The Missing Years - Part 2

So, after several months in England, I finally picked up a telephone and rang my mother.

It had taken me a while to arrive at this point because I'd been so caught up in meeting members of my father's family. More to the point, his family was so negative about my desertion of my father and so negative in their comments about my mother that I grew incredibly conflicted about what was the "right" thing to do. Had I spoken of the nightmare of sexual abuse I had experienced whilst in my father's care, I doubt anyone in his family would have wanted to hear, let alone attempt to understand.

My mother's voice on the phone had a distinctive Kentish burr. This was a woman who had rarely moved far beyond her home town of Tunbridge Wells and its outlying villages, so the accent was no shock to me. Her anger, however - an anger immediately expressed - was a huge shock. I was castigated for having taken so long to ring. Apparently, she and her third husband had agreed that I could come and live with them. Apparently she had been expecting me to call or visit the moment my ship had docked. Worst of all, though, in the interval between my arrival in England and this telephone call, my grandfather had died and I hadn't had the decency to turn up for his funeral.

Romantic fool that I was - and still am to this day - I had expected a conversation filled with tenderness, tears and longing. I had expected, for the first time in my life, to call someone "Mum". I was ill-equipped to deal with this sudden, harsh reality. I didn't even know my grandfather had died but I still felt guilty. I have no recollection of what, if anything, I managed to say to her. What I can remember is her summation of the situation. It went along the lines of "You're happy staying with your father's family. Your father has obviously taken good care of you all these years. It's best we just leave things lie - you get on with your wonderful life and we'll continue as the same family unit we were before you unexpectedly surfaced." I was not angry. I was too numb to feel anything really. When relatives asked me how the call had gone, what was happening next, I pretended that I'd simply changed my mind and would not be going to meet my mother after all.

Loyalty is such a weird thing. It can lead to so much suppressed grief and anxiety. There I was being loyal to Gordon by never mentioning the unspeakable horror that came my way under his care. And there I was again, being loyal to a mother I'd never known because I did not want to provide fresh ammunition for her many detractors, more reasons for them to think ill of her. It seems I had compassion for everyone on the planet except, perhaps, myself. If you're treated badly enough for long enough, you cease to expect kindness or compassion in others. It's not that you don't trust them - it's more that you dare not expect anything beyond civility and ordinary, everyday conversation. No-one has ever been interested in your heart. That's a given. So the love in your heart becomes a thing you give to everyone else, gladly, without reservation and with no expectation of ever receiving love in return. You just hope to please people. It's an exhausting state of being but, if you're lucky, you find the resilience to soldier on and you develop a steely resolve to eventually reach happiness by dint of your own labours.

Now is as good a time as any to relate what I did manage to discover about my parents whilst in England.

My mother's first husband was a pilot in World War II. He was shot down and reported missing in action in 1942. My mother was pregnant at the time. By the time word came that she was officially a war widow, my mother had given birth to my half-sister, Christine. Meanwhile, my father Gordon and three of his brothers were serving in the armed forces in Burma and other parts of the globe. They all emerged from the war physically unscathed.

I don't know how my parents met. The one half-way decent Aunt I had on my father's side did tell me that the entire family was amazed when Gordon suddenly acquired a fiancee in the early 50's. He'd never been known to have a girlfriend before. Presumably it never occurred to them that he might be gay or bisexual. In any case, such a thing would have been anathema to their narrow lives and it was probably easier to pretend Gordon was "normal" than accept that he was an "abomination in God's eyes". If I sound cynical it is because hindsight is always 20/20. I can't really be sure what anyone knew or preferred not to know all those years ago.

After a very long engagement the pair married and, around a year later, I was born. Six months later they were before the divorce courts on account of my mother's adultery. My father was awarded custody - after all, my mother was a "scarlet woman" and she was already pregnant with another man's child. I've no idea when she and Harry married but it was well after the birth of my "replacement", my half-brother John. Did Gordon actually fight for custody of me? Was he a precursor of today's gay couples who have children or adopt in order to have a family unit? I have no idea. Nor do I know who actually cared for me as a baby and as a toddler - presumably one of my father's sisters or perhaps I was placed in a home for a while. I only know that Gordon took me to Australia to live when I was around three years old and, after that, I don't need other people's recollections in order to know what became of me.

So that's how my grand re-union expedition went. Not well. But I had discovered girls of course and I was very busy having sex with them. After a big shoot-out over my having gone missing for an entire weekend and thus making my relatives "sick with worry", I moved out. There were no expressions of regret on either side. Realistically, there was no way I could ever have just slotted into family life as if I'd always been a family member. I was happy to strike out alone.

I went to stay at a girlfriend's house for a few days. Her name was Rachel. She and her parents lived on the top floor of a rather grand house in Holland Park. Her father was a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra and her mother was Headmistress of a private girls' school. Now, although I was living there, my presence had to be kept secret from Rachel's parents. The roofline of the house contained a great many gables. Rachel's bedroom door was lockable and her walk-in robe, built into one of the gables, was also lockable. I always arrived and left while her parents were out. We shared a single bed at night but, each morning, while Rachel had breakfast and performed her ablutions, her bedroom door was left unlocked and I was hidden in the walk-in robe. Toileting was a problem. I couldn't just emerge at any old hour to take a leak, so I had an old coffee jar in the wardrobe to piss in. Anything grander than a leak could only occur once we had the house to ourselves! Food was a problem and noise was an absolute no-no once her parents were home. Rachel was not a screamer, however. Nor am I. So we managed to fuck quietly but often.

It was a crazy period in my life and it was around here that I discovered a love of the ridiculous that has been so much a part of my personality ever since. If living secretly in someone's wardrobe and pissing into a jar isn't ridiculous enough for you, maybe you should have watched me the first time I ever went to buy condoms. I was very shy and awkward about the process. Rachel led me to a succession of nearby chemist shops and shooed me inside to do the deed, but I kept emerging with just a toothbrush or some toothpaste. Over time we acquired several toothbrushes and plenty of toothpaste but still no condoms. In the end I finally found a chemist shop where a guy was serving and Rachel and I were enabled to have safe sex with gleaming white smiles!

It took about a week for Gordon to arrange things so that an increased monthly allowance landed in my account at the Twickenham branch of Barclays Bank. After that I was able to rent a bedsit on Richmond Hill and still have enough left over to lead my idea of a high life. I did like Rachel very much but I eventually extended my sphere of operations to include her best friends, Andrea and Madeleine. Not very gentlemanly, I agree, but I was very young and had accidentally perfected an innocent and angelic look that many girls found irresistible.

And, you know, I suspect I may have fucked Andrea and Madeleine just to be polite! It didn't seem fair that Rachel should get so much of me while they received nothing.

That's chivalry for you. An ability to rise to any occasion!

Comments

Polite fucking? My you are a true gentleman! lol

I have much to say.... I need to time to think about it. Much love to you!
 
Extraordinary, and delightful. And, of course, very sad. Not connecting with the person you could all "Mum" was certainly hurtful and confusing. That the entire family should have been so poor at sharing communications would be unbelievable were my own family not similar.

Now we know where your gentlemanly generosity with your cock developed. Something you've preserved. Nice trait!
 
it would seem to many people the rejection from your mother and her family would be heartbreaking.
i admire your ability even at that tender age to assess the situation and move on.
i don't mean to sound dismissive. i am nothing of the sort.
but i fully understand such a family dynamic of being unwanted, but tolerated.
your resourcefullness is remarkable. that is a happy thing that you were able to lodge in Rachel's walk-in robe.
lol! that is great.
 
Talk about being handed lemons and making lemonade! Ahh to be that young again, and that carefree. With a heavy load to bear as well. Very compelling!
 
<Quote:I did like Rachel very much but I eventually extended my sphere of operations to include her best friends, Andrea and Madeleine. Not very gentlemanly, I agree, but I was very young and had accidentally perfected an innocent and angelic look that many girls found irresistible.Quote>
I am so glad after the sad disappointment of your mom that you did have fun in England. Rachel must of been beautiful and a great at sex for one to live in a walk-in robe.
 

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