CHAPTER 46
I was still in a complete mess when it was all over. Clearly, this had been something they had been planning for a while, and as my balance returned I began to wonder what the hell they had needed to do to be able to walk into what added up to a local council building and get married.
Property ownership? Business links? Proof of ancestral Viking rape? We were straight out of the room, and after some ritual photography the boys got us all loaded and onto the road North... It was a sequence of small villages, farms and rolling land that never got very high but kept undulating, with red and white seemingly everywhere, even on the road signs. We finally rolled into a small town called Viborg, which looked pretty awful as we entered, all industrial units and concrete, and then suddenly we were perched above a long lake, a miniature twin-towered cathedral dominating the view.
We parked up some distance from the actual centre, and the boys took us for a walk. It was gorgeous, the buildings all low-rise, the square grey-roofed towers of the church appearing and disappearing from view as we passed little alleys, until we ended up somewhere called Nytorv, where Roger gathered us all together.
“Now, the Danes are odd people. Their fast food is atrocious, very unhealthy and radioactively colourful, but there are still delights to find. This is one of them….fish, served very nicely. Lunch, and then onward and upwards!”
He was right. Well, he would have been if Em had actually liked herring, so we ended up getting her a burger anyway. I was still in a whirl, as the day before we had been happily sat in our family home, and now here we were in a foreign country with no idea of where we were going. The lunch was nice, the Danes seemed comfortable with two men holding hands, everywhere was clean, but where the hell were we going?
Slightly faster roads took us on to another larger town, Aalborg, and without stopping we were onto smaller roads again. Hirtshals (I think) and then a tiny place called Skagen. There were dunes, covered in ceaselessly waving marram grass and low scrub, which made Emily giggle with all the signs saying “klit”, and pine hedges as windbreaks, with occasional fields of wheat. The town was another little complex of streets with the industry on the outside, but we were led past that to another area of dunes, where little yellow houses with red tile roofs squatted low against the wind. One of those turned out to be our destination. I was tired now, lost and still confused. Roger gathered us all together outside one of the larger cottages.
“Welcome to our little home from home. Now, Simon, love, me first!”
As Tessa unlocked the front door, with a grunt he picked his partner up and half-staggered across the threshold, the two of them laughing madly. Simon, in turn, dragged him back out and returned the favour, and that was how, it seemed, gay men respected tradition. Also, traditionally, as Brits Abroad they had packed proper tea, so no theft was necessary. We settled into the surprisingly roomy cottage, with a sofa bed in the living room and an aga type affair in the kitchen, and sipped as Simon explained.
“It’s all been a bit of a rush, my dears. I have been doing work over here off and on for years, and Roger and I fell in love with the country. I mean, there’s no climbing at all, and the wind never drops, but the skies, and the seascapes…..oh, this place is like St Ives, full of artists, and…”
He looked across at Roger, a little sadly, it seemed. “We are getting on, my loves, and you never say so, but we aren’t what we were when we first met you. The thought of looking up at our favourite places and knowing we were past it…not an attractive thought.”
Roger chipped in. “This country has been sweet to people like us for a long time, and it doesn’t have the problems of somewhere like Amsterdam, or all the tourists in Sitges, and although Jylland is a bit behind the capital this place is special. We’ll show you some of that tomorrow, but what we thought was that we could make this our little place in the wind for our golden years. We’re on that mad rush to 60 now, Stevie, and this is to be our little hobbit-hole as we catch up with Mr Baggins”
Simon added “We have been watching the news with some interest, and once they announced the new laws, I had a friend make the arrangements, and we went onto a waiting list. Someone cancelled, Poul rang me in a hurry, and, well, Stephen my dear, neither of us could think of a better man. We just couldn’t be sure the gig was on till we got here. It was, and you and darling Em were there for us…”
And he was crying, his new husband pulling him close. Sid was in tears too, turning to me.
“All those years, Steve, all those years the bastards stole from us, years of being free to love, free to be human, oh, fuck it”
He went over to the boys and wrapped them both up as Em crushed my hand and Wyn found something in his eye. The tears eased, and Roger spoke in a very flat voice, emotion wound as tight as a fiddle string.
“Just think, love, if anything happened to one of us, the other had no claim, not even to discuss medical treatment. Nothing. No existence in law, just another poof in London. We have had to sign contracts together even to cohabit, so the place couldn’t be seized if one of us died. We were lucky, we never suffered as Sid here did, and thank Christ never, ever like you, but we have walked a tightrope all our lives.
“Just think back to you and Emily getting together, and imagine what it was like for us, and boys like us. Sod it, Tessa darling, the Bolly”
A bustle later, a bang, and their favourite fizzy tipple was served.
“My dear friends, Cousin Tess, darling Simon the love of my life, I give you a toast: gentlemen of England---FUCK YOU!”
“FUCK YOU!” in loud chorus, then some more conventional toasts, and I remember making love to my wife, sort of, and then sun through the window. I really had to cut back on that stuff; they were going to kill me.
It was a subdued wedding breakfast, which confused me. When was their honeymoon to be? They were sharing a house with two other couples and a single man; they were unconventional by definition, but this was pushing it. We ate our toast in a smiling silence, little glances around the table as Em fed herself one-handed, the other on my knee. Simon broke the warm mood.
“We have a plan for today, and somewhere special to go, and a friend to meet. Rig for the day is walking kit, and perhaps ladies may indulge in their best bikinis, for we shall most certainly get very, very wet! Once dressed, we are into Skaw-en”
That clicked, finally. ‘Skagen’, as it is spelled, meant nothing to me, but I knew from my geography classes where The Skaw was, and what made it special.
We dressed, and yes, I knew what was to come, so on with my bikini under my walking trousers, and the boys led our car down into the centre, not far from some surprisingly large docks. We parked, and headed to a shop painted blue and white near the harbourfront, called “Sjá¸huset”, where a tall, lean man with a grey ponytail and greyer beard all but threw himself at the boys, hugging and kissing them both before pulling at their hands to see the rings. I assumed he knew them.
Simon brought him over. “Per, this is my great friend Stephen and his wife the delicious Emily, Tessa you know, Wyn is her current flame, and this is Sid, who I told you about”
As Per shook our hands in turn, I thought, oh you old sods, matchmaking! They didn’t seem to be far off the mark, either, for the two were clearly looking each other up, down and sideways. Roger called us to order. “This is Per’s gallery, so he hopes you have brought plenty of money. Per is going to lead us on a little walk, in a while, and from the way Steve is smiling he has worked out where. That school of yours is a good one, Stevie!”
Per got into our car, with Sid, of course, and directed us out to Grenen, and I told Em to get down to her swimming costume as we walked out along the sandy path to where the long spit led out between the Skagerak and the Kattegat, the water a different colour to either side, and the waves dancing in opposite directions until they clashed over the very end of Denmark, and realisation hit me.
This was me, this was my place. Driven not by wind or tide, but by an evil old sod, I had still ended up at a crossroads. I stood at my own little Skaw, where I could see both sides of humanity. That was my place, not fish, not fowl, but both. I could be who I wanted to be, as much as my anatomy would allow, and it was of no business to anyone but my family, and I could define that however I wished.
I stood with part of that family, laughing as waves hit us from both sides and the gulls sent their heartsongs of crowded loneliness.
Comments
Very moving.
Just to be free.
Free to come, free to go, free to be, free to have, free to do.
All these freedoms and so many,many more.
Freedoms of all the senses.
But above all free to love and free to respect.
Yes. I loved Denmark as well and strangely every time I've been there it's been winter.
Nice chapter.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
Sweat and Tears 46
Loved the scene where the loving couple took each other over the threshold.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Fight
well......"Me first!"
"No, me first!"
being who you want to be.
"I could be who wanted to be, as much as my anatomy would allow, and it was of no business to anyone but my family, and I could define that however I wished."
a pretty good life, all around. I am glad Canada allows gays to marry, but I despair of the U.S. things seem to be getting worse there, not better.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Nice!
Nice! Nice! Nice! That's Nice Cubed,
Joanne
Heart songs of crowded
Heart songs of crowded loneliness - what a poetic description - and so real. Thanks.
(the whole story is great too)
Heart songs
It is a line from a poem I wrote many, many years ago. I rewrote part of it more recntly, in French. Here it is.
SOUVENIRS
Des cris
Des cris de mouettes
Me frappe comme des coups de marteau
Sur le dôme bleu du ciel
Et, je m’en souviens.
Les mouettes dansent
Planent au vent
Et poussent leurs cris
De solitude pleine à craquer
Je me souviens les plages d’enfance
Le sable glisse entre mes orteils
Grises et blanches
Elles dansent
Au dessus des enfants
Comme j’étais
Jouent
Plein d’espoir
L’avenir en face
Et aujourd’hui, je me reviens
Encore frappé par les cris de tristesse
Des mouettes
Je me souviens
Que les jours d’enfance sont tous partis
Mes enfants me serrant les mains.
Leur propre avenir en face.
« Papa !
Regarde les mouettes ! »
Fremragende historie, kære!
Stevie endelig FØLELSE fri. Mange tak!
Gud velsigne Dem alle med stor kærlighed og kærlighed
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
I hvilke språk
...skulle jeg svære, Dansk eller Norsk? Men, Dansk er ingen språk, bare en halssøkning.
Tusen takk, kjære Drea.