Part One: Nick
The following morning I prepared some sandwiches and a salad for Sally to take on the picnic. It still beats me how anyone can eat peanut butter between two slices of bread but she loved it. She was so excited and every five minutes asked if it was time to go yet. I put a video tape of Sesame Street on to take her mind off it.
Chrissie and Peter called to collect her on time and I carried her small hamper out to their car.
“You shouldn’t have bothered to make anything, Nick,” Chrissie said. “We’ve more than enough for both of them.”
Nevertheless I passed it through the window.
The girls sat in the back of Peter’s Volvo estate giggling and putting on their seat belts.
“Isn’t Eamon going as well?” I asked.
“Fraid not,” Chrissie replied. “When I called him, he said he wanted to have a lazy day. I think he wants some time away from the kids and who can blame him?”
“Never mind, have a nice time without both of us,” I said and leaned through the window to kiss Sally goodbye.
She plonked a very wet kiss on my lips; I could still taste the peanut butter from the small sandwich she insisted on having earlier. As usual she said, “See you later, alligator.”
“Not for a while, crocodile,” I replied and waved them goodbye.
I set up a table in the middle of the garden and for a couple of hours attempted to complete the schedule I had only looked at the night before. I never really minded doing bank work in the evenings or at weekends but the day was so warm that I began day-dreaming. I had thought about putting it all away and reading the papers for another hour or so but even that was too much effort. Besides, it was nearly lunchtime and I was peckish.
My thoughts were wandering and I remembered what Chrissie had said about Eamon wanting a lie-in. I’d rather be spending time with him; the topics of conversation were certain to be more interesting than plotting a training schedule. I wondered if he was still in bed, dreaming perhaps. I thought of what he might be wearing, if anything, and imagined the sheets partly off the bed. I was certain that he would have the type of physique I only dreamt of having. My thoughts were beginning to worry me now so I wandered into the kitchen to prepare some lunch. As I perused the delights of the fridge, the doorbell rang.
“Christ, it’s my mother,” I thought to myself.
I opened the door to find Eamon standing there with a bottle of wine. He was wearing shorts and a dark, blue tee shirt with the word “Liberté” in yellow stretched across it. I immediately felt embarrassed at the fact that I had just been thinking about him lying in bed, naked, and those thoughts, I was sure, were written all over my face.
“Hi Nick. I thought you need a break. I’ve been watching you in the garden and, I have to say, you looked totally bored,” he said as he held up the bottle of wine.
“Now that’s a good idea,” I said nervously and beckoned him into the house. “I was just about to prepare some lunch. Would you like some?”
“Oh, yes please. I’m starving. Let’s call it brunch for me as I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”
“Good. You go and prepare some space on the table in the garden and I’ll get the food and a corkscrew,” I said and went into the kitchen.
It seems rather childish and naive to say it now but my hands were actually shaking while I prepared the tray of salami, hummus and some cheese. My mind was racing as well. He had been thinking of me and watching me at the same time he was on my mind. I wondered what he might have been thinking. I tried picturing the scene in my mind of his standing there in his bedroom looking at me from the open window, maybe half-dressed or even naked. I imagined and felt a slight breeze running over his body and through his tight hair.
He put his hand onto my shoulder and I dropped the knife.
“Oh, I am sorry,” he said. “I wondered if you needed some help.”
He could see that I was embarrassed.
“No, no. It’s quite all right. I can manage.”
My face must have been the deepest shade of red imaginable.
“Okay then, I’ll wait outside,” and he returned to the garden.
The tray was prepared. I composed myself and carried it out but why the hell had I put the wine glasses so close together? My hand was still shaking slightly and was naturally reflected in the clanging of the glass.
A beaming smile greeted me as I approached the table with the food. After I set the tray down, I became more relaxed and we enjoyed a pleasant lunch together. The bottle of wine soon disappeared and I got another from the fridge. I was now much more comfortable in his presence.
That was until he took his tee shirt off.
He was beautifully tanned and his chest was well defined with very little body hair. I imagined that many men would have been very envious of his physique; I know I certainly was. I’ve never had a flabby or even unattractive chest and stomach but had always been very self-conscious when I would walk around with Maggie in the summer with my shirt off.
“That was a lovely lunch, Nick. Thank you very much,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. “But it really was only a matter of a few bits and pieces from the fridge.”
“So, what has my sister been telling you about me, then?” he asked.
I was relieved he hadn’t chosen to talk about me.
“Funny as it may seem, she rarely mentions you. She told me you were a teacher of English in France but that was about all.”
“Ah, so she does not talk about me then?” he said with a rather good ’Allo ’Allo German accent and sipped his wine. “That’s probably because I am the black sheep of the family,” he added.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, knowing full well what he was about to say next.
“You mean she hasn’t mentioned to you that I’m gay, a bender boy, and friend of Dorothy?”
“She hadn’t mentioned it,” I lied and sipped my wine.
Chrissie had mentioned it to me a few months earlier but at the time I hadn’t remembered exactly who it was she was talking about. I’d only been feeling uneasy because I remembered it the previous day.
I was rather relieved when he brought the subject up and I’m sure he realised that I was not shying away from it. He then spoke quite frankly about his gay life and filled in some of the gaps from his previous conversations. Yes, there had been romances in his life. Did I really think there had not been? He told his parents when he was sixteen and they found it hard to accept. His mother broke down and cried and his father could not believe that his seed had produced such a deformity in a child. Chrissie accepted it without giving the announcement a second thought but he left home soon after that even though he was still a student and commuting from home to college.
He told me of a nine month affair he’d had with a teacher at college and how he found him in bed with another student. It was partly because of that he’d decided to leave England and work abroad. He’d had a few flings with Frenchmen but it wasn’t what he really wanted.
I remember thinking how mature he was during that conversation. It is my experience that gay men and women tend to grow up earlier than other people. I feel sympathetic in general to heterosexual men as they have much stronger stereotypes they believe they have to live up to and don’t want to be seen as being weak. Gay men and women have many other icons and tend to be more independent, which is possibly learnt at a much earlier age.
As we spoke I told him of the time I was hitch-hiking and had been partly seduced by young male driver who gave me a lift. He was not surprised and had heard many accounts of so-called straight men having homosexual encounters. I had only ever told Maggie of my little secret, which turned out to be an anti-climax.
We talked for about an hour and a half, not solely about being gay but the problems that all people face in finding partners and not really knowing which direction to push their lives. I then carried the remains of the lunch back into the kitchen. Eamon followed me w
ith the glasses and stood behind me at the sink. He rested his hand on my shoulder and said, “Thanks for listening to me. Believe me, I don’t usually dwell or go on about sexuality.”
“That’s no problem,” I said as I turned around. He had not taken his hand away from my shoulder and I put my hand on his probably to pull his hand away. I was feeling uneasy as I raised my eyes and he was staring directly into my face.
It was me who made the next move.
I pushed my head closer to his and, as our lips met, I gave him a gentle kiss, the sort I would give my daughter. I withdrew and stared into his eyes. I needed to say something but I didn’t know what. We both smiled, me rather nervously as he took my face in his hands and drew me to him.
He kissed me so passionately yet tenderly, like I’d never been kissed before, not even by my wife. His arms wrapped tightly around me as he pressed his body tighter against mine. I’d forgotten that passionate, ecstatic feel of another body so close. My hands could feel the smoothness of his bare back and the press of his chest against mine. I was oblivious to our surroundings and the world we lived in and, yes, in a corny way, the earth was moving.
But did I care?
His hands slid under my tee shirt, which gave me that slight euphoric chill. But I didn’t want him to stop; I wanted to be consumed. I had not had such closeness for a long time. The feel of those beautiful strong hands running up and down my back and his tongue in my mouth were almost turning my legs to jelly. But I knew I was not about to fall; I was protected. It was inevitable that before long we both stood there by the kitchen sink naked, our bodies pressed tightly together.
Neither of us had said anything; there was no need. I pushed him toward my bedroom door, which was next to the kitchen, and within moments we were writhing on the bed. I had been to bed with a man before and never gave it a second thought but never had I been kissed so passionately by either a man or a woman.
I was in seventh heaven as he kissed my whole body from head to toe then I did the same with him. To this day I think it was probably the best couple of hours of my life and such a new experience. A rather novel experience. Admittedly I was rather vulnerable and having spent so much time on getting my life together after Maggie’s death, the closeness of another human being was needed. And on this level it was what I was looking for though I had not known it nor could never have expressed it. Had I met a woman at that time who treated me on the same level as Eamon and had many of his character traits, then things may have been quite different.
Still as exciting but just different.
We lay on the bed wrapped in each other’s arms with the sun casting a light shadow across our legs. Nothing was said for quite some time until Eamon broke the silence.
“Come on, let’s take a shower.”
I smiled and looked down at him. The sweat was still all over his shoulders.
We showered together, another new experience for me. The barriers were down and there were no polite apologies for touching each other. Never before had I felt so relaxed in the company of another man or unembarrassed to touch him. We kissed as we dressed, an experience I found exciting and very comforting. It felt tantalizingly naughty.
I look back on that incident now and I have to admit that even that act was very innocent. We did not actually have sex or gay sex in people’s view. We were both excited but did not feel it necessary to reach a climax. The excitement was simply being close together, another naked body pressed tightly against you. Safe and protected. Even straight men having erections together is not such an unusual experience and wanting to hold a close friend is what many “straight” men would be really like to do. But these overpowering stereotypes come into play again.
Soon after the shower we were dressed and were sitting in the garden with a cigarette and a couple of cokes and my thoughts turned to the consequences of what had just taken place. My mind was racing; was I now gay? If this was what gays did then I liked it, but would I only be gay with Eamon? I had no desires for other men and what would the parents say if they found out? Would Chrissie find out and, if she did, how would she take it? More to the point, though, did she need to know? Did I need to tell Imogen and how would it go down at the bank?
I was left pondering the consequences to myself – far too many questions.
Eamon had to leave for a while as it was nearly 5 p.m. He had arranged to meet the parents of a student he would be teaching in Versailles for the autumn term. He’d arranged to see them at 6 p.m. and had no phone number to contact them and make alternative arrangements. He was very apologetic about it, knowing full well that I really needed to talk about what had happened. He said he had no other plans for the evening and would be back later. I invited him for dinner.
I saw him out and returned to the garden to finish my drink. I needed a little time to myself but within a few minutes the jubilant picnickers returned from their outing. Sally, as expected, had had a wonderful day and could hardly stop talking about it. She gave me some wild flowers which Annette and she had picked. I was touched even though most of them were already beginning to wilt. We put them in a vase on the kitchen table and I knew I should have explained to her why she should not have been picking flowers from the wild but there was too much on my mind.
“What’s for dinner, Daddy?” she asked, which rather surprised me as her ramblings were mostly about the food she had eaten that day. I explained that we had a visitor coming and told her we would be eating one of her favourite meals of spaghetti bolognaise. Her face beamed on hearing this, after all, there’s nothing nicer than sucking a long piece of spaghetti into your mouth with the sauce flying all over the table when you’re not the one that has to clean it up.
My daughter has always loved pasta.
Eamon arrived back at 8 p.m. and Sally was already in her pyjamas. He winked at me and gave her a peck on the nose. He asked if she’d had a nice day out and she advised him that she had and did he want to see the flowers she picked. Before answering she had already led him to the kitchen table. She then recited the whole day’s events and, as they were in my way, I asked them to leave and sit in the living room.
As I prepared the meal I heard them both laughing. The sound of her voice told me that she had fully accepted Uncle Eamon. If she liked him then he couldn’t be all that bad, could he?
It was a little late for Sally to eat but I liked breaking some of the conventional rules with her. The meal turned into a messy farce and I don’t know whether it was Sally or Eamon who acted the biggest kid. But I loved watching Sally when she was happy and I just loved watching Eamon. He asked her if she wanted to hear a story and they both went to sit in the armchair. She sat on his lap and I cleared away the dishes. Eamon told me not to bother and said he would do it later but I knew from experience that anyone who said that had no intention. When I had finished, Eamon had just got to the part where the mummy bear says, “and someone has been eating my porridge,” and she looked very tired. It was actually monumental because, on one of the very rare occasions in her short life, she said “yes, please” when I asked if she wanted to go to bed.
I took her to her room and covered her with the spider-man quilt. She dropped off immediately.
When I returned to the living room, I began to feel slightly uneasy and nervous with my daughter only a few feet away. One of those stupid slogans was running through my mind for Tia Maria or some other liquor: “The meal has ended and the evening has only just begun.” I always tried to stop myself from thinking those things. I hated the idea that an advertising firm had planted subliminal messages in my brain. In my mind, the slogan should have read: “The meal is over and Sally is in bed. Now what?”
Eamon stood up as I walked into the living room and walked toward me with that beaming, now sexy smile. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pushed his lips toward mine.
“Come on, Daddy. Sit down. You’ve had a difficult day,” he said as he pulled me down to the sofa. His arm was still around my sh
oulder and he kissed me tenderly on my lips.
We sat for a while just looking at each other.
“That was a lovely meal, Nick,” he started. “Are all the meals in this house so messy?”
“Not all,” I replied. “Breakfast tends to be marginally cleaner.”
“Well I look forward to seeing it.”
Breakfast ... something else for me to think about.
“Sally is such a lovely girl and so pretty. Does she take after her mother?” he asked.
Though we had only known each other a short while and had spoken of many things, I had only mentioned Maggie in passing and was surprised and unprepared for the question. However, I had learnt not to shy away from talking about her and spent some time reliving our lives to Eamon. I was a great deal more relaxed now and he asked about what Maggie might feel about the day’s events and the scene on the sofa. I was not accustomed to being asked questions like that about my wife and didn’t really know how to answer. I fumbled through what she might have thought and suggested that she would be happy to see her daughter and husband so happy and settled and, above all, together.
“And what do you think your sister would say if she knew what happened today?” I asked.
He scratched the back of his head with his free hand and thought for a moment.
“I really don’t know. She’d probably blame me for leading you astray. She really does have the greatest admiration for you, you know, bringing up a child on your own and appearing to cope so well with a great loss. No doubt she’d have me banished from the land and send you to see a shrink, aversion therapy or something like that.”
We both laughed at this.
“You know, this doesn’t mean that you are now a gay man,” he continued. “As you probably know, many straight or so-called straight men have gay affairs but they rarely talk about them openly. Well, certainly not to their straight male friends.”
I was not too sure what to think about that but put it to the back of my mind to recall and ponder on at a later date. I was more content at that moment to sit back and just relax.
A few minutes later the evening was over.
I heard the front door slam as Imogen returned home and instinctively pushed Eamon away from me. As she came into the room, we were sitting apart on the sofa sipping our wine. She had not met Eamon before so I introduced them and asked if she’d had a good day. She had but was now very tired and said she needed to go to bed.
“And I must be going as well,” Eamon said much to my disappointment. It would have been impractical for him to stay any longer. Imogen said goodnight and went to her room. I kissed Eamon when she left the living room and he thanked me again for a great meal and wonderful day.
“Look, tomorrow I have to go over my contract for the coming year,” he said, “and discuss the new syllabus with the college here. It will probably go on quite late, and again on Tuesday morning, but it will be settled by the evening and if Imogen can baby-sit, I’d like to take you out to dinner.”
I was flattered. Someone asking me out to dinner? A man asking me out to dinner?
This had to go in the “ponder later” file.
“Oh, yes. I’d like that very much,” I replied. “It’s years since I’ve been to a restaurant. I mean a proper restaurant without kids and kiddie menus and high-chairs and nuggets.”
“Good. Then it’s settled. I’ll pick you up here at 7 p.m. and whisk you away.”
We kissed each other again as he left and I crept off to my bed to think about the story so far.
For the next couple of days I was consumed with guilt.
All the events and possible consequences of what had happened were racing through my mind and I was picturing the confrontations in my small circle if anyone found out. On one hand, I wanted to shout about it and let everyone know how happy I was. I deserved it for Christ’s sake. On the other, I was afraid. Afraid of being thought of as some sort of pervert or freak, while all I was doing was loving another human being and society was telling me it was wrong.
I said “loving” there and wondered if that was what had taken hold of me. But that was nonsense. I’d only known Eamon a short while but the feeling was lifting me. On the Monday evening I brought Sally over to play with Annette and it occurred to me when I was having coffee with Chrissie that Eamon might have mentioned things to her. She was aware that he had spent Sunday afternoon and evening with me but had it occurred to her that we were in bed together? I thought it better not to confront her with it all then, though when it eventually did come out, she had no idea.
Tuesday evening arrived and I was excited at the thought of seeing Eamon again. It had been so long since I’d been out that I was unsure of what to wear. I decided to play safe and wear a shirt and tie with a black jacket and the best pressed jeans I could find. I had my haircut at lunchtime and paid special attention to my teeth in the bathroom mirror.
Imogen was happy to baby-sit. She was pleased to see that I was doing something other than devoting all my hours to my child. It was on that occasion that Imogen realised there was more to my friendship with Eamon, but she didn’t mention it.
He arrived at 7 p.m. sharp and Sally ran to the door to meet him.
“Daddy, Daddy, Eamon’s here,” she called at me.
She was also now very fond of him.
My choice of clothes was perfect. He was wearing virtually the same.
“Hello Sally,” he said as he bent down and picked her up. “And here’s a big kiss for Sally,” as he pulled her face to his, “and a little kiss for Daddy,” as he pecked me on the nose.
“Do you want to play with my new twenty-six piece jigsaw?” she asked.
“I haven’t got the time at the moment, darling, as Daddy and I have to be getting off,” he told her, “but I promise I’ll play with it tomorrow.”
I had not realised that Imogen was also in the hallway and she would have seen Eamon kiss me. She said nothing as she took Sally from Eamon’s arms.
I kissed Sally goodnight and she waved frantically from the doorstep.
“See you later, alligator,” she called.
“Not for a while, crocodile.”
Eamon had borrowed Peter’s car and, as we got in, he said that the whole evening was on him.
“So how have you been the last couple of days?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” I started. “On cloud nine.”
“Well, what do you know? So have I,” he said as he turned to me and smiled. He rested his hand on my knee.
“It’s great to see you again,” he added.
“And it’s even better to see you,” I said as we drove off.
It turned out to be a very educational and interesting evening for me as I had never been to a gay restaurant before. Had I known the place was gay before going, I think I might have asked Eamon to take me somewhere else but I had preconceived ideas of what it would be like and I really had the wrong impression even though I thought I knew a thing or two about how gay men and women behave. The place was fairly grand and in Chelsea. Eamon had reserved a table. The waiter, who introduced himself as Dermot, showed us to our table and Eamon knew him. Dermot was very friendly with ginger hair and a slightly rounded stomach, which Eamon patted.
“I know, don’t remind me. I haven’t been able to shift that since Hong Kong but I promise to get the exercise video out,” he told us.
I smiled and Eamon explained that Dermot had been working in a five-star hotel in Hong Kong but had recently returned to the UK to live with his partner in Fulham. Eamon had used the term “boyfriend” but for some reason this didn’t sit comfortably with me so the more appropriate term of partner was a welcome alternative.
Reminder to brain to consider later.
The place was packed for a Tuesday night and the whole atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming; any unsuspecting customer would not have realised the place was gay except for a few snippets of conversation.
A very camp waiter served us and he
introduced himself as Jasper. He too was very pleasant though I was unsure how to take his jokes, which he cracked at every available opportunity. I don’t think I’d ever heard so many double entendres. When we finished our meal and asked for the bill, he said he’d see if he was available. When he brought it he said, “Sorry but Bill’s got his chopper out in the kitchen but will this do?” as he handed us the cheque.
I was rather surprised at that sort of humour though it had Eamon in stitches. I laughed politely though I was not amused. I had always thought that this stereotype, mincing queen was the image that gays were trying to get away from and I didn’t want to be associated with it. He was not like Eamon and most certainly not like me. I was never too happy with innuendo and especially from comedians, so from gay men it just seemed inappropriate.
“Don’t you find that sort of campness annoying?” I asked.
“On the contrary,” Eamon replied. “Jasper is not really camp, just relaxed, and it is okay for gays to laugh and take the piss out of each other. It’s a different matter when straights do it because it often tends to be vindictive.”
“Yes, but surely this type of behaviour does nothing for the gay cause,” I said. “I always thought that people like you, well, I mean like us, would want to get away from all that.”
Eamon smiled broadly.
“Nick, forget all you think you know about gay men and women in society. It may not be acceptable in the so-called straight majority circles but gays have learnt to accept that, even with us, there are enormous differences. But we stick together because we have a bond, a common denominator, and we instinctively accept each other. If we discriminated against each other the way that the rest of society does, then we would be no better and have no reason to fight for gay rights. The gay community is made up of all walks of life, from drag queens and bishops to aborigines and Argentinean gaucho. We all accept each other readily and appreciate that everyone is different. Believe me, it helps. Any anyway, we are not on a cause or crusade tonight.”
That was something else I needed to think about later. The food was excellent and I offered to pay my share but Eamon insisted the treat was on him. He said he wanted to thank me and when I asked why, he just replied, “For being you, of course.”
Who was feeling like a dizzy, camp queen then?
It was nearly 10 p.m. and he suggested we stop off at a pub he knew in Islington on the way back. This too was a new experience for me. The pub was busy with a much younger crowd than the restaurant and though Eamon didn’t know the bar staff they greeted us warmly. There was a small dance floor on one side and a much larger bar at the far end. What struck me as soon as we settled ourselves was that there was not a hint of campness in any of the people there. It seemed perfectly natural for one or two of them to be holding hands or drinking pints with their arms around each other. There was no threat.
The music was far too loud, even for me in my early twenties, and when we got our drinks, we stood away from the bar area in a corner where there was a spare shelf. Eamon pushed me against the wall and landed a huge smacker of a kiss on my lips. I was initially uncertain about being in such a public place but nobody seemed to be bothered. We then talked for a while about nothing in particular and then he whispered in my ear, “Can I spend the night with you, Nick?”
This I was certainly not prepared for and took a while to answer. I had become totally infatuated with him but had not given a thought to the practicalities of times and questions like these. How could I explain to Imogen that Eamon was staying the night with me when he had a room only a couple of doors away? Sally might also be upset if she came into my bedroom in the morning and found her part of the bed occupied by somebody else, even if she did like him. Chrissie and Peter would not be alarmed if he didn’t go home but before long they’d find out what had happened.
The last thing I needed was confrontations like these and I still needed time to think things out. I realised that these were many of the problems that gay people must face each day. Everybody would be pleased had I found a girl and brought her back. Perhaps not pleased but it would have been more acceptable.
“Eamon, I would love nothing more than for us to spend the night together,” I started, “but I’m not ready for all the questions just yet.”
Eamon was clearly upset but regained his smile.
“It’s okay, Nick. I really do understand,” he said. “I feel bad asking you now without thinking things through but just being with you at this moment is good enough for me.”
He held me tighter and we chatted about the gay scene until it was time to go. The evening had not been ruined by Eamon’s question but it certainly had put a slight damper on things.