50 Reasons to Say Goodbye Read online

  “Why do you think your girlfriend’s suggestion that you might be a homosexual upsets you so much?” she asks.

  I had said, “gay.” Jenny had said, “gay.” Catherine is paraphrasing.

  A week later and we’re having the same conversation, only this time I shrug. I say, “Maybe she’s right.”

  Catherine laughs. It’s the first time she has reacted to anything I have said.

  “What?” I ask. I missed the joke.

  “Walk into any gay bar and you’d know!” she says.

  “Know what?”

  She laughs again. “That you’re not a homosexual.”

  On the way home I walk past The Burleigh Arms. John has told me it’s gay. He knows from his days visiting every pub in Cambridge with the Sixty-Two Pub Club. It was the last one they tried, number sixty-two.

  I peer through the windows; it looks like any other pub.

  Wednesday evening, I go for a stroll, walk past it again.

  Two men go in, laughing.

  Thursday night, I open the door and walk in. It is the scariest thing I have ever done.

  I stand for half a minute looking round the place, try to suppress the trembling in my hands. I lean against a wall – it feels awkward, uncomfortable, as though it’s not my body.

  “Maybe that’s what Catherine meant,” I think.

  A man in the corner smiles at me – a round warm face, a good smile.

  I leave. Outside I gasp. I had stopped breathing – stress does that to me.

  “Look,” says Catherine at my next visit. “You are not a homosexual.”

  I wonder why she says, “A homosexual,” instead of just, “homosexual,” or even, “gay.” It sounds like a grammatical error, but I was never very good with grammar.

  “Now tell me about this …” She glances at her notes. “Jenny, your “friend.” “ She lifts her fingers to form the speech marks.

  On the way home I go back to the pub. I order a drink; I am trembling again. The man with the smile is there.

  “Hello,” he says.

  His name is Nick. He has brown eyes and gappy teeth. He smiles a lot. We drink our pints, I tell him the story.

  He says, “It’s hard coming out.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” I wonder.

  I like talking to Nick better than Catherine. He seems to have more common sense. He hates shrinks.

  Saturday, we meet in the park. We walk; we talk. He tells me about his family. His boyfriend is a fireman.

  “He’s very sexy in his uniform,” he confides.

  Monday night, and I’m back with Catherine, supposedly my fix after the weekend. Gone is the cool detachment of our previous meetings.

  “Why did you go there?” she wants to know.

  “You said that if I went to a bar, I would know,” I reply.

  “I doubt that I said that,” she says.

  I frown. I shrug. “You did.”

  She smiles. “Well if that’s what you think you heard,” she says. “Anyway,” she sighs. “Do tell me about your “gay” night out.” She makes the speech marks again.

  I want to ask her what the “ “ is all about but I don’t dare. I say, “It’s OK really. It’s just a pub.”

  “Did you talk to anyone?”

  I nod. “Yeah, a man called Nick – nice, he has a boyfriend, a fireman.”

  Catherine closes her eyes, breathes deeply. She looks as if she’s doing yoga. I fidget in my seat. I watch her.

  “Look, Mark. You have to stop this before you do yourself harm,” she finally says.

  I feel strange, caught between tears and anger. I don’t know why.

  “Can I leave?” I gather my jacket towards me.

  She looks at her watch. “In ten minutes,” she says. “In the meantime, tell me about … whatever his name is.”

  I’m surprised. It is the first time she has ever forgotten a name.

  “Nick?” I ask.

  She nods.

  I sigh. “I told you. He’s nice.”

  “Are you, attracted to him?”

  I frown. “In what way?”

  “Well I’m not talking about his intellect now am I?!”

  “What?” I feel angry but I’m still not quite sure why. “Do I fancy him?”

  Catherine seems to swell, to sweat; her eyes burn. “Listen, Mark,” she says. “I’m going to stop this conversation right now; it’s not … good.”

  I stare at her.

  “The only question you need to ask yourself is this, Mark: do you ever want to be in a long term, loving relationship?”

  I smile incredulously. “Well, of course.”

  “Then, my dear Mark, you are not a homosexual.” She smiles again.

  I wrinkle my nose and open my mouth. “Sorry?” I say.

  “Homosexuals don’t have loving relationships,” she says.

  My mouth drops.

  She shakes her head. “They have sex, Mark. Sex in bars, sex in back streets, sex in toilets. Now if that’s what you want …”

  In my mind I tell her to fuck off. In my mind I say, “If you are a heterosexual then I’d rather be gay.” But for some reason I’m scared of her.

  I say, “Oh dear, times up. See you next week then.”

  I am unimaginably angry. I lean against a wall outside until I can breathe properly.

  I never return. I go to the Burleigh instead.

  Sometimes I wonder if she did it on purpose, if she said it to push me. But my guess is that she just doesn’t like gays.

  A Beautiful Tart

  From that moment on, my virginity is a weight I drag along behind me. It is something I need to get rid of. I tell Nick this, he understands. “Once I had decided, I slept with the first guy that came along. He wasn’t even cute,” he says.

  I need to sleep with a man. I need to know, need to be sure.

  It only takes a week of hanging around in the Burleigh for the opportunity to appear. His name is Andrew. He’s beautiful – dark skin, high cheekbones, a sort of male Naomi Campbell. Only he’s not a model, he’s a postman. I like that idea.

  At night he seemingly lives in the Burleigh. I tell Nick that I think he’s beautiful.

  Nick says, “Yeah. I spoke to him once. He’s very lovely, very intelligent – a very beautiful tart. But you could do worse, for a first time.”

  The next evening I see him there with some friends. He smiles at me. I am behaving like an adolescent schoolgirl. “He smiled at me!” I tell Nick.

  He sighs. “Go and say hi then.”

  I shrug. “Nah, he probably doesn’t fancy me anyway,” I say.

  Friday, he’s there again. This time he offers me a drink and then invites me back to his house for coffee. We both know what coffee means and we both want it; I am terrified.

  Nick slips a condom into my hand as he pushes me towards the door. “Good luck,” he says raising an eyebrow. “Don’t worry.”

  Trembling, I walk back with him. His voice is smooth and calm.

  I am scared. Scared of looking stupid, scared of not knowing what to do, scared of AIDS, scared of negotiating safe sex.

  He sits me on the sofa and makes coffee. On the wall he has a safe sex poster. It shows a man holding a condom. It says, “Live to fuck, again and again.”

  “That’s one thing I don’t need to worry about then,” I think.

  He serves coffee on the little wooden table. My hand is trembling, the teaspoon rattles against the cup.

  Andrew looks at me. “Are you OK?” he asks.

  I smile at him. “Yeah, I erh …”

  I am about to say that I have never done this before, but it suddenly strikes me as presumptuous. This could just be coffee after all.

  He nods in an understanding way. He says, “I know.”

  I wonder what he knows and how. I wrinkle my brow at him.

  He says, “I know what will help.”

  I cough. “Yes?” I say.

  He says, “Put down your coffee cup.”


  I place it on the table; it clatters against the saucer as it makes contact. Andrew places one hand behind my head, kisses me on the lips. He pauses, looks into my eyes. I launch into him, years of unacknowledged desire welling up in me, driving me forwards. I kiss him madly, maniacally, a man deranged.

  He says, “Hey, HEY! Calm down!” He laughs.

  We lie on the sofa and hug and kiss. He slows me down. It is softer, more romantic than I imagined. It is more wonderful, more magical than I thought possible.

  He pulls away. “Better?” he asks.

  I nod. I have stopped trembling.

  “Good,” he says leading me to the bedroom.

  The sex is soft. Bodies rub together. We caress and fondle each other to a slow climax.

  I am expecting to leave, expecting even to be thrown out, but we lie and talk and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms. I feel more relaxed than I ever remember being.

  When I wake up in the morning Andrew is already up. I wonder for a moment if this can last, if I have read him wrong, but then he appears in the doorway, smiling broadly.

  “Get up, get out,” he says laughing. “The job’s done and I’ve got a life to live.”

  I frown at him.

  “Oh and say hi to Nick for me!” he says with a wink.

  I walk away from the house feeling complex and irrevocably changed.

  I feel bigger, older, clearer – calm, relaxed and sad all at once.

  Dork

  It’s been a dull day. Everyone has gone away for the weekend, well except for Nick and myself that is. He’s already in the pub when I call, so I join him there. The sun is setting; the rays are forcing themselves through the dirt-frosted windows. The Burleigh can actually look OK at night, when the coloured lights disguise the tobacco stained walls, when cute bottoms are hiding the split seats, but at five p.m. empty, the place looks dreadful.

  Nick tells me about his trip to New York, tells me misty eyed of twenty bars, all ten times bigger than this place, all decorated in post-industrial, minimalist chic; all of them stuffed with beautiful gym bunnies with huge white teeth.

  “Still something empty about the whole thing though,” he says.

  “Empty?”

  “Something sterile, like everyone’s smiling, looking like they’re having fun.”

  “Sounds OK to me,” I say with a shrug.

  “Yeah.” Nick shakes his head from side to side, thinking about it. “But somehow,” he continues, “it seems as though they’re just looking like they’re having fun, instead of actually having any fun. Does that make any sense at all?”

  I nod. “I suppose so; still got to be better than this though.” I gesture around the room.

  Only one other person is in the bar, sat at the far end of the lounge. He looks our age, twenty to twenty-five years old; he’s tall, very thin, blond. He has the most horizontal eyebrows I have ever seen – they make him look very serious. He’s writing postcards.

  Nick sees me looking at him and glances over his shoulder. He leans in conspiratorially. The music, a dreadful instrumental version of the Carpenters’ greatest hits, is thankfully turned down low. “Do you like him?”

  I shrug. “No, not really my type.”

  Nick glances again. “Why not?”

  “Don’t know,” I reply. “Maybe it’s the fact that I like them short and dark, and he’s tall and blond.”

  Nick nods.

  “Maybe it’s because he’s filling in postcards.”

  Nick frowns.

  “So he’s a tourist.”

  “So?”

  “A heartbreaker.”

  Nick smiles and nods.

  “Or maybe it’s just because he looks about as skinny and serious and dorky as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

  “OK, OK!” Nick waves at me to stop. He pulls a cigarette from his packet of Marlboro, offers me one.

  “Only trying to help,” he says lighting up both of our cigarettes.

  I glance over at the guy again. He’s chewing his biro, looking into the middle distance. He smiles at me, flashing big white teeth.

  Nick looks over his shoulder again; the guy looks back at his postcard.

  “So actually it’s you that likes him,” I tease.

  Nick shrugs. “Well yes actually,” he replies. “But I’ve got, well you know, the B problem.”

  I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out. “The B problem?” I ask.

  “Boyfriend.”

  I laugh. “It’s not supposed to be a problem Nick. It’s supposed to be The Solution.”

  Nick glances at the man again; he looks up from his postcard and nods a half hello to him.

  Nick gets up. “Sorry, I can’t help myself,” he says to me, crossing the bar.

  I can hear their voices, Nick’s, and an American accent, but not the words. I flick through a free magazine and when I glance over Nick beckons to me.

  The man smiles broadly and shakes my hand. “Dirk,” he says. His accent is indeed American. His voice is broad and deep, rich and smooth.

  “Nice voice,” I think.

  He shakes my hand. His hands are huge and slim – the image of his body – and his grasp is firm. Nick chats to him maniacally, as though he’s running out of time.

  “Of course …” I realise, “He is! Darren will be here soon.”

  I watch them talk. I feel unusually calm, reflective. I am thinking about myself, here, now, and the effect of his presence on me. I am surprised at the instant attraction I feel, despite all I have said about him not being my type.

  It seems to be entirely because of his voice, because I like the slow deliberate way he constructs his phrases, because I like the vibrations the sound waves seem to make in my chest.

  He’s answering Nick but looking at me, questioningly. He’s a student, he explains, on exchange to Cambridge. He’s studying philosophy. “Only for a year,” he says.

  I interrupt the chat by asking him the million-dollar question. “Why?”

  “I’m sorry?” he asks.

  “Why philosophy?”

  There is a pause. Nick wrinkles up his nose as if it’s the most stupid question he has ever heard. Dirk looks at me, a half smile on his lips. His eyes shine.

  “Why?” he laughs. “Well,” he pauses, weighing up each word. “I suppose the reason is to gain some insight, however … lightweight, into the big Why. The why are we here? The why does it all seem so pointless?” His voice hesitates almost inaudibly as he says, “pointless.”

  I look at him intently. I wonder about that sadness.

  “Well good. A worthy cause if ever there was one,” interjects Nick. “Any insights so far?”

  I sigh and look at him. Dirk pulls his eyes away from mine. He doesn’t just look away – I can feel him pull them away, breaking contact, reluctantly.

  His voice is upbeat, less serious. “Sure, I guess only corny stuff, but, well I suppose the more I think about life, the more it seems that it’s just about, well, erm …”

  “Sex?” asks Nick. “Well you don’t need a degree in philosophy to know that!” he laughs.

  “Love,” says Dirk. “Actually I think it’s love. In its many forms.”

  “Oh,” says Nick.

  “Strange concept I know, Nick.” I open my eyes wide; wriggle my brow at him. “But one could actually link those two concepts: sex and love.”

  The door to the bar pushes open and Darren appears.

  “Talking of which,” laughs Nick, pushing himself out of his seat.

  “I’m parked on double yellows, can we go?” says Darren, nodding a hi to me.

  Nick mocks an American accent. “Now you boys have fun,” he says.

  We nod. We wave. “We will,” we say in unison.

  Dirk continues. “Of course sex always is an expression of love, whether the involved parties realise it or not.”

  “You obviously haven’t had some of the sex that I’ve had,” I say, trying to sound knowledgeable.

 
“That is certainly true, but it still has some truth in it. You see the thing is …”

  We spend the evening together. We eat bar-food in order to carry on talking. I am bowled over by him – bowled over by his voice, his calm; strangely bowled over by the effect it all has on me. And more than anything, I am bowled over by his beliefs about love, and sex, and life – by how important he thinks it all is. Every comment I’ve heard before on the subject belittles it with cynicism and irony. Dirk is different.

  Thus begins our relationship. We spend three or four evenings a week together. We talk until the early hours, sometimes in a pub, sometimes in his student accommodation – complete with stuffy don furniture and various religious icons – sometimes amidst the mess of my shared house.

  I discover that his father is a homophobic Methodist minister in Los Angeles. I learn that this doesn’t make life easy for his gay son.

  The day his birthday present arrives by post – a polyester club tie – I see him weep. “How could my folks know me so little,” he says winding it around his fingers.

  A little later, I manage to make him cry with laughter instead.

  Sometimes we cook together, sometimes we walk together, sometimes we smoke together, but never a kiss – never even the suggestion of a kiss; never even a circumstance where a kiss could be possible. And it drives me insane. For I love him, am comfortable around him, trust him; I find our time together endlessly enthralling.

  Over burnt pasta-bake – since meeting him I have apparently developed some love-induced form of Alzheimer’s disease – the battle committee discusses strategy. Jenny thinks I should just pounce.

  “It’s obvious he’s gagging for it,” she says. “Christ I haven’t seen you for weeks, you’re virtually living together!”

  Claire thinks I should get him drunk. “If he’s just got some sort of religious hang-up then the best antidote is alcohol,” she says.

  I sigh; I just don’t know.

  We are interrupted by the telephone, it’s Dirk.

  I close the kitchen door on the giggling girls.

  Back in the kitchen I tell my team of advisors. “He wants me to go to Brighton for the weekend.”

  They goggle-eye me.

  “A dirty weekend in Brighton! The little devil!” says Claire.