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Summary
Part II: October 25, 1957 – December 16, 1957
October 25, 1957
Leadership at the Brighton police are arrested on corruption charges. Reading the news in the papers, Patrick worries about the additional pressure this will put on ordinary policemen, specifically Tom. He waits to see if Tom will return.
November 4, 1957
At work, Patrick is ready for a school group to test out his art appreciation program. He goes to London to visit his old friend Charlie and meets Jim, who has been living with Charlie for four months. Jim is nominally Charlie’s valet but is really his lover. Patrick enjoys watching Charlie and Jim’s easy affection and imagines living with Tom in the same way. When Charlie shows him out, Patrick tells him about Tom. Charlie cautions him to be careful. He points out that hiring Jim as an employee gives them cover to live together, which would be impossible otherwise. Undaunted, Patrick tells Charlie that within a year, he and Tom will live together.
November 12, 1957
Tom returns to Patrick’s apartment. He is angry, accusing Patrick of inviting him there under false pretenses. Patrick believes Tom will punch him and asks him if he treats his suspects this way. With his hand on the back of Tom’s thigh, he asks him to stay the night. When Tom says he is there only to tell Patrick that he can’t come back again, Patrick calls him a coward. After Tom calms down, they have drinks and Tom asks Patrick how he lives as a gay man. While Patrick talks, he remembers finding Michael dead. Tom asks if he ever thought of marriage, and Patrick remembers Alice, his friend from Oxford he thought he might marry until he met Michael. Tom tells him that he intends to marry Marion because being single will hamper his career. Reasoning that his best chance of keeping some contact with Tom is to meet his intended wife, Patrick asks Tom to bring her to the museum.
November 24, 1957
Patrick drives Tom to Cuckmere Haven to go hiking. He has packed a luxurious picnic, though the day is gray and damp. While he drives, he asks Tom questions about his life and family. Tom deflects by asking Patrick about his life, and Patrick tells him about Oxford, his painting career, and his thoughts on art. Despite the thick fog, Tom insists they hike until they can see the English Channel. He says it is a good place to swim and that they should come back to swim there together. Patrick tells him he is romantic for a policeman, and Tom tells Patrick he is very afraid for an artist. Patrick kisses him.
December 13, 1957
Tom brings Marion to the museum. Patrick is charming but also chooses the Clock Tower Café for their lunch deliberately because he thinks Marion will not like it. Patrick sees Marion as a rival and fears losing Tom because of the security and respectability that a wife can offer, but he reasons that the best way to keep Tom is to get Marion to trust him.
December 16, 1957
Tom arrives at Patrick’s apartment late at night, asking if he likes Marion. Patrick stalls while making tea, then says that he does. Tom is pleased when Patrick says that Tom’s seeing her won’t change things between them. Tom comes to bed and stays all night. Patrick wakes up overjoyed that he is still there. Tom wakes in a panic, late for his shift. Patrick kisses him as he leaves. By early afternoon, Patrick begins to worry that he will not see Tom again. He leaves work and walks to Tom’s police box. When Tom registers who is at the door, he pulls him inside, angry that Patrick may get him in trouble. Patrick gives him keys to his apartment. He tells Tom he cannot stop thinking about him. Tom asks if Patrick can share him with Marion. Patrick answers yes and kneels in front of him.
Analysis
The home of Charlie, Patrick’s friend, presents the possibility of an intimate relationship between men. For most gay men in this place and time, the legal and social consequences of gay relationships make it difficult to create and maintain long-term romances that are comparable to straight marriages. For example, although Patrick and Michael maintained a loving relationship, they were constantly in danger. Spending the night together meant risking being discovered as a couple, which could lead to arrest or social punishment, including the blackmail letters that ultimately led to Michael’s death. However, Charlie and Jim have found a way to live together by pretending that Jim is only Charlie’s employee. Living together gives their relationship a casual intimacy that Patrick admires. After seeing them together, he becomes determined to find a way to live with Tom, despite Charlie’s warning that doing so will be impossible. This model of a successful gay pairing is so rare that Patrick’s first glimpse of it in England makes him believe that a domestic life might be possible for him and Tom, too.
Patrick reflects on the advantages offered by heterosexual marriage in this section of the novel. For men, marriage is an unspoken requirement for full participation in some aspects of society. For example, Tom’s boss informs him that bachelors often do not advance in the police department. Patrick knows that Tom is attracted to him and believes in the possibility of their continuing to build a relationship together, but he also sees that Marion, by virtue of being a woman, can offer Tom a respectability that Patrick cannot. Even a marriage like Roy and Sylvie’s, which people believe was forced by Sylvie’s pregnancy, has a social legitimacy that a gay relationship does not. Since gay relationships cannot be made official through legal or religious means, they lack the security of straight marriages. The social convention that men and women must marry each other creates a system that rewards straight marriages and weakens gay partnerships.
Thus, given this dominant social organization, living a gay life requires a tremendous amount of courage. When Tom returns to Patrick’s apartment only to say he cannot come again, Patrick accuses him of cowardice. He takes back his words, though, after Tom breaks down crying and agrees to have a drink, saying that it is brave of Tom to have come at all. In the conversation that follows, Tom asks Patrick how he can live in a society that condemns him for being gay. While he gives Tom a pat answer, Patrick remembers Michael’s death and is filled with anger at Michael for his failure of courage and for letting the blackmailer win. Later, as they stand together and look at the ocean after their hike at Cuckmere Haven, Tom calls Patrick afraid for his hesitance to return there and swim together at night. This moment of reversal, of Tom daring Patrick to be brave, seems to imply that Tom can match Patrick’s social bravery as well.
Patrick’s keys are a symbol of both increased commitment and a willingness to compromise with Tom. After Tom spends the night with Patrick, Patrick brings him a set of keys to his apartment, stating in his journal that the keys are an excuse to go to see Tom and a gift meant to win his affection. The keys represent Patrick’s willingness to trust Tom with access to his home, reflecting a new level of intimacy in their relationship. In addition, Patrick tells Tom he can use them even when Patrick is not home, which Tom does when he brings Marion there to propose to her. In this way, the keys symbolize Patrick’s ability to compromise in order to keep his relationship with Tom. Patrick’s desire for Tom is strong enough that he is willing to share him with a woman and to support his decision to be with Marion, given his understanding of the social advantages a straight marriage offers.
