Isle of Skye, Scotland
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
– Marcel Proust
– Marcel Proust
Ousted from the Army in June of
1963, I found work at once in the shipping department of Fairfax Bakery in the West
End of Winnipeg. Since Winnipeg busses stopped circulating at two in the
morning, I was able to take this job only because I owned a car, the very
one I'd shared with my friend John in the Army. I'd paid him for his share of it on leaving Shilo. It turned out that my hours of work in the bakery were seven in the evening to half past three in the morning, ideal for my purpose, since I wouldn't be free in the evenings to spend what money I made.
Fairfax supplied bread, cakes and buns to all the
Safeway supermarkets in Manitoba, so that we four shippers had to stack all the orders on trays during the night and load them onto two semi-trailers for
delivery to their different destinations in the morning. One of the four was a fellow called Bob from Liverpool, who talked to me a lot about England when he learned of my plan to travel there.
Another, Bill, a tall, thin, grey-haired middle-aged man with spectacles,
had a strange taste for plain lettuce sandwiches sprinkled with salt, I remember.
The third of the crew was a short
affable man with a thick German accent. The other two called him 'Horsy' and
ribbed him something terrible, but otherwise took no interest in him. I was too
young or too innocent or just too sensitive to take part in any ribbing that I
would not want to be visited upon myself. Also, I wanted to gain Horsy's
confidence, as I was curious about his past, which I once asked him about.
His proper name was Horst, he said, and he claimed to have served in the
Wehrmat on the Russian front during World War II, where he had seen, so he said, the lights of Moscow at night.
In those days it was said that
everyone remembered exactly where he was and what he was doing at the time when the
news of President Kennedy's assassination broke on the night of the
22nd of November 1963. In my case, I was down on my knees in my 'whites' and paper wedge cap
packing loaves of bread – Pollyanna, seven for a dollar, on special – into a
bakery tray when Bill came racing in from the lunchroom with news of the inconceivable announcement he'd just heard on the radio.
“What for?” I asked, flushing
with embarrassment.
“I like to blow a little,” he answered casually.
Blow a little?... blow what?... bubbles?...
Then the penny dropped. My tablemate was a queer!
But what was he doing
here – at my table?
In those days the question of homosexuality was everywhere suppressed. The idea was either amusing or disgusting. Were there really men that were attracted to other men?
Apparently there were, it was whispered and sniggered here and there, but
surely they belonged to some secret brotherhood or something, with their own
gathering places. I never dreamed for a minute they might frequent bars and
cafés in quest of sexual favours just like the rest of us!
Fortunately I'd finished my burger.
Fortunately I'd finished my burger.
“I’ve
got to go,” I babbled, jumping up from the table.
I
vacated the place in a daze and rushed up Main
Street head down to my car,
hoping the homo wasn’t dogging my steps. Swerving from the curb, a burst of
frenzied laughter escaped my lips, for I felt I’d just eluded some unutterable
peril!
Main Street, Winnipeg, 1962
As
my job at Fairfax
was an easy one, free from problems or pressure, and as I was able to gad about
town in my Chevrolet with a pretty girl at my side, I was quite happy with my
lot - despite my lack of any 'career' - so that my dream of visiting Europe
began to fade. In fact I'd stored that adventure safely in the future where it
wouldn't ruffle my present life.
Yes,
I was happy, but not completely, for gallivanting about town offered no prospect of
- ah - consummating the relationship with Suzanne, although I had made the
effort to - er - equip myself for the blissful union, since those were the days
before the advent of 'the pill'. But that episode had proved to be a bit
ticklish, despite my attempt to minimise my embarrassment at having to buy the
items I required from a pharmacist who would know precisely what I
wanted them for!
To
be sure, I'd done my utmost to soften the awkwardness of the affair by
selecting for the scene of its execution a fairly isolated drugstore just as night was
falling and choosing a moment when I saw that the place
was empty. Summoning the tiny particle of pluck I could muster in those days, I thrust open the door to an
ear-piercing jingle that I imagined got half the people of the street dashing
to their windows. Then I stepped into the fluorescently lit interior and
tiptoed gingerly to the counter.
Silence...
Then
a woman emerged from an adjoining room.
A woman!
I was not expecting a woman! I was expecting a man! Most
people who worked anywhere in those days were men.
"Ah, a five-cent stamp, please," I jabbered.
After
that encounter, I decided to suffer a lesser indignity, and ask my friend,
Willard, who seemed rather more adept in matters of sex, to get a packet for
me.
Now all I needed was an opportunity to use the contents. That came one day when my parents were out shopping. Suzanne was not easily persuaded to grant my request, for in those days sexual freedom was frowned upon, but in the end she consented, and I led her upstairs to the bedroom I shared with my brother.
I
sat her down on my bed and then sat beside her, almost trembling with
anticipation, for at last I was soon to realise every young man's dream: to
undress a pretty girl and smother her naked body with kisses. But how was a
clumsy lad to accomplish such a delicate task?
Luckily
I'd been given some tips when I'd gone to watch a film starring Robert Wagner and
Natalie Wood. I think it was 'The Longest Day', but anyway Robert had begun by
taking Natalie in his arms and kissing her. At that point she was already down
to her brassier, but never mind. Then he released her and she swung about and
came running past the camera with arms spread wide, her bra straps dangling either
side. Dam if Robert hadn't undone the thing while he was kissing her!
Unfortunately, what happened next, we didn't see. He just looked up with a sort
of knowing smile on his face and followed her as the scene faded.
Okay,
I would give it a go. I removed Suzanne's shoes first and then, encircling her
arms with mine, I kissed her. While I was doing so, I felt for and found the
zip of her shift with my right hand and tugged...
But the damned thing wouldn't come down, so I grasped the neck of the dress with my left hand and held it up while I yanked the zip down with my right. Now I withdrew a little and, trembling with excitement, drew the material down from her smooth shoulders. Then, releasing her arms from the sleeves, I settled her back on the bed and asked her to raise her body while I drew off her dress.
How
tempting she looked just lying there in nothing but her undies. I kissed her
once more to put her at ease, and then I raised her up to a sitting position to
follow the scene in the film. We embraced again while I felt for her bra strap.
I fumbled with it and tugged it this way, and tugged it that way, and tugged it
up, and tugged it down, and tugged it inside-out, but the damned thing would
not come undone! I just couldn't understand how Robert Wagner had managed the
task so adeptly. Had he been practising with his mother's washing? He'd done it
so calmly too, while here was I in a fever of anticipation.
At
that point I was forced to stop the kissing.
'Can
you undo it?' I asked.
She
undid it. With a sigh, I uncovered her tender girl's breasts and rosebud
nipples. Then I settled her back on the bed and drew down her panties.
And
then I was just seized by the flames of passion. God knows what Robert Wagner
would have thought of me now, for I was no longer able to maintain his smooth
assurance! While he seemed a man remarkably calm, confident and self-composed,
I was trembling with excitement. Shame on me! Why couldn't I act as impassively
as Wagner? A stack of Hollywood
films couldn't help me now. I was a lad lost in the landscape of a girl's body
and dizzy with the scenes he beheld there!
True,
I new what to do now well enough. That was the stuff of many a smutty
joke. But the actual mechanics of the matter were as mysterious to me as a
Japanese tea ceremony. More, the task of removing my own clothing proved to be
such a complicating distraction that it acted as a brake on my passion and
stole from me the capacity actually to unite with Suzanne. In short, my first
attempt at genuine lovemaking turned out to be a disaster, just as my
first attempt at kissing had been.
Why?
Well,
the hypocrisy of the age with regard to sexual questions was partly to blame.
At school, girls were taut elementary facts about childbearing, to persuade
them, I suppose, to avoid giving birth to unwanted babies. But boys were taught
nothing at all about sex or childbearing. They blundered into their first
sexual experiences with less preparation than a turkey cock.
But
still, most seemed to manage more successfully than me.
Again,
why?
My
suspicion is that I was fundamentally frightened of females. Of course the
first female you experience in life, and the one who has the greatest power
over you for a long time, is your mother. I think it was my experience of her
that caused me to believe unconsciously that females were creatures to
be feared.
I
record my feelings about her in a later post, but for now I
confine my remarks to her reaction when she uncovered a packet of safes in my
bedroom.
'On'. Note the word, with its subtle suggestion of victimisation. It
was a mark of my emotional dependence at the time that I felt obliged to answer
that impudent question.
“Nobody,”
I said anxiously. “I bought them just in case.” In case of what, I didn’t say.
“No, I’m not!” I lied.
She
wasn’t convinced, and I had to swear blind that not only had I not used them
with Suzanne, but that I had no intention of doing so. God! What rot you had to
talk in those days of decomposing Victorian morality.
At
the time, I took that merely as a thoughtless form of words to convey her
annoyance at what she suspected was ‘loose behaviour’. Not till two years later
did the full import of that warning dawn on me.
Anyway,
let all of that rest for now. I continue where I left off before this diversion
to the subject of a flawed sexual development. I was expressing content with my
new girlfriend, and how, as a result, I had put on 'hold' for the moment my
plan to visit Europe. However, that plan
came zooming back into focus one day when Suzanne told me that her father
was to be posted to a Canadian Army base in Germany
after the turn of the year.
Naturally
I was shattered to hear that, for it would mean the end of our relationship. Or
would it? My dream of seeing Europe suddenly seized me again. I told her I would visit her in Germany,
without much idea of how difficult that might prove to be and what would happen after that.
Now,
my acceptance of work in a bakery might suggest that I'd made an easy
return to Civvy Street, but time soon proved that the lures of soldierly life
were not yet quite dead in my head, for in the autumn I applied to join the
Provost militia regiment at McGregor Armouries in North Winnipeg. I was
convinced that the C.O. there would be pleased to profit from my soldierly
skills. After all, hadn't I had nine months training in the regular army? How
many militiamen could boast that? However, when the colonel finally fingered my
army course reports (which we dismissed officer cadets had been assured
were confidential) he refused to receive me into the regiment.
It
was just before this time, while I was with, but not yet officially in, the
Provost militia regiment, that I met an old friend called Sandy McClain, a militiaman
too, during a rest stop on the way to a Winnipeg militia exercise at Camp
Shilo, the scene of my recent regular army misadventure. We had never been
close friends, McClain and I, but strangely enough our acquaintanceship was notable
as being the longest of my life at that time, for we'd first met in kindergarten. He had a
dead-end job at Canada Packers in Winnipeg,
he told me, and I was astonished to learn that he, too, had an ambition to visit Europe. Like me, he had relatives in England.
We agreed then and there - somewhere by the side of Highway 1 - to make the
trip together, and keep in touch to formulate plans.
But
he had some odd ideas. At one of these meetings he told me he was going ‘beat’
to Europe.
“You know, Bermuda shorts and sweatshirt and all that.”
That
ridiculous species of garb was the latest American craze to sweep over the
border into Canada,
but I lacked the least impulse to join the great American herd. And in any case
I’d only lately discarded a uniform as a daily form of dress. Besides, males
with bare knees offended my working class instincts. It was effeminate to
display your knees. Anyway, I didn’t want to be ‘beat’. I didn’t want to be
anything. I just wanted to feel the pulse of life rising inside me again.
I
hoped my frosty response would deter him, for I refused to be seen on an
airplane with a fellow beside me displaying his bare knees. But in spite of
differences of taste, our idea of an adventure in Europe
evolved. We would fly to England and take jobs there to sustain a 'working
holiday' of about a year, and then depart for a hitch-hiking tour of 'the
Continent', as the greater part of Europe was called in those days, before
flying triumphantly back to Canada.
It
was a grand plan, but it is a question whether I would ever have taken a single
step towards its enactment if my girlfriend's father had not been posted to Germany.
And so it was that in January I drove down to the Canadian National Railway
station on Main Street to
say goodbye to Suzanne before she boarded the train that would steal her away
from me.
Canadian National Railway, Manitoba
I remember that Main Street looked uncommonly blurred in my windscreen as I pulled away from the station and headed for home. I like to think that what happened next was an example of what the great psychologist Carl Yung called 'synchronicity', for just then the radio in my car seized my spirit with the words and music of Roy Orbison's lovely song, 'Crying'.
'Then you said "so long".
Left
me standing all alone,
Alone
and Crying...'
These
were emphatically not crocodile tears, but nevertheless
honesty compels me to admit that they maybe contained just a tiny reptilian
tint, for one evening just a week or two later I was seated at the wheel of my
car, facing the screen of a drive-in movie, beside Judy Taylor, a girl I once
took to a school dance, but never summoned the nerve to kiss.
You
see, I had planned to use Suzanne’s absence to sample, as it were, a different girl
or two, for I hoped to learn by that means whether or not Suzanne
was the ‘right’ girl for me. Sadly I knew no other girls, apart from Judy, so I
asked her out, wondering, after the passage of several years, if she was still
capable of casting the same old spell. And what would she do, I mused, now that
I did have the nerve to kiss her?
Now she was seated close beside me, smartly dressed and neatly coiffured and
lipsticked for the occasion. You know what? I felt quite indifferent to her! It
seemed the magic that had dizzied my head in high school had just vanished in Suzanne’s wake. I failed to perceive even a trace of the feminine form I had
formerly adored. You could not say she was plain. No. Far from it. But the
beauty was mostly on the surface, so to speak, a careful product of make-up.
Also, she was
not at all given to talk, not at all sociable, and when I tried to slip my
arm around her shoulders. she pushed it away! Why in heaven's name join a fellow
in a car for the evening only to reject his attentions? Just accepting such an
invitation surely meant consent at least to a little kissing and cuddling?
Maybe I was not fated to kiss those sainted lips after all.
But I was
wrong about that. She consented to a kiss – to several kisses even – to as many
kisses as I liked in fact – but rigidly resisted any embrace. This really was
kissing like kids, but my protests about that fell on deaf ears. She was
determined, she said, to avoid what she called ‘consequences’, and constantly
kept me at bay. It was like spending the evening with a painted doll. I never
asked her out again.
My feelings
for Suzanne grew and glowed warmer as winter turned into spring, and the
expression of her feelings for me in her letters fuelled my fancy about our
coming reunion in Germany, for I'd
bought an airline ticket to fly to London in May.
‘I just can’t
believe we’ll be together in just 13 days,’ she wrote in her last letter to me
on the second of May. ‘All my love,’ the closing read, ‘as much as an 18 year
old female is capable of.’ That confession of feeling was followed by no less
than twenty-three printed kisses! How many times after that in my waking
dreams did we embrace once more – swirled in mists of distant lands! Far from
thrusting my arm from her shoulders, she would nestle instead against my breast
and gaze wistfully into my grateful face.
Oh, you
impassioned, romantic, deluded fool!
By that time, I had got a passport for the journey and on Saturday, 9th May 1964, McClain and I flew to London.
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