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 Will Young

TO B E A G AY M A N
 CONTENTS

Introduction
Chapter One: Bobby Not Pam
Chapter Two: Gay in the Eighties
Chapter Three: An Education
Chapter Four: Finding A Community
Chapter Five: Tea With the Queen
Chapter Six: Ancient and Modern Stereotypes and Homophobia
Chapter Seven: Breaking the Patterns of Addiction
Chapter Eight: Facing Our Shit
Epilogue
Appendix 1: CBT Techniques
Appendix 2: Help and Support
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index
 About the Author

Will Young is a pop star and actor who shot to fame in 2002 after
winning the first series of Pop Idol. He has released seven albums,
four of which hit Number One in the UK charts, and he has 10
million record sales and two Brit Awards to his name. Will co-
founded the podcast ‘Homo Sapiens’ and is a leading voice in mental
health awareness, particuarly within the LGBTQ+ community. He
lives in London with his two dogs, border terrier Esme and
dachsund, Nelly.
To all the people who have pushed forward the
LGBT rights agenda, I bow down to you and we
all, as an LGBT community, stand on the
shoulders of greatness.
Introduction
It’s 7am on a crisp, autumnal morning. The sun is beginning to
warm the honeysuckle, snaking around my window and filtering
gently through my bedroom blinds, causing me to stir. There’s the
gentle hum of an electric milk float doing its rounds, purring away
down the street. All is well in leafy south London, until …
‘NELLY, PLEASE DON’T HUMP MY FACE!’
My two-year-old dachshund wakes me up every morning by
placing her long sausage-like body across my face. Essentially, she
attempts to suffocate me on a daily basis. This morning, such was
her excitement, that her intentions became more amorous.
‘OK, you got me; food time!’
That’s it! She’s off scampering down the stairs towards the
kitchen. Esme, the Border terrier, follows in hot pursuit – carrying
one of my slippers with her, I notice. This is my daily routine each
morning.
Once recovered from potential ‘death by sausage dog’, I sit down,
coffee in hand, to peruse the emails that have come in to ‘Homo
Sapiens’, a podcast that I did with my best friend, Chris Sweeney.
Scrolling down, I alight upon one from a 22-year-old in Finland who
discusses his gay shame. It’s a common occurrence, and seems to
come up almost every episode. In fact, I’d just got back from
America where we interviewed pop star, Sam Smith, who spoke of
their own gay shame.
‘That’s it!’ I proclaim to the dogs. ‘I’m going to Google gay-shame
therapy groups. There must be some in the world.’
The dogs don’t care, FYI. But I do. Gay shame was a part of my
life from the age of six. It has clung on to me like oil to a dying
cormorant. It has literally stopped me truly flying in life. Years of
hearing that to be gay was wrong, whether it be at a Bible lesson, in
the playground, on TV or heard amongst adults, has wounded my
very soul. The very essence of who I am has been defined as evil,
disgusting and wrong. Growing up within a heteronormative society
has crushed my being. My gay shame, foisted onto me by others,
has internalised and created its own gloopy tar-like substance,
covering any light within. I have lived with a deeply repressed and
under-explored belief that, by simply living, I am wrong and
unlovable, purely by being alive. I’ve also realised I am not alone. So
here I go! Let’s see what can be done. Let’s see what is out there.
The answer is … nothing.
Well, that’s not strictly true. I come across an old workshop, held
in New York in 2016, which addressed gender norms, focusing on
what it was to be a gay man or woman. This was, however, two
years ago. My next discovery is far more interesting. ‘GAY SHAME!
HOW TO REDISCOVER YOUR TRUE SELF!’ This is more like it. I
enter the website and it’s all looking good.
‘Has your gay shame held you back in life?’
Yes.
‘Do you want to rid yourself of this yoke and come back to your
natural self?’
Another Yes.
‘Then this is the programme for you! Get rid of your homosexual
tendencies and learn to control your urges!’
HOLY SHIT! I realise I have unwittingly alighted upon a gay
conversion website. Based in, well, the southern United States, of
course. Now, such has been my own journey with gay shame that I
am not triggered by this, but instead rather fascinated and amused.
I decide to drop them an email.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Greetings from the UK. My name is William and I would love
to start getting on top of my gay urges and homosexual
tendencies. Please can you help me?
Yours shamefully,
William Young

All flowery writing and Googling aside, this morning is the morning
when I decide to write a book on gay shame. As I’ve said, gay
shame is something that I have lived through with every cell and
fibre in my body. Even as I think on how I might approach this topic,
ALL THESE STORIES start flooding back to me. ALL THESE
MOMENTS of prejudice I experienced, and ALL THESE MOMENTS
where other people’s thoughts and feelings on what it was to be gay,
and the shame that that’s brought up in THEM, was dumped onto
ME.
There were times, dear friends, when it almost destroyed me, but
ultimately it did not, because I faced it and took it on. Through
many years of facing my gay shame, I found strength. I reached out
to others and expressed to friends and even strangers how I felt.
Talking about my addictions, from porn to shopping, from failed
relationships to always feeling less-than. I was spurred on by others’
bravery in sharing their deep shame of themselves, and realised that
I felt the same. Instead of feeling alone, I actually began to feel
empowered. I cried a lot. I felt sick and ashamed a lot. And I heard
a lot of other gay people’s stories that helped me out of the
darkness. But even through all of that, I was often the only gay
person in a therapy group or indeed a treatment centre. It took time
for me to find my own kind, where I could work through this specific
issue of gay shame, and my development in abolishing gay shame
was often sporadic and disjointed. Still, I got there in the end, and
I’m here now to tell the story of just how I got there. I have no
pretensions, but I come with authenticity, ownership, and a huge
amount of hope and love.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not so brazen or arrogant as to think
that I know the right way to be gay; how could I? Everyone is
different. What I want to do here is to track my life; to time-travel
back to various times where knowing I was gay, or being gay, was
difficult, painful, fun, terrifying, etc.
For me to be a gay man has been a constant journey from the age
of four. It has involved so many layers of questions and internal
wranglings, layers of shame that have turned into self-hate and
loathing. To be a gay man has been a constant disappointment and
occasion after occasion of embarrassment and hiding. In writing this
book and using my life as a sort of blueprint, I hope that others
might find moments of connection and resonance and perhaps glean
some understanding and empathy for their own road through life. I
know I have – it has led me to a newfound respect and admiration
for myself and my sexuality.
Things that I’d completely forgotten about will, no doubt, surface,
or perhaps things that have been triggering, but I’m looking forward
to analysing and documenting how I survived them; how I got
through school, and university, being at home, or even just hanging
with friends. It’s sure to be a weird process, but an incredible
journey.
A journey that I’m inviting you to join me on … and Esme and
Nelly …
… but to be honest they don’t give a shit.
CHAPTER ONE

Bobby Not Pam

Imagine being born into a world where, from the beginning, your
true nature is under attack and ridiculed from the second you enter
life. As you realise you are different to those around you, there is no
place to find sanctuary. You become a prisoner to the constant
barrage of shaming and disgust thrown your way. School is not a
place of understanding; family holds the same negative views of
who you are and the world itself holds no safety or place of refuge
where you can be nurtured and supported. This is what it is like to
be a young gay child in the world.
Of course, things have changed and I will not chastise every
family by presuming they are narrow-minded. I certainly don’t hold
unprocessed anger against my family; my parents did the best they
could. They were progressive in so many ways and actually rather
anarchic. I didn’t hear constant berating of gay people and I have
forgiven any ill words they might subconsciously and infrequently
have used. It was what it was. With all this in mind, I take a deep
breath and ready myself.

In the beginning I was born. My first awareness of being different

was my sensitivity. I wasn’t very sporty. I was very goofy and my
knees knocked together when I ran. I was always transfixed by how
beautiful my mother was, especially the smell of her perfumes and
the sparkle of her jewellery. I would always notice the colour of
whatever top or shirt she wore. She dressed well and I still
remember her short hair, her African orange-stoned necklace, and
the beautiful yellow sleeveless silk top she would wear with a long
dark linen skirt. She was (and still is, I hasten to add) a petite lady;
like Twiggy in the sixties. And to a little boy in the eighties, she was
the most stylish and beautiful woman in the world!
I remember stealing one of her rings, which sat in a tin box with
some other keepsakes. It wasn’t especially valuable, but I became
obsessed with it. It was silver and had a square black opaque stone
set on the top. It was fairly chunky, actually, and its box sat on the
windowsill in the bedroom I shared with my brother. One day, I
opened it up and squirrelled the ring away under my mattress. I
would get it out occasionally and gaze at it like Gollum in Lord of the
Rings. Funny, it all seems to make so much more sense now.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was, I nicked the ring and
said I had no idea where it was. Later that day, it turned up, back in
its box, with me thinking I’d got away with it. It’s only now, writing
this, that I realise my mother, of course, knew exactly what had
happened. It’s like when my sister told me recently how heartbroken
she was to learn that our father was only pretending to fall into the
little booby traps we would set for him amongst the hay bales in our
barn as children. My sister is 43.
I was not very coordinated as a child, I wore National Health
glasses because of a lazy eye and I had a propensity to fall into
water a lot of the time. I also spoke with a lisp; an attribute my
father was not pleased with. It’s strange because he isn’t really a
typical alpha male. He’s tall and he has an incredible presence. He
has a rich baritone voice and certainly has something rather
mesmeric about him. He’s very clever and very good at sussing
someone out, as is my mother. He was never pushy for me to be a
lad in terms of sports. He didn’t play rugby or football in the garden
with me. He didn’t try to get me to do things that most other boys
would do, but instead just let us kids get on with it.
I suppose because he travelled a lot, we didn’t have as close a
relationship as we could have, but when he was home my siblings
and I would spend most of the time gardening with him. Daddy
would tell me about what he was doing with the plants, and I would
watch him for hours doing his thing in the veg patch. I would help
with the mowing and dig up potatoes, sweep up leaves … hang on,
was this simply child labour? Anyway, I really loved being outside
with him and I learnt so much – things that have stuck with me, and
remind me that I’m a country boy at heart.
I could be clever and say that what I was actually doing was
trying to gain his love by being attentive to the thing he was
passionate about. Perhaps he would feel pleased with me and forget
about his displeasure at my lisp. I remember being in bed one
morning; all of us sitting in my parents’ room. My dad was
determined to make me say my ‘s’ clearly. ‘Say it properly,’ he would
tell me.
I would try, but just couldn’t. I remember getting very upset and
my mother telling him to leave me alone. I mean, I could hardly call
the social services over this incident. It is, however, an example of
how a parent can shame a child.
My propensity to clumsiness, plus being very sensitive and prone
to crying, didn’t help my rather dim view of myself at that age either.
In my mind, I was not a good boy. I wasn’t living up to the
stereotype of what it was to be a tough and robust young lad. It is
common for gay men to feel like they can never gain the love of
their father, and that they are somehow letting them down by not
being manly enough. I don’t have this. Aged five, however, I had no
notion of sex or ‘who’ I was attracted to, but I was acutely aware
that I wasn’t what was seen as normal in terms of being a boy. I
wasn’t tough and I didn’t engage in rough and tumble. When I cried
my brother and sister would call me ‘girl’, and my God it was hurtful.
‘Stop being such a girrrrrl!’ they would say to me. I can clearly see
the staircase in our family home, where I sat crying onto the
bannister. The feeling was one of such sadness, and a desperate
desire that I could and should change. I couldn’t understand why I
was so sensitive. I felt very ostracised. I remember feeling extremely
isolated within the family system. I didn’t relate to anyone else. I
seemed to be the only one who was scared of strangers. I clung to
my mother, and was easily set off.
Although this doesn’t all necessarily relate to sexuality, it’s a great
example of a child not conforming to the usual gender norms, and
how that can create a swathe of shame and self-disgust from a
young age. Of course, there are lots of gay men who, when young
and in adulthood, do conform to the stereotypes of being male:
strong, aggressive, sporty. This can lead to a different kind of
shame, where, as adults, they don’t feel they fit into the gay
community. As a boy who wasn’t ‘typical’, I became ‘atypical’ and
‘different’ by default; I was on the outside. The overriding emotion
that I remember wasn’t self-hate, as much as it was confusion. I
was terribly confused as to why I was the way I was.
It’s common for young gay men to feel a sense of being different
to stereotypical boys, through their lack of conformity. One of the
most common areas, which can become extremely shaming, is
sport, but sometimes the areas where a young gay boy might excel
can also be shaming. Well, of course you would be good at that
because you’re gay! If you’re young and sporty, then you’re
generally celebrated, but a boy drawn to more sensitive subjects –
the arts, reading, theatre, dance etc – is often demonised. This can,
of course, reflect society as a whole. Footballers and top sportsmen
are lauded; they are our everyday heroes. Male pop stars who flaunt
their heterosexuality are seen as the ultimate example of what it is
to be male. Hollywood stars with rippling muscles, the guys who
always get the girls, are seen as the pinnacle of success. The
sensitive, weedy boy is always the fool; the one who gets picked on,
the one who fails in life.
Aggression on the sports field is seen as fair play: ‘GO ON, TAKE
HIM DOWN!’; STOP ACTING LIKE A FAIRY’; ‘WHAT ARE YOU? SOME
SORT OF GIRL?’
These are the words that might be heard screamed from the
touchlines by some parents, usually fathers, at their children. Even
sports day can become traumatic for a child who doesn’t have the
desire, coordination or natural ability to run, or to hold a flipping egg
and spoon! Surely if there were an atmosphere of understanding,
nurture and celebration of all types of abilities, it would be a
different event entirely. It isn’t the taking part that’s necessarily
traumatic, although that alone can cause trauma; it’s the
atmosphere. In fact, an innocent school sports day can be an
unsettling affair for a gay child. The overriding message for a boy
who isn’t winning in that arena is one of embarrassment and
humiliation. This can permeate between parents as well. As one
parent congratulates another, the parent with the winning boy might
be subconsciously saying, ‘It’s a shame you’ve got one of those
boys.’ When the parents of the gay child are carrying their own
prejudice about gender norms, this shame is swiftly passed on to
their son, consciously or unconsciously. In fact, what a seemingly
innocent sports day can highlight is that, as journalist and political
commentator Owen Jones says, ‘The people who suffer the most
amount of homophobia are straight boys.’
If a boy is perceived as sensitive, the underlying worry is often
that they might end up being gay. It is seen as the first sign of
difference and therefore of weakness. One of the biggest insults
that’s used in the classroom is to be called gay.
Imagine if you are a young straight boy who, from an early age, is
constantly called gay because he isn’t sporty or manly enough, or
perhaps even looks too pretty or is too thin. Two things can happen.
Firstly, the boy takes on the shame of being gay without actually
being gay. Secondly, the fact that he is being called gay even though
he isn’t can breed a deep homophobia within that child. The thinking
being: ‘If it wasn’t for gays being so wrong and different, I wouldn’t
have to stand this abuse’. How can a child who isn’t gay, but gets
bullied for being so, ever grow up with a sense of pride and love
towards gay people? It is seen as the ultimate defectiveness. The
ultimate disability, and the ultimate crime. Of course, for young boys
who are gay, it takes on a whole different level of shame and terror.
Even as I write, I have a sense of what that insult means. It is the
end of the road. You can’t go any lower than that. To be branded as
gay is like saying, ‘You’re so wrong, you shouldn’t even exist.’
This is how the chain reaction of thought goes:
If you are not fulfilling your gender norm, you aren’t a usual boy.
You are an embarrassment to me and my security in my sexuality
and gender, because you are a living example of what it is to be a
wrong boy. The social implications and signs are that you might end
up not just wet and weedy but also gay. You are gay. You bring
shame on your family. You are a pervert. You’re disgusting, and you
were made wrong.
I experienced this time and time and time again. One of my huge
fears was to do with singing and my love of it. I was constantly
worried that, because I had a high voice, and enjoyed singing
soulfully, doing gospel-like riffs, people would see that I was gay. It’s
why I didn’t sing properly until I was 22.
 There is an interesting relationship between gender norms and
gay shame. Anyone can suffer from gender stereotyping in
childhood, as well as the humiliation that can ensue when you aren’t
the ‘normal’ son or brother or school kid. It is a short leap from that
to homophobia. Indeed, we see it in the playground that so often
the quieter, shyer boys are fast-tracked to being branded as gay;
whether they are or not is immaterial.
There has definitely been a sea change in the last few years.
Parents think more about what they dress their children in. We think
more about how we gender-stereotype our children at school, in the
home, and in general society. That’s still not always the case,
however. I went to a friend’s house a while ago, where I put on their
daughter’s pink feather boa. She was seven at the time and their
son was five.
‘BOYS DON’T WEAR PINK!’ both the boy and the girl crowed.
I so desperately wanted their parents to correct them. It’s funny,
because I believe underneath the fear of putting your children in
anything other than what they are traditionally ‘meant’ to wear is the
terror that they might be gay. I often ask myself, what is that terror?
Where does it come from? A lot of it will be the worrying
protectiveness over their children being different and therefore going
into a world where they will be attacked, marginalised or at a
disadvantage because they are not the norm. Sometimes, however,
it’s the parents dealing with their own prejudice towards having a
gay child.
What will the neighbours think? What will people think of us?
What will our family think? People at school? People in the street.
Where did we go wrong?
The idea of visibility for a child who is in any way different to the
norm sends some parents into a spiral. I get cross. They need to
deal with their shit instead of putting it onto their kids. My cousin is
friends with a family, who have a young boy who loves wearing
dresses. I often see them when I’m visiting. His mother is an
example of someone who totally has her shit together. She doesn’t
walk around with apologetic eyes or a fearful look. Her son wearing
a dress is completely normalised, and she doesn’t care about what
that might turn out to mean. The other day, when we were both
visiting my cousin, I showed him some pictures from the cover shoot
for this book.
He said, ‘You wear dresses but you aren’t a girl.’
I said, ‘No, I’m a boy, and I like to wear dresses.’
‘Oh!’ He paused. ‘Could I see some more dresses, please!’
It’s clear that this boy has free rein to wear, do and think and say
what he likes. He’s extremely well behaved and very comfortable.
His mother shows us how a parent should be. As parents, we
woefully let our children down by placing our own experiences of
stereotyping onto our kids. By allowing young people to play with
whatever they want to play with, wear whatever they want to wear,
and be whoever they want to be, we let them live freely and express
themselves. We sometimes get so confused and tied up in our own
bigotry or terror of how our children will turn out, we forget to truly
let our young people live.

Fundamentally, I feel that sexuality, and being gay, is still not being
addressed in education, because, even now, people don’t want to be
seen to be pushing young people into a life of homosexuality. It’s
often still seen as a choice. On top of that, many parents simply
aren’t happy with the idea of their kids being taught about gay
lifestyles or gay sex, as the 2019 picketing by parents of a school in
Birmingham demonstrates.
According to the Alum Rock Community Forum, some parents
temporarily removed their children from Parkfield Community School
for ‘undermining of parental rights and aggressively promoting
homosexuality’. A year before, I had interviewed the deputy head
teacher of the school, Andrew Moffatt MBE, who, a gay man himself,
explained that he had simply introduced a programme called No
Outsiders. The ethos of the programme allowed kids to see diversity
and difference, and helped them learn to respect it, even if they
didn’t necessarily agree with it. Within that, it promoted LGBTQ+
equality, and challenged homophobia.
I loved the idea of it, because the more children are shown
difference in others, the more we all learn to embrace our own
differences. You don’t have to be gay to feel different; you might
have additional needs or only have one parent. There are all sorts of
reasons why a child might feel like they’re not like everyone else in
the classroom. You might be the only one who likes Brussels
sprouts! It was the case, however, that the only thing that was
covered in the media was the LGBTQ+ element of the programme.
The problem is that many parents just seem to concentrate on the
sexual aspect of being gay. We’re obsessed with sex, whereas six-
year-old children are not. However, by ignoring the entire topic of
LGBTQ+ people, we are lacking the initiatives to protect young gay
people in schools. We are still not taking the issue of homophobic
language seriously enough; it’s often dismissed as ‘boys being boys’
or ‘kids being kids’, and that is not good enough.
It’s quite simple. If a boy likes girls, and someone brings up the
idea of kissing someone of the same sex, he might think it
disgusting. The best thing to say to that boy is, ‘Don’t worry, you
don’t have to do it. You just have to respect the idea that someone
else might want to.’ I mean, I might find liver disgusting, but I
wouldn’t deny somebody else’s right to eat it.
If a child uses the word ‘gay’ in a derogatory way, they might not
think they’re being homophobic, but the fact that it might be
offensive to some people needs to be explained. Often, it isn’t. The
word gay, as an insult, and other homophobic language, is still rife
within schools, and, unlike racist language, which is, quite rightly,
stamped upon, it often goes unchecked. Parents sometimes argue
that their children are being berated or punished when it comes to
these issues, but in truth, they are simply being educated.
Where can a gay child feel truly safe? In the home, where they
are different to the rest of their family? Out in the world, where they
are at odds with the norm? In education, we need to make sure all
kids are safe and recognised, especially the ones who are different.
At the moment, the conversation around sex education and LGBTQ+
issues is at the discretion of the head teacher, but wouldn’t a clear
initiative be more useful?
Despite how far things have progressed, the issues around
sexuality and being gay are still not taken seriously, so there are
LGBTQ+ children who don’t know what to do, and who are
desperate for information and a way forward. Consequently, the
percentage of young gay people with mental health issues is much
higher than straight kids, with The Trevor Project (an American-
based organisation providing crisis intervention and suicide
prevention services to LGBTQ+ people under 25) stating on their
website that LGBTQ+ youth are almost five times more likely to have
attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth.fn1
In 2018, UK-based LGBT rights charity, Stonewall, found that 52%
of LGBT people said they had experienced depression in the last
year, while one in eight LGBT people aged 18–24 (13%) said they
had attempted to take their own life within the last year. Shockingly,
almost half of trans people (46%) had also thought about taking
their own life within the past year of the studyfn2 . These figures are
of epidemic standards and yet government response in the UK is
woeful at best.
The process of my coming out was quite the journey, with failed
attempts at sharing with people, and then going back into the closet
again. It was actually a process that lasted 14 years. When I
eventually got to that place of identifying as gay ‘publicly’, I was still
not really out to myself. What I mean is, I wasn’t comfortable with
who I was, or my sexuality. I carried the yoke of shame for a good
ten years more, at least. For me, coming out happened in three
stages.
First, there was the realisation that I was gay. I did the maths, so
to speak, noticed who I was attracted to as I grew up, and, as I
became more sexual, I knew in myself that I was gay.
Second, there was the public declaration and sharing of my sexual
preferences. It’s weird writing this now as it seems so small. It’s just
one part of me; who I choose to love and who I am sexually
attracted to. Yet this second part became a huge admission – and it
really was an admission (although I don’t like to use that word),
such was the toxicity, guilt, self-hate and disgust boiling up inside
me between stage one and two. It was tantamount to telling people
I was a leper. A young boy who was defective in every way. For me,
the nurturing that occurs in that period from stage one of coming
out to stage two is crucial. If the person isn’t shown that the world
they occupy is safe – their family, friends, school, things they see
around them in the greater world – and if these things don’t
resonate and vibrate with a frequency of love, acceptance and
support, young gay people move into a fearful state, which can be a
breeding ground for self-hate and loathing. The environment within
which stage one and two happens is essential to how that coming-
out process will go.
The third stage of coming out is what I call the ‘integration stage’.
It’s where our inner and outer worlds merge and flourish. We need
to feel the love of the world and experience our own inner love. It’s
an old simile but a good one.
After the egg, the butterfly has three stages: the caterpillar, the
cocoon and the butterfly.
It is important to point out that these stages can happen very
quickly. Someone could realise they are attracted to the same sex,
come out publicly about it, and, dependent on their sense of support
and self-love, might integrate all of it at once. I have to say I was
not one of these people. My process from caterpillar to butterfly was
more of a very slow undressing; taking off various items of clothing,
while painstakingly making my ‘carnival outfit’ of wings with a Pritt
Stick that didn’t really work. Not only that, but I kept deciding to
change the design as I went along.
I feel sad as I write, with tears running down my face. I can recall
the feeling of desperation, hopelessness and fear, and I feel such
empathy for myself back then. I feel empathy for all people who,
through their sexuality and self-knowledge of that, have stirred up
this infectious hateful potion inside that leads them to feel utterly
alone and unaccepted by the world.
Thankfully, I now have my home, I have my job, I have my friends
and, although I still find relationships hard due to past traumas as
well as having a very dodgy nervous system that thinks it’s about to
be eaten by a tiger most of the time, I am at peace with my
sexuality.
I realised I was gay aged around eight. It was all to do with Bobby
Ewing in the American soap opera Dallas. He was the heartthrob,
and I felt attracted to him while watching him on television. In my
head, and also from what I saw all around me, I was clearly, as a
young boy, meant to be attracted to his wife, Pam Ewing, but I
realised that this wasn’t the case.
It’s interesting to me now how this had already started to become
a hugely internalised thinking process. There was never ever the
remotest idea that I would share with anyone, inside or outside my
family, the information that I fancied Bobby, not Pam. The admission
that I had a bit of a crush on the cowboy not the cowgirl. (I actually
think my next album might be called Bobby not Pam.)
These days, it’s hard to imagine being so withdrawn, and living
this secret life with my sexuality at such a young age, but thinking
back, I can really taste that climate of fear and confusion. The
feelings of dismay at the growing amount of evidence that I was
more than likely gay than not gay. Now, I want to be clear, I’d quite
the burgeoning relationship with women. Between the ages of 5 and
7, I had kissed Sophie, a girl in my class, behind her parents’ sofa. I
then declared my love to Jessica Hanbury, who I told everyone I was
going to marry. I was also going to have a Range Rover, be a vet
and have Labradors. I was certainly performing to type in other
areas of my middle-class life.
With Jessica, I think I would have been marrying above my station
anyway. The Hanburys lived in a massive house outside our local
town, Hungerford, and you could have fitted our whole house into
their sitting room. Still, I take some solace now that they may have
been richer than us, but their house was right next to the M4
motorway.
The wedding, thankfully, was not forthcoming. Once I started to
fully get into the dramatic twists and turns of the Dallas plot, I knew
that Jessica and I would never had worked. How far would we have
got before I shared with her that I was more swayed towards double
denim and a Stetson, over a pink off-the-shoulder full-length dress
with frills on the sleeves? It would have been a disaster! So near yet
so far from a Range Roger, five Labradors and a veterinary practice.
 I’d trodden the ‘normal’ path of a young boy until Bobby Ewing.
Now, as I look back on shows like Dallas and Dynasty, I realise it
wasn’t just the leading man I was interested in. The fights between
Krystle and Alexis in Dynasty filled me with delight too, and the high
camp of the show resonated with me.
It’s funny, the question of what makes something camp and why it
might naturally appeal to some gay boys. The answer still eludes
me, but it illustrates how there is more to being gay than simply
fancying the same sex. There are, if you will, certain traits and
tastes that come to the fore. I’m generalising, of course, but I’m
going to run through a few of them, things that I was already
enjoying as a child.
I enjoyed pretty things, and what a woman was wearing: her
perfume, her jewellery. When my mother was going out of an
evening, normally a Friday night, she would come in and kiss me
goodnight, and I would love the smell of her Chanel No. 5. She
smelt so exotic. On one occasion, she had a short haircut – eighties
Annie Lennox-style (it was the eighties so it makes sense!). She was
wearing a mustard-coloured sleeveless top of fine silk, and a large
African beaded necklace. She never wore make-up and looked
beautiful. I was transfixed. From an early age I loved women’s
clothes and the way women looked. I would often buy my mother
clothes for her birthday when I was a teenager: going up to London,
looking in the shops, and buying things that I probably thought I
would wear if I were her.
When I was at school, kids would have Pamela Anderson pictures
on their wall, yet I cut out pages from Vogue and put them up in a
handmade frame I’d rustled up in the art department. It was a
clever ruse actually, because, like other boys, I still had women who
I thought beautiful up on my wall yet I was more adoring of the
clothes they were wearing, how their hair looked, and the general
beauty of the art direction. I still remember now – Linda Evangelista
in a Max Mara striped full-length dress, shot in the desert. As a
teenager, I knew the names of all the supermodels from the
nineties; not because I fancied them, but because I was transfixed
by their beauty. I was amazed by how different they could look and
also what they represented. These were women who became so
powerful, famous and unstoppable. Cindy Crawford adorned many of
the boys’ walls in her Pirelli calendar shots, but I was more
interested in Linda, Naomi, Kate, Yasmin Le Bon, Carla Bruni and
Helena Christensen. They were siren-like, and swept the catwalks,
descending like goddesses from on high. When George Michael shot
the video for ‘Freedom! ’90’, featuring all the supermodels, I could
have died and gone to heaven!
Music is another trait that gay men can have in common and
something else I loved. Especially the divas! Women who could
properly sing, like Annie Lennox, who was an icon for me. She
wasn’t doing what other women artists were doing. She tested
gender and the idea of how a woman could look. At the time, I
never considered how ground-breaking she was; how she didn’t
represent the norm – but I think it must have seeped into me
through her music. Her first solo album, Diva, wrapped me up and
took me to a faraway place. I sank into the lyrics and the music of
‘Why’. And it was Stephen Lipson, the man who produced that
album, who was to produce my own first true album, years later.
Aretha Franklin was another diva I loved. Her duet with George
Michael, ‘I Knew You were Waiting’, rocked my world. Joni Mitchell’s
more obscure albums Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm and Dog Eat Dog
were on repeat on my Walkman, and I was a member of the Kylie
fan club from day dot.
Books! I read a lot as a child, which is weird because I really don’t
now. I went through the obligatory Famous Five, The Secret Garden,
Charlotte’s Web etc. Then one day I stumbled across the Palomino
Horse collection of books and no one could stop me. I raced through
those books like a thoroughbred. It wasn’t usual for a boy to read
pony books, yet I did, and the fact I then moved on to Charlotte
Bingham novels was even more interesting. Charlotte Bingham is
predominantly known as a writer for a female audience. The weird
thing is, I picked her book out myself, in a bookshop. My parents
must have known, and, bless them, they never tried to edit my
reading material.
 My other fascination was also horse-themed: the TV show, Black
Beauty. For those not old enough to remember, Beauty was a
stunning black horse owned by a young girl who lived on a farm.
Similarly to Shadow the sheepdog, Gentle Ben and Lassie, Black
Beauty seemed to constantly sniff out troublemakers and, through
some sort of magical symbiosis with his owner, managed to thwart
any lurking danger. He was stolen, privy to bank robbers, thwarted
loan sharks, and even managed to stop a gang of gypsies. (I’m not
sure now if it was actually the most politically correct of kids’ TV
shows). I think there were even Russian spies involved in the plot at
one stage, so the show was clearly doing its bit to fight the Cold War
through children’s programming, and subconsciously influencing a
new generation towards a cultural bias aimed at the East. Black
Beauty was also an Arabian stud, so quite how he managed to end
up with an impoverished farming family was anyone’s guess. All this
aside, I loved Black Beauty. In fact, I always wanted to have that
magical relationship with animals. I would go for walks and imagine
my black Labradors were giant black horses, whispering to them
about the secret goings-on of the Berkshire countryside. Hiding in
bushes, I’d spy on the farmer as he went past on his combine,
telling the dogs of his Russian heritage and intentions to take over
our house. There was a time, however, when I moved from wanting
a horse to actually becoming one.
My love for Black Beauty did facilitate an amusing (though not at
the time!) story from my first year at my hideous prep school, Horris
Hill. We would play on the bottom football pitches, which lay either
side of the long drive heading up towards the main school. There
were many days on which I would imagine myself walking up that
drive and away from that hideous place, gazing longingly at it while
waiting for my mother to appear in her black Ford Escort xr3i with
red stripes down the side.
On this particular day it had been especially wet, and we were
playing football. The pitches were at the bottom of a hill, so would
get easily waterlogged. In fact, such was the poor drainage, it would
often be like playing in a marsh.
 It was a rare event that I managed to get the football, but that
day I found myself at the halfway line with no one in my way but the
poor, shivering boy in my opposition’s goal. As I plodded along,
tapping the ball towards the goal, the Black Beauty theme tune
entered my head. I suddenly became the horse, trotting along,
whinnying gently to myself, as the theme tune got louder and louder
in my ears. As I arrived in the penalty box, I delivered my coup de
grâce and swiped at the ball with my foot as people cheered me on.
I completely missed the ball, but the momentum of my kick swept
me off my feet and I landed squarely on my back in the muddy
penalty box. The wind was knocked out of me, and I was left
struggling for air and looking up at the grey sky, as the theme tune
slowly died away. Black Beauty had failed me.
All these incidents from my childhood have helped formulate my
opinion that being gay isn’t just about fancying the same sex; it’s
often about having certain sensibilities. Fashion, women, smells, the
arts, divas – you name it. Perhaps it’s because these things are
usually seen as girlish, and, being gay, that one’s feminine side is
more prominent. For me, this adds a richer inner layer to what it
means to be a gay man.
 CHAPTER TWO

Gay in the Eighties

Something that shadowed my entire childhood was the AIDS and
HIV epidemic in the early eighties and how this was portrayed. It
was seen as the ‘Gay Plague’, and used to such wicked effect against
gay people: ‘Look what they have brought amongst themselves. This
is what happens when men sleep with men. Look what they have
released on the world; an illness that could threaten humanity.’
The treatment and medical care for gay people with AIDS was
sparse, hard to find and largely promoted by LGBT groups, charities
and celebrity advocates for gay rights. Indeed, the building that now
houses a well-known dance studio in Fulham was desired by
Elizabeth Taylor to be used as an AIDS hospital in the 1980s. She
was one of the earliest famous voices who stood up for the gay
community and the illness that was ravaging them.
The combination of a world-famous pop star, Freddie Mercury, and
this disease, was the perfect ammunition to highlight the miserable
demise that awaited any gay man. The narrative was that gay men
were salacious and sexually depraved, and this behaviour led to
them catching this evil, almost biblical disease.
Interestingly enough, I always thought I would die of AIDS. My
belief that I was evil had already been set in motion by Religious
Studies. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah was the most damning
of accounts in the Bible. It was a city that was rife with men having
sex with other men. The story is used as a metaphor for the
punishment against homosexuality. Indeed, the words sodomite and
sodomise were picked up and used as pejorative terms against gay
men, and inscribed into law, being used to describe sexual ‘crimes
against nature’, specifically oral and anal sex amongst men – and
bestiality! Yes, within the law, gay sex was put on the same level as
bestiality.
The surrounding narrative was along the lines of, ‘You’re so evil
that your type was killed by God in a blazing fire.’ The rhetoric and
descriptions that were used to describe gay men were not just
descriptive terms, but pejorative ones that had their origins in
something repulsive, cast off and depraved.
I remember watching, when I was eight years old, the television
information films that were supposed to inform the public about the
dangers of AIDS. These TV adverts were dark, involving approaching
icebergs and volcanoes. The overriding concept was one of hopeless
destinies towards an unstoppable natural disaster. The crashing and
sinking after running into an iceberg, or burning alive due to a
volcanic eruption. Each advert ended in the chiselling of AIDS onto a
granite tombstone. The mood was anything other than light or
hopeful. Instead, there was an atmosphere of doom and apocalyptic
terror, and the overriding emotion that I came away with, after
watching these adverts, was one of horror and fear. Of something
that was ‘other’; almost like an impending attack by alien beings.
The other thing I knew about AIDS was that it was created,
caused and spread by gay people. It was an illness that gay men
had, and it was their fault that the disease existed. I wasn’t aware of
anal sex at that stage, but as far as I knew, men could get it
through kissing or getting naked with other men. If you were gay
you had AIDS and if you had AIDS you could not be around other
people. The illness was highly contagious and therefore you had to
stay as far away as possible from people who had it. It reminded me
of lepers, and from what I knew from the Bible, lepers had to stay in
their own colonies. Their skin would fall off, they would ooze blood
and pus, and you could catch leprosy by just being around them.
Now, gay men were the lepers who had brought this terrible disease
into the world.
Suddenly being gay – which I already knew was wrong and evil
and made me a social leper – was laced with the risk of catching an
incurable, catchable illness. Gay people were not just depraved and
wrong; they now could kill you simply by being in your presence.
AIDS bolstered the discrimination against the gay community and
made it acceptable. It allowed people to shine a bright light on gay
men’s perverse actions and sexual deviance by showing a supposed
direct correlation between their sexual acts and resulting demise. It
was because of gay people that this disease existed and that it had
been released into the wider community, and they were dying
because of their choice to live their lives in such a hedonistic and
repellent manner. Gay people released their ‘Gay Plague’ into the
world, and the headlines blazed throughout the eighties: ‘MY
DOOMED SON’S GAY PLAGUE AGONY’; ‘BRITAIN THREATENED BY
GAY VIRUS PLAGUE’; ‘I’D SHOOT MY SON IF HE HAD AIDS, SAYS
VICAR’.
This narrative led to the even further segregation and
disempowerment of gay people, bolstering and enhancing prejudice
towards gay men across all avenues of society.
People who contracted HIV and AIDS were seen as victims;
helpless and doomed. They were all made out to be lost causes,
suffering intolerable pain and misery and despair. And because the
majority of people who were most likely to catch the illness were gay
men, drug users, or women in the sex profession, the notion was
that it was their own fault in the first place for being depraved. They
were not worth allocating funds to, and the world was a better place
without them.
Healthcare in the US and then UK was slow to help anyone with
the illness, and governments were unwilling and resisted spending
money on finding a cure because the social group who contracted it
were generally seen as morally bankrupt. In fact, for a while in the
early eighties, HIV and AIDS was mislabelled as the ‘Gay Related
Immune Deficiency’ disease. The stories of how people were treated
during that period are too many to count.
Speaking in the Independent in January 2017, Michael Penn from
the Terrence Higgins Trust remembered how after his partner died,
he went to his local pub, and the barman, knowing his boyfriend had
died of AIDS, ordered that no one else should touch the glass that
Michael was drinking out of. This kind of misinformation allowed
people to look even more suspiciously on gay men. The lack of
information and education led to a rise in fear of gay men, and fear
always leads to prejudice if unchecked.
Growing up, HIV and AIDS made me think I was destined to die
young from an incurable disease, and it would be my own fault. I
imagined I would automatically catch it from sleeping with another
man. The lack of education in schools focusing on STDs and
prevention of AIDS and HIV meant that I bought into the story I was
force-fed in the eighties and even the early nineties. I felt filthy, but
also trapped. Subconsciously, I was condemning myself to die by
fancying and loving people of the same sex. I was performing the
ultimate treason; turning against life by choosing to love men. Not
only was I evil and destined to go to hell, but I was also going to
deliberately end my life due to my choice, desires and faulty genetic
make-up. AIDS and HIV brought up a whole other level of conscious
and subconscious beliefs in me. It was yet more evidence that who I
was in my essence was wrong and it reinforced my belief that I was
damned in this world and the next. In fact, the sense of
hopelessness and helplessness is not just indicative of the shame I
felt, but is also the very definition of trauma. Trauma is to feel
oneself in a situation that is entirely hopeless and one is powerless
to do anything about it, and as far as I was concerned, I was on a
crash course towards utter rack and ruin. The worst thing was, I
couldn’t do anything to stop it because it was me. I was the
problem. I would die alone, with no children, cast out by my family
and friends and society, and I had no one to blame but myself.
Recently, I invited Peter Tatchell for tea to discuss all this. Peter
lived through the AIDS epidemic, and knew the narrative first-hand,
and how gay men were treated, which was dictated by a
heteronormative and bigoted government.
‘To begin with, there was little to no information,’ Peter told me.
‘When gay men were dying, the mainstream media weren’t
interested. It was thought HIV was possibly caused by poppers. It
only hit the big time in mainstream press when the first heterosexual
person died of HIV. The dialogue that was then created by the media
was that it was a gay plague that threatened us all.’
Peter went on to talk about what it was like to live through this.
‘Imagine living through it – our lives are worthless; they are going
to let us die, was what we thought. They wanted us dead. Some
people had the view that the disease was deliberately allowed to
flourish to kill us off. The government at the time under Thatcher
was homophobic – “the family values” and “Victorian values”
campaign, with the directive by Thatcher that we had to return to
traditional family morality and life, and sexual freedom was wrong
and had to stop. One Conservative councillor said that to stop AIDS
all gay people had to be rounded up and gassed. Two friends of
mine were regulars to a local pub and the landlord said from now on
you have to bring your own glasses and cutlery.
‘There was a famous case of a gay guy, who’d been taken to court
for some reason, and the judge ordered for him to be dressed head
to toe in a boiler suit and mask and everything burned at the highest
possible temperature afterwards.’
Peter’s book, AIDS: A Guide to Survival, is a fascinating and
imperative look at what went on during this time. He investigated so
many events and policies percolating beneath the surface of
national-and local-level governance.
‘The chief constable of Manchester said that “gay men were
swirling round in a cesspit of their own making.” The practice of the
police raiding gay bars with rubber gloves arresting people for gay
sex was possibly a consequence of this writing and thinking.
Rising homophobia supported by a Conservative government,
followed by the introduction of Section 28, which prohibited local
authorities and schools from ‘promoting’ homosexuality, saw a huge
spike in gay attacks and murders.
In his book AIDS: Don’t Die of Prejudice, Norman Fowler, the then
government health minister, concedes the government response was
late and it was seen as a moral issue not a health issue. Indeed, it’s
astonishing to hear Peter talk about how openly attacking and
prejudiced the eighties and nineties were under the Thatcher
government. There was little to no help or pastoral guidance during
the AIDS crisis, and this undoubtedly led to a bolstering of
homophobic beliefs, which were rolled out onto young gay boys like
myself. The rhetoric and dogma were that it was debased, wrong
and even caused deadly disgusting illnesses. Speaking to Peter
allowed me to see how cast out and alone the gay community was
back then, yet at the same time, the community came together to
help themselves. It is through this kind of connection and loving
support that we can work through our gay shame and thrive, rather
than simply survive.

There was also a severe lack of gay role models during the eighties
and nineties, which is why I believe that the visibility of people who
represent us is of vital importance. When the film 2020 BAFTAS were
announced, the head of BAFTA was gracious in her
acknowledgement that the list of nominees wasn’t as diverse or
representative as it could be and had been in the previous couple of
years. It is perhaps also interesting to point out that in the category
for best actor, the person playing Elton John in the biopic Rocket
Man was straight and later went on to win a Golden Globe for Best
Actor in this role. Last year, the actor playing Freddie Mercury in the
biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was also straight and won the Oscar for
best actor.
As an actor myself, I find myself falling into an internal conflict
over this. What I find interesting is that often, when a straight male
actor plays a gay role, they receive such plaudits, praise and often
awards. It is seen by the heteronormative world as such a
remarkable transformation and such a ‘brave’ thing to do – to be
sexual with another man – as if they should otherwise find it
repulsive and shocking. Incidentally, I had to kiss a woman in a TV
series I was in. It wasn’t hard, it wasn’t terrifying and I enjoyed it; it
was bloody funny. No one asked me about what it was like to be so
brave and challenged by kissing someone of the opposite sex. Now I
am not Hollywood-level; however, so often we see heterosexual men
being bowed down to for stepping into the role of playing a gay
man. Brokeback Mountain had two straight men playing the roles of
cowboy lovers, and both were nominated for Oscars. I am not
chastising the actors, but consider the lack of gay actors who are
cast into straight roles, and then oddly not cast in gay roles either.
Do people think that gay actors aren’t acting if they play gay? That
they are simply being themselves?
On a day off recently, I was sitting in a hotel, visiting my friend,
Mark. The hotel was comfortable and decorated well. Around the bar
on the walls was a painted mural of a party scene: sort of cocktail-
evening-inspired; with a 1940s feel. What I really noticed is that
there were no black people in the scene at all. I guess I was thinking
of Afro-Caribbean people specifically because two members of my
band are of that ethnicity, and there was also a mixed-race couple
near me at the hotel at the time: the woman was white and the man
was black.
As I sat there, I wondered what it must be like for a black person,
walking into this hotel and seeing no representation of themselves
on the walls. What feelings would arise? A sense of not feeling
welcome, I imagine. The idea that this place isn’t for you. Feeling
like an intruder into a life or environment that is inhospitable. Feeling
like an outsider. There is no sense of comfort or safety. I feel
different and an oddity. Looking at the walls from this perspective
allowed me to access this feeling and relate it to being gay.
Of course, the history of abuse and disempowerment and
illegitimacy of being black throughout the world is entirely different
to being gay, and I would not for a second propose that it is the
same because it would completely negate any feelings of what it is
to be black. One of the primary differentiations in day-to-day life is
that one cannot hide the colour of one’s skin, whereas, as a gay
man, one can live in the shadows and live a lie behind a mask. What
I accessed is that feeling of being an oddity as a gay man. By not
seeing any representation or visibility even in such a simple example
as a mural on a wall, I feel ‘not the norm’. The norm of having fun,
drinking and socialising within this space does not include the likes
of me. This hotel is not for me and my gay friends to partake in, or if
we are to visit and have fun, we must hide who we are. It is
effectively not a safe space.
If I translate the example of my hotel to the wider world, it is no
different. Where did I see gay people when growing up? Where were
gay storylines in films? Where were the gay posters and actors?
Where were gay people in my social circles when growing up? What
was the narrative and discourse about gay people and their lives?
There was next to nothing.
It is essential that we see who we are represented in all areas of
life. Be it female directors, black actors, or more diverse and
inclusive stories. This is how we all learn, and can be inspired. We
see that we can be more than the stereotypes thrust on us by a
patriarchal society that seeks to limit and control. Growing up, I
lacked these stories. Gay men either died of AIDS, like Freddie
Mercury, or were portrayed as sordid and lewd, ‘discovered’ in public
toilets, like George Michael.
There was another type of gay man on TV when I was young,
who I like to call the clowns. Often, they were gay men who were
allowed to appear on TV to camp it up, but restricted to playing the
formulated ‘Carry On’ role: Larry Grayson, Frankie Howerd, Kenneth
Williams. These men were there for the puns and double entendres.
A sparkly jacket would suffice, and oddly, they became sexually
neutralised.
Gay men in the 1940s were allowed sanctuary in the theatrical
world. It was seen as one of the safe spaces as long as it was never
openly addressed. In television and light entertainment, gay men
were safe as long as they were playing the jester; entertaining us
yet never challenging us. The role models for me growing up,
therefore, were basically repressed gay men who danced to the tune
of the heteronormative bureaucracy for the entertainment of the
audience at home. That wasn’t a life I wanted.
These days, TV regulars like Graham Norton occupy a fantastic
position, seen as being funny as well as intelligent and authoritative.
However, there are still many light entertainment shows that portray
homosexuality as something a bit risqué. Something that perhaps
warrants a little laugh, but is kept firmly in its place.
Aside from light entertainment, people who supported gay causes
and appeared on more serious programmes, discussing social topics,
were often ridiculed. Peter Tatchell, who is an activist for human
rights across the board, and who has fought for gay rights for over
50 years now, was absolutely vilified. The narrative I got when he
was on television was that he was an irritant; someone who banged
on about insignificant topics such as gay rights. At the time, I felt
internal disgust and couldn’t identify with him. Peter didn’t live in the
protective bubble of pop music, where one could accrue a mobile
and supportive fan base who would give you credit. He had none of
that. He existed on the front line, which is why I now look back on
what he did with huge admiration and wonder. He publicly spoke out
on platforms, sharing TV shows with people who would quite openly
call gay men ‘poofters’, ‘faggots’ or ‘queers’. I salute him!
In terms of role models, I firmly believe that had there been
people such as Olly Alexander, the frontman of the band Years &
Years, or an artist like Christine and the Queens – both embracing
and living authentically in their true selves – I would have shed
some of my shame. I’d have seen that there were people out there
who were not just freaks and there to be sneered at, but were
successful and proud. Their light would have shone out to me, and
perhaps inflated my own self-belief and confidence in being alive and
existing in the world.
CHAPTER THREE

An Education
After leaving Horris Hill Prep School, aged 13, I went to Wellington
College. It was daunting to go from the top of the pile in one school,
right back down to the bottom, as was leaving all my friends behind.
I was fortunate in that, being twins, my brother Rupert and I were in
the same year, and in the same boarding house. It was the same
one – The Hopetoun – that my father had been in, back in the
sixties.
With schools like Wellington, if you had a parent who’d gone to
the school, it was felt you were more likely to get a place. As well as
this, my father had been rugby captain, which held a certain cachet
as Wellington was big on rugby. I clearly remember my first day
there. The night before, I’d gone into my parents’ room, crying and
saying I didn’t want to go. They told me to give it until half-term and
see how I felt then. This placated me somewhat, although, looking
back, I just didn’t want to go to boarding school. After Horris Hill,
however, Wellington was like a holiday camp. We could wear our
own clothes out of the classroom – so from 6pm in the evening and
at weekends. There was a full-on sweet shop called Grubbies. We
could listen to our music (music at Horris Hill was limited to three
hours a week) and we were called by our first names.
Still, I found the first day terrifying; the older boys looked like full-
grown men! And with thoughts of my sexuality always in the
background, I was curious and nervous as to whether being gay
would ‘stay with me’. Meanwhile, I, of course, developed crushes on
some of the other boys. New students turned up a week before the
rest of the school, except the top two senior rugby teams, who
would train for the whole week. I remember on the first day, having
an ‘orientation’ morning around the school. As we got down towards
the rugby fields, I had never seen anything like it. I felt like I was
watching the giants amongst boys, who actually resembled young
men. Naturally my eyes went to the ‘young men’ who I found
attractive. One of them, incidentally, went on to become a Calvin
Klein model, so I suppose I had some sort of good taste. I felt
utterly daunted and thrilled, yet also wrong, almost depraved, that I
was attracted towards people of the same sex. It was like I inhabited
a whole other world – an inner world – of desire, fantasy, love and
attraction. It was a world that I could and absolutely would not allow
ANYONE else to know. At times, I existed there completely, yet no
one knew. It was comforting in a way, but thinking back, I was living
purely in my head, and the utter commandment was that I always
would be.
It was around this time that the internet launched (which makes
me feel extremely ancient), and I realised that I could now get
online and watch gay porn when I was at home. This was a
revelation, but not always easy to achieve. Firstly, I would have to
sneak out of my room at night and go to the spare room, where the
computer and router were kept. Once there, I’d have to put a towel
over the router because it would make a noise like a fax machine as
it ‘dialled up’, which lasted for about 30 seconds. I cannot explain to
you how excruciating those 30 seconds were; the noise that bloody
router made was like a ghostly cat screaming through a fan. I would
sit with bated breath, waiting for the horrific sound to finish, and
then, as quickly as possible, search ‘gay porn’. Then in darkness, lit
only by the glowing computer screen, I’d wank as quickly as
possible. It was what you might call a danger wank!
There was, I suppose, a sadder side to it, in that I felt so terrified
in case I got caught, as any teenager would. The truth was, I
couldn’t find gay porn anywhere else, and didn’t yet have the
confidence to walk into a newsagent or sex shop to find it.
Prior to my discovery of porn, stimulation had been scant,
although there was the Chippendales video that my sister had been
given for Christmas. The Chippendales were an American act made
up of male strippers, who, during the eighties, became huge, selling
out arenas. They were all oiled, with long, wet-look perms and G-
strings. It’s not something I would find sexy now, but at the time it
was very arousing. Again, it was all I could get my hands on, aside
from a video copy of A Room with a View, starring Helena Bonham
Carter. In the film, there was a famous homoerotic scene where
three of the men went skinny dipping in the woods, and then ran
around the edge of the lake with their knobs out. The sight of a
young Rupert Graves – who, years later, I recorded a radio play with
about a woman giving fake birth to baby rabbits – was too much for
me, and I would slowly frame-by-frame move this scene on using
the pause button. Afterwards, I would have to make sure I rewound
the video back to the exact time-mark it was at to begin with. I
chose not to share this information with Rupert Graves, which, I
think, was probably for the best.
At that age, even uttering the word ‘gay’ was something I found
excruciating. It was literally impossible for me to even formulate the
word and say it out loud. The use of the word ‘gay’ was like uttering
‘Voldemort’; it was so wrong, and so dangerous, that the
implications of saying it were utterly catastrophic. Even after coming
out at university, I’d been so conditioned to the foulness of the word
that it took me another ten years to get comfortable with it.
My first experience of telling someone I was gay was when was
16. I was at Wellington, and it had all been building and building
inside me, to the point I was beginning to get depressed for the first
time. I wasn’t in utter devastation, but it was noticeable that I was
not my normal bubbly self. I remember sneaking up to my friend
Andrew’s room, which was two rooms up from my and Rupert’s
room, on the same corridor. Weirdly, I remember I was wearing a
green Emporio Armani shirt, which eventually joined the long list of
lost clothes I will occasionally mourn for. Once there, I told Andrew I
had to tell him something, but it took me so long to get it out. I
remember crying a lot, and getting super super hot and sweaty. I
finally managed to get the words out, but thinking back, I don’t
know if I actually said the word gay, or rather alluded to it. Andrew
was invaluable to me at that time; the first person I felt wasn’t
judging me. I will forever be indebted to him.
After that, we set about testing my sexuality, by seeing how I
fared with various friends of his girlfriend, which now actually
sounds a little bit creepy. It was a bit like a science experiment, I
suppose. I remember the first party I went to, which was at
Andrew’s girlfriend’s house. We turned up to find about seven girls,
and we all sat around the sitting room eating pizza. I am not shitting
you when I tell you that we watched the ‘Greatest Love Scenes from
Neighbours’. It was one of the worst and dullest evenings I have
ever spent. I ended up sitting in the dog-bed downstairs in the
kitchen, with the family’s Dalmatian, who was adorable and, like me,
had little interest in watching Kylie and Jason break up again.
Andrew actually did wonders for alleviating some of the pain and
terror I had bottled up inside; it was a tougher job, however, to dig
out the deep shame that had settled in my system.
By the time I was 16, everyone at school was getting a bit more
sexual, and it was fascinating watching some of the boys I knew
move slowly into their sexuality. Wellington only had girls in the top
two years, and it was often the most unexpected of boys who would
suddenly be dating one of them. There was a confidence that came
with my peers as they paired off with various girl students, but it
wasn’t just within the school that they’d meet. We had what we
called socials, where one year of students would go off to a girls’
school and have a dance with them. Alcohol was, of course, always
smuggled in, and someone would always get in trouble. I’d never
go, but back at school, I’d be eager to hear all the stories of who
had got with who, and how far they got. One of the Wellington boys
ended up using loads of French bangers to blow up one of the girls’
lockers. After that, and possibly to this day, Wellington was banned
from attending the socials.
During this period, I created a sort of character for myself, and, in
a way, became untouchable. I felt like I had everyone under my
control within my boarding house. I was suitably subservient to the
boys above me, I respected the boys below me, so they respected
me, and my housemaster adored me. Outside the boarding house,
however, I was effectively mute. It was a strategy that worked. I
wouldn’t talk to anyone and so gave them nothing on me. I still use
this strategy sometimes. It’s better to keep one’s head beneath the
parapet and let one’s actions do the talking. That is how I have
approached my singing career, right from the beginning.
It was sport that initially gave me some kudos, enabling me to
branch out from the boarding house. From the age of 13 onwards, I
practised at the basketball courts constantly, and watched all the
older boys playing. I learnt a lot, and slowly got better and better
until, aged 16, I was in the starting five for my year. Suddenly,
through basketball, I was allowed into the ‘cool gang’ (with a group
who called themselves ‘the Asian Posse!’), where my sporting
prowess gave me huge points for being ‘manly’. It was a brilliant
coat of armour, but I also found joy in it. When I talk of my sporting
capabilities, it’s not with an intention to brag; post-puberty I started
to see that I was actually a good runner, my physique started to
develop quite quickly and I became stronger and in turn more self-
confident in my abilities in sport. It is, however, an example of how
people’s narrow way of thinking about what a gay man could be
allowed me to thrive, while also throwing potential bullies off the
scent, so to speak. It was the narrow stereotyping from a
heteronormative society that gave me the camouflage I needed.
How could someone who plays a sport so well and so physically be
gay? He couldn’t!
In the Asian Posse there was Emil, who was extremely wealthy,
Deshan, Tayo, who was an incredible athlete, my brother Rupert,
and me. At Wellington, basketball was a bit of an unknown. It
existed in its own bubble, where I managed to create a protective
oasis around myself. Firstly, due to the American cool factor that the
sport brought, we were allowed to walk around in baggy shorts and
vests. Secondly, the kind of game we played was rhythmic, flowed
and, basically, few people could play it. The ‘lads’ in the school
lacked the dance-like coordination required to play it well, which is
why we were respected and, in a way, feared, because once on the
court in inter-house matches, we had the ability to shine and make
others look less-than.
The other protection I had was racial. People couldn’t really
challenge the identity of my friends in the Asian Posse. Yes, they
were in the minority, but it was very different to someone identifying
as gay. This was race, and people were, without doubt, wary of and
intimidated by them. Emil was the son of a sickeningly rich family.
Nazif, another friend, was known for being very strong. Tayo was
also from a hugely wealthy family, and Deshan challenged
everyone’s limited views by being incredibly gifted in all three top
sports – hockey, rugby and cricket – while also being very hippy-like
in his approach to life. All four boys didn’t take any shit. Boys older
and younger were wise enough to know that it would be foolish to
go up against them. On the rare occasions when somebody did, they
were quickly, and physically, shut down. I had unknowingly created
an enormous protective buffer against anyone who might get as
much as a sniff of my gayness. It was another opportunity to throw
people off the scent and hide my shameful secret.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. On one occasion one of my own
school friends shot me down in front of everyone, uttering the
unspeakable.
This friend was was an incredible athlete: tall, lithe and rippled
with muscles. He was also, I came to learn, a cruel and unpleasant
character who preyed on people’s weaknesses. On that day I came
into the dining room at school, aged 16, wearing my basketball vest.
I was fortunate to have a naturally athletic figure, and knew my
arms looked good in a vest. It might not have made me cool, but at
least I could boost my self-esteem by looking in the mirror.
Anyway, I was just sitting down when he looked at me across the
table and said,
‘You know, I think your parents must have been on steroids when
you and your brother were born. You both have brilliant bodies and
look ripped.’
So far so good, but somehow I knew it wouldn’t last.
‘The thing is, Will, you look all manly, like you could beat someone
up, but then you open your mouth and this soft lisp voice comes
out,’ he said. ‘It’s almost as if you’re gay.’
As soon as the words passed his lips, it was as if I’d been kicked in
the stomach and had fallen to the ground. The feeling I had was
utterly depleting; full of overwhelming shame. The notion that
someone had seen through my disguise was terrifying, and from
then on I walked on eggshells with the terror that someone might
see the real me. The me who was absolutely repulsive to his core.
With this hanging over my head, I decided to tread a tightrope
along which I would deftly walk, attempting to balance an outer
projection of normality yet never completely throwing away my
authenticity as a young gay man. It was exhausting living a lie,
absolutely exhausting, and I can sometimes still experience this
feeling when I am having an episode of anxiety or depression. It is a
balancing act between containment i.e. not splurging out my
emotional state at any opportunity, and also being true to myself at
any one time. Mental and physical health, however, are very
different to living in an environment that is fundamentally not safe
and not accepting of my very essence and being. When I was a
teenager, it was like living behind enemy lines. The truth being that
it felt as though even my friends were the enemy.
Wellington College was a beautiful old building made up of lots of
courtyard and quads, each with a different name. I lived on the edge
of the school’s grounds, so after tea on a Friday evening, I would
cross the lower Combermere Quad into the Back Quad to where the
rugby fixture lists were posted, to see whether I was playing away
or at home that weekend. I had another agenda, however, which
was to see which of the other boys were playing on the away teams.
Perhaps I would get a chance to see some of the boys who I
fancied, naked in the showers. The trouble was, thinking like this
would lead me to feelings of self-disgust, reminding me that I was
living a lie and masquerading amongst my peers. I chastised myself,
attacking myself as some sort of pervert. I took on the thoughts that
all the straight boys would think of me: ‘Oh, when Will tackles boys
on the rugby field, he’s obviously deriving some sort of sexual
pleasure from it.’ I attacked myself endlessly. It must be horrific, I
thought, that these poor boys had someone like me in their midst. I
felt almost as if I was predatory. The thing that crippled me even
more was taking showers with other boys while on away rugby
matches. What would happen if they eventually found out I was
gay? Surely they would be looking back on all the occasions I’d seen
them naked, with anger and repulsion. The idea that I could move
undetected in their midst, showering naked with them, and, even
worse, getting sexually turned on by the ones I fancied. I was
racked with conflict. On one hand I was following an urge that was
completely natural to a teenage boy. Imagine if I was heterosexual
and had the opportunity to go away with a whole selection of girls
my age and got to shower with them. No one would see my
excitement and sexual desires as anything other than natural. In
fact, I’d probably be applauded for my expression of sexual prowess
and development into becoming a man.
However, what if people knew that I harboured sexual desires and
crushes on a certain boy? Or that I would masturbate back in my
room with stored-up visions in my head of boys I had seen naked
that day, soaping up their bodies. Boys whose willies and bums I had
seen, before turning the images into my own secret fantasies. If
people knew all that, it would surely be completely acceptable for
them to cast me out, to beat me up, to insult and torment me. After
all, it hadn’t been that long since being gay was still illegal.
I feel it’s important to stress that I don’t think of any of these
things now as a 41-year-old man. What I mean is, I am not writing
these memories, lasciviously thinking about 17-year-old boys. I am
writing about how I felt then, and how my natural sexual desires
played out. It’s in itself interesting that I feel the need to say this.
On the one hand, it is entirely appropriate, but on the other it is
perhaps a reaction to how gay men have been vilified in the past,
and how being gay was often linked with paedophilia. Being gay
often meant that one was seen as predatory to all males, no matter
what their age. In fact, I believe the notion was that a gay man
couldn’t overpower a straight adult male, but could easily prey on
the vulnerable and physically weaker, who were young boys.
The other factor that didn’t help these blinkered and damaging
views was that schools and the education system could be a
breeding ground for gay men who were paedophiles. I certainly
experienced some predatory men when I was younger, but it wasn’t
always clear if they were men whose massively suppressed sexuality
had compelled them to prey on young boys, or whether they were
just that way inclined anyway.
At my prep school, the aforementioned Horris Hill, I I lived
amongst some men who, though not paedophiles, clearly had issues
with boundaries and whose behaviour made me feel extremely
uncomfortable. It was an all-boys school, and there was one teacher
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
sitten hidastellen ja vastenmielisesti Iasoniin. Nyt hänen täytyi
vihdoinkin saada tietää, ett'ei hän ymmärtänyt lukea, mutta Xanthe
osasi selittää kirjoitettuja lauseita ja hänenhän täytyisi piakkoin tulla
aamiaiselle.

"Luenko minä?" kysyi vanhus.

"Sitä taitaisin itsekin, jos vain tahtoisin", vastasi emännöitsijä ja

veti sauvalla teräviä ja tylsiä kulmia lattiaan, ikäänkuin tahtoisi hän
kirjoittaa. "Minä kyllä voisin sitä, mutta minä en kuuntele mielelläni
uutisia tyhjällä vatsalla, ja se, mitä tässä kirjeessä sanotaan, koskee,
luulisin minä, minua eikä ketään muuta. Mene, Dorippe, ja käske
Xanthe aamiaiselle!"

"Minä tiedän jo, mitä tuossa seisoo", huusi tyttö, joka

vastahakoisesti nyt jo tahtoi erota kumppaninsa veljestä, joka häntä
sydämmestänsä rakasti ja joka olisi vielä paljon kertonut hänelle
matkastansa Messeneen.

"Mopsos on kertonut sen meille: herran veljenpoika Leonax,

Alkiphronin poika, on seuraava enoansa ja aikoo viipyä vieraana, ei
tuolla Protarchon luona, vaan meidän talossamme. Hän kuuluu
olevan komea poika; vielä pitempi kuin Phaon, ja Mopsos sanoo,
että Alkiphronin puoliso on pistänyt kätensä syvälle kukkaroon
meidän herramme Messenessä toimitettavan asian tähden ja on
ostanut kultaisia rannerenkaita ja naistenpukuja, myös senlaisia,
joita arvoisat rouvat kantavat."

Semestren rypistyneissä kasvoissa vilahti hänen tätä kuullessaan

ilon ja toivon hymyily kuni kevään henkäys talven lehdettömäksi
tekemän puutarhan yli. Hän ei ajatellut enään sitä vahinkoa, jota
uutinen voisi tuottaa hänen tyhjälle vatsallensa ja samassa, kuin hän
näki sisällisen silmänsä edessä sinisen rouvan puvun liehuvan ja
Xanthen rikkaan morsiuslahjan hohtavan, kysyi hän kiireesti
tervetulleelta sanansaattajalta:

"Puhuuko hän totta? Ja miten on vaatteiden laita?"

"Minä itse kannoin vaatteita", vastasi Mopsos, "ja asetin ne

semmoiseen kauniisen norsunluukuvilla koristettuun kirstuun,
jonkamoisia vastanaineet saavat morsiuslahjan mukana. Siinä minua
auttoi Praxilla Alkiphronin puolison komea sisar; hän antoi
myöskin…"

"Niinpä menkää ja kutsukaa Xanthe", keskeytti Semestre

sanansaattajaa, jonka puhuessa hän oli useampia kertoja hiljaa
naurahdellut; ja kun tytöt sitten nopeasti poistuivat Mopsoksen
kanssa, katsahti hän Iasoniin voittoriemuisella silmäyksellä. Sitten
johtui hänen mieleensä, kuinka paljo vielä oli tehtävää nuoren
kosijan Leonaxin vastaanottamiseksi, ja korottaen ääntänsä huusi
hän:

"Dorippe, Chloris! Chloris — Dorippe!" Ei kumpainenkaan

näyttänyt kuulevan, ja kun hänen täytyi heittää kaikki toivo
vastauksesta, kääntyi hän olkapäitään nyykäyttäen Iasonin puoleen
ja sanoi:

"Niin nuoria ja niin kuuroja; se on surkeata! Nuo onnettomat

tyttörievut!"

"Mopsos on heille rakkaampi kuin sinä, eivätkä he tahdo kuulla",

sanoi
Iason ja nauroi.
 "He eivät voi kuulla", kiivastui Semestre. "Mopsos on hävytön,
kelvoton veitikka, jota minä jo usein olen halunnut ajaa pois talosta,
mutta minä tahtoisin nähdä sitä, joka kieltää minulta tottelevaisuutta.
Mitä sinun ehdoitukseesi tulee, niin olethan nyt huomannut kyllin
selvään, että meidän tyttö on määrätty Leonaxille."

"Mutta jospa Xanthe ei huoli Leonaxista ja katsoo Phaonia

etevämmäksi kuin tuota vierasta nuorukaista?"

"Alkiphronin poika ja 'vieras' tässä esi-isiensä talossa!" huusi

Semestre. "Mitä kaikkea saakaan kuulla; mutta minun täytyy työhön,
sillä kysymys on valmistaa parahin vastaanotto Leonaxia varten,
jotta hän alusta saakka tuntisi, ett’ei hän ole täällä vieras, vaan
kokonansa kotona. Mene vaan, jos tahdot, ja uhraa Aphroditelle, että
hän yhdistäisi Xanthen ja Phaonin sydämmet, mutta minä pysyn
paistinvartaani ääressä."

"Siinä olet sinä paikallasi", huusi Iason, "mutta etpä sinä käännä
sitä vielä Leonaxin hääkemuja varten."

"Mutta kyllä tahdon valmistaa juhlapaistin Phaoninkin häitä varten,

sen lupaan sinulle; mutta ei ennen, kuin uhrieläin, jota minä itse olen
syöttänyt, määrää kuohusta syntyneen jumalattaren sytyttämään
lempeää rakkautta Xanthen sydämmessä sinun herrasi Protarchon
poikaa Phaonia, eikä Leonaxia kohtaan!"

Xanthe
 "Xanthe, Xanthe", huusi Semestre vähän, myöhemmin, "Xanthe!
Missä piiloittelee tuo tyttö?"

Eukko oli tullut puutarhaan, ja koska hän ymmärsi käyttää

hyödyllisesti aikaansa ja mielellään yhdisti askareet toisiinsa, poimi
hän, hakiessaan holhottiaan ja yhä uudelleen huutaessa tyttöä
nimeltä, kaaliksia ja ruokayrttiä, joiden päällä helmen tavoin aikainen
aamukaste puhtaana ja kosteana kiilsi. Mutta sen ohessa ajatteli hän
paljon enemmän lemmikkinsä poikaa ja häntä varten valmistettavia
paisteja, leivoksia ja kasviruokia kuin Xanthea.

Sitä, jota isä lapsena oli erittäin mielellään syönyt, sitä kaikkea
aikoi hän huolellisesti valmistaa Leonaxille, sillä joka isästä maistui
hyvältä, tuumaili hän, se lapsellekin maistuu.

Ainakin kaksikymmentä kertaa oli hän syvään kumartunut

ottaaksensa vierestä lavendelia, viheriäistä salaattia ja nuorta
punajuurikasta, ja joka kerta kun hän oli oikaissut itsensä
myrttisauvaansa nojautuneena niin suoraksi, kuin hänen
vanhuudesta koukistunut selkänsä sen salli, joka kerta oli hän
huutanut "Xanthe" ja yhä vaan "Xanthe."

Mutta vaikkapa hän sitä tehdessään lopulta heitti päänsä niin

paljon taaksepäin, että aurinko paistoi hänen avattuun suuhunsa, ja
vaikk'ei hänen keuhkojensa voima ollut pieni, niin ei sittenkään
kuulunut minkäänlaista vastausta.

Eipä hän kuitenkaan tullut levottomaksi, sillä ei tyttö saattanut olla

kaukana ja Semestre oli tottunut, että hän antoi useampia kertoja
huutaa itseänsä, ennenkuin hän totteli sitä.

Tänäänpä viipyi vastaus tosiaankin kauemmin kuin tavallisesti.

 Kyllä neitonen sittekin kuuli aivan hyvin vanhuksen kauas
kuuluvan kimeän äänen, mutta hän ei välittänyt siitä enemmän kuin
kanojen kaakotuksesta, riikinkukkojen kirkunasta ja kyyhkysten
kuherruksesta tuolla pihalla.

Hän tiesi, että emännöitsijä kutsui häntä aamiaiselle, mutta

palanen kuivunutta leipää, joka hänellä tavallisesti oli mukana
ulkona, tyydytti kokonaan hänen nälkänsä. Vaikkapa Semestre olisi
houkutellut häntä makeimmilla leivoksilla, niin ei hän tällä hetkellä
olisi jättänyt lempipaikkaansa lähteellä.

Loristen kumpusi lähde korkeimmalta kalliolta hänen isänsä

maatilalla. Usein ja etenkin, jos sydän oli liikutettu, tuli hän sinne
mielellään, ja se olikin herttainen paikka!

Solisten tunkeutui kirkas vesi kallion halkeamasta ja kokoontui

vasemmalle puolelle sitä penkkiä, jolla Xanthen oli tapana istua,
läpikuultavan kirkkaaksi vähäiseksi lammikoksi, jonka reunat olivat
ympäröidyt kauniisti tasoitetuilla valkoisilla marmorimöhkäleillä.
Jokainen punainen piikivi, jokainen sileä pallonen lumivalkeasta
ukonkivestä, jokainen suipukka, joka uurre ja pieni kaistale sievissä
näkinkengissä sen hietaisella pohjalla oli niin selvästi tunnettava,
kuin sitä pidettäisiin paljaalla kädellä silmien edessä, ja kuitenkin oli
sitä peittävä aine niin syvä, että se olisi koskettanut Xanthen
pyöreällä olkavarrella olevaa hohtavaa kultaista rengasta, niin,
vieläpä tuota leikattua kallista kiveä, joka piti yhdessä hänen
peplosiansa olkapäillä, jos hän olisi koettanut ulottua sormienpäillä
lähteen pohjaan.

Aivan kuin kristalli, johon sitä sulatettaessa on heitetty

smaragdipalasia, että nekin muuttuisivat juokseviksi pisaroiksi, niin
vihertävän kirkas oli tämä vesi.
 Edelleen kulkien juoksi se monenkaltaisilla kasveilla kokonaan
täytetyn uurteen läpi.

Aivan nopeasti laaksoon putoavan veden reunojen kohdalla riippui

sieviä köynnöksiä, rehevä sammal viheriöitsi hienoissa keveästi yli
kivien luoduissa kaistaleissa ja kasvoi kallioon liitettynä rehevästi
heruvissa kimpuissa. Hennot viheriäiset kasvijaksot, edestakaisin
loiskivan veden heiluttamina, olivat ylt'ympäri juurtuneet lammikon
pohjaan, ja siellä jossa se juoksullansa syvyyteen taisi levätä
tasaisemmalla paikalla, siellä heiluivat sen ympärillä
sananjalkalöyhyttimet somasti notkistuen, niinkuin kamelikurjen sulat
nukkuvan kuninkaan lapsen kätkyellä.

Xanthe seurasi mielellään myrttipensastoon katoavaa juoksua.

Jos hän käänsi lempipaikaltaan silmänsä sivulle ja alaspäin, näki

hän ensiksi isänsä ja enonsa sekä vasemmalle että oikealle puolelle
lähdettä, vuoren vähitellen kaltavalle seinälle ja kapealle tasangolle
rannalla, laajalle leviävät puutarhat ja istutukset.

Ja tämä kaikki oli aivan suurenlaisen villaisen maton kaltainen,

jonka viheriälle pohjalle on neulottu valkoisia ja kullankeltaisia
pisteitä tahi myös jonkun semmoisen korin kaltainen, jota neidot
kantavat päittensä päällä Demeterin juhlana ja jossa on ko'ottuna
korkealle yli reunojen monivärisiä lehtiä, joista loistaa esiin
vaaleampia ja tummempia hedelmiä.

Nuoret kukkaan puhkeamaisilla olevat granati- ja myrttivesaikot

pistivät hilpeästi esiin valkoisten kyhmyisten öljypuitten loistavassa
lehdistössä.
 Hehkuvan-punaisina, ikäänkuin olisi aurinko tulisella suutelulla
herättänyt heidät elämään, loistivat tuoksuvat ruusut pensaissa ja
pensasaidoissa, ja hienosti värjättyinä, ikäänkuin lapsen huulet
olisivat herättäneet heidät unestaan, hohtivat manteli- ja
persikkakukat puitten oksilla.

Kummallisesti sekaisin kudotuista viikunalatvojen oksista kasvoi

kevätlehtiä ja noihin oli kiinnitetty täysinäisiä hedelmäsäkkisiä.
Vahingoittamattomissa, välkkyvissä, talvenkestämissä lehdistöissä
loisti kultaisia sitrunoita, ja pitkissä riveissä jäsenittöminä ja
solakkoina kohosivat mustanvihreät sypressit kuin kuorilaulajain
totiset sanat keskellä iloista juhlaleikkiä.

Laajalle kaaritetuista pyöreistä teltoista kokoonpannun leirin

kalttaisilta näyttivät alaskatsovan silmissä hänen isänsä
mantelipetäjämetsät, ja jos hän antoi katseensa liukua kauemmaksi,
näki hän lepäävän meren, jonka avara pinta tänä suloisena aamuna
välkkyi täällä kuin kirkas kyani, tuolla kuin hiottu safiri ja näytti
koettavan kaikkialla omalla sinertävyydellä voittaa puhtaan taivaan
värin. Ja yli taivaankannen kiiltelevien hattaroitten tavalla väikkyivät
valkoiset purjeet merellä.

Lempeästi viheriöitsevät kummut ympäröivät tätä suloista kuvaa.

Niitten hyvin kasvaneilla rinteillä kohosi täällä valkoisia temppeleitä,
tuolla kyliä, taloja ja mökkejä, niinkuin karjalaumat ja yksinäiset
lampaat, jotka makaavat puoleksi pensaisen lehdityksen peittäminä.

Samaten kuin iloisten ihmisten päitten ympäri sidotaan seppeleitä,

samoin ympäröi täällä jokaisen varakkaan maanmiehen huonetta
lehto tai puutarha.
 Kumpujen takana kohosivat teräväksi leikatuissa jaksoissa
korkean kaukaisen vuoriston paljaat kalliot, ja kirkkaana sumusta
haamoittaen lepäävän Etnan luminen huippu.

Nyt näin varhain aamulla ympäröi merta ja puutarhoja, kukkuloita

ja etäistä vuoristoa selittämättömän-värinen keveä huntu. Oli
ikäänkuin meri olisi, antanut loimen ja langat, ja aurinko kuteen
kankaasen.

Ihmeteltävä oli tämä taulu, mutta tuon tähden ei Xanthe tullut

lähteelle, tuskinpa hän tiesi, että se oli kaunis.

Tosiaan arveli hän, kun meri kimalteli taivaan värisenä ja niinkuin

tänä päivänä lepäsi liikkumattomana, että Glaukus, sinisen meren
jumala, uinahteli päivänpaisteessa.

Toisina kuumempina päivinä, kun laineet ja aallot liikkuivat, kun

valkoinen vaahto seppelöitsi niiden harjoja ja ne kastelivat rantaa
näkymättömän pitkinä edestakaisin kulkevina juovina, silloin luuli
hän, että viisitoista Nereus'en tytärtä laski leikkiä kirkkaitten aaltojen
alla.

Ne olivat kaikki herttaisia naisia ja heidän leikkinsä oli ylimäärin

iloinen.

Muutamat tuudittelivat itseänsä hiljallensa välkkyvässä vedessä,

toiset heiluivat rohkeasti parakkadein tritonien seljillä ja pakoittivat
niitä hilpeästi kantamaan heitä aallontapaisissa riveissä yli meren.

Kun meren tyrsky löi kuohuen rantaa vastaan, silloin arveli Xanthe
kuulevansa, kuinka voimalliset haamut, jotka ohjasivat ruumistansa
suomuisella pyrstöllä, puhalsivat leveillä huulillansa piikkisiä
näkinkenkiä, ja moni tummansinisen aallon hohtava huippu ei ollut
suinkaan vaan ilman kaltainen merenvahto, ei, sen hän huomasi
selvään, se oli valkoinen niska, loistava käsivarsi ja hopeanhohtava
jalka, Nereus'en tyttärien omat. Niin, hän luuli selvästi näkevänsä,
kuinka he iloisina heittelivät itseänsä edestakaisin sinisessä vedessä
ja milloin pää, milloin jalat edellä vaipuivat nyt syvyyteen, nyt taas
liihoittelivat ympäri pyörien veden pinnalla. Toinen ojensi toisellensa
suloisesti kätensä, ja silloin näyttäytyivät heidän kauniisti kaarevat
kätensä sangen useasti laineitten kupealla laella.

Joka päivä oli heillä uusia leikkejä, samaten kuin merikin ei

ainoanakaan päivänä ollut samanlainen. Niinpä joka hetkellä, muutti
se siellä, täällä ja kaikkialla väriänsä.

Sinisenvihreäisen läpinäkyvän hunnun kaltaisia valosäteitä

tunkeutui usein tummemman pinnan läpi, joka oli kuin
purpuransininen vaippa kalliista fenisiläisestä kankaasta. Niin
mustana, kuni yön silmä, ja valkoisena, kuni Leukotheanin niska,
taisi meri loistaa.

Mutta silloinpa ilmestyi kanssa pian Amphitrite hajanaisilla hiuksilla

ja kauas kaikuvalla äänellä ja hänen mukanansa Poseidon
nelivaljakkoinensa.

Synkästi silmäillen satutti hän tuimasti läpi ilman vinkuvalla

ruoskalla ratsuansa. Vihaisena syöksi hän kolmihaarikkansa syvälle
mereen ja kohta paikalla muuttuivat aallot vaaleanruskeiksi,
tummankeltaisiksi ja pilvenharmaiksi ja meri näytti rautapohjaiselta,
matalalta lammikolta, johon työväki viskaa kiviä. Täydellisesti
sekoitettu oli silloin veden puhtaus, kuohuen purskuivat aallot
taivasta kohti, uhaten lyödä pirstaleiksi rajuilla huimauksilla
marmorisen rantarakennuksen. Vavisten piilottuivat nereidit meren
ijäti lepäävään pohjaan, mutta tritonit eivät tarvinneet enään
koverrettuja näkinkenkiänsä, puhaltaaksensa niistä mieluisia
säveleitä, ei, ne antoivat kuulua kumisevia sotalauluja, ikäänkuin olisi
kysymys valloittaa vihollinen linna, ja Amphitrite löi molemmat
kätensä pitkään liehuvaan tukkaansa ja korotti pitkälle eteenpäin
kurotetulla kaulalla ja päällä hurjan kiljuntansa.

Mutta tänään lepäsi meri, ja kun Xanthe tuli lähteelle, hehkuivat

maidon-karvaisen, keveänä ja haihtuvana toinen toisensa päälle
kasaantuneen pilviryhmän reunat, vielä ruusun-värisinä, korkeimpien
vuorien harjanteilla. Se oli katoavan Eoksen vaatteen lieve, se oli
kukkien lehdet, joita Horit hajoittivat Helios'in merestä nousevan
nelivaljakon tielle.

Tänä päivänä ja tällä hetkellä kohtasi aamun valo puhtaana noita

korkeita kypressejä kukkulalla, tuulen hiljaisessa henkäyksessä
nuokkuivat lehdistön latvat puutarhassa ja Xanthe nyykäytti niille
päätänsä, sillä hän ajatteli, että puuta elättävät kauniit dryadit
tervehtivät toisiansa viitaten. Alttarille, joka oli lähellä hänen
lepopaikkaansa ja jonka hänen esi-isänsä oli pystyttänyt lähteen
aallottarelle, asetti hän usein lyhyellä rukouksella kukkasia tahi
myöskin pyöreän kakun uhriksi, — mutta sitä tehdäkseen ei hän ollut
tänään tullut lähteelle.

Mikä veti häntä sitten näin aikaisin kotoa tuonne mäelle?

Tulikohan hän kenties lähteelle ihaillaksensa sen kirkkaalla pinnalla
omaa kuvaansa?

Kotona oli hänelle semmoista vaan harvoin suotu, sillä Semestren

oli tapana, niin usein kun hän katsoi kiiltävään metallilevyyn, sanoa
näin:
 "Jos tyttö käyttää tavantakaa tuonlaista turhuutta, niin näkee hän
aivan varmasti narrin kuvan sieltä."

Kielletyt asiat ovat houkuttelevaisia, mutta Xanthe katsahti

ainoastaan harvoin tuohon juoksevaan kuvastimeen, ja kuitenkin
olisi se voinut ilahuttaa häntä, että hän siinä itseänsä usein katseli,
sillä hänen vartalonsa oli korkea ja solakka, niinkuin kypressin
muoto, hänen paksut vaaleat hiuksensa kullanloistavat, kauniisti
muodostunut oli hänen kasvojensa muoto, pitkäripsiset hänen suuret
siniset silmänsä, jotka eivät tienneet salata mitään, mikä hänen
sieluansa liikutti, ja kun hän oli itseksensä, näyttivät kysyvän;
"Mitähän jumalat ovatkaan määränneet minulle tulevaisuudeksi?"
Mutta voitiinpa myös usein hänen katseestansa lukea vastaus:
"Varmaankin jotain kaunista."

Mutta eipä Xanthe tullut lähteelle maalataksensa tulevaisuuden

kuvia, ei, hän tuli päinvastoin tänne, ollaksensa surullinen, oikein
sydämestänsä surullinen, voidaksensa nuhteitta vuodattaa
kyyneleitä. Hän ei itkenyt kiihkeästi, mutta kuitenkin virtasi hänen
silmistänsä hitaasti nuo suuret, suolaiset pisarat, jotka juoksevat
nuoria poskia pitkin, niinkuin kiiltävä mahla pitkin koivua tippa tipalta
vuotaa, kun sitä on haavoitettu.

Niin, Xanthe oli surullinen täällä ylhäällä ja kuitenkin näytti kaikki,

joka häntä ympäröi, niin iloiselta, ja vaikka hänen kodistansa nauru
tuskin koskaan vaikeni ja hänen oma naurunsa usein ei ollut
vähemmän iloinen ja hillitsemätön kuin vallattoman Chloris'in ja
mustan Dorippe'n.

Hänen kipeä ja hitaasti parantuva isänsä ei voinut kieltää häneltä

ainoatakaan toivomusta, ja jos Semestre sekaantui siihen, niin teki
Xanthe kuitenkin lopulta tavallisesti sitä, mikä häntä halutti. Juhlia ja
iloisia tansseja ei puuttunut, ei kellekään antaneet nuorukaiset hänen
leikkitovereistaan niin kauniita nauhoja, ei kellekään ojentaneet
mieluimmin kättänsä rinkitanssissa kuin hänelle. Kaikista tytöistä
ylt'ympäri oli hän kaunein ja Phryxus'en puoliso Ismene oli sanonut,
että Xanthen nauru leikeissä kaikui kyllin hilpeästi, houkutellaksensa
rammatkin tanssiin; Ismenellä itsellä oli Xanthen-ikäinen tytär, ja
niinmuodoin täytyi sen olla totta.

Jumalien tähden, minkä vuoksi tunsi Xanthe itsensä surulliseksi?

Täytyykö siis olla jotain syytä, sitä selittääksensä?

Onko neitoa täytynyt kohdata jokin onnettomuus, että hän tuntisi

kaipausta itkeä?

Ei suinkaan?

Niin, senlaisesta ikävöimisestä jää juuri reippain huimapää

kaikkein viimeiseksi säästetyksi.

Kun taivas on kauan loistanut täydessä selkeydessä ja ilma on niin

kummallisen kirkas, että voi tuntea selvästi vuorien kaukaisimmatkin
huiput, silloin ei sade anna itseänsä odotuttaa, ja kukapa voi kauan
nauraa sydämmensä pohjasta, vuodattamatta lopulta itkevän tavoin
kyyneleitä?

Joka saa kokea pieniä ikävyyksiä, — ei syvimpiä vaivoja, — jolle

on suotu kohota ylimmälle onnenportaalle, ja tyttö, joka tuntee
rakkautta, niille kolmelle antaa taivas mieluimmin kyynelten
huojentavan voiman armolahjaksi.

Olikohan sitten Eroksen vasama sattunut Xanthenkin nuoreen

sydämmeen?
 Kyllä se voi olla mahdollista, mutta hän ei tunnustanut sitä
itsellensä ja hän olisi vielä sitten silmiä räpäyttämättä voinut kieltää
sen.

Mutta jos hän sittenkin rakasti jotakin nuorukaista ja hänen

tähtensä meni lähteelle, niin täytyi hänen kai olla tuossa punaisessa
talossa, joka kohosi komeana oikealla puolella mäkeä meren ja
lähteen välillä maatilan kauniisti tasoitetulla kedolla, sillä vähän väliä
katsoi hän sinne, ja sen katon alla oleskeli, paitsi palvelusväkeä,
ainoastaan vanha pehtori Iason ja Phaon, hänen enonsa poika;
Protarchos itsehän oli omaansa ja Xanthen kipeän isän öljyä mennyt
laivalla Messeneen viemään.

Vanhoille tulee kunnioituksen almu, nuorille rakkauden lahja

osaksi ja noista kolmesta miehestä, jotka tuolla alhaalla Xanthen
oikealla puolella asuivat, taisi ainoastaan yksi vaatia semmoista
lahjaa, ja sekin vielä päälliseksi erinomaisen hyvin perustetulla
oikeudella.

Xanthe ajattelikin lähteensä luona Phaonia, mutta silloin vetäytyi

hänen otsansa niin uhkamielisesti kokoon, ett'ei hän ensinkään
muistuttanut neitoa, joka jättäytyy suloisten tunteiden valtaan.

Nyt aukeni punaisen talon ovi ja nopeasti nousi Xanthe katsomaan

sinne. Eräs orja, kädessään suuri sangallinen kiviastia ruskeasta
astiasavesta mustilla kuvilla, tuli varovasti astuen ulos.

Mitä oli tuo leveähartiainen, harmaapää ukko hänelle tehnyt, että

hän noin polki jalallansa maata ja painoi valkoisilla ylähampaillansa
alahuulta niin syvään, kuin pidättäisi hän jotain tuskaa!
 Ei kukaan ole vähemmin tervetullut kuin kutsumaton, joka meitä
kohtaa kaipauksella odotetun sijaan, eikä Xanthe toivonut orjaa
nähdä, vaan hänen herransa poikaa, Phaonia.

Ei Xanthella ollut mitään sanottavaa hänelle, hän olisi juossut pois,

jos Phaon olisi uskaltanut tulla hänen luoksensa lähteelle, mutta hän
tahtoi nähdä häntä, hän tahtoi tulla vakuutetuksi, puhuiko Semestre
totta, kertoessaan, että Phaon aikoi naida erään rikkaan perillisen,
jota hänen isänsä on kosinut Messenessä. Rahan tähden, niin oli
emännöitsijä eilisiltana vakuuttanut, halusi hän muka tuota ilkiötä ja
käytti nyt hyväksensä vanhuksen poissaoloa ja hiipi paikalla, kun tuli
oli takassa sammunut, joka ilta pois kotoa. Vasta myöhään auringon
nousun jälkeen palasi tuo soma yölintu kotiin, ihan varmaan hurjista
juomingeista, tuon törkeän Hermiaan ja muitten Syrakusan
sivistymättömien sällien kanssa. Ne kyllä ymmärtäisivät irroittaa
hänen hidasta kieltänsä!

Sitten oli tuo vanhus samana iltana vielä kuvannut, kuinka

semmoisissa pidoissa käy, ja kun hän mainitsi myös maalatuista
huilun soittaja-neitsyistä, joiden seurassa huikentelevat
kaupunkilaiset tuhlasivat isiensä rahat, ja edelleen huomautti, että
Phaon jo nyt käveli niin kuihtuneen ja uneliaan näköisenä, kuin olisi
hän pahanmaineisen Hermiaan tarkka oppilas, — silloin vihasi
Xanthe tuota eukkoa ja hän oli melkein unohtaa kunnioituksen, jota
hän oli velkapää osoittamaan hänen harmaille hiuksillensa, ja huutaa
vasten hänen kasvojansa, että hän panetteli ja valhetteli.

Mutta tyttö ei kyennyt puhumaan, sillä se, että Phaon kosi

salaisesti rikasta tyttöä Messenestä, oli loukannut syvästi hänen
ylpeyttänsä, ja hänen leikkikumppaninsa näytti todellakin tavallista
väsyneemmältä ja haaveksivaisemmalta.
 Semestren ylistystä hänen serkustansa, nuoresta Leonaxista, oli
Xanthe kuunnellut yhtä vähän, kuin sirkan sirkutusta uunin raosta, ja
ennenkun emännöitsijä lopetti puheensa, oli hän noussut, kääntänyt
selkänsä ja jättänyt naisten huoneen, toivottamatta hyvää yötä,
niinkuin hänellä muuten oli tapana tehdä.

Ennenkun hän pani levolle huoneessansa, käveli hän edestakaisin

vuoteensa edessä. Sitten aloitti hän avaamaan paksua tukkaansa
niin varomattomasti, että se oikein koski.

Kauniin valmunpunaisen liinasen, jota hänen oli tapa panna

kultaisien hiuksiensa ympäri, etteivät ne sekaantuisi yöllä, oli hän
sitonut niin pian ja niin kireelle leuan alle, että hänen taas täytyi
hellittää sitä, ett'ei hän tukehtuisi.

Sandaalinsa, joista hän oli vapauttanut pienet jalkansa ja jotka hän

tavallisesti, äitivainajan neuvon mukaan, pani tuolin viereen, jolla
hänen vaatteensa olivat sileästi toinen toisensa päälle pantuina,
nakkasi hän tänä iltana huoneen nurkkaan, ja sillä välin oli hän yhä
vaan ajatellut Phaonia, tuota perillistä Messenessä ja
leikkikumppaninsa häpeällistä käytöstä ja päättänyt tutkia, oliko
Semestre puhunut totta, ja miettiä yön hiljaisuudessa, mitä hänen oli
tehtävä, todistaaksensa Phaonia syylliseksi ja saadaksensa tietää,
kuinka hänen isänsä kosimisen laita hänen puolestansa on.

Mutta Morpheus jumala tahtoi toisin, sillä tuskin oli Xanthe pannut
levolle, sammuttanut lamppunsa ja kiertänyt lujasti peitteen
ympärillensä, niin uni jo valloitti hänet.

Vasta vähän ennen auringon nousua heräsi hän, ja heti oli hän
taas muistellut Phaonia, perillistä ja Semestren ilkeitä sanoja ja
lähtenyt lähteellensä.
 Sieltä taisi hän nähdä, palasiko hänen enonsa poika horjuvin
askelin kaupungista, tahi niinkuin tavallisesti astuisi huoneesta
varhain, sukiaksensa ja juottaaksensa ruskeita ratsujansa, joihin ei
kukaan orja saanut koskea.

Mutta hän ei näyttäytynytkään, vaan hänen sijaansa tuli

leveäharteinen palvelija pihalle.

Kun hän muulloin oli surullinen täällä ylhäällä, teki suru hänelle
hyvää, mutta tänään vihlasi tuska veitsen terän tavoin hänen
sydäntänsä, ja tuo palanen vehnäleipää, ojota hän söi, koska hän
kaiken murheen ohessa oli nälkäinen, maistui hänestä niin karvaalle,
kuin olisi se kastettu koiruohoon. Hänen ei tarvinnut suolata sitä, sillä
siitä kyllä pitivät huolta kyyneleet, jotka putosivat sen päälle.

Hän kuuli kyllä emännöitsijän huutoa, mutta hän ei koskaan totellut

sitä paikalla, ja ehk'ei olisi ensinkään ottanut vaaria siitä, joll'ei hän
olisi huomannut, että hän, niin, hän ei erehtynytkään, — että hän oli
aloittanut itkeä kuin lapsi, joka on saanut toria.

Itkeä!

Kenen tähden?

Tuon ilkeän, kullanhimoisen, huikentelevaisen nuorukaisen tähden

tuolla alhaalla!

Hän itki harmista, ja nyt harmitti häntä niin kovasti taas se, että
hän itki, jotta uusia kyyneleitä virtasi hänen poskiansa pitkin. Mutt'ei
paljon, sillä ennenkuin hänen kauniit silmänsä olivat ehtineet
punaisiksi, tulivat ne taas kuiviksi, niinkuin senlaisten tapa on, kun he
ovat nuoret ja heitä kohtaa jotain uutta.
 Kaksi lasta, erään viinamäen vartijan poika ja heidän
karjapaimenen pieni tytär, lähestyivät lähdettä ääneen puhuen.

He olivat koristaneet itseänsä tuoreilla viheriäisillä köynnöksillä,

joita olivat kiertäneet ympäri kaulan ja rinnan, ja aikoivat nyt yhdessä
laskea kuoresta tehtyä laivaa lähteestä johtuvalle, pienelle,
ympärimuuratulle lammelle.

Poika oli ollut veneen omistaja, oli lahjoittanut sen tuolle

pienokaiselle, mutt'ei suostunut nyt sitä jättämään hänelle, joll'ei tyttö
lahjoittaisi sen sijaan hänelle nuo kiiltävät näkinkengät, jotka hänen
vanhempi veljensä oli löytänyt, kiilloittanut ne kauniiksi ja sitonut ne
hänen ruskean käsivartensa ympärille somalla nauhalla. Poika pysyi
vaatimuksessansa ja tavoitteli kädellänsä näkinkenkiä, mutta
pienokainen puolustihen, itkeä nyyhkytellen.

Lapset eivät huomanneet Xanthea, joten tämä tuli koko tuon

taistelun todistajaksi, jota nyt tuossa käytiin ylivoiman ja hyvin
ansaitun oikeuden välillä, hän astui nopeasti riitelevien väliin,
napsautti poikaa olalle, ja käytti itseänsä siinä aivan yhtä
taitamattomasti, kuin kaikki muutkin tytöt, otti pojalta veneen pois,
antoi sen pienokaiselle ja sanoi häneen kääntyen:

"No, leikkikää nyt sopuisasti yhdessä, ja jos ei Syrus jätä laivaa ja

näkinkenkiä sinulle, tulet sinä minun luokseni, Stephanion parka."

Sitä sanoessaan pyhki hän omalla nutullaan tytön silmiä, otti häntä
olkapäistä kiinni, tarttui pojan mustankiharaiseen päähän, painoi
molemmat lapset hellällä väkivallalla toisiinsa ja käski heitä:

"Nyt suudelkaa toisianne!"

 Pienokainen totteli uljaasti ja kuuliaisesti tätä käskyä, mutta
suutelo, jonka poika antoi kumppanilleen, oli melkein kuin lyönti
suulla.

Xanthe naurahti ääneen, käänsi lapsille selkänsä ja meni hitaasti

laaksoon.

Kulkiessaan siinä välähteli salaman-nopeudella kaikenlaisia pieniä

elämänvaiheita menneestä ajasta hänen muistossansa, niiltä
päiviltä, jolloin hän itse oli vielä pieni ja ja Phaon leikki joka päivä
hänen kanssansa, aivan kuin kähärätukkainen Syrus karjapaimenen
tyttären kanssa.

Mutta kaikki kuvat, joita muisto nopeasti vei hänen sielunsa ohitse,
olivat sangen paljon eroavia siitä, jonka hän vast’ikään näki.

Kun hän kerran oli sanonut, ett'ei puro voinut viedä edes kukkia ja
lehtiä, joita hän sinne viskasi, mereen, oli Phaon vaan hymyillyt
hiljaa, mutta seuraavana päivänä löysi Xanthe akseliin kiinnitetyn
ristin, jonka Phaon itse oli veistänyt ja pistänyt kivien väliin. Virta,
joka siinä paikkaa kävi, löi värttinän sivuihin ja pakoitti sitä
taukoomatta pyörimään. Viikkokausia huvittelivat molemmat tällä
hyvin onnistuneella leikkikalulla, eikä hän vaatinut siitä edes yhtä
ainoatakaan kiitos-sanaa eikäpä Xanthe sanonutkaan mitään, mutta
hän osoitti hänelle elävästi, että hän iloitsi, ja se oli Phaonille kylliksi.

Jos hän aloitti Phaonin kanssa rakentamaan huonetta hiedasta ja

kivistä, eikä se tullut yhdellä kerralla valmiiksi, löysi hän sen aina,
kun leikki seuraavana päivänä uudestaan aljettiin, katettuna ja
puutarhalla varustettuna, siten että pienet oksat olivat puiksi pistetyt
hiekkaan ja punaiset sekä siniset kukat kukkapensaiksi. Tuon
istuimen lähteellä oli Phaon itse Xanthelle valmistanut, niinpä
myöskin nuo pienet penkit meren rannalla, joitten avulla oli
mahdollista päästä kuivin jaloin veneesen, jonka hänen ystävänsä
myös oli värjännyt kauas loistavalla punaisella ja sinisellä värillä,
koska erään naapurin kirjava venonen oli miellyttänyt Xanthea.

Nyt ajatteli hän tätä ja useita samankaltaisia tekoja, joita hänen

serkkunsa oli hänelle tehnyt, ja ett'ei hän koskaan ollut luvannut
hänelle mitään, vaan aina asettanut eteensä valmiita kaluja,
ikäänkuin sen täytyisikin niin olla.

Ei Phaonille tullut koskaan mieleen vaatia korvausta lahjoistansa

taikka kiitosta töistänsä, niinkuin kiharatukkainen Syrus teki.
Äänetönnä oli hän tehnyt hänelle palveluksen toisensa perästä,
mutta valitettavasti ei Xanthe tällä hetkellä ollut taipuva
tunnustamaan tätä.

Miehiä ei harmita kukaan helpommin kuin se, jolta he ovat saaneet

vastaanottaa monta hyvää työtä, joita he eivät ole voineet palkita;
naiset, yhdentekevä ovatko nuoria tai vanhoja, ovat siinä
jumalattarien kaltaisia, että he mielellään omistavat miehen jokaisen
lahjan heille tulevana uhrina, niinkauan kuin he ovat suosiollisia
antajaa kohtaan, mutta tänään oli Xanthe juuri taipuisa suuttumaan
ystävällensä.

Tuhannet yhteiset ilot ja surut olivat yhdistäneet heidät toisiinsa, ja

hänen muistojensa kaukaisimmalla näköpiirillä oli tapaus, joka antoi
Xanthen mieltymykselle Phaonia kohtaan uuden suunnan. Phaonin
ja hänen äitinsä olivat kuolleet samana päivänä ja siitä lähtien oli hän
arvellut täytyvänsä pitää huolta Phaonista ja varjella häntä, alussa
tosin niinkuin suuresta elävästä nukesta, mutta sitten totisemmalla
tavalla. Ja nyt petti hän hänet ja saattoi itsensä perinpohjin häviölle!
— Mutta kuitenkin oli Phaon aivan toisenlainen kuin nuo törkeät
pojat Syrakusasta.

Hän oli lapsesta saakka kuulunut niihin, jotka toimivat pitkittä

puheitta. Haaveksijan tavalla kävi hän mielellään yksinäisillä teillä,
luoden suurien tummien silmiensä katseen maahan.

Kysymättä puhui hän harvoin.

Hän ei koskaan kehunut voivansa täyttää tuota tai tätä taikka

toimittaneensa jotain hyvin onnistunutta.

Harvapuheisena oli hän työssä, jopa iloisissa leikeissäkin.

Hitaasti meni hän toimeen, mutta johon hän tarttui, sen tiesi hän
myös hyvin lopettaa.

Häntä nähtiin mielellään kilpakentällä ja tanssipaikoissa, sillä

nuorukaiset kunnioittivat hänen väkevyyttänsä, hänen notkeutensa
täydellistä suloisuutta ja sitä pelkäämätöntä levollista tapaa, jolla hän
ymmärsi pysyttää kerskailijoita ja riitelijöitä alallansa; mutta tyttöset
katselivat mielellään kauniin haaveksijan syviin silmiin ja ihmettelivät,
kun hän vallattomimmassakin rinkihypyssä taivutti itseänsä
suloisesti, vaivatta ja tarkkaan seuraten tamburinin ja kaksipäisen
huilun tahtia.

Tosin haukkui moni tyttö, jolle hän oli unohtanut osoittaa huomiota,
hänen harvapuheisuuttansa ja Xanthestakin oli usein tuntunut
tukalalta, kun ei hänen kielensä löytänyt ainoatakaan sanaa
ainerikkaista tarinoista, joita hänen silmänsä Xanthelle kertoivat.
Niin, ne tiesivät puhua! Ja jos hän loi häneen syvän sydämmellisen
katseensa, joka häntä leimuamatta kohtasi, mutta hehkuvana ja