Unraveling Oliver

⁸ MICHAEL

Nobody slept for days after the fire. Obviously, the vineyard work was canceled. I proposed going home to Ireland, but Oliver pointed out angrily that it was our duty to stay and help, and Laura agreed. I felt somewhat ashamed. Madame Véronique was discharged from the hospital a week later, in time for the funerals. She resembled a ghostly scarecrow, her arms and hands heavily bandaged, her face scorched, and what was left of her hair sticking out in tufts. I did my best to make her eat a morsel of this or that and helped her to apply ointments to her face and head as her skin slowly healed. The kitchens had been largely unaffected by the fire, and I took control of mealtimes for all the people who came to help; but her spirit seemed to have disappeared, as if her body were only carrying the functioning parts she needed for breathing.

Oliver changed on the night of the fire too. Drastically. I knew he had grown close to d’Aigse and the little fellow, but he was grieving as if he were family, seldom talking, his face pinched by sorrow. On the day of the funerals, he disappeared completely, only returning late at night, refusing to answer questions or to be comforted. Laura reckoned that Oliver had replaced his absent father with Monsieur. He undertook to salvage the contents of Monsieur’s ruined study—a job he oversaw with great diligence. Laura, already sidelined, was now ignored completely. After two weeks, the bulk of the clearing work was done. There was no question of being paid for our work; we stayed on and got room and board, the food often donated by neighboring families and prepared by me. The vineyard was abandoned once again, and there were whispers about the demolition of the east wing. There was nothing more for us to do. We had already missed the first couple weeks of college. It was time to go. Oliver packed his bags in silence and bade a stoic farewell to Madame, who thanked him for his loyalty and hard work. Some of d’Aigse’s map collections had been rescued, though Madame was devastated to lose so many of his books, of which nothing remained but ashes. I remember that Oliver seemed unable to accept the hug of commiseration and left Madame looking awkward and spare. I could have killed him for that, but it was apparent that Oliver was undoubtedly suffering too.

Laura then became a cause for concern once again. Unexpectedly, she refused to come home, insisting that she wanted to stay and help Madame. I couldn’t understand what she was thinking; it was just another example of her increasingly erratic behavior, as far as I was concerned. There were several long-distance calls back and forth to Dublin as my parents tried to order her return, but Laura was steadfast. Madame didn’t seem to care what happened one way or another, but she assured me that it wasn’t a problem if Laura wanted to stay. She could certainly find something for her to do. I had to be satisfied with that. Laura bade us a tearful farewell. She clung to Oliver hopefully, but he was as emotionless and detached as a tombstone.

The new academic year started slowly, the drab autumn grayness of Dublin seeming so dull compared to the sun-drenched brightness of Bordeaux. I tried to put the trauma of the summer behind me and get back into study and college life. I quickly linked up with some rather camp individuals, the ones I had shunned the previous year out of fear, and began to develop friendships in a different social circle. Even though I still met up with Oliver from time to time, we were clearly estranged, and any time I raised the topic of the summer we had just spent in Bordeaux, he quickly changed the subject, until after a few attempts I never raised it again. I don’t know if it was my sexuality, my relationship to Laura, or the fact that I reminded him of death that caused the distance between us. Perhaps he blamed Laura for taking us to France in the first place? Whatever was in his head, I needed to move on.

Notwithstanding the harrowing end to my summer, I also returned a different person. Stepping out of the closet was liberating, and there was no way I could go back. My mother got to hear about the company I was keeping and was of course scandalized—threatened to tell my father, call the parish priest; but it was too late. My summer in France had freed me and given me a confidence I never had before. The fire and its devastating consequences made me realize that life was too short to spend any part of it in denial of the truth. I felt at peace in my new skin, almost reborn. I was determined not to be ashamed, despite what the church or the law said.

My mother was trying her level best to get me back into the closet, but I just wasn’t having it. Eventually she did tell my father. He was appalled, threatened to disown and disinherit me, and suggested that Laura didn’t want to come home because she was ashamed of me. That hurt. I begged for understanding. This is who I am, et cetera, all to no avail. He spoke of the disgrace that I would bring on the family and the humiliation to him personally. I was genuinely sorry for that. I promised him that I would be discreet about my activities, but he was disgusted and ranted about having worked hard all his life only to be confronted with the fact that he had raised a nancy-boy.

In retrospect I must be grateful that my father wasn’t a violent man. Lots of fathers were. Dad was hugely disappointed, but it was hard for him and I wonder now if it might not have been better to hide my “depravity” from my family. Later events would, however, eclipse my coming out and thankfully reunite us as a family, what was left of us.

In November 1973, Father Ignatius was summoned to the house. I didn’t know it until he turned up, but I was aware that there was a flurry of cleaning, dusting, and vacuuming activity for a week before his arrival. Silver was polished, and the “good” plates and linen tablecloths appeared from wherever they had been quarantined since the previous Christmas Day. I was ushered into our rarely used front room on a Saturday morning, presented to Father Ignatius, and left alone with him. I was furious at being tricked into this encounter and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. He wasn’t the fire-and-brimstone type—a relatively new appointee to the parish, he was in his early thirties, with a gentle way of speaking. His embarrassment was palpable, as, I’m sure, was mine. After some awkward pleasantries, there was a pregnant silence that threatened to give birth any minute. Eventually I broke its waters by apologizing for having him brought here.

“I suspect that my parents have asked you to come here because I think I’m a homosexual,” I said, and, feeling brazen, added, “In fact, I don’t just think it.”

There was a pause while he coughed unnecessarily and readjusted himself on the leather armchair. It squeaked absurdly as if he had farted, and he quickly and deliberately moved again, causing another squeak, to make it clear that it was the chair and not him. I have eschewed leather furniture ever since.

“It’s a sin, you know.”

“I know, Father.”

“Will you swear never to do it again?”

“But, Father, you don’t seem to understand. It’s not just a matter of it, of sexual intercourse, it’s a fundamental part of who I am.”

“But it’s a sin!”

“I know, Father.”

We went around in circles for a while. I declared that even if I never did it again, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from thinking about it or indeed the man who might perform it with me. He reddened and declared that thinking about it was a sin too and suggested that I could think about flowers or trees instead. I asked him why it was a sin if I wasn’t hurting anyone, and he appeared confused.

“What about getting married? Having children?”

“I don’t want children.”

“What if you change your mind?”

“About having children or about being gay?”

“The first one.”

“What if you change your mind about having children?”

Silence. He wasn’t programmed for that answer.

With another priest, my question to him could have been seen as the height of insolence, but he had a soft way about him and a style that was not intimidating in the least. I felt emboldened.

“I won’t,” he said eventually.

“Neither will I.”

“What about the other thing?”

“Being gay? Changing my mind isn’t an option! It’s not a decision I have made. I have only decided not to hide it anymore. Not to hide who I am. I have never been interested in women, as much as I have tried. Don’t you think it’s unlikely that I might start now?”

“Me neither,” he said.

I thought he had lost the train of our conversation. I wasn’t sure what exactly he was agreeing with me about, and then suddenly he buried his head in his hands and broke down, grabbing a handkerchief and stifling his sobs.

I was stunned at this turn of events and found myself consoling him.

“What is it? Look, if I’ve upset you, I apologize, I never meant…”

When he looked up at me imploringly, his long eyelashes glistening wetly, I understood immediately.

“You’re not… ?” I said. It seemed like it would be blasphemous to even suggest it.

He nodded miserably.

Dermot (his given name) had joined the priesthood in a desperate attempt to escape the reality of his sexuality, as if by ignoring it, he could pretend it wasn’t there. The seminary, he later told me, was full of young gay men, most of whom found solace in each other, but he, raised in a more severely Catholic home than my own, was determined not to yield to his inclinations. My confession to him seemed to open the floodgates, and I listened as he recounted his years of utter loneliness, repression, and frustration. We talked for three hours. Mum was delighted when we eventually emerged.

The afternoon concluded with me agreeing to meet him for a drink in a small hotel in Bray the following Sunday after mass. It was clear that Dermot was struggling with the priesthood and with his faith as much as with his sexuality. The church condemned us, and yet there were other things going on that the church was ignoring, the full extent of which we have only recently learned. Dermot was aware of some incidents and had reported them and seen the perpetrators moved or promoted and the “misdemeanor” covered up. He felt that if he expressed his sexuality, it would make him as bad as the abusers, and it took some time for me to convince him that there was a world of difference between two consenting adults engaging in a physical relationship and an older man in a position of power using that power to interfere with a child in some cases not old enough to understand what was being done to them. Dermot went to confession over and over again and spoke to his bishop, tried to be honest with them. They more or less told him to shut up about everything or face a transfer to some godforsaken spot on the globe. After six months of soul-searching, he quit the priesthood altogether and reverted to his given name, Dermot. We had become close friends and confidants by then, and not long afterward we became lovers. Before Dermot, I had never thought of settling down with one man. I assumed that, as a gay man, my relationships would probably be fleeting sexual encounters, but I found to my surprise that I loved him deeply and wanted him as a permanent fixture in my life. Thankfully, Dermot felt the same way, although it took him a bloody long time to admit it.

But I am skipping ahead. Once I had come out to my parents in the autumn of 1973, I am not sure why I felt the need to, but I wrote to Oliver to tell him officially that I was gay. I think I wanted to explain myself to someone who had known me before and also to excuse the jealousy I felt toward him and Laura that summer. I wanted him to know that he couldn’t “dislike queers” because I was one, and I considered him a friend. I think I probably should have been sober when I wrote the letter. I cringe now when I think of it. I received a reply within the week. I don’t know exactly what I had wanted or expected, but he admitted that my declaration in the summer was no surprise to him, apologized for trying to set me up with Madame Véronique, wished me well in my life, and hoped that I would meet a good man. It seemed clear to me that he was drawing a line under our friendship.

I must have caused quite a degree of stress for my parents around that time. There were more trials and tribulations when I declared my intention to drop out of college and open a restaurant. This time though, Mum was on my side and eventually convinced my father to lend me the capital required. I had practically moved into the kitchen in the months after my return from France, and Mum was delighted at all my discoveries. Some ingredients I had brought home with me, and some I imported from my deflorist Thierry. Dad was impressed by the food but thought I should be spending more time with my books, although when I single-handedly did the catering for a dinner party they were hosting for twelve of their most sophisticated friends, who swooned over each course, my father was persuaded to concede that I had a gift worth investing in.

All these negotiations served to distract us from the fact that Laura had stated that she wasn’t coming home for Christmas. Her irregular letters home told of the building project undertaken to restore the east wing as a result of donations from all over the province. Though somewhat mystified, we were proud of Laura’s charitable actions and dispatched a large basket of food accompanied by an equally large bank draft courtesy of my father.

My restaurant, L’Étoile Bleue, opened at the end of March 1974 in a laneway off a Georgian square in the city center. In the space of a year, my life had turned upside down in spectacular style. The restaurant did good business from the start, and within a few months I could see that if trade continued at the current rate, I would be able to repay my father’s investment within maybe five or six years, so all was fabulous. Then, in August, Laura came home.

My parents were, of course, relieved, and I wanted to hear all about what was happening in Clochamps, how the building project was going in Château d’Aigse, how Madame Véronique was, whether she had seen Thierry, and so on. Laura answered my questions but seemed distant and uninterested. She looked pretty dreadful too: she had dark circles under her eyes and she was very thin. She just picked at her food at mealtimes. We didn’t recognize her odd behavior for the nervous breakdown she was having. My mother brought her to a doctor who recommended a foul-smelling tonic that had no effect whatsoever. When I suggested getting in touch with Oliver, she barely reacted at all. I didn’t understand what was going on with Laura, but I was worried. I offered her a few weeks’ work in the restaurant. She had deferred college for a year and still had more than a month before she started again. She would be okay for a few days and then she wouldn’t show up at all, leaving us frustrated and short staffed. She said she was tired. “Of what?” I said. “You don’t bloody do anything!”

Reluctantly I approached Oliver to ask if he would call to the house to see her. He obliged by offering to take her out for a meal in my restaurant or anywhere she wanted, but Laura refused to go. Oliver even wrote her a letter, but Laura didn’t want to see him. I wondered if perhaps there was more to Oliver and Laura’s breakup than I knew. To all outward appearances, he had been a gentleman throughout their entire relationship—there was no question that he had cheated on her or anything like that—but it was clear that Laura wasn’t going to forgive him for rejecting her. Usually it was Laura who did the rejecting. She clearly couldn’t handle being on the receiving end. I didn’t think that Oliver could be held responsible for her depression. Not then.