wardrobe I worked out the clothes I’d pack and imagined the concert halls to which I’d wear them.
Noël didn’t ring, and when Friday came around I woke with a fever and didn’t get out of bed all day.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve had the feeling that I am the keeper of an extraordinary secret—something that had been given to me with great intention, been placed in my palm at birth, a small nugget that I could rub under my thumb—and along with it came the knowledge that one day it would propel me on a magnificent destiny.
Its presence often frightened me—perhaps because it seemed I could never really lay hold of it. Sometimes when I heard music on the radio, as soon as the applause arrived, fevered and jubilant, I noticed the effect it had on me, the way I rose to it so naturally, as if I’d been rehearsing for some such role all my life. Nothing else mattered to me then—my lack of friendsat school, my mediocre marks, the aching distance that stretched between my father, my aunt and me. This knowledge would arrive like a glorious gust of wind, lifting me off the ground. My secret—surely it was a gift, some phenomenal talent. And it would now be only a matter of time before it made itself known to me and the world.
It was only after I began my affair with Noël that I felt for the first time the approach of this secret’s impending exposure, as if my relationship with Noël, and the extraordinary potential I carried around within me, were somehow inextricably linked.
I was in love with Noël. That part for me was simple and filled me with immense joy. It also terrified me as there was now no avoiding the possibility—something I had only taunted myself with up until that point—that I might be queer. What this meant for me, I wasn’t sure. Because I couldn’t have imagined ever loving any other man but Noël, homosexual was not a label I was willing to accept.
One time, early on in our relationship, after a concert at Morley College, we were talking to Noël’s close friend John Amis. Noël said to John that he thought the tenor was absolutely ravishing and John replied that he didn’t think the young singer was ‘TBH’— to be had. Noël retorted, ‘Well, that’s the problem with you, John; you don’t have the bugger’s eye!’ Then he turned to me and winked.
John threw his head back, guffawing. I smiled at Noël but felt my insides grow cold and heavy. It wasnot just that Noël was quite openly admiring other men (I had become used to this), it was the way I’d now found myself a member of this elite but somewhat ignominious club. A part of me knew I ought to be grateful for their acceptance. But there was another part of me that felt unconsulted, that this had all been a terrible mistake, and that there might be no turning back. I couldn’t escape the sense that at the end of the day, if I ended up without Noël, I might be despised and derided by both sides.
During those empty, blustery spring days, during that long wait for Noël’s return, it was only the thought of him bursting through my door—a golden bloom on his skin, his unruly hair in need of a trim, and sporting a piquant new cologne—that reassured me of the glittering future I had always, quietly, suspected.
Noël was exceptionally busy after returning from the continent, so we didn’t see each other quite so often as before. Once, he dropped over to my place with Hindemith’s sonata duet and insisted we sit down and play it immediately; a fortnight after that we went out for lunch at Mon Plaisir, and one evening went to see Salome at Covent Garden.
We next met up several weeks later for a swim at Roehampton. Noël lolled about on the grass like a sylph beside the crowded swimming-hole, naked except for his checked trunks, running his fingers through his curls and batting his willowy lashes into the sun. I remember feeling, once again, uncomfortable with hisunfettered sensuality, his flagrant self-offering in
Noël didn’t ring, and when Friday came around I woke with a fever and didn’t get out of bed all day.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve had the feeling that I am the keeper of an extraordinary secret—something that had been given to me with great intention, been placed in my palm at birth, a small nugget that I could rub under my thumb—and along with it came the knowledge that one day it would propel me on a magnificent destiny.
Its presence often frightened me—perhaps because it seemed I could never really lay hold of it. Sometimes when I heard music on the radio, as soon as the applause arrived, fevered and jubilant, I noticed the effect it had on me, the way I rose to it so naturally, as if I’d been rehearsing for some such role all my life. Nothing else mattered to me then—my lack of friendsat school, my mediocre marks, the aching distance that stretched between my father, my aunt and me. This knowledge would arrive like a glorious gust of wind, lifting me off the ground. My secret—surely it was a gift, some phenomenal talent. And it would now be only a matter of time before it made itself known to me and the world.
It was only after I began my affair with Noël that I felt for the first time the approach of this secret’s impending exposure, as if my relationship with Noël, and the extraordinary potential I carried around within me, were somehow inextricably linked.
I was in love with Noël. That part for me was simple and filled me with immense joy. It also terrified me as there was now no avoiding the possibility—something I had only taunted myself with up until that point—that I might be queer. What this meant for me, I wasn’t sure. Because I couldn’t have imagined ever loving any other man but Noël, homosexual was not a label I was willing to accept.
One time, early on in our relationship, after a concert at Morley College, we were talking to Noël’s close friend John Amis. Noël said to John that he thought the tenor was absolutely ravishing and John replied that he didn’t think the young singer was ‘TBH’— to be had. Noël retorted, ‘Well, that’s the problem with you, John; you don’t have the bugger’s eye!’ Then he turned to me and winked.
John threw his head back, guffawing. I smiled at Noël but felt my insides grow cold and heavy. It wasnot just that Noël was quite openly admiring other men (I had become used to this), it was the way I’d now found myself a member of this elite but somewhat ignominious club. A part of me knew I ought to be grateful for their acceptance. But there was another part of me that felt unconsulted, that this had all been a terrible mistake, and that there might be no turning back. I couldn’t escape the sense that at the end of the day, if I ended up without Noël, I might be despised and derided by both sides.
During those empty, blustery spring days, during that long wait for Noël’s return, it was only the thought of him bursting through my door—a golden bloom on his skin, his unruly hair in need of a trim, and sporting a piquant new cologne—that reassured me of the glittering future I had always, quietly, suspected.
Noël was exceptionally busy after returning from the continent, so we didn’t see each other quite so often as before. Once, he dropped over to my place with Hindemith’s sonata duet and insisted we sit down and play it immediately; a fortnight after that we went out for lunch at Mon Plaisir, and one evening went to see Salome at Covent Garden.
We next met up several weeks later for a swim at Roehampton. Noël lolled about on the grass like a sylph beside the crowded swimming-hole, naked except for his checked trunks, running his fingers through his curls and batting his willowy lashes into the sun. I remember feeling, once again, uncomfortable with hisunfettered sensuality, his flagrant self-offering in
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