Unnatural Relations

by Mike Seabroook

  "I don't know," she said, thinking rapidly. "Let me think. There was one large box. That had - at least three cards, probably four. They have twelve tablets each. And there were a few aspirins." He looked back into the cupboard. "Are these the aspirins you mean?" he asked, showing her a small bottle. "Yes," she said after a rapid glance.

  "Were they the only other pain-killers we had?"

  "Yes, I think so - yes, I'm sure that's all we had," she said, nodding to herself as her thoughts raced. Lane suddenly rapped his hand on the work-top and ran past her and through the hall into the living room. He emerged a second later. "The whisky bottle's missing," he said grimly. "Oh, my God," she breathed. "What now?"

  Lane stood for a moment in indecision. "Where would he go?" he said. "Where would he go?"

  Edith twisted her hands in anxiety. "Somewhere where he might have met Christopher..." she began.

  "That's it!" cried Lane. "Christopher. He'll have gone to Christopher first, whatever happens. Even if he's decided to... to... he wouldn't do anything without at least trying to see Christopher first. Edith, get the car out," he commanded.

  "John, darling," she said soothingly, "why not ring the Rowes? They'll..."

  "They had their number changed - the furore after the story in the papers. Don't know the new number. Get the car while I ring the doctor."

  "But what can you tell him?" she queried logically. "Where can you tell him to go?" He stared at her for a moment. "Yes, I suppose so," he said. "I'll get the car, I'm a faster driver. Get your shoes on," he called over his shoulder, delving in his pocket for his car keys as he disappeared.

  Lane, who customarily drove as sedately and majestically as he walked, roared to a halt in Cross Oak Gardens nine minutes after he opened his garage doors. He strode up the short path, with Edith following breathlessly yards behind. He leaned on the bell, rapping on the panels at the same time. Edith looked at her watch. It showed exactly 9:30. Audrey Rowe opened the door as Lane turned to Edith, with the result that he almost rapped her on the jaw, and then almost stumbled into her arms. "Dr Lane!" she ejaculated in astonishment to see him. He presented a disconcerting appearance. He was still in shirtsleeves, and the tail had worked loose and was flapping outside his trousers. His hair was flying wildly about his head like an iron-grey halo. Behind him Edith was in flat shoes and a pair of scruffy black slacks with a hole in one knee, which she used for dusty household or garden jobs, and the top two buttons of her blouse had come undone in her frantic battle to get her seat-belt on as Lane careered round the bends of the Steeple Wynton road into town.

  Audrey quelled her initial astonishment in a moment, perceiving that only some kind of emergency could possibly have brought the suave and self-possessed Lanes into public view in such a condition. "What's happened?" she asked sharply.

  "Mrs Rowe," he said, striving to speak calmly while he recovered his breath. "I'm terribly sorry to inflict myself on you like this, but it's an emergency - at least, I think it is. Please tell me, do you know where Christopher is?"

  "Why, yes, he's here," she said. "Please, what is it, Dr Lane?"

  "Is Jamie with him? Please tell me. It's very urgent."

  "Jamie? No, he certainly is not," she said, going instantly onto the defensive, her eyes hardening. "Is that boy trying to..."

  Christopher appeared in the hallway behind her "What is it, Mum?" he began to ask. Then he caught sight of Lane beyond her, and immediately pushed past her, taking in the Lanes' dishevelled appearance, the car left outside with the driver's door wide open, and his mother's expression, in a single glance. He sized things up in a moment. "Hello, Dr Lane," he said rapidly. "It's Jamie, isn't it? What's happened?" He seemed suddenly to grow in stature, taking over from his mother as by right.

  Lane had got his breath back. "Christopher," he said, breathing deeply. "I'm very glad you're here. Please tell me quickly: have you seen Jamie this morning, since just after nine?"

  "No, sir," said Christopher immediately, alarm filling his eyes. "Why, sir, what's happened? You can tell me."

  "He's disappeared," Lane said. "He left the house for Saturday school this morning at five to nine, as usual. He never got there, but he was seen absconding over a wall - a known place for boys who want to go out of bounds. He's taken with him, we think, a bottle of whisky and an unknown but probably large quantity of tablets."

  "Oh, NO! Oh, my Christ!" cried Christopher, sagging against the door jamb as if he had been struck. "What in God's name is he thinking about?"

  "I fear the worst, Christopher, and I need your help. I thought at first he might have come here to see you. If he was going to do anything desperate I thought he would try to speak to you first. As he hasn't, can you think of anywhere he would be most likely to go? Think well, I beg you. Time is vital." He looked at his watch. It was 9:40.

  "The fishing place," said Christopher without hesitation. "He'd go to the fishing place, I'm sure of it."

  "Where is this place, this fishing place?" asked Lane.

  "It's at the lake," said Christopher over his shoulder as he retreated into the hall and stooped for his shoes. He came back and knelt on the front step to put them on and tie the laces, talking up to Lane as he did so. "The old gravel pit. Favourite place of Jamie's for fishing, and we used to meet there often. About two miles along the towpath. Three miles from here, about."

  "Can I get my car there?"

  "No, sir Can't get anything bigger than a bike along the towpath. You can drive as far as the stone bridge across the canal, then it's bike or on foot."

  "Mrs Rowe," said Lane, his composure back, "I know you have no cause to feel kindly disposed towards Jamie, but I must ask you - beg you - to allow me to use Christopher's help. He may, quite literally, make the difference between life and death."

  "I couldn't stop him if I wanted to - not that I do," she said. "Look at him." Christopher's face was set, and he looked only to Lane. "I'm younger than you, sir. Run me down to the stone bridge - I'll direct you. I'll get there in ten minutes. You can follow. You can ring for a doctor from here. Mum, get Dad, will you. He can follow me down. Tell him to take my bike. Ambulance can wait by the bridge. I can carry him that far if... if..." He walked fast to Lane's car. "You can go out the way you're facing, sir," he said to Lane over his shoulder. He went round, got in and had his seat-belt on before Lane had reached the vehicle.

  On the way Lane glanced across at him, and there was something almost like affection in his look. "If we're right about the location," he said, "you'll never do your friend more service than this. It would take us three times as long to get there, and that might be too late." Christopher gave him a smile of strange serenity. "I'm right about the place, Dr Lane," he said with utter certainty. "And I'll be there in time. Don't ask me how I know. Wishful thinking, I dare say." His tone changed. "If I'm not, I'll no doubt be going down there myself before long," he said softly, speaking to himself.

  "Don't say such a thing, please, Christopher," said Lane. The tone, rather than the words, had sent a shiver through him. "Do you know what to do with him if you find that he has taken the tablets?"

  "Not very certain, sir. Turn left here, and you'll see the bridge up ahead. Make him sick, I suppose?"

  "Quite right. That's the first thing. Bend him forward, stick two fingers down his throat and tickle the back of his throat, and keep doing it until he's brought up everything there is to bring up. Doesn't matter how painful it is, just make sure he's vomited himself dry. Is this the bridge you want?" Christopher was already slipping out of his seat-belt. Lane halted the car with a jerk and Christopher was out before it had settled. "Anything else, sir?" he asked, still radiating the same strange calm.

  "We should have hot coffee or tea, but I'll arrange that and we'll bring it when we follow. But the most important thing is to keep him at all costs from going to sleep. Shout at him, sing to him, make him talk, slap him, and most of all keep him on his feet, walking, and his eyes open. Keep his eyes open, keep him
talking and keep him walking. Go on, Christopher, and God bless you. We'll follow as quickly as we can."

  Christopher was already moving at a fast jog down onto the towpath under the bridge. He turned quickly and waved a hand, then accelerated into a run. Lane watched him cover the first hundred yards and disappear from view round the first bend, then walked rapidly back to his car and shot back the way he had come. It was 9:52.

  ***

  Jamie, walking fast, reached the fishing place at 9:45. By the time he had slithered under the hawthorns, dropped down the bank and forced his way through to the little greensward a further two minutes had passed. He walked slowly round the little semi-circular patch of grass, looking about him, down at the rough, tussocky turf, up at the rainy sky, seeing the slender reddish branchlets of the alders as if for the first time. Lastly he walked to the edge of the water and stood gazing into the water. He felt vaguely that he would have rather liked to have seen the great old pike once more, but the water was dark and opaque under the heavy, many-shaded grey of the sky, and there was nothing to be seen.

  There was a blank expression on his face, and he felt oddly numb. He knew that he was Jamie Potten, and he knew that he was not ill. He was, he thought, more or less his normal self. It was just that being normal didn't seem to feel the same today. I'm normal, he ruminated. It's being normal that's not normal today. I wonder why. He spent a few moments wondering, vaguely, but his mind didn't seem to be capable of holding on to anything much for very long this morning.

  He suddenly looked about him again, and wondered how he had come to be there. Why, I walked here, of course, he thought. How silly, to walk here and then, having got here, to forget how you came. Odd. He sat down on the sodden grass a few feet in from the water's edge. Wouldn't do to loll into the water and drown. Hmmm. Funny. Why not? He was going to... what was he going to do? Ah, yes, he thought. And, at last, his mind settled on the purpose that had brought him. He eased the J & B bottle from his blazer pocket and propped it between two tussocks beside him, pulling the box of Panadol from the other side pocket.

  Thirty-six Panadol. Should be enough, he thought, with enough whisky to wash them down. He pressed tablets out of their little recesses until he had them all cupped in his palm. He looked at his watch. It was a minute to ten. Odd that, he thought, I'd have thought I'd been here much longer than that, mooning about looking in the water for the old pike and all that. Nothing seems to be making much sense this morning.

  It still wasn't when there was a tremendous crashing in the thin belt of trees and he was hit by what felt like a battering ram from behind. So that's what dying was like, thought Jamie. A loud crashing noise and something hitting you in the back. Surprised we were all so afraid of it.

  ***

  The battering ram was in fact Christopher, bursting through the trees and hurling himself across to Jamie as he saw him prone on the wet grass with his head pillowed on his arm. Christopher scooped him up in his arms and swung him round, looking at his face. Jamie's eyes opened wide, and he gave a slow smile of delight. "Chris," he murmured. "What are you doing here?"

  "Oh, Jamie. My Jamie," moaned Christopher. "What have you done?"

  Jamie, who was wondering if he was in Heaven, just smiled at him, and closed his eyes in a blissful expression. Christopher shook him violently. "Have you taken those pills?" he asked, putting his hands under Jamie's armpits and jiggling him up and down like a puppet. Jamie's eyes snapped open, and Christopher was a trifle relieved to see a little more alertness in them. "What's the matter, Chris?" Jamie asked. "Why are you shaking me about?"

  "Have you taken those bloody tablets?" shouted Christopher at him, shaking him even more fiercely. "Have you? Wake up! For Christ's sake wake up!"

  He gripped Jamie firmly round his waist with one arm. Then he pushed his head down and worked a couple of fingers into his mouth. With some difficulty he managed to push them to the back of his throat. Jamie made little squeaking noises of protest, then was suddenly and painfully sick. Christopher, watching anxiously, saw a spirt of brownish liquid, followed by a stringy mouthful of yellow bile. He continued to run his fingers along the back of Jamie's throat, and the boy retched again, more violently, and this time Christopher gasped in overwhelming relief to see a great gobbet of white muck cascade to the grass, along with several individual tablets, fluffed and swollen as they had begun to break up. Christopher, wanting nothing more than to cradle his beloved in his arms and comfort him, hardened his heart and forced his fingers back into Jamie's mouth making him gag painfully again, and twice more, until there was nothing left but a trickle of sticky fluid. Christopher withdrew his fingers and was horrified to see they were flecked with blood; but he supposed that the violent retchings had been bound to strain something.

  He noticed for the first time that his eyes were streaming, and wiped his face as well as he could with his sleeve. Jamie began to fall into his arms, but Christopher fended him off brutally and shook him some more. Jamie gazed at him, with a hurt look in his eyes that wrung Christopher's heart, but he glared at Jamie and carried on shaking him. At last he saw what he had been hoping for. An angry gleam began to show itself in Jamie's eyes. He held him away from his body with one hand, and slapped his face lightly with the other. Jamie began to look a little more awake. He started dragging Jamie up and down the little greensward, trying to make him walk.

  It suddenly occurred to him, as Jamie's feet got into a tangle for the third time in ten yards, that he was probably more drunk than drugged. He lugged Jamie over to where he had found him, and inspected the scotch bottle lying in the grass. It still had about three inches of whisky in the bottom. Christopher didn't know how full it had been, but it meant that Jamie could have had a very large amount. He dropped the bottle and continued to haul Jamie up and down, seeing with relief that he was beginning to move a little less painfully.

  After a few more minutes of walking him up and down Christopher decided to try to get him to the towpath. It cost him a lot of sweat, because Jamie clung to him, evidently not fully aware of what was happening, but at length, after innumerable false starts, scrapes and tumbles he managed to half-drag, half-carry him up the steep bank. He subsided, exhausted, onto the flat ground at the top for a moment's respite, but quickly scrambled to his feet, not daring to allow Jamie to rest for more than a minute. Jamie moaned and muttered something as Christopher hauled him to his feet, but he clung to his arm and staggered obediently alongside when Christopher shook him again.

  Getting him under the hawthorns was the most difficult part of all, but eventually he made it, and the two of them scrambled up on the towpath side. Christopher looked at Jamie, then at himself. Their clothes were snagged and torn from the thorns and the trees on the bank, and they were both smothered in grass, leaves and mud and spotted with the blood-flecked white mess and bile vomited up by Jamie. Christopher wiped his face with a filthy sleeve, clearing some of his tears and replacing them with mud, and lugged Jamie to his feet again.

  As the two bedraggled scarecrows emerged on to the towpath, Christopher more or less lifting Jamie up one side of the fence and dropping him as gently as he could on the other, Robert Rowe arrived, bouncing and jolting along the towpath as fast as he could on Christopher's bike. He dismounted and propped the machine on the fence and ran to the two boys, his face taut with concern for his son, and rather less for Jamie. "Are you all right, Chris?" he gasped breathlessly as he reached them.

  "I'm all right, Dad," panted Christopher. "If you could just hold him for a minute, I'm out of breath. Just keep him on his feet. Make him walk up and down. He's drunk, Dad, I think," he said, breathing in great gasps. "He's had a lot of whisky, but I made him bring it all up again."

  "Had he had those tablets as well?" asked his father, hauling Jamie up and down a five-yard run.

  "Yes, he brought up a great mass of white gunge. It looked as if he'd taken a lot, but he can't have had them in him very long, because a lot of them were still whole," sa
id Christopher more easily. He extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his face. His father saw him doing it, and laughed shortly. "You won't do much good with that, Chrissie, you'll just spread it around a bit further." Christopher grinned weakly at him.

  Robert Rowe looked at his son with affection and respect. "You're a good boy, Chrissie. You've probably saved his life, you know."

  "I know, Dad," said Christopher soberly. "God, I'm glad I was in time. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd been too late and he'd... he'd been..." he left it unfinished. "Can I have him back now, Dad, please?" he said, taking Jamie from him anyway.

  Robert watched him thoughtfully as he walked Jamie gently up and down. "Are you really sure he's worth all your devotion, Chrissie?" he asked, very carefully. "He's caused nothing but trouble, you know that as well as I do. And this, coming on top of everything else... You know your mother and I don't want you to be unhappy - not over anything. And if this boy had really been what you wanted, we'd have got used to the idea, I dare say. You could have worked something out when you were both old enough, I imagine. But don't you think he's caused you enough grief and pain?"

  Christopher stopped walking Jamie for a moment and looked his father directly in the face. There was no anger or reproach in his face, but Rowe saw that there was a very adult look of resolve which he had never seen in his gentle, easy-going son before. "I've never wanted anything much, Dad. Not so badly that I couldn't do without it and not cry about it, anyway. That's true, isn't it?" Rowe nodded.