Holiday

Chapter 26

When Dad and I had finally broken free from our embrace and his eyes had stopped watering, he looked across at James, rather shakily. The boy had been standing, looking at the floor, and biting his lip. He was obviously affected by the whole thing, too. I was saddened by Dad's words, saddened beyond belief, but also just so relieved, both by the fact that the most dreaded interview of my life to date was over, and by the fact that Dad seemed to be on our side. But then, of course, there was Mum, and James's parents. I wondered if I'd have the courage and the intelligence to say to them what James had said to Dad.

We sat down, and for a long time nothing was said. We just sipped at our rum and looked at the floor. At last I looked at Dad and caught him staring at me. I think I must have blushed, and looked away, because he spoke.

"It's all right, Martin. Really it is. After Mark's death I know I did a lot of thinking about attitudes and so on, and I wondered at the time what I'd do or think if you…" He stopped and seemed to have to force himself to go on. "…If you turned out to be the same way. It took a lot of trying to persuade your Mother that she should even think about the possibility, but I did it, and it took a lot of effort on both our parts to do it really properly, but we made ourselves look at it all dispassionately. I mean, it was mainly for Mark's sake that we did it, because we could see there was absolutely no future in going the way that Dr. Rogers went. No future for the boy, and none for the family either, and even less for the parents' peace of mind. And we gradually worked it round so that we would accept whatever happened.

"What I'm getting round to is that Mum will, I hope, accept it as I did. With regret, because of the grandchildren thing, but she'll still love and accept you as the son you are to us both. So you needn't worry on that score."

"And how about James? How do you both think of him?"

Another long pause.

"I think," said my father slowly, "that if it had been just anybody, someone we didn't know, we would have great problems in being anything else than just polite to him. But James…I mean, we know him so well, and he's a friend of ours too, and he's a nice bloke…Well, I'm just glad it's him, that's all."

The grin tried to unzip itself, but couldn't. He looked a bit happier though.

"I do love him, Dad. I really do. It's not something that's a five minute wonder, either. It's been going on for years."

"Looking back, I'm sure it has," he said, rather bitterly I thought. "Did it really go back as far as Amberdale? It can't have, surely. You were only nine, then."

It was the first time he'd actually spoken to James since the bombshell was dropped. His face cleared, but was still serious.

"I thought of him as the brother I never had," he said levelly. "And he was a really good friend. I never forgot him, even through the years in Canada, and when we got together again I knew I was right not to be attracted to anyone else, male or female. But I suppose it was on that Canal holiday that we really…I mean…" He stopped, aware that he had committed himself to telling something that was unwise.

"You were too young," said Dad, flatly.

"No," I put in. "Not too young. Old enough to know himself and to know me. Old enough to want to be with me without any persuasion on my part."

"But too young by law."

"For what? For the sort of actions that queers are meant to do all the time? We still don't. Too young to show love? What is there between him and his parents, then? And what of a boy who loses his parents? Is he too young at fourteen to find a love with two foster parents or adoptive parents? If he is, in the eyes of the law, then there's been an awful lot of falsehoods going on for many years."

"That's different."

"Is it? Dad, please think. The only difference is that with me he wasn't chosen, he chose. He needed no love or care, his parents were there for that. But he wanted, at fourteen, to be with me. And I wanted him to be with me too, but would never try to persuade him. Nor did I need to."

There was another long silence, again broken by Dad.

"I'm going to start cooking the vegetables. Want to come with me…both of you?"

 

I think Mum already knew. When she got back she came into the kitchen and said 'Hallo' brightly in the middle of a stream of chat, and by the awkward silence received the only confirmation she ever got. She looked round at us all, at the sudden changes of expression that had frozen on our faces, and that was it.

"I thought so," she said. "Come here." I crossed to her. "James?"

He looked surprised and rather anxious, but came over as well. To our surprise she put an arm round our shoulders and pulled us close.

"Tell me, both of you: do you love each other really? Or is it just physical attraction and playing sex games?"

James looked rather shocked, but recovered before I could think what to say.

"I love him, really. I loved him as any two boys love each other when we were at Amberdale, but since the canals I've loved him as a life partner."

"And you, Martin?"

"Yes, Mum, I love him. He's always been a friend and for the last so many years we've got to know that we just want each other, no one else."

"Then with all the discussions your father and I have had, and with the talk that you have had with him, I must say that I understand, and love you both, and thank you for being so honest. I can't understand how two men can love each other, or two women, come to that, but it's your decision, both of you."

We fell over ourselves to correct her. I got in first. "It's not a decision, Mum. You don't decide to be happier in the company of your own sex, any more than you decide to fall in love with somebody. It's a part of you, like your eye colour. You can't change it. Look what happened to Mark, that should tell you. Just as you are attracted to men, to Dad, so am I. I can't change it. And as I'm in love with James I don't want to."

She smiled at me, a little grimly, I thought. "So it's our fault."

"No! Any more than it's your fault that I'm a different character generally from either of you two, or like different things. It happens. If we were all carbon copies of a mixture of our parents, all brothers would be identical." I was rather proud of that.

"All right," she said. "I accept that too, and in time I'll get used to it." And she gave us both a hug.

 

Little was said over lunch, but gradually normal conversation crept back, and they were both at pains to include James in it. For his part, despite his speech of the morning, he felt rather put out, I think, for a long time, but slowly as the chat returned to normal the unzipped grin was seen more often.

It was on the walk we all took later, before bed, that another question was asked.

"How public is this?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, how many people know that you two are 'together'?"

I thought. "Well, nobody, really. I mean there was that bloke who came to the flat once. But whether he thought James was just playing hard to get or whether he got the real message, I don't know."

"So how do you want us to play it when people ask us about you, you know, if you've met anyone, whether you're getting married, that sort of thing?"

James looked surprised. "Can he and I get married somehow?"

"No, James. You can't. Neither by Church or State."

"Oh."

"Anyway, how do you want it played?"

I thought. "I think we'd better wait until it happens, and see who it is. The last thing any of us want is the sort of stupidity that happens sometimes with politicians. I think that for most people, we'd better be good friends who share a flat. If you are certain how others are going to take it, then…well, I've got no objections to their knowing, if you think it's their business. How about you, James?"

"I'd go along with that. It's not that I don't want people to know. After all, I'm completely happy, and I'm proud that Martin's my friend and that we're together. But if people are going to be objectionable about us, then they shouldn't be given the opportunity."

And that's how it was left.

When we got back, and had enjoyed a nightcap, we climbed the stairs. I half expected Mum to show James to the spare room, or to find a camp bed laid out on the floor of my old room. But no: she'd made up my old double bed, nothing else. The fact wasn't lost on James either.

"I like your Mum," he said.

 

The following week the phone rang. I answered it, and it was Peter Evans, whose tone was curt to the extreme. I was shocked, surprised. But he'd asked for James, so I covered the mouthpiece and told him.

"He sounds as if he's got it in for me," I said quietly. "All he said was 'James, please', so I don't think it's going to be good. Shall I stay or go?"

"Stay, please."

I handed over the receiver. "Hallo, Dad," he said quietly. Then he said nothing else for ages, but I could hear the receiver squawking non stop. Twice he tried to get a word in, but the voice continued. I watched his face, and had never seen it cloud over to such an extent, so quickly. Then the tears started forming in his eyes until at last he ripped the receiver from his ear and dropped it on the table with a crash. He ran from the room, and I heard the bedroom door slam.

I picked up the receiver gingerly and looked at it for a moment, then sighed as it squawked at me. "James? James? Pick up the bloody receiver. I haven't finished yet."

I put it to my ear. "But James has," I said quietly. "He's in tears because he's just been let down by his father, and it seems that I love him more than his father does."

In the silence that followed I could hear heavy breathing, and could imagine the rage that was happening at the other end of the phone. I was horrified how someone who I knew well and liked could take such an attitude. I was horrified that any father could take such an attitude with his son.

Then the receiver exploded again. "You f…g queer. You got my son into your bed when he was a child and you infected him with homosexuality. You lecture me about love? You bastard. You f…g bastard. What gives you the right to talk to me like that?" Well, he hadn't put the phone down. For myself, somehow the more he ranted, the cooler I was able to be.

"The fact is, Peter, that homosexuality is not caught like an illness, but is a matter of fact that you are born with, like being left handed. And don't take my word for it, ask a doctor or look in a medical book. A modern one. And the main thing that gives me the right is that he loves me, and I love him, and we have for years, and we're both now adults and can say so. I'm sorry if that makes you mad, but those are the facts. Peter, you're a friend of mine, and the father of James. Please let it remain so. Check out what I've said in any way you like so long as it's with up-to-date facts, and then ring me back. I've got to go and comfort your son who's just burst into tears as if he were still nine, and rushed off into the bedroom. I'm putting the phone down now. Goodbye."

As I did so I heard more sounds start to come from it, but completed the movement anyway.

He was lying on his face, head in the pillow, and sobbing his heart out as if he was still indeed nine. Do I sit next to him and wait? Do I lie by his side and comfort him with my arm? What do I do? Nothing had prepared me for this. Nothing had prepared me for the way Peter, my friend and his father, had reacted. And if I felt lost, betrayed, how must he feel?

I stretched myself out at his side, my body and face toward him, and put an arm over his shoulders. As I touched him he flinched, then relaxed a little. The sobbing decreased a little.

It took a long time. At last a tear stained face was turned to me. I'd known him for nearly ten years now, and never had I seen him looking like that. And as I took him properly into my arms and muttered something, anything to him to calm him, to stop the pain, to make it all right again for my little brother, the anger started deep within me.

Its root was simple. How could a parent spend eighteen years bringing up a child, only to rubbish him when he showed his trust in telling the most difficult truth he'd learnt about himself? What sort of person could do that?

At last he was able to look straight at me again, and even try a shaky smile. The voice, when it came, was high and quavery.

"You're lumbered with me now, Martin. I can't go back home. Don't throw me out. Please?"

And the tears rose to my eyes, displacing the anger like water on a fire. "I promise you that we'll never separate, if you promise me the same."

"I promise."

Five minutes later the phone rang again. I went. It was Dad.

"Thank God, I thought something had happened. You've been engaged for ages."

"Shouldn't have been. I put the phone down all right after the last call. Dad, have you told Peter and Doreen? About us? He's been on the phone and he's gone absolutely mad."

"Yes. That's why I'm phoning. Pete went overboard when I mentioned it. Hadn't you told him?"

"No. We were planning to go up this weekend or next, but hadn't got round to organising it."

"Oh…oh dear. How was he?"

"He reduced James to tears, and he was bloody rude to me."

A silence. "Had I better phone him? He more or less put the phone down on me. Or should I let it wait a while?"

"Probably wait, I should think. I'll talk to James and if we decide differently I'll call you."

"All right, but soon if you can; preferably in the next two days. He's my business partner, don't forget."

"OK Dad…" And we went on to check the health of each other's family and wound up the conversation."

As I hung up A dishevelled James came in, looking worried.

"It was my Dad," I told him. "He mentioned us to Pete, that's why he phoned. He thought we'd told them."

"Oh."

"He'll not phone them again for a couple of days, and hopefully Pete'll be a bit more approachable by then."

"'Kay."

We moped about for a bit, and at last I took him to the pub where he got really quite drunk.

In the middle of the night I was woken, and it took me at least 30 seconds to realise the phone was ringing. James was out for the count, so I walked naked into the lounge to answer it.

Doreen. Speaking in a whisper. "Oh Martin. I'm so sorry. Peter's asleep at last, but I've got to talk to James. Is he there, please?"

"Yes, but he's a bit the worse for wear. He was so upset by what Peter said to him that I had to take him out and get him a bit drunk so he could sleep. Doreen, what's got into him? He was really horrible to James and to me, and I never thought he could be like that. What he's done to James I don't know."

"Martin, I can't talk now. Please…I don't think that I think the same way as him, and I still love my son. I just have to tell him so. Please…get him? I don't mind if he's drunk."

So I put the phone down and went into the bedroom. My brother was really fast asleep, but I felt that if Doreen could do something to soften the blow then she should do it as soon as possible. Waking him was difficult in the extreme, and took ages, but at last the eyes managed to focus on me.

"James…" Even in times like this, and certainly at all other times, the shell of homophobia that the era of our upbringing had made us grow wouldn't let us use pet names for each other. The furthest we ever got was to tell each other of our continued love. "James… Doreen's on the phone, and she's on your side. She wants to tell you and talk to you. Peter's asleep, so she's having to whisper."

It got through to him at last and with my arm round his shoulders he stumbled to the phone.

"Mum?" The tears were approaching again, I could hear, but hopefully they were tears of relief now. I could hear nothing of Doreen's side of the conversation, but I could feel James's sobs of relief start to jolt his body like electric shocks. When she had finished her first few sentences he said in a sort of wailing voice that I haven't heard before or since: "But he said such awful things to me!"

Another silence, then he said "Yes" a few times, and at last said "Thank you, Mum. I love you too. And yes, here's Martin again."

He gave me the handset back.

"Hallo?"

"Martin…thank you. Ask him what I said, and I'll talk to you both in a day or so. And Martin…" A pause. I waited. "…Look after him for me? Don't let him down?"

"Doreen, I love him as much as he loves me. I'll look after him for us both, but particularly for me, and I'm not leaving him, ever."

"Thank you. Good night, and sleep well."

"Good night."

 

He was happier in the morning, thank goodness, Although there was still that shadow hanging over us both. When he returned from the campus I was already home from work, as usual. He nuzzled up to me as I was cooking and I was happy to see that Mona Lisa look back — a rather pale version of it, but it was at least there. I held him for a while, then he went to change and I continued getting the meal ready.

The phone rang. I nearly chopped my finger off, but hurriedly dropped the knife and ran to answer it.

"James, please."

It wasn't the words that Peter used but his tone and manner that suddenly needled me. It sounded as if he was talking to a piece of rubbish that had got stuck to his shoe.

"No."

"What!?"

"No. You're not talking to James. Not if you're going to upset him as much as you did last time. And not if you're going to persist in treating me as if I were something dirty that you don't want to consider."

There was a long silence. Then: "I really don't want to talk to you after what you've done to my son."

"I have done nothing to your son apart from fall in love with him as he has with me. If I were female you wouldn't take this attitude, but if I were female James wouldn't be interested in me."

"Only because you seduced him when he was nine."

"Have you really not even taken the trouble to look up anything about homosexuality as I suggested you should? It's your son you owe it to, not to me, to find out what the background to all this is. If you can get to know the facts then you might start to understand. Understand what it is to go through your boyhood and youth worrying why you can't seem to meet a girl you find attractive. Worrying why your friends all seem to have affairs and you don't. Wondering if they look at other boys as you always want to. And then worrying, once you've finally realised you're homosexual, that someone will notice, that you'll do something that will make people round you laugh at you for being gay, and start giving you a hard time for it and calling you names."

There was another silence.

"James has never gone through anything like that. We'd have known."

"Would you? Would you really? When now that you do know you haven't even got the time or patience to find out the scientific or medical background to it? Do you know that your son visited reference libraries when he was about thirteen just to look up in medical and psychology books just what homosexuality was, how you became homosexual and whether it was 'curable'? Did you know that? No. Well, he did, because he told me when we were on the canals. And did you also know about a friend I made at Amberdale who was the son of a doctor? His father found out he was gay and forced him to have aversion therapy. You know? When they show you pictures of naked men and if you react to them you get an electric shock? Did you know that?"

I gulped. Despite James, the memory was still agonising.

"And do you know what happened to that happy, friendly, well adjusted boy? He was so sick that he had done nothing wrong and was being punished, and so sick that he had, in his eyes, let his family down, that he couldn't go on. And do you know what he did?"

I was becoming incoherent by this stage, and had to calm down before I could go on.

"He took his own life by using painkillers and alcohol."

This time the silence on my part was deliberate.

"He was my first ever love. Real, physical love, not the brother-love I felt for James at the time. And I was due to spend time alone with him and really get to know him. And they stopped him doing that, and then it was too late because he'd killed himself. And now that James and I are in love I swear to you and to him that nothing, nothing is going to force us apart, let alone make him think that he's any less than the happy, natural, loving, attractive, beautiful, wonderful, character that he's always been. And even more than that, nothing in this world is going to make him want to kill himself. I'd rather kill myself first. And if all that means that I've got to stand up to his father then I'll do it. Because I'm not going to run the risk of losing the second and last love in my life to ignorance, intolerance and hate. And I'll tell him that, too."

"You won't have to," said a quiet voice behind me. "I know."

I wheeled round. I'd never heard him come into the room.

"Had I better talk to him? It is Dad, isn't it?"

I nodded dumbly and tried to remember what I'd said that might not have been tactful to say with him listening. He took the receiver.

"Dad?"

Silence.

"Dad? Are you there?"

"Dad! Dad? Say something, please."

More silence, then I could tell he was listening. What Peter said didn't take long, but this time when he put down the phone he had a non-committal expression on his face.

"What did he say?" I asked simply.

He hesitated. "I think…I think he may be coming round. I'm not sure, but he said that he never realised that there was actual love between us. All that you said really made him sit up, I think."

He was looking at me thoughtfully.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked rather abruptly.

"James…you, who know me so well, have to ask a question like that! Yes, of course I meant it. What makes you even think of doubting it?"

"And what would have happened if Mark hadn't died?"

"I…I don't know. We were only really just getting to know each other. I mean, we'd had fun, and were physically attracted to each other, but I suppose…no, I'm sure now… that I never knew him as well as I knew you even then."

This was odd. It was perfectly true, but I'd never really thought about it before. Mark had just been an ache in my past, one that I was aware of but had never really cured, not even with James being there. It was a matter of principle to me, I suppose.

"So if you'd got to know him better, would you have ignored me?"

Oh god. What do I say to that? I thought hard and tried to avoid the panic of where this conversation might lead.

"I can't tell. Honestly, I can't tell. You'd gone off to Canada, which meant the end of the earth to me; something you learnt about in Geography and never dreamed of going to. You certainly never dreamed it might be possible to find anybody who'd just gone to live there. What if you'd found someone else over there? Surely what matters is that you're here, I'm here, and neither of us wishes there could be somebody different in their lives?"

And then the smile unzipped a bit, the first time for two days.

"Thank you," he said. "I do love you."

 

Peter did 'come round' eventually, and it was my outburst that did it. He checked up with friends and doctors and others and got a great deal of conflicting information as had his son all those years previously. But he sifted his way through it all and came to the conclusion that I was right. He's never apologised for his initial outburst though, and although I've written that off to the heat of the moment he's never going to be the same friend as he was before. Doreen's great, on the other hand, and is really on our side and friendly, as are my own parents.

 

We went down together to Mark's memorial stone recently, the two of us. It was something I just felt would close off the chapter, show respect, try to show forgiveness, and give a message to anyone who would read it. As we stood in silence, looking down at the simple stone with its agonised, simple message, the tears rolled down my face once more. But this time they were tears at the appalling waste of a life, and the manner of its passing. I covered the words with my hand for a moment as a gesture of companionship and compassion, and was pleased when James did the same.

We stood again, then I bent and placed at its back the plastic covered note I had composed after much thought and discussion with James:

We stood in silence for a few more minutes. At last something inside me told me that the gift of my farewell had been accepted, and that it was time to go.

 

"Let's go home. And thank you for coming with me. I love you deeply."

He looked at me, and there were still tears in his eyes, but the smile unzipped a little way.

"You've never said that before. I've felt it, but you've never said it. If I said the same to you now it'd sound as if I was just returning the thought, but it's true all the same. I do love you and I can't think of a time when I haven't, even as far back as Amberdale. And now I can't imagine life without you and I don't want to start trying."

To the amazement of two workmen on the other side of the cemetery he kissed me.

"Shall we have a pint to toast Mark?" he suggested.

I agreed. We did. And it was while we were talking about Amberdale and our time there that we made two decisions.

We'd go back there and stay on the Naturist island as a couple — so long as the Rogers family weren't there.

I'd try and write a book about Mark, James and myself, to tell the truth about the love that's possible between two boys, youths, men, so that others could take heart, and parents could learn.

We travel down to our old haunts next week. There's a sailing dinghy booked and waiting for us.

As to the book…