The Milkman's On His Way by David Rees

Author:David Rees [Rees, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2017-01-13T13:00:00+00:00

Louise said ‘If I were you I’d leave home.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it.’ Hardly surprising that I had: if for no other reason than being out of work. Surely there was more chance of a job in London, particularly in the winter when Bude was dead, from the neck up as well as down! A ghost of a place! Old ladies and their dogs, both animals and humans looking as if the end was nigh. I hated being on the dole! Hated it more and more! Not only because it meant no one wanted you, that you were consigned to a scrap-heap — a midden was the image that often occurred to me, a midden lousy and crawling with teenage rejects — but on the dole there was nothing to test myself against, nothing to stretch my mind or my body. It was as if some god had said ‘These shall not grow up; these shall not be adults.’ The crippling financial dependence on parents: another way of preventing growth. And that third barrier; the world of straight people, the law, that said ‘Homosexual: thou shalt not touch another; thou shalt not learn to love.’ At least not till the magic age of twenty-one. Though I didn’t care a damn about what the law said. That wasn’t going to stop me.

But how many rampant gays were likely to be flaunting themselves in the streets of Bude on a wet Wednesday afternoon in February? Dad’s belief in corrupting influences was somewhat misplaced. Nevertheless, he and Mum made my life pretty miserable. On the few occasions I received a letter, her eyes almost drilled holes in the envelope. When someone telephoned for me, she always wanted to know who it was. I felt guilty doing the smallest thing, even a trip to Mrs Radford’s shop for a bar of chocolate. I crept about at home, quiet as a mouse. The ten thirty curfew had to be strictly observed. And I didn’t keep a diary any more. It wasn’t worth it. I wondered how much longer I could stand it all. To leave seemed the only right course of action: I had nothing, absolutely nothing to lose by doing so. My parents had driven me to think of them as nothing worth losing. Appalling, that.

So I would leave. But not for a bit. I’d wait till the dust settled, till I could convince Mum and Dad that the reason I was going was to find work and not because I wanted to rush off, as a result of their discoveries, to some den of lascivious homosexual vice. It was the only way of keeping a link with them. I’d be welcome back. In spite of everything, I still wished them to love and admire me. And I still believed it was possible. Fortunately, they made no reference to what had been said. Not a single word. It was as if they had blotted it all out, erased it from their minds as the

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