Paul Smith Tribute Onlinetributes.com.au

The Sydney Star published one of my Haystacks (#27) on 24 January 1985. It repeats many of the most poignant memories I have of my 15 years living with this wonderful man. But it said nothing, of course, of the many years of friendship I was to have thereafter with Paul. I still can't quite believe he has gone.

MY FIRST LETTER TO PAUL

Dear Paul,

Do you know, I write letters every day of the week to other men all round the world but in all the years we have been together, I have never written one to you!

Soon it will be our anniversary again. We generally don't make much of it. Just a hug and a hope we will be together for many more Australia Days. But this time I want to say more. And say it in a letter, in my way, so you will know much more.

We met - it seems not so long ago - at a SPMC barbeque. I must admit, for me it was not love at first sight. In fact I hardly noticed you I was so busy talking. But a little later, some man, gamer than I could ever be, unbuttoned your shirt and exposed your hairy tummy. He ran his fingers up and down your chest. I watched and wanted to do the same but I didn't dare.

So I told you, four of us on the way home in Bruce's car, that I needed an architect to measure up my house. You said you wouldn't mind and could come for tea tomorrow night. You came all right but forgot to bring your measuring chain. So we found other things to pass the time and you left next morning. You came again the following night and we both pretended you would measure up the house (You still haven't done it, by the way!). The next day you arrived with enough clean shirts to last a week and the night after that, with your Railway clock. On Saturday you brought your twin turtles and set them up in an old fish tank. I knew then you had come to stay.

I resented it a bit at first. After years of marriage and several gay relationships I was single again and this I was now beginning to enjoy. But I resented it only for a little while. Most of the time since then I have been damned glad and the happiest of men that you unilaterally married me.

We've travelled and had some fun times - sometimes very close times - together overseas. We went to India once and strolled down malls in Raj hill towns and on the plains we saw the Taj, not by moonlight but shimmering in a heat haze so hot our cameras became too hot to handle and I fainted. You brought me round with tepid tea and Indian boys with fans in their hands.

And another time we travelled across Canada on a train, up the Rockies and over the prairies before the lakes froze in and winter came. We came too, together, shouting and then not knowing what to do but laugh when after screwing staring through the cabin window into the icy dark we shot as our train shot at midnight into the floodlit station at Medicine Hat and everyone could see in at our window.

You are fun to travel with and always so patient, even with me when I mess things up for you. Like the night we were both thrown out of the Club Baths because I had a fight with that rude man on the desk at the door. And when I back-seat drove, of course on the wrong side of the road and always in the wrong direction, all the way to Russian River and down to Jenner-on-the-Sea.

Back home you've cared and looked after me. I recall your face, white and pleading with me to be alright the night you sat for hours in Casualty while doctors sewed me up again after my fall. We had guests coming. You were thoughtful then and left them a note "Your dinner's in the oven...." And I remember too the good face you put on when you said good night, that night in hospital before I had my operation. And your relief — because I was safe — when I quit smoking.

I remember too your despair as we drove back to Sydney the night your father died. And a couple of years later, how tender you were when you called to tell me my own father too had died when I was half the earth away in Atlanta. And how we sat, just holding each other too hurt to speak when our dog had to be put down.

In the early days you came home each night from work ill from all the fumes of the printing shop. I worried and was relieved when you went to work for Michael at "The Star". But the new job meant little money and long hours which kept you away from me so our new dog became my dog and I felt like a Navy wife. Most nights I went to bed alone while you photographed leather men and noisy drags for the never-ending, always coming next edition of "The Star". I came to hate it and them and even often, you, while I waited those lonely nights but belatedly, I saw what you had seen right from the start, that we must have a strong gay paper if we are to defend ourselves and grow. Since then I have admired your loyalty and dedication and felt myself a bastard for my selfish thoughts.

Now of course you are the paper's editor and a good one too. Before, I had not seen you as a leader of men but you do bring out the best in us while your patience and cool head, taste and sensibility have made a paper we are proud to show the world. And in other groups and organisations, you, more than any one, have shown gays how to communicate. All those years of architecture and printer's ink, not that you enjoyed them very much, have now been all put to our advantage.

But I know you feel the burdens and grow tired of ceaseless crises. And I worry that you do all this and still do your other job, the one that pays! It all leaves you little time for yourself after I have claimed my share. It seems you spend your life doing things for others and for causes. Time is always the most generous of gifts.

I watch you grow older. You were 23 when I met you. Now you are 32. Sometimes your age and your maturity shock me a bit. I forget you are no longer just a boy.

What were you like as a boy, I often wonder, as I watch you doing things and you don't know I'm looking? Eager to please, I know. Probably often scared and never thinking enough of yourself. A gay boy but frightened where that might go. Your father was never supposed to know - "It would kill him" your family all said. But he used to show me your baby photos. He was proud of you and I think he knew. I think he was glad you were happy and he did not mind how.

There's not much I regret these years with you. From you. Maybe you could be a bit tidier around the house. Mostly if I am sorry it is for things I've done. Times I kick you instead of the cat. And when I've scared you with my angers at the world. Most of all I regret times I've doubted us and those times too my we-men-together reticence has stopped me saying all you mean to me.

And I regret not having written you a letter.

But now I have.

Sorry I took so long!

Bob