Unnatural Relations

by Mike Seabroook

  "Heterosexual people, indeed, are being convicted of such things all the time, though the homosexual minority have a notably better record over matters of pederasty than the heterosexual majority, pro rata to numbers. But my lord, I don't think anyone who heard the statement made by the younger boy in this case could suppose for a moment that such was the case here.

  "I should go so far as to say that if either of the two boys involved in this affair is possessed of the stronger character, it is the younger one, James Potten. I regard it as inconceivable that anyone, let alone a gentle, compliant and easy-going character such as this lad, would stand an earthly chance of persuading James Potten to do anything against his will, let alone something of the magnitude of embarking on a sexual affair." Jamie, flattered, beamed momentarily. Then he looked back to Christopher, sitting hunched in the dock with his head hung almost between his knees, and the smile vanished.

  "My final point, my lord, is this. You have a range of sentences available to impose upon my client. But, as I'm quite certain your lordship must realise, there is no sentence that your lordship can pass which will begin to approach in severity the sentence that has already been passed on this boy - which was passed, in fact, before he entered this Court today, before he was committed by the learned magistrates, perhaps before he was even charged. That is, of course, the social consequences of being arrested and subjected to the processes of the law. This perhaps applies more to an offence of this kind than to most. "If many people are far more tolerant nowadays in sexual matters than hitherto, it cannot be gainsaid that homosexuality still provokes in many other people's minds loathing and hostility, and when it creates a relationship such as that between these two boys it inevitably generates a great deal of opprobrium. Of that opprobrium this boy, not yet out of his teens, has already begun to feel the lash; he will feel it with renewed force when he emerges from this court, my lord, when the case is reported. He will, most assuredly, continue to bow beneath that lash for a very long time to come. It is more than probably true to say that, where this town is concerned, my client has indeed already been given a life sentence. I repeat, my lord, that whatever sentence your lordship may see fit to impose, it will be insignificant in comparison with that sentence which he has already begun to serve.

  "The plea of this boy then, my lord, this nineteen-year-old who appears before you needing mercy as well as justice, is simply that you hold that in mind. He seeks no special quarter except that which we owe to all young and - in the general sense of the word, of course - innocent people. He is perhaps naive. He has certainly been reckless, misguided and foolish. His views on certain matters which have been adumbrated today may be right, they may be ahead of their time, or they may be perverse and wrong. But he is very young, and he is beginning a mighty and awesome penance. All that remains to me now, my lord, is to urge you once more, with all the force of reason, to look sympathetically on this young life, this intelligent and engaging boy's future value to his society, and to exercise your mercy by awarding the lightest sentence available. Thank you, my lord. That is my submission."

  He sat down. Jamie glanced up at Dr Lane by his side with a plea of enquiry on his face. Lane looked kindly down on him, but he didn't smile. Jamie frowned in uncertainty. Lane patted him gently on the shoulder and bent to whisper in his ear. "Try not to expect too much, my boy," he said. "The judge is against him. We'll soon know," he added, as the judge intoned Christopher's name and Christopher rose shakily to his feet.

  "Christopher Martin Rowe," said the judge. His face and voice were both quite expressionless. "You have pleaded guilty to a very grave charge. The court has heard your learned counsel offer a plea on your behalf which was eloquent, even passionate, and I trust that you were moved to a due sense of humility hearing it. I confess that I have yet to make up my mind as to the most appropriate sentence to pass on you. Since this case has consumed a very great deal more time than it might have been expected to take, I shall take time to consider how I may best deal with you. The court will therefore adjourn until two o'clock. I trust that you do not need reminding that the conditions of your bail still apply."

  Without a further glance at Christopher he rose from his carved chair, shook out the skirts of his scarlet robe, and moved to the curtained exit. The voice bellowed "Court rise" in the same stentorian tones as before, the judge disappeared, and a buzz of voices broke out all over the room.

  ***

  Christopher stepped, still shakily, out of the dock, and was walked quickly across to his parents by Hope-Thomson, who had come round from the well of the court. They perched on the bench beside the Rowes, where they were joined a moment or two later by Compton. The two lawyers conferred in low voices, and Jamie watched as the party left by a door at the far end of the room from where he sat. Christopher contrived to hang back, and as he slipped through the door after the others he glanced quickly back and sketched a white, frightened smile.

  Jamie managed to smile back, but it cost him an effort. As soon as Christopher had disappeared from view he turned to Dr Lane. His face was flushed and his eyes were blazing. The whole of his small, compact body was shaking, and Lane thought for a moment that it was with fear or distress. Then, looking more closely, he saw that the boy was possessed with rage. He was so angry that for some time he was unable to speak. When he did speak it was all he could do to force the words out. "The... the old bastard!" he spluttered. Despite the low voice in which he uttered them, there was a concentration of venom in the words which Dr Lane found thoroughly upsetting to hear from the mouth of a boy.

  "The old bastard!" Jamie said again. He was calmer, and the ferocity was the more frightening for being so quiet and controlled. "He - he did that deliberately," went on Jamie. "He only did it to make Chris suffer on tenterhooks for another hour and a half. Like when they used to hang people and let them down so they could breathe before hanging them again. He's torturing him. I'd hang him, if I could. I wish I could get to him, sir."

  Lane watched him, not sure how to handle him while he was possessed by this passion. Jamie looked up at him, and a lot of the fury went out of his face. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to burst out like that. But, honestly, he is tormenting Chris, isn't he? You can see it as well, can't you, sir?"

  Lane wondered whether to prevaricate in the interests of keeping Jamie's temperature down, but immediately realised that it would be futile. Besides, he felt that there was much in what Jamie said, and that he therefore deserved an honest reply. "I don't think we can say for certain, Jamie," he said thoughtfully. "I'd very much like to feel confident in telling you that it's just prejudice brought about by your feelings for Christopher, but... but... well, I'm afraid I can't. I'm very much afraid you're right. If it is so, then I'm inclined to agree with you. It's quite extraordinarily cruel, to say the least of it." He sat in thought for a minute, while Jamie simmered at his side. "We had better go and have lunch," said Lane. "Are you hungry?"

  "Not very, sir, but I expect I could manage something," Jamie said. "Will we go to a pub?"

  Lane looked at him in surprise. "Certainly not," he said. "We'll find a restaurant, or a cafe at least. Pub indeed." He looked hard at Jamie as they left the court. "You're quite a lot older than your years in some ways, Jamie, but I hope you don't include pub-haunting among your repertoire of vices," he said. "I'll have something to say about that if you do, my boy."

  "Not yet, sir," said Jamie. Lane looked down at him, wondering if it was one of Jamie's jokes, but the boy was walking along with his eyes downcast and seemed to be deep in depression. Lane's brow creased in thought.

  ***

  While Lane and Jamie were looking for a restaurant Christopher was in a pub, sipping bitter with his parents on one side of him and his two lawyers on the other. He was having difficulty in keeping the beer down, and more in giving any attention to the conversation. The party had come to much the same conclusion as Jamie had about the judge's motive in the adjournment. "Can't be anything else, c
an it?" said Hope-Thomson, glancing at Compton.

  "Beats me," replied the barrister. "I've never known anything quite as flagrant. It's bloody wicked of him, if that is it. Perhaps he really can't make up his mind, but..." He let it go. "He's been running it against us all the way, of course," he said after a pause. "You must have realised that," he went on, raising an eyebrow at Christopher and his parents. The three of them nodded glumly in unison.

  "I had to tear up half my submission," went on the barrister. "I didn't know much about this judge before today, but as soon as we'd got under way I could see I was going to be up against it. He wouldn't see any point in our favour, and then, of course, he started making sarcastic little cracks. That bloody business about cliches, for instance. And one or two other choice little interventions. I'd've liked to let him have both barrels once or twice, but the trouble with judges like him is that if counsel upsets them they take it out of the client's skin. This old... this one looks as if he'd just be unscrupulous enough to do it, too. So I had to bite my tongue. And, as I say, I had five minutes' worth of purple prose I was going to let him have, if he'd been half-way sympathetic. That all went down the drain, and I had to make do as best I could with the rest of it."

  He chatted on for a few minutes, but the rest of the party were too depressed to take any interest. He started talking shop with Hope-Thomson. After a while, however, the atmosphere became too much for Christopher. He waited for a lull in the legal gossip and asked, "What were you going to say, that you had to ditch?"

  Compton smiled at him. "I was going to tell the old vulture about a notice board."

  "A notice board?" echoed Christopher, looking curious despite his feelings. His parents too looked up and took an interest.

  "Oh, well, it's an old tale one hears from time to time in a pub. The story goes that somewhere in a park there stands a notice board, which says simply, 'It is forbidden to throw stones at this notice'." There was laughter from the whole party, and the atmosphere lightened.

  "But whatever can that have to do with Christopher?" asked his mother, mystified. Compton looked at his watch. "We've got a little while yet," he said. "It's quite obvious, really, but I was rather proud of it. But I'm afraid the judge wouldn't have appreciated the neatness of my analogy. I was going to say..."

  ***

  Jamie and Lane were already in their seats when Christopher and the others filed back in through the other door. Jamie was pleased to see that although Christopher was still looking tired and washed out, and far from well, he was a little brighter than he had been in the previous session. In fact the legal small-talk had interested him, taking him out of himself for a while. He kissed his mother on the cheek and smiled at her as he said something to her. As he went to resume his place in the dock he smiled quite openly at Jamie, a brave smile that didn't quite make it, but a good attempt. Jamie sent one of his best in return, and turned to Dr Lane. "He's being very brave about it, sir, isn't he?"

  "He's doing as well as most boys would in his shoes, I should say," Lane replied. He studied Christopher and pondered deeply, trying to imagine how it must feel to be Jamie or Christopher, wondering what exactly they had found in each other that could exert so unbreakable a hold over them, that they could smile at each other and take a pleasure plain to see at a time like the present. Dr Lane was a wise and learned man, but the thing was outside his understanding. He postponed his reflections as the red curtain was drawn back and the judge was bawled back into court. Everyone rose and sat down again except Christopher, who, at a sign from Hope-Thomson, remained on his feet.

  The judge took his time about settling into the big chair, sorting out papers and glancing round him. At length he turned his gaze to Christopher. "Christopher Martin Rowe," he said, quite briskly. "I have given a great deal of thought to how I am to deal with you. My first thought was to impose a custodial sentence." There was an audible sigh from the end of the bench where the Rowes were sitting. Christopher's body writhed slightly and he steadied himself against the back of the dock. Hope-Thomson in the well of the court took off his spectacles and polished them on his handkerchief. Jamie drew in a breath so sharply that he almost choked. Lane swiftly put an arm round his shoulders and held him tightly to his side.

  The judge paused, perhaps aware that parts of his audience required a moment to collect themselves, then continued. "It has been suggested by your learned counsel - perhaps I should rather say that it has been delicately hinted - that the offence to which you have pleaded guilty is less than grave. Learned counsel ventured to hint that when persons, even persons as young as the boy Potten..." His eyes flicked up and rested on Jamie's scarlet face for a moment, "...are fully consenting, then acts such as those in which you engaged do not constitute the serious offence that the law proclaims them to be. You yourself, when I gave you a chance to offer your own views, stated that opinion explicitly. I have to tell you, Rowe, that I do not agree.

  "Our masters in Parliament thought fit many years ago now to relax the rigour of the law in respect of unnatural offences as committed between consenting adults, and that was Parliament's privilege. They did not see fit to extend the same licence to persons of your age, still less to those of Potten's age. You chose to demonstrate your contempt for Parliament by going ahead with your unnatural practices, and in this room this morning you added to that a similar contempt for the Court.

  "I have a note of your actual words here: 'I can't be expected to be sorry for something that did nothing but good to the only two people whose business it was, and no harm to anyone at all'. That was what you said this morning. Earlier, in answer to my question whether you felt any remorse, after a series of prevarications and, I take it, deliberate misunderstandings of my perfectly simple question, you finally gave me a straight answer. I'm sure it was the true answer. 'No', you said. Well, Rowe, that tells me as much, I think, as I need to know about your state of mind, and I don't propose to waste any more time on you.

  "Something else that our masters in Parliament have seen fit to do, in their wisdom, Rowe, is to recommend that someone of your youth ought not to receive a custodial sentence; I must accept their wisdom. The sentence of the court for the vile and unnatural offence to which you plead guilty is, therefore, one of imprisonment for eighteen months, suspended for two years."

  This time there was a clearly audible sob from Audrey Rowe, and another from Jamie. Lane squeezed him more tightly still round his shoulders, and watched him very closely, prepared at any moment to run him out into the foyer if he looked likely to be sick, or to make any demonstration. Christopher sagged heavily against the pine planking of the dock and leaned, breathing heavily and trembling so violently that it was visible from the rear of the court. Lane glanced across at the Rowes and saw that the father had his arms round his wife, who was weeping onto his shoulder.

  The judge looked round the room before he spoke again. "Rowe, there is more I have to say to you yet. Stand up, please." Christopher did his best to straighten up in the dock, leaning lightly on the front rail. "Your learned solicitor will explain the full implications of the sentence I have just passed on you," went on the judge, "but I shall take it upon myself to offer you a piece of advice myself. You will do well to heed it. The first thing to keep in mind is that if you commit any offence within the two-year period I stipulated, you will be brought back to this court to be dealt with for this offence. That is in addition to whatever sentence you may receive for the other offence.

  "I hope it is unnecessary for me to point out to you that this sentence is designed to deter you from committing any offences of any kind; but most of all it is intended as a warning to you that the court will not tolerate any repetition of the grotesque and abhorrent vice of the kind for which you have been sentenced today. If you are found engaging in bestial and unnatural sexual perversion in the next two years, Rowe, you will assuredly find yourself in prison with plenty of time to contemplate your foolishness, not to say your sinfulness.

 
"Finally, most emphatically of all, I warn you to stay away from the boy James Potten. He is, in my view, as grave a danger to society as you are, if not a worse. Your learned counsel argued persuasively and ably on your behalf that this boy led you into your wicked practices. I myself was not persuaded of that. I take the view that you, as the older boy, had a bounden moral duty to reject his blandishments and inform his parents of the kind of unnatural practices into which he had by some blasphemous pathway managed to stumble. You did not do so, and you have paid the penalty for your insensate weakness, as well as for your perverted nature. None the less, I warn you, he is dangerous, especially for you. So stay away from him at all costs."

  Lane, watching Jamie closely throughout this tirade, was becoming very alarmed. Jamie's face was so suffused with scarlet that he looked to be in serious danger of having some kind of seizure, and he was squirming and wriggling to get free from Lane's clamp-like embrace. His eyes were blazing and bulging from his head in such a depth of rage that Lane feared for the boy's health. He bent awkwardly, still holding him down by main force, and whispered in his ear. "Jamie, for God's sake, be still, boy. You'll have to come out of the room with me if you won't be still." This had an immediate effect. Jamie's eyes still gleamed, and his face was still flushed crimson, but his struggles ceased instantly, and he nodded fiercely at Lane, gulping for air. Lane released his grip on him, just resting his arm across the boy's shoulders in case of further mutiny. He bent again, less uncomfortably, and whispered, "You must behave yourself. You simply cannot do as you please in this place. Now, can I trust you? Or do I have to take you out?" Jamie nodded mutely at him, then lifted his face. Lane bent, and he whispered "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be all right. It was just those things he said about me and Chris..." Lane nodded at him, immensely relieved.