"Well, I've arranged to ring him once more, sir. I can't do that, now I've promised you, but, well... now that I have promised, may I just phone him this once? Please, sir, may I? Only to tell him that I can't do it again, and why. I promise I won't try to talk to him again until you say I can, sir. But I couldn't just leave him waiting and wondering why I hadn't... I couldn't do that. It would be too unkind. I couldn't bear to think of him wondering if I was ill, or in trouble..." He tailed off, watching Lane's face in mingled eagerness and apprehension. "Nobody would ever know," he pleaded anxiously.
Lane's expression grew stem again, but he said nothing for several minutes. Jamie watched him with his heart in his mouth. Eventually Lane's face cleared and he nodded briskly to himself, making up his mind. "When are you due to make this call?" he asked, "and where from?"
"Tomorrow, sir," blurted Jamie, his words tumbling over each other in his anxiety. "From here."
Lane nodded again. "Very well, Jamie. I can understand your feelings. I shall put you on your honour. You may speak to him just for a few minutes, to tell him that I have put you on trust not to try any such thing again until everything is resolved." Jamie's face lit up, but Lane had not finished. "However, Jamie, I can't permit you to do this entirely on your own. I think you will understand that, even if you don't like it especially much." Some of the light went out from the young face before him, replaced by a look curiously adult and speculative. "I shall be there myself, Jamie. In matters in which Christopher is concerned, you are not, I think, entirely your own master. I shall be beside you as you speak to him. Once you have conveyed the substance of what I have outlined, then I will leave you for a few moments, and no more - you understand that, Jamie? - I see that you do. Then, as I say, I will leave you for a few moments, so that you may make your farewells as best you can; and when I judge that you have had time enough to do so, then that will be that. You understand?"
"Yes, thank you sir," said Jamie. The light was still there: he looked rather like a puppy with a new and unfamiliarly-shaped bone. "Thank you ever so much, sir." The relief and happiness in his face, though modified, were so genuine that Lane's misgivings dissolved. "Now, then, Jamie, as I said, we must talk of other things."
***
Jamie fought against sleep until he heard the grandmother clock downstairs strike eleven. He slid out of bed and found his underpants and a tee shirt. He sat on his bed in the darkness, thinking of Christopher and stroking himself to counter his impatience, until the clock had chimed the first quarter and then the half-hour. Then, judging that it was safe, he flitted noiselessly downstairs, listened hard for a full minute more, and then lifted the telephone and dialled.
It was a long shot, with no possibility of second chances, but his luck was in. Christopher answered after only a couple of rings. "Chris," Jamie breathed, "it's me." He was speaking hardly loud enough to be audible, but he heard Christopher's sharp intake of breath at the other end, and knew that he had heard. "I can't say anything tomorrow. They've found out. It'll just be hello and goodbye. Ring you as soon as I get a chance. Wait for me. Love you." He listened anxiously. Christopher breathed his answer so faintly that Jamie had to strain to hear the words. "Okay. Love you. Bye." There was a click. Satisfied, Jamie replaced the receiver, taking infinite pains to make no sound. There was a loud ding, however, and he almost gasped. He sagged against the wall, listening in terror, but there was no sound. He gave it a full minute, then slipped silently, a half-naked shadow, back to his room.
***
Dr Lane left the sixth-form room when the bell rang for break the next morning and proceeded majestically to Jamie's classroom. He almost collided in the doorway with a boy bolting for the quadrangle to enjoy his maximum minutes of leisure. The boy skidded to a halt, saw who it was and wished he was somewhere else. "Oh! I... I'm terribly sorry, sir," he stammered, "I was..."
"This is a school corridor, Patterson," said Lane mildly, "not a bear garden. Look where you're going, and try to behave with a certain amount of decorum, if that's not asking too much."
"Yes, sir. No, sir. That is, yes, sir," said the boy. Looking fearfully up at the headmaster and seeing that he was dismissed, he edged round Lane and walked off down the corridor almost on tip-toe, hardly breathing until he was out of sight. Lane walked into the room. "Oh! Headmaster!" ejaculated the young master in charge, halting in the middle of packing up his books. "Form! Attention!" he rapped. Everyone stopped what they were doing in mid-movement. Books were suspended above desks into which they had been about to be pitched. Sweets and strips of prohibited chewing gum were dropped hastily back into blazer pockets, or even more hastily swallowed. There was a gurgle, instantly suppressed, from some unfortunate whose boiled sweet had gone down the wrong way. Lane's face relaxed into a slightly forbidding smile at that. The atmosphere eased, only a little, but perceptibly. "Can I help you, headmaster?" asked the master, a little nervously, wondering what had brought the majestic presence to his room.
"Carry on, Mr Surtees, carry on," Lane said, motioning the master to continue gathering his papers. "The form may dismiss." The master, almost as glad to be dismissed as the boy Patterson had been, watched from under his eyebrows as Lane glanced round the room until his eye fell on Jamie, who was disposing his books in his desk at the back of the room, his eyes, like everyone else's, remaining watchfully on the headmaster. Lane crooked his finger to Jamie, who lowered the lid of his desk and came to the front. "Come with me," said Lane quietly, and with a further courteous gesture to the master he swept from the room, his gown billowing behind him in the doorway. Jamie trotted after him, leaving the boys in a subdued hubbub of speculation. The master, aware that Jamie was the headmaster's ward, took it that it must be a private matter and breathed a little more easily, glad that the visit did not at any rate betoken any sins of omission or commission on the part of his form.
Pacing sedately across the field to the house, Lane observed the spring in the boy's step. At the front door he fished for his key. Jamie, hopping from foot to foot in his efforts to contain his eagerness, looked up at him. Lane, despite himself, smiled somewhat crustily at him, and received a smile in return which almost melted him. He let Jamie in and the boy half-ran to the telephone and dialled.
"Hello. Chris. Yes, it's me," said Jamie, and Lane perceived that the awkwardness that his presence had occasioned Jamie could not wholly dampen the boy's delight in speaking to Christopher. It was visible in his face, half-turned away from Lane, and a good deal more audible in his voice. Half-way through the first sentence, Lane saw clearly, the boy had almost forgotten his existence. For some minutes Jamie indulged in small talk, occasionally suppressing some endearment half-uttered. Once he half-turned, as if to remind Lane that he was eavesdropping on a very intimate conversation. Lane took the point, and retreated through the front door and out into the drive until he was out of earshot. Jamie saw the move and appreciated it. Craning his neck to see exactly how far distant Lane was, he hissed urgently, "I'll ring you as soon as I can, Chris, darling. Can we still see each other like you said?"
"For Christ's sake, be careful, Jamie," said Christopher urgently. "Yes, I'm working on it. Ring me early next week, if you can. Okay?"
"Okay," hissed Jamie. "I must go, Chris, he'll want to take me back to school now. Tell me you love me, please tell me."
"Of course I love you," said Christopher, suddenly becoming placid. "We'll be together soon, you and I. I won't keep you now, though. Goodbye for now. Love you."
"Bye, Chris, my dear. Love you," Jamie just had time to blurt out, and there was the fateful click on the line as Christopher replaced his receiver. Jamie leaned on the wall beside the telephone table and savoured the beloved voice and the final words for a while. Then he made his way out into the drive and smiled shyly up at Dr Lane. "Finished, sir," he said in a subdued tone. With Lane not altogether happy about having aided and abetted the boys in breaching the conditions of Christopher's bail, and Jamie cast down by the reflecti
on that he would only be able to speak to his lover with the greatest difficulty for the foreseeable future, it was a subdued and somewhat dejected pair who returned to the school in time for third period.
***
Over the next two weeks Lane adopted a deliberate policy of keeping Jamie heavily overworked at school, on the legitimate grounds that he had missed so much of the syllabus in his frequent absences earlier in the term that he needed badly to catch up. His real intention was to keep Jamie so fully occupied that he had neither the time to fret over his enforced separation from his friend nor any opportunity to try to make contact with him. In both he was largely successful. Jamie did manage to hold three brief, furtive conversations on the telephone, but they were miserable affairs, characterised by fearful glances over his shoulder, and neither of the boys was able to derive much joy from them.
In the last Christopher began to tell Jamie that he had worked out his plan for their meeting, but Jamie cut him off almost before he had begun. "I can't come, dear Chris," he said miserably. "They watch me all the time, and if I asked for permission to go anywhere they'd smell a rat straightaway. And they're loading me up with so much extra work I hardly have time to watch the telly or anything." He chattered miserably on about his tribulations for a few minutes more, until the whole conversation became so dismal that they were both rather relieved when Jamie spotted the Lanes returning from their trip into town and had to make a hasty farewell. He hung up and bolted to his room safely before they got in. That night two equally depressed and lonely boys masturbated themselves to sleep, a hundred and fifty miles apart. After that only their frequent letters gave them any solace.
Then, taking them both by surprise, Christopher was called home with the news that the Crown Court sitting was to begin, with his case called for the first day. They had both by now reached the point of suspense in which even knowing the worst would be something of a relief, they would at least have slightly better opportunities for occasional secret meetings. In a way they were both almost relieved.
***
"May I go, sir?" pleaded Jamie, the day before the hearing. "I couldn't bear to have him in the court all alone, without me there to... well, sir, at least I could smile at him, so he'd know he wasn't all alone, that he hadn't been deserted. Please let me go." His voice had taken on a tone it often took lately, brittle, cracking with tension, and very un-boyish.
Lane thought it over during the morning. At lunch time he went home. "What do you think, dear?" he asked his wife. She pondered the question for some minutes. "Mmmm," she said slowly. 'I'd be inclined to allow him to go, on two conditions. First, I certainly don't think you should allow him to go alone. He's not altogether rational where Christopher's concerned, and there's no telling what he might do if there was no one to keep an eye on him. The second condition is that the other boy's family have no objections. I really don't think he ought to go if it's going to cause them a lot of additional distress. They must be suffering torments as it is, poor people."
"I think that's very wise," he said, appreciatively. "Perhaps I'd better telephone them."
"I think it might be a better idea to telephone the boy's lawyer, dear. Jamie knows who it is - he visited him, if you recall, to make that statement in support of the poor boy." Lane nodded, and returned to school feeling a lot happier. In his study he summoned Jamie, who came hot-foot, all the accumulated tension and anxiety of the past weeks written all over him. When Lane merely asked him for the name of Christopher's solicitor his face sagged in disappointment. "Cheer up, Jamie," said Lane, "I'll give you my decision very shortly. You may wait outside if you wish. Go and sit in the secretary's office. She'll make you a cup of coffee." Jamie went out, and proceeded to irritate the headmaster's secretary immensely by fidgeting constantly in her office while she tried to type the day's correspondence.
"Mr Hope-Thomson? Ah, good morning. My name is Lane. I understand that you are representing a young man, Christopher Rowe, who is appearing in court tomorrow morning. Yes, I am indeed connected with the case, in an oblique fashion. Perhaps I may explain my problem..."
The buzzer on the intercom sounded quietly in the secretary's office, but it might have been an explosion, from its effect on Jamie, who shot out of his seat as if he had been galvanised He stood, trembling slightly, watching the woman hawkishly as she depressed the switch. "Will you send the boy in to me now, please," came Lane's voice, rasping metallically in the machine. Jamie was on his way before she had flicked the switch back. He almost ran back into Lane's study, remembering just in time to tap on the door before entering. He scrutinised Lane's face anxiously, but found no clues there. Lane motioned him to sit down.
"I'm afraid..." he began. Jamie's heart sank, and his face crumpled in anguish. "Don't jump to conclusions, my boy," said Lane, touched by the grief he saw sketching itself across his countenance. "All I was going to say was that I'm afraid I can't give you a definite answer for a little while. I've spoken to Mr Hope-Thomson, and he shares my uncertainty. We feel that the only proper course is to speak to the family and ask them if they have any objection to your presence in court. If they have, that ends the matter - I'm sure you will see that their wishes should be paramount..."
"But, sir," the boy burst out, "that's not fair. It's all because of me that Christopher's in trouble in the first place. Surely..."
"That, Jamie, is precisely the point. Personally I cannot agree with you - I don't think it was entirely your fault, I think Christopher himself is at least as much to blame for his present difficulties as you, probably more so. But that is by the way. What is important is that his family have tended to regard you as the - ah - as the villain of the piece, and they don't feel very well-disposed towards you. I imagine you can understand that."
"Yes, sir," mumbled Jamie. "But what I was going to say is that surely it's Christopher who should decide whether he wants me to be there. He's the one who's in trouble, sir, isn't he?"
"It would greatly advance our cause, Jamie," Lane rebuked him mildly, "if you would not keep anticipating me." Jamie muttered an apology and hung his head.
"That was the point that I was coming to," said Lane, a little sharply. "And Mr Hope-Thomson has very kindly said that he will himself find out precisely that information for me. He is speaking to the family, probably at this minute. He tells me that he will make a point of asking them to ascertain Christopher's wishes in the matter, and he will, he says, urge them to treat his wishes as paramount." He paused to let that sink in, then went on, "You've made a friend in Mr Hope-Thomson, Jamie. You seem to have made a very favourable impression there." Jamie's face had brightened as quickly as it had fallen. He waited expectantly for Lane's next words.
"It means another wait for you, Jamie, but Mr Hope-Thomson suggested that he would probably be able to ring me back within a short while. However, since there is no guarantee that he will be able to make contact with the family immediately, you had better return to your..." The telephone rang. Jamie jumped out of his skin, and even Lane started slightly, infected by the almost palpable tension coming off the boy like smoke. He gave himself a moment, then lifted the receiver. "Dr Lane," he said into it. Jamie twisted his fingers in his lap and strained his ears vainly in an effort to hear what was said at the other end. He listened in a torment of apprehension to the end of the conversation that he could hear.
"Yes., yes... I see... quite so... yes., yes... I understand... yes... yes, I have him with meat this moment... yes... I'll tell him... and thank you Mr Hope-Thomson. I'm exceedingly grateful to you, you have been most kind. It's very good of you to take so much trouble. Yes... quite. Thank you again. Goodbye " He replaced the receiver and sat for a moment looking levelly at Jamie, who sat on the edge of his chair, eyes wide with agonised anticipation. Lane's face softened into something very close to a smile.
"Well, Jamie," he said gently, "your instincts were correct. Hope-Thomson was able to speak to Christopher's father immmediately. He was at home, discussing matter
s with his son, so they were able to consult him there and then. Christopher wishes you to be there, as I dare say you could have predicted," he added with a trace of irony, which was wholly lost on Jamie, who was almost bouncing up and down on the edge of his chair.
"There is one strict proviso," continued Lane, stilling Jamie with a gesture. Jamie immediately froze, listening intently. "Mr Hope-Thomson has already been doing his best to dispel the family's understandable hostility towards yourself - with some success, it would seem. He also recommended that they should encourage Christopher to talk more about you to them, and that he has apparently done. The result is that much of their initial feeling towards you has been modified. On the other hand, you are still, I think equally understandably, not popular in that quarter. They have agreed to Christopher's urgent entreaties that you be allowed to be in court. But this is on the strict understanding that you remain unobtrusively in the public gallery, that you are accompanied, and that you remain silent, and make no attempt to approach either Christopher or any of the family at any stage whatsoever.
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