Unnatural Relations

by Mike Seabroook

  "Is there any chance at all that they won't report the case?" asked Robert Rowe, showing in his face that he knew the answer before he spoke.

  "Not a hope, I shouldn't think, I'm afraid," said Hope-Thomson gently. "No, it's too unusual a story. I doubt if there's been more than one charge of buggery in that court in the fifteen years I've been practising in the town. They can't miss a story like this. I fear that you'll be under a certain amount of pressure. Indeed, if it's at all possible for you, I should recommend that you try to be away for a while, until the dust settles a little. Christopher, in particular, will, I'm afraid, very probably be subjected to a lot of harassment - there may well be hate mail, possibly worse." He looked round at them, sympathising as he saw the horrified looks dawning on their faces.

  Christopher groaned aloud, tears glistening in his eyes. "Oh, my God," he said softly, wagging his head from side to side in anguish. "I never meant to bring all this down on you all."

  "There, there, dear," said his mother, with an effort. She moved closer to him and put an arm firmly round his shoulders. "Of course you didn't mean to. You couldn't possibly have known. You're not to worry about it."

  "I can't help worrying, Mum, how can I," he wailed, then abruptly lowered his voice, looking fearfully round. But there was hardly anyone else in the bar, and none of the few other drinkers had taken any apparent notice. "What about poor Neil?" he said, in deepening misery. "Can they take it out on Neil? And what about his school. He'll go through hell, there, won't he?" He looked instinctively to Hope-Thomson as he said it.

  The lawyer looked sadly at him. "I'm afraid in cases such as this it usually happens that everyone connected with the person suffers. It's grossly unjust and unfair, of course, but it's part of the price of a free press. So they tell us, anyway." He patted Christopher on the arm. "The only thing you can do is be as strong as possible, bear it with what fortitude you can, and ignore it as far as possible. They'll eventually tire of it, and other stories will come up. The hate mail can be dealt with up to a point. The post office are usually quite helpful; you may well have to have your telephone number changed. You're not ex-directory, I suppose?" They shook their heads. "Yes, well, that I think you should do straight away. I don't suppose I have to go into unpleasant detail about the sort of thing you're likely to have said about you, Christopher." Christopher shook his head in despair. "I've already been called most of them, I should think," he said, snuffling, "by some of the police."

  "As I said," Hope-Thomson continued impersonally, "I should try to get Christopher away, at least. Perhaps to relations?" They looked dismally at each other. "Don't know that there's anyone he can go to," muttered Bob Rowe gloomily. "He's got to report to the police here every other day until the Crown Court hearing."

  "That could be arranged," said Hope-Thomson. "He can arrange with the police to report to another station, anywhere else. It doesn't matter where. I'll see to that, if you'll let me know where he's going to be." They looked gratefully at him. "For the rest," he continued, "I think you must do your best to prepare your younger son for something of an ordeal, at school in particular. Talk to his headmaster. If necessary, ring me and I'll make bloodcurdling threats as to what will happen if the boy is victimised. Though in point of fact I suspect you may find that schoolchildren turn out to be remarkably tolerant - much more so than many of the pillars of the adult community. It has been my experience that young people are far less horrified by minor sexual peccadilloes than their elders and alleged betters. They are generally much more willing to live and let live. He'll simply have to be as prepared as he can be, and wait and see."

  "Do you really regard this as a minor peccadillo, then?" asked Bob Rowe, looking up at the lawyer a fraction more cheerfully.

  Hope-Thomson looked levelly at him, rubbing his chin. "I can't say I regard it as earth-shatteringly serious if two sexually mature youths perform acts together discreetly, with each other's whole-hearted consent," he said slowly. "If the other boy in this case were other than he is, I might well feel entirely differently. But the Potten boy is a remarkable specimen. I've had the advantage of meeting him. He's made a statement, which he insisted on making entirely unaided by me, except for occasionally seeking my advice as to how he might most effectively emphasize the entirely voluntary nature of his involvement. You might ask Christopher to tell you something of the boy, if you haven't already."

  "We never really wanted to hear about him," confessed Audrey Rowe. "All we could feel about him was a bitter hatred for getting Chris into this terrible mess."

  "And all of us, for that matter," put in her husband.

  "Mmm. I suspect that Christopher didn't subscribe?" suggested Hope-Thomson. Christopher gave him a damp and grateful blink.

  "Well, n-no," said his mother, "he didn't. We put that down to simple loyalty. But you can't expect us to feel very kindly towards him, when he's got us all into this terrible trouble. Hate mail," she breathed with horror.

  "Well, I understand your feelings, but I suspect that if you could see his statement for the judge you would see that the loyalty is on both sides," he said.

  "Can I see it?" begged Christopher. "Please?"

  "I'd rather you didn't, please, Christopher," said the solicitor. "I don't want there to appear to have been any suspicion of collusion when it's read to the judge. The less you obviously know about its contents, the better the effect should be." Christopher's face fell in disappointment.

  Hope-Thomson went to the bar and fetched drinks. "No," he said as he sat down, "I don't really think this amounts to much, in the special circumstances - the character of the other boy being the special circumstances. Unfortunately the law lags behind what we may agree to call enlightened opinion -as it frequently does, especially in matters of private morality. Regrettable, but a fact with which we have to live, pending reform - which, in this particular area of morality, seems highly improbable in the foreseeable future. I'm sorry, Mr and Mrs Rowe, and sorrier still for you, Christopher, but you're going to have a pretty rough time over the next few weeks, and you're going to have to get over it as best you can."

  They finished their drinks in a dismal silence, and left the pub.

  ***

  Christopher's brother Neil saw the group of men gathered round his front gate as he turned into Cross Oak Gardens on his way home from school. He walked towards the house in growing puzzlement, wondering what they could possibly be finding so interesting about the neat front gate and the low golden privet hedge of his front garden. It was only as he got very close and saw the cameras that he connected them with his brother's case, which he knew had been heard that morning, though he knew nothing at all of what had happened.

  Neil edged his way through the half a dozen men and tried to get to the gate. "Hey!" cried one of the men. "It's the brother. Here, you," he said rudely to Neil, and grabbed him by the sleeve of his blazer. Neil, who was very fond of his brother indeed, and was in all things robust and uncomplicated, swung round on him. "Leave my jacket alone," he snapped, and jerked his arm away. "What do you think about your brother's case?" asked another man. "Mind your own business," snapped Neil once more, and tried to push past them and get to the gate.

  "You'll have to talk to us, boy," grinned a burly photographer, snapping busily with his Nikon. Another reporter pulled at Neil from behind, this time grabbing his collar. Neil, who was a big and well-built boy for fourteen, swung round once again, glaring furiously at his assailant. "Come on, lad, you can tell us what you think about it," said the man, smiling ingratiatingly.

  Neil stopped struggling to get free, and the ferocious scowl on his face was suddenly replaced by a mischievous schoolboy grin. "I'll tell you what I think," he said, sweetly. "Yes?" they chorused, crowding in on him. "I think you're a bunch of wankers," he said. "Now fuck off." And, picking his spot with great care, he kicked the man who had seized his collar very hard indeed on the projecting bone of his ankle. The man howled an oath and fell against the other men beh
ind him, who all promptly fell all over the pavement, roaring with laughter, giving Neil just the split second he needed. He wriggled through them like an eel and fled, cackling, up the path. He slammed the gate behind him and laughed joyously as he saw it crash heavily into the shins of another reporter who was trying to follow him, and then was gone, round the house, and hammering on the locked back door.

  ***

  Jamie read that evening's edition of the local newspaper in gathering horror. "Look!" he wailed to the Lanes, who stood looking over his shoulder, his own dismay reflected in their faces. "They're crucifying him," he said in a low, desolate voice. "The poor, poor boy," said Edith Lane.

  "Well, he had to expect something of the sort," said her husband, but he put a friendly arm round Jamie's shoulders to soften the effect of his words. He had a sudden idea. "Would you like to go out for dinner somewhere?" he asked the boy. Jamie twisted round under his arm and gave him a watery smile. "Oh, yes, please," he said. "Could we?"

  ***

  "Look at this," said Annabel Potten to Angela Turnbull, thrusting the same paper at her. "I'd never thought about their not printing his name." She laughed aloud, unable to contain her delight.

  "They're making a human sacrifice of the poor kid," observed Angela, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she scanned the front page. There was a picture of Christopher being hustled through the front door of an anonymous-looking suburban house, with his parents trying to conceal his face with their bodies. All that could be seen of him was part of a cheek and a smudge of dark hair. Another picture showed Neil, glaring into the camera, and yet another showed him scudding round the corner of the house. It also showed clearly the drawn curtains in all the windows. The address was given in full. "Just so every crank and self-appointed Mary Whitehouse in the bloody district knows how to find him and make his life a misery, and his family's as well," she snorted. As she said it she was suddenly struck by what her friend had said. "And all you can do is stand there crowing about how they haven't been able to print your name as well. Don't you give a damn about anybody but yourself, Annabel? Can you imagine what that poor kid's going through? Or what your own child would be going through at this moment if they'd been allowed to print his name?"

  "I couldn't care bloody less what this Christopher goes through," snapped Annabel. "He's the one who started all this off, perverting James with his filthy ways."

  "Get away with you," jeered Angela, past all patience. Her voice was crackling with anger and contempt. "You never gave a sod about what the boy got up to. If you'd kept a proper eye on him none of this would have happened. But you left the poor little blighter to his own devices, and you'd be doing so this minute if they hadn't had the infernal bad luck to fall foul of that ogre of a husband of yours and he hadn't been certifiable bloody lunatic enough to bring it all into the open, going round on his insane crusade trying to half-kill this boy." She opened her mouth to say more, but snapped it shut in a tight, angry line. "Get me a drink, Annabel, for Christ's sake," she said eventually. "A large one." And Annabel, utterly taken aback by the ferocity and contempt in her friend's face and voice, meekly went to the bar and did as she was bidden.

  ***

  Robert Rowe telephoned Hope-Thomson the following morning from his office to inform him that Christopher might travel to London as soon as the agreement of the police had been secured, to stay with his grandparents until his appearance at Crown Court was imminent. "I haven't told them everything," he said in answer to the solicitor's query, "just that he's in some unspecified trouble and would appreciate a change of air. I tried to give the impression that he's had some sort of nervous breakdown - overwork and so on, I implied - and they're going to be very tactful."

  "Good," said Hope-Thomson. "Very good indeed. I'll square it with the police right away, and ring you back within the hour if I can. How's it been?"

  "Well, not too bad, really," said Rowe. "We had a gaggle of newspapermen outside yesterday, making a bloody nuisance of themselves, but there was no-one there this morning. Neil had a bit of an altercation with them, and kicked one of them on the shins. You may have read about it in the local rag last night. I was proud of him."

  "I did, and so was I," said Hope-Thomson. "How is it in other ways?"

  "Well, again, nowhere near as bad as we feared, so far at least," replied Rowe. "I've had sympathetic ostracism, as you might say, here in the office. Neil rang me in his morning break earlier this morning from school, and apparently the kids are being pretty decent about it - just as you said they would be. He's had a bit of ragging about his brother being a nancy boy, but I gather that most of the attention has been on his kicking that bloody reporter. It seems to have made him into something of a hero." He chuckled.

  Hope-Thomson echoed the laugh. "Ha! Can't be too much wrong with the younger generation if they think someone who kicks a reporter is a hero," he said. "So it's not too hard so far."

  "Not so far," agreed Rowe. "Chrissie's pretty cut up still, of course. He blames himself dreadfully for bringing all this on us, and he's very unhappy. I'll tell you something else, though, which has made me sit up and take notice..."

  "Yes?" said the lawyer curiously. "What's that?"

  "Well, he seems to be pining for his young friend. He really does seem to be missing him more than anything else. I really was astonished by that. I mean, when you think that it was that boy who got him into all this, well, you'd have thought he would be the last person in the world he'd want to even think about, wouldn't you?"

  "Tell me, Mr Rowe," said Hope-Thomson drily, "does your wife share your surprise?"

  "Er, well... as a matter of fact, she doesn't," said Rowe in a puzzled tone. "As a matter of fact she seems to think it's the most natural thing of all. She was actually talking in terms of possibly engineering a meeting for them somehow. Of course, I squashed that one flat as soon as she raised it. I rather lost my temper with her, actually," he confessed a little sheepishly. "But really, can you imagine such a thing, only five minutes after he's been warned like he was in court yesterday?"

  "I quite agree with you, Mr Rowe," observed Hope-Thomson "it would be the depths of foolishness to attempt to connive at or merely to countenance any such defiance of an order of the court; but frankly I'm not in the least surprised that your wife felt as she did. I'm inclined to agree with her. You have to understand something quite fundamental to this case, Mr Rowe - something which you perhaps haven't fully grasped yet. Something which possibly the boy's mother may have found it easier to adjust to and comprehend than you have."

  "What's that, then?" asked Rowe, mystified.

  "Quite simply this, Mr Rowe," said the quiet, smooth voice at the other end of the line. "These two boys are not just infatuated with each other. I've had a chance to gain some quite intimate understanding of both of them, as opposed to just one of them, and I'm satisfied that this is not simply an adolescent crush. They love each other. Just as you and I might love our wives, and may have loved them when we were courting them, as people of our age used to put it. They are in love, Mr Rowe. That is the only possible explanation for the quite extraordinary devotion and loyalty they have consistently shown each other, and are still showing each other now. I have myself have had a message from the younger boy this morning, made, if I'm not mistaken, in his morning break at school. I haven't yet made up my mind whether I can pass it on, but it has come. And as a model of dispassionate - and yet, on the other hand, passionate -loyalty and devotion to a loved one, it could hardly be surpassed.

  "The Potten boy is interested, in that he is desperately concerned, about Christopher's well-being. He is tortured by guilt and self-reproach for having, as he believes, been largely responsible for his friend's catastrophe, and he is anxious to do anything and everything within his power to save him from any further hurt. Since he perceives that every moment of suffering for the rest of your family is another moment's suffering for Christopher, he feels a second burden of guilt on that account.

&
nbsp; "Frankly, Mr Rowe, I confess myself shaken by what I have seen of these two boys. Shaken and, I may say, somewhat moved. Their concern for each other seems genuinely to negate their concern for themselves. This case is in many ways outside the normal rules for dealing with such things." He fell silent, and waited for a reaction from the worried father at the other end.

  Rowe was silent for some time. "Well," he said at length, "I must say, I'm very surprised at what you say. I wouldn't have thought two boys of this age would have been capable of this kind of emotion. In any case, I don't find it at all easy to understand this homosexuality aspect. I mean, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I found out that Chrissie was... was... that way inclined... but to have you telling me that there's something - well, almost as if there's something noble about it, as if this Potten boy is some sort of a hero - well, it's pretty hard to take, if you're in my position."

  "If you want my opinion, Mr Rowe," said Hope-Thomson after a pause, "I think you might have searched for quite a long time before you found a better word than 'noble' for what I've seen in this case. And, if I may make one further suggestion..." There was a long pause. Then he continued, "Look, I most certainly shouldn't be suggesting any such thing. As a solicitor I'm first of all an officer of the court, and what I'm about to venture, very tentatively, to suggest, is in direct defiance of the very court of which I am an officer. But, Mr Rowe, if Christopher seems to be getting desperate in his desire to make contact with his friend, well, there must be no possible question of their meeting in person; but if there happened to be no one about in the vicinity of the telephone some time before the boy goes to his grandparents... well, Mr Rowe, if I were you, I think I might possibly develop cloth ears just for a few minutes..."