Mourning queens

"It's more than an issue; this is our lives we're fighting for."

Pat was a friend of my Aunt Bette’s (who wasn’t my aunt but who owned a copy of the 1961 single Hole In The Bucket), and Pat was gay. He sold Vauxhall cars in the east end of Glasgow and ran Maryhill Conservative Club — if ever there was a quest in vain. He was equipped with a gaydar that homed in on me at an early stage, particularly after I’d donned a hat worthy of Julie Christie in Darling at a Conservative Club jumble sale one Saturday morning and gaily skipped a step or two, as if I was off to Mairi’s Wedding.

He was sedate (as, a school friend once confided in me, was I), and some time later I was to find myself ensconced in his flat with a few of his friends, just after Hogmanay celebrations that he’d generously hosted — over two days (the norm north o’ the border). Mild-mannered in company, I reckon he was a vulture in the showroom. It was Vauxhall’s high period, in the mid-80s (though he didn’t rate the Astra). By some quirk of fortune (I really cannot recall how), the conversation turned to the question of being gay. He’d been it all of his life and I was just realising that I was it too.

I’d already booked what I regarded as huge strides in the self-confidence game, having progressed from parking my car at the back of the old Sheriff Court, three blocks from Glasgow’s Court Bar, to blithely stationing it at the door to the place (the Court, that is, not the court). I’d arrived. At the door to the Court Bar, at least.

But I was still rather unsure about how to proceed — which was going in, the next step after coming out. Pat was the man to ask. And so, ask I did. In true Pride fashion, used by now to ebullient figures prancing half-naked down sober city streets, festooned with rainbow flags and whistles (of which, more anon), I stolidly proclaimed to the assembled doyens of gaydom that I would never deny my sexuality to anyone. In the 1980s, you could be anything you wanted to be. And, even though I didn’t want to be gay (I simply am it), my generation, contrary to those preceding it, had the ability (whatever that means) without recrimination to say so (whether wanting or being). Or so I thought.

Thereupon, Pat responded with an interesting reply: “I would deny it.” I can’t remember the exact year, I think it’d be 1985, but, for those who vaunt English progressiveness in its volte-face of decriminalising homosexuality in 1967, and hang their heads in shame at having sent Alan Turing to his suicide (or was it effectively his murder?), age 41 in 1954, it might be noted that the crime of unnatural relations with another man wasn’t struck from the statute book of Scotland until 1981.

Pat’s stance was perhaps understandable, though, it transpired, fear of prosecution — by then in any event remote in the extreme — was not the reason for his reticence. I asked him, as you might surmise, “How so?”

“People are curious,” he said. “They get to know you, mostly through work, and they get to learn you’re good at your job, can be trusted, work efficiently, produce results. For that, you gain their respect, their esteem, standing and — if you’re lucky — promotion. You may be one of the team, and, when you’re good, you get reward. That’s how things work in the workplace. At least, that’s how they should work. After a while, people start to observe the other little things about you. ‘Yeah, he’s good at his job, but what about that flash of colour in his socks? That neck-chain? The way he holds his hands? And how come there’s never any talk of a Mrs Pat?’ Coffee time comes and the rumours start to spread.”

Rumours, in the 80s, remained just that — rumours — until someone came up with conclusive proof that would confirm them. And so, those who were curious enough would start prodding and poking, delving and digging, but all they would ever come up with was circumstantial. “Once a sleuth starts sleuthing, circumstantial evidence is never enough,” he continued. “They want the naked truth, they need the smoking gun, they need … they need to know. And, for such a sleuth, there’s only one way to actually know, and that’s to ask — to don wig and gown, bow to the mace, and clear the throat before addressing the witness in the stand: ‘You are, are you not, a homosexual? Hm? Pat? You did understand the question, I take it? Are you a poof, bent as a hairpin, a nonce, a pansy, a fruit? You are all of those things, are you not? I put it to you, sir, that you are: what say you to that?’”

“So,” I asked, “What said you to that, I mean, what did you say, what would you say? To that?” “I would always say, ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, you must be off your rocker, do we need to call the men in the white coats? You’re just making a fool of yourself!’” I repeated the initial question: “How so?”

“Because, before those kinds of people get to the point of having the bloody nerve to inquire into such a personal aspect of someone’s life, they anguish; they stay awake at night, wondering, debating with themselves, taking Askit powders and Eno salts to settle their stomachs, so tied up they are with needing to know for sure, and eventually, one day, they see their opportunity to put the question of questions and they finally, finally, finally drum up the sheer brass neck to ask it. Who the hell do they think they are?”

He paused for breath and composure. “So, I deny, deny, deny. Because I wouldn’t give them the bloody satisfaction. ’Cause the next thing you’d hear is ‘I knew it!!!’ I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, and I won’t give them the satisfaction. Bloody nerve of them.”

In that instant, Pat rose high in my estimation. Because he held not to truth but to the manner in which people deal with truth: as some badge of honour and not as a goal in and of itself.

After that day, I wrestled with Pat’s view, however. I remember going for lunch in Glasgow with office colleagues and coming face-to-face on the pavement with one of the sweetest men I ever met. I knew Allan as a friend of a lumber that I had picked up one night in the disco and who, Allan would convince me, I had far more regard for than he had for me. The deal with Richard was soon history, but Allan and I remained firm friends, until I offloaded my rusty old Fiat on him for £400 (not all of which he paid, perhaps rightly so) on the eve of my emigration to parts continental.

We had it off but once but, in an unspoken truce, both of us decided it was a mistake and would, if pursued, destroy our friendship. Our friendship never was destroyed, and I would sing at his brother’s wedding and we would have lots of fun, just as friends, right until Germany hailed me. Even now, I like to think that our friendship is simply on ice, for there are few in this world for whom I have a higher regard.

We hadn’t yet romped in bed on that day on the pavement, but we both raised a sheepish smile at one another and muttered a quick “Hi.” And I never felt so cheap and useless in all my born days. I might deny myself, but never again would I deny a friend.

I ended up in Brussels, working for an erudite firm that could have reached for the stars, the oldest cross-border law firm in the world, founded in the 19th century by two Parisian brothers in New York, which some years afterwards had established its branch office back in the home country, in Paris, and which, of a sudden, pulled the plug on itself and disappeared down the plughole. Its partners and staff struggled and eventually managed to escape the swirling waters and continue practising legal excellence at other firms in the city.

Before its demise, and having also acquired a fairly acute gaydar, such as Pat had possessed, I ended up being allocated to an office beside one of the senior associates. I struck up a friendly acquaintance with two other associates, and they frequently lunched together, me on occasion tagging along with The Three Mourning Queens (a quip I borrowed from a photograph taken at George VI’s funeral — they all wore dark overcoats).

One day, Wim, the senior associate, popped his head into my office and asked what I was doing on such-and-such an evening, and would I like to come to dinner with him. I was somewhat taken aback, for two reasons. Lunch in an office context is quite one thing; dinner, something entirely different. And, I had a partner, and Wim knew it; what on Earth could be going on here? So, I accepted.

I was to pop ’round to his in the Winston Churchilllaan (the only word, he averred himself, that contains three consecutive letters “l” in the Dutch language, which was his) and we would proceed from there to the restaurant, which was nearby. A funny little restaurant it was as well, no obvious signage to betray its existence, it was nestled somewhere on the inner lanes that lie between Winston Churchill and Molière. And, between Winston Churchill and Molière, as you might imagine, there is quite some breadth of possibility.

There was no menu: the whole table d’hôte had been prepared based on what the proprietor had found at the market that day. This is now a disingenuous formula: I once observed at an Aldi supermarket how the quintessential sign of summer — strawberries — was cushioned up against the quintessential fruit of Christmas — the satsuma. In its deep-freeze were ample quantities of All Seasons fruit and vegetables, appropriately enough. However, in the Brussels of the mid-90s, we were still managing to pretend that there are in fact four seasons to the year.

Anyway, the restaurateur reeled off in very fast, fluent French what he had to offer, and I picked up on such words as were gradually forming the basis of my culinary vocabulary at the time, and settled for those dishes. Wim broached the subject he’d wanted to discuss, and I was all ears.

“I have been receiving hints that I will soon be elevated to the partnership,” he began. “Oh, congratulations, well deserved, I’m sure,” I eagerly responded. “Yes, I think it is,” he said, with only passing modesty. “But I have a problem.” “Oh?” I enquired, my mind springing to the prospect of rival offers from such greats as Clifford Chance, Dechert and Nauta Dutilh. “Yes, I’m in a quandary as to whether I should first tell my boss that I’m gay.”

The story of Pat flooded back to mind. And itself posed a difficulty. It’s all right for Pat to tell others how he deals with his private life in a work sphere. But it’s quite another thing when someone in your work sphere asks for advice on how to deal with revelations or otherwise about their private life. However, one resource I was able to fall back on was myself, wizened as I was by Pat’s tale, shamed by my experience with Allan on that pavement, emboldened by my parking my car in front of Glasgow's Court Bar.

I told him, “Either being gay is an issue, or it is not an issue. And, in a professional context, one endeavours to avoid issues. But, if this is an issue, it is a deeply personal one, and you must first contemplate the notion of it becoming an issue, even if it isn’t an issue right now.” I have never had to deny my sexuality to anyone, bar, perhaps, my parents, whose feelings I did not want to hurt and whose feelings I felt would be hurt if I came clean. I was right to think so.

I had finally come out to my folks when I met Andy in Glasgow and he had moved in with me. In the pre-smartphone era, I reasoned that it was only a question of time before the phone would ring, he would answer and mother would quiz me on “Who was that man?” And I wanted to be with her face to face when that happened, not limping forlorn at the end of a telephone wire. After I did tell them, friends asked me, “How did they take it?” I replied, “Exactly as I had predicted: my mother cried and my father changed the subject.”

That was pretty much how things stood for the ensuing ten years. Only after my mother’s passing did I learn from my father what the truth had been: that the bitterness that my mum deflected as coming from my dad had come from her; that in fact he had wanted to cry, and she had wanted to change the subject. They are both now at peace and I cherish their memories, and I feel that they are with me still, because their love for me never died; more I could not have asked of them.

I continued to Wim, “What matters is not whether it is or is not an issue. What matters is in fact who it is that makes it an issue. Suppose you had cheated in your uni exams, and the firm found out. They would fire you, no question. If you told them you’d cheated, they would fire you, no question. Because your qualifications are core to your role in the firm. But, suppose you shielded them from an aspect of your personal life that is no concern of theirs, and is well within the bounds of legality. If you act in an open and honest manner about your sexuality and don’t make it an issue, whether as one counting for you or against you, then, in order for it to come into the arena of discussion, it is they who must bring it up as an issue.”

I told him that that is a very difficult thing for them to do, since the laws of discrimination were in his favour, albeit not absolutely — if someone wants rid of you, they’ll find a way — but at least it would never be something to be confronted with, if, along the way, he were to socially mention to them about being on holiday with his partner and he (not she) did or said this or that. In other words, he could bring his relationships into the work space, but not as a core factor, rather incidentally, as part and parcel of who he is, leaving it up to them to seek confirmation, such as was sought from Pat back in Glasgow.

In that case, he needn’t resort to Pat’s strategy of denial, but simply say, “Don’t you know what the pronoun ‘he’ means? Of course I’m gay, any obs?” That will have most questioners scurrying for cover as he hurled his handbag after them.

“But, if you knock timidly on your boss’s door and ask, ‘Eric, can I have a word, please,’ and he looks up from his desk and peers over his specs and says, ‘Sure, Wim, take a seat’ in his indomitable New York accent, how are things then going to proceed? Hm? ‘I have something to say,’ you say, as you broaden your chest and prepare for a speech like Captain Bligh being cast from the Bounty by Fletcher Christian, ‘I …. am … gay.’ So, what does Eric say? ‘Good, pleased for you. Now, what are the settlement prospects on the ABC Banking file?’? Or ‘Oh. Oh! Oh, my God!! Gay? Did you say “gay”? Oh, this is a tragedy, you’ll never make partnership in this life, my boy’? Or even ‘Are you? We elevate lawyers to partnership here — for doing law, not for what they do in bed.’”

Silly question for Wim to ask. But in the mid-90s, it was a question we all asked. We all had our own way to deal with the problems we imagined and the problems that were there, some of which were unimagined. Rumsfeld’s known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

I said I’d come back to whistles. Whistles, with a cork pea inside. You hear them at every Pride parade from here to Rio, to Puerta Vallarta, to Johannesburg and in Malawi; even Malawi. They scream out above the drums of samba, the drone of Deutsche Schlager and techno music the globe over. LGBTQ men and women, and those in-between, blow their lungs out in a celebration of joyous diversity for all the world to hear. But their origin lies in a much darker period of our history.

When Harvey Milk moved from New York to San Francisco, to be away from the constraints of life on America’s east coast, to the freedom that was afforded by the progressive society burgeoning in the west, and established his camera shop on the Castro, he soon became aware that freedom, of all words, is a very, very relative term.

The loose lifestyles and casual sex practised by the flood of gay men and women into the city resulted in pseudo-religious backlashes: beatings and muggings and intimidation and hatred. All was not always well in the Haight.

Milk organised. Milk rallied. Milk became a clarion call for equality and justice and, until that was achieved, the alternative society of San Francisco had to form its own defences, so lax were the city’s police to put up a defence in their behalf. Harvey Milk told every gay and lesbian that they should carry with them around their necks a whistle and that, in the event that they should be attacked, at any time or in any place, they were to place this whistle in their mouths and blow, blow, blow with all their lungs: blow for aid, like stranded boats abandoned in a tumultuous sea of hatred. And that their fellows should listen out, and hear, and race with all speed to their support and assistance.

Harvey Milk, who himself, as an elected officer of the city of San Francisco, would be cold-bloodedly gunned down by a fellow city supervisor, gave great hope to the down-trodden and despairing of his city, of his country, of the world. The whistle gave hope to those under attack in Milk’s San Francisco; it’s still used at Pride, to give hope to gay men and women the world over — to this day.

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, and the Richmond, Minnesotas, who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story: the only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

Harvey Bernard Milk, 1977

Harvey Milk inspired aspirations, he saved lives, and his own was taken in the name of what was right and just, because he stood for what was right and just. He will never, ever be canonised. Because he fucked guys.

Clip: Sean Penn won an Oscar in 2008 for his portrayal of Harvey Milk.