A Young Man's Passage (11 page)

Note: I recently received a badly spelt letter from the St Benedict’s Development Office. They need to build a new sports pavilion and are after some money. ‘I hope that you will reflect on the privileged start in life the school helped to give you and that you will feel, like me, that St Benedict’s with its strong Benedictine ethos merits your generosity.’ They shouldn’t hold their breath.

FOUR

Had we but World enough, and Time,

This coyness Lady were no crime. . .

But at my back I alwaies hear

Times winged Charriot hurrying near.

‘TO HIS COY MISTRESS’, ANDREW MARVELL

NICK WAS TO
be a feature of my life for evermore, but we were never lovers.

Nor did we discuss our desires. At the age of 18 I had never been out to a disco or a nightclub. I spent my Saturday nights at home with my mother and kept myself nice.

I once overheard two boys on the bus talking about their frustrations. ‘I’m going mad,’ said one. ‘Haven’t got me leg over in two weeks.’ I realised I wasn’t exactly living life to the full, but with only one friend and no invitations, what could I do? I was also strangely prudish, reacting with tight-lipped disdain if anyone, male or female, showed an interest in me.

Frankie was dancing in Paris at La Nouvelle Eve and invited me to go and stay for a week. Again I inhaled the glamour of the dressing room, sequins, eyelashes, feathers and all. But I was horrified when the barman at the club asked her if he could take me out. When I declined, Frankie took me aside.

‘If you are gay, I just want you to know that everyone in the family will still love you.’ It was a perfect opportunity for me to come out, but I denied what was clearly obvious to everyone else. Maybe I thought the whole world would be hostile like St Benedict’s. Despite appearances, I think I hoped to turn out like David Bowie, confounding expectations and not being disappointingly obvious. It’s fair to say I was confused.

Neither could I discuss my theatrical ambitions with my parents. Nick auditioned and was accepted at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, while my future was a bit of a blank. I was unable to say I wanted to act. I was unable to say I was gay. On the brink of adulthood I feared that my ambitions would all be failures and my proclivities my downfall. As adolescents do, I kept all my thoughts secret, terrified of ridicule.

‘Have you thought about joining the army?’ my father suggested, hopefully.

When I politely dismissed this and vaguely mentioned some sort of work in the theatre, my mother enthused about a life in administration or working backstage. She could imagine me running a little arts centre somewhere. . .

An academic exploration of drama seemed acceptable to all parties.

At the eleventh hour I applied to a number of universities and went for three or four interviews. At Kent University I got chatting to a girl called Noreen from Cambridgeshire. She had jet-black hair and big, sad eyes like someone from an Iris Murdoch novel and wore a fawn mac. At the end of the afternoon we swapped addresses and the next day she wrote to me.

Dear Julian,

Though it seems rather presumptuous to write to you like this after such a brief encounter today, I find, not entirely to my surprise, that I have to. I know very little about you, and you even less about me, that is probably part of the attraction. When I found myself interested in you I realised that you were different. Understandably you could be wondering what on earth I’m talking about and then again it might strike you as logical. I don’t think the difference between you and everyone else can be defined but nevertheless I think it exists.

Whilst I don’t think I know you in anything but the polite, tolerant way in which people treat each other under such rigid and timetabled conditions, you can’t help detecting certain things which trigger off the appropriate emotions or reactions, and you certainly triggered off something. I’ve had the feeling like the one you get before going to the dentist ever since. I rather deliberately took my pen out, waved it under your nose and hoped you’d ask to borrow it. (Confession.) You did – thanks. I’ll end this almost pathetic and somewhat desperate, admittedly deliberate plea to know you better in the hope that I didn’t bore you and that you will consider it. Please reply.

Noreen

I was impressed with the classy blue notepaper and the neat handwriting. No one had written to me in such a serious, adult way before. We began a rather intense teenage relationship, mainly through letter writing with the occasional wander round art galleries. I made sure we never went anywhere she might expect a kiss. Eventually she wrote to me: ‘I feel like an unwanted bun that’s hardened and stuck to the cakestand.’

Once when I visited her in Cottenham we went on a picnic in a field and she grabbed her chance, pushing me back on the blanket and caressing me through what I seem to remember were black velvet trousers, but that was the extent of our intimacy, despite the encouraging news that she had condoms with her. We retreated to our letter writing, all of which I kept and numbered, peppering our missives with poetic quotes: ‘Soon may I hear and see you too!’ (
King Lear
adapted). But Noreen was still confused. Letter number 16:

If you didn’t want me, except as just an acquaintance, you wouldn’t clutch my hands, you wouldn’t let me touch you and you wouldn’t look at me as you sometimes do. But on the other hand I dare not kiss you because of fear that it’s not what you want.

I don’t know what you’ll say.

Please be truthful if you can.

‘Please trip me gently, I don’t like to fall.’ That’s a Bowie lyric altered somewhat to convey a pessimistic attitude which one hopes is not necessary.

Happily her fantasy of us both going to the same university and consummating our love evaporated and the letters, gripping though they were, stopped eventually. I missed her letters, though, and the feeling of being important to someone.

When the requisite A-level results were mine I was accepted on the drama and English course at Goldsmiths College, University of London. I had never imagined being a student. I’d seen them on the news from time to time, protesting and sitting down in the middle of roads, but they didn’t seem very stylish. My mother made me promise never to take drugs. This had been her mantra to each of her children when they flew the nest, and my word was solemnly given.

In early October 1977 my father drove me to the hall of residence that was to be my home for the next two years. Blackheath House, 20 Blackheath Rise, London SE13.

As he drove away, leaving his peculiar son outside the big peeling unkempt house, he tells me he thought: Whatever is to become of him? I was a strange mix of naivety and world-weariness, consumed with secret ambitions. I was tall and thin, with long, carefully groomed hair and colour-coordinated clothes. I spoke softly and slowly. I was always passive and never confrontational. Part monk, part pop star.

AS IT TURNED
out, I had arrived a day early. As my parents had now moved to Swindon in Wiltshire, there was nowhere to go. Blackheath House was yet another red Victorian mansion, with accommodation for twelve male students. The resident tutor was a bit cross with me for arriving ahead of schedule, but let me in and told me to select a room. I would have to share. I climbed to the top of the house, which I thought would be quieter, and chose a large room with a slanted ceiling. The carpet was dark green and rough to the touch. Two single beds, two desks, two noticeboards, two wardrobes, all quite cheap and cheerful. I went for the bed nearest the window, unpacked and put my Dana Gillespie pictures up on my noticeboard and arranged the fruit my mother had sent with me in a round Pyrex bowl.

Downstairs the common room was sparse and grubby, what furniture there was spilling stuffing from Stanley-knife wounds, and if you sat on it for any length of time you’d come away with mysterious bites. Down a step from the common room was the kitchen, mostly given over to white Formica lockers where students could lock away their meagre supplies. A back door opened onto a small overgrown garden, where, it transpired, Rose the cleaner would chuck any unwashed pots, pans, plates or cutlery left in the sink.

The other eleven students arrived the next day, and Nick, a cheery punk-rocker type studying geography, was my roommate. What he made of me I’ve no idea, but he smiled a lot and shook his head, chuckling with amusement at his strange new roommate. I observed that much, and thought: It could be so much worse. That night we all went to the pub round the corner. Nervous and socially inept as I was among such blokey types, I nevertheless immediately sensed that this was not going to be the ordeal that school had been. They drank lots of beer while I sipped a Coca-Cola. They were fun, and seemed to be amused by me. On the way back to the Rise, they ran through the grounds of the nurses’ home shouting and whooping, while I kept primly to the pavement. They were flushed and excited by their own daring when we met up on the doorstep. That night Nick was sick in my fruit bowl. He was terribly apologetic the next morning, and rinsed the vomit from my apples under the bathroom tap.

The next morning we all set off together on the bus from Blackheath to New Cross. As we left the house I picked up my first letter from my mother, which I read on the journey:

Dear Julian,

I do hope you are all right. Shall I bring a blanket up for you when we come? I don’t know how you are managing without saucepans. I expect you’ve been busy settling in and getting to know people and places. I hope you like it, eventually if not immediately. It’s very quiet here without you. The day after you left, I forgot you were not around and shouted something of interest out to you!

We’ve found a badminton club at Wootton Bassett. They play Mondays and Wednesdays and we intend to go along on Monday for the first time. I missed bridge last night because I had a bad migraine but Daddy went.

On Monday I’m going to a Detention Centre at Usk, which is in Wales. New ground for me.

Have you got your grant yet? I hope so. If you don’t receive it soon, let me know and I’ll have to give you a loan for your lodgings.

There’s not a lot of news since I saw you. I can’t write more because I’ve still got a bit of a headache left over from yesterday. Hope you’ll understand.

All my love,

Mummy.

Got your coat yet?

PS Received your letter today. Interesting. Perhaps you should always carry the A–Z wherever you go?

It was funny to think of my parents at home without me, leisure activities taking care of the hours that for years had been dedicated to their children. A week later she wrote again.

I was interested in the snippet of news regarding your cell-mate being sick in your fruit bowl. Not so much because he was, but your rather nonchalant attitude. I suppose it’s all part of being away from home and having to cope with all eventualities. Time was when you would have died at the very thought.