The Good Boy (16 page)

At the end of the year I completed Matriculation and was ready to leave St Kevin's. My mother agreed that I could have an end-of-school and Christmas party and invite all my school friends. So that we could include dancing on the program of events, I had to think of an equal number of girls to invite … and that was difficult, as I had not sought to keep contact with any of the girls at Miss Lascelles' classes or in the Loreto debutante set, other than my partner Helen. So Helen obligingly headed the list, and was joined by my sister (already at university but kindly agreeing to dance with my schoolmates eighteen months her junior), by a cousin, by the sister of my best friend at school, and by the daughters of several of my mother's friends. In other words, the only girls I knew were either relatives or family friends. We all had a good time, I think, one of my school friends declaring himself bowled over by the beauty of my cousin (who subsequently entered the convent and spent her life teaching music). But again, I think, I was probably the only one there not really interested in socialising with the opposite sex; it was a party I had organised to please my friends, and my friends were all boys. I was trying to be like them, to share their interests and tastes, but was finding out that when it came to socialising, I really shared little with them.

When I finished secondary school, with a Commonwealth Scholarship that made university study possible without being a total burden on my widowed mother, I still had no real plan as to what to do or how to earn the money needed to replace my father financially and to support my mother and the family. I had no strong attraction to any particular occupation. Medicine, to follow my father's and my sister's footsteps, was out of the question as I was of a squeamish nature and inclined to faint at the sight of blood. Aware of this, I had opted not to do the Physics and Chemistry at Matriculation level necessary for entry to the Faculty of Medicine. I was very interested in French and History, so a career in teaching seemed a possibility. I was mildly interested in Law, although I now suspect that it was the trappings, the robes and wigs of the barristers, the purple and ermine magnificence of the judges (copied from that of bishops), the theatre-like courtrooms, the monumental court houses … and the opportunity to lord it over laymen and law-breakers that had really appealed to me. I was interested in Geography, and in travel, and in passenger ships … but, lacking the initiative of a Thomas Cook, I did not see a way to make a living from those interests. I was also rather interested in the life of a priest or brother or monk, especially those living in great Gothic abbeys, but saw them all as closed to someone with my continuing indulgence in the pleasures of masturbation and with the financial responsibilities of a head of family! My Aunt Nell thought I had potential as an actor and, perhaps thinking of her Uncle Joe's career in the theatre in England
³⁶
as some sort of precedent, suggested I consider an acting career. Everyone else, however, myself included, thought that too financially risky a life given our family circumstances. After an interview with a guidance officer at the university I finally opted to tackle the combined course for degrees in Arts and Law. It gave me one of the widest ranges of career choices available at the university.

My mother was anxious that I follow my father's example and live in Newman College at the university, so I had an interview there with the Rector. He quickly saw my indecision about what I wanted to do and advised me to take a year off study, to go and get a job somewhere and to think things through. I don't know why I did not follow this sensible advice – probably because of the selfish wish to keep up with my classmates going on to university – and was soon enjoying university life myself.

By living in Newman College, I had unwittingly isolated myself from my school friends attending university, all of whom continued to live with their families in the suburbs and to commute to the campus each day. Moreover, I had, without realising it, continued the isolation of my single-sex schooling, as Newman was run by the (all male) Jesuit
³⁷
order and accepted only male students as residents. While the university itself was of course completely co-educational I found that Newman students tended to walk across to the faculties to attend lectures and tutorials, or to borrow books from the library, and then returned almost immediately to the college to study, and for all meals and even coffee breaks. I followed suit and soon found that I was quite isolated from the vast majority of university students who studied in the university library and who socialised in the students' Union Building and its cafes, lounges, shops and locker rooms. So my life continued to be almost exclusively with males. At weekends I would return home for some family life (with my mother, sister and brother and my five uncles). From time to time my sister would invite both male and female medical students to the house for Sunday dinner, while I never managed to invite anyone other than students from Newman … all male, of course. It may well have been apparent to everyone else that I was not seeking female company. No explanation was ever sought, and I doubt that I could have articulated the explanation myself, but during my university years I had several experiences that did begin to make the explanation clearer to me.

I did, during first year at university, show some interest in amateur theatricals and was, to my surprise, cast to play the romantic leading man in a Newman production of the Russell Oakes play
Enduring as the Camphor Tree
in the Union Theatre. At one stage I was required to kiss the leading lady. Fortunately, we were all dressed up as and pretending to be well-mannered inhabitants of the court of the Japanese Emperor. As a result, the kiss took place with great decorum behind the fluttering fan of the young lady … and so did not have to be a real kiss at all, just a pause of plausible duration. Fortunately for me, the leading lady was at the time keen on the actor playing the villain of the show and did not seem put off by my lack of interest in a spot of passion. I doubt that she or any of the cast guessed just how disinclined I was to kiss her and am confident that nobody guessed that I too might have been more interested in the handsome chap playing the role of the villain.

At the end of my first year at university I was called up to do the first stage of my National Service obligation. I found this a rather daunting requirement and was glad that my Uncle Bert, a returned serviceman himself, took me aside one day and said not to worry about it all: ‘Everyone else will be in the same boat,' he said, ‘and underneath they will all be a bit scared and lost and lonely, and you'll probably make some good friends there.' So along with a few thousand other eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds, I set off on a steam-hauled troop train for the army camp at Puckapunyal, 60 or so kilometres north of Melbourne. Half of the three thousand draftees in that particular intake were university students and I found myself ‘living under canvas', i.e. sleeping in a very large army tent, one of twenty students similarly assigned to a platoon of D Company. I had dreaded this enforced experience of army life but, as Bert had foretold, found living with my companions in misfortune surprisingly agreeable. Certainly I regarded the military training itself as a waste of time, the endless parade-ground drilling and marching always seemed ridiculous, the rifle practice and particularly the bayonet practice (where we had to strip to the waist and were actually ordered to let out blood-curdling yells such as ‘Fuck you, you German bastard!' or ‘Fuck you, you Jap cunt!' as we charged up to and bayoneted man-size straw dummies) were philosophically repugnant: I did not want to be taught how to kill people or how to use such vulgar language and regarded such instruction as a wicked waste of taxpayers' money.

The largely outdoor life, the good and plentiful food, the physical exercise and above all the camaraderie were, however, unexpectedly pleasant and, although like most of the other students I continually grumbled about it all, I took away many happy memories of those first 98 days as a ‘Nasho'. I was, after all, back in my all-male environment! Showering every day in the huge open-sided shower blocks and swimming naked in a nearby creek with 30 or 40 other fit young men offered me unexpected pleasures, ones discreetly availed of and ones probably not intended by the army authorities. There were certainly no sexual adventures other than my daily enjoyment of the sight of my companions' bodies. On some very hot Sundays I joined a group of fifteen to twenty Nashos who were given permission to march away from the main camp and to spend the afternoon at a swimming-hole on a creek in the bush. To my surprise, the Nasho lance-corporal nominally in charge proposed, once we were a couple of kilometres into the bush and out of sight from the camp, that we ‘march easy', i.e. not in step, and that we take off our singlets and shorts to keep cool. Everybody agreed and so we spent the three or four hours by the creek stark naked, swimming and lounging about. I think I hoped for further pleasant surprises, but there were none. It was for me a tantalising introduction to relaxing with a large group of naked males. I may have been the only one to be tantalised by the scene. I certainly took care not to allow any visible sign of sexual interest to raise its head … and saw none around me. I was in fact surprised to discover that I could get through the week, and indeed a whole month, without masturbating. This was fortunate, as there was absolutely no privacy for trainees in the camp, even the toilets being open and door-less. I presume that everyone else led a similarly celibate life, whether by choice or by force of circumstances, as I never saw or heard of any sort of sexual activity while at Puckapunyal. I made several friendships during National Service which endured through adult life … and again, they were of course all male.

Once back at university and at Newman after my National Service basic training, I resumed my former lifestyle, spending my weeks in Carlton and my weekends at home in Kew. By then I was sure that there must have been more to sex than masturbation in private, but I didn't yet know what it was. I started buying
Men's Health
and
Naturist
magazines and answering classified ads in them that seemed to promise meetings with men similarly interested in sex. There were ads offering meetings with women, but I was unsure as to what one would do in such situations and unsure as to whether women really were as keen on sex as men … so I confined my exploring to men. On only two or three occasions did anything eventuate, and the first time was in the following autumn when I made contact with a chap a few years older, but considerably more experienced, than me. He had a small car, and we went for a weekend camping trip to the mountains near Lake Eildon. That was where, and when, I had my first experience of homosexual sex. The weekend happened to be cold and wet and neither the camping nor the sex, which amounted to no more than mutual masturbation, was very satisfactory. My partner in crime was, ironically, a Scoutmaster who left soon thereafter as part of a group of Scoutmasters chosen to represent Australian Scouting at the coronation of Elizabeth II in London. I wished him well but never saw him again. I can't remember what lies I told my family to explain my absence that weekend, and had a sufficiently guilty conscience to keep me away from any similar experimentation for many months. It was at about this time that American maths lecturer and musical satirist Tom Lehrer became internationally known for his amusing and provocative little songs and I have ever since associated his ‘Be Prepared' with my weekend in the bush with the Scout Master.

It must have been in about September of that second year at university that I had been told how babies were made but it was not until the following summer that I had my next sex lesson/ experience. I had somehow learned that the bathing-pavilions/ dressing sheds on the beach at Middle Park were places where one could not only get changed and have a shower but also sunbake naked behind the high fence of the Men Only area. So one sunny afternoon I made my way there and with some trepidation spread my towel out on a bench and tried to act the nonchalant
habitué
. There would have been a couple of dozen fellows sunbaking there, half of them old timers/retirees often dozing in the sun and half of them young bucks like me, carefully applying sun tan oil and, from under dark glasses, looking and learning. I think some of these chaps were genuinely sun-worshipers while others, like me, had another mission. It was a mildly social sort of scene, and many obviously were regulars and knew one another. Conversations with new chums such as me were struck up with requests for the time or for a match and so on, and even by sharing little routines such as moving one's towel as the sun/shade moved, stepping under the open cold shower from time to time … ‘to cool off, eh, mate?' or pulling on one's bathers and going for a quick swim in the sea. Some of these opening gambits were simply friendly remarks intended to put one at ease while some of them, I eventually realised, were exploratory, designed to test interest in closer contact.

On my second or third visit that summer I struck up a conversation with a chap, possibly a year or so older than me, by the name of Chris. He was good-looking, well spoken, also at university, and only a little less timid than me, and at the end of the afternoon we had agreed to meet again the following weekend, same time, same place, weather permitting. The next weekend was indeed sunbathing weather and we duly met, applied sun tan oil to one another's back and shared a pleasant couple of hours in the sun. Chris had the use of a family car; after a while he offered to drive further along the beach to a quiet spot where we might have some privacy. I was keen, so we drove a few kilometres to an isolated bit of scrubland in what is now the Westgate Bridge park, folded down the backs of the front seats in the car, got our gear off again, and enjoyed some hot sex … hot in both senses of the word, as there was little shade and the car was so hot we were quickly dripping with perspiration. This time I learned what ‘69' meant sexually, and that it worked for both homosexual and heterosexual couples. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing with any of the women I knew … but it was great fun with Chris!