The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition)

by Sixsmith, Martin

  After the show Mike didn’t hang around. He ran back to his room in Thurston Hall and threw himself, exhausted, on the battered sofa. It was 2 a.m. when he looked at the fluorescent green digits of his radio alarm and realized the woodpecker that had been bugging him in his dream was someone tapping at the door. When he opened it, still half asleep, he saw David and clasped him in his arms.

  That first night was the most wonderful Mike had ever known. Minutes of frenzied lovemaking, hypnotic in their rhythmic intensity, alternated with the deepest, most perfect tranquillity as they lay on the narrow bed by the window staring in rapt amazement at the Washington night. Before dawn Mike pointed out the glimmering constellations with exotic names that a now-dead bishop had once described to him, and in the morning they went to eat blueberries in the window of the Port of Piraeus on 21st and M, hardly talking then both suddenly speaking at once and laughing at their own clumsiness. They refilled their coffee mugs over and over till an unspoken signal passed between them and they rose as one to stroll back with arms linked to Thurston and the bed of their love.

  The day went by and night came; then another day and another night, and still they clung to each other. They ordered in food from the Kozy Korner up near Dupont and shut out the world. The blinds were down, the phone unplugged; they lived in a realm where time and life hung suspended in honour of a greater, stronger force. Now, David said, he understood how Kathleen Ferrier could sing so beautifully about being dead to the world’s tumult and living only in her wonderful heaven of beauty and love. Mike nodded and made a mental note to listen to Kathleen Ferrier’s album in the WRGW archives.

  It took Mike’s RA duties to prise them apart. When the janitor knocked on his door to remind him about the hall’s freshmen welcome party, Mike shook himself as if the hoi polloi had stormed the temple.

  David laughed. ‘OK, sweetheart, don’t worry about it. You look after your little boys and girls. I need to go visit my apartment and maybe even do some work, you know . . .’

  He sounded so serene Mike could not believe this was the same guy who three months earlier had burst into his life in such nervous turmoil. But when he thought about it, it struck him that he too felt so much calmer now, more at peace than he had been for months. It was as if he and David had been filled with dangerous, sparking electrical energy that their coming together had somehow discharged and neutralized.

  EIGHT

  1976

  The last months of 1975 and the first half of 1976 were a happy time for Mike. He was doing well in his law studies and gaining a reputation as an authority on the arcane subject of political redistricting. His radio career was taking off – he had had interest from a couple of DC stations that were possibly going to offer him a guest slot in their late-night schedules – and he was DJ’ing regularly at dorm bashes and discos in the university and for private parties in Maryland and Virginia. He was also finding more and more to admire in his new lover: David was smart and cultured, sparky and artistic; he loved all sorts of music – not just Mahler, which had become a private joke between them – and he helped Mike enthusiastically with suggestions for his playlists; the profs in his English class had marked him out as an elegant and original writer; he was reviewing theatre and cinema regularly for the GW Hatchet.

  The relationship with Mike seemed to have steadied David’s nerves, and he stayed on an even keel for long periods. He smoked almost constantly, though – too much, Mike told him – and he was given to bouts of his old depression when small things went wrong. He saw the absurdity of letting insignificant events upset him – he’d read Aaron Beck’s new book on something called cognitive therapy – and he would berate himself with caustic outbursts of ‘Catastrophize! Personalize!’ which he sang to the tune of Donovan’s ‘Jennifer Juniper’.

  One thing he never mentioned, and Mike never enquired about, was the woman he had kissed on the sidewalk that evening back in September. Mike was with him so constantly now that he figured she must have dropped out of his life or, if she hadn’t, was taking very much second place to himself. Sometimes, in moments when he felt particularly close to David, Mike was on the point of asking him about his femme mystérieuse, but he always held back. It was as if he were enjoying the idea that his partner had a wife somewhere. There was no jealousy on Mike’s part and it made their lovemaking even more piquant.

  They slept most of the time in Thurston Hall and ate out at least once a week. But David was not much of a social animal, and when Mike had late-night DJ engagements he would go back to his apartment on I Street. The building had a good number of GW students in it, mostly seniors and sophomores like David himself, and he got to know a few of them over the course of the year. When they asked why he was hardly ever at home and where he spent his time, he would wave his hand and answer with a vague, ‘Oh, here and there. You know . . .’

  David met Mark O’Connor in the lobby of the building on an evening when Mike was running a disco for a twenty-first-birthday party. They discovered their rooms were on the same corridor and David invited him in for coffee.

  Mark was eighteen, a psychology major from Boston and happy to make new friends. He was struck by the gloom of David’s room, by the books that lined the walls and the scholarly journals and sheets of scribbled-on writing paper that covered the carpet. Unemptied ashtrays sat on the table and smoke from hours of chain-smoked Marlboros gave the room a stale, hazy patina that Mark found tremendously sophisticated. After a minute’s small talk, he was surprised to hear David say, ‘So, I guess you’re Irish, then?’

  Mark laughed and said, ‘Is it that obvious?’

  He was of Irish descent, of course, fairer-complexioned and slighter of build than Mike, but with a very Celtic look about him. His father had traced the family back to County Fermanagh in the nineteenth century, and Mark was pretty comfortable about his heritage and his place in the world.

  ‘Only, I have an Irish guy I’m pretty fond of,’ David was saying. ‘I don’t tell too many folk about him because . . . because, well . . .’ David thought through his reasons for not telling people about Mike and concluded, ‘Well, because I just don’t. But you seem like, you know . . .’ He had guessed Mark was gay and liked his sensitive, sympathetic air but didn’t want to just jump in.

  ‘Anyway, ’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ve seen him. He’s an RA down in Thurston; his name’s Mike Hess.’

  Mark said he had noticed the guy but had no idea he was gay. David smiled and lit another cigarette.

  ‘You know what? I think he doesn’t want to advertise it. I think maybe he’s planning to go into politics, and being gay’s a bit of a downer in that line of business.’

  Mark wondered why he was being told all this – possibly simply because of his own Irishness – but he was beginning to suspect David was looking for some kind of affirmation from him.

  ‘Well, that’s true for sure,’ Mark said with a smile. ‘I’m always amazed that Kinsey calculates one in ten of us are gay, yet the guys who run our politics are 100-per-cent red-blooded heteros without a single exception. Am I alone in thinking there’s something dubious going on there?’

  David laughed and said he’d pass the message on to Mike when he saw him next. Mark thanked him for the coffee and said he better get back to work, but as he was leaving he pointed to the piles of papers on the floor.

  ‘You take care with those cigarettes now; you don’t want to set the whole place on fire, do you?’

  David kept up contact with Mark O’Connor for the rest of the school year and spoke fairly openly about his affair with Mike Hess. He told him how much he loved the guy and how much he’d come to depend on him in the months they had been together. Mark himself had had a few fleeting sexual experiences, but he was a young eighteen and the notion of a real romance filled him with excitement. He was aware David occasionally received visits from a girl with blonde hair, but she was never mentioned in their conversations. Latterly, Mark had sensed David was setting greater and greate
r store by his relationship with Mike: at times he was coming home looking jumpy, upset and more than usually gloomy. Mark wondered if he wasn’t setting himself up for a fall.

  As the spring semester wore on, Mike began casting around for a summer vacation job. Being a candy man at the Kennedy Center was his fallback, but he was almost a qualified lawyer now and he was hoping he could find something more suitable and better paid. A few of his fellow students had been taken on by law firms for the summer, but the places he applied to all seemed to have filled their vacancies and he was getting a little desperate.

  To wards the end of March he and David booked a table at a new restaurant on M Street in Georgetown. The Bistro Français was run by a chef from the south of France and had gotten good opening reviews: a few of their friends had eaten there and said the eggs Benedict were heavenly.

  The cherry blossom hung on the trees as they strolled up Pennsylvania Avenue. Mike was feeling irritable and worried about summer. He could see David had a spring in his step and, in the insidious way of these things, he sensed his partner’s upbeat mood compounding his own irritability. David was chatting away about music and the weather, about poetry and Shakespeare, a production of Hamlet he had seen at Ford’s Theater and a review he was writing that he wanted to ‘make into a sort of thesis on the nature of parricide’.

  ‘So I’m going to call it “Hamlet and us”. What do you think? It’ll explain why Hamlet is so tormented, why he thinks the times are out of joint. It’s because he’s been born at the wrong time in the wrong place and naturally he blames his father and his mother. The big theme in Hamlet is that he hasn’t found the place in the world where he belongs, so all the other places including Elsinore are just arbitrary and meaningless. No wonder he says Denmark’s a prison.’

  They were on the bridge over the Parkway now and Mike sensed David was in one of his manic moments when boundless energy flowed through his synapses and he couldn’t stop himself bubbling about everything that came into his head. But such moments were followed by deflation and despair, and Mike’s heart sank at the prospect of the depression to come. David was stopping at all the art and antique shops along M Street, exclaiming at the beauty of the objets in the windows and how they really should buy this figurine or that decanter. They were nearly at the restaurant when Mike realized he was being asked a question.

  ‘I knew you weren’t listening, Mike. I was saying that I used to be Hamlet, but then I found you. And now everything feels so right, like there’s one place on earth where fate intended me to be, and now I’m in it! Do you know what I mean? It’s like this is where I should be and anywhere else would be wrong and just random. There would be no reason for me to be there . . . but now I’m in the place life has always reserved for me.’

  Mike listened with a slow fascination. David’s encomium sounded so exactly like his own long-held view of life’s randomness that he wondered if maybe he had spoken about it in a drunken moment or in his sleep and David had somehow imbibed it and was regurgitating it to him in a grotesque parody. But David wasn’t joking; he so palpably believed what he was saying that Mike began to reflect on it himself. It was clear he had become very attached to Mike, and Mike – if he were honest – had probably felt better in the past six months with David than he had in his whole life.

  Mike was quiet during the meal – David was doing enough talking for both of them – and he was increasingly aware of a vague, nagging feeling that something was going wrong. He felt he really ought to be in a good mood. David was right, after all: their relationship had brought them stability and a sense of belonging where before they both had been tormented and adrift. But a bitter little worm was burrowing through Mike’s thoughts and he was becoming more and more disturbed by it. If his time with David had brought him happiness, the worm was telling him he didn’t deserve to be happy – he shouldn’t be happy, he didn’t want the happiness he had found.

  Mike was used to responding to David’s chatter with a tolerant smile, but this time the smile would not come. As they strolled back to Thurston together Mike was deaf to David’s conversation; all he could hear was the worm telling him over and over, You don’t deserve it. You can’t be happy because you don’t deserve it . . .

  NINE

  1976

  In the weeks that followed Mike began to make excuses for not seeing his lover – he would discover he had a disco to go to or a friend he had to visit and would make it clear that David wouldn’t enjoy it. At first David took it well – he was still on his manic high and nothing could touch him when he was feeling that way – but the more his mood began to deflate, the more hurt and rejected he felt. In early May, in the middle of his end-of-year exams, David demanded they sit down and talk. Mike could see he was sliding to the bottom of his manic slope, plunging helplessly into the depths of depression, and he felt scared by the force of what he saw unfolding. He knew he should comfort the guy, but something was holding him back. The fact that David was combative and accusatory made it easier for him to stay cold and noncommittal.

  ‘You know what your problem is?’ David began over dinner. ‘Your problem is that you don’t know how to love someone. You know that loving me is going to make me happy and it’s going to make you happy, but you can’t cope with that, can you? You can’t bear to let yourself go, to give yourself up to someone . . .’

  He stared at Mike. Mike mumbled a few placatory remarks, but David was not listening.

  ‘It’s been the same since we met. That first day, all those months ago, you led me on and then you drew back. And then I thought we’d sorted things out, but now I see you were never going to commit yourself. Come on, Mike. You’re not being honest with me, are you? Have you found someone else? Is that why you keep turning me away?’

  ‘No,’ Mike said, rolling his eyes. ‘I just need more space, that’s all. There’s no one else.’

  But the idea had lodged in David’s head and he wasn’t going to let it go.

  ‘OK, so prove it to me,’ he implored, grasping Mike’s hand over the table. ‘Take me with you tonight. And don’t say you’ve got something you can’t take me to.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mike shrugged. ‘You know where I’m going anyway – it’s the drag award thing at the Lost & Found and I’m doing the music, remember?’ He removed his hand from David’s grasp. ‘I don’t think it’ll be your scene, but you’re welcome to come.’

  They parted frostily. Mike couldn’t give David a ride to the L&F because he needed to go with the truck transporting the sound gear, but David said he’d make his own way there.

  When David arrived, around nine, the place was in full swing. In a cavernous space carved from an old warehouse and decorated with mirrors, black lights and rubber plants the bar was thronged, the pool table was busy and the main floor area was occupied by tables set for dinner. A spotlit stage was decked with flowers and a glittering silver banner proclaimed THE FOURTH UNIFIED ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS OF WASHINGTON. A svelte female impersonator in a backless ball gown and tiara was addressing the sea of tables, most of which were occupied by similarly dressed men of varying ages and sizes.

  ‘OK, girls, settle down. I know you’re excited, but I need to let you know that our panel of judges this evening will be made up of the fabulous Miss Fanny Brice, the heavenly Miss Mae Bush, the real Miss Liz Taylor and your president, the one and only, the incomparable Miss Mame Dennis!’

  A ripple of applause went round the room as a large drag queen with an outrageous beehive and wearing a low-cut, sequinned blue dress tottered on very high heels onto the stage. Mame Dennis, alias Carl Rizzie, blew into the microphone and, satisfied she could be heard, began announcing the plethora of awards that would be judged over the course of the evening. Her voice was nasal and affected and she twirled a long cigarette holder as she spoke. Most of her witty, scathing remarks were met with whistles and catcalls from the audience.

  David grimaced. He found the place distasteful, but as long as Mike was there he was
determined to stay. Mike was seated at a sound and light desk, pressing buttons and sliding faders, and made no effort to welcome David.

  ‘I’ll be tied up for a couple of hours,’ he said without looking up. ‘Why don’t you go get a drink.’

  David shrugged and made his way to the bar. Mike watched him go with a frown.

  Two hours and six whiskies later David returned to find Mike sitting on a pink banquette chatting with the slim drag queen in the ball gown who had introduced Mame Dennis. When Mike didn’t get up, David felt the alcohol kindling his anger and resentment.

  ‘Whaddya think you’re doing?’ he slurred, louder than he’d intended.

  His discomfort provoked a hoot of laughter from the drag queen. ‘What does he think he’s doing? Well, honey, that’s no way to speak to a gentleman. He is squiring a young lady who demands his closest care and attention, and if you want my opinion, you would do well to take a cab and go home to wherever it is you come from!’

  Mike looked at the floor and said nothing.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Mike?’ David asked, angry and humiliated. ‘You know she’s wrong for you: you hate queens. Why are you doing this to the person who really loves you?’

  The drag queen gasped in mock outrage and wagged a stern finger.

  ‘Honey, I’m telling you: you best be gone before the fur starts flying and someone enters you for the Most Boring Married Man award! This ain’t a place for bitching and making trouble, you understand me?’

  David looked to Mike for support, but he didn’t respond. David hesitated for a moment then seemed to make up his mind. Turning on his heel, he walked unsteadily out of the club.

  Mike got back to Thurston after two in the morning and was woken three hours later by the telephone. The hoarse, panicked voice on the line introduced itself as Mark O’Connor, checked that this was Michael Hess and said, ‘You need to come quick. David Carlin’s in the ER and I’m not sure he’s going to make it.’