The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition)

by Sixsmith, Martin

  Sporadic traces and disparate evidence – newspaper extracts, photographs, state and Church documents, and a distinctive toy plane – had taken me from Anthony Lee to Michael A. Hess, from Ireland to America, but now the trail was growing cold. Apart from confirming his dates and academic record, Notre Dame would not respond to my enquiries about Michael, citing federal privacy laws. The US Senate had a list of interns and pages for every year since the Second World War, but no details beyond their names and home towns. I did, though, have two reels of Standard-8 home movies dating from the 1950s that had come into my possession by a circuitous and somewhat mysterious route. It was these old films, together with newspaper cuttings of a Washington scandal and a series of chance events, that would bring me into contact with the key figures in Michael’s adult life.

  PART THREE

  ONE

  1971

  Mike agonized about the confession he had made to Father Adrian. Sometimes he regretted opening his soul to the scrutiny of another human being; at others he felt liberated by what he had done. Back at Notre Dame he threw himself into his studies. He opted for courses about the political machinery the country depended on. He loved the complexities of the American electoral system and was fascinated by the case law on gerrymandering, the art of redrawing electoral boundaries for partisan purposes that dated back to the eighteenth century. He filled his social life with hectic activity, accepting DJ engagements, volunteering for hours of religious duties and charity work, acting and singing in university drama productions and concerts. He knew – but did not want to admit – that he was stuffing his existence with noise and commotion to block out the troubling thoughts he was striving to forget.

  Mike had taken at least part of Father Adrian’s advice. He had composed a conciliatory and sympathetic letter to his brother James, offering congratulations on his marriage and saying how sorry he was about the split in the family. He said he would be happy to help if ever James and Shirley wanted to try and patch things up with Doc. Then, spurred on by the adrenalin rush of doing something, he had phoned Marge in St Pete to apologize for not visiting more often and promised to put things right in the future. Her response had been so touchingly grateful that Mike had promised to come down to see them that weekend, and on Friday morning he skipped class and flew home.

  On Saturday afternoon Mike was sitting opposite his sister in one of the booths of the Paradise Café in St Petersburg Beach. Beside Mary was the soon-to-be father of her child, Craig. Mike eyed him over his milkshake and was pleased to see that his hair and clothes were neat and there was a seriousness in his eyes that spoke of responsibility and decency. Mary herself had undergone a subtle change: the old ‘I want’ frown line between her eyebrows had smoothed, and her smile was relaxed and easy. When she spoke to Craig, Mike saw the intimate, knowing looks that passed between them – a comfortable familiarity and understanding so achingly absent from Mike’s own life. A pang of unexpected envy peppered the happiness he felt at his sister’s apparent good fortune.

  While Mary was in the ladies’ room, Craig leaned forward and looked at Mike intently.

  ‘Hey, Mike, you know I’m going to . . . You know I’ll take good care of her, right?’

  Mike almost laughed at the earnestness of his gaze – it was a look he himself was used to using.

  ‘Oh man, I know that. Come on, Craig, you don’t have to—’

  ‘No, I want to,’ Craig said. ‘You know, she talks about you all the time. She thinks the world of you and I know she misses you a whole lot. So it’s important that I tell you – that I’m going to do the right thing by her. I’ve already spoken about it to your dad’ – Mike frowned at the mention of Doc but said nothing – ‘and he was . . . He seems OK about it all now. I know it wasn’t planned, but, jeez, I don’t know. I mean, I love her.’

  He paused and looked at his hands. Mike was won over.

  ‘That’s great, Craig. Listen, I’m really happy for both of you. I’m sure you’ll be wonderful parents and I couldn’t leave Mary in better hands. I can’t believe I’m going to be an uncle!’

  ‘Well, you better believe it!’ Mary laughed, easing herself back onto the bench and elbowing Mike in the ribs.

  ‘OK,’ Craig said, still blushing. ‘I gotta go – I got soccer practice in a half-hour and I need to pick up my stuff.’

  He kissed Mary on the lips and nodded to Mike, beaming a little sheepishly. When he had left, Mike turned to Mary.

  ‘Well, he’s a great guy! I like him a lot.’

  Mary smiled proudly as she watched Craig through the window bounding to his car.

  ‘Me too. Me too!’

  ‘Hey, Sis . . .’ Mike said, stirring the dregs of his milkshake with his straw.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I want you to know I’m . . . Well, I’m sorry I’ve been such a bad brother lately. I know I should’ve called you more often and given you more support; I should’ve—’

  ‘Hey,’ Mary whispered, clutching at Mike’s hands. ‘God, Mike, don’t beat yourself up. I know how busy you must be . . .’

  ‘It’s no excuse,’ Mike insisted. ‘I promised you I’d always be there for you. I want to be there for you.’

  ‘You will be, I know you will,’ Mary said with a squeeze of the hand. ‘You’re my big brother – I know I can always count on you.’

  Mike went to see Father Adrian. He had avoided him since their discussion in the summer, going to confession elsewhere and keeping out of his way on campus. He had been putting off a resumption of their discussion, but the thought was tormenting him and on the Tuesday after he arrived back from Florida he knocked on the door of the priests’ residence.

  Father Adrian greeted him with a disappointed ‘Ah.’ They sat facing each other, each waiting for the other to begin. The atmosphere in the dimly lit cell, comforting and conspiratorial when Mike last came here, was combative. Mike could hardly meet Father Adrian’s eye.

  ‘So,’ said the priest at last, ‘have you had further sinful desires of the kind you told me about when we met?’

  Mike was taken aback. Where was the laid-back confidant he had known before?

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ he stammered, struggling to express the complexities of human desire in the clumsy words that language attaches to it. ‘I . . . haven’t—’

  ‘Perhaps this will be easier for you to answer: have you acted on your sinful desires?’

  Now Mike could answer honestly. He met the priest’s cold gaze.

  ‘No, Father. I know that would be wrong.’

  Father Adrian grunted a reluctant approval. Mike took it as the cue to talk. He spoke truthfully, tentatively, studying his counsellor for a reaction that was deliberately withheld.

  ‘I know that I am subject to . . . lustful thoughts of an . . . immoral nature. But I have always resisted them except for—’ He gasped at the memory of Kurt’s stolen kiss; the sinfulness of it had faded with time, but now it came back to him in all its disgusting depravity.

  He shuddered, and Father Adrian declared triumphantly, ‘Ah! I see. Then tell me about it. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘There was one . . . moment of . . . There was a kiss,’ Mike acknowledged, his voice very quiet, praying that he wouldn’t start to cry . ‘But it wasn’t my choice. It was . . . completely uninvited, completely unexpected.’

  He gave Father Adrian an imploring look, trying to quell his own doubts about the sincerity of the explanation.

  ‘Sin must be resisted,’ the priest announced. ‘Homosexuality is a sin, whatever form it takes. If you submitted to the sinful urges of another, the wickedness of that sin is transferred to you. Homosexuality’ – he spat the word out – ‘is a disease, a sickness. It is unnatural and evil. There is no place for homosexuality in the Catholic community. You must purge yourself of it if you wish to belong, if you wish to be accepted as part of the community.’

  Mike thought back to the innocent pleasure of his stolen kiss with Kurt – the tenderness, the
feeling of rightness, of things fitting in a way they never had before. He scrutinized the scene for the evil Father Adrian was talking about, and found none.

  ‘But Father,’ he protested, ‘if God created all of us . . . if He created me, why did He create me the way I am – if He disapproves of it? If it’s evil?’

  Father Adrian sighed.

  ‘He did not create you as a homosexual, Michael. In God’s order every creature is created heterosexual; the inclination to homosexuality is an objective disorder. Natural law, the Church and psychologists all agree: God does not create disorder, does not create disease. It is a product of original sin, of the fall of man.’

  He clasped his hands together in his lap and smiled with bitter satisfaction.

  ‘Well then . . . I mean . . . why are only some men . . . homosexual, and others not? Is it, does it stem from their own . . . individual sinful-ness?’

  Father Adrian pondered this.

  ‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘In many cases that is the objective reason. In other cases it can be . . . more complex.’

  Mike sat forward in his chair, his eyes lit with an earnest hope.

  ‘Father, what does God want us to do? What can I do to . . . to save myself?’

  Father Adrian had a ready answer.

  ‘People with this . . . this disorder must be called to chastity. They must abstain from sexual relations for the love of God and the peace of their own conscience. And when I say “chastity” I mean no sex – no pornography, no . . . self-cultivation, no fantasizing.’

  Mike blushed; it felt as if Father Adrian were looking right into his thoughts.

  ‘It may not guarantee salvation,’ the priest was saying, ‘but by the grace of God they can, after prolonged effort, experience detachment from homosexuality as their core identity and attain the will to live as the new creation the Blood of Christ won for them.’

  He looked hard at the young man before him, and his face softened.

  ‘I know people who have done this, Mike,’ he said more gently. ‘I know it can be done – through prayer, the sacraments, a life of service and charity, and through living in obedience to the teachings of the Catholic Church. In all things, holiness is the opposite of homosexuality.’

  His words were meant to be reassuring, but Mike left Father Adrian weighed down by visions of the long gloomy days of struggle and denial that lay ahead.

  In the weeks that followed, he sought refuge in ritual. He researched the indulgences, those mystical rites that might lessen the punishment of his sin, and found that every religious practice, from reciting the rosary to pious invocation (‘Holy Mary, pray for us!’) reduced the time his soul must spend in purgatory: blessing yourself with holy water brought a hundred days’ remission; blessing yourself without holy water brought fifty. He could not hope for a plenary indulgence, a complete remission of his sins, because his offending thoughts were still within him, but he strove as best he could to minimize the retribution he would suffer for them.

  TWO

  1972–3

  The times were confusing and certainties hard to come by. Richard Nixon went to China and stepped up the bombing of North Vietnam; George Wallace was shot in Maryland; the Church prayed for the defeat of communism, for peace in the world and for reconciliation at home. Mike tried to stay calm, worked hard at his studies and did his best to ignore the torment he felt inside.

  In the summer of 1972 Mary had married Craig and had her baby, a boy with rosy cheeks and soft eyes who was christened Nathan. Mike went to Florida for the ceremony and was enchanted by him: he told his sister he had never seen a more beautiful child. Mary seemed more content than she had ever been and Mike envied her the fulfilment of parenthood. He loved children and somewhere among his other demons lurked the dreadful thought that he faced a future without them.

  At Notre Dame his sessions with Father Adrian continued in the same tense vein: reprimands, promises and tangled explanations succeeded each other in a dreary carousel of recrimination and unspoken resentment. It felt as if the conversation was turning endlessly round the same topics, the same irresolvable sticking points, and leading nowhere. Mike left the meetings with the impression that Father Adrian was playing a stalling game – as if he were keeping Mike talking to stop him acting.

  He had, though, kept to his resolution not to see Kurt and had avoided situations where he would be tempted to give in to his desires. He rebuffed any chance advances that came his way, including one from a good-looking but shifty priest who had asked him, with a knowing expression, to accompany him to a Johnny Mathis concert in Chicago.

  His resolve held for six months. Then, in the spring of 1973, he took the Greyhound into Chicago and headed for Rush Street.

  He’d been here in daytime – it was where free speech was celebrated by quirky orators on soapboxes – but now it was night and the landscape seemed transformed. The neon lights shone, the shop-fronts were bright and the music spilling out of the bars seemed to speak directly to him. He let himself merge into the throngs of men on the sidewalks around Bughouse Square. Like a novice in a gloomy cathedral, he followed the path through the darkness of the square gardens, glancing into the shadowy side chapels under arching trees, catching sight of the mysteries within. Groups of men leaning against the gnarled trunks threw him a glance, smiled or winked. But he averted his eyes, intrigued, excited, timid. He did not delude himself about his reasons for being here. I could do this, he thought hungrily. He coveted the muscled forearms and strong hands, bulging chests under white T-shirts, narrow hips in tight jeans. But what if someone recognizes me? What if I meet someone? To give in to his desires would be something that could never be undone.

  Shoving his trembling hands into his pockets, he emerged on the other side of the square. Now the lights stung his eyes. On Rush Street he tried to look inconspicuous. He glanced at the signs on the shopfronts. A shabby open door was labelled MOVIES 4 MEN. He rummaged in his pocket for the three dollars and ducked through the curtain into a small theatre.

  On the screen two youths locked in an embrace were unzipping each other’s pants. He felt a rush of excitement followed by a powerful surge of guilt. The scenes he had been imagining in his dreams – and hating himself for imagining – were being played out here in a public place and no one seemed discomfited by them. The sensation was puzzling, anticlimactic almost, as if the pleasure were incomplete without its usual side dish of shame and self-loathing. He watched as the figures on screen enacted the fantasies he had regarded as his alone. The warmth and darkness of the movie theatre were comforting; he was beginning to unwind some of the wrenching terror that had screwed his stomach into tightly wrung sinews. But when he felt the hand of the guy next to him on his knee, he stood up and rushed out into the street. It was nearly midnight and he was torn between regret at ever having come here and fear of leaving without completing the task he had set himself.

  Across the street was the Normandy Bar. Mike wandered inside in search of a drink. A large room with a long bar reminded him of the place Marius and Charlotte had taken him, back in Rockford. He was rocked by nostalgia for the days when his sexuality was just an unrecognized ache.

  ‘Beer, please,’ he muttered to the bartender, glancing at the other guys standing at the bar. He wondered which of them might be hustlers – he’d heard the term from the Notre Dame coterie who knew about these things.

  An older, greasy-haired man with a thin moustache introduced himself as Ruggiero.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Mike said with a guarded smile. ‘I’m Dave.’

  ‘So, you a student, Dave? Where you come from?’

  ‘Actually . . . I’m a salesman,’ said Mike. ‘I . . . come from Detroit.’

  ‘Ah, OK! So you got a bit of money, then? What you looking for tonight?’

  Mike faltered, realizing his mistake. ‘Well, I mean . . . business is pretty bad right now – it’s not like I’m loaded.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Ruggiero hushed him. ‘So maybe
you just got fifty, sixty dollars? What type of guy you looking for?’

  Mike was relieved the man was not a hustler himself – he found his manner subtly threatening – but was surprised by the notion that he might have a ‘type’. What was he looking for? Someone who would worship him, excite him, fulfil him, spend the rest of his life loving and understanding him? But that’s probably a little out of Ruggiero’s league, he thought with a small smile.

  ‘Well?’ the guy demanded.

  How did transactions like this take place? What was the right thing to say?

  ‘Uh . . . look, I’ve only got forty dollars,’ Mike heard himself say, ‘and I need some for the bus home.’ He realized that he was actually haggling.

  Ruggiero was contemplating his words with a businessman’s concentration.

  ‘OK,’ he said at last, ‘we can do a deal.’

  He took Mike’s money and beckoned him into the back bar. A tall blond guy in his thirties was lounging by the door in a flower-patterned shirt. Mike reeled. Oh God, am I really doing this?

  ‘Howdy, stranger,’ flower-shirt said to Ruggiero. ‘And who’s this beautiful little chickadee you’re bringing me tonight?’

  He looked Mike up and down with a predatory approval.

  ‘Is she going to be a bad, bad girl, do we think?’