Something inside me broke then. I caught sight of my reflection in the wardrobe mirror, my face split by lines of pain, tears seeping into my eyes.
I had to get out.
When I took the glass of whisky from the barman my hand was shaking. I gave him a pound note and waited for my change, trying not to look at anyone. Putting the few coins in my pocket I picked up my drink and glanced over to the other side of the bar.
Sure enough Charles was there, blowing smoke expertly out of his lungs, the cigarette nonchalantly balanced between his fingers. He was wearing a white polo-neck jumper and pale blue slacks. With his wide green eyes, red hair and neat trimmed beard I realised for the first time just how attractive he was.
I couldn’t find the courage to go over and speak to him, so I bided my time and waited for the whisky to do its work. After half an hour I bought another drink and then returned to my stool in the corner, my eyes fixed on the archway he would walk through on his way to the gents.
My second glass of whisky was empty before Charles appeared, moving unhurriedly to the swing door, unafraid to look at anyone. I think I realised then why he came here, why he refused to shut himself away and pretend a part of himself didn’t exist. It wasn’t so much a question of pride, but of self-respect. Charles wasn’t ashamed of what he was. He knew he should have as much freedom as anyone else to live his life the way he needed to.
When I stood in the doorway, Charles looked up from washing his hands at the sink and then turned away, but I could tell he recognised me, could see the momentary expression of suprise on his face.
As he moved to step past me I caught his arm, but still the words wouldn’t come.
Aware of the confusion in my face, Charles relaxed and took a step back, knowing I didn’t intend to hurt him.
“Yes?” he said, emphasising the questioning quality of the word. He smiled at me, creasing his lips in a pleasant, much practised way. The hardness didn’t disappear from his eyes.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Talk?” Charles said, as if he doubted I was using the right word for what I meant.
“Yes.” I couldn’t look at him. “Please.”
Charles hesitated.
“No one’s said please to me for a long time,” he told me quietly. “And you want to talk?”
“Yes … I … ” The words trailed away.
In the silence, Charles checked his watch, a neat silver bracelet around his slim wrist.
“I’m meeting someone,” he said. “A client. You could hardly call him a friend.”
Charles smiled, unable to resist mocking the seriousness in my face. Or was he laughing at himself? The light in his eyes was hard and unforgiving.
“He pays well,” Charles added lightly, and I was sure then that for some reason he was deliberately saying the words to hurt himself.
“A man has to do something for a living, doesn’t he?” Charles went on, gently. “They sacked me from teaching when they found out I was gay. They were scared I might corrupt horrid little boys.” He looked straight into my eyes. “I wouldn’t have touched them,” he said. “I’m not interested in children.”
“I’m sorry … ”
“You said that before.”
So he remembered. I glanced quickly at him and wiped my forehead nervously with one hand. I could feel drops of perspiration running down my back.
Charles reached out a hand and lifted up my chin, the questioning light bright in his eyes. I held his gaze, hoping he would draw the truth out of me. Whatever he saw he kept to himself as he walked away. Just before the swing door he turned round, his features arranging themselves on cue in a practised smile.
“Another time, perhaps?” he said lightly, only this time the hardness had vanished from his eyes.
I had to tell someone. Shaking, I picked up the receiver in the public telephone box. The feeling that passers-by could see who I was through the glass frightened me. Though it was late and few people were about, I had a fear of being overheard.
But I had to tell someone. Otherwise I wouldn’t exist. Someone had to know me for what I was, who I was. Jumbo was someone from long ago. He was dead. I was pretending to be someone who no longer existed. I couldn’t pretend any more. I couldn’t face Dad or Mum or Steve until someone knew who I was, someone held the true Martin Conway safe inside them.
There was the click of someone picking up a phone at the other end of the line, the rattle of the coin and the beeping of the pips before I recognised the voice that answered.
“Linda … ”
“Jumbo, it’s late. I was on my way to bed …” Her sleepy voice suddenly stopped short.
“Linda, I must … ”
The words trailed away and I was drowning in my own panic.
“Linda …”
“What is it Jumbo? Now calm down … ”
I could hear the anxiety in her voice, and then she steadied herself.
“Is it Steve?”
I closed my eyes and held my breath and shook my head and then giggled stupidly because of course she couldn’t see me.
“Linda … Linda, it’s Richard.”
“What’s happened to him? Jumbo, what … ?” The confusion blurred her words.
I struggled to breathe, my fingers clenched so tight around the receiver I should have broken it.
“Jumbo? What is this?”
“I love him.”
There was a silence.
“I love Richard,” I said, and then smiling because it was all over, I put the phone down.
7
The gentle breeze blew back Linda’s long blond hair and she sighed, a seriousness dimming the laughter in her face.
I sat awkwardly on the park bench and waited for her judgement.
“Are you sure about what you feel?” Linda said, tentatively. “About him?”
I looked across at the young children playing games of their own around the swing and the slide. A young teenage couple sidled by, the boy’s arm around the girl’s shoulder, her arm looped around his waist. They seemed so close and so content, and I wanted to be like them. I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to fit in just like everyone else.
“You could be wrong, Jumbo … You could be overreacting or just confused about it all.”
I listened to what she said, but didn’t reply, drifting up and down among the thoughts sweeping through my mind like restless waves on the shore, rolling in and rushing out with the tide.
Suddenly everything seemed so far away. Uncertain, I was a stumbling figure lost and confused.
“I think I care,” I said, heavily, and shuffled my feet. “It’s so hard. Sometimes I know it so clearly and at other times it’s all blurred and I don’t know quite what I feel.”
“You don’t seem very sure,” Linda said, the hope creeping into her voice. “Perhaps you don’t love him at all. I don’t see how you could really,” she went on, not meaning to hurt me, “in so short a time.”
“But I wanted to touch him … ” I turned to Linda and she tried not to look away. I was scared I disgusted her, and then I was angry at her, angry at everyone who didn’t understand.
“Would you hate it if I was a queer?” I asked her, and saw her shy away from the fierceness in my voice.
“Don’t be angry, Jumbo. Please.” She reached out and took my hand, squeezing it so tightly that it hurt. “You have to be what you are, Jumbo. I … I understand that. I just think you should be careful, that’s all.”
“Careful of what?”
“Of believing you’re something you’re not.” Linda looked away from me, her eyes following the young couple who now, hand in hand, wandered slowly up the slope to the trees on the hill. “It won’t be easy if, well… if you do love Richard. How many people are going to understand?”
I remembered the pot-bellied man and his friend with the flint eyes who’d beaten up Charles. I remembered how no one had stood up for him except the barman, and that was only because he didn’t
want trouble.
“Just think about it, Jumbo,” Linda said, worriedly. “You’d never be able to wander through the park like those two without someone giving you a filthy look, or jeering. You couldn’t take Richard home to your parents, could you, and say this is my boyfriend.”
“They’d have a fit.”
I said it smiling, but inside I was thinking of the horror and disgust on Dad’s face, the anxiety twisting Mum’s mouth, the hurt dark in her eyes.
“But it shouldn’t be like that,” I burst out, suddenly. “Isn’t this a free world?”
“In principle, Jumbo, perhaps. But not in reality.” Linda looked at me, sad-faced. “You’d never be able to take his hand or kiss him at a party, never be able to dance with him in front of everyone.”
I knew she was right, but I wanted to fight it. I wanted to break down this narrow-minded, crooked system we lived in and build it again along understanding, human lines.
Linda saw the import of what she was saying break over me like a huge black wave crashing down over my shoulders, drowning my spirit.
“You see, Jumbo,” she said, patiently, “you could never marry, never have a family, never have a home like anyone else. It might even prevent you getting a job in a school, if you still want to teach.”
If.
Doors were closing all around me, leaving me in the dark. Windows were shuttered one by one, like bright eyes struck black and blind.
“I know it’s unfair, I know it’s prejudiced, I know it’s wrong,” Linda went on, quietly, “but that’s the way it is.”
“Then we should change it,” I cried out.
Linda rested her hand on my shoulder.
“You can’t do that on your own, Jumbo.”
“I won’t give in,” I said, but I knew it was hopeless. Suddenly all my energies and beliefs seemed to sink down within me, and I knew I was again trying to shut the stranger out.
“I can’t help what I am,” I protested.
“Give yourself a chance, Jumbo,” Linda urged, calling the old me back again like a ghost. “It will affect your whole life, the way you can live. You don’t know what you are, not for sure.”
I shook my head, but Linda took this only as further proof of my confusion.
Forget him,” she told me. “Put him out of your mind.”
“I can’t … ”
“It’s best for you, Jumbo. Forget him. Give yourself another chance. Please, Jumbo … ”
I looked at her, panic flaring up in my eyes. Frightened because someone was taking away my name, taking away what I was and leaving me nothing.
“For me, Jumbo,” Linda said, squeezing my hand again. “Try for me and Steve. Try for your Mum and Dad, Jumbo. Consider what they’ll think.”
I saw again the pain on Mum’s face, the tremor in her voice, and bowed my head.
“It’s just a foolish crush, Jumbo. You’ll get over it. Just put it out of your mind and think about other things. Your exams and your future.”
I couldn’t say anything.
“There’s so little time left,” she said, deliberately. “You’ll be going to college in Hull and Richard in Sussex. That’s miles away from one another. You’d best forget it.”
There was a long silence. Neither of us spoke, a heavy melancholy settling down on our shoulders.
Like weary spectators we surveyed the ruins in front of us, afraid of what we saw, yet resigned to the ugliness. Perhaps some day we could build the structure again, better than before, and in the meantime, we could only struggle through the wreckage, determined to survive.
I sat down and waited in the changing-rooms. It was unlike Steve to be late. It occurred to me for the first time that Linda could have told Steve about Richard. And he was so disgusted he wasn’t going to turn up …
I was hurt and angry and sweat began to break out all over my body because inside I was so scared. I made myself walk onto the squash court and began warming up the squash ball by hitting fierce forehands against the front wall. I felt better concentrating on doing something with my body, forcing myself to hit the ball with my feet in the correct position, with my body balanced and my racket arm moving smoothly into a perfect swing.
Then I heard the door onto the court open. I knew something was wrong, because of course the normal Steve would have shouted hello from the balcony, letting me know he’d arrived.
Steve stepped round the door awkwardly.
“Hi,” he said, nervously, and turned his head away.
I knew then the hurt of being treated like a sick animal, like something that was perverted, that wasn’t right. It was as if, overnight, I’d become hideously deformed.
I wanted to tell him that it was he who was wrong for treating me like this, when I was a normal human being, when everything I felt, even my love for Richard, were perfectly natural human feelings.
But Steve couldn’t see this.
My hand was trembling so I tightened my grip around the racket.
“Shall we get on with the game, then,” Steve said, curtly. “It’s what we’re here for.”
I hit the ball into play, hardly aware of what I was doing. Steve let the ball bounce stupidly at the back of the court.
“We’ll spin the racket first, for serve,” he said, still not, looking at me. “Rough or smooth?”
We played the game in total silence. I don’t remember winning a point. Steve never even declared when he’d won a game. I kept watching him, and moving to the side of the court he left free. Normally, we would have laughed at each other, criticised one another’s play, revelling in the glory of a winning shot that left the other helpless and sprawling.
When our time was up I left the court, uncaring what stage of the game we’d reached. Stuff it if it was his match point, I thought, anger boiling inside me, a defence against the hurt that otherwise would have overwhelmed me.
Pulling off my clothes quickly, I headed for the only free shower with my soap-box in hand. Steve, naked, covered himself with his towel like an embarrassed schoolboy. I saw him glance at me unhappily, then stare down at his feet.
“There’s room for you,” I said deliberately, understanding for the first time why Charles used mocking words that could only hurt himself.
Steve shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
“I’ll wait,” he said, and turned his eyes away to the two fat businessmen in the other two showers.
Perhaps he was considering warning them that they weren’t safe, not with a queer around.
I turned my face up to the fierce gush of hot water, turning my back to Steve, not wanting anyone to see the tears I cried. I didn’t wait for Steve to finish changing. I felt sure he was taking his time, waiting for me to go. I felt hot and sick. I wanted to call him a bastard, a fucking bastard that I never ever wanted to see again. I wanted to tell him I pitied him, he had no right, no right …
Then the tears returned again, and I brushed them quickly from my eyes, the anger and the hatred turning inwards on myself, jagged claws tearing at the stranger’s face, only the pain was all mine.
Picking up the squash bag and my racket I walked quickly out, head-down. Steve didn’t even say goodbye.
I stood on the kerb of the main road, my hair lifted by the rush of hot air thrown up by a passing lorry. The stench of petrol left my stomach shaking. I watched the litter caught in the eddies of wind settle back in the gutter, waiting for the next vehicle.
I thought how we spent our lives hiding in boxes. Hiding in houses. Hiding in cars. Boxes with windows and doors. Boxes with curtains to shut out inquisitive eyes. The desires that were secret inside them, not to be seen by neighbours. You were safe in your house, secure, filling your hours up with work and wives and children, the other hours stolen by the TV. I thought of Tom hiding away, alone in the box that had become a cage. Tom had no family or friends to feel secure with; when his work was taken away he had nothing to hide in, except his house.
Even Tom would judge me. Every married man
and woman would point their fingers. Why wasn’t I part of the regular pattern? Every girl and boy holding hands would sneer at me. Every child, every grandmother, every bridegroom, every in-law, every family would mock me, pity me or feel I should be put away.
Houses and cars, boxes for the happy family, assembled on a production line. Everything made regular and set square. Everything that was faulty set aside and remoulded or destroyed. People producing other people who grew up and married and produced more people who married and had children.
I’d never have a wife or a child. I thought of Mum saying I was content as a bachelor, no need to rush into anything, was there? I saw the doubt flicker in her eyes. I thought of Dad saying I knew where my bread was buttered, laying all the big-breasted single girls, and some married ones too no doubt. I saw as the years went by, the disgust sheltered in his eyes.
And if I stayed at home I’d have to lie, have to keep everything secret. Everything, even love, especially love, would be tainted with guilt, twisted with shame. I couldn’t even tell my friends, or the people at work. It would all have to be shut away and carefully guarded.
I waited for the next heavy lorry, rolling quickly along the road towards me. The rumble of the engine. The driver perched high in his seat, faceless behind the glass. I only had to take two steps out in front of it, under the dreadful wheels, and it would all be over.
8
Margaret would be here any minute now. I checked my watch and sighed, restless in the armchair. Dad and Mum were equally nervy, neither of them properly concentrating on reading the newspaper or doing the ironing. I wanted to leave the house as soon as she arrived, but Dad read my thoughts and jumped quickly out of the chair in answer to the sharp rap on the front door.
“Bring her in this time,” Dad said, “instead of sneaking away like you usually do.”
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