by Alan Keslian
‘Was it full sex?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you take precautions?’ He looked down at the floor. ‘Did he use a condom?’
‘He had condoms. When I went back with him I didn’t know what he was like,’ he said, not looking at me.
‘Oh god.’ How could he have let a stranger take advantage of him like that? ‘It’s all right. You’re not to blame.’
He had slept, and woken in daylight, his head throbbing, his limbs shaking, his bruises and his back passage hurting. He found the man having breakfast in the kitchen, asked for directions to the nearest Underground station, but let himself be talked into waiting until his new acquaintance had washed and shaved and they could go together. The walk, however, ended not at the Underground station but at a nearby pub, where the courier said he had to go inside for a few minutes to meet some friends.
Darren felt ill and did not want more to drink, but followed obediently into the pub where he was told that what he needed was a ‘morning after special’, a concoction of tomato juice and spirits that helped stop his limbs shaking and made his stomach and head feel better. He sat quietly, bothered by the noise and the smoke-laden atmosphere, not thinking clearly. Confused and lacking will power he allowed himself to be taken back to the flat again along with several of the man’s friends.
For their Sunday dinner they ate triangles of tomato-stained pizza followed by chocolate biscuits, and then watched a film on television. They drank beer and smoked cannabis for some hours, listening to music when the film was over, until at around seven o’clock all but one of the courier’s friends left.
A couple of times he stood up intending to leave but let them talk him into staying on. They promised him they would be going out themselves soon, would take him to the train station, and to appear friendly asked him a few questions about himself, claiming to know people in the tourism industry and in television who could help him find work. Then the courier and one of his friends hauled Darren into the bedroom, drew the curtains and forced themselves on him.
‘Did you struggle, ask them to stop?’
‘They made me go with them, I didn’t want to. This friend of his wasn’t very clean.’
‘Did they force you to have sex?’
‘They didn’t threaten me with a knife or anything.’
Whatever his experience before that Saturday night, his innocence was gone now. ‘Are we talking about oral or anal sex here, Darren?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which? Both?’
‘Yeah.’ When they had finished abusing him, drunk, drugged, and exhausted he rolled himself up tightly in one of the sheets and lay on the floor by the wall where he slept. The next morning, his body was sore and aching. He hunted around the room for his clothes, dressed, crept out and used the toilet. The courier was in the lounge watching television, and Darren ran past the room door, down the stairs and out into the street. A terrified old lady he stopped near the end of the road gave him directions to the Underground station. From there he rang me.
Since he had not been threatened, tied up or locked in the flat, what he had gone through sounded as though it fell short of kidnapping and rape. Certainly he had been taken advantage of, but he had not put up physical resistance. Slipping capsules into his coffee was a nasty trick, but he had no witnesses or evidence to prove it had happened. If he had not wanted to take part in later events, why had he not walked out, and why had he gone back to the flat a second time? However confused and unsure of himself he was, surely he could have slipped away from them in the pub, or run off in the street on the way back to the flat? ‘Do you want me to call the police?’
‘What for?’
‘What you’ve described sounds like you were drugged and raped. What if the next boy they pick up is even younger, the drugs and alcohol prove too much for him, and instead of bruises and a sore backside he ends up in hospital? You’re sure none of them hit you, held you down, used force on you, threatened to get you if you told on them?’
‘No. Nothing like that. What was I supposed to do? He seemed nice when we were in the club. How was I supposed to know what he was really like?’
‘He tricked you by putting drugs in your coffee. He’s going to get away with it unless we do something, isn’t he?’
‘Don’t call the police, please. They’ll call my parents.’
How would the police react, confronted with his story? The chances of proving a case against anyone were poor. Even if the men were found and questioned they would certainly deny doping the coffee and claim Darren agreed to the sex. Although a lot of the time he appeared very much a boy he was not under age.
‘Okay, let’s leave it at that for now. There’s quite a bit of work waiting for me downstairs. Will you be all right on your own for a while?’
‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’
In the evening he rang the burger bar to say he was feeling better and arranged to go in to make up his hours. Tom called to apologise for losing his temper and for what he had said earlier.
‘An instance of bad boys getting all the attention and good boys resenting it? Don’t worry, it’s forgotten.’
‘You’re too easy on me. I was angry, all the worry about Andrew and Darren and everything, but I would never have hurt him, you know that. Shouldn’t have took it out on you.’
‘Strong feelings… it’s okay, really.’
Though Andrew rarely joined us in the pub since his illness, we arranged to meet him there that evening so I could tell him of Darren’s adventure without the interruptions inevitable at the hotel. He and Tom listened eagerly, and agreed with me that, there being no evidence of rape, contacting the police was not appropriate, in fact they seemed surprised the idea had occurred to me. Andrew had other thoughts about what we should do: ‘If he had been under age the police might have acted, they would have had a reasonable chance of getting a conviction. He’s back and he’s safe, that’s what matters. The next step is what we must concentrate on.’
Tom offered to go looking for the courier and ‘give him a fright’ if he found him. ‘That’s not a bad idea, but it isn’t what I had in mind. The boy’s future is what concerns me. However you may be right, someone ought to let the bastard know that boys like Darren may have friends who don’t like them being used as sex toys.’
This sounded dangerous to me. ‘Remember there was a group of them. We may end up being the ones who are given a fright.’
‘I’ll have some help with me. Someone has to try to stop the filthy bastard.’
‘You’re both right. If you go up there, Tom, you’ll have to back off if there is the slightest hint of danger. Anyway that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. First, we should fix up for Darren to have a medical check. Since I’m so familiar with hospital routines these days I’ll make an appointment and take him to the clinic.
Second, we need to turn our minds to the long term, to improving his circumstances. That’s where the real problem lies. He’s bright, talented, but he’s in a dead end job, he’s drifting. Unless we do something about it, how long will it be before he lets himself be led into another sleazy mess? There are plenty of others like our friend from the club, and worse. We need to give the boy a sense of purpose in life, a reason for turning away from that sort of nonsense.’ He looked directly at me. ‘I know you have your hands full with the hotel at the moment, but the business will soon settle in, and you’re the one who can make a difference here.’
‘So this has become my problem now, has it?’
‘The fact is the boy relates to you, he looks up to you, he listens to what you have to say. That wretched job of his is half the problem. He ought to go back to his studies. We could get him into a college of some kind. I could take him on part-time at the garden centre, he has a real feel for horticulture. Look how well he’s done with the gardens and the container plants at the hotel. Even better, you could take him on. You would be able to fit his hours around attendance at a college much
more easily. All that changing beds and vacuum cleaning you do, you should spend more time managing the business, taking a broad view of how it’s developing. Yes, that’s the answer, don’t worry about money, we’ll sort something out between us.’
I was annoyed by the way Andrew was planning a new role for me in Darren’s future. ‘Why me? You’re the one who befriended him, took him out to concerts and all sorts of places. I let him stay on at the hotel because you wanted me to.’
‘Don’t get angry with me, please. I’m asking too much of you. Let’s forget the whole business, it would be an imposition. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. This is what happens when heterosexuals breed irresponsibly, leaving others to cope with the problems of their offspring. We’ll talk about something else. Tom, what about that new ventilation equipment I want installing in the nursery. No desperate rush, but are you likely to be able to make a start in the next few weeks?’
Andrew had steered the conversation exactly as he wanted. Having successfully planted the idea in my mind that Darren should work at the hotel, he had given the appearance of backing away from it by saying, ‘Let’s forget the whole business.’ We both knew that it was anything but forgotten. He had already begun to soften my resistance by holding out the prospect of delegating some of the hotel chores to Darren. Soon he would inveigle Tom into helping his cause, and gentle persistent pressure from the two of them would wear me down.
Tom persuaded his older brother to join him on a trip to Turnpike Lane to confront the men who had taken advantage of Darren. His brother was a thick set man with cropped hair who could intimidate with a concentrated look of hostility, his eyes glaring and his lips tightly set. On Tuesday they set off in one of the Ferns and Foliage vans, collecting Darren after his early shift in the burger bar, to drive up to the house where he had been molested. From the passenger seat he watched the two brothers go to the entrance, ring the bell and thump the door. There was no answer from the upstairs flat, and all they learned from the couple on the ground floor was that the occupant spent a lot of his time away. Tom said they were looking for a boy who had gone missing, and that they would keep coming back until they got some answers.
They went on to the pub Darren had been taken to, where they ordered a coke for him and pints of beer for themselves. They asked the barman if he knew a courier for a holiday company who did the Spanish resorts. He shrugged, ‘This is not what you’d call a regulars’ pub, we do a lot of passing trade.’ Tom’s brother leaned over the bar and beckoned him closer. ‘Reason we’re looking is he’s been taking advantage of under age boys, know what I mean.’ He stared menacingly, waiting for an answer. Darren sat nearby on a bar stool with his coke. He told me afterwards he felt too embarrassed to move, and desperately wished the fire alarm would go off or something else would happen to bring the excruciating scene to an end.
Unnerved by the intense hostile stare, the barman said edgily, ‘Can’t help yo,u mate, there are a few regulars, but so far as I know none of them works as a courier. Most of them keep their selves to their selves. This is a busy pub evenings and weekends, you get all sorts. I hope you find him. He’ll be barred from here if we know who he is, you can be sure of that.’
Customers at three of the pub tables were subjected to the same growled questions by Tom and his brother, not from any expectation that they would admit to anything, but in the hope that word of the visit would get back to the culprits. The brothers left the pub looking as though they would throw a punch at the smallest provocation. Whether word of this performance ever did reach those it was intended for we never found out. To Darren’s great relief, and mine, there were no further trips to Turnpike Lane.
At the hotel out of politeness I asked Tom’s brother if he wanted to stay for dinner, but he refused saying plausibly there would be a meal waiting for him at home. I saw him to the front door, and before leaving he fixed me with his unsettling gaze and said tauntingly: ‘I hope you’re the one who’s the woman, and not him.’ Giving me no chance to respond he turned quickly and walked briskly down the path, not seeing my angry grimace.
Furious, I told Tom what he’d said. ‘You shouldn’t take no notice of him. He’s a piss-taker, always has been.’
‘I suppose you can’t pick who you have as a brother.’
‘He didn’t intend to be insulting, he wouldn’t understand a remark like that was going to cause offence. He thinks he’s funny. Take no notice of him. He ain’t worth it.’
The more important activity following Darren’s ordeal was to coax him back into the education system. Lizetta occasionally arranged courses for new recruits to my old firm, and was the obvious person to ask about his chances of a place in college. We met for long lunches together every month or so, usually in busy moderately priced restaurants in town. When I mentioned Darren she immediately wanted to know what he had been studying at school, an obvious question but one that had somehow not occurred to me. Reproachfully she said, ‘People find it a struggle to get back into education once they’ve dropped out. Does he want this badly enough to keep it up for a year or more? If you want me to help him things will have to be gone into properly.’
She suggested I bring him along to lunch so she could meet him. Andrew had been encouraging him to think about a career and, predictably, had suggested horticulture. When I told him about Lizetta he brought down some of his old school work to show me, neat life-like drawings of fungi and painstakingly detailed illustrations of plant cell structures. His teacher had given him good marks for the work. ‘You really are interested in plants, aren’t you? You haven’t got all your old school work up there, have you?’
‘No. Biology was my best subject. Most of my school work is still at home in Twyford, if they haven’t thrown it all out.’
His father, before he turned to religion, used to take him on walks in the countryside and had taught him about the wildlife in hedgerows and ponds, and from an early age he had helped in the garden and on the family allotment. He had built on this knowledge in class. Knowing he was still in touch with his parents from the letters in the drawer in his room, I asked if he was thinking of going back to collect the rest of his things. ‘My sister will collect some stuff for me, what’s the point in me going back? All they’re interested in is banging tambourines for Jesus.’
‘They’re your mum and dad. You ought to go back to see them sometime.’ Our discussion was interrupted by the sound of the reception bell. In the hall was one of the Chinese men the Geordies had brought back with them to the hotel. Cheung was about Darren’s age, very cute with a small slightly upturned nose. One of them had given him a Newcastle telephone number, but when he tried it he found it was the number of a mini-cab firm. He wanted me to give him the correct number or an address.
The mini-cab number may have been given deliberately to fool him into thinking more than a night’s sex was on offer; if a boyfriend, or even a wife, answered a ’phone call or opened a letter from him serious problems might ensue. When I refused, he looked so unhappy that I agreed to forward a letter for him, on the assumption that the redhead, to whom I had sent confirmation of the booking, would pass it on to whoever in his party was so sorely missed after one night of love. I sat my visitor down at the kitchen table with writing paper and an envelope from the office.
Darren remembered Cheung from the club and made him a mug of tea, which he drank while writing several pages in a close regular hand. When the letter was finished they chatted for a while in the hall until Darren had to go to work, and they left the hotel together.
The redhead rang me a few days later to thank me for forwarding the letter, but said that although they would be happy to see any of the Chinese boys again the next time they came down to London it would be unfair to encourage them to expect anything more than another one night stand. The ’phone number, he said, must have been a misunderstanding of some sort; they did use one particular cab firm regularly, and perhaps Cheung had seen the number written down somewhere and wrongly
assumed it was a home number.
He claimed that none of them would have tried to mislead by giving the impression of wanting to keep in touch. He also asked after Darren, and I said he had had a terrible time with someone who picked him up, and that he had been in real danger, but had managed to escape without coming to permanent harm.
‘We were all worried about him on the train home. He’s a clever lad, he’ll learn how to look after himself. We’ve all got ourselves into dodgy situations when we were younger. I’m sorry if we let you down there.’
That chance meeting at the hotel was the beginning of a relationship between Darren and Cheung. A couple of weeks later they arrived together at the Beckford Arms on a Friday night. I was late, having been delayed by unexpected arrivals at the hotel, and found them laughing and joking with Tom at the bar. We all returned together and Darren took Cheung up to his room, the first time, to my knowledge, he had taken a lover up with him. Perhaps, after all, some good might have come from his visit to the Geordies’ favourite club.
Following Darren’s weekend escapade in Tottenham, for a few weeks life at the hotel settled reassuringly into steady profitable business. Goodmans Hotel had, so far, escaped any of the horrors of which my friend at Housmans Hotel had warned me; there had been no fraudulent payments, nobody had suffered a heart attack, there had been no fights and no vandalism. Then one morning a guest on the first floor came looking for me in the kitchen to complain he had been woken by a disturbance in the room above. He said someone up there must have gone berserk. There had been an almighty crash, followed by scraping sounds and thuds and bangs that went on for half an hour or more. The noise stopped eventually and he went back to sleep.
I leapt up the stairs to the second floor, fearing that taking in two men who had arrived without a booking had been a dreadful mistake. The door to their room was ajar. A loud knock produced no response, and when I tried to push it open it would not move. Lifting it up by the handle with difficulty I eased it open inch by inch. A toilet stink hit me as I entered the room. The upper hinge had been wrenched away from the door frame, and carefully leaning the door against the wall I turned around to face a scene of devastation.