Perking the Pansies, Jack and Liam move to Turkey

Chapter 25 - Home Alone

Liam left exactly two months after we moved into the house in Bodrum. He dashed home on a mercy mission and I had no idea when he would be coming back. Üzgün's death had thrown him off kilter and now he was needed in London.

The night before, we had dined al fresco to take advantage of yet another blessed, balmy evening. Liam's gastronomic ambitions had reached such a pinnacle that we had less and less reason to eat out. The courtyard was a perfect setting. We reminisced about the days when, at the slightest hint of fine weather, we would rush home from work and grab the opportunity to eat in the garden.

We chinked glasses. "To the good life, Liam."

It was a hollow toast. Üzgün's murder had changed everything. He had been raped, robbed and murdered by three teenagers in a back street of Yalıkavak. His body was found in a dry river bed, naked, beaten and barely recognisable.

Liam got the call he had been dreading. He packed a suitcase and taxied to the airport to pick up the next available flight. I stayed awake for most of the night, texting Liam and trying to make sense of the mess around us. I camped on the balcony for hours, questioning my flawed understanding of Turkish society, balancing the highs with the lows and wondering if, ultimately, we had made one huge mistake. My head was a mass of interconnected thoughts and contradictions, each leading to a different conclusion and each stirring up an emotion that took me right back to where I started. I set myself a challenge. I would stay awake until the morning; by then I would know what to do.

Üzgün's murderers claimed that he came onto them. They had been scared of him. Jesus, Üzgün would fall over if you blew on him. Something wasn't right. The last time we saw him, he was happy and now he was dead. Maybe he got drunk in Mehmet's bar and revealed too many of his true colours. Maybe that was the night his murderers plotted to rob and kill him. I was sickened by the killing but Turkish sexual customs were more complex, contradictory and deep-rooted than I could fully comprehend. Quentin Crisp may have been right when he said that "men deprived of the company of women turn to boys and men deprived of the company of boys turn to animals." But he surely had in mind English public schools, Welsh sheep farmers  and American  convicts.  Not Turkey,  where  sexual ambiguity  was  an  art  form.  Maybe  I  should  have  worked things out by now; I had visited the shores of Asia Minor for fifteen years. But my gaydar malfunctioned as soon as I entered Turkish airspace. It was as if the entire country was encased in lead. I was left in a continuous state of disarray, thrown by the intensive penetrating stares and contradictory playful signals from the swarthy men around me. I never played the game because I never got the rules.

In societies with strong gender separation, girls are expected to protect their virtue, so for adolescent males, access to sexual shenanigans is limited to a hand shandy from the boy next door. A familiar fumble with the lads is tolerated if absolute discretion is exercised; it's certainly not an obstacle to marriage. And don't even go there with lesbianism. Licking the lettuce is way beyond the pale: meaningful sexual liberation for women in Turkey was a distant dream. This may have explained the po-faced princesses of Bodrum. Being arsy was the only real freedom open to them.

Before the summer rush, whole caravans of young men with locked-down libidos and any-hole-is-the-goal mentality began their annual migration to the coast looking for casual work and casual sex. Some of these poor fellas were like coiled springs. The frustration was palpable. And why give it away when there was a little profit to be made? Even the nicest of them joined the gay-for-pay brigade: doing it for cash, not pleasure, was the best way to avoid guilt by association. Most of these men didn't consider themselves to be gay. The thought of it would repel them. In the orthodox sense, few were. Come the autumn, the boys returned to their villages to overwinter, marry their cousins and breed. Being Üzgün must have been so very difficult. He deserved better.

The lights went out in Türkkuyusu just as they had done many times before.  How could Turkey  ever  hope  to  become  an industrial powerhouse if they couldn't keep the bloody lights on? I stared into the darkened streets, lit only by the headlights of passing traffic. I wanted to speak to Liam but he was in the skies somewhere over Europe. I wanted to ask him why we didn't go to Spain or why we left London in the first place. I knew he would answer, "because we're different and different is good. Remember the pioneers. 'Good As You', they said."

I was still struggling. Maybe it was all to do with the distinction between sex and sexuality. There's a world of difference between a quickie with a passing stranger and the profound desire to form a romantic and emotional bond with a member of the same sex. That's where the grief starts. I knew two gay Turks living in London, one from a middle class urban family, the other from a village. Both left home to be free and both lied to their families. Stifling social taboos redolent of post- war Britain was difficult to fight against. It took a very brave (or desperate) person to break free. Look at Adalet's mother, even Nuray, Sophia's headscarfed maid. What real choices did these people have? And what about Üzgün's wife and kids? The shame, the disgrace. They would be social pariahs for the rest of their lives, all because Üzgün was gay and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Liam and I felt relatively safe in Turkey, it was different for us. Sophia's guarded warning about Sharia Law had spooked us but we didn't take it too seriously. She had the best intentions but I didn't sense a country slipping towards religious fundamentalism. The Turkey I knew was not afflicted by the same fixed attitudes as many of its Arab neighbours; Turkey wasn't Saudi Arabia. Surely the Minister for Children who vilified homosexuality was a blast from past; her comments a kick against progress? A last hurrah? Maybe Liam and I could be part of Turkey's future. Our foster home was more like Eastern Europe, nations on their own journey to modernity. Being gay in the Baltic republics or Bulgaria was hardly a walk in the park either but that was slowly changing, just like in Spain after Franco, or after Irish Catholicism lost its iron grip. Turkey was on its own journey. Sure, it had a way to go, but it was heading in the right direction.

Why did we leave London in the first place? It had been kind to me. I crashed onto the gay scene at the tender age of sixteen without fear or regret. I came out when no one came out. I wasn't ashamed. I rarely waved a flag. I didn't need to. I was uncompromisingly out to everyone. Take it or leave it. As a pretty young thing I was offered money. I never took it. I always worked and the coppers in my pocket were honestly earned. I'd learned self-reliance, I'd learned real pride, and I'd learned both at my father's knee. I had the love and support of my family when so many didn't and I endured when so many around me dropped like flies. I lost John to the 'gay plague' as the tabloids delicately put it, but I survived unscathed, physically anyway.

I asked the ultimate question. What was there to keep us here? Adalet was in an orphanage and our persecuted friends were about to be prosecuted. Our phone was being tapped and the country might yet lurch to the religious right. A harmless little man had become the victim of a vicious homophobic attack and we were surrounded by myopic emigreys who obsessed about the price of bacon. I missed my family and friends, decent Indian food, central heating, the big city buzz, riding the tube outside the rush hour and the soaring triumph of liberalism. For the first time in my life, I didn't know what to do.

Just as the sun started to rise, I received a text from Liam.

Been thinking, hub. We can do this. Let's stay on the dolly and fight for that seat. That's what Üzgün would have wanted, and so do I. PS: Go to bed.

The lights came on. I laughed out loud and poured a final glass of wine. It was that simple. We would nail our rainbow colours to the mast of that gulet come hell or high water.

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Coming Next: Chapter 26 – The Belles of Bodrum

Perking the Pansies, Jack Scott's award winning, best-selling debut book is available in paperback and as an ebook from all usual retailers. Signed copies are available direct from the author.

Out now: The sequel - Turkey Street, Jack and Liam move to Bodrum. Also available in print and digital editions.

For more information check out http://www.jackscott.info