Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

by David Brining

  25: I am what I am

  I WAS strolling casually across a lush, green meadow dotted with buttercups. Somewhere a thrush was singing. The sun was warm on my head. I was wearing pink Bermuda shorts, a white cricket-sweater and Ray-bans. The grass was cool against my bare feet. The houses of the small village behind me were modern bungalows built from mellow ochre bricks. Ahead of me was my school. As I reached the green side-door, a bunch of field-mice scampered over my feet. Then Niall Hill, kissing my cheek, opened the door and let me in. The school had become a shopping mall with cafés, boutiques and bars where classrooms and labs had once been. Herbie's Lab of Evil was now a Mediterranean-style beach bar with little tables under brightly coloured umbrellas, a well-stocked bar and a well-muscled barman, Andy Paulus sexily hot in a black, pink and gold vest mixing up Jaegerbombs for Leo, who, in a Hawaiian grass-skirt and yellow feathery boa, was slow-dancing on a table with Pip Brudenall who wore a lilac hoodie, yellow Bermudas and day-glo pink ankle socks.

  Needing a piss, I headed down a glass-walled escalator and past a stall selling banana ice-cream and chocolate custard to the Lower School toilets, dingy and stinky as always. I had somehow lost my clothes and entered the toilet naked. The cubicle opened back into the field. This time there was a row of beds, like in a boarding-school dormitory or a hospital ward, and every bed contained a sick or injured child. Some had bandages round their heads. Others had limbs in plaster. Nick Shelton lay in the nearest, his leg and chest wrapped in bandages. I started towards him, reaching out my hand, but I sank into the grass up to my knees so I couldn't move. I tried to cry out but my voice-box froze, so I stretched up, and up, and up but all I could hear was this harsh hissing sound, like gas mixed with the bird-song… I blinked in the stark, sickly, fish-belly paleness of dawn, and opened my eyes.

  Slowly I pieced together the events of last night. It was Graham Brudenall and Kevin Seymour who found me, hanging from the peg-frame, rambling, delirious, covered in blood and snot. Broody had yelled something and Seymour untied me, gently lowering my battered body to the concrete floor and going 'who did this, Jonny?' when Andy Collins arrived, crying, to cradle me in his arms and Brudenall fetched Wade and Langdon while Seymour dressed me. I remember my white vest was soaked in blood. I said I'd felt dizzy and fallen down the stairs. My class-mates kind of glanced at each other but didn't contradict me. Nonetheless, it was clear that the teachers didn't believe me either. The word 'QUEER' written in black ink on my chest was a bit of a clue, I suppose. Anyway, Hellfire, looking at me sitting on the bench, nose bleeding a little, face bruised and swelling, lips split and torn, blazer and shirt ripped, wet and stained, offered to drive me home. As I lurched drunkenly after him, I heard Wadey speaking to Seymour, and saw Collins crying again, Brudenall trying to comfort him.

  I was in a lot of pain, so thank God for Hellfire's Mini. The ride only took 15 minutes. A ten-minute wait at a bus-stop then standing up on the packed number 8 for half an hour followed by a twenty-minute walk up the hill from the Ring Road might well have killed me. As it was, his car was like a fucking freezer 'cos he banged the air-con to like Mega-Zero-Brass-Monkey-Ball-Freezer and blasted it right in my face. He also played AC-DC:

  'I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain, I'm coming on like a hurricane, My lightning's flashing across the sky, You're only young but you're gonna die, I won't take no prisoners won't spare no lives, Nobody's putting up a fight, I got my bell I'm gonna take you to hell… hell's bells…'

  ''You have rubbish taste in music, sir,'' I muttered as he fired questions about Stalin at me, like 'how did Stalin rule Russia?'

  What the fuck was this? I wanted to sleep and Hellfire was like asking me for an essay-plan? And why was he poking his fingers into my ribs? They were already sore.

  ''Ow!'' I cried. ''You're hurting me, sir!''

  ''Don't fall asleep, Jonathan,'' he ordered anxiously, ''Just don't fall asleep.''

  ''Dictatorship,'' I sighed, ''through one-party rule, secret police liquidating enemies and dissenters, censorship of newspapers, speech and religion… it's how anyone rules a country. Squash your enemies through witch-hunts and show-trials and only publish stuff that you want people to hear – lock us all up, keep our books off the shelves.''

  ''Stalin,'' said Hellfire.

  ''It is difficult to assess his contribution to the world,'' I'd written, ''As much of the evidence is not available, the rest being biased, distorted and some fabricated.''

  Hell's Bells.

  As he dropped me at my gate, he stared at me quizzically and said ''Fell down the stairs, Jonathan? Really?''

  Wincing, I replied ''Fell down the stairs, sir. Promise.''

  ''Jonathan, you can talk to me, you know. In confidence.''

  ''Thanks'' I wiped blood from my nose. ''But there's nothing to say, sir, is there?''

  My folks were still at work, thank God. I slugged a tumbler of Dad's best Glenfiddich, crawled upstairs to the bathroom, ran a hot bath liberally laced with Radox, sloughed off all my clothes – even my socks and pants were soaked in blood - and stuck them in the washing machine then inspected the damage in the mirror. I looked a total fright. Great grape-purple bruises had appeared all over my chest, shoulders and thighs. Thin red stripes were scored all over my skin. My cut lower-lip was swollen. A deep gash ran down my left shin. Red marks glared angrily from my face. At least they didn't hurt any more, though my ribs still ached like a gazillion elephants had jived on my chest. The stencilled 'QUEER' was livid against the marble white skin. I had to scrub it with a pumice stone that left my chest red-raw. The blood-stained vest was totally ruined. I shoved it in a Sainsbury's bag and pushed it into the bin. Biting my lip hard against the sting, I sank into the suds with a choking sob of pain. I was supposed to be playing in Leo's flute exam tomorrow and my fingers were like sausages.

  Blondie on the radio: 'Every girl wants you to be her man, but I'll wait, my dear, 'till it's my turn. I'm not the kinda girl who gives up just like that, oh, no. The tide is high but I'm holding on. I'm gonna be your number one, number one.'

  ''Jonny?'' Mum was shouting up the stairs. I blinked awake and shouted that I was in the bath after Games. God Almighty. I couldn't face either a fight or the Spanish Inquisition right now, neither a tight-lipped 'serves you right, you faggoty little poof' nor an 'it's all that Ali Ross's fault.'

  Sitting on the edge of the bath as the mud, blood and water swirled down the plughole, I daubed every cut and graze I could reach with tea-tree oil, screaming into my towel, then bathed the bruises in this evil-smelling embrocation, put on clean, dark green pyjamas, my warm yellow dressing-gown and tan moccasins and went to my room. My head hurt. I could hear rain pattering on the window behind the closed curtains. Because I was shivering, I think with shock, I wrapped my duvet round me, and sat with my back to the radiator listening to Beethoven's final string quartet, in F, Op 135, where everything is reconciled in a peaceful statement of resignation. Cuddling Pickles, I leafed through Tintin in Tibet, where Tintin risks his life to rescue his friend Chang from the aftermath of an aircrash and everything is so white, the white that apparently signified the writer's depression. My favourite Tintin was The Secret of the Unicorn because it was a really clever mystery, although I also loved The Shooting Star, with Decimus Phostle and Philippulus the Astronomer of Doom who declares Tintin the son of the Devil and ends up in an asylum. Well, challenging journalists just proves you're mad.

  When Mum called me for tea and I finally limped down to the kitchen for chicken and leek pie and roast potatoes, she and Dad went nuts. I told them I'd been mugged on the way home from Games. I reckoned this would gain enough sympathy to get me a day off school so I could figure out what to do and head off the enquiry 'cos, although Dad was all for calling the cops, I just said it happened so quickly I couldn't remember their faces. Anyway, they let me watch James Herriot put a dying dog to sleep on BBC2 and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World on ITV, about the sailing stones of Death Valley (last week's had
been about the Martian canals!) until several phone calls unravelled my tale and they interrupted my favourite advert just as I was breaking into song:

  Way down deep in the middle of the Congo,

  A hippo took an apricot, a guava and a mango….

  He stuck it with the others, and he danced a dainty tango.

  The rhino said, "I know, we'll call it Um Bongo"

  Best advert ever, except, obviously, for 'We all adore a Kia-Ora' ('too orangey for crows!'). I even barked ''I'll be your dog, woof woof woof,'' like the lead crow. Was he like Ted Hughes' crow, I wondered? Was he the Black Beast bleached white by the sun? Was I? Perhaps…

  ''Mr Langdon phoned,'' said Dad carefully, sitting with Mum on the edge of the sofa. ''He said he gave you a lift home because you fell down the stairs.''

  I tried to focus on the comedy robots singing 'For mash get Smash.'

  ''Mr Gallagher also phoned,'' said Mum, taking Dad's hand. ''He wants us to go to a meeting. About you.'' She suppressed a sob. ''He says you shouldn't go to school for the next few days. Oh Jonathan, what have you done?''

  ''Nothing,'' I said wearily. ''I just told them I'm gay. They can't handle it. It's their problem. They need to get over it.''

  Mum's face hardened. Parents say their love is unconditional. It isn't. You have to follow their plan, their expectations, a lovely church wedding for the family album, a bunch of babies they can spoil... if what you give 'em is a boy and a cat, forget it. They want their day in the sun. Hence same-gender marriage. It's really to make the parents feel happy.

  Happier.

  I rang Leo and told him I was sick and couldn't do his exam. He cried. Perhaps he'd heard. He didn't say. Anyway, I spent Wednesday in bed but, despite a stack of painkillers, slept badly. I was worried about Leo, and Alistair. My eyes were swollen like waterlogged sponges and my whole body seemed to have become an Elastoplast Mummy, except my head which felt as though it'd been replaced by a much-kicked leather football. Dad over-cooked the porridge so it was like spooning through that weird shit you pebble-dash houses with. He said he'd listen to what the school said then discuss it with me before he did anything.

  ''Don't worry,'' he promised, ''We'll hear your side of the story first.''

  Mum's expression somehow hinted otherwise. Steve Wright was playing this Madness song: 'They say stay away, don't want you home today, keep away from our door, don't come round here no more. Our dad don't wanna know he says, this is a serious matter, too late to reconsider, no one's gonna wanna know ya, Our mum says she don't wanna know you, she says I'm feeling twice as older… you're an embarrassment.'

  Every day made that twice as clearer, and there seemed no way out.

  Listlessly I listened to The World at One, with 'the latest news headlines this Wednesday lunchtime,' then The Archers, with posh Nigel Pargetter getting conned by Joe Grundy - 'Oak afoooore aaaaash, we be in for a splaaaaash, aaaash afooore oak we be in for a soak…. Oo ar, oo ar.' Delia Smith showed me how to cook winter vegetables and I was just settling in with some cheese on toast and a cup of cocoa for Camberwick Green, where Mickey Murphy baked a cake for Doctor Mopp (Though these guys are puppets, I love it 'cos although Camberwick Green might claim to be just a representation of a small Sussex village with types and stereotypes, what they really show is that everyone in this sad little country is basically just another fucking puppet), when Andy Paulus phoned to tell me how awful it was at school. Leo, with him, kept interjecting tearfully. Apparently, someone had drawn a hangman's noose on Nick Shelton's locker, Paul Train had his head flushed in a toilet by some Fifth Formers, someone had poured white paint over Simon Ayres, someone had hidden a dead rat in Paulus' bag whilst 'ALI ROSE FUCKS BOYS' had been Tipp-exed on the house noticeboard and Niall Hill found a dog turd in his lunch-box. Wilson, Rix and the Christian Union had made posters saying gays spread AIDS and would burn in Hell. As for poor Leo, some Sixth Formers had stripped him, chucked his clothes in the urinal and taken photos. He said his dad had complained, as had Niall Hill's, and been told there was no bullying in school, that these stories were invented, or exaggerated, and the situation would be resolved soon.

  God, it was so depressing. All this because we were homosexual. It seemed ridiculous that other people could care so much, could hate so much… and they said we were sick! Man alive, what the hell was wrong with them?

  ''I'm gonna burn every single one of them,'' I swore. ''When I get back, I'm gonna fry the school. I'm gonna put a nuclear bomb up their arses.'' Tomorrow I was going to war. I was gonna like grill and eat their lungs, you know? With braised leeks and a nice Pinot Noir.

  Climbing that carpeted Georgian staircase in the Lupton Building to Gallagher's office was nerve-jangling. My heart pounded like a jack-hammer, my mouth was dry as a desert and my palms damp as a dishcloth, and yet I was propelled by this really cold, deep fury.

  Mum looked as though she'd been crying for a bazillion years. Her face was the colour of dead ash, black rings swelled round her puffy red eyes and the ploughed furrows scored on her skin looked like scars. Dad was more composed but his eyes spoke the deep sadness of a dog denied the gravy-jug. He'd chosen his smart black blazer. I had opted for silver Adidas trainers, white sports socks, black jeans, pale blue polo shirt and green hoodie.

  Mrs Locke, trying not to cry, gave Mum this massive hug and said if they chucked me out she'd resign. Then she hugged me and restated her line. Chuck me out? I hadn't even considered that possibility.

  Gasping from a sudden burst of asthma, I realised I didn't care. This fucking school and everyone in it had always been against me. I didn't fit in. I never had. It was only idealistic fools like Ash-tray, Wheezy and the Governors who bucked the trend and awarded misfits like me scholarships, and I was a misfit, not just because my dad was a gardener, my mother a hippy (I mean, yoga and aromatherapy?), my grandma a biscuit-maker, my granddad a janitor. I was a misfit because I fancied other boys.

  ''Peters,'' called the Senior Master, ''Get in here, you little thug.''

  Gallagher, wearing a pale blue long-sleeved shirt and a dark blue tie, and Crawford, in his usual pale grey suit and dog-collar, were sitting in armchairs on either side of the fire-place. Crawford smiled sympathetically whilst Gallagher sternly indicated the hard, plastic chair facing them. I looked at his coarse, rectangular face, at the stony-blue eyes, at the wavy grey hair, and waited.

  ''Must say you've looked better, Jonathan,'' he said, noting my split, swollen lip and the grape-purple marks on my face. ''How do you feel?''

  ''Bruised.'' I touched my cheek as Crawford surrendered his armchair to Mum and brought Gallagher's desk-chair for Dad. ''And fucking angry, actually.''

  Gallagher's ice-blue eyes narrowed coldly as he explained he wanted to discuss certain complaints made against me by some boys, some masters and some parents, to establish what had happened at Games on Tuesday and to investigate the nature of my relationship with Alistair Rose, Leo Trent and other boys.

  ''The nature of my relationship with Alistair Rose,'' I snarled, ''Is none of your damned business. Sir.''

  His face sort of twitched, like he'd sat on a cattle-prod, but he soldiered on to say he was on my side, always had been, ''even when you produced that utter pig's ear of a drawing of the New Zealand coastline.'' My laugh made him feel he'd broken the ice. ''You can come to us with anything, you know.'' I said nothing. ''Rose is two years older than you.''

  I shrugged 'so what?'

  Gallagher fixed me with his cold blue eyes whilst I shifted irritably in the chair.

  ''You busted Stewart's nose,'' he said, ''And Wilson's face is pretty smashed up.''

  ''So's mine,'' I pointed out as Mum blurted 'Tim Wilson? You attacked Tim Wilson?' I rolled up the leg of my jeans to display the weeping scabbed scrape his boot-studs had made on my shin and said angrily ''He started it!''

  But that, Gallagher claimed, was the whole problem. Tim shouldn't have been put in a position to start anything, right?

  '
'So it's my fault I got beaten up?'' I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Apparently I had become a 'malign influence.' Leatherbridge had apparently said my relationship with my teachers and the rest of the form was 'troubled' and that this was badly affecting my work. Gallagher, marshalling his evidence, started with the pale green Biology prep book and this rubbish about kidneys.

  ''Amino acids,'' I'd written, ''Are deamminated in the liver after some go into the circulation as protein. The excess are deaminated into glycogen which the body makes into proteins for body cells.''

  Herbie had written UREA? in massive red letters right across the paragraph and drawn attention with a big fuck-off circle to the inconsistent spelling of 'deaminate' or 'deamminate'. I didn't know. I didn't care. I wasn't gonna be a fucking kidney doctor, right?

  Gallagher silently turned the page.

  ''a) If a lot of water is drunk the blood becomes too dilute. Therefore, when less water is reabsorbed in the uriniferous tubule and therefore the urine is dilute. There will be more water than urea, salts etc. …

  b) Not much urine will be passed due to profuse sweating.''

  'Not very scientific,' was Herb's comment. He had circled 'passed' and underscored 'not much', about eight billion times.

  ''This disease is called diabetes. If insulin is not produced, the blood glucose concentration rises.''

  'Not enough facts,' underlined four times, 6 (out of 20).

  ''So I'm rubbish at Biology,'' I shrugged.

  And, apparently, at Chemistry.

  Here was a recent classwork exercise on writing equations for ten reactions. These were the low-lights –

  'Magnesium + oxygen. Mg (s) + O2 (g) = Mg2+O2- (s).' Massive red cross.

  'Copper (II) carbonate + dilute hydrochloric acid.

  Cu2+CO32- (s)+2H+ (aq)+2Cl- (aq) → Cu2+(aq)+2Cl- (aq)+HCO3-(g)' Massiver red cross.

  'Zinc carbonate (heating). CO2 (g) + Zn (s).' Massivest red cross imaginable.

  3 ½ /10. V. poor work.'

  What the hell did it all mean anyway? Who knows? Who cares?

  ''This is third-form stuff,'' said Gallagher.

  ''So I'm not going to be a scientist,'' I shrugged as a German quiz appeared in his fingers, and shrugged again when I saw my preferred England XI for the last European Championships listed on the cover and a bunch of sums in ink that meant nothing to me:

  628527

  8 x 8 x

  224216

  12

  228

  I mean, huh? What did that mean?

  Anyway, the test went

  '1. Der Zug fährt um 10 Uhr ab. √

  2. Die Stunde hat ____________. X

  3. Wir haben in die Stadt gekommen. X

  4. Er hat die Jacke angezogen. √

  5. Die Sonne hat aufgegangen. X (ist)

  6. Er Vorschlag, daẞ wir nach Hause gehen muẞten. X

  7. Er hat mich eingeladen. √

  8. Ich habe aufgestanden. √'

  Gallagher pushed the dark green pocketbook aside and placed my blue English book in front of me. Mum had kind of shrunk into her brown coat.

  ''This is your best subject,'' Gallagher said quietly.

  'Write an account of the relationship between Farfrae and Elizabeth Jane.

  'The first encounter between the two occurs in the 'Three Mariners'. Elizabeth Jane is a servant there and Farfrae is a guest. Farfrae sings to the entire pub and Elizabeth is attracted to him. Later she passes him on the stairs. He sings what appears to be a love song. Elizabeth is ''rather disconcerted'' but likes him. She say that she ''didn't mind waiting'' upon him.'

  Willie had circled the non-existent –s on 'say.' God. Now I was embarrassed.

  'Elizabeth's mother Susan wants to see Farfrae marry Elizabeth so she arranges a meeting between them by sending out a couple of anonymous letters…. Henchard is now drifting away' (wiggly line and marginal comment 'hardly drifting') from Farfrae and writes to the latter, asking him to stop seeing Elizabeth Jane. When Elizabeth discovers that Henchard hates Farfrae, she goes to warn him. This is through love.'

  Yes. Love. I thought it a great gesture. Willie thought it 'too simple'.

  'The relationship between Farfrae, now a widower, and Elizabeth Jane hots up towards the end of the novel' (underscore 'hots up', marginal comment 'don't'.) 'On Martin's Day Farfrae and Elizabeth Jane get married. When the wife finds Henchard's present, she begins to like him more. She asks Donald to look for him and they find him dead.'

  'C,' wrote Willie. 'Disappointing. Your style comes across as naïve in places and there is no depth here. Avoid slang: add more comment.'

  ''I've got nice hand-writing,'' I said, trying to avoid the hurt disappointment in Dad's Labrador eyes. ''Don't you think my hand-writing's nice?''

  ''We were wondering if you'd be happier in another school,'' said Gallagher.

  No way! Despite everything, I didn't want to leave. Sure, they were picky about top-buttons and tucked-in shirts and obsessed with writing in ink not biro and not chewing gum and tying your shoe-laces and a gazillion tiny little rules, and the range of A Level options was pretty shit, like we couldn't do Theatre Studies or Drama, or Media, or Sociology, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, History of Art, or any cool subjects that told you how people think, and we had to do cross-country running and swim in an ice-bath, and stand up when masters entered the room, and everyone was vaguely bored and frustrated but too apathetic to challenge anything, even their career aspirations to be doctors, lawyers and businessmen, but that, I figured was life in Britain today. A ton of petty restrictions that fuelled a real sense of grievance and dissatisfaction but no-one could be arsed to fight for change, so school truly was preparing us for adulthood. Besides, until this week, I had felt comfortable there, I suppose because I felt the same vague frustration as everyone else. 'The majority of men,' said Henry David Thoreau, 'Live lives of quiet desperation.' Too fucking right.

  ''There are plenty of kids with worse grades than me,'' I protested. ''I'm just going through a bad patch. Mostly my grades are OK.''

  Gallagher sighed. The Venetian blinds in his window cast thin black bars on his face. ''Tell us,'' he said, ''About Tuesday's incident at the sports ground. Exactly what happened?''

  ''Nothing, sir,'' I said firmly. ''I fell down the stairs. I hadn't had any lunch. I felt dizzy and fell down the stairs. Seymour and the others carried me up to the changing-room.''

  Irritably Gallagher leafed through some papers. ''The statements from Mr Wade and Mr Langdon say something rather different.''

  ''With respect, sir, they arrived late and didn't see what happened.''

  This was my strategy. I had decided that, despite everything they'd done to me, the spitting, the kicking, the humiliating, the name-calling, the beating, the pissing, everything, I wasn't going to betray them 'cos I didn't actually hate them. I pitied them. Besides, I suspected the police cuntstables would simply lock Ali up if I reported it to them.

  ''I'm not protecting anyone,'' I said firmly.

  Gallagher emitted this impatient sigh. ''Very well. So to Monday. I believe you had an incident with your form-master, Mr Hutchinson. Could you tell us about that?''

  Here was my chance to hang Bunny out to dry. The lousy bastard had persecuted me for weeks, had started everything rolling. I could fry him if I wanted.

  ''I'd had a difficult few days, sir, and I was off-loading to Mr Hutchinson and I kind of broke down with the stress, you know? It won't happen again. I'm totally in control now.''

  Those words, carefully chosen, carefully spoken, summarized the whole situation. I had taken control, though they didn't yet know it.

  ''You told Mr Herbert that Mr Hutchinson had used abusive language.''

  ''I was overwrought, sir,'' I said. ''I was really upset because of everything that had happened, the graffiti, the teasing and everything, that I exaggerated. I just wanted some attention. I'm sorry, sir. I'll apologise to Mr Hutchinson.''

  ''Mr Herbe
rt said that you said Mr Hutchinson called you a quote 'filthy little queer' unquote,'' said Gallagher.

  ''Ah,'' I said, as though a dawn had broken, ''No. He asked if I liked drinking beer. Mr Herbert must've misheard, sir.''

  Gallagher, sighing unhappily, unfolded a sheet of A3 paper. The school magazine photo of me and Ali in Midsummer Night's Dream stared from the centre. Around it, in large colourful letters, were the words DON’T LET THE QUEERS GIVE YOU AIDS. It was an advert for a Christian Union meeting, to discuss how to fight ''the poison in our school.'' I heard Mum sob and Dad mutter something. Crawford's eyes never left my face.

  ''That's you, Jonathan,'' Gallagher stated flatly. ''The poison in our school.''

  I shrugged indifferently. ''I'm gay. So what? Ignorant twats like these wreck lives and poison communities, not people like me. We have our own communities, thanks very much.''

  ''So the rumours are true?'' Crawford asked. ''You are homosexual?''

  Defiantly I raised my chin. ''Yes, sir, I am.''

  Mum sniffed again. I tried to ignore her.

  ''Which brings us to your relationship with Alistair Rose.''

  Now I prickled defensively. I did not want to talk about that. That was special. It was private. It was intimate. It was mine.

  ''We are all in relationships, sir,'' I said. ''I have a relationship with you as Senior Master, a relationship with Dr Crawford, a relationship with my friends… humankind is defined by its relationships.'' I looked at Crawford. ''You taught us that back in 2W.''

  Crawford smiled affectionately. Gallagher scowled irritably.

  ''Don't be obtuse, Jonathan. You know exactly what I mean.''

  ''Ali is the best thing that ever happened to me, sir,'' I said simply. ''I love him.''

  Mum stiffened. Dad stared at his hands, dangling uselessly between his knees.

  ''A romantic relationship is one thing, a physical relationship something else. I need to ask some questions you may find uncomfortable.''

  Not as uncomfortable as you, I thought, noting his clenched jaw and deep frown.

  ''Has Alistair ever made… er… advances to you?''

  ''Advances?''

  ''Put his arm round you, tried to kiss you, suggested you do things together?''

  ''I love it when he holds me,'' I murmured. ''And when we kiss, I hear angels singing.''

  Seemingly staggering in his chair, Gallagher passed a hand over his face.

  Mum interrupted suddenly, saying basically this was all bollocks and blaming Ali.

  ''Before your infatuation with Ross,'' she snapped, ''You were perfectly normal. You were going out with Claire Ashton, for God's sake. He groomed you, Jonathan, he abused you. You're the victim. No-one will condemn you. No-one will judge you. It isn't your fault. He's a prefect. He abused his position. He should go to jail.''

  I stared at her, dumbstruck by the violence of her ignorance. Then I said coldly ''If you send him to jail, I will kill you, OK? Kill you.''

  Dad's jaw fell. Mum looked like she'd been slapped. Gallagher cleared his throat.

  ''Has he ever touched you inappropriately? In places he shouldn't?''

  ''Never, sir,'' I said fiercely. ''He has never touched me inappropriately, whatever that means. He has touched me appropriately, though, in places I wanted him to.''

  ''Jonathan, this is serious. You are under the age of consent. According to the law…''

  ''Because I'm fifteen, I don't know my own mind?'' I exclaimed. ''Because I'm fifteen, I need you to decide who I am? Because I'm fifteen, I'm some kind of moron, open to manipulation, I can't figure out what sex involves, what love is? What if it's me who's the manipulator, eh? What if I know exactly what I want, and then go get it? What if I groomed Ali? Who's the abuser then, eh? What does the law say then, eh? Eh?''

  ''You can't give consent, Jonathan, not at fifteen,'' said Gallagher impatiently.

  ''Why?'' I demanded. ''Because you say so? Because the cops say so? Because some fuckwit politicians say so? It's my body and it's my choice. I choose to give consent.''

  ''Has he…?'' Desperately uncomfortable, he cleared his throat. ''Has he… er… touched… er… touched your… your private parts?''

  ''With what, sir?'' I said innocently. Dad was staring at me, shocked and impressed.

  Gallagher's face reddened like a Remembrance Day poppy.

  ''With his hands,'' he snapped. ''Has he touched your… you… with his hands?''

  ''Oh no, sir,'' I said, beginning to enjoy myself. ''He used his tongue.''

  Dad and Crawford laughed but Mum was crying. Gallagher seemed completely lost.

  ''We are simply trying to protect you, Jonathan. We simply want to keep you safe.''

  ''By insulting my intelligence? By not respecting my freedom to choose? By telling me that my love is not important, that it doesn't matter because some tossers in Parliament want to control my life? I control my life.'' Sitting up straight, I said ''I love Alistair, Ali loves me, and I just don't understand why anyone else, frankly, would care.''

  ''Have you had… er … sexual intercourse?'' asked Gallagher unhappily.

  ''You working down a check-list or something?'' I said contemptuously.

  ''Have you had anal intercourse? Has he… you know…?'' His voice dried up.

  I shook my head. This was such shit. ''It isn't about sex,'' I said angrily. ''I don't know why you people think it is. Maybe because you can't believe two men can love each other like you love your wives… I love Ali. What's wrong with that?''

  Tears were trickling down my bruised face. This was no longer fun. It was wringing me out. This was where words are not enough, when you're trying to persuade someone and they simply disbelieve you, like Mum and Gallagher, because they don't want to believe and nothing you say can convince them, because they've like closed their ears and closed their minds to the truth of you, you know?

  ''My life is what I want it to be, not what you want it to be. I will not let you dictate what that life should be. So I'm gay. So I'm fifteen. I don't care. I love Alistair. Just get over it, and if you can't get over it, get out of my fucking life and leave me alone.''

  As the silence reverberated around the office, Gallagher reached for a pencil and a sheet of paper. ''I want you to write down everything you and Alistair have done,'' he said quietly, ''And everything you have done with Leo Trent.''

  ''You have got to be joking.'' I stared at him, cold with fury. ''I'm not turning my love-life into some pornographic novel. I won't do it.''

  ''I'm not asking, Peters,'' Gallagher snapped, ''I'm telling you. Write the statement.''

  Folding my arms defiantly, I said ''I will not.'' My eyes locked with his. ''There are loads of us, not just in this school, but everywhere. We are everywhere, and the future belongs to us and those who love us. One day we will be free. One day we will be able to marry each other. One day we will even run the country. You can't expel us all, not you, nor the government nor MumsNet nor even the readers of the Daily fucking Mail. We are here, and here to stay. Now I'm going to meet my boyfriend and then I'm going home. You can do what you will.''

  ''Jonathan,'' Mum began, but I interrupted, feeling my lips quivering, my tears building again as I struggled with my emotions and my words fell like bursting hand-grenades.

  ''I would die for him in a heart-beat. Alistair is my world. He is my world, and my life. Everything I am is because of him. Everything I will be is for him. Without him I am nothing. With him I am everything and I can do anything.'' Tears spilled down my face again. ''He is my entire existence, my Ali, and I love him. Love. Remember, sir? Remember, Mum? Love?''

  My father put his arm round my shoulders.

  ''Jonathan,'' he said slowly, ''Of all the things I've seen and heard you do in your amazing life, this is the best. You're my wonderful, brave, brilliant son, I love you so much and right now I know why I love you and am always so proud of you, Jonathan, my son.''

  I turned and, crying now, buried myself in my father's ches
t. I felt him stroking my hair. I don't know what Crawford and Gallagher or Mum did. All I knew was a door in the dark had just opened into the light.