The Good Boy Read online

  The year after my father died, when I turned seventeen and my brother thirteen, I asked one of the senior teachers whom I most respected to explain the ‘facts of life’ to my younger brother. ‘Killer’, Br Kilmartin, was I think a bit surprised and so I explained that as our father had died just before Peter presumably reached puberty, I thought someone should step in and explain things … and that I felt unable to. Killer rather reluctantly, I think, agreed to my request, although I never knew whether he actually did speak to Peter, and I never asked Peter or discussed sex with him. (I do feel, however, that Peter grew up with a much more sensible approach to sex than I. My initial reaction to later hearing that he, his wife and their young children swam naked together in their swimming pool was one of surprise and disapproval, while I now see such a relaxed attitude in the home to the human body as a very sensible way of gradually introducing children to the facts of life.) What was my motivation in asking Killer to explain things to my brother? I now think that I had two intentions: one was to try to spare him the guilt and confusion that I was experiencing; and the other was, I think, the faint hope that I might through some side effect learn the facts of life myself!

  The facts of life were not, however, explained to me until I was part way through my second year at university, and then it was done by a friend only a year or so older. At last I learned that the man pushed his erect penis into the woman’s vagina (I suspect I nodded knowingly, although I was not at all sure what a vagina was or just why a man would want to do this), shooting his ejaculate up the passageway towards her womb, where it could fertilise the woman’s eggs and make a baby. It all sounded more like hard work than fun. So that was proper sexual function!

  ‘How does the baby get out of the womb after the nine months of growth?’ I remember asking … and there my informant was able only to speculate that ‘it was probably the same way as it got in’. This conversation took place before the days of television and the enlightenment generally available nowadays through that medium, and perhaps explains how I could grow to adulthood without ever really knowing the details of the processes of conception and birth.

  Thirty or more years later I was talking with my Aunt Nell, then approaching 90, about her days as an art student in Melbourne. When she had first come to the city from her home in the country, at the tender age of twenty, she had stayed with a great-uncle and his wife, then living in an outer suburb. But after a few months of travelling by bus and train into and out from the city every day, she got her parents’ approval to find ‘digs’ closer to the city centre and the National Gallery School of Art in the CBD. She somehow or other was put in touch with a family living in a very posh part of South Yarra on the edge of Toorak, a family where the husband’s business interests had declined so far as to convince his wife that to save the day she should take in one or two very respectable ‘paying guests’. The family home was large and comfortable, Nell said, close to the Botanical Gardens and to the stop of the tram running directly to the Gallery School at the top of Swanston Street. The arrangement seemed to suit everybody and so Nell moved in. Nell added that in her second term at the Art School she had become quite keen on a young chap in her class and apparently got to the stage of talking about him with her landlady, who tended to ‘mother’ her. She then amazed me by saying that it was the landlady who had at that stage explained to her the facts of life, ‘how babies are made’, as Nell put it. ‘Wouldn’t you think that Mum would have explained all that to me before letting me come to live alone in the city?’ she added. I could only agree, not having realised until then that my grandmother might have had some shortcomings in her role as a mother and some serious inhibitions as regards sex. And what about grandma’s own mother, my valiant Great-Grandmother Fanny? Had she explained the facts of life to her daughters?

  She had had eleven children, and my grandmother seven. What was it about British and Australian society that so inhibited parents in their dealings with their own children? Are those inhibitions now a thing of the past? Has the recent influx of migrants from the even more inhibited and socially quite feudal Middle Eastern Muslim world worsened the problem in this area of social behaviour? I found Nell’s little story quite sad; she had apparently fallen in love with her classmate and, thanks to the timely advice from her landlady, she had not let the relationship go too far too fast for, by the end of the third term, the classmate had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, from which he died within a few months. Nell contracted the disease from him (she smilingly explained that they used to suck on the same pencils and paintbrush handles in art classes). Her coughing and pallor were immediately noticed by my mother when Nell visited her at St Vincent’s Hospital and Nell was straightaway shipped back home to the country. Her parents were told that the only chance of recovery would be for Nell to keep to her bed for six months, the bed to be put out on the verandah in the fresh air, a special diet to be closely followed and a program of breathing and chest exercises to be strictly followed. To everyone’s amazement Nell did exactly as the doctors ordered (proof, according to my mother, of her incredible willpower), made a full recovery, outlived all her siblings and died, ever celibate, on her 92nd birthday.

  In the middle of my final year at school I had been asked to partner a lovely girl called Helen, the daughter of family friends, who was to attend the Loreto Ball and there to ‘make her debut’. Helen was beautiful and intelligent, with bright brown eyes and a dazzling smile, and I of course agreed. In this way I became caught up in a rather strange society ritual which was to play a significant part in my social and sexual education. The Ball was a quite grand affair, scheduled to be held in the St Kilda Town Hall, where guests could waltz and whirl around the dance floor to the strains of a large band installed on stage in the midst of a floral display, and where a splendid supper would be served when the dancers’ energies flagged. In addition to the 20 or 30 debutantes and their partners who would be presented to the Lord Mayor or Archbishop or some other dignitary, there would be up to a thousand paying guests drawn from the best Catholic social circles of Melbourne, the proceeds of the night going to support a childcare centre in a disadvantaged part of the city. To play my part in this glittering occasion, I had first of all to buy a dinner suit, black bow tie and pair of white gloves and, most importantly, to learn to dance. I was therefore enrolled in and attended for six or eight weeks the dancing classes given by a certain Miss Lascelles of Toorak. Miss Lascelles, a tall, slim, trim and somewhat grim lady of reportedly very genteel English origins, had trained generations of the offspring of upper middle-class Melbourne, often in preparation for formal balls of the type I was to attend, and I was quickly and skilfully introduced to the waltz, the rhumba, the fox trot, the quickstep, the samba, the tango, the Charmaine, the Pride of Erin, the Valetta and even the slightly less decorous progressive barn dance. Once these basics had been mastered, I was able to join the special class arranged to train that year’s debutante set which would be required to perform a show waltz as part of the presentation ceremony at the Loreto Ball.

  These dancing classes were a bit of a challenge for me as I had not been in a co-ed situation since completing Grade Two at the convent school as an eight-year-old. At sixteen I needed lessons in social interaction as well as in dancing, but they were not included in the course. The hardest part of the classes for me was therefore not the dance instruction but having to mix with girls and trying to appear as if I were happy and relaxed and having fun like everybody else. Most if not all of the other teenagers in Miss Lascelles’ classes would have been from the feepaying, private, single-sex colleges in the Toorak/Malvern/Kew/ Hawthorn area, but none seemed as socially inept as me. I was pleased to be learning how to dance but was really not interested in dancing partners. I preferred the company of Beau Geste, King Arthur, Francis of Assisi and the myriad of other fictional and historical characters familiar to me from my reading. Looking back now, I see that I was not physically attracted to the girls as the other boys seemed
to have been and I found it virtually impossible to socialise with the rather single-minded boys either. As a result, the actual dancing instruction appealed to me, but the socialising before and after, and in the interludes between instruction sessions, bored, pained and terrified me.

  As part of the preparations for the night of the Ball, several of the debutantes’ families organised parties for the debutante set. Fortunately Helen, my partner, lived in the country, some 50 kilometres out of the city, and it was not practicable for her (and therefore for me) to attend every party so I was spared much enforced socialising. We did, however, attend one party, held in one of the mansion homes in Kew, and this was my first experience of an evening party for sixteen-, seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys and girls. I must have been a terrible embarrassment and disappointment to my poor partner, as I was probably the only male there not interested in the flirting and covert sexual games the others all seemed to enjoy. I did not feel the slightest desire to cuddle, grope or kiss any of the girls and was irritated by the way the other boys persistently sought to do so. There was certainly no alcohol but there was music and dancing, all seemingly designed to encourage smooching, and I was bored, bored, bored.

  I was more interested in the beautiful house and furnishings, and in the elaborate supper … and, alas, I had exactly the same reaction on the night of the Ball itself. The setting in the Town Hall, the flowers, the women’s dresses, the orchestra, the supper, were all wonderful; the dancing was both a challenge and fun; and the enforced socialising was torture. I was probably the only partner who did not try to steal a kiss (or more), and I can still recall the sense of mild expectation, disappointment and even understanding on Helen’s part that I felt as I finally said goodnight to her.

  I suspect that she had begun to understand me before I had myself. What might have seemed to other observers to be mere shyness and inexperience on my part was, I now think, simply the normal reaction of a homosexual male to a heterosexual situation … lack of interest. But I was far from realising that and, indeed, at that stage had no familiarity with the terms or their connotations.

  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 England36 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) Jesuit37 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 intere
sted 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.