The Secret Catamite Bk 1, The Book of Daniel
Title Page
Foreword
Book One – The Book of Daniel
What others say about this book
“A very emotional read. Your book was v enjoyable, emotional and sad. How I wished I could have been there to help so many times.” - Brad Durham
"It is about need, caring and love. There is something beautiful even nurturing about this growing friendship and love.” - Carol Powney
“I could not put it down, I read many, many books, and this hand on heart is the best thing I have read. Follow anything this guy writes, this book is a classic." - Rob Bassindale
“It is a tender story, it is a loving story, at times funny, at times sad, at times sexy - a bit like life." – P. J. Leeson
The Secret Catamite
Episodes from inside a life
A Biographical Trilogy
by
Patrick C. Notchtree
Book 1: The Book of Daniel
First published 2012 by Limebury Books
www.limebury.com
ISBN 978-0-9572361-6-5
@pcnotchtree
Copyright © 2012 Patrick C. Notchtree & Limebury Books
Formatted and set by Limebury Books
Smashwords Edition
Foreword
This is a work of fiction. It is an account of one person's struggle with the demons within, and not always successfully. It was originally written as a form of therapy. If others wish to read it, perhaps they too may gain something from it. They may condemn it and the characters within. That in a free society is their privilege. But one thing the author has learned is not to rush to judgement, heeding the advice of St Matthew, "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7.1), and also the sound advice of Islam, "Good deeds annul evil deeds." (Qur'an, 11:114).
Inevitably it draws upon the life experiences of the author and of others but should not taken as a factual autobiography of the author. The names used are also fictitious and where they coincide with real people, those real people have no connection whatsoever with the fictional characters of this novel.
"Let us have the honesty to see things as they are,
since to see things as they ought to be is to miss them entirely."
Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)
For my dear wife,
for whom my love knows no bounds,
for her devotion and forgiveness;
and my family,
the greatest blessing a man can have.
Also for my close friend
Stephen
whose tragic life could so easily have been
my own.
&
For ‘Daniel’
Book One – The Book of Daniel
1949 First Memory
Simon felt the increasing panic well up in him. He knew that he was not going to make it in time. He ran up the stairs, nearly tripping over a loose stair rod that was failing to keep the worn, rough, red stair carpet in place. The bathroom door was closed, and Simon reached up for the handle struggling to turn it. Perhaps it was the way his small body had to stretch up, but he knew then that he had lost. As he stood inside the bathroom, his body could contain its load no longer and he felt the wet warmth as it slithered out of his little shorts and down the back of his left thigh on to the linoleum floor.
"Mummy!" Simon cried out in despair. And then the tears started to flow. Mummy appeared, and calmly set to clearing up the mess.
"I couldn't wait," wailed Simon through his sobbing.
"Why don't you go earlier?" asked Mummy irritably, as she carefully deposited the smelly lump into the pan which had been its intended destination.
"I didn't know I wanted to," explained Simon, now racked with guilt at having let Mummy down and caused all this upset.
Steadily, Mummy removed the stained clothing, dropping it into the bath which stood on its little iron feet next to the pan. While the tears subsided, Mummy wiped her son down with a warm wet flannel, removing the evidence of his failure.
"Are you cross with me?" asked Simon, pleading for her not to be.
Mummy regarded the three year old, and her love for him watered her eyes.
"Of course not," she replied, and she took him into her arms. There, on the bathroom floor, mother and son re-affirmed their love and mutual dependence. She looked at her son, as ever worried about him. Since his very difficult birth which had nearly killed her, he had been a cause of concern, born blue, his slow development leading to him being labelled in the terminology of the day as Mentally Deficient, a crippled spastic. But now he was walking and talking, even if he had not yet mastered bowel control. She hugged him again and his sobbing subsided.
Later, Daddy came home, and was cross with him for making a mess. To Simon, Daddy was a part of his life. Some of the other, older children in the street said he was bad because he had been divorced from another woman so wasn't properly married to Mummy and they would go to hell, but Simon could not understand that. Going to hell was something to do with God, and that was far too remote for him to deal with. Perhaps the older children had met God; after all, Mummy said that when people were old, they did go to meet God. Maybe some of the biguns already had. Simon kept away from the biguns as much as he could. They made him cry by calling him names, and some of their mummies said that they were not to play with him because his Daddy swore, and that it was all very wrong. Sometimes, when he went out to play in the street, in his pedal car or on his battered old green tricycle, the nasty ones would shout names at him like "Simple Simon". When it wasn't that it was "Little bastard!" One or two had started calling him this, and it had taken hold and was a regular taunt. Simon knew from the tone in which it was said, or often shouted, that it was not nice, whatever it meant. He asked his older sister, Frances, what names she got called. She didn't seem to know what he was talking about. But Frances was five years older and rarely played with Simon. She had her best friend, Jennifer, with whom she spent lots of time.
Once, when a little older, Simon asked Mummy what a bastard was, and she started to cry. So he did not ask the question again, but he felt sure that it was something about him that the biguns knew, that he did not. The mystery remained unsolved in Simon's mind, and the situation became one of the accepted factors of his existence. The problem did not go away and with each hurtful name-calling, it was again brought to the fore. But he never mentioned it to Mummy in case that made her cry, and when Mummy cried, Simon could not bear it.
Simon had to bear it though, because Mummy seemed to cry sometimes for no obvious reason, and would not tell him why. Frances would not tell him why either, and told him not to worry. Mummy sometimes said it was the war, but Simon did know that the war had ended just before he was born. And anyway, he knew Daddy had got a medal for flying in the war and that was supposed to be good. So Simon cried too, and he and Mummy would cling to each other, sharing their joint misery, hers caused by the natural injustice of the lottery of life, perhaps for her precipitate wartime marriage, his for no better reason than Mummy was unhappy. Simon could never discover what he had done to make Mummy cry, and although she always said it was not his fault, he knew that it must be. What he did not know of were the tears shed in the loneliness of the nights after his bedtime when Daddy came home very late, or not at all.
As he grew older, Simon started to be frightened of Daddy. He often came home in a very bad temper, and would shout at Mummy and him for no real reason that Simon could see. If he was really in a bad temper, he would make Simon bend over a chair and hit him with one of his old black, leather soled slippers. Mummy wou
ld protest sometimes that he was being too hard, and that the offence that Simon had committed did not merit such treatment. Daddy's response was always either one of two.
"Spare the rod and spoil the child!" or,
"My father used to beat me when I did something wrong, and it never did me any harm!"
Simon used to wonder how it was that anyone could be beaten and it not hurt them. He found a way of coping with this by pretending it was someone else. It was as though he was outside his body, watching Simon being beaten as though in a film. But it hurt and after the punishment, he would go upstairs to his bedroom and cry, while the raised voices of argument could be heard from below.
Yet Daddy could be loving. He took Simon aged almost five to London to see the Festival of Britain, which Simon found exciting and stimulating, the image of the delicate Skylon apparently magically suspended in mid air remained fixed in his mind. Daddy also took him the Battersea Fun Fair associated with the festival. Simon knew Daddy was important because when they went to get a meal first in a restaurant, suddenly Daddy said, "Stop eating."
Simon stopped eating.
"I've come out without my wallet," said Daddy. "I can't pay for the meal."
Daddy called the waiter over and explained. The manager came over and Daddy explained again.
"I'm sorry, sir," said the manager. "Perhaps if you had some form of identification?"
Daddy looked in his pockets and found some small white cards with printing on, his business card. The manager looked impressed.
"Certainly, sir. Send us a cheque. Please finish your meal." The manager paused. "Were you planning to take the boy on the funfair?"
"Yes, I was actually."
The Manager reached into his pocket and took a note out of his wallet, and gave it to Daddy.
"Please allow me to lend you this, sir, and I hope your son enjoys the fair."
"Thank you very much," said Daddy. "That is extremely kind of you. I will send a cheque as soon as I get home. Come on, son. Eat up!" Daddy smiled at Simon, who was thinking how special Daddy must be, ate heartily. And then he enjoyed the funfair.
1951 Starting school, Daniel
Starting school was an upset for Simon. Firstly, he had to leave Mummy, and he worried about whether she would be even more unhappy. Secondly, he was frightened of how he would be received by the other children.
He liked his teacher, Mrs. Hastings, because she was a bit like Mummy, except that she did not cry. He did not like Miss Harvey, the headmistress, because she never smiled and used to get cross with the children. She had a bamboo cane that she would hit children with. The girls were hit across the palm of the hand, but Miss Harvey made the boys bend over while she caned their bottoms. Simon did his best to keep out of her way.
His sense of isolation did not diminish at school. The other children called him names still, and so he retreated into the security of his own company, clutching his teddy bear at night for comfort. One solace to which an isolated Simon clung was that he could meet Frances at playtime in the school yard. The juniors were supposed to play in a different area from the infants, but she would come to meet him. Simon liked the reassurance, but he knew that soon Frances would be leaving the juniors and then he would be friendless again.
The exception was Daniel. He was almost two years older than Simon, and therefore not in the same class, but he did live near Simon, in the next street. He could see Daniel's house from his bedroom window. He had become aware of Daniel not long after starting school and his quiet self-confidence attracted Simon. He was good at school and at sports, and, with his dark hair, kind face and deep blue eyes, the girls said he was he was dishy. Simon thought so too.
The two started to travel to school together, either by bus from the main road or in good weather, a long walk. Although at first Daniel sometimes joined the others at school in baiting him, he always came back afterwards and was his friend. Simon never asked why he appeared so fickle, it was a fact of the universe, like the sun and moon and stars. He didn't question, they just were! But soon, as the two boys became firm friends, Daniel would instead defend Simon rather than join in the taunts.
Simon's problems were compounded by the difficulty he had at school. He could not remember what all the letters meant, and he found writing hard to grasp. Numbers seemed totally meaningless. Soon he was sent for some of the time to see Miss Brown for extra help. Her room was next to the balcony which ran across one end of the hall. Simon liked being up there, climbing the stone staircase with its brown glazed brick walls, emerging high up on the balcony from where he could look down into the hall, and even into some of the classrooms through their hall side windows. Up there with Miss Brown and the small group she helped, he felt away from the hurly burly of the school and his large class of over forty children. He was safe for a while. He was to remain a part of that extra help group until the end of his junior school. Of course this added force to those who wanted to taunt him, giving "Simple Simon" added veracity, and Simon less defence against it.
1952/2 Death of the King
He slowly became more aware of the wider world. Daniel, being older, knew much more of course, but Mummy would talk to him about things and Simon became increasingly curious. One day, he was at home with some illness, sitting in bed while Mummy tried to explain to him about the war in Korea. There was much of it he didn't understand, but he was worried by the Communists, and if the war would come into his life.
"Daddy won't have to go and fight again, will he?" asked Simon anxiously.
"No, dear," said Mummy.
"But wasn't he good or something, with his medal. They want good fighters don't they?" Simon was in no doubt that Daddy would be a good fighter, he knew how strong he was, although how this fitted in with being in an aeroplane he put to one side.
"Daddy won't be going to fight again, he's done all that. And the DFC was for the last war, it doesn't mean he'll have to go again."
"Will I have to go and fight when I grow up?" asked Simon.
"Oh, I hope not," said Mummy, and gave him a hug. "I'll get you a drink."
Mummy went downstairs and he heard the reassuring sound of the wireless. It was talking because Mummy often listened to the Home Service. Suddenly Mummy gave a little cry, and Simon wondered if she had dropped something. It was a while before Mummy came back up, carrying a tray with his drink and some bread and dripping on it.
"The King's dead!" she said, and then started to cry, spilling the drink.
Simon was aware that this was momentous news, he knew the King was head of the country, and he felt the loss too in some way he didn't understand. And Mummy was crying so he cried too.
"Who will be King now?"
Mummy smiled though her tears, and wiped both her eyes and his.
"We don't have a King now," she said. "We have a Queen, a new young Queen, Queen Elizabeth the second."
"Oh," said Simon, not quite understanding but glad that the matter had been settled and that there was continuity.
"Eat your sandwich," said Mummy, and she sat on the edge of the bed while Simon ate.
1952/3 Miss Harvey
Then there was the day that Mrs. Hastings was away from school. When the whistle went, Simon went into the line, next to the high, red bricked wall round the playground where the younger classes lined up. Beside him in the next line was Daniel. Simon smiled at him, but one of the biguns was watching so Daniel paid no attention. Then Miss Harvey came out into the yard and total silence fell on the children, each individual petrified that the icy stare might alight arbitrarily on themselves. Miss Harvey came over to Simon's line.
"Stand up, Class two!" she snapped. Class two did their best to comply from a standing position already. As they were led in, Simon realised that Mrs. Hastings was not about, and that he was to be subject to Miss Harvey's iron rule all day. His fears were confirmed when they were sat in the classroom.
"Mrs. Hastings is unwell today," Miss Harvey announced, "so I shall have to put u
p with you. I expect you all to behave yourselves. Any disobedience I will deal with in the proper manner."
Simon knew what the proper manner was, and had no intention of bringing himself to her attention. He tried to slide down a bit behind the desk.
"That boy, sit up!"
Simon looked up to find the icy blue eyes fixed upon him. Miss Harvey was a tall, thin woman with silver hair and small, steel-rimmed, rectangular spectacles. She always wore a black dress that added to the sinister appearance. Simon sat up.
"I shall be watching you today, boy," said Miss Harvey. Simon felt he had failed at the first hurdle, and dreaded the rest of the day.
After assembly, Miss Harvey gave them all a sheet of paper. The children started to write their names at the top. Simon was very proud because he had now learned to write his name without copying from the card that Mrs. Hastings had written out for each child. Miss Brown said his writing was coming on well. He thought that this would be a good opportunity to regain his status in Miss Harvey's eyes by demonstrating this feat. With unerring certainty, Miss Harvey's eyes found the one desk on which there was no name card. She strode down the aisle between the rows of forward facing double desks until she was standing over Simon.
The Secret Catamite Bk 1, The Book of Daniel Page 1