E. M. Forster with Bob Buckingham
For 40 years, E. M. Forster and the policeman Robert 'Bob' Buckingham were in a loving relationship. Buckingham was 28, Forster 51, when the two met. They shared holidays, friends, interests, and – on many weekends – a domestic and sexual life in Forster's Brunswick Square flat. But this was a relationship in which there were three people.
Buckingham was a large, good-humoured man, with a nose flattened in the boxing ring, a wide smile and a deep, loud laugh. On the day they met, he impressed Forster with his knowledge of the Thames and told him he was reading Dostoevsky. Forster invited Buckingham to his flat, and soon the two became close, with Forster taking over Buckingham's reading list, and Buckingham thrilled to become something of a highbrow. Soon Forster was in a position to write of Buckingham's falling "violently in liking" with him. To his friend Sebastian Sprott, Forster wrote with rather old-maidish coyness that the "spiritual feeling" between him and Buckingham had now "extended to my physique".
During these early years of their relationship, Forster seems to have at last found happiness. In his Commonplace Book, he reported that "From 51 to 53 I have been happy, and would like to remind others that their turn can come too." This was in spite of Buckingham finding a girlfriend – May Hockey, a nurse – not long after he'd met Forster. In 1932 Buckingham announced that he was to marry May; the register-office wedding took place in August, with Forster as witness. Once Buckingham was married, Forster's worst fears seemed to come true – Buckingham became rather unreliable about their meetings, and Forster panicked, calling his rival "domineering, sly and knowing" and wondering if he should break with his lover and go abroad to escape the situation. Buckingham, ever the voice of calm sense, wrote that the two of them simply had "to go without pleasure for a bit".
May Buckingham, Forster and J. R. Ackerley in the 1950s
By December, Forster was visiting the Buckinghams at their flat in Shepherd's Bush, and becoming more involved in their life as a couple; this was the beginning of the triangular arrangement, which, like Forster's work, was at once quietly domestic and rather revolutionary. While living with May, Buckingham pledged his half days off, and other hours during the week, to Forster. May, although jealous and often difficult, refused to listen when Harry Daley warned her that Forster was about to break up her marriage. Perhaps she, like Buckingham, stood to gain from what Forster could offer: not only money (he often gave financial gifts), but also entrance into the life of the cultural elite. If this was not lost on Buckingham, it was actively appreciated by May, who later wrote of Forster, "To him I owe a great debt of gratitude. For his widening of horizons, by meeting his friends, but mostly by his talk."
In April 1933, Buckingham and May had a baby boy whom they named Robin Morgan; Forster was godfather. It took a serious illness, however, to really change his and May's relationship. In 1935, she became ill with TB and was sent to a sanatorium for a year. Forster made a kind of deal with her, no doubt thinking, initially at least, of his own needs. If she sent Robin to her sister, he would watch over Buckingham and report back to her regularly. He got what he wanted, and promptly took Buckingham off to Amsterdam, where they stayed with Isherwood and his lover Heinz.
But it was through writing that Forster became close to May. Over the next year, he wrote to her often, sending her assurances that Buckingham and Robin were well, along with small gifts. He insisted that she and her family should be alone together for a while when she came home. Remarkably, their relationship improved – perhaps Forster could reveal his best to May through the written word. During this time, he referred to her as a "very decent sort" and a "friend in her own right".
After May recovered, a functioning triangular arrangement was firmly established, with the two of them sharing their beloved Buckingham; the long weekends were for May, the short ones for Forster. Such an arrangement may only have worked in conditions of complete silence about the true nature of Forster's relationship with Buckingham; but it did, at least, work.
During his later years, May was often nursemaid to Forster. In the mid-1960s he suffered a series of strokes, and it was this which broke the silence. It seems his tongue was loosened in his weakened state, and he spoke to Buckingham frankly about his physical passion for him. A shocked Buckingham claimed to May that he'd known nothing of Forster's sexuality. He then began to behave strangely towards his lover, growing irritable and distant. It was May who reminded Buckingham that Forster was their friend and benefactor (he'd recently given them £10,000) and should be in their home; when Forster suffered a second stroke, she insisted on nursing him.
Following his final stroke in May 1970, Forster was fetched from his rooms at King's College by the Buckinghams and put to bed at their Coventry house, where he died. For most of that morning, he held May's hand. After his death, May wrote: "I now know that he was in love with Robert and therefore critical and jealous of me and our early years were very stormy, mostly because he had not the faintest idea of the pattern of our lives and was determined that Robert should not be engulfed in domesticity. Over the years he changed us both and he and I came to love one another, able to share the joys and sorrows that came."
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