“The best best man.” El nods.
“And then it’s our day. We’re on this amazing beach somewhere abroad. And the vicar, who’s Spanish or something, accidentally makes us laugh by gesturing at the sand and saying, ‘Just look at dis beautiful beetch!’ But he ends up pointing to Gemma Argyle, who’s our bridesmaid.”
“No fucking way!” El says.
“Shhh,” I tell him, “the kids.”
“Sorry, Little Frecks and Little Julia. But no way is Gemma there.”
“Okay, no Gemma. Just us and all the people we love. And the vicar says to you, ‘You may kiss the groom.’ And he says to me, ‘You may kiss the groom.’ And we kiss and everyone applauds, and then, because you’ve been teaching me for the past ten years, we dance.”
“What do we dance to?”
“What else?”
El hugs me tight. “George.”
“And the years go by,” I say, “and the kids grow up and become these amazing people who make us proud. And soon it’s just us two again in our little house. I’ve got my study and you’ve got your studio, and at the end of every day we snuggle up on a tartan blanket and talk about all the things still ahead of us. And when there’s more behind us than ahead, we talk about all our memories and laugh and cry together.”
“Dylan?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re crying now.”
I waggle his chin. “So are you.”
“I like our story. It’s makes me happy. You make me happy, Frecks. But how does it end?”
“So,” I say, “there were once these two old men. No one could remember the name of the sexier one, they just called him ‘Frecks’. Ow! Don’t pinch me. It’s not my fault the story thinks you’re marginally less sexy than me. Anyway, they lived together all their days and the neighbours said it was amazing that, in the distant past, when these two men were boys, one of them had been too scared to admit who he really was. ‘Imagine a world like that,’ they would say, and shake their heads. It took the brave, kind, brilliant, but slightly less sexy boy to show him the way. And Frecks never once forgot to thank his friend, his partner, his lover, for being that guiding light.”
“And then?”
“And then… Who knows? One day the neighbours found the house empty and the two old men gone. And they were never seen again. They just wandered away together, hand in hand.”
Ellis looks at me and I look at Ellis.
“That’s not how real stories end, Dylan.”
“But it should be,” I tell him softly. “It should be.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Samaritans are available round the clock, every single day of the year. You can talk to them any time you like, and in your own way, about whatever’s getting to you. Call, free, any time, on 116
123 Or email [email protected]
Find your nearest branch on samaritans.org
The Mix is here to help under 25s get to grips with any challenge they face. Anywhere and anytime, online, over the phone or via social media.
Helpline: 0808 808 4994 themix.org.uk
The Survivors Trust is the largest umbrella organisation for specialist rape and sexual abuse services in the UK. The Survivors Trust will help you find support in your area through their free, confidential helpline 08088 010818, or you can message them through their website www.thesurvivorstrust.org/contact
SurvivorsUK support boys and men who have experienced sexual abuse at any time in their lives. They provide a national web/sms chat, one to one counselling, telephone counselling, ISVA and groupwork in London. The organization also supports their families and carers through provision of helpline and counselling services and signposts to other organizations nationally. They are an inclusive service and welcome anyone who identifies as male, trans, non-binary, has identified as male in the past, or anyone who feels that SurvivorsUK are the right fit for them. They support anyone 13+ who has experienced abuse either as a child or as an adult.
Log on www.survivorsuk.org Text: 020 3322 1860
Whatsapp: 074 9181 6064 Email: [email protected]
Katherine Cox is a clinical supervisor, counsellor and groupwork co-ordinator at SurvivorsUK. Katherine has previously worked as a social worker, and as a therapist in a hospice, an HIV support organisation, Terence Higgins Trust, Body & Soul and in secondary schools in the UK.
Hi,
My name is Katherine and I am a counsellor who works with young people and adults who have experienced sexual abuse. I hope you loved Hideous Beauty but I also realise it can be a tough read. And it should be a tough read because sexual abuse is, as the title says, hideous.
I’m wondering what you might be feeling. Disbelief, anger, fear. Perhaps you feel weird, unsettled? All feelings are okay.
Has this happened to you or someone you know?
You might be asking yourself all sorts of questions:
Why do people sexually abuse?
How can I look out for myself?
How can I look out for my friends?
The first question is a very big one and, to be honest, I don’t know the answer. I think it’s very complicated and I guess it’s important to remember that the world is full of kind and generous and warmly loving people you can trust as well as some people who you absolutely can’t. It’s because of that the two other questions become important:
How can I look out for myself?
How can I look out for my friends?
One of the things I hear a lot in the conversations I have with people is that worries, trauma, fears and experiences that we feel ashamed of and unable to talk about, can become bigger and bigger and more unmanageable later on. It can be hard to believe that you can share your worries, but think about everyone in your life and who it is that you feel you can most trust. That’s probably the right person to talk to. If there is no one you feel you can trust, there are a number of organisations you can approach confidentially to share your concerns and feelings. You may feel better after you have spoken to a trusted person.
Reading about Ellis may have left you worrying or wondering about somebody you know. Thinking about the way Ellis changes after the sexual abuse might leave you wondering if this has happened to someone you know. Changes in behaviour, irritability, mood swings etc can of course be a result of all sorts of different things, not just sexual abuse, but if you are worried about a friend of yours, see if you can find a way of letting them know that they can talk to you if they want. If that feels too difficult or weird, just making sure you stick with being their friend will make an enormous difference. Dylan stuck with Ellis and that mattered to them both. Again, you can speak confidentially to one of the organisations listed previously if you want to discuss this more without feeling you’re betraying your friend.
If you have been abused yourself, please, please remember: it was not your fault. This may sound odd because of course it wasn’t, but there is something really hideous about sexual abuse which leaves the person who was abused thinking they encouraged it or they should have stopped it or that in some way it was their responsibility. Sexual abuse is the responsibility of the abuser. Always. If you have been abused yourself, please speak to someone. If you absolutely can’t bear at this point for anyone else to know at all, you can call the Samaritans in complete confidence.
Everyone is different and you are unique, just as the people around you are unique, so think about what helps you to manage your life and what it brings. Here are some ideas, but think about what’s on your own list:
Do something physically active
Listen to music
Dance
Watch sport
Play a computer game
Write stuff down
Draw or paint
Chat with a friend about something else
>
Have a long bath
Sing!
Do something practical which requires focus and concentration
And do please remember that speaking about sexual abuse can help destroy the power it can have over someone’s life. There are some contact details of some organizations on the previous pages. However, as always,
If you feel you are in immediate danger, call the emergency services.
Remember: you matter, your feelings matter. Your life is important and valuable, and the lives of the people you care about are important too. Do what you need to take care of yourself.
Best wishes,
Katherine
For information about where to find confidential help near you, wherever you are in the world, visit
www.helpnearme.info
Dear Reader
I hope you enjoyed Dylan and El’s story.
I know it contained some tear-jerking moments, but one of my reasons for writing this book was to say, despite all the ugliness life can throw at us, there is always hope, and that the people who matter to us – the Mikes and Els of this world – outshine any darkness that threatens to overwhelm us. We just have to hold onto them. Very tightly.
So when I first started writing Hideous Beauty, I knew it couldn’t just be a (hopefully) cool love story wrapped up in a mystery: it had to say something. To mean something.
When I was a kid growing up in the 90s, you would face a beating or worse if you dared to come out as LGBTQ+. I remember once a kid calling me a “fag” and chasing me down the street after school. The experience terrified me. It kept me locked in the closet for many years. Just the memory of it was enough to keep me awake at night, my heart hammering, fearful that someone would look at me, just look at me, and know.
Although I knew, of course, that our community continued to face violence, I had hoped things had changed in the years since. I at least expected that the daily fear I went through to be a thing of the past. But as an author visiting schools and talking to LGBTQ+ groups about their experiences, I discovered that the old prejudices and their impact hadn’t died. It was just that they now sometimes came with a mask of “acceptance”. A phony mask and a dangerous one because, as Dylan says to Mike, acceptance can’t be conditional. It must be absolute and on the terms of those asking for it or it’s not acceptance at all. It must be complete and strong because, once it’s tested (and it will be – almost every day) and it breaks then it leaves kids just as vulnerable and at risk as they were in the past.
Interviewing young LGBTQ+ people for the book, I heard many examples of this. Kids whose family and friends appeared to offer them love and acceptance only to withdraw it again when the reality of being LGBTQ+ became too much for them. Obviously, I don’t want to go into real examples that were shared with me, but I’ll give you two invented scenarios that fit the pattern I heard: a girl identifies as a lesbian until he begins to understand his true identity as a boy and the mother who was fine with her daughter being a lesbian draws the line at him being trans. This young man is thrown out of his home. Or the kid who comes out as gay and the dad who grudgingly accepts him, until Dad catches his son dressing “too flamboyantly”. This ends with the kid absorbing his father’s loathing so much he retreats away from the wonderful young person he was just starting to become.
You see, coming out is never a one-off thing for LGBTQ+ people. It is ongoing, sometimes even with the people who have already been told. And so, unless you’re quite lucky, the original fear and trepidation of taking that immense first step is there on every occasion acceptance is required. It’s part of the reason El can’t speak about the rape he suffers at the hands of Denman; because sometimes having to unpeel yet another layer of yourself when that’s all you’ve been doing for months – for years – is just too painful.
This fear and this danger are at the heart of Hideous Beauty and I want to thank all the brave, compassionate kids who shared their stories with me.
So this is really why I wrote this book; to speak for those teens, and to say that for acceptance to be worth anything it must be total and on the terms of the individual asking for it. I took this message seriously. When researching the book, I had the advice of John Neary, a brilliant psychiatric nurse from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) to guide me. Once the book was finished, it was read by Katherine Cox, clinical supervisor, counsellor and groupwork co-ordinator at SurvivorsUK, who has written a brilliant, insightful letter to you all. They helped to guide me and ensure I handled El’s trauma in as sensitive and realistic a way as I could whilst also reflecting the concerns and confusion of the people who loved him.
But as you know, Hideous Beauty isn’t all darkness. Not a bit! The light and love it contains comes not only from the Berringtons (I mean, who wouldn’t want Carol and Big Mike as their surrogate parents?!) and Mike himself – a reflection of so many of my incredible friends (you know who you are, you adorable bunch!) – but also from the flawed and fleeting characters like Ollie Reynolds and Raj. Because none of us is perfect, and not every enlightened soul we encounter stays long in our lives – but just like Dylan with El, we carry them with us and hold their memory out against the darkness.
Lastly, I’d just like to address one other central aspect of the book. First love.
So often young people are told that their first love is unimportant. That it’s meaningless. That it is so inconsequential that it barely deserves to be recognized. What do people say? Oh, it’s just puppy love, they’ll forget all about it by next week. Well, I say, don’t ever listen to such unmitigated crap.
First love matters. It matters so much. And sometimes, just sometimes, it can change your life forever.
William x
So many people helped me with this book, so please forgive what will probably sound like an Oscar acceptance speech!
As I’ve already said in my letter, when researching the story, I was lucky enough to speak to many LGBTQ+ school clubs. Particular thanks go to librarian Lorraine Gill at Dereham Neatherd High School and to Dawn Andrew at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School for facilitating conversations with some fabulous students. These kids’ insights proved invaluable in creating the characters in Hideous Beauty and the dilemmas they face. I would also like to thank Levi Palmer and Bradley Wall for early conversations about their experiences of coming out, intolerance and prejudice.
My undying gratitude goes to three incredible writers and friends who read early drafts of the book – Michelle Harrison, Jo Cotterill and Alex Bell. Their support, encouragement and critiques gave me all the motivation I needed to complete the project (BTW, please buy and read all their books, you won’t be sorry!). Apologies to Alex’s husband, who found her weeping at the kitchen table one day and thought something awful had happened – she had in fact just reached El’s funeral scene! Sorry (sort of not sorry!).
Two other early readers were my friends Dawn Andrew and Deborah Scarrow. Dawn I met through author visits to her school and many a jolly Pride event. Thank you, lovely! Debs, Eternal First Reader, what can I say? I wouldn’t even be a published writer without you.
My fantastic agent Veronique Baxter and Laura West at David Higham Associates gave me heaps of encouragement early on. In fact, I only had to outline the idea to Laura and I remember her telling me: You MUST write this! Veronique, thank you, as ever, for supporting me when I’m doubtful and planting my feet firmly on the ground when required. Other fabulous David Higham people who deserve my thanks: Clare Israel, my tireless TV and film rights agent, and Allison Cole who handles my foreign rights. Thank you for all you do!
The most wonderful and surprising thing about the whole Hideous Beauty adventure has been the friend I’ve made along the way. Not only a wise, incisive and generous editor, but one of the warmest, kindest human beings I’ve ever met. Thank you so much, Stephanie King. I hope we work together on many more books but, most importantly, I’m just glad we’ve become mates! I’ve said it before, but editors should g
et a front page credit for all the work they put into a book. Never has this been more deserved than in Steph’s case.
Huge thanks as well to all the amazing people at Usborne who have been so creative and generous with their time and talents: Will Steele – what a cover! You’re a genius. Publicity and marketing wizards Kat Jovanovic, Stevie Hopwood and Jacob Dow. Editors Sarah Stewart, Rebecca Hill and Becky Walker and proof-readers Anne Finnis and Gareth Collinson (all errors are mine!) and typesetter Sarah Cronin. Best team in the biz!
Lastly, thank you as ever to my family: Dad, Georgia and Jon, Carly and Jamie, Johnny and Lyla, Jackson and Charly. If only Mum could have been here to read this one.
x
Follow us online and sign up to the Usborne YA newsletter for the latest YA books, news and competitions:
Usborne.com/yanewsletter
@UsborneYA
#HIDEOUSBEAUTY
First published in the UK in 2020 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83-85 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England. www.usborne.com Text © William Hussey, 2020
The right of William Hussey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Cover image © Getty Images / Mantas Kristijonas Kuliesis; Type © Shutterstock / Epifantsev;
Back cover; Trees/lake © Shutterstock / PhotoVisions, Ripples © Shutterstock / BMJ Couple © Shutterstock / Prazis Images
Hideous Beauty Page 23