"Well, I want him, Dad. I know you don't really understand this, and I know you don't like it much either, but there's nothing you or anyone can do about it - not even me.
"He's mine - or rather, I'm his. I belong to him, and that's that. We'll sort this imbecile bloody business out when I see him after he sobers up, and we'll work out how we're going to make the waiting bearable. But some time or other, sooner or later - sooner, if I can think of a way to do it without getting into more trouble - I'm going to have him." He paused for thought, still holding the sleepy, befuddled Jamie on his arm and walking him in a tight five-yard track.
He looked earnestly at his father and tried again. "You don't know him, Dad. You've only seen him in the worst possible light - now, when he's got so desperate that he doesn't know what he's doing, and in the court. The only thing you know about him is that he's caused a lot of terrible trouble and suffering - for you and Mum and Dr Lane and his wife, and everybody. But that's not Jamie's fault." He saw his father's expression, and went on, speaking seriously but calmly, offering explanation but not apology. "It's not his fault, Dad. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He never did anybody any harm, not intentionally. All he wanted was to be free to give me what I wanted him to give me, and to take what I gave him willingly. I love him, Dad," he ended, a little hopelessly, "and this doesn't make any difference to that -except that after this he belongs to me and I belong to him more than ever."
Jamie mumbled something incoherent. Christopher stopped and bent to hear. "There, there. Don't worry," he said gently into Jamie's ear. "He was trying to say he was sorry for all the trouble he's caused," he said to his father after a moment. "Dad, shall we start walking him back? We'll meet the others on the way, and it'll be less distance to get him to the ambulance. I suppose they did call for one?" he added.
"Yes, Audrey called one before I left," replied Rowe. "I'm surprised they're not here by now. You're right, anyway. Let's start back." He turned the bicycle round and they began the two-mile walk back, Robert wheeling the bike a comfortable talking distance behind Christopher, laboriously supporting Jamie, who was beginning to make an effort to help himself. "As you said, Chris," he said as they set off, "I don't really pretend to know how you feel. It's nothing like how I imagined - er - people like you behaved. I suppose I always assumed they were... I don't really know..."
"You thought like most people do, I expect," said Christopher, helping him. "You thought we were all limp-wristed, mincing queens..." He chuckled suddenly.
"What's funny?" asked Robert in surprise.
"Oh, it's nothing much, Dad. I was just remembering Neil when we got back from court." He laughed again and told his father of Neil's antics with his mother's handbag. Robert Rowe tried to imagine it, and suddenly laughed. "Well," he said, "I'm glad you can laugh at something like that, anyway. Good old Neil.
"Do you know what he said when we told him that you were... about you?" he said after an interval.
"I don't know, but I imagine he said 'so what?"' said Christopher. "Something like that," assented his father. "It shook me rigid. There I was, stumbling and groping for some way of telling him without upsetting him. In the end all I could say was 'Chris is gay, Neil', and he just stood there for a moment and looked at me, and then he laughed and said, 'Really, Dad, is that all?' It made me think, I can tell you. I thought, here's your mother and me, thinking it's the end of the world. We can't believe it, and all Neil says is 'Is that all?"'
Christopher switched Jamie from one side to the other, flexing his freed arm to restore the circulation, and said, "Dad, do you remember what the barrister said in the pub, while we were waiting for my sentence? About the notice board?"
"I do," said Rowe, "and that gave me more to think about. All this is very new to us, Chris. - I mean, we knew queers existed... I suppose I'll have to stop calling them that now. I don't quite know what to call them... anyway, it was just that I never thought we'd ever have one in the family, I suppose..."
"I can't say I like the word much, Dad, but I don't really care what you call 'them'. It's how you think of us that matters. Ah!" He broke off. "Here's the others." Dr Lane appeared round the next turn in the towpath, with another man carrying a leather bag. They hurried on as fast as Jamie could stumble.
"Let's have a look at him," said the stranger briskly. He set his bag down and rummaged in it, bringing out a stethoscope and an opthalmoscope. He looked into Jamie's eyes and hauled his shirt up to listen to his chest and back with the stethoscope. "What's he taken?" he asked. "He's had some whisky, and a lot of tablets," said Christopher. "I don't know how much of either. Hello, Dr Lane. I got to him in time. How much whisky was there in that bottle, sir?"
"Mmm. It was about half-full, I suppose. And we believe he had thirty-six tablets with him - three cards of twelve - but there may have been a fourth card," said Lane, looking anxiously at Jamie. "You've done very well, Christopher," he added, looking at Christopher with approval.
"Well, there was about three inches of the whisky left," said Christopher to the doctor. "Means he's had about two or three inches-worth, I should think. He's pretty pi... drunk. I made him bring it all up, though, and a lot of the tablets hadn't really dissolved yet. They were a bit fluffy, but they were still separate. Did I do right?" he asked the doctor anxiously. "You did exactly what you should have done," said the doctor, picking up his bag and setting off back the way he had come. "I'm going to go ahead and make sure the ambulance is ready at the bridge. Get him there as fast as you can. He's not out of the woods yet."
Christopher and Lane opened their mouths to ask questions, but the doctor was already striding rapidly away. They continued, Christopher helping Jamie. Robert Rowe and Dr Lane had a good deal to talk about, and dropped back twenty yards so they could converse freely without worrying the boy. Twenty minutes later they reached the bridge. Jamie was efficiently plucked from Christopher's arms and whizzed into the ambulance. Christopher stepped up to the vehicle's tail. "I'll go with him, Dad," he said. Turning to Dr Lane he added, "I'd like to come to speak to you later on, sir, if you'll allow me to. May I come to your house, please? It's very important," he pleaded.
Lane nodded kindly at him. "Of course you may, Christopher. Come at any time. Meanwhile, I think your parents and I must talk, so we'll leave you. Goodbye for the present."
"Are you sure you ought to..." began Robert Rowe, but Christopher simply smiled a thin smile and said, as he climbed into the ambulance, "I wouldn't leave him now, Dad, now would I?" He vanished into the vehicle, the crewman shut the doors, and it roared away with its blue light flashing and the siren beginning its banshee howl.
After the ambulance made its ear-splitting departure Robert Rowe and Dr Lane stood for a few minutes, watching the glittering canal flowing peacefully under the bridge, and eying each other now and then a little warily. At length Rowe broke the silence. "We have got to talk, Dr Lane."
"I know," said Lane.
"Your Jamie's a bit of a problem child, isn't he?" said Rowe. He had rather taken a liking to Dr Lane, and reflected that he would have put it a great deal more strongly had he not wished to spare the other man's feelings as far as he could.
"Well, Mr Rowe," said Lane, a little stiffly, "I can certainly understand your regarding him as such. He's been nothing but a series of traumatic problems for you. We know him better, and have seen many better sides of him. And, of course, Christopher sees him differently from any of us, though I have to confess that though I have tried hard to do so, I don't understand exactly what they do feel for each other."
"Nor do I, Dr Lane," said Rowe with feeling. "I wish I did. It would make the whole thing clearer if I could begin to understand just how they feel, but it's completely beyond me." He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. "I mean, Chris has always been so... so normal. So ordinary. Oh, he's bright, we saw that when he was at primary school. He's always been the brightest in the family. He was always a gentle, quiet boy. But ordinary. Just like me
. Like his mother and Neil, for that matter. And then, out of the blue, this Jamie appears on the scene and he reveals this... well, I don't know... it makes you think you've never really known the kid after all..." He fell silent.
"Perhaps we'd better go back," suggested Lane. "I think, if I may suggest it, that we might all benefit from a candid discussion of both boys. We have both, after all, to work out a modus vivendi with one of them..."
"I beg your pardon?" said Rowe.
"I'm sorry. I meant that we both have a boy with us of whom we're exceedingly fond, but who, in one way or another, poses us problems. Different problems, because they're different and so are we, but problems all the same, and interrelated at that. At least, I have a feeling that they are going to be interrelated."
"I don't want them interrelated," said Rowe. "I hate to burden you when you've already got so much on your plate, but really, Dr Lane, it's got to stop. I mean, we've got through that awful ordeal of the trial, and then, hardly five minutes after it's all over and we think we've got something worked out to take the pressure off Chris, that boy comes along and throws another bloody great spanner in the works. I was supposed to be driving Chris down to London this afternoon, to get him out of the way until he goes off to university. Well, that's off now, isn't it? We shan't be able to go until tomorrow now, if then. I don't know how long he'll be at the hospital with Jamie, but it'll be some time, and - well, what chance would you give me if I tried to drag him away?"
He read Lane's face. "Exactly. I'd have to hit him on the head and knock him out. And when he finally comes away from the hospital he wants to come and talk to you. Well, all right, I suppose that's got to happen. I'm not sure what he wants to say to you, but I could make a fair guess. I shan't try to stop him, for the same reason as I wouldn't try to get him away from the hospital - same reason as I didn't really try to stop him going in the ambulance just now. He'd have gone whatever I'd said or done."
"I understand your feelings. In many ways I share them. I wish Jamie and Christopher were just ordinary, conventional boys, with ordinary, conventional things on their minds. But I'm afraid, Mr Rowe, that to say you don't want their problems interrelated is very likely to prove to be mere wishful thinking."
Rowe looked at him in alarm, mingled with the beginnings of anger. "Isn't it our job to make sure that's what it isn't?"
"Perhaps, if such a thing were possible. But the point is, is it possible, Mr Rowe? Please don't misunderstand me. The last thing I want is for anyone connected with me to be a cause of grief to you. Nor do I myself wish you and your family anything but well. You and I, Mr Rowe, are on the same side in this, whatever our boys get up to. But really, consider the evidence of your own eyes, not ten minutes ago. Do you really believe that everything will be put right by putting a little distance between your son and Jamie? You said yourself, you didn't try to stop Christopher going in the ambulance, you won't try to move him from the hospital or prevent him from coming to speak to me. Very well, I could prevent that last; but what good would that do? It seems to me that the more we set out to make difficulties for these two, the more we shall tend to drive them into each other's arms - in this case, regrettably, literally so. I think, Mr Rowe, we must consider the matter further than merely wishing it were not so. And, if I may suggest it, I think our wives may very well have some ideas that might not occur to us. Shall we rejoin them?"
Rowe looked at him in an uncertain mixture of hostility and respect. "Yes," he said unhappily. "Yes, let's get back." And grudgingly he added, "If you've got any practical ideas about what we can do, I must admit I'd be glad to hear them."
"I think we must face the possibility that there may be nothing we can do. But I hope that's not the case." They got into the car and Lane drove back to Cross Oak Gardens.
***
The ambulanceman had been busy over Jamie throughout the short journey to the hospital, so Christopher had no chance to speak to him or even hold his hand. When they arrived Jamie was whisked away on a trolley, and Christopher had hours to kill. He spent half an hour cleaning himself up as well as he could in a hospital washroom. Then he went out into the town. He blew a fiver on the Listener, the Spectator, the New Statesman and the Cricketer and wandered with them into a pub. Having wasted a couple of hours over the magazines and three pints of indifferent bitter he went back to the hospital and asked if he could see Jamie.
"Oh, yes," said the ward sister he was directed to. "You'll be Christopher, I suppose?"
"That's right. Why, has he mentioned me?"
"Yes, he's been asking for you. You can see him for a while. But you're not to do anything to upset or strain him, he's quite seriously ill." She saw fear etch itself into his face instantly like acid. "Don't worry. He's not critical. They got to him in time to save anything permanent. But it would have been touch and go if they'd been half an hour or so later." She looked hard at him, saw the rips and stains in his clothes, and her face changed. "It wasn't you who found him, was it?" He nodded, his face a mask of concern. "Oh, well, you very likely saved his life, you know," she said. "Is he a friend of yours?"
Christopher nodded impatiently. She showed him to a small room and gestured to him to go in. "Remember," she admonished, "don't let him get excited or upset, please."
"I won't," he said, and slipped into the room. The sister went away, making a face to herself. "Friend" she muttered to herself. "Oh, yes?"
Jamie was lying almost flat on his back in bed, with an intravenous drip leaking some liquid into his arm. Though he had been cleaned up, he was very pale, and there were puffy bluish bags under his eyes; but the vacant expression had gone out of them, and he looked much closer to his normal self than he had that morning. He gave Christopher a great smile of pure joy, and Christopher felt a shiver run through him. Jamie, and Jamie's smile, still had the power to turn his guts to water. If anything, he thought, it was increasing. He went to the bedside and gave Jamie a long kiss. "How are you?" he asked gently.
"I'm not too bad, Chris," he said in a small voice. "Chris, darling, you saved my life. I don't know how to say thank you, but you did. Did you know that?" Christopher nodded, smiling. "Never mind about that..."
"Never mind?" Jamie said. "I don't know how I'm supposed to never mind. I'd have been dead if you'd been a bit later. Oh, Chris, I'm sorry..."
"Jamie, don't be sorry, and don't thank me. You can do both of those in one, by doing two things for me. Will you do something for me if I ask you - if I ask for that thing especially?"
"Chris," Jamie said seriously, pushing Christopher away from him to let him see the sincerity on his face, "I'll do anything you ask. I promise you that. No exceptions. I know I've broken promises to everybody lately. I'm not proud of myself, Chris, though I only did all the things I've done for you - or at least, for us. But I've never broken a promise to you, and I won't."
Christopher looked firmly into his eyes. "All right then, Jamie, my dear. I said two things, and they're these. One is, wait for me, and the other is, don't do anything foolish while we're waiting. I'll explain why I'm asking you in a moment, but will you promise me those two things right now, just on the strength of what I've said? Just because I've asked you?"
Jamie took Christopher's hand in his own and squeezed it. He looked straight into Christopher's eyes for a long interval. Then he gave a long, deep sigh and, with a sad smile he said "I promise, Chris. I'll promise you those two things." He reached out and put an arm round Christopher's neck and pulled him down to himself, and held his face against his own, saying nothing, for some minutes.
"I'll explain those two promises," Christopher said, gently drawing away. Jamie let him go, but curled his fingers round Christopher's and stroked the backs of them. "Yes, Chris?"
"First, I wanted you to promise to wait for me. It won't be for very long. In theory it could be for five years, until you're twenty-one, but in fact it won't be anything like that. I've got to keep my nose clean, not get into any trouble with the law, for
two years, but I doubt if it'll even be that long. The dust will settle, people will forget. Maybe one day they'll even change the law. But even if it did take two years, well, I'd only be twenty-one, and you'd still only be seventeen. We'll have a lifetime in front of us. You wouldn't have seen a great deal of me in that time anyway, because I'd be away at university for most of the year.
"Now the reason. I told my father this morning, Jamie, as we were bringing you back from the fishing place: I told him that I was going to have you for my own, because I already belonged to you. I laid that straight out flat for him, and he didn't like it much. But he didn't argue, because I think he's just beginning to see what there is between you and me. What I'm telling you is that you've got to wait for me, because you belong to me, every last bit as much. I need you, Jamie. It's not just that I love you, though you know I do. It's much, much more than that. I need you, Jamie. I couldn't do without you. That's why you've got to wait for me, as I've got to wait for you. We've tasted what we are for each other, and now we've got to wait for the full course. But if you don't wait for me, it'll be me going off to some lonely fishing pool with a bottle of scotch and a hundred aspirins.
"And here's another reason. Jamie, I don't particularly like doing this to you, and you can call it blackmail if you like, but you've got to wait for me, because you owe me. Now how does that little speech make you feel?"
Jamie put his free arm behind his head and gave him a long, lazy smile, the most beautiful, Christopher thought, he had ever smiled. "I liked it," said Jamie. "You never realised, Chris, you were always so... so polite about us, and how we felt about each other, weren't you?"
"Polite?" echoed Christopher, puzzled.
"You never realised that I didn't want to be treated with kid gloves - as if I was breakable. I want to owe you, Chris. Did you really never see that? I want to be told, Chris, told that you love me and all that, of course, but told that I belong to you. I want to be told... oh, Chris, I just want to be ordered about now and again. Do you understand?"
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