At a very late hour Stephen and Richard slipped away and went to bed together. It was a sad occasion, for Richard, alone among the touring party, knew what Stephen was going to do later that morning, when the sun was up, and even his sunny disposition was not proof against the depression that his knowledge had induced.
They made love violently, furiously. Then they lay curled in each other’s arms for a while, then did it again, this time passionately but gently, with great tenderness, as Stephen tried to say with his strong, shapely body what he could not say in words. Every time they tried to speak to each other, lying entwined in a fierce, desperate embrace in the Dutch hotel room, they choked, unable to speak for tears.
At last they dressed again and went back downstairs to rejoin the milling throng of cricketers in the bar. Nearly everyone was drunk by this time, so neither their absence nor their return had been noticed. Bill McKechnie, who was among the hardest-headed drinkers, noticed both, put two and two together and successfully completed the sum, but Bill was a very kind man, and looked away before they could catch his eye and see that he knew. No-one else was focussing clearly enough to notice the dry streaks of tear-tracks on their faces — though if they had they would undoubtedly have ascribed them to maudlin inebriation rather than the unguessable real cause.
When the boys had consoled each other with a few more drinks than were good for them, Stephen slipped away again, leaving Richard staring unhappily into a glass of very strong beer. He went first to the room he had shared with Richard, in which he had so lately been making passionate love to him. He took his old windcheater from the wardrobe and slipped it on. He unzipped his holdall and took from it three letters that he had written on the hotel’s stationery the night before. He sat on the bed, slipped them out of their envelopes and read them through quickly. Then he put them back in the envelopes, licked and sealed them. He took one of the letters, with RICHARD in heavy black felt-tip on the envelope, and propped it against the shaving mirror, beside Richard’s toothbrush. The other two he slipped into his pocket. He got up, had a quick scout round the room to make sure he had forgotten nothing, picked up his holdall in one hand and his cricket bag in the other, and went quickly out into the corridor.
He went first to Bill’s room and tried the door. It was locked. Taking the two letters from his windcheater pocket, he selected one, stooped and slid it under the door. Then he went quickly to the lift and went down to reception. The clerk on night duty sold him a stamp and showed him the box for outgoing mail. He put the stamp on the envelope marked with his father’s name and address, and dropped it in the box.
* * *
Dear Bill,
This is just a note to tell you not to worry when you find that I’m not among the party when you all go back to the Hook for the ferry this morning, and to explain why — though I don’t think you will need to have it explained. I am, of course, going to join Graham in Strasbourg.
I want to tell you also how greatly I have enjoyed this tour, and all my time with the club. It has been one of the pleasantest experiences of my life, and one of the happiest times. The friendship and welcome I have received from everyone has been simply wonderful, and nothing I could write in this note could begin to say a hundredth part of what I feel.
I shall miss everybody, but, apart from Richard of course, most of all I shall miss you. Your kindnesses have been so numerous and so generously given that I could spend a month trying to thank you for every one of them. Instead, just accept a blanket, once-and-for-all, and heartfelt Thank you.
I shall be writing as soon as I have arrived and settled in, and it would be very nice to hear from you with news of the club once in a while. Don’t forget me for next year’s tour.
Look after Richard for me. He is going to need a lot of kindness for a time. I suspect that you know why.
I am enclosing some money. Part of it is for my subscription to the club for next season — I want to have the fixture card, and I really do want to come on next year’s tour. There will be ten pounds over, which I want you to spend on a jug when you all get home. Please make sure everyone has a drink on me.
Please give my regards to Christine, and thank her for being so very kind to me.
I shall see you all again, probably fairly soon, and maybe one day G and I will be able to return to England and play for you again like honest men. (What? Biggsy, honest?) In the meantime, I’m going to miss you all terribly, and I shall never forget you.
Your friend,
Steve
* * *
Dearest Dad,
This is one of the two most difficult letters I have ever had to write, or ever will have to, I believe.
The cricket tour I told you about is over, and I am not coming back.
I know that you would have no trouble guessing why, so I won’t even try to hide the fact — I’m going to be with Graham in France. But I’d like you to believe me when I say that I wouldn’t have tried to deceive you about this even if I had thought it could be done. The days of my wishing to deceive you are over.
I know what you and Mother think about my relationship with Graham, and about my sexuality in general. I still have a very vivid memory of those terrible days when there was such bitter misunderstanding between us. You were right to say that time that I’d grown away from you and Mother very far and very fast. But I think you will agree that you and I at least have grown back together at least part of the way, and a pretty long part of it, I’d say. I can tell you that something has happened to me between then and now: I’ve grown up. I’m not a boy any longer. I think I’m a man now, and I hope a reasonably decent one. If I am, I owe most of it to you. A little of it is due to the cricket club, much more of it to Graham, but most of it I owe to you. You said that time in the dining room that I probably thought you were a silly old fuddy-duddy — something to that effect. Well, Dad, what I actually think of you is that you’re a kind, generous and good man, and as good a father as anyone could be fortunate enough to have.
Graham told me a joke, which he says is very old — he said that when he was sixteen he thought his father was a silly old bastard, and when he was twenty-one he was amazed to see how much his dad had learned in that short time.
I know you said when we had that heart-to-heart talk that if you found I was having anything to do with Graham you’d go to the police and have him arrested and extradited. Well, as a matter of fact, you can’t, so Graham says. He’s been making enquiries and it seems that the French would refuse to extradite someone for the technical offence he committed by having a sexual relationship with me. But, Dad, I’m not afraid that you’ll do what you said, because I don’t think, somehow, that you will do it, or even that you ever meant to do it, even at the time when you said it.
The first reason I think that is that I’ve learned a lot about you in the last few months. I think that goes for both of us — I think we’ve gained a much better understanding of each other. In a strange way I think Mother’s violent reaction against me has fostered it to some extent. I’m very sorry about her attitude, but if it’s brought us closer together it has at least had one unexpected good side-effect. I still hope that one day she will come to accept me as what I am, as you seem to me to have done lately.
The other reason why I don’t believe you’d ever put your threat into effect is because I believe you have seen yourself that growing-up which I talked about just now. I think you, too, realize that I’m a grown-up man now. And I think, just as we’ve come to like each other a lot better than at any other time lately, we’ve formed a much deeper respect for each other, too. I think you would respect my judgment; or at least, I think you would respect my word, when I give it: and I give you my word that what I feel for Graham is not infatuation, not mere sexual attraction or lust, but love, real, deep and powerful. He’s a good man, strong, honourable, dependable and just. And he is trustworthy as only two other people I have ever known have been trustworthy: Richard Fitzjohn and you. He loves me,
and he respects me, as a person, and I owe it to
him to give him the love he deserves.
That’s why I’m going to him, Dad, and what I’ve said earlier is why I dare to ask you to give me your blessing. I’d still go to him if you refused, because I have to go to him; but I would like your blessing, if you can give it.
I’m not doing it this way — simply not coming back from abroad — to give you the slip, but for another reason. I can’t go into it, because it involves another person’s privacy, which must be respected, but I can tell you that it is to do with Richard. In any case, I shall be telephoning very soon, to ask you how you feel after reading this letter; and if your reaction is as I hope it will be, I’ll come back to England to see you soon after that.
For now, though, Dad, this is not goodbye, but au revoir. I hope Mother cheers up and that you can get back to enjoying life and have some fun. Meanwhile, I think of you, and always with the greatest liking and respect. So, for now, much love, your affectionate son and, I hope, still your friend,
Stephen
* * *
My darling Richard,
I’ve just said at the beginning of a letter to my Dad that it was one of the two most difficult letters I had ever had to write or would ever have to. This one to you is, without doubt, THE most difficult.
The letter to Dad was a very long one, because I had a lot to say. This one to you is going to be very short, because I’ve got too much to say, and most of it is unsayable. We say what we’ve got to say to each other best in languages other than words.
All it amounts to, dearest Richard, is this. I love
you, and I shall always love you, more than I have ever loved or ever could love any other living soul, bar one — and I don’t love even Graham any more than I love you. Just in different ways. Why do I choose him rather than you — which, by the way, is the most terrible, impossible decision I have ever had to make, or hope ever to have to? A single reason: Graham loves me, and so do you. But he NEEDS me, in a way I don’t think you do. And I need to be needed. You’ll miss me, but you’ll recover. He would miss me, and I don’t think he’d love again. I think I’m his last chance, and I only hope it isn’t too immodest of me to say that. I don’t know if I’m making the right decision. I have to hope so. If I’m making the wrong one, and you’re still there, I’ll come back and ask you if you’ll have me. I don’t think I deserve you, and I’m sure you deserve better. I hope you find him, as I hope that you are showered all your life with every blessing you deserve.
That’s it, my dearest Richard. You are the best fun I’ve ever had, the sexiest companion, most generous lover and kindest, truest, sweetest friend.
I shall love you as long as I live. I know it isn’t enough.
Bless you,
Stevie
* * *
He stood for a moment, looking down at the slit through which he had dropped his letter to his father. Then he picked up his cricket bag and holdall from the floor of the lobby and walked quickly through the revolving door to the street. It was light outside, on a bright, fair morning. He had looked out the route through the streets, and set off with a long, purposeful stride for the station. As he turned the first corner he could still hear, very faintly from the hotel, the sound of the cricketers, singing.
THE GA Y MEN’S PRESS COLLECTION,
bringing back into print some favourite books from
The Gay Men’s Press
Mike Seabrook
UNNATURAL RELATIONS
For Jamie Potten, burdened at fifteen with the bullying father and an uncaring mother, his encounter with nineteen-year-old Chris brings solace and joy. Chris’s love for Jamie, however, leads to his prosecution for ‘buggery with a minor’, with the threat of a heavy prison sentence. In this gripping yet tender story of two oung people facing together a brutal assault on their human rights, Mike Seabrook highlights the iniquitous position of gay teenagers under English law.
“I loved the book” — Jilly Cooper
“Sensitive, masterful, fascinating” — Joseph Wambaugh
ISBN 0 85449 116 3
£8.95
THE GA Y MEN’S PRESS COLLECTION
Christopher Bram
HOLD TIGHT
When Hank Fayette, Seaman Second Class, uses his shore leave to visit a movie house on 42nd Street, he ends up in a gay brothel near Manhattan’s West Street piers, and is caught in a raid by the Shore Patrol. But it’s 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbour, and the US Navy sends Hank back to the brothel to entrap Nazi agents.
“Very funny, fast moving… captures the tensions between blacks and whites and gays and non-gays in the New York of the period” — Publishers’ Weekly
ISBN085449132 5
UK£8.95 (not for sale in North America)
Christopher Bram
SURPRISING MYSELF
Joel and Corey try to build a life together in 1980s New York, amid the challenges and pitfalls of the gay scene, and the problems of work and family. A subtle and intricate depiction of human relationships.
“An extremely impressive performance” — Christopher Street
“Bram writes like an angel” — The Advocate
ISBN085449130 9
£9.95 (not for sale in North America)
Quality new fiction from The Gay Men’s Press
Richard Zimler
UNHOLY GHOSTS
A classical guitar teacher from New York seeks a new life in Portugal after the death of so many friends. But the viral eclipse over sexuality pursues him even there, when Antonio, his talented and beloved student, tests HIV-positive and threatens to give up on life. Desperate to show the young man that he still has a future, ‘the Professor’ arranges a car trip to Paris, hoping to be able to convince a leading virtuoso there to begin preparing his protégé for a concert career. Antonio’s father Miguel, a stonemason by trade, insists in coming along with them, and en route the three fall into a triangle of adventure, personal disclosure, violence, and at last a strange redemption.
Wittily funny and deeply moving, Unholy Ghosts was written with the support of the US National Endowment for the Arts.
ISBN085449233 X
£9.95
Noel Currer-Briggs
YOUNG MEN AT WAR
Anthony Arthur Kildwick, born in 1919 to a well-to-do English family, finds the love of his life in a German exchange student at his private school. When Manfred returns to Germany he is seduced by Hitler’s nationalist rhetoric, while Tony meets the outbreak of war as a conscientious objector. Yet as the Nazi regime shows itself ever more demonic, Tony decides he must fight, and is parachuted into southern France to work with the Resistance. He discovers Manfred is now an officer with the occupying forces, and their paths cross again in dramatic circumstances.
Based largely on the author’s own experience, this fascinating story conveys a vivid sense of the conflicts of the 1930s, and the interplay between friendship and internationalism, homosexuality and pacifism, patriotism and democracy, that was characteristic of those years.
ISBN085449236 4
£8.95
Rudi van Dantzig
FOR A LOST SOLDIER
During the winter of 1944 in occupied Amsterdam, eleven-year-old Jeroen is evacuated to a tiny fishing community on the desolate coast of Friesland, where he meets Walt, a young Canadian soldier with the liberating forces. Their relationship immerses the young boy in a tumultuous world of emotional and sexual experience, suddenly curtailed when the Allies move on and Walt goes away. Back home in Amsterdam, a city in the throes of liberation fever, Jeroen searches for the soldier he has lost. A child’s fears and confused emotions have rarely been described with such penetration and openness, and seen as it is from the child’s viewpoint it invites total empathy.
This novel by the artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet appeared successfully in hardback in 1991, and was made into a prize-wining film.
“A literary happening, not soon to be forg
otten”
— NRC Handelsblad
ISBN0854492372
£9.95
When handsome seventeen-year-old Stephen Hill joined the cricket club it was only a matter of time before young schoolmaster Graham Curtis fell head over heels in love. Their passionate affair intensified until the threat of exposure became too great. For safety they decided to part temporarily — a separation that tested their commitment more than they imagined: Stephen is courted by his clever, irresistible classmate Richard; Graham is blackmailed by a jealous former lover. Yet, despite all the trials and prejudice, their love proves boundless.
Following the success of Unnatural Relations and Conduct Unbecoming, Mike Seabrook continues to explore the conflicts and rewards of gay life in a male environment — this time the world of cricket, on which he has contributed essays to the anthologies Quick Singles and Fine Glances.
Unnatural Relations:
“Sensitive, masterful, fascinating” — Joseph Wambaugh
“I loved the book” — Jilly Cooper
Out of Bounds Page 35