Two sets of parents quivered and shook and shouted and blamed – and in my mother’s case collapsed sobbing, forearm to brow, for weeks on end – but it didn’t change a thing. In fact, Benji said later that it was actually a relief. It spared him the years of secrecy some gay friends of his later endured, wondering when to come out, if at all, to their parents, conducting secret affairs for years.
‘And anyway, what did they expect?’ he’d grumbled. ‘With a name like Benji I either had to be gay or a dog on Blue Peter.’
Privately though, I wondered if it didn’t force him to adopt a position – to be openly gay, and rather camp with it, whereas before, he was just a mixed-up kid who’d had girlfriends as well as boyfriends, and who knows what he’d have plumped for in the end? I knew he’d hankered for children, and I wondered if coming out so early hadn’t scuppered this. I voiced as much to my mother a few years down the line, and to my surprise, she’d had pertinent views on the subject.
‘Oh yes, in our day plenty of gay men chose to get married and have children. They weighed it up. Knew what they were, but chose what they’d prefer to be, instead. Made rather good husbands, actually. Very domestic and kindly, on the whole. Of course it’s always a bit of a ticking time-bomb though, isn’t it? Imagine, just when the children have left home and you’re preparing to prune the roses and be all Darby and Joan together, and suddenly Darby goes off with Gary from Blockbuster Video, announcing that he’s found his soulmate. No, maybe it’s better this way round.’
I never knew my mother could be so wise. And actually, despite her early amateur dramatics, it was Mum who came around to Benji’s sexuality quicker than Dad. Dad couldn’t speak – and wouldn’t speak about it – he was so angry. And sad. Still is, I think. Whereas Mum, who’d originally thought the world was coming to an end, finally rallied. It took a while though. When the news first broke, I’d been married to Marcus for about six months, and whilst she’d originally been pathetically grateful to her new son-in-law for plucking her daughter like a stale bun from the shelf, now that the ink was dry on the marriage certificate, she couldn’t help but revert to her true colours and regard both her children as severe disappointments. I popped round once to see her at the flat, only to find her playing Tiddlywinks by herself, using her blood-pressure pills as counters.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ I’d whispered, horrified.
‘Contemplating suicide,’ she’d responded dreamily. ‘You’ve married a Jew, and my son’s gay. What have I got to live for?’
I sighed and sat down beside her. ‘Mum, you like Marcus. You told me so yourself, what does it matter what religion he is?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t.’ She turned frank hazel eyes on me. ‘But it matters to everyone else. And what everyone else thinks matters a great deal to me.’
‘But …everyone else – who is everyone else? None of my friends, no one I know!’
‘Everyone else around here.’ She swept an arm expansively down the road. ‘My friends.’
‘But everyone else around here is Jewish. Your friends are all Jewish! We live in the heart of North London, Mum.’
‘Exactly.’ She leaned forward and touched my arm with her fingertips, her eyes steely. ‘Exact ly.’
Her logic was warped, but I knew where she was coming from. She’d lost what she perceived was the high ground, that was the problem. Having occupied it – in her eyes – for years, she’d suddenly felt it crumble beneath her. She felt the joke was firmly on her and everyone was laughing at her.
Likewise, I suspect she didn’t really mind that Benji was gay, but was worried about what the neighbours would say. I think she was sad he wouldn’t have children, but sadder still that, in twenty years’ time, she wouldn’t be able to say to Mrs Greenburg downstairs: ‘My grandson’s studying to be a doctor, you know. At Imperial College.’ Although Benji’s happiness concerned her, her own reputation – immediately, at any rate – concerned her more. Which is why I think she came round quicker. She didn’t have the same visceral scarring that Dad did; the grief for his only son. His boy. The guilt, too. The where-did-I-go-wrongs. Mum never went wrong. Hers was a superficial wound.
Francis had appeared on the scene relatively quickly, and for most people at least, it was a relief all round. It certainly helped Mum’s healing process, her wound healed up like billy-o. Francis was – is – heaven. The day he stepped over the threshold of the Finchley Road flat, tall, tanned, tawny-haired and jaw-droppingly handsome, Mum and I clutched each other. Just – clutched each other. And then we instantly christened him The Waste.
‘What a waste!’ Mum wailed to me in the kitchen as she flustered around making tea for him with shaking hands, nervously checking the tin for flap-jacks. ‘He’s God’s gift to women, not to Benji,’ she said in disgust.
But Francis appeared besotted by Benji, who was small, dark, darting and funny. Always an amusing child, he’d developed a dry adult wit, and quickfire repartee would crackle from his lips – beneath what my father described as his very homosexual moustache – at the slightest opportunity. Benji made Francis laugh, and when he laughed, boy did the room light up. He’d throw back his head, clutch his sides and literally shake. We couldn’t help but smile. We’d grown up with Benji and were used to him, but felt absurdly proud to see someone else rolling in the aisles, delighting in him. And Francis was delighted by everything that day: Mum’s cooking, the curtains, the view across the Finchley Road to the Heath – his enthusiasm was boundless, and his joy at being amongst us, tangible. Nothing was too much trouble. He jumped up eagerly to help Mum back to the kitchen with the tray, and not once seemed the slightest bit aware that his gender might be something of an issue. In short, he acted like Benji’s new girlfriend, and Mum fell for it.
‘He’s so lovely and gay!’ she whispered excitedly to me in the kitchen.
‘Er …yes, Mum.’
‘No, but really. In the real sense of the word. Such fun!’
I wasn’t quite sure where I stood vis-à-vis the original or hijacked sense of that word in 1998, but I let it pass. As she happily unwrapped yet another Dundee cake from its greaseproof paper she hissed, ‘And did you see his hair? Those darling highlights! Must ask him where he got it done.’
Dad, however, sat tightlipped throughout the entire proceedings, but at least he sat there, damn it, with a grim look on his face. You had to hand it to him, he saw these things through. When Francis had gone, he rose from his chair and declared that there was only one good thing about the whole sorry mess, and that was the blasted chap’s name. Atleast he could tell his poor widowed mother that Benji was going out with a Frances, and she’d be none the wiser. Wouldn’t spot the subtle letter substitution. And none of us, he warned gravely, were to let on. The shock, he was convinced, would kill her. Mum’s lips twitched convulsively at this, sorely tempted.
And so Gran was none the wiser. Well, let’s face it, at eighty-three and with one or two faculties fading, including her eyesight, she wasn’t wise to anything much. In fact, she probably could have met Francis and still not realized anything was amiss – perhaps pausing only to wonder why this very tall girl with the American accent didn’t grow her hair a bit? Wear skirts more? As it was though, they didn’t meet, and she heard about him/her only by repute. Every Wednesday afternoon, in fact, when, having picked up her pension, she stopped by for tea. Ridiculous conversations then ensued as Gran, bowed and arthritic, took her place at the head of the table covered with the Swiss embroidered cloth complete with edelweiss motif, and the best china with doilies.
‘Benji still with Frances?’ Gran would ask, lifting her head from her hunched back like a tortoise and peering under her tight white perm at Mum. Even though Benji was at the table, she always asked indirectly, through another party, as though not quite believing the subject of her enquiry capable of speech. It was the same for everyone. ‘Audrey still playing bridge, dear?’ she’d ask Dad, even though she was sitting right next to Mum. Ordinarily it
made us want to scream, ‘Ask her yourself, you silly old bat!’ but on these occasions we were grateful, since a grinning Benji would surely have given the game away.
‘Yes, Gran. Benji’s still with Francis,’ Mum said coolly, taking the tea cosy off the pot to pour.
‘Ooh, she sounds like a lovely girl. Runs a little restaurant, I gather? Across the river?’
‘That’s it.’
‘That’s nice. She must be ever such a good cook then, Audrey, don’t you think?’
‘Er …I believe so,’ Mum replied carefully.
It was rather like that childhood game when you weren’t allowed to reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and if you did, you were out. Except in this case it was ‘he’ or ‘she’ and if you did, Benji was out. In more ways than one.
‘She’ll turn out to be a proper little home-maker, you mark my words, Audrey.’
‘I expect she …’ A moment’s pause for thought. ‘I expect you’re right, Gran.’
‘Her father gave her that restaurant, your mum tells me.’ ( This, confusingly, directed not at Benji, but me.)
I nodded animatedly. ‘Mmm.’ (Always safe.)
‘Nice to have a rich daddy. I bet she’s worth a bob or two, eh?’
Cringe, and another moment’s thought. ‘I believe you’re right.’
It was taxing, and we were all more relieved than usual when she went, Mum pressing an oversized black handbag and rain hat into her mother-in-law’s hands, and sweeping her out of the door into the car for the drive back to her sheltered flat in Cricklewood.
All that seemed such a long time ago now, I thought, as I looked out through the fading autumn light across the poppy-seed heads and the swaying grasses at Francis in the garden. Gran was long dead, and Benji and Francis were about the happiest couple I knew.
‘Don’t tell him,’ I said quickly, as he looked up from his dahlias. He saw me and waved delightedly.
‘Or at least,’ I saw Benji’s doubtful face. Knew they shared everything. ‘Tell him, but after I’ve gone.’
He nodded quickly and we watched as Francis came loping elegantly up the garden towards us, secateurs in hand. He’d be shocked, I thought, as I opened the French window for him. Not with Marcus, but with me.
‘Darling! How lovely,’ he greeted me in his Boston drawl, swooping from his great height and kissing me on both cheeks. ‘Benji and I were just saying it was ages since we’d seen you, and now here you are! No Marcus?’
‘No, he’s …still at work,’ I said quickly. This much was probably true. ‘And I’m just here for some shopping.’
‘Excellent.’ But then he stopped. Peered suspiciously. ‘Hey, what’s up?’
‘Nothing,’ I smiled. ‘Just a touch of hay-fever. Speaking of which, Francis, your garden is a picture! Even at this time of year. I don’t know how you do it. I probably shouldn’t go out there without some anti-histamine, but try stopping me.’
‘Ah yes,’ he admitted as he followed me outside, easily distracted where horticulture was involved. He ushered me down the passage, brimming with terracotta pots. ‘I must say, I’m pleased with it this year.’
‘Well, I’m not surprised.’
It was quite a large garden by London standards, but aside from a small patch of terrace by the kitchen for Benji and Francis to sit in, the entire thing was given over to flowers. We plunged into the beds and waded through a riot of colour, courtesy of stepping stones dotted handily about. Blowsy dahlia heads brushed our waists and Michaelmas daisies nodded in the breeze. It was, in effect, a cottage garden, which by definition was an oddity in London and very different from the neighbouring patches, whose tasteful all-white leafy enclosures tended to be the norm, but then this garden served a purpose. This was a working garden, where Francis grew copious flowers and herbs – and then picked them to decorate his restaurant and flavour the dishes.
The restaurant, originally a failing enterprise in an unfashionable part of Balham, had been tossed to him in disgust by a very rich and very disappointed father, who owned a chain of successful restaurants over in his native Boston, run by Francis’s less disappointing brothers and sisters. When Francis inherited the restaurant – an unsuccessful ‘toe dip’ by his father in the London market – it had just been given a makeover of the kind all fashionable restaurants in London receive these days. Shiny wooden flooring – the sort to send kitten heels skidding – ran throughout, bright white tablecloths stared, and uncomfortable retro chairs reminiscent of the one Christine Keeler straddled in the sixties beckoned uninvitingly. A vast chrome bar adorned with a single jar of funereal lilies skulked coldly in the corner, and behind it, a couple of intimidating Latin waiters pretended to polish glasses. An overhead lighting scheme of the sort favoured by the Gestapo glared down. No doubt it appealed to some, but not many, because, tellingly, it was empty.
Francis, having caught this hospital pass with an ‘Oomph’ to the solar plexus, set about rescuing it. Bucking the trend, he carpeted the place in a rich red Wilton and put heavy chintz drapes at the windows; in fact, he Nina Campbell-ed the place from top to bottom. He filled it with fresh flowers from his garden, found distressed leather armchairs, scattered cushions, added lamps, made sure the cook could actually cook and the waiters smile – and then watched as the women flocked in. For Francis knew what they wanted. He knew their faces looked better in candlelight, he knew they’d been on their feet all day pushing buggies and wanted comfortable chairs, he knew they needed spoiling and cosseting. The fact that their husbands came too and paid the bill was incidental. He knew who wore the trousers in residential Balham, which by now had well and truly up and come, ensuring that money was no object.
Within a year, The Country Garden was a roaring success. People crossed the river the wrong way to get to it and food critics gushed admiringly. On the strength of it, together with Benji’s not inconsiderable earnings as a City fund manager, Francis and Benji bought the extremely smart townhouse they lived in today.
They’d worked hard to get here though, I thought, as I leaned forward to smell a late-flowering rose. They deserved it. I gazed around in the gathering gloom. I was alone now, Francis having taken a moment to pop back and make sure Benji was getting the right champagne out of the fridge – ‘Not the Moët, sweets, it’s not cold enough’ – but now he returned and handed me a glass. We wandered back to the terrace together and sat down.
‘So. You’re on your own.’
I glanced up to meet his eyes, afraid. ‘Benji told you?’
‘He did, briefly, while I got the drinks.’ He smiled. ‘It was unavoidable, Henny. You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.’
I smiled weakly. ‘Thanks. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.’
‘So Marcus is pretty mad, huh?’ he said thoughtfully.
I nodded miserably. ‘Pretty white-faced, stony-eyed, whisky-swirling livid.’ I shivered as I remembered him pacing that hotel room.
Francis was silent. I glanced anxiously at him as Benji approached with a bowl of nibbles. ‘I think it’s at this point,’ I tried to joke, ‘that you say, He’ll Come Round. Benji did.’
Francis flashed a fond smile at my brother. ‘Benji would. Benji was born minus a tough outer layer. He can’t bear not to be liked, for people not to come round. He would have been the first one in the schoolyard to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Have all my conkers – don’t just take one! Be my best friend again?” ’
Benji snorted derisively. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’
But I did know. Knew it was true. I’d grown up with him. Knew, if he’d been in my room fiddling with my things and we’d had a bust-up, he’d be the first to say, ‘OK, so I was reading your Jackie, but listen, d’you want to watch Top Cat?’
‘So I’m cringing and obsequious?’ Benji hung his head in a mock sulk.
‘No, but you always think the best of everyone. Think everyone can make up and be friends again. Believe the milk of human kindness flows from everyone’s orifices.’
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br /> ‘What a horrible thought.’ Benji squirmed.
‘I didn’t necessarily mean the particular orifice you’re –’
‘Don’t go there!’ Benji yelped, palms up, head averted. ‘Just don’t go there, Francis, you’ll regret it. It’ll be the Mr Thomas-next-door-but-one episode all over again. Remember when he asked for advice on his garden and you kept going on about the integrity of his back passage?’ He shuddered. ‘The poor man was limp with nerves.’
Francis laughed good-naturedly. Then he turned to me. ‘I think what I’m trying to say, if Benji would let me get a word in edgeways and refrain from mobbing me up, is that I wonder if Marcus is so easily won over as your brother here. He’s a proud man.’
‘That’s what Penny said!’ I squeaked. ‘What is all this proud bollocks, and why is it referred to in such reverential terms? I thought it was one of the Seven Deadly Sins!’
‘It is, but we dress it up and mistake it for principles. See my father on this score,’ he added soberly.
We were silent a moment. I knew from Benji that Arthur J. Steadman III didn’t speak to his son – his eldest child, and hitherto the apple of his eye – for fourteen years on discovering the truth about his sexuality, but had asked, on his deathbed in a Boston hospital, to see him. Exiled by this time to London, Francis had moved heaven and earth to get there. Unfortunately, heaven had moved faster and his father was dead before he reached him.
‘Marcus will get over it. Eventually,’ Francis said now. ‘I just think it might take a bit longer than you think.’ He paused reflectively. ‘In the meantime,’ he went on in a more upbeat tone, twinkling at me over the rim of his champagne glass, ‘why not enjoy yourself? No point wandering around with a face like wet washing – go out and have some fun, Henny. You’ve got time on your hands now, so why not meet up with all your single girlfriends, go shopping, take in a play, an exhibition – all the things you don’t do in the country and never did when you lived in London. Nothing will bring Marcus round more than you looking like you’re having a good time without him, believe me.’
Not That Kind of Girl Page 16