Overlapping Lives Page 10

  ‘It has been lovely getting to know you over the past three months. See you in December. What would you like for Christmas?’ There was no time to look at emails during the day. The weeks before Christmas were always hectic at the surgery. Returning to his cottage in the evening, he opened the usual bottle of wine and took his glass to the room he used as a study. He opened his laptop and scanned the rows of emails. Sure enough, Paula had replied. He clicked.

  ‘You! xx’

  Roger and Claire

  The new gym master came from Wales. He was a vigorous, wiry man with a lilting Welsh accent. He had great respect for the working class boys he had left behind in the Valleys to come and train the sons of the middle classes in North London. At some point in the past he was said to have been a physical trainer for the army. His name was Jack, which he encouraged the boys to call him, not the generic Sir. It was 1967.

  North London was an eclectic place in the 1960s. Many of the boys were from Jewish families but their parents came from all over Europe. Intellect came first in this community; brawn was secondary. The gym master was not impressed by the skinny, unfit teenagers who had become his new pupils. They seemed a puny bunch compared to the rugged boys in Wales. The disdain was mutual; the boys were sceptical of the value of physical training. In North London there was a complacent preference for academia in pursuit of the assumption that everyone would progress seamlessly from school to university. And in any case, the sweaty atmosphere of the gym with its wall bars, ropes and bulky gymnastic equipment was not a place where clever teenagers chose to spend more time than they had to. Jack was not going to be ignored. He abandoned the traditional stretching, press-ups and postural training for timed runs around the school grounds, followed by weight training to develop the flaccid muscle of the boys’ limbs.

  When not pursuing their headlong progress to university places, the teenage boys of North London were distracted by the possibility of sex with girls from the comprehensive schools, Sargent Pepper and the appearance of cannabis at parties in their suburban homes when their parents were absent for an evening. For a few boys their emerging sexuality was made more exciting in July of 1967 when homosexuality ceased to be illegal. Until that time the covert realisation among the few, that some boys were prettier than others, was carefully suppressed. The more physically self-aware confined their narcissism to the bathroom at home, naked in front of the mirror. Some boys were in better shape than others. The only place where discrete comparisons could be observed was in the changing room of the gym when everyone was briefly unclothed. It was obvious to most that sexuality was not a uniform attribute.

  Roger was sixteen in the summer and embarked on science ‘A’ levels in the autumn term. He had been stung by the new gym master’s disdain for the insubstantial physiques of the boys. Critical examination of his naked self in the mirror had not convinced him that the Welshman’s observations were wholly justified. He thought he was well-proportioned and lean, but not muscular. He had a shock of black hair, which was slightly springy and would not be parted in a conventional way, which he kept cut short. His face was round, his eyes grey, his lips full and his nose shapely. His penis was not very large but the size of his erections, which happened frequently and at random, impressed him. At regular intervals he had to adjust his underwear to accommodate the unstoppable tumescence, something he found annoying but secretly satisfying. The general effect of his appearance was pleasing and he knew that girls liked him. Because he found he was good at running he started to compete with himself on the timed circuits of the school grounds with which Jack started every gym session. He joined the cross country club for the Wednesday afternoon sports. Most of the school were taken by bus to the playing fields. The runners traipsed to Hampstead Heath to run a five mile circuit in all kinds of weather. Roger was fit but became increasingly preoccupied with the absence of muscle to go with it. Then he discovered the gym club.

  The gym club boys had responded to Jack’s encouragement and spent every lunchtime weight training. It was run by the sixth formers. Roger joined. The atmosphere in the gym was sharp with the acrid tang of adolescent sweat. Muscle-bound boys trained in pairs, assisting each other with the loading and unloading of the weights. It was disciplined and directed. He was told to start with a single circuit and build up to a maximum of three. The exercise strained every muscle group from neck to ankles. There was a disinhibited atmosphere among the muscle-bound youths; physical contact seemed to be normal as they admired the etched contours of the sinewy limbs they were developing. Their narcissism was overt and shared. The other thing which Roger could not avoid noticing was that all the weightlifters wore the skimpiest of tight, white shorts through which their adolescent genitals bulged ostentatiously. He enquired as to where this uniform could be acquired and rapidly conformed to the dress code, hoping that his unruly penis would not decide to embarrass him mid-circuit.

  His efforts were gradually rewarded by a subtle metamorphosis. His biceps swelled; his pectorals enlarged; his abdomen grew faint ripples; his gluteals solidified and his thighs expanded. Roger became infatuated with the idea of the bodies of the boys in the gym club. He did not feel a sexual attraction for them; it was more to do with a desire to share in the aesthetic of their shapes and muscular contours and the appealing disinhibition that seemed unique to this sweaty clique.

  Sex surfaced everywhere. Gay men had finally been liberated and cruised transparently on the streets of North London. Roger was followed home by hopeful, outed young men whose presence provoked an ambivalent anxiety. He was keenly aware that some boys were more attractive than others and he had a strong sense that he was among the desirables.

  Roger was an only son. At home, uncertainty was not permitted. His father was fiercely heterosexual; he conducted his son on long walks around Hampstead Heath instructing him on the mechanics of sex and the joys of the bodies of women. Any alternative was condemned with homophobic finality. His father made it clear that he expected his son to have girlfriends and added, slightly lasciviously, that they would always be welcome at home. Roger knew he could not talk to his father about his ambivalence, but he knew from his own transient experience that his father’s attitude was simplistic. Sexuality was a colourful, many-shaded thing. It was absurd to think that everyone was entirely one thing or the other, and he knew by now that he was both.

  During the 1960s the North London parties were full of enthusiastic girls. The least inhibited came from the comprehensive schools and gained great popularity by their willingness to snog in dark corners and share their sensual skins with the boys. Boys were usually less confident about the process of physical indulgence. Among these girls was Claire. She fancied Roger and determinedly pursued him. Claire was pretty but had had to cope with a disfiguring scar on her upper lip. She had been born with a hair lip and undergone a series of operations to repair it. Her round, merry face and lopsided smile, because of the scar, were framed by lots of long, blonde hair. She was thin and sexy. They had a bantering relationship, which avoided a sentimental veneer, in the expression of their fondness for each other. Claire had clear boundaries. She was a determined virgin but liked boys’ bodies. On weekend afternoons she readily stripped off her top in Roger’s bedroom and liked him to lick her nipples. They snogged for hours with Claire’s hand inside Roger’s jeans. She shared Roger’s admiration for the impressive proportions of his erect penis, but there it stopped; her vagina remained untouchable. Roger began to realise the extraordinary delicacy of skin and the sensuality created by gentle and affectionate contact with Claire’s body.

  Despite his ready acknowledgement to himself that he was attracted to the bodies of the boys in the gym club, and his own strenuous efforts to make himself more Adonis-like, there remained a doubt in his mind. He had no idea what gay men did. The mechanics of sex with a girl had been made explicit by his father’s diatribes, and later by the “sex lessons” at school, when the vice headmas
ter had inexpertly gone through the physiology of the process and invited anonymous written questions. But all this instruction did not address the mystery of sex between men. The homophobic atmosphere at home did not help. Roger was sure that he could find out, but that would mean stepping over a boundary to make himself available to the predatory, cruising, after-dark men. The prospect terrified him. He decided to concentrate on Claire’s body and perfecting his own.

  The cross country running became the focus of each week. Roger was good at it and started to win the races. He was made captain of the school team. With this accolade he assumed responsibility for improving the fitness of his team and arranged additional training sessions. He also insisted that the boys all dressed the same. His chosen uniform was the tight gym shorts, which the gym club boys wore, and singlets. Everything had to be white. Roger knew that appearance mattered and would intimidate the opposition when his disciplined, scantily dressed band appeared for racing. The boys knew he was right and enjoyed the envious glances of the less athletic, baggy-shorted opposition. Every Wednesday afternoon the heath was graced by Roger’s provocatively dressed band of streamlined youths bounding along the paths and tracks. There was a flagrant and thrilling exhibitionism about the project. It felt like running naked, particularly when the sun shone sensually on the exposed skins of the lissom boys. They were vain, graceful and victorious.

  There remained the question of Claire’s virginity. She had made it clear that she liked to be with Roger, clothed and half-clothed, but was adamant that she would not relinquish her virginity. Roger respected her for her resolute self-denial. He loved their sensual afternoons in his bedroom and discovered how Claire smelled delectable. Her skin had a faint, feral aroma; her armpits always smelled of female adolescent sweat, less pungent than the acrid gymnasium tang. He liked to bury his nose in her hair, particularly when she had not washed it; it had a musky, animal scent. The charm of Claire – clothed and less clothed – eclipsed any attraction which Roger felt towards the sculpted boys. If her vagina was ever going to be available to him he knew he must be patient. But he also had the sense that broaching this final frontier before Claire decided that the time had arrived, would confuse their cheerful relationship as much as embellish it.

  Life adopted a harmonious routine. On weekdays Roger concentrated on improving his body, his academic work, thinking about mock ‘A’ level exams, UCCA forms and enthusiastically attending interviews at the medical schools to which he had applied. He had decided he wanted to be a doctor. At weekends he devoted as much time to Claire’s cheerful company as homework, and the constraints imposed by his parents, permitted. Cloistered in Roger’s bedroom they spent hours engrossed in each other’s bodies. Claire’s vagina remained forbidden territory and her parents insisted that she spend the nights alone in her own bed.

  The final term at school drew to its stressful end; ‘A’ levels were behind them and the possibility of university in the autumn beckoned. It was 1969 and Roger and Claire were both beautiful eighteen-year-olds. Roger’s parents disappeared to the South of France where they always spent two weeks in the summer, entrusting the household to Roger, now that he was technically an adult. His first thought was to ask Claire to stay with him. Claire’s parents pre-empted Roger. They had friends in Buckinghamshire who owned a large arable farm. The farmer had invited Claire to come and help with the harvest, learn some country ways and expose herself to the rural elements after her parochial, suburban existence in North London. She could have one wing of the substantial farmhouse to herself, where the servants used to be quartered, now converted to a guest wing. Claire artfully agreed, phoned the farmer friend and sweet-talked him into the idea that two extra harvest hands would be better than one. Would it be okay to bring her boyfriend?

  On a Sunday afternoon in late July Roger carefully locked his parents’ house, met Claire at Euston Station and two hours later they were met at Milton Keynes Central station by the farmer friend. The farmer was more like a playboy than a man who drove tractors. He had made his way through three wives and had recently imported a lissom young woman from London to fulfil the role of mistress in his grandiose farmhouse. The harvest hands were welcome to join them for dinner in the large, beamed dining room, but otherwise they would live in the guest rooms in whatever arrangement they chose. They would get paid a few pounds a week for their labours and were expected in the farmyard, appropriately shod and attired, at seven o’clock on Monday morning to meet the tied farm workers.

  The farmhouse stood in grand isolation outside the village boundary. After a congenial dinner with the farmer and his mistress, who seemed to be only slightly older than Claire and Roger, they walked the short distance to the village green and the pub. They drank the local beer and giggled a good deal about the unexpected domestic atmosphere of the farmhouse. Aware that they needed to make a respectable impression the following morning, they returned to the farmhouse before the daylight had faded and put themselves to bed, chastely in separate bedrooms.

  At seven o’clock the new additions were appraised in the farmyard by the work force with only minor resentment. They were, after all, interlopers taking work which rightly belonged to the local people, but the farmer ruled the roost in a feudal style. The three tied farm men introduced themselves and informed the Londoners that the furthest any of them had ventured in their lives was the nearest market town. London was a foreign country. The farmer detailed the men for the day’s labour, took his harvest hands to the barn and announced that Roger would be driving the combine harvester and Claire would be in charge of the grain trailer. They were to spend the morning learning how to drive, handle and maintain the machinery and discover how a cost-effective harvest was conducted. Wasting time, fuel, grain or any other intrinsic resource was not permitted. First the barley, then the wheat, was to be harvested. After the sun had burnt off the dew they worked with military precision. Sandwiches were brought to the field at lunchtime. They knocked off at six o’clock and returned the machinery to the barn. The whole operation was organised with precision and economy. It was a revelation to Roger and Claire, but they were fast learners and anxious not to be labelled as urban and useless. The days were long, hot and exhausting. By the time they stopped work each day, the harvest dust had invaded everywhere and it took a great deal of showering before they were fit to join the farmer and his mistress in the dining room in the evening. After dinner each evening they spent an hour in the pub and prudently put themselves to bed; to be late at the farmyard parade would be unforgivable.

  Friday arrived and the farmer produced two small, brown envelopes which contained the first week’s pay.

  ‘Beer’s on me this evening,’ he announced and conducted them to the village pub where he was treated like a minor celebrity with his trophy girl, who was deferentially admired by the locals. The harvest was suspended for the weekend so it was not until closing time that they weaved their way back to the farmhouse. They bid the farmer and his lover goodnight and retired to the guest rooms. Claire pulled Roger into her bedroom from where he had been banished until now. They lay on the bed, fully clothed, in a long drunken embrace, kissing ecstatically. After a while Claire sat up.

  ‘I’ve got a present for you,’ she announced. She stood up, straightened her top, where Roger had attempted to access what was beneath, and opened the ancient wardrobe where she had hung her clothes. Above the hanging clothes was a shelf. Claire reached up and retrieved a parcel wrapped in brown paper. She handed it to Roger. He carefully removed the paper revealing a plain, pink cardboard box which he prised open. Inside, in neat rows, nestled a hundred condoms.

  Roger knew that sooner or later they would lose their virginity together, but he had not anticipated Claire’s initiative. She sat next to him on the bed, put an arm round him and looked closely into his eyes. One of the things that held them together was an unspoken rule; their relationship was devoid of sentimental promises of love and devoti
on, but this moment was an exception.

  ‘Roger, I love you and I trust you. I’ve decided it’s time. You’ve been really patient.’ Claire took a condom from the box in its tidy foil wrapper. ‘Isn’t it sweet? We’ve got to use them all before we go back to London. My parents will kill me if they find them.’

  ‘Claire, my darling, I love and trust you too, and I admire you. What a stroke of genius to get us here and bring this kit as well. We’d better get on with it.’ And so they did. They brought in the harvest and triumphantly claimed each other’s virginity and gave away their own. Rapidly, they learnt what worked and what did not and realised that practice, as in all things, makes for perfection. They were beautiful teenagers discovering the best thing in life.

  Having initiated the project, Claire kept the condom box on her side of the bed. She took great care carefully fitting the condoms for Roger, which pleased him immensely. They had agreed to spend four weeks on the farm. On the evening Claire produced her gift they had three weeks left. For the next twenty-one days they would need to use nearly five condoms a night if there were to be none to take back to London.

  ‘Quite challenging,’ observed Claire. ‘I suppose we could donate any left over to the farmer’s lover. She looks as if she could use them.’

  ‘No need, my love,’ Roger corrected her. ‘You haven’t factored in the weekends. There will be long, idle afternoons on Saturday and Sunday.’

  Roger, Claire and Paula

  By the time Roger met Paula they were both forty-something and wounded in different ways. This is the story of how it happened.

  After the long summer holiday at the end of school, the Buckinghamshire harvest and joyful sex with each other, Roger and Claire had returned to London and the excitement of ‘A’ level results and university offers. Roger had gone to medical school and six years later emerged as a junior doctor. During the 1970s the paternalism of the senior doctors on the wards, the gruelling rotas and endless hours, conspired to convince Roger that the only career available to him would be general practice. Life on the wards was humiliating and often insufferable.