Confessions of a Fairy's Daughter Read online

  It wasn’t long before we were living together. We were both working hard in our jobs and I was more productive than I had been for months. Our evening recreation was simple, usually a meal together and talk, but what wonderful, intimate talk it was. We talked a lot about our pasts—the pleasures, the frustrations, the hurts. My friend has been gay all his adult life and in this respect our two lives have been very different. To me he seemed much more sophisticated, much better able to deal with the vagaries of gay life than I; but I learned that we nevertheless shared many of the same vulnerabilities and I loved him the more for that. This communion, intertwined with the physical and sexual, allowed me to experience for the first time in my life the intimacy which I had always imagined to be part of marriage; but I had found it at last with another man.

  We largely avoided talking about the future. I think we both probably started off thinking that this would be a pleasant affair for two men away from home, although the first night we met, my friend said he knew we were both going to be an important part of each other’s lives for a long time. Soon we were each making chance remarks which revealed we were falling in love. But I was due to leave the country for a few months. Besides, I was married, my friend was still involved in a rocky relationship with a man in his home city, and, within a few months, we would both be living and working 400 miles apart. On the two brief occasions when we allowed the future to cast its shadow on present laughter, I said I was prepared to accept the consequences of our love, but my friend, having asked the question, warned about making assumptions for the future.

  In our last few days together, we were closer than ever. I left for my trip abroad with great apprehensions, but consoled myself with the thought that if our love could not survive a two-month absence, then it was not the sort of relationship I wanted anyway.

  Life is a continuum. None of our stories will have an end until the day we die. Certainly I cannot now come to any conclusions about mine. On returning home from my trip, I realized even more how much I was in love. I had missed my friend dreadfully, but he was no longer anxious to continue the relationship as it had been before. He had suffered some traumatic changes in his own life, and whether his new coolness towards me was a temporary phase or a permanent change, I could not tell for certain, though I feared the worst. I became very depressed and confused. This relationship that had seemed so special just a few months before—had it been, really, only a passing affair? Was this an aspect of gay life that one had to toughen oneself for?—like the impersonal, detached, fast sex of the baths—except that it lasts a bit longer? But I don’t want to be tough and cast off lovers like last season’s trendy trousers.

  I still desperately want that lasting, intimate relationship with a man of similar interests, age and education, but I have become intensely weary of the typically gay hunt, the seemingly endless visual examination and pursuit of men with whom one finds subsequently one had virtually nothing in common—though it is perhaps some consolation that this abortive discovery is frequently postponed until the breakfast table. In any case, I strongly suspect that the sort of men I want to meet have given up long ago on the classic gay introduction grounds. Indeed they are probably happily at home with their lovers, which is even more disturbing. But I am also afraid of getting so involved again, knowing the pain that came after just two short months. My friend used to talk about his scar tissue, and I wonder if there is something self-destructive about gay life which threatens to make emotional cripples of so many of us. Are gay men their own worst enemies?

  My friend says he sees us now as being “very good friends.” Except for the occasional short kiss that doesn’t seem to be very much of an improvement on those platonic adolescent friendships of twenty-five years ago. On the home front, I have attempted to keep my tears to myself, though I suspect my wife has deduced much of what has taken place in my love life, and we avoid talking about what is important—not much progress there either.

  Handwritten draft of an unfinished letter from my father to his brother, undated (probably written in the fall of 1980)

  First of all, I want to thank you very much for helping out Anne when she got in touch with you last month. I know it came as a shock to you to hear that your brother is homosexual, but I think she was right to go to you.

  I had a letter from Anne’s lawyer last week that brought everything out in the open and was really a great relief for both of us. Anne has been incredibly calm and understanding. I always knew she was a wonderful person, but never more than now. We are proceeding with a separation agreement and are looking at the possibility of my staying here three nights a week in the hope that this will give me continuing contact with her and the kids—something we both want. Please be assured that I have never had any intention of running out on my obligations here as, I guess, Anne feared when she first learned of my other attachments.

  My life has been very disoriented and difficult over the last two years or more and especially the last few months. I really don’t expect you to agree with what I have done, but I’m sure you must wonder why this has happened to a member of your family. Maybe it will help a bit if you read the attached “story.” I wrote it for a support group I am in. In it, I tried to look back over my life as honestly as I could and simply set down how it is that I am where I am. I found it all very painful, but the experience was probably good therapy. Maybe it will help you at least to understand, but maybe not.

  I have been very worried about what I was going to say to Dot. Anne says you have already spoken to her. I would rather have decided myself how to tackle that one—but I would like to know whether you have discussed it with her.

  I am genuinely sorry for all the distress I am causing everyone—including myself. Because of the disappointments over the last few months, which you can read about in my “story,” I wonder if this “gay life” isn’t a dead end for me. I often wish there was such a thing as a “straight” pill—I would have attempted to swallow the whole bottle. Still, I guess we all have to accept who we are and what we are and hope that the people we love can do the same. I do hope very much that your harsh judgement of me can be softened as time goes by. If it were not for Anne and a few close friends who have stood by me and consoled me, I’m sure I would feel very desperate.

  Handwritten draft of a letter from my father to Char Crane, one of his oldest friends, and her husband, 1980

  Christmas Eve—

  Dear Char and Graham—

  I have been late sending my Christmas greetings to you because I was not sure how to phrase them. I could start by saying that I feel a whole lot better about the world and my life in it than when I saw you early last summer.

  I have never felt as desperate or dejected as I did then and that’s why I went to see you. We are such old friends and I had always felt that no matter what the problem was, I could discuss it with you both. In fact, do you remember, Char, that years ago—I’m not sure when—you assured me that I could always count on you in that way?

  Our meeting last spring was a pretty emotional one—not surprisingly, I suppose. I was hurt by some of the things you said and you were upset by what I had to relate. Six months have passed since then and neither of us has got in touch with the other. Have you wondered how I have been getting along? I guess I have learned that ultimately one has to rely on oneself to tackle life’s problems and mysteries and to be thankful that, even in times of the blackest despair, one finds, somewhere within, resources to draw on, to come out and face the day again with confidence and joy in being alive and being oneself.

  As I think about where I am now and where I go from here, I keep coming back to three very basic facts about myself—I am a husband, I am a father and I am a homosexual. The last named is the attribute of longest standing, though it is also the one which I have had the greatest difficulty in accepting. Perhaps if I had been more honest with myself twenty or twenty-five years ago, I would not now be attempting to reconcile the apparently conflicting responsibi
lities that flow from each. On the other hand, I would not have known the love of four people who are all so tremendously important to me now.

  Sometimes I wonder why all of this has happened to me, but I know there is no point in speculating about hypothetical pasts, only about where to go from here. I would like to be a good husband, a good father and a good homosexual. It would be a lot easier to be the first two without being the third and there have been times when I have longed for some magical pill or drastic operation that would relieve me of the necessity of attempting to be a good homosexual. But even assuming it was possible, I know that I would be copping out on other homosexuals, especially homosexual fathers. We all have to deal with rejection and misunderstanding by family and friends, but the more that each of us fights his own battles against prejudices, the less torment there should be for those who come after us.

  My brother has told his son that my parents would roll over in their graves if they knew about me. We can each draw whatever inspiration we wish from the memories of our parents. I prefer to remember my father as a man whose politics were very much motivated by the concern he felt for the underprivileged of this world—both he and my mother having experienced considerable hardship in their pasts. Their children have not known economic hardship, but one of them now knows about intolerance and injustice first-hand. I would not expect my parents to have made my cause their cause, but I would like to think that they could understand why I must accept the challenge which lies before all gay people today.

  I don’t want to be ashamed of being gay; I don’t want my wife to be ashamed of being married to a gay man and I don’t want my children to be ashamed of having a gay father. It will be a long slow process, but I know that this is the only way in which I can find peace within myself.

  As I sat in church this afternoon pondering the ancient message of Christmas, I realized that I did want to write to you in the spirit of love and charity and to say that I still want your help and friendship. And even if you can never quite accept what I am, perhaps it will be that much easier when, in the future, someone else whom you love tells you that he or she is homosexual and asks for your help and understanding.

  Thank you very much for the help you have given Anne. Even if in different ways, she needs support as much as I do.

  Endnote

  The Christmas Eve letter was the final document in The Box. My father stopped keeping a journal; once his story had been told, he no longer felt the need. The Box sat in my father’s office for a decade, was eventually moved to the basement, and it remained unopened for more than thirty years.

  Four months after he wrote the Christmas Eve letter, my father met Lance, his partner of thirty-one years. And counting.

  * Directions: a publication for Canadian gay men

  * The Globe and Mail, March 30, 1978

  * My mother became ill shortly after they were married, eventually having both her gall bladder and appendix removed.

  * On a trip to New York when my father was twenty-one, he was waiting for friends in a bar when he got into conversation with a man who invited him to a place “where men danced with other men.” My father remembers being simultaneously excited and terrified. He told the man he was waiting for friends and the man moved on, but my father never forgot the incident.

  * “Family week” at Camp Ahmek in Algonquin Park

  † My father first met John Snell when they were both counsellors-in-training at Camp Ahmek. John was, in my father’s recollection, “the first guy I had ever met who was unashamedly interested in the arts, but not a weirdo.” They are still good friends today.

  * A showcase sponsored by the Ontario Arts Council to give young musicians the opportunity to perform before representatives of arts organizations that might engage them. My father was representing Town & Gown, a classical concert series he organized in Peterborough.

  * A dear friend of my father’s, Arthur was a professor of English and drama, and an inspiring and influential figure to many of his students, among them Michael Ondaatje, who credits Arthur as being the person who first encouraged him to consider dedicating himself to writing.

  * Arthur and his wife had two children.

  * At the time, Richard Monette was a well-known Canadian actor and director; he would later become known for his fourteen-season tenure as artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada (1994–2007).

  * Hosanna by Michel Tremblay features a flamboyant transvestite in the title role, one of the first openly gay characters in Canadian theatre.

  * Dot’s daughter, my father’s niece; my father had yet to tell them that he was gay.

  † my mother’s family

  * friends of my parents in Peterborough

  * Newly elected mayor John Sewell attended a Free the Press rally for Body Politic after it had been charged with using the mail to distribute “immoral, indecent or scurrilous” material; it was later found not guilty. Mayor Sewell made a speech at the rally in which he called for the legal protection of gays.

  * a gay friend and colleague from Trent University; later a roommate in Toronto

  * a history of the Liberal Party of Canada

  * St. Andrew’s College, where my brother Paul did one (unhappy) year of high school

  * the eponymous protagonist in the novel by John Fowles

  A Marriage Requiem

  I. Kyrie

  II. Dies Irae

  III. Sanctus

  IV. Pie Jesu

  V. Lux Aeterna

  VI. Libera Me

  I. Kyrie

  At age twenty-nine, I went to live with my mother.

  It had been twelve years since I’d fled Peterborough and I had spent the time riding inspirations and whims around the world. Trudging homeward only for occasional visits, I would feel a haughty curl forming on my lip the moment I veered off the highway onto familiar ground. I had spent years quietly despising the place and my history there, unaware that until we make peace with our homes, we can never quite make peace with ourselves.

  After spinning across continents, through innumerable borders and languages, what finally propelled me back home was nothing more exotic than heartbreak, that sensation of a quilled wreckage in my body. By the time I returned to “mend my heart for a while,” my mother was living on a farm several miles out of town to which she and Mel had moved and where he had died of a sickness in his bones.

  And so my mother was newly widowed after thirteen years of marriage; I, freshly severed from love. It was a beautiful pairing at an unusual time of life, and we were a good match for each other. The first night we sat out under a shatter of stars, back to back, holding each other up as we talked.

  As a young girl, I had suffered asthma, a self-suffocation that is difficult to describe—more difficult still to endure. If it got serious when my mother was out, I would curl up on the floor and prop myself up with pillows, wheezing and gasping until she got home. While my dad was there, sympathetic and caring, hers was the comfort that allowed me to relax enough that the air could find me. The same was true at twenty-nine, with a constricted heart instead of lungs.

  My mom lived with two greyhounds, both rescued from southern racetracks, their faces and bodies pulled into the permanent shape of wind. There were also two blind and bedraggled Bichon Frisés, and I added to the household a cat I’d found the day my heart became imprinted with the tread of my lover’s indifferent shoe.

  I had been emptying myself of our common-law marriage, raggedly packing the last of my boxes into my car, when I heard a kitten squeaking in the alley. It was alone, a creature smaller than my hand, eyes blossoming with pus—dead if I did not pick it up. I tucked it into my coat pocket, put the final few boxes in the car, and blew a kiss to my old life. Then I sped to a friend’s house, where I spent the evening sobbing and drizzling drops of camomile across the kitten’s swollen eyes. It was so fragile, I remember thinking as I sat in that chilled hollow Montreal kitchen, that I could easily have closed its thr
oat with my thumb. That night the kitten slept on my pillow, rooting through my hair, its thimble lips desperate to suckle my scalp and the quiet cove behind my ears. If anything got me through that first pain-soaked, lonely night, it was that begging of one life for another.

  At dawn, I put the kitten in a box and pulled out of town, leaving trailings of myself along the streets and neighbourhoods that had become—briefly—my home. On the highway back to Ontario, I let my foot fall heavy, imagining the ease with which I could twitch myself into oncoming traffic and leave my heart scattered on the road. When I arrived at my mother’s farm, I got out of the car and lay down fully clothed in the creek next to the house. As I pressed into its pebble-bed cradle, feeling liquid winter purling against my ears and a cold so intense it pounded through my bones, I asked the water to find mercy enough to swallow me.

  Then came my mother’s voice, calling out from the cedar twig bridge that arched over the water: “Wouldn’t you prefer a warm bath?” She was smiling with the kitten rescued from the car and tucked into the front of her jacket, his opal eyes blinking out tentatively. The three of us taking in the peculiar shape of our new lives.

  II. Dies Irae

  In the years since her second marriage, my mother and I had been both distant and close, caring for each other from opposite ends of the globe, through letters and family occasions. We had never really talked about my father except in practical terms—Christmas Day is with Dad this year, so we’ll see you on Boxing Day—and aside from one laughter-filled backpacking trip through Sicily together when I was twenty-one, my mother and I had never had time on our own to pull ourselves back through family history and sort it all out.

  Until time was all we had. And a farm. Some animals to care for. Silence. And two raw hearts swollen with pain.