Devil in Disguise Read online

  ‘I don’t like gay men!’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, here we go.’ Molly sounded exasperated.

  They’d been through all this before. Molly had tried to understand, she really had, but he knew she was still mystified by his preference for straight men — even if the very fact that they were willing to have sex with him might indicate that they were not really of that persuasion at all. His proclivity had been chewed over as a curiosity and pondered as a tragedy many, many times over the years. No solutions had so far presented themselves.

  ‘You know what I’m like, Molly. I can only sleep with a man under specific circumstances. If he’s straight!’ Simon said helplessly.

  ‘This is madness, Simon!’ Molly raised her voice. ‘You’ve got to stop this or you’ll lead a life of never-ending misery and frustration. I love you, and all I want is for you to be happy.’

  Simon paused for a moment, then hung up.

  Being an only child often implies that one is cherished, if not a little spoilt, but this wasn’t true in Simon’s case. His parents had married late in life, and both were in their early forties when he was born. He had wriggled into their lives either before they were ready or after it was too late. Whichever way you looked at it, things were not quite right. He got the distinct impression that his mother and father had stopped at one child because their first experience of parenthood was so bewilderingly disappointing. They had never seemed much interested in him or in anything he had to say. Tired smiles greeted his childish questions, and their answers were always designed to terminate any further line of questioning. ‘Run away and play, Simon,’ had been the refrain of his childhood. He bored them, he realised, and the best thing he could do to please them was go to his room and amuse himself.

  His parents were so polite and indifferent that he felt like an unwanted guest in his own home. It had been no surprise when he was sent to boarding school at the age of seven — there was a distinct air of relief in the house in the days leading up to his departure. But even when he arrived home for the holidays, it was to resentful looks, pained expressions and whispered asides. By the time he was a teenager, it was like coming to visit two elderly strangers with whom he had almost nothing in common. They peered at him and feigned interest in his future, often suggesting he go back-packing.

  Damaged as he was by such a loveless upbringing, Simon was intelligent enough to feel hard-done-by. Inevitably he looked for attention elsewhere. He had been sent to a boys’ prep school and later to a Catholic public school deep in the country. In the classroom, and more significantly, the dormitory, he sought and found the popularity that was missing at home. His cruel but uncannily accurate impersonations of the teachers had his classmates enthralled and, encouraged by their giggles, he found ever more outrageous expressions of his subversive, ultimately angry personality.

  His attention-seeking continued after lights out, and was not unsuccessful. Word of his skill and compliance in the arena of darkness travelled to the bigger boys and soon Simon’s nights were most eventful. Although sleep was a tedious necessity, it became clear that there weren’t enough hours in the night. To satisfy all the demands upon his services, Simon was soon keeping appointments in the afternoons as well. When the school gardener sought to confirm the saucy rumours, it was just a matter of time before Simon was expelled. The greenhouse had not been a wise choice of venue.

  Back home, his parents were able to add reproach and disdain to their gallery of expressions. Even false smiles were now a thing of the past. Simon could do nothing right. But with the good grounding of an expensive education, he sailed through his A levels at the local college. The morning his results arrived, and his parents looked at him with their usual blank-eyed indifference as he announced his three A grades, he packed his bags for London, not caring where he went, simply keen for a great adventure. After a couple of days at King’s Cross station, he met some other desperadoes and moved into a surprisingly civilised squat in Waterloo. Soon he had his first job, as an usher at the Old Vic theatre, selling programmes and ice creams from a tray in the interval. The uniform was bottle green and Simon decided he looked particularly dashing in it. It was not taxing work but he enjoyed it.

  He sent his parents a postcard with his new address, but didn’t phone home and heard nothing from them. His new left-wing friends soon radicalised him, and he became a fully paid-up member of the Socialist Workers’ Revolutionary Party, forever going on protest marches and to sit-ins. He had his eyebrow pierced and wore his hair so short it was only one step away from a shaved bead. Such a look, with his lean limbs and soulful, bright blue eyes, made him a popular addition to London’s gay scene. In fact, it was his eyes that people always remembered. They could sparkle across a crowded dance-floor and lure prospective lovers into his orbit. Once there, and given their full, heavenly, mesmerising voltage, any boy or man was his for the taking, seduced by the sadness that swam in their depths. He would take them home, have sex with them and turf them out in the morning. More often than not, they kept coming back. Something about Simon touched them, made them return for another look into his soul. Even hardened gays, who’d had all the tenderness fisted out of them, would declare themselves awash with love — who’d have thought it after all these years? — and they would try to nurture similar feelings in Simon, who was having none of it. He never seemed to fall in love with anyone, no matter how much they aroused or amused him. He didn’t much mind — it was just the way he was made.

  This was a learning period for Simon. He discovered his own powers and also his own desires. These included gay sex but not, rather confusingly, gay men. He was bemused by this knowledge for some considerable time and chewed it over as if it were a particularly difficult clue in a cryptic crossword, pondering several solutions. Could he possibly be a woman trapped in a man’s body? Was sexual realignment the answer? This he dismissed instantly. He was perfectly happy with what God had given him, and therefore definitely not in the wrong body. Even if surgery and hormones were going to make him attractive to ‘real’ men, it was too high a price to pay.

  Another option might be a life of chastity. Simon surprised himself by thinking long and hard about this. Some of the Benedictine monks who had taught him at boarding school had seemed genuinely serene and holy, and he would dearly have liked to escape from the eternal discontent that followed him around like a lost puppy, and to lose the discontent in his eyes that everyone commented on. Could it be transformed into piety and compassion for God’s suffering on the cross? It would be a long and unlikely journey from atheist revolutionary to the monastery, though. He knew deep down that he didn’t have a vocation for a spiritual life. It wouldn’t ring true.

  The final and equally unsatisfactory option was to confine his interests to straight-acting gay men. There were plenty of those around and they were, or so they liked to think, barely indistinguishable from their straight counterparts. Certain bars and clubs in London were designed especially for them, done up like a construction site with lots of corrugated iron and empty beer barrels. These men — or MEN, as they no doubt thought of themselves — certainly looked the part, favouring biker jackets and Dr Marten boots. They stood around in alcoves staring into the distance, glowering at all and sundry. If he followed them into the darker recesses at the back of the club, he could have quick, rough sex with them and no questions asked. It was almost like the real thing — but not quite. Simon saw straight through the posturing of these men. They were just silly, self-deluded queens and they failed to satisfy him on any level.

  The solution to this delicate conundrum came in the shape of a lorry driver.

  Simon had taken on day work as a parcel-delivery man for a few months, and one afternoon he had stopped at Clacket Lane service station on the M25 to stretch his legs. He wandered aimlessly along the grassy verge until he found himself in the section reserved for articulated lorries. A huge black truck with several pictures of topless women stuck to the windscreen loomed before him. As
Simon approached, the driver flashed his lights three times and leant out of his window. He felt a flutter of excitement in his stomach: here was a real man, a lorry driver wearing a greasy T-shirt and three days’ stubble! The driver indicated that Simon should hop in. Once inside he drew some grubby curtains across the windscreen and, without a word, climbed between the seats on to a small mattress area behind. By the time Simon had negotiated his way through to him, the driver had unbuckled his belt, undone his flies, and presented Simon with a very impressive cargo indeed. The sex was quick and unceremonious and fulfilled all of Simon’s wildest fantasies.

  The knowledge that straight men were often not as straight as they seemed liberated him and set him on a heady voyage of discovery, one that sometimes resulted in the odd black eye but more often in delightful, exquisite encounters with men whose wedding rings only added to their attraction.

  Simon’s enjoyable adventures as a sexual rover were rudely interrupted when he received a letter from his father telling him some sad news. His mother was very sick with cancer. ‘It’s at an advanced stage, I’m afraid, and the doctors are not at all hopeful. Do you think you could come and see us?’ he suggested.

  Simon sighed at the inconvenience, but thought, upon reflection, that he ought to pop home.

  A small stone of misery had resided somewhere inside Simon’s chest cavity for as long as he could remember. It was so real and permanent he felt sure it was of tangible, solid form. It would still be there, indestructible, after his cremation, nestling among the silken ashes like a Fabergé egg. At a loss to explain its origin, he had a tendency to graft reasons onto his melancholy. When, as a boy, he was told the story of Christ’s death for our sins, he put his misery down to the collective misery of mankind. And when the family cat died suddenly, he wept for weeks, not out of genuine grief for the bad-tempered feline but because he felt like crying, and here was a bona-fide reason to do so. Earthquakes reported in the news, abducted children or even the sad state of the nation’s economy were also declared causes for Simon’s all too apparent unhappiness.

  When Simon, living in the squat with his new anarchist friends, received the letter telling him his mother had cancer, the stone of misery began to throb, invigorated by the news and its potential. He had no difficulty in sitting by his mother’s bed every day for three weeks, blowing his nose and wiping the tears from his eyes.

  ‘He’s heartbroken, poor boy,’ said the nurses to each other. ‘He must love his mother to bits. Look at the state of him.’

  Simon wasn’t exactly indulging himself but he knew, deep down, that this crying and carrying on was little to do with his dying mother. He felt it anyway, always had, and now it was being fed, thriving like the cancer.

  When his mother eventually died — her last words to him were ‘Canada seems nice’ — Simon stayed with his father for a week and was the star turn at the funeral, breaking down as he read a Christina Rossetti poem, shaking hands and passing around sandwiches with red eyes at the house afterwards.

  ‘Look after each other,’ said the relatives, as they filed out later. ‘It’s just the two of you now.’

  The next day, while his father sat in the lounge drinking a bottle of whisky, Simon put his mother’s clothes into bin-liners and took them to the local charity shop. When he got home, the whisky bottle was empty.

  ‘I’m going to sell the house and move to a bungalow in Dorset,’ said his father, as if he was announcing that he planned to take an overdose of paracetamol.

  ‘Okay,’ Simon said cheerily. ‘I’m going back home to London tomorrow. Keep in touch.’ And he left the next day, certain that he would never see his father again.

  Simon returned to the squat, his day job delivering parcels and his nights in the soft, dark corridors of the theatre, armed with ice creams and ready change. One day he was driving through New Cross when he saw a handsome denim-clad youth with a rucksack flung over his shoulder entering an old Victorian public lavatory. On impulse, he parked his van and followed him. Inside it was empty, apart from the youth who, as Simon entered, was just zipping up his flies and moving from the urinal to the sink to wash his big rugby-player’s hands.

  Damn. I’m too late, Simon thought, as he took his place at the now-vacated trough. He stood there, nevertheless, looking encouragingly towards the boy, who was wiping his hands dry on a paper towel. He was aware of Simon’s intense stare, and took his time, carefully drying between each finger. Just before he left, he turned and gave a knowing smile.

  Disappointment is all part of the game for a gay man on the cruise. But for Simon, the sad sight of seeing such a beauty slip through his fingers amounted to heartache. The pain spread down his arms and up his neck until an audible sob caught in his throat. If only he’d got there quicker he might have been lucky. The boy had appeared to know what he was after and had seemed almost amused. Who was he? Should he follow him? Should he wait to see if the boy came back? All these thoughts made Simon’s heart beat faster. He stood there, waiting, hoping for the sound of footsteps, but hearing only the drone of traffic from New Cross Road.

  That night as he lay on his mattress in the squat, fantasising obsessively about the one that had got away, he remembered something. On the back of the boy’s rucksack there had been a label. Simon closed his eyes and concentrated. Yes. He could see it clearly now. It read ‘Goldsmiths College’.

  By the next morning he had decided his future. He drove to Goldsmiths and picked up an application form. With his first-class A level results and agreeable personality, he would surely be offered a place there. He chose English literature as his subject, a kind of tribute to his mother, who had enjoyed a good read.

  And then he met Molly.

  As soon as Simon and Molly’s lives intersected, the value of true friendship was suddenly revealed to him. It was a revelation. His schoolmates had always bored him, however much they sought his company, and he’d had neither the desire nor the opportunity to get to know girls before, but Molly had a presence and allure that was both fun and decidedly feminine. He was somewhat in awe for the first time in his life, feeling that, in some obscure way, he had met his match. She was funny and theatrical and could make a simple walk down the corridor into a memorable experience. Molly, in turn, seemed to be drawn to his dangerous disregard for other people’s opinions and his brooding, unpredictable personality. They spent hours talking, mostly about themselves.

  It was a few weeks after they had first met at uni, and the pair of them were walking through Greenwich Park on a chilly autumn afternoon, just as darkness was beginning to fall.

  ‘What makes you tick?’ asked Molly.

  ‘Misery,’ said Simon, without hesitation. ‘It’s my natural state.’

  Molly looked at him curiously. ‘Really? You don’t seem so miserable to me.’

  ‘That’s because I’m happy at the moment, comparatively. Fate led me here, you see, to be your friend. Thank goodness for lust.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Molly, puzzled.

  Simon told her about the denim-clad youth with his fateful rucksack and the encounter in the lavatory. ‘Those few seconds in a public toilet where nothing much happened but a smile had far-reaching consequences. But for that moment I would not be at university and I would not have met you,’ he finished solemnly.

  ‘Well,’ Molly said. ‘Praise be for your thriving hormones.’

  ‘I think the story rather vindicates my entire lifestyle,’ said Simon, grandly.

  ‘I’d have been lost without you here,’ said Molly. ‘And the boy with the rucksack? Have you seen him again?’

  ‘Not a sniff. How annoying is that?’

  ‘Look on the bright side. It gives you something to be miserable about.’

  ‘True. Otherwise I’d have to go looking for someone else to moon over. I need a hit of misery every morning the moment I wake up or I can’t function. It’s like snuff to me. Do you think there’s something wrong with me? It’s not normal, is it?’

 
‘What’s normal?’ asked Molly, questioning the question. ‘I think all intense feelings should be regarded as precious.

  How clever of Molly, thought Simon, to put a positive spin on even the darkest of thoughts.

  Already there was an understanding and acceptance between them that neither had ever felt before. During the first few weeks they had been busy laughing and impressing each other with their wit and style. Now, having established that they were on the same wavelength, brothers and sisters in arms, they trusted each other to know their innermost secrets and fears. Molly had mentioned that she’d spent her childhood in a children’s home, but Simon hadn’t pressed his new friend for more information. ‘What was it like?’ he asked now. ‘Growing up in a home with no family?’

  Molly stared out over the green parkland and thought. Then she spoke — matter-of-factly and without a hint of tragedy. ‘Not as bad as it sounds. I had a happy childhood, I’d say. They did their best. I was fed and clothed and I had loads of friends. It was all I ever knew. There was no abuse, if that’s what you were wondering. It was all very proper. Sometimes you’d get close to the workers there but they’d have to back off. They weren’t really allowed to be properly tactile. Against the rules. I was always a needy child. As if that’s a bad thing at six years of age.’

  ‘Why weren’t you adopted?’ asked Simon.

  ‘They did try, but I had this idea in my mind that my mother would come back for me one day. Every few months, prospective parents would come and leer at me as if I was a leg of lamb in the butcher’s window, but I was having none of it. I did my best to put them off. I pulled ugly faces, swore like a trooper, developed sudden bouts of incontinence. I even bit one woman who kept stroking my hair as if I was a doll. But some folks were so desperate they still wanted me. They’d have taken home a rabid ferret. When the social workers asked me if I’d like to go and live with a couple in their posh gaff in Chester, where they could be my new mummy and daddy, I said, “No,” most emphatically.’