25. THE NAMELESS LOVE

Leaving Swanpottle for most of this chapter, we follow Charles Snootnose falling deeply in love...

Charles Snootnose had a Mention in Despatches as the dreadful war against Germany dragged on towards its end. Countless men had lost their lives on both sides, and if asked before they died not one of the dying would be able to give a real reason why they were fighting. They might spout some slogan hammered into their heads over months of turmoil, but slogans are rarely a reason and even more rarely properly understood.

But the Mention told how Charles Snootnose had saved the lives of three men whilst exposing his own mortal soul to enemy fire. It was as simple as that, and as complex.

He would never admit to what motivated him, not to his comrades and certainly not to himself, but in the final analysis it was love.

Despite his past experiences, love was a stranger to Charles. He had known lust, all right, had wasted his early years lusting after the unattainable, and even when he had lusted after Jane Smith and somehow seduced her in the name of creative art, finally as good as raping her in that his physical attention was against her will and resisted by her for as long as she could resist a man so much her social superior, even then he didn’t know love. But he had loved lust and the explosions it wrought within him.

Then when the world was a black and repulsive place, when he felt he must surely be on the eve of a personal journey to Hell, he met Billy Gently. And, without knowing how or why it happened, he fell in love with the youth. And not just in a fancying a night in the cot with him sort of way, but with a deep and meaningful desire to protect him and be with him at all costs.

And youth Billy Gently was, being almost a decade younger than Charles. And much to his own confusion and absolute delight that love seemed to be returned in the tiny ways that love can be when the world’s against it. Billy was equally confused. He hadn’t a clue why his heart was lifted every time he cast his eyes on Charles Snootnose. It seemed an impossibility, but he was aroused by the older man’s very presence in the same space as him. All he wanted to do was touch him, just lightly on the arm, maybe, or on the cheek, or, and this was risque, more intimately.

It reminded him of another time when he’d been at school and been besotted by Mr Dernier, the o longer young history teacher who’d satisfied his own lusts by inflicting pain on boys with his cane. In the end, and as a conclusion to his mental disarray, Mr Dernier, who had an elderly Ford motor car, had offered him a lift home from school because of the threat of heavy rain, and as he was nervously and gratefully thanking the teacher from being saved from a soaking, the middle-aged man had kissed him. As simple as that.

Their lips had touched, and at that precise moment the lust he had experienced at the very sight of Mr Dernier turned, through dislike, to hatred, and all in a twinkling because of the wave of pyorrhoea that flooded past the kissing lips from man to boy. Mr Dernier’s breath stank, and Billy Gently had been brought up to value cleanliness above all things.

Now there was Charles Snootnose, and Billy knew that he loved him and prayed that bad breath wouldn’t get in the way. He didn’t think that it would: he’d watched Charles as he cleaned his teeth and knew how fastidious he was.

Then came the rescue.

Three of them were manning a mobile gun unit in France as their forces tried to regain the Maginot line and hence get a chance of putting a foot into the enemy’s own territory. That mobile gun placement was put under heavy fire and one of the three soldiers was badly wounded. Another of the three soldiers was Billy Gently, and when Charles Snootnose saw the danger the youth was in (he was old enough to fight, but still in Charles’ eyes he was a youth) he saw red and, single handedly and with weapons being discharged all around him and at him, he made three desperate forays to the gun unit and rescued all three, including Billy, who was scared stiff but uninjured.

It was on the first evening after the rescue that the two fighting men exchanged brief words that were more of affection than mere friendship, and much later with darkness pressing in during the depths of a moonless night, when they managed a few moments of privacy, some gentle, loving and very warm kisses.

Charles did not have pyorrhoea, and Billy’s happiness was complete.

Months after then and when the war had ground to its inevitable end Charles invited Billy to Snootnose Manor as his own home had been blitzed out of existence. His parents were billeted in temporary accommodation that was totally inadequate for them let alone a third person fresh from the war. And after the demob of their unit Charles and Billy made their way to Swanspottle and to Snootnose Manor.

And they went via Ursula Blocksley’s village store.

Little had changed during the war years. The twins were still there and several years older. Having been orphaned by the war, efforts were being made to trace living relatives, but with the exception of one set of elderly grandparents, without much success. Ursula had said she didn’t mind them staying on. They were due to leave school soon, and thereafter they would be able to find employment and independence for themselves. Janet already had a boyfriend, one of the Pumpkins family, and the two of them seemed close, maybe even a bit too close for Ursula’s peace of mind.

So Charles walked into the shop. Ursula was busy loading a shelf with tins, and Greendale was leaning on a crutch and trying to be helpful with a duster.

“A tin of beans and a loaf of bread,” called Charles.

“Why, Mr Charles,” greeted Ursula, “back from the wars and in one piece, I see. And what was that I read in the papers, about a certain Mr Charles Snootnose being Mentioned in Despatches?”

Suddenly Charles felt shy.

And confused.

Two complete emotional episodes of his life were on collision course. He might have fathered Jane Smith’s child, now a five year old with attitude, but he had always had a soft spot for Ursula, ever since she had spied him doing something rather forbidden to himself behind a hedge in the happy pre-war years. And with him, standing next to him, was the smart and clean cut and even fragrant Billy Gently. The boy he’d rescued from a gun placement. The boy he knew that he loved.

“Have you see Jane?” he asked, changing the subject even though no subject had been properly started.

“Yes. And Susan who, may I say, takes after her father a little bit,” smiled Ursula.

Charles turned to Billy, a guilty look on his face. “I don’t think I told you,” he said, quietly. “Jane’s a local girl, or woman should I say these days, and Susan….”

“Yes?” asked Billy in a heartbeat.

“Susan’s my daughter,” said Charles.

© Peter Rogerson 03.08.18