Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier (12 page)

‘I’m playing golf tomorrow with some friends. Do you want to come?’

In my head I was screaming ‘NO!’ but to be honest, if Thom had asked me to jump out of a plane to see him again I would have said yes. So it was decided. I was off on a second date the following afternoon. I felt amazing.

As we said our goodbyes at the pub, Thom leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. Forgetting where I was, I complied and kissed him back. He turned away from me and as he did I noticed two familiar faces sat on a table near the exit, staring at us both. The pair were friends of Mum and Phil’s. And they looked extremely surprised by what they’d just witnessed.

In the taxi heading to Mum’s, I panicked that the couple were already on the phone to Phil or Mum telling them about what they’d just seen. Oddly, however, I also felt slightly relieved. What if they were? Was it all bad? It would certainly take the pressure of making the announcement away from me.

Of course it would be bad. It would be a catastrophe! Imagine my mum being told over the phone from somebody else that her baby son was gay. That’s how she’d take it. It didn’t matter how old I was, or what my role in life was either, I was her baby boy.

Even if the two didn’t ring my mum and break the news to her, imagine if she bumped into them at the supermarket or
something
, and they just mentioned as a matter of fact that they’d seen me with my ‘boyfriend’. That would be a complete nightmare. She’d have a heart attack.

I got home and considered how the next few days of my life might run. I turned the key to the front door and took a deep breath. What would be waiting?

In the living room, my folks were sat in relative silence while watching some Saturday-night TV. They both looked at me.

‘Well? Good day?’ Mum was clearly intrigued about the day’s events.

‘Erm… Yes. It was OK.’

‘So, who’s the girl?’ For a second I felt a little relief. No phone call had been made from the two spies in the pub.

‘I’ve told you, Mum… It’s no one. Honestly!’

‘Why are you hiding it from us? You don’t hide anything from us.’ She threw Phil a glance, looking for encouragement. Phil, as I’d come to expect, told her to leave me alone.

‘He’ll tell you when he’s ready, Pauline.’

I took my cue to leave and headed upstairs. I could hear them both bickering over me downstairs. Phil was always a very laid-back chap and I just considered it normal for him to back me up on things, but nowadays I think that he knew the news Mum was pressing me for was a lot heavier than she’d be able to handle. Phil had realised some time before that some aspects of my London life were indeed very private.

When I returned downstairs some time later, Mum didn’t mention my date or my new love interest for the rest of the
evening
. But she was clearly troubled by the situation. I hated myself for putting her in that state.

Soon enough my secret would be known. And what then?

S
ince coming out, I’ve noticed that gay people love talking about how it happened for them, discussing at length over a dinner or drink the ins and outs of people’s individual
circumstances
leading to the very moment they finally muttered those two words: ‘I’m gay.’ There have been countless occasions when I’ve told my story to an audience and, in return, asked others how they stepped out of the closet and into the unknown. It’s a rite of passage for gay people to experience, and hopefully come out the other end a stronger, more rounded person.

For me, I have a complex history surrounding coming out. I had two major coming-out experiences – work and family – but also whenever I worked somewhere new or with different soldiers. When I’m asked, when did you come out? I can’t just say, ‘When I was eighteen and in the Household Cavalry.’ I have to say, ‘Which time do you mean? Initially? To my folks? To my friends? When I arrived in Iraq? Every time I’ve stood up in front of a classroom of soldiers?’

But the most traumatic of all these occasions was by far the morning I told Mum that her baby boy was actually dating men and not, as I’d made out for a long time, women.

I woke up on that Sunday morning thinking about seeing Thom and our date on the golf course. I remembered that he’d
said there’d be friends with him… It wasn’t just going to be the two of us. I had slightly mixed feelings about this. It was pressure on top of more pressure: seeing Thom again, being introduced to his friends, being exposed as a terrible golf player, probably
talking
about my job to strangers for hours and then coming home, without getting any time to myself with him. Maybe I was just over-analysing everything. Maybe I should relax a little and go with the flow.

It was another bright day and as I was rising, Mum called me down for breakfast. The three of us ate away while Radio 2 played in the background.

‘I’m heading out again today, Mum.’ She quickly lifted her head and looked at me.

‘Where are you off today? Are you seeing your new friend again?’

‘Yes, we’re going to play golf.’ I’d already told her more than I wanted to.

‘Golf! You can’t play golf!’ She was right, I couldn’t at all.

‘Well, it wasn’t really my idea to be honest.’ She nodded and seemed to be settled with the snippet of information I’d fed her.

About twelve months before, something happened between Mum and me that could have cleared everything up. Indeed, it’s amazing it didn’t. When I joined the army, we were told from the start to continue having our private mail sent home. The army’s postal service isn’t very well known for its efficiency, so it was generally agreed it was best to have things sent home rather than risk it getting lost in the service mail system. Everything that needed to get to me was sent to my mum’s. Mum enjoyed this very much as she’d phone and tell me off for spending too much money or being overdrawn.

I used to bank with HSBC and monthly they’d send out a statement pointing out how little or, in my case, how very much I’d spent over the previous rolling thirty-day period.

One evening as I was pottering around my little room in the barracks before heading out, my phone rang. It was Mum calling me from Phil’s mobile, a very normal occurrence. As soon as I answered the call I could tell she was a little anxious.

Mum began by telling me my bank statement had arrived and that I’d been spending far too much of my wages too early in the month. But this was all background information, what she really wanted to know was something else…

‘You’re spending a lot of money in somewhere called Gay, James.’

I couldn’t believe I’d been so careless. I couldn’t believe I’d been using my credit card at the bar, practically outing myself in my bank statement. How had I been so silly?

Wonderfully, HSBC had very kindly decided to take the hyphens out of G-A-Y; what Mum was now reading was line after line of the word ‘GAY’.

On the spot I made up some terrible lie that Dean, whom she knew well, had recently announced his sexuality and that I was supporting him by joining him in G-A-Y every now and again. Incredibly, she bought it. I was surprised she was so accepting of my poor excuse. But she did; I was off the hook.

How very different things would have been if the news had been dealt with back then. It’d be old news. Going on a date with a guy would be quite the norm and Mum would’ve completely understood.

About an hour later I was putting the finishing touches to my hair before making the walk to the golf club, which was just
through the country park at the bottom of the village. Phil had gone to the shop to buy his Sunday papers and Mum was
beginning
her ironing in the living room. As I put my jacket on, she shouted me into the living room.

‘Will you tell me who this young lady is, James?’ I was gutted Phil wasn’t in to dampen her quizzing flames. She had a slight smile on her face and I felt more love for her that very second than I’d ever felt for her in my life. I knew the answer to her question would hurt her deeply.

‘I’ve told you, Mum, I’ll tell you when I’m ready!’ In an instant the smile went off her face. She was upset. She sat down on the chair and started to cry. I’ll never forget how upset she seemed at that very moment.

‘As long as you’ve been alive, James, you’ve never kept a secret from me. You’ve never hidden something away like this!’ Seeing her so upset with me was hard to deal with. I hated, as do all sons, seeing my mum cry. Why couldn’t I just tell her the name of the girl I was dating? That’s all she wanted to know, but because I wasn’t offering that very basic bit of information, she’d concluded that the truth was something much worse.

‘Is it someone I know? Is she a lot older than you? Is it your brother’s ex-girlfriend, Claire?’

She was going all out; her mind had clearly been running away with her. I had to tell her she was wrong. In the commotion of it all, it happened. I told her the truth.

‘I’m gay, Mum. I’m gay.’

The tears stopped and she paused. The entire house was silent. Slowly her head began to sink downwards. Then she started crying again.

‘No. Please God… no!’

‘His name’s Thomas… I really like him.’

‘And how old is he?’ I found it incredible that this was the very
next question she asked me. I couldn’t understand what relevance Thom’s age was to the news I’d just told her. She clearly expected him to be much older.

‘He’s seventeen, Mum. He’s not some old man that’s tricked me into fancying him. He’s a hairdresser in town.’ This final piece of information was little help.

‘Oh of course he is.’ She carried on crying and I considered giving her a hug, but I just couldn’t. In my heart of hearts, I honestly thought my mum would have accepted the news and followed it up with ‘I knew all along’. But she hadn’t. She was devastated by what I’d told her. I zipped my jacket up and left to meet Thom. I left her crying in the living room, next to a pile of ironing and all alone. It was a horrible experience.

Heading down the hill I felt like a zombie. The previous year, when I’d come out to my friends in London, I’d felt exhilarated. This was wholly the opposite. I felt traumatised. I’d had the
closest
of relationships with Mum all my life and now I felt like it was all over. I’d ended it by telling her the truth.

My mobile phone rang. It was my sister, Liza.

‘Hiya, baby! Are you OK? I’ve just had mother on the phone.’

As always, Mum had picked up the phone and called her daughter immediately, probably still crying, telling her about ‘what I’ve done now’.

‘James, I love you very much. And she does too, but you have to give her time. I’ve told her off for what she’s said to you!’

Liza and I have always been close. It was Liza who used to mind me constantly as a boy. Mum was at work, Dad was
cleaning
windows or drinking in the pub, Liza would look after me all the time. Ten years my senior, she’s acted as the natural link between me, my adolescence and my parents. In 1997 she gave birth to her daughter, Chloe, who I’m godfather to. Chloe is my most favourite person in the world.

On the phone at that very moment, I couldn’t believe I’d not told Liza about who I really was. If there was anyone in the world who’d have supported me from the start, it was her. I sat on a bench beside a small walkway surrounded by trees. Liza reminded me how much she and Chloe loved me and said her goodbyes, promising to call me later in the day to see how I was feeling.

In the loneliness of my surroundings, and the stresses of the morning’s events, I finally allowed myself to cry. I was crying because at no point in my life had I ever upset my mum to the extent I just had. I cried because I’d allowed myself to live a lie, digging a hole deeper and deeper every time I’d chatted with her on the phone and said I was dating a girl. I cried because, at that very moment, it felt like my own mum didn’t love me or accept me for who I was.

The entire event made coming out to the boys in the army a year before a walk in the park in comparison. For a little while that day, I felt I’d lost my mum. Looking back, I am more sympathetic to my mum than I was that sunny Sunday morning. Mothers have a natural way of planning a son’s life out, almost to the letter. She had envisaged me marrying the woman of my dreams at a huge military wedding. She’d planned children and grandchildren. In an instant I’d ripped all those hopes apart by saying two little words. Of course it was a shock.

I arrived at the golf club a little late and a little flustered. This was only the second time Thom and I had met and I worried that my swollen eyes would give away the events of the morning.

Thom introduced me to his friends: Jo, his lifelong best friend; Eleanor, who was also a school friend of his; and Sophie. Sophie had her boyfriend with her, who was a boy I’d been in school with – John. He’d had no idea I was gay so I was a little startled by his presence but he shook off the news almost immediately and was far more interested in my time in the army than anything else.
The company and general feel of the group was a huge contrast to how I’d left my parents’ house a little while earlier. Here I was accepted, there I was not.

I was the world’s worst golfer but Thom was a bit of a pro – well, compared to me anyway. As we progressed, we’d share the odd moment while he coached me over a shot. In the end I was glad to be so useless. The two hours spent on the course that afternoon were invaluable to my coping with what had gone on at home. It helped take my mind off things slightly and, by just being in the company of a guy I was really into, it made me realise that I had done the right thing in telling Mum.

At the end we all grabbed a Pepsi and chilled out at the
clubhouse
. I mentioned to Thom that I’d made a little announcement to my mum before coming along and that I’d left her alone to deal with it. He smiled and grabbed my hand. Telling me
everything
was going to be fine, I realised right then that Thom was very special. I’d never felt the way I did right then.

As we readied ourselves to leave, my phone rang again. This time it was ‘Phil Mobile’. I drew a deep breath.

‘James, I want you to know how much your mother and I love you!’

I don’t remember much more about the conversation other than those important few words. For a man who’d entered my life quite late on, I was lucky to have a father figure like him. I was also lucky to have a man in my mum’s life who could pick her up and point her in the right direction when things got on top of her. I thanked him and told him I’d be staying with Liza that night. I couldn’t face going home and trying to play happy families. I called Liza back and told her I was coming over to stay.

I used to stay with Liza often while I was growing up after she’d bought her own house soon after Chloe was born. It was, for all essential purposes, my second home. I had my own things
there when I was a teenager and, though I’d left home and joined the army, it still felt like a haven to me.

That night, while having a takeaway, Liza’s ‘coming-out treat’, I fully absorbed all of the day’s activities, from waking in the morning and feeling excited about seeing Thom, to leaving my mother in a state of breakdown after telling her the truth; the crazy contrast only an hour later while playing golf with Thom and feeling very relaxed in his company, to crying with my sister about the years of secrecy I’d put myself through growing up with my hidden sexuality. It was a whirlwind of a day and one I will never forget. The most notable moment of the entire day, however, was that Thom and I shared our first proper kiss at the end of our golf date. It had become clear to me what I now wanted. I wanted Thom in my life. More so, I realised that he wanted me.

The remaining days of my week off were spent mostly giving Mum as wide a berth as possible. I’d seen her on the Wednesday after my announcement for coffee at the house but hadn’t stayed long. By then I could tell she’d begun to accept the news.

I saw her again the day after and agreed to spend the night at the house, but was out most of the evening with Thom. The whole process was very gradual. By the time Sunday afternoon arrived and, of course, my return to London, she’d plucked up enough courage to cook me a roast dinner and sit me down for a mother-to-son chat.

I’m not sure what exactly motivated Mum’s change of heart in the short space of a week. Maybe it was our closeness and the worry of never regaining our special relationship. Maybe it was the fact that I had already left home and could quite easily exist in the army if she didn’t accept who I really was. As tragic as it sounds, it wasn’t as if she could kick me out.