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February 2002 |
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Sunday 3 February Something happened We have two friends called Nick, and the time has come to differentiate between them. Mary calls them Naughty Nick and Sick Nick, which seems as good a way as any, so I shall do the same. Naughty Nick, also known as our surrogate son, has often figured in this journal. The last mention of him was in December, when he came to stay overnight with us, left very early in the morning without any explanation, and then a few days later sent us a nasty abusive letter saying that he never wanted to see us again. It was not the sort of thing that one should reply to in haste, so I waited a few weeks for the anger to die down (on both sides) and then drafted an email to him, very restrained and emollient in tone. I showed it to Mary, who thought that it struck the right balance between sounding disappointed that he should have behaved in such a way, while making it clear that we still valued his friendship. I sent the email to him a month ago, just before we left for Gran Canaria. When I got back, there was a reply from him saying how pleased he had been to get my message. So it seems we are friends again. We got to know Sick Nick through the local M.E. group. The nature of his illness is that he is absurdly sensitive to cold. Whenever the temperature drops below about 20°C he more or less ceases to function. Since the temperature in Leeds rarely goes above that, he was permanently ill, and confined to a wheelchair, when he lived here. But then he went with his wife on a trip to Gran Canaria, and he found that the warmth there transformed him so much that he could live a virtually normal life. Now he has moved there permanently (to the extent that anything is permanent in this life). He makes a little money there by designing web sites, but for them to make ends meet, his wife has to keep her teaching job in Leeds. She goes to visit him in the school holidays, but it's obviously a difficult situation for them. I mentioned Nick when writing about our previous visit to Gran Canaria last year. On our visit there last month we saw quite a bit of him, and we had a memorable meal with him at the Patio Canario restaurant by the harbour. Commercial break, for an entirely free and unsolicited testimonial: El Patio Canario serves the best seafood paella that you will ever taste. If you are ever within 1000 miles of Puerto Mogán, then in the words of the Guide Michelin, it merits the detour.
End of commercial break. The reason Sick Nick comes into this story is that he is living in a two bedroom apartment in a tiny village about 4 kilometres outside Puerto Mogán. It isn't even a village really, just a short strip of houses on the road that leads inland from the coast. Last autumn, when Mary got the idea that it might help her allergies and chemical intolerances if she spent the winter away from Leeds, she contacted Nick and they arranged that she should sublet his spare bedroom for a couple of months. So when I came back from the Canaries, she stayed on there in his apartment. She found it very difficult at first, because she was reacting to various smells around the apartment. But these have been more or less sorted out now, and she is very happy with the arrangement. Some people might raise their eyebrows at two married people setting up home together in a subtropical paradise while their unfortunate spouses are left back home in England earning the money to support them. They might wonder if there is something going on between these two. But it really isn't like that. I know Mary well enough to be sure of that. And I know Nick well enough to be very confident that he is entirely honourable. Some people might also wonder what I'll be getting up to during the six weeks that I have the house here to myself. Will this closeted gay married man take the opportunity to bring some comely toyboy to live with him while the wife is away? Ha! In my dreams. But things never work out as simply as one might expect. Something happened yesterday that I still haven't quite come to terms with. I need a few days to digest my thoughts on what happened before I say any more about it.
I discovered online journals a little over four years ago, and I quickly found two that struck a particular chord with me. (Sadly, both Rotti and Scott have long since stopped updating their journals.) In their very different ways, they were both young men who, in their late 20s, were just beginning to acknowledge their sexuality and coming to terms with the idea of being gay. Although I was 30 years older than them, I found that I identified very strongly with them in their search for a gay identity. I started corresponding with them, and formed the first of a number of online friendships that have meant a lot to me in these four years. Until then, I thought that I had my own life pretty well sorted out. I had sort of known ever since childhood that I was gay by nature. But circumstances and my own personality combined to make me decide to keep my sexuality in the background and to live a "normal" life. I had a number of homosexual experiences over the years, but these were always very fleeting and anonymous. I knew all along that nothing would persuade me to leave Mary, so there was never any question of me finding any kind of longer term gay relationship. I was very pleased to see my online friends becoming more secure in their gay identities and finding boyfriends. (Scott, incidentally, is still living happily ever after with his husband Corey; and Rotti has a long-term (but also, unfortunately, long-distance) relationship with his boyfriend.) But of course I sometimes felt a twinge of regret that there were some experiences that I would never be able to have. One journaller in particular (I don't remember now who it was) had an entry that made me regret what might have been. He wrote about the first time he spent the night with another man, and the joy of waking up during the night to find their bodies nestled together, and then cuddling together in the morning. So here's what happened last Saturday. I planned to do some work in the evening, but I found that I had left some papers at the University, so I drove there to pick them up. By the time I had collected them, it was after 8 p.m., and there wouldn't have been that much evening left for work by the time I got home. So on an impulse I drove over to the one gay sauna in Leeds, intending to spend an hour or two in the video room there. As it turned out, the video room was full, and I went downstairs to the steam room and the hot tub. There I met a young guy called John (well, not really young - he was probably in his thirties, but definitely a lot younger than me). I can't say that I found his face particularly attractive, but he had a very smooth, toned, body. Don't ask me how the conversation got round to this, but he asked me if I would shave his pubes. This is not a thing that I have ever done to anyone else, but since I have a good electric razor, I thought that it ought not to be too difficult. I told him about my situation, just so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding, and he then asked if I would let him wear some of my wife's underwear. Maybe I'm making him out to be odder than he really was. He actually seemed quite a nice young man, and I invited him back to the house for a drink. Then of course one thing led to another, and he ended up spending the night with me. So the thing that I thought I would never experience has actually taken place, and I now know the sensation of waking up alongside a sexy man, with legs and bodies entwined. It is every bit as good a feeling as I imagined it would be. He didn't stay long the following morning. We both had things that we had to do, and separate lives to lead, and we haven't made any plans to meet again. I'm really glad this happened. If I had gone through life without ever having had this experience, I would have felt that I had missed something important. But it's not something that I hanker after on a regular basis. I know as clearly as I ever did that life with Mary is the life for me. At the same time, I feel distinctly uncomfortable about the whole episode. After all, I was saying in the previous entry how confident I am that I can trust Mary and Nick not to get up to anything while she is away from me, and here am I taking advantage of her absence in a way that many people would find totally immoral. I won't try to make excuses for myself, but as often happens I will find solace in one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 109 is obscure in places, but the setting seems to be that the young man to whom Shakespeare was devoted has had some reason to suspect the poet of being unfaithful. In the following sonnet, no. 110, he admits as much: "Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view". But in Sonnet 109 he claims that despite the frailties that besiege his blood he has not been false of heart, and that his emotional commitment to the young man is as strong as ever.
That's how I feel. I can't help the frailties that besiege my blood, but in my own mind and heart I was never false to Mary. She is my rose. Postscript: The shaving exercise was pretty successful, in my opinion. But I wouldn't let him anywhere near Mary's underclothes. Even I have some moral standards.
There are not many heroes in today's world, but here's someone who gets a lot of respect from me. Noam Chomsky's reputation rests on his work in linguistics. His pioneering studies in universal principles of grammar revolutionised the subject and make him one of the greatest scholars of the past century. He has also made a name as a political activist, outspoken in the defence of downtrodden people across the world. Last year, a Turkish publisher, Fatih Tas, published a Turkish translation of some of Chomsky's political essays, including one about the state persecution of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. In it, he described the ongoing repression of the Kurdish people by the Turkish government, in which over 30,000 people have died, and claimed that the Kurds "have been miserably oppressed throughout the whole history of the modern Turkish state". For publishing this volume, Mr Tas was arrested and accused of disseminating separatist propaganda, an offence carrying a substantial jail sentence. When the case came to court in Istanbul yesterday, Noam Chomsky appeared in the courtroom and demanded to be tried as a co-defendant. Whether or not because of this and the accompanying publicity, the case was dismissed and Mr Tas was acquitted (though he still has to face half a dozen similar charges). Professor Chomsky did not have to do this. There was no subpoena, in fact no expectation at all that this man should risk his own liberty by travelling to Turkey and offering to stand in the dock in this way. He was motivated purely by his own innate decency. I guess that's a rare virtue these days, and that is why I find his action so heroic.
We are at about the halfway stage of my solitary life, nearly four weeks since I came home, and nearly another four weeks until Mary returns. So it's as good a time as any to review how we are both managing. Mary has not found things quite as easy as she anticipated. She finds it hard to avoid all the perfumes and other smells that trigger her worst allergic reactions. But on balance she is glad that she decided to spend the winter in the Canaries. The main reason for doing so was that she dreaded the thought of spending the winter in dark, cold, rainy Leeds where she would have been too ill to do anything but stay home and watch the television. Instead, she spends the morning on the beach, reading, then goes to one of the harbour-side cafes for a salad lunch, before drifting back to her apartment for a leisurely siesta followed by an afternoon of copy-editing (she is reading the manuscript of a book that a friend has written) before cooking dinner. Sounds like a pleasant enough existence, to me. At any rate, she usually sounds cheerful when I phone her. [In fact, Leeds hasn't been dark, cold and windy at all. We had one slight frost last week, but the morning sun (which barely appears over the horizon at this time of year) had melted it by 8 a.m. Apart from that, temperatures have been way above freezing all winter. This morning was positively spring-like. The garden is full of snowdrops in bloom, a few crocuses and irises are already in flower and the winter jasmine beside the front door is covered with blossom.] Mary has had to go to the local clinic out there, to have a minor ailment seen to. The first time she went, she saw a friendly, sympathetic doctor, appropriately called Dr Benigno, who understood when she explained to him that she could not take any antibiotics because of her allergies. Spanish doctors usually seem to treat all illnesses by throwing huge quantities of antibiotics at them. But Dr Benigno was happy to suggest an alternative method of treatment. Mary went back to the clinic yesterday, expecting to see this benign doctor again. But there was no sign of him. While she was waiting for the doctor, she needed to go to the loo. No sooner had she got there than a man started hammering on the door and shouting at her, asking her what she thought she was doing and demanding that she come out. Her Spanish is not fluent enough for her to understand what the objection was, so she went back to the waiting room. When it was her turn to see the doctor, she found that it was this same man who had shouted at her. Let's call him Dr Maligno. He told her to go into his office, but she said (in Spanish) No, she had changed her mind and would come back another day. She was going to leave it at that. But, being Mary, she then decided that this wasn't enough to satisfy her. Dr Maligno, a large and intimidating young man, was standing directly in front of her, looming over her. But she looked him straight in the eye, and said (in English) "I don't like you, you're rude and aggressive," before turning round and stomping out. Typical Mary. I don't know how good the doctor's English is, but I think he will have got the message. So Mary is doing okay. How about me? Well, being naturally reclusive, I have taken to the solitary life pretty well. The main thing I notice is how much better the house looks without all Mary's clutter around the place. We have been married so long that I have completely ceased to notice how irredeemably untidy she is. The way she always describes it is this. One of the first things she noticed about me is that when I get undressed, I pull off my clothes, sling them over the back of a chair and they land in a neatly folded pile. Whereas when she gets undressed, she takes off each garment carefully, folds it precisely, lays it on the chair, and ends up with a jumbled heap of clothes. What I have liked best about Mary being away is that the coffee tables are no longer covered in great overflowing mounds of magazines, books and letters that slither to the floor every time someone breathes; and the kitchen worktops actually have free space on them so that you can use them as working surfaces. The other good thing about Mary being away is that I have a bit of freedom to do things that I otherwise couldn't, like going to the local gay sauna on Saturday evenings. Yesterday, I went for the first time to a recently opened sauna in Dewsbury, a few miles south of Leeds. It is very well appointed, with a good atmosphere and (*ahem* extremely) friendly clientele. On the negative side, I seem to be busy all the time with household chores. I always thought that we had a fairly equal partnership, and that I did my share of jobs around the house. But having to do everything singlehanded has made me realise how much I rely on Mary for all sorts of things. And of course I do miss her. We talk several times a week on the phone, but that's not the same as having her here. I'll be happy enough to have the place to myself for the next few weeks, but I'm very glad that she will back here by the middle of March.
Another advantage of living on my own is that I get to have my finger on the TV remote control, which is normally just a prosthetic extension of Mary's hand. Actually, I'm quite happy to let her have control over the TV, because it doesn't suit my self-image to be seen watching the television. I usually prefer to be in the other room listening to the hi-fi while I'm reading or using the computer in the evenings. And I think I have mentioned here before that I have this puritanical feeling that an evening spent in front of the television is an evening wasted. But with Mary away there is nobody to see how I spend my time, and I occasionally find myself in front of the television. There have been the winter olympics to watch recently, and there is fairly often something reasonably interesting on one of the cable channels such as the History channel. So I was aimlessly surfing the channels a couple of weeks ago when I realised that I was looking at the half naked figure of Ryan Phillippe. I found that I was looking at the Film Four channel, which was showing a film called 54 about a New York night club of that name. According to this review, 54 is "a film which showcased Phillippe's abs over his acting". That may be so, but who cares about the acting? The abs were quite sufficient to hold my attention for the rest of the evening. Since then, I have kept a careful eye on the Film Four schedules, and I was pleased to see that yesterday evening they were showing Beautiful Thing, a delightful film about two teenage boys living on a desolate south London housing estate, whose bleak lives are transformed when they find comfort and love in each other's company. The final scene, where they embrace in a slow dance to the song Dream a Little Dream Of Me, and the whole neighbourhood gradually joins in, is totally unrealistic (unlike the rest of the film) but very moving. This is a beautifully made film. If ever you get the chance to see it, I recommend it highly. In fact, this is the second time that I have seen Beautiful Thing on the television. I don't remember when the previous occasion was. Perhaps I watch television more than I like to think, and Mary is right when she teases me for being a secret TV addict. But I still can't shake off that feeling of guilt that I am wasting time time when I am watching TV. Even when I'm watching Ryan Phillippe.
I went for my Sunday afternoon swim at Kirkstall leisure centre as usual yesterday, and had to park right at the far end of the car park because there were no spaces anywhere else. By the time I got back to the car it was 6 p.m. and it had been dark for half an hour or so. I noticed that there were some fragments of plastic and metal on the driver's seat and I began to brush them off. It was only then that my brain slowly started to get into gear. "Hey," I thought to myself, "this debris was not here when I arrived, and the car has been locked. How could this have happened?" I guess my mind resists coming to unwelcome conclusions, but I had to admit to myself that somebody must have broken into the car while I was swimming. I looked round to see if any of the windows had been broken, or if the radio had been taken. But there was no obvious sign of damage and nothing missing. Then I walked round the car, and saw that the front passenger door had been forced open. Someone must have jemmied the top of the door away from the frame and reached down to release the lock. The window had not broken but the door was badly sheared at the top. I went back to reception and reported the break in. The people there were very helpful, told me the procedure for dealing with such an incident and let me use their office phone to report it to the local police. The car park has CCTV cameras and also a security guard patrolling, but the guard was totally useless. It took the office staff five minutes even to locate him, and he seemed completely uninterested in the affair. His only reaction was that it must have occurred before 5 p.m., which was when he came on duty. After filing the report to the police, I went back to the car again, put the key into the ignition to start it, and discovered that the ignition wasn't there. I had not noticed previously that the thief had smashed the ignition unit off (which was what had caused the debris on the seat), pulled out the wires and tried to hot wire the ignition. At that stage he must have given up, because the Volvo has a very effective steering wheel lock. If the car is not started correctly by turning the ignition key, then a metal pin immobilises the wheel. Anyone who knew much about cars would have known this and not bothered to try to break in. But this meant that I had no way of driving the car. I went back to the office once again, and called the AA (in Britain, this means the Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous), and they did an excellent job as they always do. It was well after 6.30 by the time I called them, and the girl on their switchboard said that they would aim to get a patrolman to me by 7.00. In fact, he turned up ten minutes before then. He looked at the car, took hold of the passenger door and bent it back more or less into shape. Then he said that the only way to deal with the ignition unit was to finish the job that the thief had started, by knocking out the pin that was locking the steering. It took him over half an hour to do this, with several chisels and a heavy hammer, and even then he said there was a slight chance of the steering wheel catching on something and locking. He said that he would hot wire the ignition and then follow me as I drove slowly home. I drove cautiously, avoiding main roads, and I was back home just before 8.00. You might think that I would be furious by this time, and wanting to break the fingers of the little bastard who did this to my car. But in fact I was just very relieved to be home again, and to have the car safely in the garage. The rest of the evening was actually very pleasant indeed. I phoned Mary and had a long chat with her, telling her this whole saga. Then I made myself a (somewhat late) dinner, which was definitely the best meal I have cooked myself since being on my own. I baked a couple of tilapia fillets, covered in spices and wrapped in foil (a tilapia is a very tasty fish that they have started to sell at the fish counter of our local supermarket). While this was cooking, I fried some mushrooms in plenty of butter and several cloves of garlic. Honouring a promise to Mary that I would eat plenty of vegetables while she is away, I also cooked a handful of Brussels sprouts to go with this. Washed down with a large glass of New Zealand sauvignon blanc, it was a really delicious meal, though I say so myself (and the second tilapia fillet was all ready to be microwaved for this evening's dinner). Dessert was a punnet of fresh raspberries from Spain. After this excellent dinner, I settled down in front of the television and watched the culminating event of the winter Olympics, the very exciting final of the ice hockey. I was rooting for Canada, of course (if there's no British team then at least I can support a Commonwealth team), and it was great to see their well deserved victory. To tell the truth, I also found it rather satisfying to see the USA lose. I have been feeling disenchanted with their Olympic team in the past few days, ever since the disgraceful antics of that young punk Apolo Ohno, whose shameful histrionics in the 1500 metre speed skating final led to the blatantly unfair disqualification of the rightful winner of the event. But that's enough sourness from me. I wasn't feeling at all sour last night, just very mellow and contented. Reality kicked in today, when I had to go to work by bus, and when I phoned the insurance agents and realised that there is a £100 excess on the policy. There is also the question of the no claims bonus. It's just as well that I have a good insurance policy. This is the second claim that I am making on it in less than a year, following my little shunt last March. But I am allowed two claims within any three year period, without endangering the no claims bonus. "No claims bonus" is a bit of a misnomer. They should call it a "two claims bonus." But I have used up my quota, and there had better be no more claims for the next couple of years.
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W Shakespeare, Sonnet 109