by Olivia Fane
Down came his glasses again when he told Josiah to sit on the couch, and he said, ‘I’m going to make you two promises. The first, is that nothing’s going to hurt, and the second, is that you’re out of here in ten minutes, Now, you can hold me to that, young man. See that clock, it’s ten to eleven; and when it’s eleven exactly, you’ll be walking out of here. Now, Liz is just fetching you a clean gown to put on. Shall we give you three minutes to change into it? I reckon you could change that quickly, what do you think?’
Liz duly came in as though it was a double act they’d been polishing for years, and she said (as she had done countless times before), ‘I bet you he could change in two.’
‘Let’s draw the curtain, shall we, Liz, and give him a bit of privacy,’ said Dr Hollis (as he had done countless times before); and so the curtain was drawn and Dr Hollis and his nurse listened very hard. Not a squeak. They caught each other’s eye as if to say ‘gently does it’, and Dr Hollis took his glasses off and popped his head around the curtain.
Josiah was sitting quite still, staring ahead. ‘I’m sorry to waste your time,’ he said.
Dr Hollis began again. ‘There’s nothing to fear, you know.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ said Josiah, and his face, it’s true, betrayed not a smidgeon of fear. If anything, he looked bored, listless.
‘Perhaps if I told you exactly what the examination entailed. It’s not a penetrative….’
‘I’m not afraid,’ said Josiah. ‘I just don’t want to be here.’
‘No one wants to be here,’ said Liz.
‘You know,’ said Dr Hollis, trying a different tack, ‘that homosexual acts under the age of sixteen are illegal.’
‘No, I didn’t know. I thought it was twenty-one.’
‘Would you be able to swear in a court of law that a homosexual act has not taken place?’
‘I would.’
‘You understand that if I examined you and confirmed what you say, your friend wouldn’t be in such serious trouble?’
And for a moment Josiah looked more interested; he looked straight into Dr Hollis’ blue eyes and was thinking hard.
But then there was a knock at the door. Liz was quick to answer it to send the interloper away, but June Briggs’ head had already made its appearance.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she said to Josiah. ‘I didn’t know you’d made it here. I’m the last to be kept informed!’
Dr Hollis was irritated. ‘Could you please wait in reception,’ he demanded, gruffly.
‘Of course,’ said June Briggs, but she walked into the room with a triumphal smile. Dr Hollis instinctively held up his hands, as if to defend the boy from her.
‘Please,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Josiah had not spent his minutes on Dr Hollis’s couch idly. He had spotted on a nearby shelf a box of syringes already fitted with their needles; even then, when he had no obvious victim, they had seemed an irresistible weapon. Suddenly he leapt up from the couch.
There was a calm before the storm, in which all four seemed to wonder what would happen next; then Josiah moved as fast as a meerkat, and, grabbing hold of the box, shouted gleefully at June Briggs to keep still. Surprisingly, she did, and the dart almost scored a bull’s-eye in the middle of her forehead, but at the last moment she used the door to shield her and the needle stuck into the top of her arm. Josiah laughed, and rattled his box; Dr Hollis tried to grab it from him and the syringes spilt over the floor. How wonderful are the laws which make it quite impossible to physically restrain a child! For Dr Hollis was more anxious about breaking medical guidelines and the hollering of June Briggs than about the young and eager Josiah, who was busy picking up the syringes as happily as a toddler might take smarties scattered from a tube.
‘You bloody boy! Get hold of him, you idiots! The boy’s insane! Just like his bloody parents!’ Ms Briggs just couldn’t stop herself.
Liz rushed off to get help, and Ms Briggs would have stayed for more had Liz not taken her with her to the nursing station, on the pretext of looking at her arm.
Josiah jumped back onto the couch, clutching a handful of syringes.
‘So,’ he said coolly to Dr Hollis. ‘Do you think I’d make a good doctor?’
Eventually, Angela Day came to fetch him. Dr Hollis, his nurse, and June Briggs all decided not to take the matter further or try to examine him again. It was obvious, they all agreed, that Josiah had been severely traumatized.
‘What got into him, do you think?’ asked Ms Briggs.
‘He’s obviously a very distressed boy,’ ventured Liz.
‘Angry. Frightened,’ suggested Dr Hollis. ‘I suppose we should ask ourselves, what more can we expect?’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Ms Briggs.
Liz did tell her husband that night that she thought Ms Briggs’ rantings were a little out of order, even given the circumstances, but then the matter was sighed over and forgotten.
Angela Day had taken a while to get to the hospital because she wanted moral support. She didn’t feel she could face Josiah after that morning when he’d upturned the table and ran off like that. Anyway, she hadn’t found anyone to go with her and braved the trip alone.
On their journey back Angela’s only remark was to observe at yet another temporary traffic light, ‘They seem to be digging up the whole of Cambridge at the moment,’ before offering to make Josiah some lunch on their return. Josiah ignored her. Once they were back at The Hollies, Josiah ran upstairs to hide away in his bedroom. Not that he knew it then, but this was to be his refuge and prison for the next fifteen months.
Josiah never went back to school. The sight of Thomas’ empty house was literally unbearable to him. Everyone thought it was because he was anxious he would be bullied: after all, when the lads called him ‘faggot’ at The Hollies, he could just walk away – after so many years’ experience, their words fell away from him as lightly as reverberating air. But school would be different. At school, there would be no escape. They all knew this, and they also knew he had no parents to fine or imprison if he played truant. And when they realised he was impervious to the threat of a secure unit in Peterborough where they could force him to receive an education, they gave Josiah a long leash, and a queue of tutors and educational psychologists to try to persuade him that learning was a good thing. He co-operated with none of them; while the five books Thomas had so casually lent him six months before became so precious to him that he took them from their proud, upright pile on his chest of drawers and wrapped them in his clothes and hid them.
One day in the middle of November, about a month before the case came to court, Josiah was lying on his bed as usual in the middle of the afternoon. He was gazing at the ceiling, and indulging in his customary mental occupation of writing a letter to Thomas. An open copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress lay face down on his chest. He had just read the words, ‘I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage’, and had been unable to go on. In his head he wrote the words, ‘The books you gave me are all I have. The one I’m reading now was your fifth form prize. You were my age when you first held it. Did you once tell me that the only prison worthy of the name was in our own heads? That’s where I am now, my dear Thomas. Do you think of me? I would like to think of myself in your head. Then again, I’m frightened that I’m your prison.’
But Josiah’s letters never even made it to paper. He reasoned that they’d be intercepted, perhaps they’d even be considered incriminatory. But his heart, more to the point, was afraid. Afraid of what, he did not know. When Angela Day knocked on his door that afternoon, it was a good moment. To be so lonely and yet so driven as to drive all away had often seemed to him a curious paradox. But that particular afternoon he would have befriended a flea, and was pleased when Angela’s comfortable figure sat on the end of his bed and said, ‘I’m so sorry things have turned out like this.’
Josiah immediately sat up and leant up against the wall.
‘It’s not yo
ur fault. It’s not really anyone’s fault,’ he said.
Angela looked at the book which had fallen to his lap.
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress. Well, I am impressed. I never got beyond the children’s version.’
‘I don’t think you’d like it much.’
‘You could try me!’ exclaimed Angela, surprised that he could hurt her so much by saying so little. But when Josiah said nothing, she bravely went on, ‘The thing is, love, it’s so easy to just give up when you’ve just let things slip a little. Life’s like that, you’ve always got to keep one step ahead or else you start thinking, “I can’t cope,” or “Why bother?” and then you slip even further down. You’re just too special to let that happen to you.’
‘It’s always control, isn’t it? Control yourself, control your life…’
‘Before it takes control of you –’
‘Before others control it for you,’ said Josiah, coldly.
Angela looked hurt. ‘People aren’t trying to control you. They’re concerned for you, Josiah.’
‘“Concern” is such an ugly word. It’s a clinical word. It’s a Latin word, it’s a loveless word: from cernere, to distinguish, to set apart, to push away.’
‘You’re setting yourself apart. You and your Latin. It doesn’t do, not to belong, Josiah.’
‘Why would I even want to belong to you lot?’
‘Show some humility. We’re all in this together. We’re all human beings together.’
‘A contradiction!’ cried Josiah. ‘“Human beings together!” We’re not, and never will be. That’s our curse, don’t you get it?’
Angela did not get it. He had hurt her, and she left him.
Then, a fortnight before the case came to court, Joseph received another visitor, Thomas’ defence solicitor, young and keen and recommended by the Master of Corpus himself, who had taught him years before when he’d been Headmaster of Eton. David Findlay was a most affable man; handsome, fluent, good-humoured and quite charmed by the young Josiah. It was midday; the dining-room was empty and Angela brought them mugs of tea.
‘This is quite the most disgusting tea, isn’t it? Don’t tell a soul, will you?’ and with that he opened a window and threw the stuff onto the grass.
Josiah smiled. It was an auspicious beginning.
‘It’s good to meet you at last. I’m David Findlay, and I’m representing your friend Thomas in a couple of weeks time. I have to say, he’s not told me much about you. He’s quite a private man, isn’t he?’
Josiah didn’t know whether he was a private man or not. He was the first man he had ever known. So he just said, trying to hide quite how much it mattered to him, ‘Is he all right?’
‘In a word…’ began Mr Findlay, and then he looked hard at Josiah to see if he could bear the truth of the matter, ‘In a word, no. But, there’s only two weeks left of this to go, and then, if all goes to plan, he’ll be free. In fact, I’m angry with him for refusing to accept the bail conditions. His college was happy to put up whatever money was necessary, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Is that typical of him, do you think?’
Again, Josiah hadn’t a clue. His head was still reeling from that little word ‘no’, and there was no mental space left to consider Findlay’s question.
‘Why isn’t he all right?’ he braved.
‘Sexual offenders get a hard time in prison. That means, for his own safety, he’s banged up on his own. But he has a few books. Not that he’s been reading much. He is extremely preoccupied, Josiah. He didn’t want me to see you today. In fact, I very nearly came to see you last week without his permission, but I don’t like to betray my clients’ trust, if you see what I mean, even if it’s in their own best interest. Anyway, he knows I’m here. And he sends you his best wishes.’
‘“Best wishes”?’ asked Josiah incredulously.
‘Well, he could hardly send you more, through me, I mean. But I can give you more myself. In fact, it’s his respect and affection for you, I feel, that are holding him back. He’s his own worst enemy, as they say.’
Josiah struggled a while, but then looked up and asked, ‘Why do you think he’ll be let off?’
‘Tell me, quietly, here and now, should he be let off? Do you have any reservations whatsoever?’
‘He never did anything.’
‘He didn’t tell you to say that, if anyone asked you?’
‘No.’
‘It’s strange. Only you know and he knows what happened between you. It’s your secret. And we have this great formal structure in place to try to make one or other of you divulge your secret.’
‘Nothing happened. There is no secret.’
‘There are quite a number of people, I believe, who think there is. Though I do know they’ve decided not to fly the Italian couple over. I fear they suspected you, but they’d already laundered the evidence, I hear, the sheets were hanging out to dry even as the police arrived to question them.’
‘What about the hospital’s report? I didn’t…’
‘No, you didn’t behave particularly well, by all accounts. But these examinations, between you and me, prove nothing. The courts, of course, have a penchant for concrete evidence, but after that woman, what’s-her-name, made such a frightful balls up with her anal dilation hypothesis and took half of the children of Lancashire away from their families, these examinations have rather lost their credibility. So accusations of buggery, of sexual abuse – well, they’re all speculation, and I shall tell the court so. But the most awkward charge to dispense with is undoubtedly that of kidnap of a minor, and this is where you come in, Josiah. Now, Thomas doesn’t want to be cross-examined under oath, and that’s his right, and frankly, I’m not sure that he would do himself any favours in court. But he did tell me, and I believe him, that he thought he did have permission from this place, that he had written a letter to the proprietor or whatever you call her, and had received a letter back from her. Unfortunately, however, we haven’t found that letter. I mean, there’s no reason why he should keep it. There’s a sods’ law that crooks have all their documentation perfectly in place because they know they might need it, while the innocent – well, it goes with being innocent, in every sense of the word – they’re neither careful nor vigilant.’
‘I took the letter,’ interjected Josiah.
‘You took it?’
And Josiah, who was unaccustomed to blushing, felt his cheeks burn.
‘Have you still got the letter?’ asked Mr Findlay, eagerly.
‘I threw it away.’
‘But why would you do that?’
‘It wasn’t a real letter. I forged it. Thomas didn’t get permission. He would never have got it. I know what they’re like round here. They wouldn’t have let him take me to the zoo.’
Mr Findlay pushed himself away from the table and balanced precariously on the back legs of his chair. ‘Ah, I see,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you think you might be getting him into trouble?’
‘I just wanted… to go away. I just thought, “I need to get out of here”.’
‘But the fact that you went to so much trouble… you knew what you were doing was wrong.’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve done something wrong. So much is wrong, anyway.’ Josiah lay his head down on the table as if it was suddenly too heavy for him to carry any more.
Mr Findlay sighed. ‘What you’re telling me is serious.’
‘I know,’ said Josiah, and his words was muffled, because his mouth was buried in his jumper.
‘I have a confession to make myself, Josiah.’
Josiah looked up.
‘My visit here today isn’t strictly professional; there should be witnesses, it should be properly recorded. But I like your friend Thomas. I wanted to meet you first in a relaxed manner, or as relaxed as we can be in the circumstances. In my bones I felt him to be innocent, and now I’ve met you I know him to be so. We shall do everything we can to prove that. Now, you have to talk to social services, and make a p
roper statement to them, and tell them you forged the letter.’
Josiah shook his head.
‘Or the police if you prefer. These are what they call mitigating circumstances, Josiah, do you understand? Do you know someone by name whom you feel easy with? You really are in a position to help Thomas, you know. Do you want to do that?’
‘There’s a woman called Margie,’ said Josiah.
‘Margie Wynter, yes, I know her, good choice. I’ll ring her this afternoon to fix an appointment. Just tell her what you’ve told me, and she’ll read your statement in court.’
Josiah sat motionless, crouching over the table, his face buried in his arms; Angela saw him from the doorway and walked in.
‘He seems upset,’ said Mr Findlay anxiously. He patted Josiah on the back. ‘Just two weeks! Trust me, we’ll get him off.’
Angela, who was one of those who thought Thomas should be behind bars forever, threw him a furious look.
Mr Findlay ignored it. ‘I’m sure you’ll take good care of him,’ he said, as he brushed past her.
The case lasted three days. Cambridge Crown Court, the full works, the gravitas, and an unprepossessing jury, the younger of whom were distinguished by their tattoos and body piercings. How strange, thought David Findlay, that when push comes to shove, that lot will be the most conservative of them, the most eager to convict. He whispered to his barrister words to that effect; and then looked towards the press. There were just three journalists, he had expected there to be more. Even if he was let off, Thomas would never be innocent in their eyes. This would be one of those cases in which justice had not been seen to be done: a paedophile let off on some technical hitch. But justice would be done, that was the important thing.
Josiah’s lover was in the dock. He was recognisably Thomas; summer tan had still not completely deserted him. He had lost weight, and he hung his head like a man already convicted.