by James Lark
He jumped at the sound of his mother’s voice in the hallway behind him. ‘If you leave, you will not come back.’ Her voice was quietly harsh, like pepper being ground.
Gerard remained facing away from her, his hand still on the door, frozen in panic. He could feel himself shaking and knew that the decision he had to make was going to affect everything he ever did afterwards.
It felt as though he stood there for several hours. Then, without looking behind him, he pulled the door open and walked through.
His mother watched him go, no emotion registering on her face.
It was the first time he had ever disobeyed her.
Chapter 24
Gerard got on a bus to Cogspool, feeling liberated, afraid, his apprehension mingling with an unfamiliar sense of excitement. He was free at last and could do what he wanted. He would find Pender and everything would work out for the best.
But as the streets swept past he found his mind filling with new doubts, about what he was going to do, about his future. He felt more alone than he had in his cell-like bedroom only twenty minutes ago.
He had been brought up to believe that Jesus was always with him. This had often given him a great sense of comfort, but now that he was in the world and on his own, he didn’t feel Jesus with him at all. He was quite sure that he still believed in Jesus, but he couldn’t feel anything other than his own heart beating and his fearful breathing. What were all those Sunday school lessons worth here?
When he got off the bus in Cogspool, his mind was reeling with conflicting feelings, to the extent that he felt physically disoriented. This illusion was no doubt compounded by his genuine geographical disorientation. Although he had a rough idea of where Pender lived, because Pender had driven him there from Little Collyweston, he hadn’t paid that much attention at the time. Now that he was in Cogspool, he saw that it was much larger than he’d anticipated. He didn’t even know which direction to set off in.
On the verge of tears, Gerard quickly walked through the streets, past shops, bus shelters, pushing through crowds of teenagers enjoying their Saturday by swarming aimlessly through town. Through misted eyes Gerard looked around him, at the strange faces, the families out for the day, wondering if he might glimpse Pender, if everything might suddenly slot into place. ‘Please God, help me’ he prayed out loud, and was surprised by how high and feeble his voice sounded. He didn’t feel God helping him, and he remembered that God wouldn’t want to help him now, not after what he’d done – Pender was his only hope now, and he didn’t know where to find Pender.
Coming to the end of the high street, he suddenly recognised a billboard advertising a deodorant of a luxurious and feminine nature (at least, that is what the picture suggested). He had noticed it when being driven to Pender’s house – it was difficult not to notice, even for a gay person.
Excited, Gerard realised that he knew where he was. He hurried along the street he was on, looking for the left turn he knew was coming, then unsure again – was this the right street? Had it even been the right billboard? – then came to the left turn and went down it.
Now, it was just a matter of walking along looking at the doors until he recognised one. He couldn’t remember the number, but he knew it was about halfway down the road and he remembered that it was a faded blue colour and had a patterned glass pane in it.
He counted the numbers as they went up … 57 … 59 … 61 … then he was there, number 63. This was it.
Hand trembling, he rang the doorbell. Standing back, he waited. He had never felt so nervous. Would Pender be pleased to see him? Or would he be annoyed? Gerard felt less certain now than ever before, but it was too late, and there was his shadow assembling itself from the fragments that the glass was split into, solidifying into the form that Gerard knew …
‘Hello?’ A young woman with matted, greasy hair and a harassed look had opened the door.
‘Er … are you … Pender’s mother?’ Gerard said stupidly. He could see through into the kitchen, where the light from a conservatory silhouetted the figure of a small girl dancing. It wasn’t a house that he recognised.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the tired-looking woman, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong house.’
‘Yes … sorry …’ mumbled Gerard, embarrassed and upset, backing away from the door. ‘Sorry to bother you …’
He found the right house a few doors later, number 75. To make certain, he walked as far as number 93, checking for other doors that might be Pender’s, but he was nearing the end of the road so he went back. He momentarily toyed with the idea of not ringing the bell at all, because by now he knew that the whole thing had been a bad idea. But he had come all this way, so, wishing that he was still lost in Cogspool, he took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
There was no response for some time then, just as he was about to try ringing again, Gerard heard footsteps on the stairs and Pender opened the door. They looked at each other and Gerard smiled, shyly. ‘Hello,’ he ventured.
‘What are you doing here?’ Pender didn’t exactly look pleased to see him. He was wearing a dressing gown and he hadn’t shaved – he surely hadn’t just woken up? It was well into the afternoon.
Pender was annoyed. It was barely after midday and he’d been in bed. And Gerard was the last person he’d expected to turn up – in fact, Gerard was not somebody he’d expected to see ever again. Looking at the pale, boyish face now, Pender wondered quite what he’d seen in the kid. He almost felt ashamed at having slept with such a feeble, uninteresting person.
‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated, using a tone of voice that made it very clear that Gerard was not welcome.
‘Well I … I came to see you,’ answered Gerard, the tiniest tremble in his words.
‘Okay. You’ve seen me.’ Pender experienced a degree of sadistic enjoyment in the effects of his cold rebuttal. Gerard’s look of hurt confusion increased, and Pender started to wonder if he might even make the boy cry.
‘I … I thought maybe I could come in,’ Gerard stuttered helplessly.
‘It’s a bad time,’ said Pender, shortly. ‘I was in bed.’
‘Oh – s-sorry,’ said Gerard. ‘I could – come back later?’
‘Really, I don’t think I want you here at all,’ said Pender. Gerard’s face crumpled. ‘Sorry,’ he added, insincerely. He wasn’t sure why each subtle effect of his words was giving him so much pleasure, but he found he didn’t want to stop. ‘It’s just, you turn up here unexpectedly, knock on my door when I’m still in bed – with somebody else, I might add …’
‘Somebody else?’ Gerard mouthed inaudibly.
‘That’s right,’ said Pender, with a grin calculated to make sure Gerard never darkened his doorway again. ‘Actually,’ he continued, twisting the knife even more, ‘we were mid-fuck when you turned up.’ He waited for that to register – which it did – then finished, ‘so, if you don’t mind …?’
Gerard failed to utter a response and Pender gave him one last cruel smile before closing the door. ‘You bastard,’ he muttered to himself, and sloped back up the stairs.
‘Who was it?’ cooed a voice from his bed.
‘Nobody,’ said Pender, shortly, taking off his dressing gown and starting to get into bed. The other person in it suddenly rolled over, pushing Pender back out.
‘Not until you tell me who it was!’
‘Let me get into bed.’
‘Tell me, tell me, tell me!’ chanted the other figure, with excited hand gestures. ‘I’ll guess, let me guess … was it …’
‘It was Gerald somebody,’ Pender bluntly told him.
‘Who?’
‘The boy who lost his contact lens in the club last week.’
‘Oh – my – Go-o-o-o-o-d!’ shrieked Pender’s bedfellow in excitement, with increased hand gestures to match. ‘Oh, my God, really?’
Pender sighed, wondering what on earth had possessed him to take Vernon Tait home a second time.
Gerard walked back t
he way he had come, now full of a new, searing pain. He hoped only that a bus would run him over.
The high street was even more crowded than before. Gerard pushed through the crowds, trying to get away from the faces. He wanted to be away from everything, he wanted to be alone, out of the oppressive, claustrophobic outdoors. He now knew that a heart didn’t ‘break’ in a clean, clinical way – it was squeezed by a huge fist until it couldn’t breathe, until nothing inside you could breathe, and surely no human body was strong enough to bear the agonising cramped heart that he could feel thumping and thumping with every splintered intake of air?
He saw the open door and stepped inside, walking straight to a pew and sitting down. He was expecting the tears that had been building up inside him like a river behind a dam to burst out, but found that he couldn’t cry. He was too numb. Instead, he sat, aching unbearably, staring ahead of him at a banner of animals cut out of paper, crowding into Noah’s ark in twos. Except that Gerard noticed a single parrot, clumsily coloured in with a green crayon, sitting at the top of the ark without a partner. Perhaps it had been lost by a Sunday-school teacher, or they’d forgotten to make a second one.
Gerard looked at the lonely parrot, on the top of all the bustling, paired-up animals. It was a perfect representation of how he felt; surrounded by people, but completely alone.
‘Everything alright?’ asked a kind voice.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the matter?’ asked the priest, sitting down next to him.
‘Everything.’
‘Go on?’
‘I want to die,’ Gerard told him.
The priest was silent for a few moments. ‘Would you like to tell me why?’
Gerard shrugged. ‘Everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything’s wrong.’ His breaths were short and he could hardly speak. ‘Mother hates – the house, she’s thrown me out and the person I … doesn’t want me any more … I hate everything about my life, about me.’
‘Okay.’ The priest drew in a deep breath. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. Why has your mother thrown you out?’
Gerald hesitated only momentarily – what did he have to lose? ‘I’m gay.’
‘I see.’ In the silence that followed, Gerard wondered if the priest would just get up and leave him, or throw him out of the church. ‘Is that – is being gay one of the things that you hate about yourself?’ the priest finally asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then let me tell you that being gay is one of the things that makes you who you are,’ the priest said gently. ‘Do you really hate who you are?’
Gerard thought about this. He had never really dwelt on the idea of himself before, as a person. He tried to see himself as others might see him – the awkward, thin person who didn’t say much, with no outstanding abilities or features, no particular friends. The boy who could sit next to people at school without getting in their way, but without really getting noticed either. The boy who was content to look at other boys and fantasise about them instead of trying to get to know them for real. The boy who preferred to live inside his own head rather than in real life.
No, he didn’t hate himself. He couldn’t see anything to hate. But he couldn’t see very much to like, either. It was no wonder that nobody had ever taken much notice of him.
Was that the only reason he was sitting in a church, crippled by an overwhelming love for Pender – a man who in all respects other than that he had once, just once, noticed Gerard, was clearly a complete bastard?
‘I don’t hate who I am,’ Gerard admitted. ‘But …’ He thought for a little longer, trying to work out exactly what it was that he did hate, his face tight and bitter. ‘I hate everything that being gay means.’
‘Why is that?’
Something inside Gerard snapped and he heard a list of grievances flowing from deep within him. He seemed to have lost control of what he was saying altogether now, let alone control over the order in which his words came out. ‘I hate it that gay people are so wound up about being gay that they’ve got to have – got to surround themselves in things to show and gay activities just to feel secure, their own special gay customs and gay places – normal! – how are gay people ever … and they expect people to think that they’re – carry on behaving like, like … overprivileged children when they – everyone gay has just – like selfish, and slutty, and it’s like and real love, like the rest of the world, that it doesn’t actually want actual real emotions. I hate it and I won’t …’ Gerard wiped his eyes. ‘I hate it, I want nothing to do wish I wasn’t because there’s so much with it.’
Alex Milne nodded slowly, absorbing Gerard’s words. Although they were all in the wrong order he understood them more than Gerard could have realised.
It was exactly how he felt about being a Christian.
He looked into Gerard’s unhappy, broken face, and met the boy’s eyes. There were tears streaming from them.
‘I don’t want everything – what it and – everything – it means,’ repeated Gerard, ‘but I can’t. I can’t help it. Why, why me, I can’t …’ He trailed off, helplessly.
Milne sighed. He felt the boy’s pain deeply, knew what it was to endure such burdens. ‘You haven’t chosen to be gay,’ he said, ‘but you are. It’s something that life has thrown at you. Life throws things at everyone, different things at different people. And life is about learning to deal with what it throws at you.’ Gerard looked away from Milne and fixed his eyes back on the pew in front of him. ‘What are you thinking?’ Milne asked.
‘You’re all the same,’ Gerard said, his voice dull and lifeless.
‘Who are?’
‘Priests. Church people. You talk but it’s meaningless, about life and – it’s dead, just, just statues and stained glass, they can’t do anything.’
Milne shivered. He was worried that the boy might be right. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘If you’re looking for a solution to life, then I’m afraid I don’t have one. It’s crap, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ Gerard looked at him, surprised.
‘Life. It’s crap.’ Gerard gaped at Milne. He met Gerard’s eyes. ‘Life is an incredible thing, a wonderful gift, and quite often it’s crap. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ gulped Gerard, taken aback by such honesty from a priest. He couldn’t imagine Reverend Biddle evening saying the word ‘crap’, let alone using it in connection with life itself.
‘You know, I don’t think God ever intended life to be easy. I think he always knew it would be crap. I’d be angry with him, except that he’s been through it as well. He does know what it’s like.’ Milne leaned towards Gerard. ‘I’ll tell you something, though …’ Gerard looked at him, expectantly. ‘If Adam and Eve turn out to be real people, when I get to heaven I’ll be first in the queue to kick them.’
Gerard managed a tiny laugh before remembering that he was miserable. They sat next to each other on the pew in silence for a few minutes.
‘Do you want to talk about the person who’s hurt you?’ Milne asked.
‘Who?’
‘The person you said you wanted to be with. What’s his name?’
‘Pender,’ said Gerard, softly. Now that he came to say it out loud it sounded like a stupid name.
‘Did you know him very well?’
Gerard shook his head. ‘But …’
‘Yes?’ said Milne, encouragingly.
‘I love … him, loved or – I know – not knowing him – it’s stupid …’ Gerard looked straight down at his knees. ‘But – I really did.’ His tears were flowing freely now, even if his words weren’t. ‘And he just – he just, like he didn’t care, turned me away.’
Milne sighed and put his arm round Gerard. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Being rejected by somebody you love is a terrible thing. But …’ He paused, feeling Gerard’s body shuddering with sobs under his arm, ‘when relationships go wrong like this, you never really know what’s going through the other person’s mind.’
‘What do you – I don’t …’ whispered Gerard. Milne sighed.
‘I know what it’s like to be in love. You don’t ever forget … that feeling.’ He sat for a moment, remembering. Her laugh, her bright eyes with his face reflected in them.
Gerard’s face was screwed up in concentration, perhaps with the effort of imagining a priest having real human emotion. ‘Who … I mean … you’ve been rejected, too?’ he finally asked.
‘No.’ He forced himself to continue remembering, her face crumpling like paper and her bright eyes weeping silvery tears, glistening on her cheeks and forcing themselves into his memory to accuse him forever. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ he sighed. ‘I rejected her.’ Milne felt the boy’s body stiffen next to him. There was a long silence.
‘Why?’ The boy’s voice was barely audible.
‘I loved her, I really did. But …’ It was as if he were having to justify himself to her all over again – and there was something in the boy’s face that reminded him of her, the piercing eyes which demanded reasons. ‘I didn’t love her enough. Or … or love her in the right way. I was preparing to throw myself into serving God, serving other people, and I couldn’t find a way of fitting her into that equation. So she was miserable, and I was miserable because I was making her miserable. I didn’t think we could make it work.’ With the distance of several lonely years between him and his words they sounded even lamer than they had at the time. Had he made a big mistake? What had he sacrificed?