Gay Before God: An Awakening Love Forbidden by the Church

by William Bruce

  At the weekends James’ two children came to stay, accepting without any apparent distress the new domestic arrangements. They enjoyed the large garden where there were countless games of hide and seek, though these were never as good after the bushes had been trimmed, and croquet for which Terry had developed a particular devilish skill. They went on bike rides along the straight roads that led from the village to The Fens; hard work when the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Sometimes they would take a picnic to sit in a field, but when the combine harvesters were about the hoards of tiny black flies plagued them and drove them home. Both children at some time or other rode into the dyke and had to be rescued by Terry. He was the one that most enthusiastically played with them, sharing their uncomplicated and childlike view of the world. They bought twelve gold fish for the pond and gave each of them a name even though they were quite indistinguishable. Terry bought them two rabbits called Mopsy and Flopsy who escaped from their pen and took two hours to coax from under the shed. Terry talked of building a tree house in the walnut tree, and wanted above all for them to see his home as their home, the place that they could come whenever they wanted.

  As the weeks passed, the nights drew in and the weather became less kind, Terry and James turned their attention away from the garden to the house itself. Every room was stripped of its layers of flowery wallpaper, revealing stage by stage the dubious tastes of generations of previous residents. It was a litany of forgotten fashions and styles. Each room was restored to pastoral colours, subtle tints enhancing the antique furniture and pictures. They worked on the project with tenacity, good humour and a degree of acquiescence that boded well for the future. They were hardly ever apart, working closely together in the day and wrapped in each other’s arms during the night. Their times apart were only out of necessity, and served to heighten their desire to be together. It was a remarkable partnership that showed no strain other than the occasional disagreement, nearly always over things such as the hanging of pictures, the kind of material for the curtains, and the positioning of the piano.

  Terry, more than James, had an eye for detail and a strong sense of proportion. Every room had to be just right, and he might spend hours arranging and re-arranging furniture, lamps, rugs and ornaments. In the snug, the room where they tended to live most of the time, and the fire was always lit, he paid particular attention to the mantelpiece. Here his favourite collection of delicate china pieces was arranged with precision. At each end he placed two brass candlesticks and in the middle a plain brass cross.

  “I like that cross in the middle,” he said as he stood back to admire his efforts. “Because it is so plain it just sets off the detail of everything else.”

  “Looks too much like an altar to me!” laughed James.

  “You and your vicar talk!” responded Terry before he reached over to grab James’ arm and they fell about laughing.

  In this room was Terry’s favourite long case clock, temperamental but sturdy. It ticked through the day in a pedestrian manner, marking the seconds of their time together, as if each one mattered. To them this was a timeless period, so absorbing and seemingly perpetual, neither could imagine it coming to an end.

  In the evenings James would play the piano, which, placed on the hard York Stone floor of the dining room, resonated around the house beautifully. His repertoire was a collection of old sheet music and hymn books, and from these came a strange mixture of Cole Porter and Charles Wesley. Each time he would conclude with the rendition of Psalm 42 that had become their anthem.

  ‘As the dear pants for the water, so my soul longs after you. You alone are heart’s desire and I long to worship you.’

  Terry loved to sit and listen. He could hear it wherever he was in the house. It was a song that summed up everything that had happened to them in the passing year, and he heard in it a promise of hope for the future.

  ‘You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.’

  The song’s foreboding idolatry was lost on them both.

  The chief aim was to get their home ready as a guest house and this they knew could be achieved by Christmas. The bedrooms were spacious and tastefully furnished and although the bathroom was a little dated, it wasn’t for the plumbing that people came to stay in an old farmhouse. Every time they flushed the toilet there was the sound of a deep moaning horn, and Terry used to joke that it was one of the ships lost in the fog somewhere beyond The Fens. By the end of the autumn they were ready to be graded as a commercial establishment and the trickle of bookings for the new season was beginning.

  It was at about this time that James was introduced to Terry’s mother, affectionately known as Mumsie. At first she had been reluctant to meet him, perhaps because she heard he was an unpleasant man, and all her dealings had been with Victor. Mumsie was a big woman who carried her weight as a perpetual apology. She constantly reminded people she was once slim, and certainly this was true when as a teenager she had given birth to Terry. Since then a succession of problems, both in her health and in her relationships had taken their toll. Her hastily married husband, the father of Terry, gave her three more children, but then ran off with a younger slimmer woman and had never been seen since. By all accounts it had been a violent relationship which meant Terry’s early years were very unsettled. On her daughters all hopes were pinned. They would go to university, find rich husbands, and live in large houses, but in truth the fat and spotty brood was unlikely to achieve any of these.

  Terry’s mother tried to dress like a teenager, perhaps to recapture her long-lost, carefree youth. She wore a florescent shell suit, designer T-shirt, and pink ankle-length boots, the counter-balance to her bright red hair. Most of all she adored jewellery as if the weight of it gave her status and importance. She had a necklace of pearls, two gold chains, a score of bracelets and a ring on every finger. To cap them all were her fingernails, which received the greatest attention.

  “Well, I don’t smoke, so all the money I save on that I spend on my nails,” is the way Mumsie justified her expense. James thought it might be less offensive if she did smoke. He did try to get on with her but his efforts nearly always failed. Maybe they came from such different backgrounds, and the gulf could never be bridged. Perhaps it was her distrust of clergy and the church which came from her memory of being a teenage mother. Maybe it was something to do with her experience as an abandoned wife and she saw in James the archetypal man who leaves his spouse for someone else. Perhaps most of all it was because she remained loyal to Victor whose charm was captivating and whose life values she could understand. He was the kind of man she would have liked to have married: tall, blond, muscular and the owner of a red sports car. James knew it would take months if not years to win Mumsie over, but for Terry he would persevere.

  A regular trail of friends came to see Terry and James at their new home. Mostly these were new friends who supported them in their new life. Others had taken sides, or choose to stay away out of disgust. James was surprised Charles stuck with them, calling in most weeks.

  “I have been given a pay rise,” he proudly announced one bright autumn morning, while sipping tea under the walnut tree. It had been a good crop that year and James was staring up to see how many more walnuts might fall. He wasn’t interested in hearing the news from Church House.

  “That’s good,” replied Terry.

  “And I am getting married next year, about time really I suppose,” Charles added, with almost equal enthusiasm.

  “I think I will just go and refill this tea pot,” declared James, who felt he couldn’t stay listening to Charles much longer. He walked back to house in no particular hurry, and as he went in, he turned to see Terry and Charles watch him go, almost as if they were waiting for him to be out of ear shot.

  Maybe it was the experience of conducting an affair that had made James suspicious, but he surprised himself how he had become less trustful of everyon
e. The only one who rose above such doubt in his mind was Terry; everyone else seemed to have an agenda to pursue.

  While the kettle boiled James went upstairs to a part of the house closer to the walnut tree. From there, through a small window, he could see Terry and Charles, though on account of the rustle of the trees, not hear what they were saying. They seemed agitated, almost engaged in an argument. James hated spying on them, and like so many who want to find things out, instantly regretted what he was doing. He quickly went back down to the kitchen and re-filled the tea pot.

  “Charles has to go,” announced Terry just as James got back to them. They had stopped talking abruptly as he approached.

  “Sorry, things to do and people to see! But thanks for the tea,” said Charles who was already on his feet and heading for the garden gate.

  “What was all that about?” asked James when he heard Charles’s car start up and knew he was safely gone.

  “Nothing really. He is just very busy,” replied Terry quite sharply. “You really should try and make an effort with him you know. Anyway, I don’t feel very well. I have got one of my headaches again. Too much talking”

  They sat quietly under the walnut tree, happy in each other’s presence. The tensions between them only seemed to rise when other people became involved. Or rather, thought James, certain other people.

  Chapter 11

  Nine months passed and Terry and James had fully settled into their new home. The autumn chilled into winter and Christmas came. For the first time in his life Terry had a stocking at the end of his bed. When he woke on Christmas morning he hurriedly delved into it and produced one small parcel, carefully wrapped in bright red and green paper. Inside was a key and a note.

  “What is it, what is it? I do love surprises!” he asked excitedly.

  “Read the note,” quietly responded James, as happy as ever to see Terry as energized as a child.

  The note directed Terry to the shed, and there wearing only his dressing gown, he discovered a huge object standing in the middle of the floor. Tentatively, but unable to hold back his excitement any longer, he wrenched off the cloth to reveal an octagonal thatched dovecote. It was the kind of present that delighted Terry, and he stood there caressing it and shaking his head.

  “I have always wanted one of these. How did you know?” he asked

  “You never stopped talking about them all summer,” James replied, so pleased to see his gift was well received. “I just had to get you one to shut you up.”

  After breakfast in bed, and a cuddle as fuel for the day, they quickly got into the garden to get the dovecote erected. Once completed, Terry took a picture with James standing nearby, and sent it to Mumsie on his mobile. She did not tell Terry that she would rather a picture of the dovecote on its own, but tried to share his excitement and promised, rather recklessly, she would buy some doves to put in it. Maybe it was some kind of peace offering.

  Christmas dinner was guinea fowl, a suitable meal for two. They decided to follow this with a short trip out to see their friends in the neighbouring village, a gay couple who also lived in another old farmhouse, although theirs was far grander. Terry, with a determination to be eccentric, decided they would take some Christmas cake in a silver muffin dish and a tray glasses charged with homemade sloe gin. James felt pleased that he lived with a man that wanted to be peculiar in the best possible taste.

  They drove the two miles along an empty country lane, everywhere touched by that silence and restfulness that only Christmas Day can bring. They pulled into the driveway of the house, and crunched across the gravel to the large green front door. They giggled with excitement as they arranged the cake in the dish and poured as best they could the sloe gin into the glasses. After knocking on the door, they stood on the step, wondering if there was anyone in, for this was a spontaneous act of frivolity. A moment passed and they decided to sing ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ but got no further than the first line before the door opened, gingerly at first, to reveal a man laughing with bemusement.

  Terry and James were soon ushered in to share something of the Christmas meal. Two other men were there from another village, maintaining an exclusively gay gathering, an attempt to show that Christmas and the nuclear family were not necessarily synonymous. In the large sitting room decked with holly-clad antlers and old prints, they sipped the sloe gin and shared stories of the strange people in each of their villages. No doubt similar stories that involved them were being told in other more conventional gatherings.

  “We saw someone in the lay-by when we came past,” joked Terry. “Who would have thought it on Christmas Day!” The place he talked about was a well know rendezvous point for men who were looking for sex with other men.

  “Probably one of those married men sent out to collect his mother-in-law for Christmas dinner,” added James. The sloe gin was making everyone laugh.

  “And how will he explain the mud on his shoes when he gets home?” asked Terry.

  “And the other stains!” another added.

  As gay men who chose not to hide their identity, what amused them most was the ridiculous hypocrisy in the sexual lives of others.

  Terry and James came home satisfied their day had been interesting and sociable. Once home they drew the thick brocaded curtains of the snug, banked up the fire, and settled down to watch an old film. These were the times they both relished, lying together on the sofa, safe in each other’s company and arms. It was if this was what life was about, the culmination of a forty-year preface, the beginning of the real narrative for both of them. James saw it as something God-given, love made incarnate in flesh and blood.

  After the film they talked late into the evening, planning their lives for years to come, gently constructing a future of dinner parties, foreign travel, and a business dealing in bed and breakfast and antiques. On the threshold of a new year their outlook was entirely bright and clear without any cloud on the horizon.

  “I think we will make it,” said Terry that night in bed as they snuggled up together against the cold winter wind that rattled the windowpanes. “It has been hard, and there were lots of problems, but I can really see it working out now.”

  James, was a little surprised at this analysis of the past, but more than happy to agree. “I do hope so, because it would be so lovely. We have been through so much and yet we have survived. I think most other people would have given in. I love you,” he finished and prevented any further discussion by placing his lips on those of Terry and began to taste and caress the man he loved more than ever.

  Later as James drifted to sleep he mused over a year of adventure. So much had happened, and indeed there had been so many changes in his life. He had lost his job and was looking for another, his vocation was challenged and put into abeyance, he had left his wife and become one of those fathers who negotiates his time to have his children, he had moved house twice, and lost so many old friends who could not or would not understand what he had done. All the essential areas of life had changed, and he had faced disruption in every aspect, except one, which was his health. He was thankful in that they had been lucky and as fit and youngish men they could look forward to years of health ahead of them. He thought of how so many people would have struggled to cope, and perhaps at times he had come close to despair and collapse, but the love of Terry, given and received, had kept him going. It filled him with the power to withstand all the difficulties and eventualities life could throw at them, and as long as their love stayed firm, which for him was a certainty until his dying day. Theirs was a fortress unassailable.

  By the first week of January the usual routines of life began to re-establish themselves after the Christmas break. Preparations for the bed and breakfast were virtually complete. The rooms were fully furnished, the kitchen revamped, and they were only waiting for grading from the local tourist board. The first guests could arrive at any time and this would bring in a necessary income. It wouldn’t be much, but enough to keep them happy, or so
they thought.

  It was the first Friday evening of the year and James was making the dinner. Earlier that day Terry had set off to go shopping in the local town, staying out for lunch with a friend. He had sent a text about 2pm to say he would be home soon. James had heard nothing since which because of their closeness was unusual. Barely had two hours passed without some communication during their waking hours. Such intimacy may not be sustainable over the long term but for over a year they had maintained it.

  James was starting to get annoyed. He had made the dinner and Terry had not answered any of his texts. What is more his phone seemed to be switched off. Putting the meal to simmer he turned on the news, more for distraction than any need to find out what was going on in the world. Terry, he imagined, would walk through the door at any moment.

  Just then the house phone rang, and James jumped to answer it.

  “Hello, do you know Terrance,” asked a strange voice.

  For a moment James couldn’t answer, and didn’t know what he was being asked.