Geordie and Sam
Tilbury, London
1969
They met at the docks where Sam worked in the warehouses, loading and unloading cargo onto the vessels that were moored there. Geordie was married to Sylvia, and Sam was married to Martha. They lived on the same street and travelled on the same bus home one night and it was here, one summer evening in June, on a half-empty top deck that was thick with cigarette fumes that they struck up a conversation.
They chatted about work and where Geordie, who was home on a week’s leave had sailed to and from. At the time he was working the North Sea route, shorter trips so he could be with his family. The days of voyages to his favourite place on earth, Japan and the land of the rising sun, were a thing of the past. The sea was his life and as long as he could still sail and come home to his little girl, that was all he cared about. Geordie was twenty-four and got married at eighteen in a bit of a rush when his girlfriend found out she was pregnant.
Sam was twenty, newly married and living in a shared house with his wife and her two sisters and their husbands. It was far from ideal. Even though they’d been promised the good life when they all set sail from Jamaica, the reality was that they were shunned by many, people who thought they were there to steal their jobs. Signs on doors of pubs and shops, even boarding houses, telling them they weren’t wanted left them in no doubt and this reality had come as an immense shock.
That night, from the outside looking in they were just two young blokes sharing their stories on a bus. On the inside the attraction was there, right from the start and their truth, the one Sam’s father tried to beat out of him in Jamaica, begging God to banish it from his son’s wicked, perverted soul, was hard to deny.
Geordie had always battled with what he knew to be his truth. And he hadn’t been alone in his fight. There were other sailors who also travelled the globe, denying their feelings and who they really were. The threat of prosecution had always hung in the air as had the stigma of homosexuality and even the changing of the law two years before they met hadn’t changed attitudes. It was too soon so Geordie hid behind his family life and the aura of respectability that a wife and child gave a man like him.
It was much the same for Sam who had escaped his father and left behind his distraught mother who, even though she’d been heartbroken on the day he’d said goodbye, knew letting her son go was for the best. He’d met Martha not long after he arrived. She was a seamstress and worked in one of the factories near to the docks that made overalls. She was a vibrant, confident young woman who dressed in bright colours that matched her personality, all the colours of the Caribbean. The Jamaican community stuck together and missing his home, his mother and sisters, Sam had warmed to Martha and her loud but welcoming family who took him as their own.
During his week’s leave, Geordie and Sam would meet in the park and chat while Carmen played on the swings, or they would stop on the street and pass a few minutes on the way back from the corner shop. The attraction grew. When Geordie said goodbye to his daughter and went back to sea, his heart was always heavy. When he said goodbye to Sam as they met in the alleyway that ran along the back of the row of terraces, it felt like lead.
And so their tentative romance began, spread over the summer months when Geordie came home on leave, right through the winter when the cover of darkness allowed them furtive meetings in cold doorways. The slight touch of a hand, the longing for a kiss, became too much to bear. It was one of Martha’s sisters who saw them and blew their world apart. They’d taken a chance and it all went wrong. Christmas Eve, in a dingy alleyway by the bins was where they shared their first embrace and in that wonderful moment, as their lips met, they knew that what they felt wasn’t wrong. However, for Sam, who at twenty was still underage, anything more would be illegal.
While Geordie sat in the parlour, smoking his cigarettes and reading the paper, and his wife peeled potatoes in the kitchen as she chatted to Beryl from next door, and his little girl watched the clock and waited for Father Christmas, seven doors down all hell was breaking loose.
When Martha barged through the door, demanding he told his wife what he’d done, it wasn’t that he’d been having an affair with another woman, it was that he’d fallen in love with another man. Sam. No more playing happy families.
Sylvia was distraught, horrified, repulsed, betrayed, enraged. That night as they argued in their bedroom she went through a gamut of emotions. Jealousy, hate, desperation. Could they make it work? Could she wipe from her mind what he’d done? Could she bear the shame if it got out? If Martha’s screeching accusations were anything to go by, half the street would have heard and gossip would spread like a fire throughout the terraces.
The thing was, as Geordie watched her pace and cry and pull at her hair in temper, he realised that it was no longer down to Sylvia, her forgiveness or understanding. He couldn’t live a lie anymore. He couldn’t fake it and in his heart he knew that neither could she. When he told her this, that it was over and that he would go and when she’d calmed down they would talk it through, the barrier between him and his wife went up. It was the final insult, the ultimate betrayal.
It had almost killed him, when Carmen came to the top of the stairs and asked him where he was going, if he was coming back. That night, when he closed the front door on his little girl and heard her fists battering the wood on the other side, had haunted him for the rest of his life.
He’d hoped Sylvia would come back and that they could talk it through sensibly, make arrangements for Carmen but it wasn’t to be. During their final conversation, as he stood in her sister’s hallway, they’d made a deal. She promised not to make Carmen hate him, to keep his secret as long as he stayed away and let them get on with their lives. Geordie had agreed for the sake of his daughter, making a pact with the devil-woman.
While Geordie was able to take a room in a boarding house on that most awful of Christmas Eves, Sam wasn’t so fortunate. He’d also left home that night and found shelter at a local church, sleeping amongst the homeless of Tilbury, wandering the streets during the day and returning in the evening. There, he’d lain awake amongst the great unwashed of the parish, listening to their coughs and nightmares as their sins and demons haunted their dreams. Just like his own fears tormented every waking hour.
Sam hadn’t been to work. He was starving and running out of money but didn’t dare face his brother-in-law who worked at the same shipping company. He was petrified that Martha or one of her family would report him to the police yet he longed to see Geordie so, knowing the day he was due back on his ship, he hid close by the dockyard and waited in the early morning light.
Finally, just over a week since they’d last seen each other, a few days before New Year, as Geordie headed towards the dock he heard his name being called and a face he’d longed to see stepped out of the shadows. It didn’t take long for them to decide what to do.
Geordie had already taken his meagre belongings from the house back to his lodgings and given his keys back to the landlord. Next, he withdrew all his money from the bank and bought an old banger which he loaded with, amongst other things, his record player, books, photographs and vinyl records and then as arranged, met Sam at the ring road out of London. They travelled north together, towards the docks at Salford. The Manchester Ship Canal was a thriving port, well away from anyone they knew in a city where they could blend in, stay under the radar and start a new life together.
And that was where they’d remained ever since, living separately at first and then once they’d found courage, and acceptance and tolerance within society, it slowly made them feel more comfortable and they moved in together. They bought a little house and lived a peaceful life in a city they now called home and ironically, only a few miles from the daughter that Geordie had never stopped loving.
* * *
Leonora had listened to Geordie and Sam as they told their tale between them and now it was her chance to ask questions.
‘So, pet. There you have it. The truth about how we ended up here and by some kind of miracle you came into our lives. If there’s anything you want to ask us, feel free.’ Geordie relaxed into his armchair, exhausted from the telling of their story and Sam looked much the same.
‘No, I don’t think there is. You explained it all so clearly. But one thing that has occurred to me is about Gran. Her attitudes to so many things kind of makes sense now. She was so set in her ways, a bit of a tough cookie who didn’t stand for any messing and, if I’m totally honest, completely intolerant of most things and people. We always made allowances or laughed it off, putting it down to her age and coming from a certain era, or maybe her tough East End upbringing. Now I see it differently. She was taking her rage and hurt and disappointment out on anyone who reminded her of you and Sam.’
Hearing this left Geordie intrigued and rather shocked. No matter how hard he tried to picture Sylvia as Leonora had described, or had seen in the photos on her phone, he remembered her differently. To him she would always be the petite young woman who dyed her hair blonde because she idolised Marilyn Monroe. And even though she appeared bold and brash, she was always perfectly made up and turned out. Right up until that Christmas Eve she’d always been so sweet, mild and gentle with a kind heart. The knowledge that his actions might have altered her so dramatically pained him deeply.
‘Did Sylvia remarry?’ Geordie wished for the answer to be yes.
The shake of Leonora’s head told him it hadn’t been granted. ‘No. She kind of dedicated her life to us, me, my mum and my sisters. While Mum got on with building the garden centre Gran looked after us, like our second mum, I suppose. We were her everything.’
Geordie was despondent even amidst his joy. ‘It still makes me sad, though, that I hurt her so badly that she never gave love another chance and at the same time, kept her promise to me. She didn’t turn Carmen against me or try to poison her mind. She stuck to the story about Martha and even though it was a lie, I’m grateful for that.’
