Major Martin
Ashley-Dwyer and his wife found out that their son Stephen was gay when he took
them to dinner on their anniversary. He told them that he had a boyfriend.
There was a slight pause, the Major looked sharply at Stephen, but Julie took
it in her stride. Mainly because she was not quite sure what Stephen was on
about.
Stephen was
somewhat relieved and surprised. He’d not really expected them to be so
open-minded about it. Adult, if you like. But thank God they didn’t ask any
embarrassing questions.
The Major simply
changed the subject. Back to rugby, the forthcoming Olympic Games, and what
he’d heard on the army grapevine was happening in Afghanistan. And Iraq. And
how both situations would have been sorted out long ago if it wasn’t for the
likes of the BBC and The Guardian.
Stephen’s mother
was soon back to rabbiting on about the forthcoming weekend trip to Florence
she’d managed to talk the Major into. Where the Fortesques had had such a good
time. Brimming with renaissance marvels, is what Mrs Fortesque had said.
Florence was oh, so, so charming. Her son’s sexuality was out of sight and
mind, because it had never really been in her field of vision. Or
understanding.
But frankly,
Major Ashley-Dwyer was just a little confused. Even though it was his job, in a
way. Because he was one of those grey background army officers who’s job it was
to develop guidelines. And although the subject had come up fairly often at
meetings, the Major had always shied away from the issue. He’d done his best to
avoid getting involved in any discussions on official policy regarding… well,
that testy subject. He didn’t even like to use the word. And he’d trained
himself never to think about that kind of soldier. As far as the Major was
concerned they just didn’t exist. There was no such thing in the army. If there
was, what would happen in a battle situation? With everyone under pressure. No,
no, perish the thought. It was simply not on.
In order to
protect and entrench his point of view, he never read newspaper articles on the
subject, and he avoided books and films that covered the theme. And that event,
that embarrassing memory that came back to haunt him from time to time, that
flashback from so long ago, when he was still at school…? Well, in the end,
nothing had really happened anyway, had it now? So the details of the event had
long been expunged from his mind.
As far as the
Major was concerned, it wasn’t an issue in the army. Nor was he going to let it
become a matter of contention with his son.
Stephen’s mother
was in the same boat. But for different reasons. She was hardly aware that the
condition existed. She came from a religious family and she’d gone to a middle
of the range private boarding school, where the subject of reproduction had
never been discussed. Well, yes, certain bits and pieces of human anatomy and
how they occasionally fitted together for breeding purposes had been covered in
biology, but the teacher, red faced behind her text book, was always
deliberately unspecific about human beings.
To be fair, her
father hadn’t entirely avoided the subject. After all, he’d occasionally
referred to the “birds and the bees”, and made evasive “you’ll find out about
that one day” remarks from time to time. And of course Julie had learned to
laugh at jokes about pansys, men who wore pink jumpers and liked the opera or
the ballet, or kept King Charles spaniels, even though she never quite knew
what was funny about them.
When Stephen came
along, it was somewhat of a surprise to all concerned. But it only happened
once. And that was it. So Stephen became an only child or a one family with one
kid statistic.
But all this is
not to say they were not a happy household. Screened from army life in an
off-base house in a leafy green suburb, what Julie missed through having almost
no friends and studiously avoiding the neighbours, was more than made up for by
Stephen. He had no friends either, to speak of, not even at primary school. And
they were both entirely relaxed with the situation.
Neither Julie nor
Stephen knew what the Major did in the army. He very rarely wore his uniform,
and they’d hardly have been aware of his role had it not been for the odd
occasions when a staff car arrived to drive him away to some meeting or other.
But he did have a
gun. Stephen had found it one day when the Major and Julie were both out and he
was rooting about amongst their private things. It had quite frightened him,
it’s smooth metallic feel, the lustrous sheen and unique smell. He quickly put
it back in the holster and replaced it behind the piles of document boxes on
the top shelf of a cupboard in the Major’s office.
The boarding
school where Stephen was eventually sent on the insistance of the Major and
against his mother’s and his own best instincts proved to be an ongoing
nightmare. From the first day he concentrated on loathing, detesting and
rejecting everyone, from the masters and the matron at the top of the insidious
institution to the youngest new arrival. And he kept at it assidusuoly
throughout his time in what he saw as pergatory.
He lived for the
end of term and the joy of reunion with his mother was almost palpable when he
came back home for his holidays, and if the Major was away, as he often was,
Stephen saw this as a bonus.
When Stephen was
away at school, Julie deliberately avoided the usual smart suburb ladies
preoccupations. She didn’t play bridge or tennis, she didn’t go to tea or on
walks with the other women in the rather charming street or around the blocks
of ostentatious houses. No charity work either.
So how did she
wile away the hours? Well, she read a lot. But she had a far from catholic
taste. She found the classic English reads difficult. Jane Austin, Elliot and
the Brontes were long, bland and, eventually, boring. So were most others of
that ilk and era. And to be honest, she didn’t really understand what the
female protagonists or heroines were on about.
Maughm was old
fashioned and long winded, Green she thought always managed to look on the
bleak side of every subject, and she decided that Evelyn Waugh was just a
jumped up, right wing Colonial Blimp masquerading as an author.
She found Dickens
far too long and equally depressing. And why did he always have to choose such
seedy characters?
Shakespeare might
as well have been written in a code she didn’t understand. The Bard was simply
beyond her. She was convinced, in fact, that no one ever read either his poetry
or the plays – or watched them on television for that matter. If they said they
did, they were telling fibs, she told herself.
Modern writers
like Mcartney, Coetzee and Amis were too violent and the dialogue too rude,
even though she always skipped any pages that looked as if they were leading
towards some kind of sexual liaison.
Which left the
odd feel-good movie, a few mindless TV sitcoms and a multitude of magazines
which she devoured insatiably. And from them she gleaned everything there was
to know about film, TV and pop stars, sports celebrities, royal families and
what the latest fad was to cure memory loss, how to stop ageing and suicide,
and how to prevent many different kinds of cancer with weird and wonderful
concoctions or mind over matter. Magazines were her life.
Julie didn’t know
much about computers either. Although she did send the occasional email, she always
managed to forget to ever look in her inbox for replies.
Stephen
eventually moved on to a well known university where his social horizons seemed
to expand and he moved in a circle of, Julie thought, rather well brought up
young people. So, although she was seeing less and less of her son, she was
pleased with this development.
During one of his
holidays, Stephen decided and then insisted she should try getting used to the
computer. ‘I’m not suggesting you write a book, or anything like that, but what
about gardening? Or cooking? Or genioligy? Why not try and find out all about
your parents parents, and their parents before them?’
‘Oh, darling,
that sounds very nice, but you know I’m a dinosaur with technology.’
‘Nonsence Mum.
I’ll show you.’
He did and they
spent hours in the Major’s office using the desktop. But all to no avail. Julie
and computers were simply not compatible and she soon gave up trying.
Throughout his
life the Major had been irritated by bleeding heart journalists who used every
oportunity, usually at the smart end of the magazine market, to include in
their articles that tired, old, hackneyed joke, that ‘military intelligence is
an oxymoron’. He’d looked the word up and used it from time to time. Because he
felt there were some very
intelligent officers in the army. Obstructed by red tape, perhaps. Or sometimes
prevented from instituting ideas that would bring about beneficial reforms. And
stifled by senoriority from establishing ideas that would save money and
streamline policies. But intelligent just the same.
In a rare
altercation with Stephen, the Major was surprised to discover that he knew what
it meant. They’d been arguing about the quality of army leadership, when the
Major was stunned to hear his own son agree with the concept behind the word
he’d recently looked up.
‘Look, dad, if
truth be told, none of your peers is capable of being the chairman of MENSA -
or president of the Crossword Solving Society either. Not many Top Brass are.
That’s why they’re in the army and not running some huge multilateral
corporation or removing carcinogenic cyst from a patient’s pons, or designing
cutting edge electron microscopes.’ High grade debate was not a feature of
either side of the argument, and after a while, the Major just left the room,
telling himself that it was a pity that so much taxpayers money was wasted on
propagating such stupid left-wing ideas amongst undergraduates.
When he was on an
overseas mission, the Major always phoned Julie every few days. ‘Oh yes, we’re
fine, the weather’s quite good, and everything’s OK at this end.’
She listened to
the Major for a while. ‘Yes, he’s here, well, not right now, he’s gone out
tonight with some of his university friends.’
She paused while
the Major was talking. ‘Yes, I did meet them. They came in for him. A very nice
group they seemed. A boy and two girls. The boy has his driving liscence.’
She stopped to
allow the Major to say something. ‘Well, I must say darling, I don’t know why
you worry about it. And I don’t really know what all this gay business is, but
whatever it means, maybe he’s decided not to be it.’
They spoke for a
while longer and the Major said he’d phone again in a few days time.
Julie went into
the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. She had decided she was going to get
to the bottom of this. She took her cup into the Major's office and turned on
the computer.
She thought about
what Stephen had told her and followed his point by point instructions. Getting
onto the internet was as easy as she remembered. Now, as he said, it's very
important to ask the right question. Keywords that’s it. She remembered the
examples he'd given. Quite humerous really.
”Mum, just type
in what you think is logical. Like if you want to find out something about
gardening, don't just put in gardening. That's far too broad. You must narrow
your search. Try something like ‘When do I prune climbing roses?’ or ‘How to
make icecream for Stephen,’ or whatever you’re looking for.”
Julie looked out
of the window. She thought about what she wanted to ask for quite a while. And
then, 'Yes, that should do,' she said out loud.
Although she
wasn’t aware of it she was on the edge of a precipice. For people like herself,
protected from the real world and mainstream by the isolated world of army wife
and wealthy lifestyle, she’d arrived at a dark and dangerous place. And she was
about to make a fatal mistake. One that would affect their lives forever.
She hesitated for
a moment and then she typed the word ‘gay’ into the box. She looked at
the emotive word on her screen. She thought for a while and then she added ‘boys’.
Julie was not aware
that Stephen
had long ago deactivated the safe search filter on what he thought of as his
computer. When he read the warning, ‘Many users prefer not to have adult
content included in their search results,’ he’d thought it offensive. ‘Petty
censorship forced on us by do-gooders.’ So he set the machine’s preferences to
not block anything. Even if it thought the material was not safe for adults
to view.
The two words
stood together
into
the search box like naked twins. Julie hit the return key and was confronted
with a list of hundreds of thousands of websites to choose from.
As the first page
of the first site opened on her screen she saw several brilliantly lit and
graphically explicit photographs. When she realized what the subjects in the
pictures were doing, her mind went numb. Then Julie’s world fell off the edge
into a gaping black abyss. There was only one way out from this deep dark
place.
A neighbour
phoned the emergency line early the next morning. She told the operator, rather
diffidently, that she thought she’d heard an unusual sound coming from next
door. A loud bang in the night. No, she couldn’t be absolutely sure, she said.
But the woman was
right. She had heard a noise. As soon as they got into the room, the paramedics
both noticed the colourful and intricate pattern on the wall behind Julie’s
head. With her mind numb with shock from the searing effect of the photographs
she’d seen on the internet, Julie had found the Major’s service revolver.
She leaned
against the study wall. She moved the slide mechanism which eased a cartridge
into the firing chamber. She placed the barrel in her mouth. She pushed the
metal up against her soft palette. She pulled the trigger. The explosion shot
the projectile up through her skull and blew a hole in the back of her head
making a gaping exit wound and taking most of her brain with it to make that
gaudy design on the Major’s study wall.
***
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