Everybody Loves You (31 page)

*   *   *

Still, Dennis Savage did seem to energize his manner after that, if only for the sake of style. He was always an arbiter of gay manners, one way or another, and disdained defeatism as surely as an incorrectly soiled T-shirt or balcony seats. “How many times have I told you?” he would tell me. “You don't go to the Village in a suit.”

“I came from the opera,” I explain.

A hand weighs on my shoulder, the hand of probity; and I looked up to him then, because he knew more than I did. Also, he's taller than I.

“You're supposed to go home and change first,” he would say.

I try not to give the past more than a backward glance, for it can be dangerous to recall days when one had few cares, no stomach, and all the time in the world. But this London trip kept forcing a retrospective mood on me, as if we had come to a watershed of some kind.

I ignored it. I banded with my two friends to see the town. We became tourists, disintegrated from the place we were in and thus made to become complete unto ourselves.

It was easy to do. Gay men do it, in fact, every day of their lives. No gay can ever be a part of his nation unless he gives away something of himself, his self-esteem, perhaps. We are always disintegrated from the status quo, always complete unto ourselves. In the straight world—in the world—we are tourists till we close Them off behind our doors.

At least New York is filled with us. London's gays blend into the scene. One notes none of the gym development and dress code of gay America—virtually no visibility of subculture, unless one counts the posters and stills for the film
Maurice,
playing at the Cannon Shaftesbury, which we often passed on our way back to our hotel.

Only connect.

Virgil invariably stopped to examine the
Maurice
pictures and ask about them. As so often with him, he knew none of the background—E. M. Forster as closeted novelist with the closeted novel, this same
Maurice,
that only came to light after his death. Yet Virgil sensed something extraordinarily relevant in the logo shot of the confidingly secretive Maurice, in the photographs of Maurice and his … chums. In a city devoid of bomber jackets and loaded glances, a picture of two men lying asleep in each other's arms was a high-concept visual.

“I'm going to have to see that movie,” Virgil told us as we hustled him up the road. It was a Saturday, two days before our flight home, and we had stuffed the day with events. I squeezed a used-bookstore rampage between two shows; Dennis Savage and Virgil had taken a bus tour to Windsor Castle and Oxford University. We met in Chinatown for a late dinner and were taking a slow walk through the West End to our hotel. A light fog had set in; strangers would not approach but suddenly materialize before you—cause for terror in New York but a bemusing novelty in London, the most graceful city in the world. Venice is more colorful, Paris more elegant, Vienna more beautiful. But London has an ease, a logic, a sense of fairness, that has no rival.

I don't know how much of this struck my friends as we strolled the last few blocks home, the two flanking me, Dennis Savage's steady tread to my left and Virgil, watching, pausing, and absorbing, to my right. But I definitely sensed, from both of them, the blithely stimulated romanticism of the true traveler, who comes into the exploit for its own sake, not to find anything in particular: just to look. You cannot learn without first observing.

It has been a success, perhaps, I told myself.

When we got our keys at the porter's desk, there was a message for Virgil.

“Who's Rupert Duttson?” asked Dennis Savage, looking over Virgil's shoulder.

It was Virgil's pub companions, inviting us to tea tomorrow at four o'clock.

“Nifty,” I said. “London's dead on Sundays, anyway.”

“Rosebery Avenue,” said Virgil, reading from his paper, his eyes aglow as he savored the single
r
: another place to look up on his maps. “It says we have to take the Number 38 bus from the southeast corner of Bloomsbury Square.”

“We'll just cab it,” said Dennis Savage.

“It's more scenic on the bus,” said Virgil.

The bus it was; you have to get up on the top deck of things and
observe.
I went down the hall to their room the next afternoon to fetch them. We were to leave London the following morning, and there were signs of incipient departure, most directly in the full-scale display of Virgil's souvenirs. These now included, besides the bus and street sign magnets, a little black taxicab, an underground map mug, a Prince Charles–Princess Di dessert plate, an Old Vic T-shirt, a
Follies
sweatshirt, teaspoons adorned, at the handles, with miniatures of Big Ben and the Nelson column, metal mockups of the Tower beefeater, a bobby, and a Buckingham Palace guard, matchboxes decorated with postcard views of Great Britain, and a tiny Union Jack.

“Wrap up a set of spoons, please, shopkeeper,” I said, “and a box of soldiers. You take VISA?”

“Very funny,” said Virgil.

Dennis Savage was chuckling.

“Nice to hear you laugh, pardner,” I told him.

“Guess where we went,” said Virgil.

“The only thing you haven't seen that's open today is the British Museum.”

“Which has not, despite the song, lost its charm,” Dennis Savage put in. “Now let's go to our first authentic English tea party, and that's the trip, and then we're all going home.”

“Don't rush me,” said Virgil, fussing at his exhibit. “My spoons are crooked.”

“Many replies come to mind,” said Dennis Savage, getting him into his coat. “Many replies of a drastically soigné nature. But we're on vacation from all that.”

“Teatime, everyone,” I called out at the door.

“I can get my own coat on,” Virgil complained.

“Yes,” Dennis Savage agreed. “But it's more fun this way.”

“Come on, Dick Whittington,” I said as we gained the hallway. “We're going to Islington.”

*   *   *

One odd thing about London is that while no one lives in the city center—as we may in Manhattan—everyone ends up with a house rather than a flat. It's like one's Brooklyn friends, with English accents. Rupert and Gillian's house was small, but it was a house; and they had an instructively wide circle of acquaintances. The party took in a baby and a grandmother. The baby was Otto and the grandmother was hard of hearing.

(“All she needs is an ear trumpet,” Dennis Savage whispered to me, “and the curtain could rise on a veddy English play, old sport.”)

Virgil greeted his hosts as if he'd known them all his life, a swank of bravado they clearly were not used to. But I must say he was right in there, taking stage, as they say in the theatre. Dennis Savage and I were so busy balancing our teacups and sandwich plates—not to mention trying to eat cake with our hands, in the English teatime manner—that it was quite some portion of the party before we could take part. By then, of course, Virgil had established himself as Our American Cousin, fascinating the company with accounts of life in the United States.

“The main thing,” said Virgil, “is that there's a constant supply of napkins.”

“Eh?” cried the grandmother.

“And the streets are bigger and the heat never goes off. And we dress warmer than you outside.”

“Yes, I must say,” Rupert agreed. “You can always tell an American in winter by the astonishing amount of sweaters and scarves they wear.”

Simon arrived with Graeme, clearly—to the practiced eye—his lover. This unelaborate mixing of straight, gay, and family was utterly unlike what I'm used to in New York, where gays party either among themselves and trusted fellow travelers in a distinctly gay atmosphere, or among outsiders on the outsiders' terms. Seldom if ever in New York have I seen a gathering that merely included gays yet
took gay for granted
as naturally as it accepted a baby and a grandmother. But then, one expects it of travel to develop a long-term view of one's home life, to see one's routine with extraordinary eyes. A good voyage sends one back a little wiser, maybe a little younger as well, with a renewed sense of mission.

Of course, one has to have a mission in the first place.

Speaking of that: no one did speak of missions at this tea. In New York, one's profession is a key tack of conversation. In London, it isn't done to ask for or volunteer such information. Work is a private matter, a clue to self not to be exposed to strangers. Work is like sex. I wonder if Rupert and Gillian—even Simon and Graeme—ever realized that their three American visitors were gay.

“One thing we never get enough of back home,” Virgil was saying, “is cucumber sandwiches,” biting into what was probably his first ever.

“Yes, it's right out of
The Importance of Being Earnest,
” said Dennis Savage.

Our hosts appeared impassive.

“Eh?” added the grandmother.

“What do you put in them?” asked Virgil. “Besides the cucumbers.”

“Cream cheese,” Simon replied.

“I'm going to give a tea with cucumber sandwiches when we get home,” said Virgil, “and have a sensation.”

“I expect you must be eager to get back into the swim of your own pond,” said Gillian.

“Oh, I could stay here forever,” Virgil told her. “And I know where all the buses go already.”

“Fancy.”

“Yes, they are. Our buses are so dumb-looking.” He plopped down on the couch next to the grandmother. “I wish I were English.”

That one she heard. “He's a very nice lad,” she said. “Got his tie on and all.”

“I'm growing up now,” said Virgil. “I don't need anyone to show me how to do things. I even got my passport all by myself, and when it came in the mail, I was very excited. It's a nice picture, too. You know what? I'm going to visit here again next year. Could I come back to another tea with you?”

Startled by this very American informality, this very un-English confidence, our hosts paused before uttering firmly polite responses. And immediately, the entire room froze upon us. Only the most exquisite calibrations could have measured the change in atmosphere, but we had unmistakably crossed a line, been forward, mugged the protocol. This was not merely a faux pas, but a menace of who could say what further enormities? A man who would invite himself into your home is capable of anything.

Dennis Savage, lost in thought, missed it all; and Virgil had no idea he had committed an outrage. So I led off in making our farewells, and we went back to the hotel to pack and laze around till bedtime. No, I beg your pardon: Virgil wanted to do some last-chance exploring, so Dennis Savage and I went up to his room to split the end of my scotch.

“Interesting party, what?” I said.

“Oh, yes. Yes. Handsome people, aren't they? The women are so beautifully featured. They all look like musical comedy heroines. Yet one sort of has the feeling that they're finding you wanting in some way.”

He seemed distracted, as so often on this trip, dealing out the aperçus as if they were cards for a hand he had no desire to play.

“Have you noticed,” he asked, with a fearsome smile, “how young everyone is? Gillian, and Roderick, and Egbert, and Athelstane, and the kids ganging up in the street, and the businessmen with the furled umbrellas in those wonderful striped suits. The last bus Virgil forced me into, I looked around and lo, I was the oldest thing on it, I swear. Young is what it is.
Everyone
is young
everywhere
you go. I can remember what it was like to be twenty-two, and walk into a bar, and believe I could get just about anyone there if I hit the right approach. Remember twenty-two? Remember how that felt? Everyone moved about you, everyone after something they maybe couldn't get; and you're so still, right in the center of it all. Twenty-two, that was. And now … well … I'm the one doing the moving and the looking and the needing. I'm the one after something.”

“I shouldn't have taken you to
Follies.
All this jeering at yourself for not having borne the years well, or made a righter choice…”

“Okay, pal.” He held out his empty glass. “Fill 'er up. Right in the center of it.”

“Easy, boy.”

“‘How about a country house?'” he asked, quoting
Follies.

“Unaccustomed as you are to private drinking.”

“Sure. Easy.” He took a huge swig of liquor. “Simon was very nice-looking, wasn't he? Tall, probably very slim under the sweater. Smooth, I bet. It's supposed to be impossible to tell who's hairy and who isn't. I can always tell. I'm never … But you don't care about that, do you? Simon. Aren't they cute, with those names? Did you notice that deftly sculpted mouth? Do you think Little Virgil noticed?”

“Not likely. He treated them all as an audience, not—”

“Simon and Graeme. You could hold a twenty-two contest and it'd be a draw, wouldn't it? Everyone's being young together nowadays. You know—and this may surprise you, in light of the extremely inelegant performance I've been giving of late—I intend to be utterly accepting when Little Kiwi takes off. Yes, I … refuse to yell at him, or keep him tied up in some evil place, a slave of love … or what?
Blackmail
him with medical juju? It's vicious, but it works. I could tell him I've got plague and if he'd only see me through it, I'll make him my heir. I could play that one for an extra year, couldn't I? It's a really mean stunt, true, but … in fact … I'm going, when the time comes, to accept it, and bless him, and shake his hand…”

“Enough of this.”

“Everyone hates self-pity except the people who need it.”

“You don't need it.”

“Oh, you don't know…” Shuddering, he began to weep, as he did on The Night of Cosgrove out at The Pines. “You don't know what I need.”