by David Rees
In the parlour sat a woman, sewing. ‘My wife, Frances,’ Jake said.
They ate very frugally; this family had not been hoarding food, though the two young daughters, who came in from playing just before the meal was served, did not appear at all starved. Some people, Frances said, had been driven to eating their cats and dogs before the city surrendered, but they must have been extremely profligate in the management of their households. Jake and his wife, Tim discovered during the course of the evening, supported neither party: they were, by natural inclination, Royalist, but they had become sick of the errors of the King’s government, and though they felt they could never support the aims of Parliament, they hoped for fairer justice and honesty under the new regime. Jake, finding time lay heavily on his hands as the cloth trade had declined dramatically because of the war, had busied himself with a number of minor jobs such as the sextonship of Holy Trinity: a post left suddenly vacant and unfilled, like a hundred others, when the King’s men had occupied the city after the previous siege. ‘Where are those men now?’ He was referring to Lord Goring and his cavalry. ‘Like the army of King Cambysses they vanished without trace. Swallowed up, perhaps, in the bogs of Dartmoor.’
‘Vanished to their homes, more like,’ Tim said. ‘Those that could.’
‘What do you intend to do, now you are no longer required at the gatehouse?’
‘I don’t know.’ He had not thought about it. ‘Leave Exeter, probably.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’ He saw himself, in his mind’s eye, travelling alone in the middle of a straight dusty track that stretched to the horizon, his belongings wrapped in a bundle on his shoulders.
‘You’re welcome to stay here for a while.’ Polite and friendly though the invitation was, it did not sound very pressing.
‘Thank you. I will for tonight, if I may.’
It was growing dark. Frances lit candles. They gleamed in the pewter, made the ceiling beams flicker, cast strange shadows on faces. Tim felt comfortable, but he knew he had to go back to the tower of Holy Trinity.
Jake, as if he was reading Tim’s thoughts, said ‘It should be safe now. There’s food in the kitchen; take it to him.’
He didn’t love Aaron any more. He was quite certain of it; it was a fact like the truth blazed by the lightning on the Damascus road. He was free! The spell had broken; the dog’s tail had lost a tin.
Afterwards, after Ray had gone, guilt then, the other tin. The clammy damp on his skin. But this knowledge: he did not love Aaron. Never again would he fall for someone so hopelessly out of reach. He was free!
He found his way by moonlight. The gatehouse was deserted and sinister; he did not want to go in, even though Anthony had asked for his music and his lute. He approached the church tower, afraid, listening for noises. A dog howled, outside the walls, in the ruins by the Quaker meeting-place. A window banged shut. Leaves rustled in the wind.
Footsteps: several men, walking purposefully. He shrank into the shadows cast by a buttress. There were three men. They stopped by the door of the tower, tried the handle, and expressed no surprise on finding it locked. One of them drew a pistol and fired, kicked it open. Running feet on the stairs, angry voices. Tim put down his basket of food against the church wall and moved as silently as he could to the door. The words, echoing in the spiral staircase, were quite clear.
‘Are you Anthony Fare?’
‘No.’
Someone laughed. ‘He obviously is; bring him away.’
‘Why?’
‘You know the charge. The Governor wants to question you.’
‘The Governor?’
‘Or one of his officers, perhaps.’
A third voice said ‘Don’t cause us any trouble, sir. It’s not a hanging offence, so kindly drop the pistol.’
‘Don’t come any nearer!’
There was a pause, then a rush across the room, shouts, blows from fists, another explosion. Someone fell heavily to the floor. After a moment’s silence one of the intruders said ‘Died, while resisting arrest.’
‘Serve him right.’
Tim was horrified. Anthony! He had difficulty restraining himself from running up the stairs, demanding explanations, hurling abuse.
‘Who fired the gun?’
‘He did. In the fight. It went off accidentally.’
‘What shall we do with him?’
‘Leave him till morning. Send a report to the castle.’
Feet descending. Tim fled into the shadows. The three men hurried past, and ran down the steps into South Street. Tim waited, his heart thumping violently. He wanted to go into the tower, but he was frightened. Suppose the men returned? Eventually he found the courage, and there, in the moonlight, was Anthony, lying on his back in the middle of the floor. There was blood from a wound in the temple. Tim felt for the heart: nothing.
He was my friend. No, not really; that was self-deception. He would have betrayed me if he’d felt it necessary, used me to save himself. He was involved in murky business, no doubt of it. A soldier of fortune. Someone trying to extract the most from the war to feather his own nest. Perhaps. These were only guesses; Tim had never grown near discovering what the real Anthony was like. He hadn’t been unreasonable to work for, at times had seemed the most fascinating of men. But that was drink and talk, the warmth of a shared room. He was handsome and tall, and now he was dead: the blue eyes dead.
‘You cannot blame the authorities,’Jake said, gently. ‘It was not intended, I’m sure. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can remove his possessions. Would you like to have his lute?’
‘Yes. Yes, I would.’
‘Did you love him?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you did.’
‘I thought I did. For a while. But I did not.’
Tim woke early from a fitful sleep. Hunger had disturbed him often during the night, and he had felt, more than once, that it would be impossible to survive another day without food. His stomach gnawed and clutched, crying out against the situation which would not allow it to function normally. He was weak in all his limbs, as if he had a mild fever. The others were restless too; Aaron twitched and protested, and John and Ray from time to time muttered incomprehensible but apparently urgent, important words.
There was something changed about the quality of the light outside. He crawled over Aaron’s body and opened the tent-flaps. The sun! Only then did he realize: their imprisonment was over! The cloud was still there, but it had lifted considerably; he could see, could see the way off Glaramara, for on that mountain, he now knew, they had spent the last three nights. He identified Great End. The cloud swirled; the crags disappeared and the sunlight darkened, but it did not matter: instead he saw into Borrowdale. Then the sun came again, and for a moment the clouds parted completely and there was the shining rocky peak of Bowfell, splendid and beautiful against the blue sky. ‘Wake up! Wake up!’
‘What’s the matter? What is it?’
‘The weather! There’s sun; we can go! We’re saved!’ They roused themselves instantly and peered out.
‘Thank God,’ Ray said.
There was no need to discuss what to do. They dressed, drank some water, packed their things. The tent was dismantled.
‘Whose turn for it?’ Aaron asked.
‘Mine.’ Tim shouldered it.
‘He can’t take a full shift,’ Ray said. ‘None of us can. We’re not strong enough now.’
John agreed. ‘Half an hour each today.’
‘The holiday’s over,’ Tim said. ‘Isn’t it? Langdale, and then our mothers. We were going to climb Helvellyn, Scafell Pike, and Skiddaw.’ No-one spoke. ‘Well, another time perhaps.’
‘Yes,’ Ray said, and Aaron nodded.
They set off. John had been right about the direction when he had laid out the stones; he was still right when they came to the marsh. Now, of course, they could see the way round it, could see, in fact, how obvious was the route from Glaramara to
the Langdale-Wasdale motorway, even though there was no track and the ground was rough and uneven. Progress was slow. It was not the confident stride of the four fit young colts who had easily conquered Great Gable on Saturday evening; it was more the dull leaden plod of aged carthorses, stumbling through weakness. Tim, burdened by the tent, was particularly slow. Ray walked with him.
John and Aaron gradually moved ahead, and, when they were some distance off, Ray said ‘At last we can talk.’
‘There’s a lot to talk about,’ Tim replied, laughing. ‘Quite a lot!’
Ray was silent, embarrassed a little, not knowing where to begin. ‘When I was thirteen, no, just fourteen . . . yes, it was in the third year ... Ron used to come round to the flat on Saturday mornings. We’d look at these magazines, nude women and that, and ... I don’t remember exactly how it began ... we ... we both . . .’
‘Ron! You and Ron?' Tim was amazed. It was almost a stab of pain: jealousy.
‘I know you fancy him.’
‘I . . . did.’ He recovered himself, pretended to look nonchalant. ‘Was this . . . often?’
‘I can’t remember. I don’t know how many times. It wasn’t for long; I mean, Ron, he was just shy of girls, and the same went for me ... I mean, I thought it did. Anyway, it stopped, and we started going out with girls. Well, most of the boys were going out with girls. Our friends. You know, mates, a gang. I didn’t ... I just didn’t enjoy it, though I kidded myself I was having fun. I mean I knew inside I was different, right from the start, but it was a feeling I pushed away. Perhaps I hadn’t met a girl I really liked, I said. But it wasn’t; I mean I know when Ron and I stopped I was really cut up about it. It was Ron finished it of course; he’d met this Philippa somebody, and I thought, oh well, maybe it was just a phase. Ron had grown out of it quicker than me, that was all. Then, last year, there was you.’
‘Me?’
‘You’d always been on your own, and people said you were ... well ... wet ... and queer ... and I told myself I didn’t like you at all in the fourth and fifth forms. I suppose because nobody did. I’m sorry. I mean I never really thought why. I’m sorry, Tim. But last year . . . you were staring at nothing, one day. At a brick wall. You looked so sad. Sad! I wanted to put my arms round you and say, it’s all right! I was shocked. By what I felt, I mean. I thought everything out after that. Put all the pieces together. And I knew it was boys . . . men. Pictures of men in magazines, they really stir me, not like those female nudes of Ron’s. I never told anyone. How could I? Ron, all my other friends, the first eleven crowd . . . well! I couldn’t lose them. I’d have nothing.’
‘You could have told me.’
‘I wish I had. I mean, I knew you were; it’s obvious—’
‘Obvious?’
‘I don’t mean you’re a pansy, or some freak; it’s because you never go with girls, and the way you look at Ron. But I just couldn’t tell you. You didn’t fancy me; that was quite plain. I thought you’d be annoyed probably, and that would be worse, being rejected, much worse than if I never told you. But... this week. It was awful when you insisted on coming, and Ron said it was all right with him. I tried to persuade him to change his mind... do you remember?... I’m sorry. Then all the pretence of chasing that girl from the youth hostel! Stupid. Then you ... in the same tent. I struggled and struggled and I thought I’d burst . . . like some gas cylinder exploding. And I seduced you. Is that what it was? I’d have exploded otherwise, gone berserk. I’d got to that stage it didn’t matter any longer you might hate me; well, it mattered less than the fact that I had to do something.’
‘Ray.’ He tried to sound as gentle as he could. ‘I don’t... I can’t love you.’
‘I don’t love you either. I don’t think that’s the word for it. I just . . . fancy you. Is that terrible?’
‘These past few days! The weather, and being shut up in the tent, and thinking we’d starve to death! All that and it’s seemed less than . . . well, it’s been a crisis for me, too. A civil war. If you’d tried it only three nights back, I’d have kicked you out. Sinful and wicked. Catholicism, you see.’
‘I know. That’s another reason I never said before.’
‘I may be coming to terms with it. I don’t know. I’ve got to be me!’
‘That’s it exactly! We’ve got to be us! Losing Ron, the others ... it may not matter so much. Well, it does matter, but perhaps it’s not so important. I can’t go on being a fraud. A pretend-man.’
‘Pretend-man?’ Tim smiled. ‘That’s just the word I call myself! ’
‘Called. Not now.’
‘Yes. Or I hope so. It won’t be easy.’
‘For neither of us, I guess. Do you ... do you want us to go on seeing each other, when we get back?’
‘Of course I do! I want to know you, more than anybody else I’ve ever met!’
‘But are you ashamed ... of what we’ve done?’
‘I ought to be. But, now, at this moment . . . no.’
‘Would you . . . will there ... be another time?’
‘Don’t. Don’t ask things like that. I don’t know. Wrong on two counts. Sinful and wicked. And I don’t love you. But I was happy, Ray. I can’t work that out yet. Someone ... wanting me. Being needed. I suddenly knew I mattered, to myself as well as you. I was a real person.’
‘You must come home. Tomorrow, or the day after. And meet my parents. You’d like them! They’re great people.’
‘I’d love to.’
‘I’m . . . oh, happy!’
‘I’m on the road to being happy. I think.’ Why could he not love Ray, he asked himself. Ray wasn’t ugly. A real man. Was it that he was too soft? Too confused? It was going to be, ultimately, someone quite different. Someone much more all of a piece, more sure of things, who could say: if you want me we’ll make a marvellous life, and if you don’t, I shan’t break my heart. Someone whose personality was more like John’s. Not John, of course. That would be quite absurd! Never again would he let himself become infatuated with a boy who wasn’t his own kind. That would be a recipe for disaster and despair. But, one day, years off perhaps, there might be a man along the lines of John.
‘They’re waiting for us,’ Ray said.
Why should he think that? He didn’t like the idea of being deferred to, coddled, turned into a substitute woman. He wanted to be bossed around, fall in with the other person’s whims and wishes. Not ill-treated, certainly, simply needed in a strong kind of way, not be enmeshed in a soft fuzzy web of sentiment. Or was this, he wondered, a kind of running away from emotion?
‘I’ll take the tent!’ Aaron shouted. The first generous action he’s ever indulged in, Tim thought.
‘It’s all right!’ Ray shouted back. ‘My turn!’
‘It isn’t,’ Tim said.
‘I know. If I take it we don’t have to catch them up.’ Aaron shrugged his shoulders, his most characteristic gesture. John and he walked on, up the pass. ‘Method in my madness,’ Ray said.
They were silent for a while, Ray getting used to the burden of the tent. Tim felt its weight becoming intolerable, yet on that first day it had not seemed too irksome. It was the hunger, the total listlessness in the limbs, the lightness in the head. Mountain walking, even though it meant they could now reach safety, was the most wretched pastime imaginable.
There was still a mass of low cloud, breaking up and reforming in the wind. But shafts of sunlight pierced it, revealing scree and crag, muttering rivulets of water drizzling down rock. They could see far enough, and the way was obvious. Around them, grass, bracken dying, the mud and stones of the track. The top of the pass was only minutes away.
‘There’s places at home where people like us meet,’ Ray said.
‘Are there?’ Tim was surprised. He’d never heard of such a thing.
‘A pub. And some group that meets in somebody’s house.’
‘I’d be terrified.’
‘Why?’
‘I just would, I’m sure. What would they w
ant of me, I’d be wondering.’
‘They’re people like anybody else.’
‘I’d still be frightened. How did you find this out?’
‘You know that effeminate boy, Noel Haynes? Well, he is; he must be. I once looked inside his desk. I was going past his classroom after school one day, and I thought... I just wondered if there might be something interesting, to confirm that he was. Well, there was this newspaper. I took it home and read it, every page of it, every line, then had a hell of a job smuggling it back. There was this guide in it, all the pubs and places in England where gay people meet.
Anyway... I want to go to this pub at home. I don’t think I’d dare go in by myself, though. Will you . . . come with me?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’
‘Nobody’s going to rape you, Tim!’
‘Why do you want to go there?’
‘To meet others like us, of course! You can’t live in a vacuum!’
‘What else was in this paper?’
‘Oh, articles, reviews, stories about queer-bashing, lovers being arrested by the police. All kinds of oppression. Adverts . . . lonely people wanting to contact other lonely people.’
‘What if you met somebody in this pub you know, someone who’s not . . . ?’
‘I don’t care. I’ve decided not to care.’
‘They might be, well, very strange. The men who go to this pub.’
‘Look, we can’t be the only two nice decent homosexuals in the world!’
‘I suppose not.’ He had a cheering vision of hundreds of happy uncomplicated people enjoying themselves together, sharing each others’ lives. ‘I suppose not.’
‘I’ve come a long distance, these past few days. You said it was civil war, and that’s very true. I’ve been imagining I was in the Alcázar all the time in the tent, an Alcázar of guys like me. Odd. Besieged by my own side, la República.’