CHAPTER 9
The week was a good one, as those things go. I felt safe for the first time I could remember, safe and wanted.
People actually sought out my company, were interested in my life, and didn’t feel the need to add a little physical contact at each encounter. I was, at thirteen, now starting to get more focus in my education. The next year I would have to select my courses for my GCE O-levels, and this year was my chance to explore where my deepest interests lay. Obviously, as a fan, I had at least a slight interest in physics, but it was language that caught my imagination. German, French and Latin were what the school offered, and for some reason the subject choices next year would offer me either chemistry or that teutonic language, which was odd considering the vast amount of research published in it.
Each evening, after tea, I went round to the library, drinking in the sight of Karen’s amazing legs as she tottered on immense platform soles, and talking with Sid about underpeople and the Instrumentality. One evening, as they were locking up around eight, he surprised me.
“Fancy grabbing a coke or something, Steve? Karen and I often stop off at the Wimpy for an unwind, you’re welcome to tag along”
That was tempting, to say the least. A night out with Karen… even if it was only a fizzy drink, and with Sid along. My bubble was pricked, though.
“Sorry, boys, but Brian’s picking me up tonight. We’re off to town”
Sid was still fun, though, but I would have to tell Mam. “Is there a phone box nearby? I would have to let them know at home”
That sounded so much more adult than ‘tell my mother’
“Use the library phone”
She was clearly already relaxed after tea, with the help of her friend Gordon, so there were no objections. I bundled my books, including a history of rock climbing that I wanted to discuss with Nana, and after Sid had locked up I followed them out to where a Jaguar was waiting by the kerb. Brian, evidently, and I deliberately looked away after saying goodbye, as Karen climbed n. Obviously, there would be snogging, and I didn’t want to see that.
He led me down to Senhouse Street where there was one of those odd little places that came along to cater for the fashion in American things, but done as a café rather than in a paper bag on a plastic tray. We took a table, and Sid ordered us two cokes, and I actually felt quite special just being there in adult company. Sid was gently teasing me.
“You quite fancy my young lady, don’t you?”
I blushed a little. “She is very good looking…”
He laughed, but in a friendly way. “So thinks almost every man in the North West”
“Yeah, that’s what Emily said”
“Emily? Girlfriend?”
“Er, no, a girl in school I talk to a lot.”
“That’s always a good start, Steve, communication. Ten to one that the girls with the looks are more concerned with their own looks than anything else.”
“Like Karen, you mean? I don’t think she’s like that at all”
“No, lad, but she wants to get out of this hole, and that’s one route she has available, but she doesn’t look down on people like some of the head-turners can. She’s very well set up, mentally, is our Karen. Not many like her about.”
I was doing my best to be grown up. “You and Karen, you never….?”
Sid laughed. “No, we never, not with any woman in my case. I don’t sort of go that way”
I was shocked, as I realised what he was saying, and thinking back Karen clearly knew all about him. My first ever queer. “So, you’re a puff then?”
He laughed again “Steve, we are going to have to work a bit on your tact and diplomacy. We mostly prefer ‘gay’ as a term. Yes, I am”
A thought struck me. “You don’t think I’m…you didn’t bring me here…”
“No, lad, I didn’t. For starters, you are more than a little too young for me. Secondly, the way you drool every time you see my beautiful assistant you are so straight it must hurt you to sit down. Third, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you look very girly”
“I thought…gays liked girly boys”
“Lesson two, Steve: everybody’s different. I like men, real men, not girls, not pretend girls, and that is all I will say on that subject.”
“It’s just, I’ve never met one before”
“Oh, I’m sure you have, you just didn’t know it. Now, I came here to talk about books, not who we fancy. What did you think of the Shayol story?”
“I thought that was the best one. Just so much in it!”
“Thought so. You see, Steve, that one is very much a boy’s story, full of invention and action. I’m not going to say ‘grow out’, but that is sort of what you might do. A lot of fans never do move on from ray guns and monsters, but if you can there are some very deep, very thought-provoking books out there”
“Is Smith still writing?”
“No, Steve, he died six or seven years ago. Some old fossils seem to go on and on, like Arthur C Clarke, but the really unique ones, they all seem to pop off too young”
I grinned. “Surely any age is too young”
That got us laughing, and he bought me another coke. I felt wonderfully adult, a grown man treating me as his equal and actually seeking out my company. I wasn’t the punchbag of the bigger boys at school, I was now the bigger boy myself. I wasn’t playing back street football, or swapping tea cards, I was in a café with another man discussing literature.
It was absolutely delightful. I lay in bed that night thinking that perhaps, finally, I was being released from my prison. I finally fell asleep wondering what kissing Emily might be like. Behind the spots she did seem rather nice, and she clearly liked me so I wouldn’t have to take a chance on that bit. Sid did talk a lot of sense.
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Life settled into a routine, but not one I found at all bad. School, where the lessons were actually becoming interesting, the library, avoiding the smell of the tramps who slept in the doorways, and gradually feeling myself heal. I spent most lunchtimes talking with Emily, and I got teased about that in class, but I didn’t mind. I was still spared the ordeal of the changing rooms until everything healed, and so far I had avoided a visit to Mitchell.
That was something that Sid had cleared up for me, just by his behaviour. There was a grown man, who fancied other grown men and just treated it as another part of daily life, whereas Mitchell was positively drooling when he asked his questions.
With Mam’s agreement, that first weekend between classes, I took the Coast Line down to Ravenglass, passing through the shitholes of Workington and Whitehaven, as well as along a bleak but lovely coastline. Past the huge nuclear works to prettier lands on the estuary, and a short walk from the station to the Ratty. No boy ever worth his salt would avoid the chance of using a steam-hauled miniature railway as local transport, and I was almost all boy. The breeze whipped my hair off my shoulders as we chuffed up the dale to Boot, and Nana was waiting at the stop for me with a smile and a hug. I was home.
The payback came on Sunday evening, as I walked back into our house. Mam was in fully-fuelled voice.
“Who was that you were in the café with?”
“I told you, Mam, it was the man from the library”
“You didn’t tell me he was a bloody shirtlifter! Vi says everybody knows what he does! You were seen holding hands with a puff in public! How am I to hold my head up at work now, now the whole bloody world knows you’re a queer!”
“I wasn’t holding–“
She slapped me, hard, across the face. “Don’t bloody argue with me! Get to bed now, and you won’t be going anywhere near that place again. I’m in half a mind to get the bloody police round to him, filthy bastard!”
She paused, panting and flushed, as I held my face. “Be round the shop straight after school with Iain. We’re off to Carlisle as soon as you get out. Now, piss off to bed, you dirty little fairy”
I sat the next day with Emily, and talked it over. She was confused.
“So, he’s a queer? And he didn’t try to bum you or anything?”
I explained it all, just as Sid had told me. Emily sat and thought for a while.
“So, you’re not a puff?”
“Not at all, Em”
“And…you like girls?”
“You know that, you know how I fancy that Karen!”
She murmured something in a very small voice. “Sorry, Em, I couldn’t hear you”
She was blushing hard. “I just asked if you thought you could…..fancy…..me…..”
Poor, sweet girl. I screwed up as much courage as I could and took her hand where it lay on the bench beside her.
“I sort of think I like you, Em…”
She leapt at me, tears in her eyes, and that’s when I found out what snogging was all about.
Comments
We should try to choose our friends
based on the person, not on who or what they are nor on what others say and certainly not on our likes and dislikes. Preconceived notions are often fatal to budding friendships, whether they are from an internal or external source. As usual, the story is going great! Thank you for sharing it with us.
Hugs
Diana
ps While referencing this comment, I stumbled upon an article about Epicurus; utterly fascinating! Need to find a good set of Greek history books at the library...
That's very true, of course ...
... but unfortunately thirteen year olds tend to have their choices controlled to a greater or lesser extent by their parents. Stevie's in the difficult position of being under the control of a drunk who, though no doubt she loves him, isn't going to be the best person to judge people objectively. Moreover, IIRC, homosexuality was still actually illegal at time (It wasn't until 1967 that homosexual acts between consenting adults was de-criminalised) or, at least had only recently been decriminalised and there were many myths and prejudices surrounding the topic. Attitudes have changed a lot in the intervening years.
Then paedophilia wasn't so prominently castigated as it is (rightly) now. So the activities of people like Dr Mitchell appears to be wouldn't figure so prominently. My scout master was jailed for interfering with young boys (not me, fortunately) in the 1950s and came back to live in the town almost unremarked.
An excellent story, Steph, and one which raises lots of issues (and memories). Thanks
Robi
his Mam needs to get her eyes open
while she is busy letting him be exposed to Mitchel, who is a potential if not an actual predator, she would keep him "safe" from a man who just happens to be gay while being a decent human being. Sad that she isn't the only parent to make that mistake....
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Mixed messages
I am getting a mixed messages from the mother. One of the arguments for having Stevie castrated was that he was effeminate and had an interest in transsexuals. Something the mother discussed with Dr Mitchell.
The mother, albeit bullied by the doctor and possibly drunk, was persuaded that it was best for Stevie to be effectively feminised.
Now that the is a slightest hint that Stevie might be gay, by simple association, she is reacting in a harsh manner to try to prevent her son from going down that route. Yet it was her that started him down that path in the first place.
I wonder if this apparent U-turn in attitude is down to guilt over letting herself being bullied into castrating her son, and she is now trying to make up for the damage she has caused.
D.L.
Stevie's mam
She is a weathercock. The idea I am trying to get across is of a weak personality, the sort who reacts to the last person who speaks to her. I came across a trick a few days before writing her, a list of instructions on a piece of paper that start by telling you to read them all, then fill in your name on the top right. The instructions get more and more bizarre until the very last: "Ignore everything except the first two"
I managed to keep a straight face watching a colleague earnestly work his way down the list, singing "God Save the Queen" and shouting "artichokes!", until he arrived at what he should've read first, at which point he swore and fed the paper into the shredder.
Mam is like that. She took the 'slimming pills' becasue pretty women are slim, she was told. She drank G&T because that is what ladies did, she was told. She then ended up using alcohol to bring her down from speed, and when she lost access to the speed she stayed with the bottle. As well as all that, she was married to a hard man. Not a nasty man, but a classic 1950's--60's breadwinner and disciplinarian (i.e. rampant sexist MCP). She also had a competent, strong mother who made all the decisions for her.
There are reasons Mitchell was able to sway her, and they involve Dad being away, but it will come as no surprise to hear that dear Dr Mitchell is one of the nastiest people I will ever write.
Oh, and the thing about her that also strongly conditions her behaviour is 'face'.
Sweat and Tears 9
At least he was open and learned a bit about being gay and the differences within the Gay Community.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Poor Steve, Poor Emily
Life's losers, through no fault of their own. Just for being thirteen in that era and that society.
I hope he can stay away from Mitchell or fend him off and keep Mum from making too many mistakes,
Joanne