On Loving Josiah

by Olivia Fane

  Josiah looked up. ‘Is that so bad?’ he said.

  ‘Tell me. I want you to stand back from the situation for a while. You’re an intelligent boy. Just look at how this might seem to us. Thomas Marius is a man of thirty-six. He comes from an entirely different background from you. He’s mature, educated, for God’s sake. You’re barely fifteen. What’s in it for him, do you think? What could you possibly have in common with one another?’

  ‘A father loves a son. What do they have in common?’

  ‘They have blood in common, Josiah. That is an entirely different thing.’

  ‘Why couldn’t he have loved me as a father?’

  ‘Because he isn’t your father, that’s why!’

  ‘What kind of love do you think he had for me then?’

  ‘Do you acknowledge that he loved you? Can we at least get that straight?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ said Josiah, holding himself high. To have said anything else would have been a betrayal.

  June Briggs almost clapped with what she saw as a swift victory. Josiah noticed; he asked her, ‘Have you ever been loved?’

  ‘Most people have known that pleasure.’

  ‘So love is a good thing?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Is it ever bad?’

  ‘When it’s exploitative.’

  ‘But if love’s exploitative, it stops being love doesn’t it? It becomes something else.’ Josiah was sitting bolt upright, his cheeks red, his pulse racing.

  ‘You don’t think Dr Marius ever tried to exploit you?’

  ‘Of course not. He would never do that.’

  ‘But he encouraged you to go on holiday with him?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ said Josiah.

  June smiled malevolently. ‘And why, do you think, would he have wanted your company?’

  ‘He likes teaching. I like learning.’

  ‘Do you really think teachers want to go on holiday with their pupils?’

  ‘If there was a teacher who loved teaching enough and a pupil who loved learning enough, no holiday could be happier.’

  ‘That’s an absurd thing to say,’ snapped June. ‘Do you honestly expect me to believe you read schoolbooks all day? Kevin, do you want to fetch his case? Will we find some history project in there, is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘The word “education” has a Latin root. It means to “lead out”, not to “put in”.’

  ‘Okay. He’s taught you well,’ said June sourly. ‘Do either of you have any questions?’

  Kevin asked, ‘So how did you spend your time on holiday?’

  And Angela, ‘Were you lucky with the weather?’

  Both Josiah and June ignored them. ‘Tell us what happened,’ said June.

  ‘What do you want to know? We went to Siena. We looked around a few churches. Saw a few pictures.’

  ‘Where did you sleep?’ asked June.

  ‘We had a… room in the country.’

  ‘Did you share a bed?’

  Josiah said nothing.

  ‘Did he try to kiss you?’

  Again, nothing.

  ‘What happened between you?’

  Josiah shook his head.

  ‘Did he touch you inappropriately?’

  ‘Never,’ said Josiah.

  ‘Whatever you tell us now, you understand you will have to submit to a medical examination. The courts need to know if there was anal penetration.’

  Josiah stood up as if to go. ‘The courts can fuck off,’ he said.

  ‘Sit down, Josiah.’

  Josiah had no intention of sitting down, but shot June Briggs such a look of rage and loathing that all she could do to retaliate was tell him something that only an hour previously she had been wondering how to break to him.

  ‘All right, stand up then! Stand up! Your father died when you were gone.’ The words sprang out of her like a dart. Josiah stood even straighter, eyes staring ahead, unblinking. She relented immediately; Kevin and Angela were looking at her in astonishment.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to break the news like this,’ continued Miss Briggs, her voice in gentle mode. ‘He didn’t know where you were. He was upset. These things happen. Don’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Josiah.

  And this was how a nice brown tea pot, a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar, one full mug of tea and three empty ones, ended up on June Brigg’s lap; this was why the table banged against her shin bone on its way down to the floor, and why June shouted out stuff about his bloody mother that Kevin and Angela were fairly shocked to hear, and why June destroyed the tape afterwards. Josiah, victorious, threw the box of tissues onto June’s lap and told her to clean herself up with them. He smiled, took a bow, and left the room.

  The police took three days to find him. He had no coat, no food, no money. Both nights he crept back to Thomas’ house, but the pile of mail on his doormat made it clear that Thomas was still being questioned by the police. He found a garden shed not so far away and slept between bags of compost; he had his meals at Macdonald’s, posing as a customer near tables brimming with children, and eating their leftovers before they were cleared away. If he’d been intent on escaping for good, of course Josiah would have managed it. He could have stowed away on a train to London as easily as any of his ‘mates’ had, and told as many stories on his return. But Josiah had nothing to escape for. His sense of wretchedness was quickly to smother the rage he felt against that woman; and guilt muddied his grief. On the second evening, propped up against a Honda mower, and watching the twilight become night through the small shed window, he remembered Thomas telling him that he loved him for his purity and his strength of character, and how both qualities together amounted to holiness. Josiah had kissed him for that, full-bloodedly on his pursed lips, and had asked him whether his kiss was holy too. And now, mused Josiah, he was neither strong nor pure nor holy. He was a nothingness, he was lower than nothing, he was a contaminated vacuum.

  The lady of the house had spotted him pulling carrots from her vegetable patch at half past seven the following morning. The police came to the scene of the crime with their sirens blasting; Josiah lay down between the cabbages and the potatoes and thought of his father as the man he had been. And he thought, how strange it was, that when a man died you no longer remembered him as old and fat and mute and needy, but as vigorous and wise and good and kind; that there was an essence that lived on regardless, an essence of all that had been the best of them.

  When the lady of the house heard the commotion outside the door, she was furious, and she ran back to her bedroom window to see whether her trespasser had already run off. But what she saw was Josiah, lying perfectly still on the earth, with tears pouring down his cheeks. She wanted to shout out some warning, and she didn’t know who was the more idiotic, the police for their brash announcement of themselves, or the boy for ignoring it. She told the police at the door that she had dropped all charges and wanted nothing more to do with it; but Josiah had other plans. If Thomas wasn’t at his house, he was being held in a police cell. This was his chance of joining him there.

  ‘You want me, I think,’ said Josiah, meekly, emerging from the garden gate. He introduced himself to a pair of cops who seemed barely older than twenty.

  ‘Josiah Nelson. I absconded from The Hollies. I’ll be on some list somewhere.’

  A cop was on his walkie-talkie in a tick.

  ‘We’ve apprehended a lad here, uhh, Wilson…’ he began.

  ‘No, Nelson. Josiah Nelson. J. Nelson.’

  ‘Nelson. The Hollies.’

  ‘But I don’t want to prosecute!’ insisted the owner of the cabbage patch.

  All three gave her a look which said, ‘You’re irrelevant, darling,’ and indeed, within the minute she’d been left, open-mouthed, on her doorstep.

  The two cops were proud of their acquisition. They told him he was ‘a waste of police time,’ when he left clods of mud on their back seat. They presented him at their HQ as ha
ppily as a novice angler might a salmon to his family. It was still only eight in the morning, and no one was really interested. He was asked to wait in reception alongside a lugubrious-looking man who’d come to report the theft of his Audi. Josiah had always imagined that goodies and baddies would be separated by at least a screen, but no such luck.

  At a quarter to nine a pretty woman of about thirty in jeans and a T-shirt came in to introduce herself. Her name was Margie, she said, she was from the child protection team, and was going to be talking to him quite soon.

  ‘I’m just going to make a few inquiries,’ she said to Josiah. ‘Will you be alright here just a while longer? I tell you what, do you fancy a hot chocolate?’

  ‘I thought you’d put me in a cell,’ said Josiah.

  ‘We’re not barbarians here, sweetheart. I’ll send in a hot chocolate. Okay?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to arrest me for trespass?’

  ‘No one’s charging you. We might make a note of it somewhere, in case you make a habit of sleeping in ladies’ gardens, but I have a feeling that’s a one off, what do you think?’

  ‘What if I want to go into a cell? What if I run away again?’

  ‘Please don’t run away till we’ve had a chat, okay? Is that a deal?’

  Josiah stood up to go.

  ‘Look, come upstairs with me, then. Come and meet a few of my colleagues. They’ll take good care of you for a few minutes. Come on.’

  But the colleagues weren’t too interested in meeting him; a couple of police officers sat him on a chair next to the photocopier and went back to their computer screens, and worse, no one mentioned hot chocolate again. By the time Margie summoned him half an hour later Josiah was happy to have any company at all.

  The interview took place in a small, internal room which was dominated by the tinny sound of an old air-conditioning system. The evening before a shoplifter had been interviewed there, and she’d insisted on changing the reeking nappy of her baby: modern technology powerless before the oldest dirty protest in the world. So the room smelt of rotting compost. But Margie herself had shoulder-length blonde hair and pink lipstick and even a trace of blue eye-shadow left over from a night out. She was rooting for humanity, she was saying, we humans are all right, you know, once you get to know us.

  Margie made a point of moving the desk to one side of the room and moving the chairs closer together, so that their knees were almost touching. Then she said:

  ‘I have two confessions I want to make to you, Josiah. The first, is that I have a tape recorder. I’m putting it right here, on the desk, so that you can see it. But I’m not going to put it on straight away, but you’ll be able to see when I do. And the second confession is that I’m getting married next month, and we’re going to Italy for our honeymoon. Now, you’ve just spent a month there. Would you recommend it as a country? Is it beautiful? Did you eat well? Did you eat out, ever? Did you stay in the town or the country? You flew to Florence, I believe. Did you stay there a while?’

  Margie had a Yorkshire lilt to her voice, which suited her.

  Josiah even smiled when he said, ‘I’d recommend it.’

  ‘Where did you stay?’

  Josiah was immediately anxious and said nothing.

  ‘Did you stay in Florence at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Siena?’

  ‘We went to Siena. Quite a lot.’

  ‘What’s Siena like, then? Do you think we should go to Siena?’

  Josiah nodded.

  ‘Where should we go? What do you suggest?’

  ‘The Duomo. On the hill.’

  ‘And what’s that, when it’s at home?’

  ‘The Duomo. The Cathedral.’

  ‘You went to a Cathedral, did you? Can you tell me about it?’

  ‘It was kind of black and white inside.’

  ‘Were there paintings inside it?’

  Josiah shook his head.

  ‘There weren’t any paintings?’

  ‘I can’t explain it,’ mumbled Josiah.

  ‘Where else did you go to?’

  Josiah looked blank.

  ‘But you didn’t sleep in Siena, did you?’

  Josiah closed his eyes and hung his head.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, we know where you stayed. Dr Marius told us.’ When Josiah didn’t even look up, Margie continued, ‘The police were in the chapel yesterday evening. The bed you shared measured thirty-one inches across, or eighty centimetres. That’s a narrow bed, Josiah.’ When Josiah slumped further, his elbow leaning into his chest, his forehead supported by his knuckles, Margie went on, and as she did so, she switched on the tape recorder.

  ‘Mrs Scroppo told the police there was semen on the sheets.’

  Josiah said nothing.

  ‘What happened between you, Josiah?’

  Josiah shook his head.

  ‘What happened? Remember, it’s not just you we’re thinking about here. There are other boys, other holidays. If you heard that Dr Marius was taking a friend of yours from school, what would you say to him? Would you tell him to go, or stay at home?’

  ‘That wouldn’t happen,’ said Josiah. He didn’t look up.

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? Try me. You aren’t the first, you know.’

  ‘I am the only…’ began Josiah, but he couldn’t finish what he wanted to tell her.

  ‘You are the only what?’

  Josiah shrugged it off.

  ‘You are the only what?’

  Josiah shrugged again and sighed. ‘You’re getting married,’ he said, as though that were an explanation.

  ‘Are you telling me you were like a married couple?’

  Josiah thought for a moment, but then shook his head.

  ‘You were saying that, weren’t you? Did you love him?’

  Josiah said, ‘I do love him.’ Then Josiah cried, silently, profusely, and Margie didn’t have a tissue to offer him so he cried on his sleeve.

  ‘Does he love you?’ asked Margie. Josiah nodded, and the tears kept flowing. Margie leant forward and put her hand on his knee. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I do, I promise. But we need to know… We need to know what happened between you.’

  ‘Nothing did,’ said Josiah so quietly that a mouse wouldn’t have heard him.

  ‘Are you telling me that he didn’t touch you sexually?’

  ‘He didn’t touch me.’

  ‘Are you telling me that your bodies were jammed up next to each other all night long, yet you did not touch each other?’

  ‘I know what you’re asking me. The answer is no.’

  ‘You’d be happy to say that in a court of law?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘Why did Dr Marius take you on holiday?’

  ‘I’ve told you already.’

  ‘I don’t think you did.’

  ‘Because… you know why. You know why.’

  ‘Because he loves you.’

  Josiah nodded.

  ‘Doesn’t it seem strange to you that a man of thirty-six would “love”, as you say, a boy of barely fifteen?’

  ‘It’s so stupid…’ Josiah gave up mid-sentence.

  ‘What is stupid, Josiah?’

  ‘Why are we allowed to love some people and not others?’ Josiah managed.

  ‘What do you mean by “love”?’ asked Margie. She had a personal interest in it, after all.

  ‘Love is when you give yourself. When you say, “I am at your service. I am yours.”’

  Margie laughed. ‘I shall remember that,’ she said. ‘But do you think love has anything to do with need? With emotional needs? With sexual needs? Is there not something about love which sees the person you love as the missing link, if you like, the one thing which, if you possess it, will fulfil you forever?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Josiah simply.

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to add to that? Do you think you fulfilled Dr Mari
us’ needs? Did he fulfil yours?’

  ‘I didn’t fulfil his,’ said Josiah.

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘I didn’t fulfil either his emotional or sexual needs.’

  ‘You’re quite certain of that?’

  ‘I’m fifteen,’ said Josiah quietly.

  ‘So why did he take you on holiday with him?’

  Josiah began to speak, but Margie couldn’t hear him.

  ‘What was in it for him, Josiah?’

  Josiah shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he whispered.

  ‘Was your relationship sexual?’

  ‘No’, said Josiah.

  ‘Josiah, if you submit to an anal examination, and the doctor verifies what you say, the charges against Dr Marius, at least regarding sexual abuse, will be dropped. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Will you take me to see him first?’ Josiah looked up now, pleadingly. ‘Just for a few minutes?’

  ‘Josiah, he’s fifty miles from here. He’s in a prison in Lincolnshire. He wouldn’t accept the bail conditions.’

  ‘I see,’ said Josiah.

  ‘I’m going to drive you to the hospital myself. Is that all right with you?’

  Josiah slumped forward. He was bent double, as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Margie switched off the tape recorder.

  ‘It’ll all come good in the end. You’ll see,’ she said gently.

  Margie couldn’t stay long; just long enough to deliver Josiah safely into the hands of a Dr Hollis and his nurse.

  ‘You were,’ explained Margie, ‘a delightful emergency. You’re a lovely boy Josiah, and I’ll do everything I can to help you. But now I’ve got to be off. Someone from the social services will be taking you back to The Hollies in about half an hour, so wait here in the reception till they get here. Okay?’

  Josiah nodded and Margie disappeared; he felt strangely on his own again.

  Dr Hollis was a thin man with thick black-rimmed glasses, and when he wanted to seem sympathetic he would let his glasses fall down his nose, believing, mistakenly, that his small, piercing blue eyes would somehow comfort his patient.

  He looked down at Josiah and said, ‘You follow me, young man’, and he did so, because his spirit was quite used up. They walked down the corridor together to his consulting room, and on the way he suddenly stopped and said, ‘This is my nurse, Liz,’ and Liz looked up briefly from her specimen bottles near the sluices and gave Josiah a little wave.