Pagan and her parents

by Michael Arditti

‘I can’t, Mother. You haven’t even asked about Pagan. In case you’re interested, the judgment went against us.’

  ‘I didn’t need to ask. After that story –’

  ‘I’m more than that story. I’m more than any story. I’m in despair.’

  ‘You must never despair, Lenny. Do you think I’ve given in to despair in all these years with your father? He’s alive. You must count your blessings. It’s God’s will.’

  ‘That’s codswallop!’

  ‘I’m sending you a book. I got it from the new minister. He means well, even if he does want to make changes.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s nothing like the book the old minister gave me: Sex for Boys … no, sorry, Boys and Sex, complete with anatomical drawings by Picasso. For years, I expected women to have three breasts.’

  ‘That’s right; turn everything into a joke. You’re not on television now.’

  ‘Believe me, it was no joke.’

  ‘Promise me, you’ll read the book. It’s full of true-life stories of men who’ve repented their sin and turned to Christ.’

  ‘I promise that I’ll read it; I can’t promise that I’ll turn.’

  ‘I’m praying for you, Lenny; and so is Mrs Coombes. Whatever happens, you’re still my son.’

  There is no answer to that, so I put down the telephone and run my face under the tap. I curse myself for my craven capitulation to her tablets of stone/heart of stone morality. I should take a leaf out of your book, or, at least, a page from my Cambridge diary. The ferocity of your attacks not just on Christianity but on the whole concept of ethical values was deeply disturbing to a boy from North Wales who had grown up on a diet of chapel with everything. And yet, while I rejected your position, I admired your passion, which I try to recapture twenty years on.

  ‘Christian morality is moribund. It should be thrown out like absolute monarchy and courtly love.’ We are walking along the Backs after a lecture on T. S. Eliot.

  ‘Throw out the history, throw out the mysticism, throw out Heaven and Hell if you like, but spare the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.’

  ‘I’m afraid it comes as a package, all-inclusive.’

  ‘Then it’s time to split it up. God’s dead … Einstein exploded him; but right and wrong weren’t destroyed in the blast. We’re rational, sentient beings; we can create our own ethical code.’

  ‘Based on what? One man’s assassination is another man’s murder, one man’s property another’s theft; promiscuity is one more than me … Did you say ethics or semantics?’ You rip the leaves off a branch and scratch your hand.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be subjective. I believe that we’re each born with an innate morality. It exists within us like the capacity for speech; it predates kisses and smacks and carrots and sticks. We may lose sight of it, but it’s always there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In that part of us that isn’t separate, the part that connects to the earth, the part that says “we” not “I” and “love” not “give”.’

  ‘And exactly what part is that, Leo? The soles of our feet? Connected to the earth? Please! Why not admit it? All morality is just glorified self-interest; and Christian morality is the worst. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” That says it all. Self … self … self. You don’t steal my ox because you don’t want me to steal yours.’

  ‘No, I don’t steal from you because I respect what’s yours … the feelings you have towards it.’

  ‘Towards my ox, Leo? Whatever can you mean?’

  ‘Be serious, can’t you?’

  ‘The only reason that you don’t steal from me is that you’re afraid of being punished, either here or in the hereafter. Morality is just the excuse made by people who are too weak to assert themselves in any other way.’

  ‘No, there’s another morality, one based not on paternal pressure but on fellow feeling, which has its roots in not wanting others to feel pain or to lose dignity. We respond to them; we put ourselves in their place.’

  ‘In other words, selfishness.’

  ‘No, sympathy. Imagination, not conscience, is our saving grace. That’s why art – and, above all, literature – is more moral than any religion and we must tell children bedtime stories rather than teaching them bedtime prayers.’

  ‘I take my hat off to you, Leo. You’ll part the Red Sea next. You’ve remade morality in your own image and called it art.’

  ‘I thought that you believed in art.’

  ‘I believe in artifice; there’s a subtle difference.’

  ‘What’s subtle about it?’

  Your answer is lost as you drift away, down the towpath and out of my memory. I am once again conscious of the room. I want you to see … I want my mother to see how I have practised what I preach – no, what I propose – with Pagan. She learns how to behave through analogy not instruction; ‘Thou shalt not …’ has been replaced by ‘Imagine if …’ But the past has preoccupied me for too long, and, when I look up, it is time for lunch.

  At three o’clock, Consuela summons me to the front door, where there is a boy asking for me and for money. All she can report is that he is ‘a boy from school; very thin’. I presume that it must be the paper boy; I fear that, in all the furore, I may have forgotten his Christmas box … no wonder that the deliveries have been late. I go down, to discover an acned adolescent of about fourteen, in a purple shell-suit and a back-to-front cap.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, mate. I’m just knocking on a few doors; I wonder if you can help us out with a few quid.’

  ‘Are you my paper boy?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He seems nervous and looks out into the road.

  ‘Are you in charge of my papers?’

  ‘Fat chance. I ain’t got nowhere to stay. Homeless me.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Old enough.’ He grins cockily.

  ‘I’ve no doubt. But you should be living with your parents. Or else in a hostel. Have you heard of the St Mungo Trust? I can give you the number.’ An instinct of self-preservation prevents me from asking him in.

  ‘Yeh, yeh,’ he says impatiently. ‘Been there, done that. All I’m asking is a few quid. A fiver for some food.’

  ‘I’m not giving you any money.’

  ‘Why not? You’re on TV. You must be loaded.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Look, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. Like you did with those other kids; know what I mean?’ His crude wink accentuates his wall eye.

  ‘Go away,’ I shout. ‘I’m not giving you a penny.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he says and points to a car; ‘they gave me a tenner for asking.’ Following his fingers, I see two figures in the front seats: a man with a phone and a woman with a camera. He invites me to ‘Have a nice one!’ and runs into the road. I rush after him, only to trip over the bottom step. I taste the gravel. The photographer darts to the gate, but, far from coming to my aid, she snaps me supine in the path … no doubt, by the time it is printed, it will have become a gutter. She jumps into the car which speeds away. I drag myself indoors and, shrinking from Consuela’s concern, grab a phone. I dial Print House and demand to speak to Brian Derwent. I am tossed from euphemism to excuse, until I finally reach the man himself. His tone of sugared menace feels as if an icing-horn has been plunged in my ear.

  He claims ignorance of the photographer. I have to admit that she may have been from the Sentinel … but only because he did not think of it first. ‘Can you tell me why you’re persecuting me?’

  ‘You’re becoming paranoid, my friend. News is news: you mustn’t take it personally. If the Nation hadn’t broken the story of those boys, the Sun or the Sentinel would. Wouldn’t you rather keep it in the family?’ He laughs without a trace of irony.

  ‘On that basis,’ I suggest, ‘treachery would be preferable to an enemy attack.’ But he will acknowledge no analogies except his own.

  ‘If you take my advice, Leo, you’ll keep your head down and this will a
ll blow over. Don’t go making too many phone calls. Today’s headline is tomorrow’s history; no one knows that better than me.’

  ‘Thank you, Brian, but I intend to keep my head up, only from behind a different parapet. I’m writing to Ian Hastie to resign my Criterion column.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do anything rash.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s not rash. I’ve been plucking up the courage for years.’

  I put down the phone with a flourish, but my elation fades as I become aware of the ache in my ankle. I call Consuela who proves to be a dab hand with a bandage. Immobility forces its own rhythm, and I spend the evening listening to a new recording of the ‘Missa Solemnis’. Consuela interrupts the Sanctus with the news of another young man at the door. I begin to fear that I will be plagued by an endless round of photogenic beggars and insist that, on no account, must she let any stranger into the house. ‘No, this time,’ she says, ‘it is good … is your friend … is David.’ I am taken aback for, although she volunteers no surname, there is no chance of confusion. I know a dozen Davids but only one who can be remotely described as young.

  He walks into the room and fills it with so many lost possibilities. I make to stand but my leg is too painful. I prop it on the gout-stool like a plea for sympathy. The music swells to the heights of the Hosanna; I flick off the sound and am scared by the silence. I wait for him to speak.

  ‘I don’t usually barge in on people; but I wasn’t sure that you’d want to talk to me. It’s easier to slam down a phone than a door in a face.’

  ‘I’d never slam anything in your face; it’s one that I’m far too fond of.’

  ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘So am I. Won’t you sit down.’ I indicate an armchair; but he keeps his distance, settling onto the sofa and casually crossing his legs. I am transfixed by the patch of pink between his turn-up and his sock.

  ‘You’re looking good.’ His tactics are obvious.

  ‘I’m growing old. As Candida says –’

  ‘Says?’

  ‘Used to say, you know you’re growing old when your age exceeds your waistline.’

  ‘You must have a very trim waist.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I refuse to be disarmed. ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘I had to after Sunday’s paper. I’m afraid it’s my fault. I set the ball rolling.’

  ‘Maybe. But I think it’s rolled about as far as it can. I suppose they might try to make out that I’m Lord Lucan or Shergar …’

  ‘Same old Leo.’ Does he mean it as a compliment? ‘You should publish your memoirs; you could call them Smiling Through.’

  ‘As long as I’m free to plug them on a chat show … Why did you do it, David? It’s so unlike you.’

  ‘No, it’s so unlike how you think of me; that’s different.’

  ‘Did you really resent what I wrote about Candida?’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t because of that; and that bitch of a journalist knew it. What decided me was your Sigourney Weaver interview last summer. You asked how she dealt with accusations of being a lesbian … accusations! It’s not a crime to be a lesbian, any more than it is to have red hair.’ I smooth my parting.

  ‘It was just shorthand.’

  ‘The limitation of liberalism is always its language. Scratch a liberal and you’ll find a dictionary of oppression underneath.’

  ‘My mother used to tell me I’d swallowed the dictionary. Perhaps that was it.’

  ‘I wanted to highlight media hypocrisy. Instead, they made it seem so trivial, like a jilted lover’s revenge.’

  ‘David … this is the most powerful print group in the country. Did you really think they’d agree to your agenda?’

  ‘She seemed so sympathetic. She told me she knew Derek Jarman.’

  ‘I can’t believe that you’d be so naive. Far from endorsing your cause, they’ve used you to promote their own foul values. Do you suppose it was an accident that they held the story back for six months, only to run it a few weeks before I was due in court?’

  ‘I know nothing about any court.’

  ‘No, but they did … I’ve been locked in a custody battle for Candida’s daughter. Their timing was perfect; at a stroke, they proved me to be unfit for both family viewing and family life. And would you care to hear the result?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise, I lost. Still, at least media hypocrisy was exposed.’

  He moves towards me. I am overwhelmed by the smell of him: the fresh, doughy, hot-buttered-toast smell that is truly good enough to eat. I start to shake. He grips my shoulders; I shrug him off. He kneels on the floor and manoeuvres himself around my foot. He berates the Nation, the Court and his own folly. I suggest that he pour us some drinks, which he does, but, instead of bringing me mine, he returns to the sofa and balances both glasses on the arm. We exchange glances; his challenging, mine confused. I respond to the challenge, hauling myself up, hobbling across the room and sinking onto the seat beside him. ‘That’s better,’ he says and lets his hand rest lightly on my thigh. My skin sizzles as though on fire.

  I am disturbed that so casual a gesture should create such an impact. I strive not to misconstrue it and to remember his theory of ‘non-intrusive touch’. I ask for a full account of his life, not his work – the Bush House bush telegraph has been buzzing – but his family, his friends, his lovers … the lightness of my tone is deceptive, for I am starting to entertain the most incongruous second-time-lucky hopes.

  ‘Where should I begin?’

  ‘Why not the lovers?’ I smile to hide the blush.

  ‘There’s not that much to say. After we split up, I was determined to stay unattached … to hedge my bets – play the field. Then I met Cass on a meditation week in Devon. He was very spiritual. For a time, I got involved with a lot of New Age groups … you know the sort, “let’s all sit in a circle on the floor and share our brains”; until, after a while, I began to feel that I had no brains left. Sleeping in a squat under a sign proclaiming “One man’s meat is another man’s toxin” didn’t quite chime with life at the World Service. So I left and bought a flat in Brockley. Then, last year, I met Griffin, who’s an opera critic.’

  ‘Griffin Lennox?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘I read his column; he writes well.’ The hand on my thigh starts to feel like a cold compress.

  ‘An opera queen was just about the last man I saw myself going out with. I’ve always held that Covent Garden is to the arts what the House of Lords is to democracy. But it’s his passion and, I suppose, he’s mine. He’s helped me to grow in so many ways. He’s very active in Queer politics.’

  ‘Hence the T-shirt.’

  ‘It’s about much more than T-shirts!’ He withdraws his hand. ‘He’s heavily into S&M. I can tell you disapprove; but that’s because you hate sex. You consider it dark and disgusting and degrading. Why else do you waste yourself on rent boys? It’s weird; you assert the power of the imagination in every other aspect of life, but not sex. There, you insist that we must all stick to the strictest rules … as though it’s the only way you can deny your deviance. I’ve never understood why so many gay men try to adopt their own version of the missionary position, when most missionaries want to prevent them adopting any position whatsoever.’

  ‘In my case, it’s hypothetical.’

  ‘Well it shouldn’t be. For all your hang-ups, you’re a very attractive man. I saw an ad in Boyz last year, from a young guy who was “looking for a Leo Young type”. I cut it out to send you.’

  ‘There was no need.’ Two less considerate friends have already rectified the omission … and supplied the context: ‘Young man seeking uncle to pamper me. Must be solvent. Leo Young type preferred.’ ‘It’d be like the New Statesman competition for a Graham Greene parody in which Greene himself only managed to come third.’

  ‘You’d come first, Leo; believe me.’

  He leaves me with an expansive hug and a profound sense of emptiness which
is unrelieved by our arrangement to meet for lunch next week. He has aroused feelings that I have suppressed for years. How long is it since I have had any sense of myself as a man, rather than as a collection of mannerisms – the cocked forefinger, the tutting teeth, the staccato laugh – that render me screen-sized, fit for the bi-weekly bite? The bow tie and the horn-rimmed spectacles of the opening titles may be instantly identifiable, but I am struck by the fact that there is no face in-between.

  I throw myself into my work with such zeal that Kaye and Vicky each report the other’s fear that I am overdoing it. They insist that I have nothing to prove. My position with the programme is secure; ratings are sustained and even Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells has stayed silent. I am grateful for their concern, which is, nevertheless, misplaced. My aim is not to prove myself but to protect myself … who knows what demons lurk in the blank pages of a diary? I determine to keep them at bay and embark on a hectic round of lunches, launches, first nights and private views. Pain is absorbed in champagne, as I enter a world where time is replaced by fashion. I swap small talk and finger food with people whom I have avoided for years.

  Once a fortnight, I become a father. I regain my sense of purpose on the road to Brighton; only to watch it fade on the journey back. Pagan has grown so distant. Her visits feel as formal as school trips; with treats turning into chores which she listlessly endures. She seems indifferent to the prospect of returning home, greeting my questions with evasions and talking more to her teddy bears than to me. Even bedtime brings few confidences. I ask about her new friends (‘boring’), teachers (‘boring’), neighbours (‘boring’) and grandparents (‘I’m tired’). To my dismay, I realise that she no longer trusts me; instead of her all-loving Leo, I am another adult liar. I cannot blame her; like everyone else, I have betrayed her. The only way that I can prove my good faith is in court.

  The appeal is heard on Maundy Thursday in the Thomas More building in the Royal Courts of Justice – all of which I find ironic. Protocol is surprisingly informal. The one excitement is that, at last, the revue artist has the chance to dress up. I fear that he fails to do it justice … the ill-fitting wig on top of the mop of curly hair has a distinct air of robing-room improvisation; although it may be in protest at his continued lack of lines. I am equally frustrated by my role in the proceedings. There is no new evidence; neither I nor any witnesses are called. Rebecca simply argues that Judge Flower misused his discretion, attaching too much weight to my sexuality and not enough to the stability of the relationship. Your parents’ Counsel counters that my sexuality is itself a threat to stability. The Judges retire to confer. I have a firm belief that there will be safety in numbers … but I am forgetting the stranglehold of the old-school tie. It scars them for life and cuts off their supply of compassion; they are wracked with guilt for what they did as boys. Their disgust distorts their judgement … and their judgment is unanimous. The appeal is dismissed with costs.