Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 00:19:52 +0100 (BST)
From: Nexis Pas <nexispas@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The End

The End
Nexis Pas
c 2007 by the author
(With thanks to Francois for checking my French--and my
English--and as always to Julian and Geoff)


I know the exact moment I realised my relationship with
Nathan was over.

We had lived together for 28 years. I was 50 at the time,
and he was 53. Our friends joked that we had a far more
stable and enduring relationship than most married couples,
and indeed our union outlasted those of many of our friends,
gay or straight. Nathan was the first person I knew for sure
to be gay, other than myself of course. I met him on my
first day of graduate school. I had paused inside the front
door of Old North Hall and was examining the list of offices
and trying to locate my supervisor of studies.

`Hello, you must be Ross Cambourne.' The hallway was dark
and the staircase was brightly lit by the windows at the
back of the first landing. I could tell the deep voice came
from above, and the creaking of the staircase revealed that
someone was walking down it toward me. But all I could see
against the light was a dark figure. When I walked further
into the hall and Nathan approached the bottom of the
staircase, the figure resolved into a young man, taller than
myself, his hand extended to shake mine. And I knew, knew
without doubt, that this man was gay. `My name's Nathan
Sevenfields.'

`How did you know my name?'

`From your picture. It's quite a good likeness. Mrs Jackson,
the departmental secretary, tacks the new graduate students'
photos up on a board in our common room. I was just looking
them over and spotted yours and now here you are.'

And that was how we met. It was also one of the few times
that I have kept a New Year's resolution. At the beginning
of that year, I had resolved that I would do something about
being gay. You have to understand that this was 1966. I had
first heard the word `gay' only a few years before, when an
acquaintance explained to me that he thought the word as
used in the line `show me a man who rides side-saddle and
I'll show you a gay caballero' in a Kingston Trio song
referred to a homosexual. Other than meaning a man who was
sexually attracted to other men, I wasn't sure what being
"gay" involved, but I was determined to find out. I'm not
going to bore you with a recitation of how difficult it was
to be gay in the dark ages. Those of you who lived through
them already know; those of you who didn't can extrapolate
from your own experience.

It was almost five months before Nathan and I first had sex.
As he explained to me years later, after he had adopted the
idea that honesty was essential to a healthy relationship,
he hadn't been attracted to me. He saw that I was horny and
wanted to have sex, and he was feeling charitable and
thought he would treat me better than another person might.
And so began my initiation into gay sex and gay life. I
thought we were in love; he was doing me a favour.

I don't mean to imply that there was no love. I will try to
avoid the tendency common among the divorced to revise the
past and exaggerate every woe and slight that occurs. It
wasn't like that at all. Both of us were enthusiastic about
the sex for the first ten years or so. And that helped
create a good relationship. We had the usual fights about
money and clashes about life styles, but the sex helped get
us past that. Both of us got jobs in the university after we
took our degrees. We found a flat together and later bought
a house. Gradually, without intending to do so, we acquired
all the possessions and chattels of a married couple-except
children, although we did keep a succession of dogs and
cats.

Our careers were successful. Both of us became senior staff
in about the minimum time possible. Nathan's specialises in
ancient history and has written a series of highly regarded
and popular books about the Roman Empire. He is what is
known as a `solid historian'-he is careful never to go
beyond the facts or indulge in speculation. And he writes
incredibly well. As narratives, his histories are superb. My
original field was Byzantine history, and a good part of my
current work is still in that field. Rather early in my
career, I reviewed a book on the philosophy of history. My
comments provoked a spirited, and I must say somewhat
intemperate, response from the author, and in order to
defend my views, I had to think harder about the subject and
publish on it. Many of my colleagues have little sympathy
for such endeavours, and I'm afraid that, for some of them,
I became a `once-promising scholar of early Byzantine
history seduced by continental-style theorising into
fanciful flights of philosophising'. I mention this because
it was one source of tension between us. Nathan tends to
receive invitations to speak to groups of enthusiastic
amateur historians. I am asked to lead seminars by graduate
students and to serve as a main speaker at professional
conferences.

Another source was something I alluded to above: Nathan's
discovery of `honesty' as a virtue in relationships. I don't
mean to suggest that we had been lying to each other before
this discovery. It was just that like most couples we had
left much unsaid and often did not bother to correct the
other when something less than the whole truth was said.
Nathan adored his mother, for example; it is one of his many
virtues. I found her talkative and narrow in her interests
(truth to tell, she bored me utterly), but I would never
have told him that, and I endured many of what I found to be
dreary hours in her company.

Some time during our second decade together Nathan began
using honesty as a weapon in the relationship. `Honesty' in
this case masked a determination to have his view of the
relationship prevail. At first, none of the statements
issued under this rubric was an outright lie. Frequently
they were uttered with a tone of bemused tolerance. We were
eating dinner with a group of colleagues once and Nathan
greeted the appearance of a serving of peas on his plate
with the gleeful announcement that I didn't like peas and he
had to eat out to get them. Well, of course, I eat peas.
They are not a favourite vegetable, but I do eat them and
had often cooked them at home for the two of us. Nathan was
simply casting himself in the martyr's role, the long-
suffering spouse forced to forgo an innocuous legume because
of the misguided tastes of his partner. Over time, however,
the statements stretched the truth further. One night, for
instance, Nathan announced to a group of friends that I
hated travelling and hence would never take a vacation,
forcing him to travel alone. It is true that I find travel
tedious, but I had accompanied him on many excursions.
Subsequently, however, this served as an excuse for him to
take vacation trips alone despite my protests that I was
willing to accompany him. As he put it, he did not want to
coerce me into doing something I found objectionable. I came
to feel more and more that I was being forced into a role
and attitudes and behaviours were being prescribed for me
because it suited his convenience. It was, for me, an
irritant in the relationship.

As I said, at first, none of these assertions was a complete
lie. They seemed to be such small things that there was no
reason to argue about them. As many people do, I suspect,
eventually I found myself past the point of no return. I had
for so many years put up with these statements and accepted
them as the `official version' of our relationship and
history together that it became difficult to undo them.
Small decisions, none of them of any particular importance
and often made by others, accumulate, and the result is that
one finds oneself in an untenable position.  Nathan is much
more an assertive person than I am, and his view of the
relationship--that he was the dispenser of charity and I the
recipient--prevailed. It was a view that Nathan,
understandably, felt redounded to his credit, and he was
loathe to confront its untruth and incapable of looking at
it dispassionately. Eventually any attempt by me to
contradict this `family romance' was met by vociferous
argument.

It is difficult to write about this without sounding a
complete fool. But there was much about the relationship
that was good. We passed into middle age a relatively
contented couple. We were comfortable together, and we had
made a good life together. I aged more rapidly than Nathan,
however. He is athletic and probably still plays a vigorous
game of tennis. In my off hours, I preferred to potter about
the garden or to cook. I became bald, he retained his thick
head of black hair. My waist thickened (to be honest, I am
fat); he remained slim. I was frequently tired by the end of
the day. I grew to look several years older than he.

It was at this point that the infidelities began.  I do not
know when they started. They came to my attention because of
a strange incident with one of his students. Nathan had
introduced me to J_____ several months earlier. We happened
to fall into step as we were walking across the quad one
day. I tried to strike up a conversation with him and
received in return a withering look of contempt before he
abruptly reversed course and headed back the way we had come
without speaking. I mentioned the--to me inexplicable--
incident to the group of colleagues I was meeting and was
greeted by an embarrassed silence. Later, Margaret Brockston
took me aside and told me that J_____ was Nathan's `latest
favourite' and `might be jealous' of my position. I spoke
with Nathan about this and, in the interests of `honesty',
was told that my increasing lack of desire for sex was
forcing him to look elsewhere for physical release. Nathan
subsequently made sure to tell me about his other liaisons.
According to Nathan, none of them was serious, and he
promised that none would endanger our relationship. As far
as I know, he took my advice and was careful not to get
involved with one of his students again, however.

And so both of us reached our fifties, neither of us
sufficiently dissatisfied to end a relationship of many
years' standing, but neither of us totally happy about what
it had become. So why did I stay? Why did Nathan stay? Well,
why does anyone stay together? Habit and inertia. The
comfort of the familiar. A shared history. The semaphore
signals shared by a long-time couple. Busy lives that gave
both of us an excuse to avoid prolonged interaction. The
awkwardness of admitting to a mistake and arranging a
separation. My Catholic upbringing and the notion that
divorce is a sin. Hope for an improvement. Convenience. The
aged cat it would be cruel to dispossess of her favourite
spot in the sun. The throbbing toothache that just might go
away if one puts off calling the dentist for another day.
Trivial reasons perhaps, but the glue of many relationships.

The event that made me realise the relationship was
irrevocably over occurred on a Monday afternoon in
Washington, D.C. I had been in Washington since the
preceding Wednesday for the annual conference of a scholarly
organization for specialists in Byzantine studies. The
conference ended on Sunday at noon. When Nathan learned
about the meeting, he suggested that he join me in
Washington on Saturday and that we stay over for a few days
and take in the Freer and the other museums. He also
arranged to examine a manuscript at the Library of Congress
and contacted some old friends of his to have dinner with
them.

By Sunday at noon, I was weary of smiling and trying to
remember the names of people I see only once a year. I was
ready to sequester myself in our hotel room and indulge in
being grumpy for a few hours. Nathan, however, was tired of
sitting in the hotel lobby and reading the newspaper. The
conference was at the Hilton above Dupont Circle. In the
taxicab on the way from the airport on Saturday evening,
Nathan had noticed (it could hardly have escaped his
attention) that Dupont Circle and its environs were
frequented by a large number of handsome young men. Even
someone as lacking in the ability to identify other gay
people as I had no trouble identifying it as a gay area.
Nathan insisted that it would do me good to change out of my
suit and tie and into more casual clothing and take a walk
and get something to eat. I was half-tempted to tell him to
go by himself and let me take a nap, but in the end I
decided that he had travelled a long way to join me and that
it would give us a chance to do something we so seldom
did-be together in a place where we didn't have to be
Professors Sevenfields and Cambourne.

England had been damper than usual that March, and Nathan
was right, it was a treat to step outside into the spring
sunshine, flowers, and warm air. To judge from the ready
smiles and laughter, everyone else seemed to feel the same
way. Even apparent strangers were exchanging pleasantries.
The pavements outside the restaurants were so packed with
people waiting to enter that it was often difficult to edge
around the queue. We walked around for about an hour looking
into the shops. The noon rush was over by then, and we were
able to find a spot in an Italian restaurant that had an
outdoor seating area. It was very pleasant to sit there, and
Nathan and I traded horror stories about conferences. The
food wasn't the best-the cook was one of those people who
thinks al dente means crunchy in the middle. By the end of
the meal, half-cooked bits of pasta were ground into the
recesses of my teeth and were proving impervious to the
nudges of my tongue. I think chefs in the United States were
going through a raw veggie and no salt phase. The "sauce"
had consisted of crisp chunks of vegetables that had briefly
been in the same room as the stove. But even the bad trendy
food didn't impinge on our enjoyment, and the waiter was
young, handsome, and attentive enough to rate one of
Nathan's raised eyebrows and amused smiles as he walked
away.

The day continued in much the same way. Nathan's friends
invited us to their home for dinner, along with another
couple. All six of us hit it off immediately. The
conversation was animated and droll. It was a very civilised
evening. When we got back to the hotel, Nathan was in an
amorous mood (he often was in hotels), and our lovemaking
was more vigorous and longer than it usually was. For me,
and I think for Nathan, it was one of those happy days that
came only occasionally by that point in our lives. We spent
the night curled up next to each other in one of those huge
American hotel beds with its cool, smooth sheets. The bed
was so big that in the morning the blanket on the far side
was hardly ruffled.

Monday morning we spent at the Library of Congress. Nathan
had arranged beforehand to view the documents he wanted to
see, and he and the librarian were soon engaged in a deep
technical conversation about archives and manuscripts. It
was pleasant to sit in that book-lined, light-filled chamber
among people so enthusiastic about their profession. I
shortly tuned out what the two of them were saying and was
became lost in a reverie about libraries and books and my
own research.

Around eleven we went to the Freer. As usual Nathan's
tolerance of museums was greater than mine. I find my desire
to view objects diminishes rapidly; museums have too much to
see, too many things that demand that one look at them, in
my opinion. It would be far better to display only a few of
the best items at a time and let the rest remain in storage.
Nathan, in contrast, is indefatigable in museums. He wants
to see everything and examine every object in great detail
and then discuss what he sees. He can speak with such
authority that he often collects an audience who treat him
as a docent/lecturer. He loves that. But by four that
afternoon, even Nathan's enthusiasm had begun to falter, and
he readily agreed with my suggestion that we take a cab back
to the hotel.

That was a mistake. Within two blocks we were stalled in a
traffic jam caused by a parade of demonstrators walking up
the mall toward the Washington monument. It seemed endless
at the time. We must have been stuck at that intersection
for twenty minutes before traffic began to move again--
slowly. Every light turned red as we approached, and Nathan
and I, not to mention the taxi driver, were beginning to be
impatient. When Nathan spotted a coffeehouse in Dupont
Circle, he had the taxi pull over and we got out. We found
two seats at the front window and had a full view of the
street scene around Dupont Circle. The subway station there
disgorged a constant stream of people getting back from
work. It was enjoyable to sit there watching others be busy
while we were relaxing.

Opposite the coffeehouse was a gay bookstore, and Nathan
asked if I would mind if we browsed for a while. I hate
shopping for almost everything, and he loves it. Over the
years, we had reached a compromise. Bookstores we did
together. Food, I shopped for alone. Clothing--he was on his
own. The bookstore was quite large and had a surprising
number and range of books. I headed for the mysteries
section. I had read a few gay mysteries but had had no idea
how many there were. Most of them were American publications
not available in Britain, and I spent a quick half-hour
limiting myself to the four I thought I could fit in my
luggage and whose covers would not alarm a customs agent. I
jotted down the authors' names and titles of others that
looked promising. I was surprised to find how much time I
had spent browsing in this section. We had to be up early
the next morning, and I thought I had better find Nathan so
that we could eat and then pack for the flight back in the
morning.

Nathan was in the photography section, examining a book of
male nudes. Those books were displayed on a table, and that
area of the store was more open. He happened to glance up as
I walked toward him. When he saw me, he pretended that he
hadn't and focused on the picture in front of him. At first
I thought he was doing what he usually did and trying to
ignore what he knew would be a prompt for me that we ought
to be moving along. `I found several books. How about you?'
I held up the four books I intended to purchase. Nathan
looked up at me blankly and then turned away. `Are you about
finished? We should be getting back to the hotel.' Nathan
closed the book he was looking at and put it back on the
table. He moved a few feet away and then picked up another
book. He carefully positioned himself so that his back was
toward me.

And that's when I realised that Nathan didn't want to be
seen with me. He wanted anyone who had been watching to
think that I had tried to pick him up and that he had
snubbed me. As I stood there trying to figure out what to do
next, he put down the second book and walked away from me,
into another area of the store.

`Sir, are you ok?' It took me a second to make sense of the
concerned young face that was looking at me with alarm. One
of the clerks was holding out his hands for the books. `I
can keep these at the counter for you if you would like to
browse so more.'

`No, these will be all. Thank you. I'll just get these.' I
paid for the books and somehow made my way back to the
hotel. What surprised me most was my acceptance of what had
happened. I wasn't feeling regret or anger so much as relief
that it finally was over. I returned to our room and took a
shower and then began packing. Nathan didn't come back for
another hour or so. He had decided to ignore the whole
incident, perhaps in the hope that it would all blow over
quickly, and he said nothing when he came in. I continued to
sort through the papers in my briefcase, and then I said,
calmly and without thinking much about what I would say, `If
being seen with me embarrasses you, you do not need to feel
that it is necessary to invite me to accompany you. I am
quite happy on my own.'

Nathan didn't even bother to try to deny my interpretation
of the incident. He just nodded. `Yes, perhaps that would be
best.' He changed and then left. When he returned after
midnight, I was pretending to be asleep. He got undressed in
the dark and then slid into the other bed. In the morning we
flew back to London. Since Nathan had made his reservations
long after I had, we weren't sitting together. So I had a
good eight hours to think about my plans for the future. I
knew that I wanted out of the relationship. The question was
how best to engineer that. Nathan would not tolerate my
leaving him. His pride would not stand that. I had to
arrange for him to leave me. He had to `dump' me and that
fact had to be known to his friends. I decided that as long
as I was free of him, it didn't matter what his friends
thought.

Back at home, to all appearances, we resumed our familiar
routine, with only a few differences. I had started waking
up in the middle of the night a few years earlier and often,
in order to avoid disturbing Nathan with my restlessness, I
would get up and move to the bedroom that was designated
`mine' on those occasions when it was necessary to convey
the notion that we were merely sharing a house. Gradually I
spent more and more of my nights in my bedroom, until we
were sleeping apart. I also found excuses to avoid spending
time with Nathan alone--the proofs that I had to return the
next morning demanded that I stay late at the office; a
particularly boring visiting colleague who needed to be fed
dinner. It wasn't hard to devise reasons. When necessary, we
could still become the devoted couple for our friends and
associates, but psychologically and physically the
relationship had ended. For many months, however, I was
unable to realise my goal of ending it definitively. For
Nathan, I would say that my presence was a convenience. I
did the cooking and the day-to-day cleaning and cared for
the gardens. An occasional conversation was a small price to
pay for the services I provided.

But the gods do provide, if seldom as quickly as we mortals
might wish. Enter the only person from Liechtenstein I have
ever met. Alois von Hohenlohe was, is for all I know, an
overpowering person--tall, muscular, handsome, engaging,
intelligent. He came as a visiting external student to study
with me and to use our library collections and those at the
British Museum. Moreover, Alois, it soon became apparent,
liked mature men. His hints to me were unmistakable. I
invited him to a dinner party at our house and sat him
beside Nathan. They enchanted one another. I made sure that
Alois became a frequent guest. It took little effort to
persuade Nathan to accede to my suggestion that the vacant
and unused nursery and nanny's room on the third floor would
make a perfect apartment for Alois.

Contrary to my usual habit, I accepted many requests to
deliver guest lectures that term. Often it was necessary for
me to be away overnight. Even my notorious and fabled
dislike for travel did not prevent me from accepting the
invitation to deliver the Norhouse Lectures at that
university in the other Cambridge. I was gone for ten days.
Again the gods stepped in. The breakup of our housekeeping
would have entailed much division of common property. We
would probably have had to sell the house. Nathan and I
would have continued to cross paths at the university. We
would, of course, have been civilised and not discommoded
our colleagues and friends, but there would inevitably have
been unpleasantnesses.

My lectures were very successful. False modesty will not
prevent me from saying that I was unusually thought-
provoking, not to mention witty and charming. A group of
students even insisted that I accompany them to a `brew pub'
(an Anglicism trotted out, I suspect, to spare me the
embarrassment of having to admit my ignorance of the
American `bar'; in their own curious way, American youth are
polite) in Harvard Square after one of the lectures so that
they could continue to talk with me. I enjoyed that evening
immensely; the stout made on the premises is quite good, and
the conversation was very lively. After the final lecture, I
was invited to have dinner at the Faculty Club with several
professors from the History Department as well as the Dean
of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. After the waiters had
cleared the table and drinks were being passed around, the
Dean leaned over and asked if he and a few others might have
a `private word' with me. To make a long tale short, I was
offered a major professorship at a salary that quite took my
breath away. As protocol demands, I did not accept
immediately, although I knew as soon as I heard the offer
that I would. I promised to let them know my decision within
a few weeks.

I am so scatteredbrained, I am afraid that I had told Nathan
and Alois that I would be returning on a Thursday. Silly me,
my flight was on Wednesday. I must have been looking at the
previous month's calendar. They were asleep in bed together
when I came up the stairs. I think I managed my surprise
rather well, even with aplomb. I actually told them not to
get up and to go back to sleep. I would leave before they
awoke in the morning. And I did. I left it to Nathan to
devise the official story. Vraiment, c'est ca son metier. I
spent my few remaining weeks in England in lodgings. I
arranged with Nathan to remove my belongings while he and
Alois were out. I buried my sorrows in seclusion and refused
all invitations.

Nathan, I would guess, quite relished my misery. That is,
until he heard that I had resigned to take the job in the
United States. I doubt that he has forgiven me that. Of
course, no one suspected my hand in engineering the end of
the relationship. One of the advantages of Nathan's pursuit
of `honesty' in our relationship was that I was cast as the
more naive and bumbling partner who needed Nathan's help to
survive. No one credited me with such a capacity for
deviousness.