by David Rees
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘Nearly a stone.’
‘Are you eating properly?’
‘I think so. I never lose my appetite, whatever the crisis. Odd. Most people can’t eat when their world spins out of balance. So how have I lost weight?’
‘Nervous energy. Are you still unable to sleep?’
‘Five hours is about the maximum; sometimes its no more than two. And I’m not really tired; I get used to it But how do you kill the time at night?’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes, then sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘Can I have a drink?’
‘There’s plenty of scotch. Help yourself. Mark … don’t do anything silly.’
‘I’ve thought of it.’
‘Don’t. Promise me!’
He did not reply.
Later, when they had eaten, he went out for a walk with his father. Mr Sewell had retired from work a year ago, and his energies seemed to have dwindled to an aimless kind of pottering: he was always losing things, letters, his pipe, his handkerchief, and he was content to pass much of the day looking for them rather than doing anything of importance. He was, at the moment, unwell, hobbling, even with the aid of a stick: a slight twinge of rheumatism, he said. Nothing to worry about.
They talked platitudes: inflation, Margaret Thatcher destroying the country, the Council spending too much money on unnecessary projects, the need to extend the M23 into London. A retired social worker, Mark said to himself, with a wife and son he loves but doesn’t really understand: what has been the point of his existence? It’s no better than mine.
‘I’m sorry that you and Donald have split up,’ Mr Sewell said. ‘I really am very sorry. If there was anything I could do to help you, I would. But there isn’t, of course; you can only come to terms alone. People always suffer alone: no one can take the burden from you, even share it. If I were you I’d seriously think about leaving London. Make a fresh start. You’re young. Your life is ahead of you. Stop making yourself so available. To Donald I mean. Don’t see him at all. Finish it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What will you do with the flat? You’re joint owners, aren’t you?’
Mark nodded. ‘Donald says he doesn’t want his half; I can have it. I’ve paid the mortgage every month since we’ve lived there; he was unemployed and still is: I didn’t expect him to … I suppose it’s now mine more than his.’
What about his property?’
He’s moved his stuff to his parents’ house, the small things; not his furniture, the dining-table for instance, or his desk. Temporarily, until he’s found a place of his own. He’s not making much of an effort to do that!’
Have you altered your will?’
‘I tore it up,’ Mark said. ‘I had an orgy of tearing up, photographs, letters … smashing things too: just as well Donald had taken away his precious pottery and glass … I… took all the records that had any romantic associations for us into the garden and smashed them to bits with a hammer.’
‘That was stupid.’
‘Yes. But maybe it prevented me from smashing Donald to bits with a hammer.’
Mr Sewell stared at him. ‘Have you made another will?’ he asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Do so.’ They stopped and looked at the view. They had climbed the hill beyond the old airport, and could see the office blocks, the spread of houses: grey. The fog was lifting, but the sky seemed to press down heavily. ‘It will rain later, despite the forecast… You know, I like this view. When we came here thirty years ago, I hated living in Croydon! I felt it was a kind of death. But I’ve got used to things. More than that; I’ve grown into the place: it’s grown into me. When I retired we thought about moving, a bungalow on the coast at Burnham Overy, Wells-next-the-sea, somewhere like that. But I’m glad now we didn’t. I see by the way … that you’re still wearing Donald’s ring.’
Later, alone in the flat in Camden Town, Mark went over this conversation in his head. Dad was ageing rapidly. Was more distant than he used to be. They were growing apart.
Hampstead Heath: reddish gold light on water, lines of cloud green-tinted in the dusk, flocks of birds pursuing their own secretive life, windows glinting with the last of day. The dregs of day, the lees of day, rich, warm, beautiful: Mark, there were some good times, some marvelous times … and yet.
Up here on the heath was the most exciting place for sex, the kind of sex that at this stage of his life was exactly what Donald wanted. In the bushes, in the summer dark, the hands of invisible strangers, men whose silhouettes could just about be glimpsed in the blackness, slowly unbuttoned his shirt, undid his zip, thrust his jeans down to his ankles, pressed bottles of poppers against his nose, explored his cock, fingered his arse. It was a fantastic turn-on when four or five of them were doing this to him all at the same time; which would he allow the pleasure of letting him come? Holding it back; moving from one man to another; making it last an hour, two hours, till his legs felt as if they’d been running for miles. Best when he had no idea which mouth he shot in, so long as the poppers were still carrying him into ecstasy, the hands still busy with his arse, legs, balls, tits; and his hands and mouth were still enjoying cock, scrotum, balls: selecting the best, the biggest balls, the cocks that tapered up like rockets― thick, firm cocks attached to firm, youthful bodies that shuddered and cried out and came at the same moment he chose to release his own sperm. Totally divorcing his sexual needs from everything else in his nature was, he realised, something he’d always needed to experience, to revel in, if only for a while: to weigh it assess it, and perhaps find it wanting ― perhaps not. It was like examining something in a very pure, unalloyed state. The darkness was a help: the absence of sight increased the power of the other senses, hearing and touch in particular ―judging the quality of another man’s orgasm depended on listening to breath, to shivers of pleasure and the hand or mouth alone decided whether a cock was marvellous or not. Eventually, he reasoned, he might choose to put his sexuality back into the rest of his life, better equipped to deal with it in his relationships. Or he might make other choices.
Christ! I needed that, he said to himself as he zipped up his jeans, adjusted his shirt. He walked back to the car and drove to Camden Town. As he neared the flat, he slowed, then stopped. He didn’t want to go there at all. There would probably be another heavy scene if Mark was in, but that he could face, that was not the reason: it was the reminder of failure that oppressed him, the half-finished projects he’d abandoned, the inability to cope with the responsibilities of being loved. The disenchantment dated from … when? Soon after they’d moved here, and he’d found himself jobless, alone day in and day out? Was it really then? Perhaps, as he’d said, there had never been love at all. Just fucking. Perhaps he’d always used Mark, right from the teenage years: prop, crutch, giver, provider of sweets.
A car passed. The driver waved and tooted his horn: Rick. Why not? That was a much better idea than going to see Mark. He’d been intending for weeks to call on Rick; at least he had been able to split up with him and stay friends.
He spent an hour at Rick’s flat. He didn’t feel like returning to Tottenham, but there was nowhere else to go. The pubs were shut by now; Helmut was in Germany, and the clubs ― oh, sometimes it was just too bloody far to traipse into Central London. Of course there were other people he could call on, even stay with till morning; but he began to wonder with increasing frequency why, in some of his sexual adventures, he was doing it. Why, he would ask himself as yet another condom was filled, am I in this man’s bed? Hampstead Heath was much more rewarding.
He knocked on Mark’s door. It was nearly one a.m. but Mark was still up, ironing a pile of shirts. The record player was on, full blast; as soon as Donald appeared he turned it up even louder as if to say he didn’t want any conversation, at least not until the music had finished. Modern: extremely discordant and harsh; Donald recognize it. He picked up the sleeve ―the fourth symphony of Vaughan Williams. The blurb said somethi
ng about a political comment on fascism, an orchestral jeremiad; it spoke of one of the most relentless and implacable marshalling of forces in all music. The tunes (if you could call them tunes) were either cries of passionate protest or deliberately trivial and inane, parodied by gruff contempt from the brass. Moments of hushed false calm, muted strings slithering uneasily from one clashing key to another, led to the Terror being unleashed again: the whole thing, as it reached its grinding climaxes, seemed not so much to speak of chaos, but to be chaos, disintegration, the epitome of destruction.
It was over, blown to bits. ‘Why were you playing that?’ Donald asked eventually, surprised after such a battering that his voice sounded quite ordinary.
‘I like it.’
‘It’s appalling!’
‘It’s what I feel. So watch it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Mark put the iron down. ‘Why does your fucking mother have to keep on lending you her fucking car?’
Donald looked at him, frightened. ‘It’s none of you business,’ he said.
‘Oh yes, it is my business! You say she’s worried about me, but she lends you her car so you can visit your little whore!’
‘So you were snooping. Again.’
‘I had to post a letter. God, why should I even bother to tell you? The mail-box is down the road and in order to get there I have to walk past Rick’s flat.’
‘She didn’t know where I was going.’
‘That’s irrelevant! She knows bloody well that when she lends you that car you’re off to be fucked by some man or other. I think it’s quite incredible she lets you . . it’s inhuman! As if I were some piece of discarded rubbish.’
‘I did not go to bed with Rick just now. He happens to be a friend or mine.’
‘Do I believe you? Does it even matter? Truth, Donald, to you is the first convenient semi-coherent bundle of phrases that enters your bird-brained head.’
‘Don’t. Don’t! Please.’ He touched Mark’s arm.
Mark picked up the iron and thrust it towards Donald’s face, an inch away from his eyes. ‘I could smash this into you. That’s how I feel. That’s how violent I feel.’ He put the iron down. And said to himself, what I really want is to cover you with kisses, take you upstairs and make love all night long. ‘Get out!’ he screamed. ‘Get out!!’
Donald fled. Later, he said to his mother, ‘How could he say that and ever have loved me?’
Next morning, a Saturday, Mark drove to Tottenham. At eleven o’clock he was drinking coffee at Tinley’s: out of the window, on the other side of the street, was the blackening stone of a church. But he looked with unseeing eyes. Jane, who worked at a shop nearby, had twenty minutes’ break at this hour of the day and often came in here.
She was alone, fortunately. ‘Mark! I … half-expected this.’
‘So he told you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Running home to Mummy to tell her about the savage brute who threatened him.’
‘Something like that, yes.’ She sat down at his table. And smiled: but her eyes were wary.
‘To come to the point. Will you please stop lending him your car?’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why should I? I don’t always need it. He’s my son. And an adult; where he goes and what he does is not my business. But I have told him … to be … a bit more discreet.’
‘Discreet!’ He laughed, then said with heavy sarcasm, ‘Thank you, Jane. Thank you very much; you’re such a tower of strength! Look… how would you like it if Chris was having an affair, and your mother-in-law lent him your car to go and visit his bit of stuff?’
‘I shouldn’t like it at all,’ The waitress approached. ‘Coffee, please. Do you want another cup, Mark?’
‘No thanks. It’s the same though, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh yes, yes! It is the same! Can’t you ever realise that?’
‘There are … other considerations,’ she said.
‘The fact that we’re gay.’
‘Of course not!’
‘Chris’s drinking would go over the top? The bum! I hate his guts … I think ― quite illogically, I know ― that he’s more responsible for this mess than anyone else.’
‘I do admit … we could in the past have helped you, both of you, rather more than we have done.’
‘Don’t give Donald everything he asks for! Can’t you see that it doesn’t do him any good?’ He was silent, stirring the sugar in the bowl. ‘I must go.’ he said. And left.
It was not his rudeness that depressed her; that was only to be expected: it was the fact that she was never able to influence events. Both Donald and Mark had told her on many occasions that homosexuality had absolutely nothing to do with early upbringing; they didn’t blame anybody for it, they were perfectly happy and at ease being gay. No one knew the causes of homosexuality, they said; after all, who knew what caused heterosexuality? The questions weren’t even worth asking. But she remained unconvinced, and recent events, she thought, were proof that she had been right. There was nothing she could do about it, however; her existence was devoted to making the here and now work as best it could. It wasn’t a dishonourable way of living in her opinion: second-rate, perhaps, but not evil, not immoral. It might all be worse if she behaved differently. But one day, she said to herself, she would astonish everybody by doing something drastic.
Donald surveyed his room. It was a bed-sit off the Holloway Road, a Victorian terrace near the tube station. All right, providing he did not look out at the street too often; red bricks, grey tiles, windows. Shut in and claustrophobic, quite unlike the flat he and Mark had lived in with the canal at the bottom of the garden. Other people’s furniture, brown and drab. Lace curtains. The table was covered with a long heavy cloth of worn velvet, and the bed was narrow, essentially for one. All those windows! So many eyes staring. However, the room could perhaps be made into his own. He unpacked his things: clothes, some books, an ash-tray, kitchen utensils, cushions. He shifted the bed, dragged the table away from the window, put some houseplants on the mantelpiece. Then stopped. What was the point? This place could never be home.
This was freedom.
He gazed at a photograph of Mark. An extremely good likeness, taken some years ago; his hair was longer then. In profile: serious, unsmiling. The little finger of his left hand touched his mouth. Donald looked at it for a long time, then shut it away in a drawer. He couldn’t imagine why he had brought it with him.
Mark. Hell, no; don’t think of Mark. This is me, my room, where I am I, not the lesser partner; here I am free. Get out of my head, fuck you! Leave me alone! What would I feel if I saw you with someone else? Jealous, hurt, angry? Mark, come through that door now take me in your arms take me to bed, cover me with kisses oh my love my love the only precious thing that’s ever happened to me Mark what have I done the memories the sweet dear times you’re part of me and that’s what I can’t stand the prison the shackles oh what do I do with this freedom now I have it tied to me as a tin to a dog’s tail our life our shared precious life destroyed smashed torn to bits as you ripped up the photographs and battered the records Christ stop it’s madness madness…
‘Why are you here? Why do you come back so often? You Just want to persecute me!’
‘Don’t be silly.’
They were sitting in the garden, drinking wine. A lazy summer afternoon, insect murmurs, flower scents: on the bank, a white boat without the prop of water had sagged sideways. The canal shimmered in the heat.
‘There’s too much that’s not been right for too long,’ Donald said. ‘Becoming joint owners of this flat, for example. I think I only agreed because you wanted me to agree. It was easier to say yes than to argue, it’s symptomatic: I’ve been for so long the inferior partner, under your influence, turning into what you wished me to be that I’ve lost any sense I might ever have had of my own identity. Relying on you more and more for money s
ince we lived in this place: I loathe it, despise it! I despise your money! We were much happier when we were students, equals, not having any idea where the next meal was coming from. I don’t love you. Not any more. I’m very fond of you … I’ll always think of you, worry about you, perhaps even be very hurt by you. I can’t have a sexual relationship with you now. But … I have only happy memories. Superb memories!’
Mark sighed. ‘I want to forget that you ever existed.’
‘You’re still wearing my ring.’
Mark stared at it. A black onyx, set in silver. It was curious that it had not been given to him when he had given Donald a ring; it was two years later, he remembered. He’d hinted, more than once, that he would like a ring, but there had been no response. Yet when Donald decided that the time was right, he spent ages looking for the one that would give the most pleasure, no expense spared. ‘He kept asking my advice,’ Helen said. ‘He arranged to have it altered if it didn’t fit properly… He was incredibly excited about the whole thing.’
‘It’s a mockery that it exists,’ Mark said. ‘Here, take it.’
‘I don’t want it. It’s yours. But it, too, is… symptomatic. Or so I think now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I gave it to you because you wanted it.’
‘Not because you wanted to give it to me?’
‘A symbol of what might nave been … not what was.’
‘So it’s a fake!’ Mark jumped up and ran indoors.
“What are you doing?’ Donald shouted, but there was no answer, Mark returned, holding the ring in one hand, a hammer in the other. ‘No! No! Don’t do it! Please!’
He placed the ring on the ground and smashed it to pieces with a blow so hard that the hammer head flew off and sank, without trace, in the canal. ‘I swear to God that if I see you again I’ll kill you!’ he screamed.
Donald walked along the towpath towards Camden Lock. To calm down, he told himself, in order not to lose his own temper: at least since leaving Mark he had not once been driven into a rage. He would now have to avoid the places Mark was likely to be, not borrow Jane’s car: he didn’t want the tyres slashed, a brick through the windscreen. I couldn’t live with him now, he thought, I couldn’t: I’d be terrified! The ugliness in his character ― sweet, gentle, loving Mark; and underneath was that violence, that viciousness! It would be like sitting on a time-bomb.