"Shhhh!" hissed Christopher violently. "Keep your voice down."
"I'll never do that, Chris. You know I'd never do that. Tell me you believe me," he said in a fierce whisper.
"Of course I believe you," said Christopher soberly. "I think we're meant to be with each other. If I didn't I wouldn't be saying all this. But the thing is, it will take time. We'll be together the moment it's safe for us to be, not an instant later. But if it takes time, please, Jamie, my darling, you've got to be strong. You're incredibly strong - far stronger than me. Please, please, be strong now."
He fell silent. Jamie said nothing for a while. Then he muttered "How long do you think it'll be?"
"I don't know," said Christopher, bleakly. "I just don't know. Months, maybe. It would probably be a year..."
Jamie started to cry again, the tears hot and fierce against Christopher's face. "I couldn't wait a year, Chris, I couldn't. It would kill me not to see you for a year..." he burst out. Christopher soothed him, stroking his hair. "You could wait that long if you knew, Jamie. If you knew we'd be together at the end of it, couldn't you?"
Jamie thought about it, his body heaving gently against Christopher's. "I... I suppose I could, if I knew..." he said, sounding like a little boy. Christopher breathed a deep sigh. His heartfelt relief was mingled with an awareness that he had been less than honest with the person who meant more to him, he felt, than life. He knew that it could be more than a year; but he told himself in the darkness of his heart that the deception was worth it to keep Jamie on an even keel. After all, he told himself, it might only be a year, perhaps not even that, before we can work out some way of getting together. Maybe we could go abroad... He snuffed out that fantasy before it had a chance to live, and brought himself sharply back to the present.
"But all that will be for nothing," he said, despising himself for exerting anything resembling leverage on Jamie but knowing he had to do it anyway, "if we get caught together now. So you must promise me, in return, Jamie. You must promise me you'll leave it to me to work out when we can see each other next, and how. You must."
Jamie thought for a second. "All right, Chris," he said, docilely. "I promise. I couldn't bear it if I was the one to get you into any more trouble." They half-sat, half-lay together, cuddling awkwardly. After a while Christopher murmured "You'll have to be getting back. We must've been here for over an hour. Jamie squirmed round to see his watch in the dim glow of the torch. The battery was dying perceptibly. "It's five to four," he said, in sudden alarm. "I'll have to go soon." There was a pause. Each of them was listening to the sound of the other's breathing. Then Jamie said, "You'll write to me, Chris? They can't stop you writing, you said so yourself."
"Every day, if you like," said Christopher simply. "Every day," repeated Jamie. And then, "I'll go soon, Chris. But there is one thing..."
"Yes. What is it?" asked Christopher. Some premonition of what was coming made his heart miss, and a breath got lost in his throat. "Do it with me, Chris," said Jamie in a small voice. "Make love to me. Here. Just so I can remember this last time." Christopher choked a little. "We'll have to stand up," he muttered thickly.
***
They kissed goodbye, a long, desperate embrace, in the shadow of Christopher's house. Jamie slipped silently through the garden gate and into the street. He halted just before going out of sight behind the next-door hedge and turned. Christopher moved into the slightly lesser shadow of the starlight and waved. Jamie flicked his torch on and shone it for a second on Christopher, standing by his front door. He wagged his fingers for a second, and then he was gone. Christopher, with a heart as heavy as stone, and with feelings that could not have been expressed, let himself stealthily in and crept up to bed.
With identical feelings Jamie fled through the streets. He had enough sense left to remember caution as he slipped into the house and up to his room. He stripped and hid his clothes, dusty and grimy from the floor of the potting shed, in the holdall. Then, as the grandmother clock chimed the quarter-hour after five, he tumbled disconsolately into bed. His body still felt faintly flushed and tingling from love-making, and he thought he could smell a trace of Christopher's body about himself. He hurled himself over onto his belly and, overcome with unassuageable grief and loss, sobbed into his pillow as if his heart would break.
***
Two days later Jamie was toying with his breakfast when the mail slapped onto the doormat. Edith went out and returned with a sheaf of letters. Jamie watched her intently. "Two bills," she said, tossing two envelopes to one side. "Telephone and electricity. One for me - that's from Denise. Two for you;" she handed him two letters. "And one for you, Jamie." Jamie rose from his seat too eagerly, and had to be slapped on the back as a mouthful of egg went down the wrong way. When he stopped spluttering his face was brighter than they had seen it in days. He snatched at the letter eagerly, remembered his manners and apologised. Edith smiled fondly at him, but looked a little anxiously at her husband.
Jamie, catching the glance and interpreting it accurately, immediately looked fearful, defensive and a shade furtive all at once. Lane paused in the act of slitting open the first of "his two letters and raised his eyebrows. "Christopher, I suppose?" he said, glancing at his wife interrogatively. She spread her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. They both looked at Jamie. He gave them a trapped look, then nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. Then, with a rush, "they can't stop him writing to me, can they, sir? Surely they wouldn't object to writing? They couldn't be that cruel?"
Lane pursed his lips in perplexity. "I don't know that 'they' would necessarily regard it as cruel, Jamie," he said, "but I think if 'they' knew he was writing to you they would object
fairly strongly. I think they certainly could stop it, and probably would..."
"But, sir," he burst out, "that's not fair..."
Lane considered for some time, with Jamie watching him like a cat stalking a sparrow. Eventually he half-smiled. "It's not fair," he mused as if to himself. "The cri de coeur of abused children and oppressed youth down all the ages of man. No, Jamie, I'm inclined to agree in this case. It's not fair. Open your letter, and I hope there will be something in it to cheer you up."
"After all," he said to his wife, "no one will ever know that he's received the odd letter, unless we choose to tell anyone. And since the letter is here, it would be unkind to withold it. No, I don't see that any harm can come of it. I'll add only one rider to that, Jamie. If this letter, or any other you may receive from your friend, should cause you any distress or interfere with your work, or your health, or in any way bring difficulties in its wake, then it will stop, there and then, without argument and with no appeal. That is final. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. Oh, thank you," babbled Jamie. "May I get up and read it, please?" He was almost out of his chair before he had finished asking. He received a magisterial but more or less benevolent nod. Almost without pausing as he passed Dr Lane in his headlong rush for the door he bent and planted a hasty, rather clumsy kiss on his headmaster's cheek. Before Lane, utterly taken aback, could move or open his mouth, Jamie was half-way up the stairs.
There was a moment's rather stunned silence in the breakfast room. Then Lane, with a strange expression on his face, murmured,"He keeps finding surprises for us, doesn't he?"
"John," said Edith, "it's not so very unusual for a fifteen-year-old boy to make an elementary gesture of affection towards his guardian. Especially when the guardian is very kind to him, and has just done perhaps the greatest kindness the boy has received for some long time."
He looked sharply at her, surprised to hear a lecture from her, only to see that she was smiling broadly, almost laughing. "It was the right thing to do, John. I couldn't have stopped him reading his letter. Did you see his face?"
"Yes, I did. That's why I decided as I did. The point is that he's generally so adult for his age that it comes always as something of a shock to be reminded that he is only fifteen. Bless my soul, it's a long time since I've been kissed by an affec
tionate son." He sat back and mused.
"You've forgotten your own letters," she reminded him. "Eh? Oh, yes, of course." He completed opening the first blue envelope. It contained a brief scribbled note and a cheque. He passed it over to his wife. "From Jamie's mother. A further instalment. Generous, would you say?" he said, a little sardonically.
"I doubt if she knows the meaning of the word, let alone how it feels," she said, unusually acidly for her. "Still, since she's got no feeling or affection for the child, her money, I suppose, is the only thing she can give. I'll pay it in this morning."
Lane had opened the other, and was staring at it with raised eyebrows. "Mmm. This is a little mysterious. What do you make of this one?" He handed it to her. On expensive, deckle-edged Swiss writing paper was a short note in a strong, clear hand. Edith murmured it aloud to herself as she read it:
Dear Dr and Mrs Lane,
It is imperative that I come to talk to you as soon as possible about something of importance to both of us - you know what I am referring to. I shall be at home to receive a telephone call on the above number at all times over the next two days, and I should be grateful if you would call as soon as possible. Please believe me, it is very urgent, or I would not trouble you.
Yours sincerely, Angela Turnbull.
"You'd better ring her this morning," she said without hesitation. "I wonder what's behind this."
"I'll ring her from the school," he said. He looked at his watch, and jumped slightly. "And it's high time I was at school," he added. He rose, gulped the last of his tea and went hurriedly into the hall, where he met Jamie, coming downstairs. Lane gave him a quick, searching glance, and was very glad he had decided as he had over the letter. Jamie's face was alight. Like it was a week or so ago, he thought. "Come along, my boy," he said, with a slightly crusty smile.
Edith watched the two of them walking to the school together, Jamie's slight, graceful form trotting beside her husband's tall, slightly stooping one, dark red hair bobbing a foot below Lane's windblown grey, the turning of their heads indicating animated conversation. "I wonder if that Christopher knows what power he's got," she muttered to herself. " I wonder if he has any idea..."
***
"Mrs Turnbull?"
"Speaking. Is that Dr Lane?"
"It is, madam."
"Oh, good," she said. There was relief clearly marked in her voice. "Good. You've had my letter then. I hoped it would get to you today."
"Yes, Mrs Turnbull, it came this morning. I confess, I'm a little mystified, but I took you at your word that it was urgent."
"Yes, yes, it is. But I can't discuss it over the phone. Please, can I come to see you?"
"Yes, of course you may. When would you like to come?"
"Any time it suits you, but the sooner the better, Dr Lane. Only one thing. I don't want James to see me with you, or coming to see you. He'd be bound to know it was to do with him, and he's got quite enough on his plate, without worrying himself silly wondering what it's about."
Lane hesitated before replying. "Mrs Turnbull, I believe you have Jamie's interests at heart..."
"I certainly have," she said forcefully. "Unlike some people I could name. Yes, I feel desperately sorry for the poor little beggar, and I've got hold of something very nasty that's about to crawl out of its woodwork and make more trouble for him, if we don't do something about it and pretty damn quick at that. Where d'you think we should meet? I can see you any time today, or this evening, or tomorrow - whenever you like. You say where and when, I'll be there."
"Very well, madam. It would perhaps be best if you didn't come to the school, since you don't want to risk Jamie's seeing you. But I can see you at my house, if that would suit you. It's within the school precincts; but it is very strictly out of bounds to the pupils, which, of course, includes Jamie during school hours. And you needn't pass within sight of any of the school buildings if you come in by the side entrance. It's on the Steeple Wynton road. Do you know it - I assume you'd come by car?"
"I know it, Dr Lane, and it'll do fine. What time?"
"One moment, please. I'm taking the upper sixth for a double period, until 9.50. I have no other teaching periods all day. The administration can take care of itself. My secretary knows the drill better than I do, in any case. I suspect that she only tolerates my occasional interferences on sufferance. Shall we say ten-thirty - on second thoughts, eleven o'clock, if I may. There are one or two things..."
"Right. Eleven o'clock it is. I'll see you then. Thanks, Dr Lane. Goodbye." And she rang off. Lane started to scribble a note of the appointment on his daily book, then obliterated it. He sat for a while, scratching the side of his nose with the end of his pencil, curious and a little alarmed. He was roused from his meditation by the bustling entry of his secretary. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Dr Lane, I thought you were in class," she said, surprised at finding him there.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "I am. Or rather, I should be."
He snatched up his case and hurried out, a little flustered. He was ten minutes late for Sophocles, something almost unprecedented, but much to the satisfaction of the waiting upper sixth.
***
Jamie had run up to his room and opened his letter carefully to the point of reverence, unwilling to inflict the slightest unnecessary hurt on an envelope that had been licked by his lover. He had read it twice since, surreptitiously under his desk in the first periods. Now, in morning break, he sat in the end cubicle of the middle school boys' lavatories and read it again.
Along with Christopher's letter he had found another, smaller envelope, which Christopher referred to in a postscript. Jamie had been eaten alive by curiosity to know what it contained, but he had taken so long lovingly reading the letter that he'd had no time to open this other before it had been time to leave with Dr Lane for school. In class the temptation to open it under the cover of the desk had been great; but the thought of discovery and the inevitable confiscation had been unbearable enough to deter him. Now he imposed a pleasurably masochistic torture on himself by reading the letter once more.
He had almost dreaded the moment of reading this first letter, fearing it would serve more than anything else to rub in the stark fact that it was a substitute for its sender. But in the event it had cheered Jamie more than he could have believed possible.
It was a long letter, in Christopher's untidy scrawl. Jamie loved his handwriting, not only because it belonged to Christopher but because it was so like him, and so unlike his own handwriting. Jamie's was small, neat and firm, like Jamie himself. Christopher's was like his hair, wayward, tending to fly about in all directions at once, yet oddly pretty.
Jamie kissed the letter, and read it slowly and carefully. It was chatty in parts, though Jamie, with his deep intuitive empathy for Christopher, sensed that those parts were somewhat forced for Jamie's benefit. But it was equally clear to him that Christopher was trying his hardest to rally his forces, with some success. He was able to talk about the possibilities of his being charged, even the possible sentences. He swore that he'd be able to bear anything 'they' might hurl at him, provided only that Jamie kept faith with him.
But mostly, it was a declaration of love. Every sentence held some signal of its author's love, or some private reference that only Jamie would understand, some reminder of something they had said, something they had once laughed about. In places it was a very sexy letter, which had left Jamie painfully and pleasurably swollen for much of the morning.
"Did you know," Christopher wrote after one passage, "that it's illegal to send obscene material through the post? Well it is, so that's something else they could charge me with, if they got hold of this...to give their dirty minds something to get excited about." Then he had gone back to being deliciously indelicate about Jamie, who read it and writhed with pleasure and for a little while forgot the troubles of the moment and their separation, though that slouching monster was never far below the surface of his mind.
Jamie came to another
paragraph that had made his heart swell.
You can write to me. I've told my people I'm going to write to you, and after some huffing and puffing they've agreed to keep quiet about letters. They're terrified about it being a breach of the bail conditions and all that balls, in case I get clobbered extra hard. But they can't do much about it, unless they want to turn me in. So write to me, dear Jamie. It will help to keep me going. As long as I know I can look forward to a letter from you, I'll have something to keep fighting for, whatever the bastards do to me.
Best of all were the final paragraphs. Simple yet enormous, they exposed by their very simplicity all Christopher's vulnerability, a fragile net of a few words that had to carry the whole of Jamie's world:
One day, soon I hope, we'll look back on all this horror and wonder how the hell we could be so upset by it. It still looks pretty terrifying to me right now, but sometime we shall see it for the silly, pathetic, petty little hiccup it is. Meanwhile, I think about you all the time. So, until tomorrow, all my love, all of it for you, always. Your own Chris.
Last came the mysterious postscript: "P.S. Two small things for you. One's something I promised you ages ago - well, it seems like ages, anyway. Think about the other in bed tonight. Love you, C. XXX" Jamie controlled his feelings and found further pleasurable self-torment by fishing for his pocket knife and forcing himself to slit it open carefully.
Enclosed he found a postcard-sized photograph. It was of a far higher quality than the one that Jamie had lost with such disastrous consequences on the night of his estrangement from his home and, as he regarded it now, from his entire life up to that point. Christopher, he thought, looked at his most beautiful. His large brown eyes were soft, his mop of long brown hair was for once in its place, and his wide mouth was slightly curved in a half-smile. On the back Christopher had written, carefully so the impression did not show through on the photograph, "To my dearest Jamie, with all my love, from Chris." Jamie's heart ached.
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