persisted. ‘I’m your best friend, remember? Except for Len, of course. You like him more than you like me, because he doesn’t ask awkward questions.’
‘Oh, Thelma!’ I called out to her with a laugh. ‘Trust you to say a thing like that.’
‘Well then, tell me. Seriously, Eddie, have you met someone you like at last?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, as I brought the coffee in from the kitchen.
‘Well, that’s lovely,’ she said, her eyes all aglow at the thought of romance.