Foreword(David Yates) FOREWORD
by Michael D Yates

I was a skinny boy of seventeen, sexually inexperienced apart from a bewildering fumble or two in the park with girls from the secondary modern, who seemed to expect more than I knew how to give them. I had been taught that women hated the thought of sex as much as men loved it, and this I thoroughly believed to be true, so the responses of those eager little girls in the park confused me.

Each week I was losing weight and energy. The doctor saw me; I was passed on to a specialist, who rather uncertainly diagnosed me as tubercular and sent me to a men’s TB hospital for tests, treatment and recuperation.
I was six foot tall and less than nine stone in weight. My skin was as pale as paper, stretched tight across the ripple of my ribs and disconcertingly concave diaphragm. I was ashamed of my body, thought of myself as a freak. In those days, the muscle man was the sort of bloke that girls were taught to desire and men aspire to, and my lankiness imbued in me a terrible shyness.
As my diagnosis was uncertain, I was given a ward to myself: the recovery room. Here I would be distant from the contagious patients, and, apart from the occasional intrusion of a desperate post-op patient for an hour or two, there was no-one to look at me with revulsion.

The hospital had once been a fine old mansion. My room had wide French windows that opened upon perfect lawns. There were views across an estuary to distant mountains. Rabbits would come from the garden to eat the bread I threw for them. Forever weary, I would have been happy drowsing away my days in such a place had I not overheard two nurses one night whispering gloomily about my slim chances of recovery, for I continued to lose weight despite a Guinness and cream diet.

I befriended a middle-aged man in the next ward, who, like me, played the guitar. He, though, had played professionally; he showed me on paper mysterious jazz shapes and fascinating chord sequences that I memorised in case I ever saw my guitar again. I remember even now his pleasure each time I shuffled to his room for my morning lesson. One day, when I went for my allotted twenty minute visit, the room and his bed were empty. A young nurse called Mary gave me the news of his death. I cried in front of her. I was probably crying for myself, for I was sure that I, too, would never leave that place alive.

Mary was one of many young nurses in the institution, most of them not much older than I. I’ve forgotten almost all of them. She was a tender Irish Catholic girl of holy innocence who would have been terrified to learn that she was, in the eyes of the teenaged patients, a stunning, freckle-faced red-head whose slender body inside its starchy uniform made every weak boy’s knees go weaker. Another I remember was the unlovely Celia. Despite my skeletal frame, she seemed to have an unsettling crush on me and would spend hours of the nightshift sitting by my bedside, holding my hand while I drifted in and out of sleep as she tried to kiss me or talked about the family dog.

In those days rules seemed to be slack. That Celia could spend hours with me in a private room at night was not remarkable. I heard stories about the escapades of a compulsively randy nurse called Conny, no longer at our hospital – sent, it was rumoured, to an all-female institution where she could work without distractions – who had made good use of this laxness.
I learned this from the other patients, young lads all missing their girlfriends (and some their young wives), for each day the stronger would be released from the big wards for their stroll around the grounds, and on my good days I was allowed to join them. Conny was their obsession, and daily I’d hear another tale of her egregious sexual misbehaviour.
When I went back to the peace of my room, I would have an erection; perhaps that was just teenage hormones doing their thing - or maybe, as was universally believed in those days, it was my supposed TB that was making me constantly excited, for I was erect for many hours a day. I would masturbate beneath the sheets, my eyes on the door in case a nurse should walk in, trying with little success to imagine what the lads had described to me: Conny unbuttoning her stiff blue uniform and letting Kenny slip his hand onto her breasts as she took his pulse by way of an experiment; Connie glimpsed straddling Mr Bishop in the middle of the night, the curtains not quite drawn around his bed, or showing her tits as a twenty-first birthday present to Ronny Jones. Exaggerations, maybe; fabrications, perhaps, but the thought was enough to drive me to distraction, for no-one had ever straddled me or was ever likely to, and I had never as much as glimpsed or touched a woman’s naked breasts. (In those days it was almost impossible to see pictures of naked women. Only once, when Carl Jones had taken me up to his attic after school and shown me his dad’s German nudist magazines, had I been able to confirm the unlikely rumour that women had pubic hair.)

*

In charge of these nurses were the ward sisters. One was an ill-tempered (and probably ill) old lady of forty or so, thin as a cigarette, forever coughing and cursing. Aggie, we called her, and feigned sleep when she did her rounds.
The other, Sister Henson, was an icy blonde. Swedish was the rumour among the boys, but her alien accent, I realised, was simply middle class and southern. She was cool, withdrawn, beautifully spoken and, I later realised, cleverer by far than many a consultant. The perfect orderliness of the wards, their patients and nurses, we conceded, depended upon her calm skills. She knew us all by name, knew the location of every orderly, nurse, bedpan and sputum cup. Staff and patients respected her; no-one knew her.

Most of the lads I strolled the gardens with were a pretty rough lot, rarely seen reading anything more challenging than a magazine, so when Sister found me one day with a Steinbeck novel she shocked me by sitting at my bedside in Celia’s midnight chair and talking to me. Why was I reading that particular book? What was it I liked about it?
‘Do you know,’ she said when I’d stuttered my replies, ‘I read that in the sixth form and loved it. I’m so pleased to see...It’s so rewarding to see you reading it just for pleasure.’ And while she took my temperature and filled in the chart at the foot of the bed she gave me a biography of the author, asked me about my time at school, why I’d left so early, told me I should go to evening classes. When she held my wrist in her cool fingers (perhaps Connie came to mind), I felt myself stir beneath the thin sheet, realised that I was blushing horribly and prayed that she wouldn’t spot my ridiculous arousal - for Sister Henson was not Celia or Connie: she was distant in personal conversation and always coolly professional. To us boys she was a creature so alien to the women in our lives, that we thought of her, if at all, as sexless. Never once did Sister Hensen figure in Ronny’s sexual speculations.
She looked down at her watch. I looked in dismay at the little hillock in the bed-clothes near her wrist and raised my knees to disguise it. My pulse rate seemed to worry her.

From then onwards, Sister brought me books to read and gave a lecture on each before leaving them on my cabinet in which lay hidden Ronny’s Paris edition of a filthy Edwardian sexual autobiography. When she talked of books, I heard a different woman from the frigidly professional nurse we all relied upon. With each critique Sister Hensen betrayed her passion. It occurred to me over the weeks that she prepared these lessons in advance and I felt flattered by her interest. I listened to what she had to say and for the first time in my life began to comprehend and articulate why I admired some texts above others. When I finished a book – I read rapidly and with a growing passion - she would ask questions; my answers seemed to please her, and I in turn was pleased that she talked repeatedly about my future plans, for I truly believed no future was to be mine.

*

One morning I was awoken early by the sound of female voices in my room. Two nurses were making up the recovery bed for a patient currently on the operating table. One was the willowy Mary, who, with a smile that made me misty-eyed, introduced the other.
‘Sure now, you’ve not met this one before, have you, Michael? She’s been on a course... a couple of months, is it Conny?’
The legendary Conny came straight to me and before I could flinch sat me up to arrange the pillows. The stiff uniform and flat shoes, the broad face scrubbed of makeup...all could not disguise the fact that she was a very pretty young woman, and the humorous, challenging glint in her eyes did nothing to dispel the rumours I had heard of her exploits. She saw me at once, I sensed, both as a patient and a sexual being. She chatted as she moved me about the bed, she made me smile, and I was immediately comfortable in and aroused by her presence. When she moved to the next ward, I was left breathless and for the rest of the day thought of nothing but her, now able fully to believe and clearly imagine what I had been told of her escapades.

Later that morning I had my visit from Sister Hensen. She was too busy to talk but would come back, she told me, at the end of her shift. The D H Lawrence short-story anthology was taken from my locker (we’d talk about it later, she said) and replaced with The Old Man and the Sea. On the flyleaf I saw the legend Harriet Hensen, Form U V Modern written in a neat hand and permanent blue-black ink, doubly underlined in pencil. I’d imagined her to be middle-aged but the date beneath her name showed her but ten years older than I.

I was too feeble to take my walk that day. Nor did I take my shower in the little bathroom opposite my bed. I had no chance to read, for the man in the corner, in his web of drip-lines, groaned pitiably throughout the morning and, to my distress, when conscious again began to cry and call out a woman’s name. Doctors and nurses occasionally attended him until noon, then all was quiet and he was wheeled away – to the big ward or the mortuary I couldn’t guess.

*

It was evening before Sister Harriet Hensen came back to me. She had been on duty for at least fourteen hours, I realised, and for once she seemed less than composed. She asked me about the anthology I had just read. I could tell that she was exhausted; she hardly listened to my carefully prepared answers as she took my temperature and pulse, lifted my eyelids, felt my forehead and filled in the charts. She found that I had been in bed all day, not even in my chair, and that no nurses had been to see me since her own morning visit. The day had been chaotic, she told me. Two patients had been lost. Nurses had been sent home with the summer flu. And, she wanted to know, inspecting the chart, how long was it since I last had my bath or shower?

Judging me too weak to visit the shower room, she drew the curtains around my bed and went to the sink. Time for a bed bath, she told me - an experience I had always dreaded, exposing my ludicrous body to a nurse. Especially to this one. For I had come to value Sister Hensen, to rely on her steadiness and to delight in the way she treated me as an intelligent adult. Only she of all the staff had ever asked why I had no visitors, asked me about my life in the world beyond the French windows. Since then she had made time each day to talk to me, although the conversation was always one-sided and usually about the joys of university life (she was determined I should go there) or writers she admired. She knew a lot about my dull life, and of hers I knew only that she missed London and had chosen nursing over teaching after her English degree because it was a family profession.

One day I had asked her if she had a boyfriend. She had. How old was he? She had paused and looked away from me, looked out of the French windows to the slope of the bright lawns before mentioning his age. I was alarmed. That was the age of my father. Her answer had sounded like a confession and I cursed myself for having asked such a banal question. Then she said, although I had asked no further question, ‘He’s in London. In the church,’ as if the metropolis had only one such edifice, then added, hardly loud enough for me to hear, as if talking to herself, ‘He’s a good man.’
In short, I wanted her to like me, and now I was to repel her.

I heard her returning from the sink and saw her place the metal bowl of water on the wheeled table that stood by the bed. Next to it were a tablet of grey soap, a towel and two flannels.
‘If you could get yourself ready, Michael,’ she said, ‘I’ll check Mr Harrison next door.’
I knew what this meant, of course. I miserably removed my pyjamas and covered my middle with the towel. It had happened to me before, when I’d been admitted all those weeks ago, but then I’d been so weak that I was hardly aware of what was happening to me – and it was Sister Aggie who had briskly scrubbed me down, indicated the towel and said, ‘I’ll leave you to see to that lot yourself.’
But now it was Sister Harriet, the last person I would choose to see my scrawny body. It was a different thing, I realised, and horribly intimate, to bare yourself to somebody you knew; perhaps, I thought, that was why the nurses were repeatedly told to keep from befriending the patients, why Sister was so cool and distant – except of course when she was talking about her books, when her pale eyes could show a missionary’s passion.

What if Connie had been given the job, though? How would I cope with that, for she too must bathe the patients? The thought of it made me stir.
Outside, the last of the July light sent the shadows of the distant cedars across the lawns. The hospital was curiously quiet. No nurses’ heels clicked in the corridors. The evening visitors were gone, returning their blue gowns and face masks to the front desk, crowding onto the special buses that ran them down the dale to the station. I wanted to sleep.

Sister Hensen came back into the room, closed the French doors and drew aside the bed-curtain. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked down in despair at my bony thighs where they emerged from the towel, which was not much whiter than my skin. Sister, though, seemed unperturbed. She lifted one arm with a capable hand in its rubber glove and washed me gently from fingertip to armpit. She was silent and pensive, not at all her reassuring self. Her face was pale with tiredness. She rinsed the flannel, rubbed it with soap and washed the other arm. I turned my face away from her.

Suddenly, and alarmingly, I thought again of Connie and for a moment imagined it was she now wiping the warm flannel across my ribs.
Horror of all horrors! I realised that the worst thing I could imagine was beginning to happen. My penis, of its own accord, was coming to life. A thrill of terror overtook me, as Sister said, ‘I’ll change the water, Michael,’ and went to the sink in the shower room. I watched her go. Why hadn’t I seen before that her body was not so much sturdy as curvaceous and exciting in an odd way...and why in God’s name was I noticing now?
I lifted the towel and allowed my member to rear up flat against my stomach where it would be less prominent and obvious beneath the towel... Oh God, this was horrendous! She couldn’t help but see what was happening there and she’d be outraged. I’d be in terrible trouble. Maybe she would tell my parents - the matron... the police! I stared in horror at the obvious outline of my shame and tried to crumple the damp towel to disguise it. By the time she returned I was almost in tears.
As she soaped my legs she began to talk of the day she’d had, but even tales of sickly nursing staff and accumulating corpses couldn’t abate my fever. Every touch was an erotic shock. Soon, please God, she would ask me to wash the last bit myself without noticing the size of the bit in question.
But no. She reached to remove the towel, and I heard myself saying, ‘I’m sorry. Honestly. I can’t help it.’ I sounded as if I were about to cry.
She stopped and looked at me closely. I can remember still, all these decades later, with perfect definition the pale, tired face, the incomprehension and concern in her pale blue eyes.
‘I’m a little bit swollen,’ I said, and after a moment saw her understand. ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’
She looked down at the towel and said, ‘You mustn’t worry, Michael. Such things happen.’ She was coolly professional again, and for a moment I was reassured. I reached out my hand to her. Now she would give me the flannel and leave me alone.
Not so.
When she put aside the towel we both saw my little swelling. Against the pale hollow below my ribs the dark hardness of the thing looked enormous. I covered myself with both hands.
She faltered, turned away to the bowl and bowed her head. I thought for a moment she was going to be sick with disgust, for I knew how loathsome women found sexual arousal – except of course for nymphomaniacs like Conny.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help it, Sister. I’m really...I wanted to tell you...’
She turned back, a warm cloth in her hand. Her face was deeply flushed and I knew she was terribly annoyed.
‘Please, Michael,’ she said. ‘That’s enough. It’s perfectly natural. It happens to boys of your age. I know it’s not your fault.’
She soaped my thighs, then, unbelievably, gently lifted my penis with two fingers and soaped my stomach beneath it. I felt to my shame the thing leap in her hand.
‘Oh, God!’ I said. ‘I’m so...’
‘You should be pleased you’re so well developed,’ she said, to my utter surprise. ‘Many a man would be envious of you.’
How could she say such a thing to me! I was shocked and bewildered. But now she took my member in the flannel and briefly cleaned me. I was so horribly sensitive that I sat upright involuntarily and gasped as it twitched in her fist.
‘Did I hurt you?’ she asked, but I was unable to speak.
She finished, patted me dry and took the bowl to the sink in the shower room. I longed for her to leave me alone. I wanted to bury my head in the pillow and cry from embarrassment; I’d been, I realised, seconds from ejaculation as she’d washed me and the thought of such a catastrophe appalled me.
‘Michael.’ She was back again, standing at my side, and this, I knew, was to be my scolding. She looked very serious and her voice was choked as she drew the curtain carefully around the bed. ‘Michael, I can’t leave you like that. You’re in pain. But swear to me, Michael, you’ll say nothing of this to anyone. I’m a nurse; I can’t leave you in such distress. Not to the boys from the wards. Not a single word. Do you promise me?’
I had no clear idea of what she meant until she eased down the sheets and looked again at my unruly member.
‘Just lie still and close your eyes. You do promise not to tell a soul, don’t you? Promise? I’d lose my job and that’s my whole life, you know. You must promise.’
I felt her bare hand close on me and looked at her wildly. She smiled at me, the first smile I had seen from her, and moved her hand carefully but inexpertly along the length of me. It was the first time in my life that I had been touched like that. It was unbearably wonderful yet frightening in its intensity and I writhed on the bed. All the time she looked intently at me, seeming to delight in my uncontrollable pleasure. I felt her hand move more quickly, and as I started to climax, without a thought I sat up straight and grasped at her breasts. ‘No, silly boy,’ she said. ‘No, no. Lie back, lie back, love.’
And at that lovely word I spurted into the palm of her other capable hand.
I pulled the sheet over my head and lay still, feigning sleep. She sat next to me, I think. Later, she bent, smoothed my hair and kissed my forehead, murmuring words I could not understand. I think I was crying. Soon I was asleep.
Her last words as she left the room were, ‘Remember your promise, Michael. Never tell a soul.’
And I never have, until now.
But now Sister Hensen and her pale blue eyes and firm cool hands will be dead, I suppose, Harriet Hensen, of UV Modern, she who taught me to delight in literature and to love for evermore the mutuality of desire.

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