Tim Comes Home

CHAPTER 1

It was a very cold night, late in November, with the wind blowing strongly, and there promised to be a heavy chill. The rain came down hard, sometimes turning to sleet, and the man was sorely tempted to miss his usual five-mile run when he came off duty at the police station. But he had promised himself to be regular about this, and so as soon has he got home, he stripped completely and pulled on his favourite blue Adidas soccer shorts, sporty T-shirt and trainers. Track suit? Nah! The cold would encourage him to run harder. He looked in the mirror as he did his stretches, to ensure correct form. ‘Not bad,’ he thought complacently, as he took in his handsome face surmounted by short mid-brown hair, and his broad shoulders, tapering over a powerful smooth chest and abdomen to a narrow waist.

He went out, locking the door and attaching the key to his wrist on an elastic band. He set off at a steady lope; instantly he regretted having started, as the cold rain soaked his few clothes in a moment. But he was wet now, so he might as well continue. His sodden T-shirt clung against his chest, and the wind chilled him to the marrow. He picked up his pace, running hard into the night. He decided not to follow his usual route, but to follow a shorter way along the Brighton and Hove bypass where it ran through a cutting, and there might be a bit more shelter from the sharp wind. About a mile along the busy road, he saw a lone figure in tracksuit trousers staggering along into the wind. Another mad runner, he thought, smiling wryly to himself, but as he drew nearer he began to see that the other runner looked completely exhausted. He could see the three white Adidas stripes along the legs moving irregularly in the car headlights. In another minute he saw that the figure was a boy, and that he had no shirt. Then he saw that he had no shoes either, and was staggering along irregularly; the boy’s eyes were closed; he suddenly feared that any moment the lad was going to lurch into the traffic. So the man sprinted, and caught hold of the boy just as he fell.

‘What the hell are you doing, lad?’

But there was no reply. In a moment, he realised that the boy was freezing cold, dangerously so, and nearly unconscious. Almost without thinking, he stripped off his own T-shirt, sodden as it was, and put it on the boy, rubbing him fiercely until he got some response. The boy awoke and looked blearily into the man’s face.

‘Can you hold on, soldier?’

The boy nodded, and the man turned round and crouched down. He grabbed the boy’s legs and lifted him onto his back. The boy wrapped his frozen arms around the man’s neck, and the man started to run towards his home. He realised that this was a life and death situation. If he waited until he ran to call an ambulance, the boy might die. Carrying the lad straight to his own home was the only option.

He had never run better or faster, despite the weight on his back, though the boy was thin and not very heavy; his legs pumped and his chest heaved. The lad drew some warmth from his pulsing body and the shaking up and down, and began to revive a little, retaining enough strength to hang on to the man’s neck. In a few minutes, the man had reached his home and put the boy down, leaning him against the wall. He opened the front door.

‘Can you walk, soldier, or shall I carry you?’

The boy just shook his head blearily and took some steps into the warmth. As soon as he crossed the threshold, however, he fell to the floor, overcome by the sudden heat. The man kicked off his wet trainers, pushed the door shut and picked the boy up in his arms, carrying him upstairs into his tiny flat.

He laid him out on the floor and tore off his own T-shirt from the lad. He did not even notice the bloodstains on it. Next he pulled off the blue track suit trousers; he was startled to see that the lad wore nothing underneath. Strange to be out on the bypass with literally nothing but trackie bottoms on. He ran to the little bathroom and brought towels. He chafed the lad’s limbs and chest, rubbing and rubbing hard to restore the circulation. The boy groaned softly. That was a good sign. He turned his body over onto his front so that he could rub his back. An oath escaped him;

‘Fuck!’

The boy’s back was a mass of bruises and gashes extending down over his buttocks and to his knees. There was matted and dried blood and excrement down the inside of his thighs. He couldn’t rub this; it would reopen the wounds. And the lad had clearly been sexually attacked.

‘You poor little bugger! No wonder you were running!’

He lifted the boy into his arms tenderly, and took him to the bathroom. He ran a tepid bath, poured some antiseptic into the water, and laid him in it. The lad hissed with pain as the antiseptic found his wounds. He was slowly beginning to revive. The man gently washed the boy and cleaned his gashes. He lifted him up and examined the damage to his anus; there was less than he feared, but still the boy was going to have to go to the hospital in the morning to be checked properly. He drained the now bloody water, and refilled the bath with warmer water, letting the lad soak a while to warm up. He repeated the process a couple more times, each time with slightly warmer water until the boy was fully conscious and warm to the touch. The young recover quickly. The man relaxed. He eased himself up from his long crouch; it had been a busy hour. His shorts, still the man’s only garment, had dried off with his mud-spattered body in the meanwhile, and he pulled them off to step into the shower next to the bath while the lad soaked in the tub. Five minutes later, he felt much better. He dried off and pulled a dry pair of shorts on, exactly like the other pair, while the boy watched him with puppylike adoration in his eyes. The man felt vaguely flattered.

‘You feeling better, lad?’

The boy nodded.

‘Good. Stay there, and I’ll fill the bath one last time.’

He did it, and this time the water was quite hot. The boy had never had a bath before, at least since he was a baby, only showers. The feeling was good. This time the man poured in some bubbly stuff under the running taps, which felt wonderful. He then gently sponged down the boy who shut his eyes in bliss, having never experienced anything that felt so fantastic. After he had done his legs and chest, the man stopped sponging, and the boy opened his eyes to see the beautiful bare-chested man squatting at his side, grinning, foamy sponge in hand, looking at his groin. The boy looked down, only to see that he had sprung an enormous erection. He looked at the man, mortified, but the man just continued to grin at him.

‘It’s okay, soldier; happens to us all. You can clean that bit yourself!’ And threw the sponge at him.

The boy relaxed in the steam as the man left the bathroom. A few minutes later the man returned with a couple of mugs.

‘Something warm. Only homemade chicken soup, I’m afraid. Will it do you for now?’

The boy nodded vigorously, afraid to speak. His eyes were glowing. The soup tasted more delicious than anything he had ever tasted before. He hadn’t realised that he was hungry; he had had nothing to eat all day.

When the soup was finished, he put the mug carefully on the side of the bath. The man was watching him all the time as he drank his own soup, crouched at his side, his knees apart and his spare hand gripping his thigh. The boy finally said one word, and put his whole heart into it.

‘Thanks.’

And the man smiled. ‘He speaks!’

The boy’s eyelids began to close, so the man moved quickly and pulled the plug, then lifted the boy up and out of the bath. The boy felt the man’s bare chest against his own, and he opened his eyes in surprise. He stood on the mat while the man towelled him down. He protested feebly, ‘I can do that.’

The man said, ‘soldier, you can barely stand. Let me do it for now, and we’ll see tomorrow.’

When the boy was dry, the man picked him up again and carried him into his room. He looked at the sofa, then changed his mind, putting the boy in his own bed. The lad was asleep in seconds. The man gathered up the boy’s tracksuit trousers and tutted over the blood stains. He put them into the washing machine to soak and wash overnight.

He then went and poured himself a glass of whisky, sat in his armchair, and looked at the boy as he slept. There was something about this lad that went to his heart; an innocence and a vulnerability that survived all that had obviously happened.

‘Who are you, lad?’ he asked himself quietly, ‘and who did this to you?’

A while later, the boy began to squirm in his sleep and to cry out. The man jumped up and put his arm over him, and the boy stilled. The man took his arm away, and in a few minutes the boy began his distress again.

‘Oh fuck it!’ said the man to himself. ‘I can’t have this going on all night; I’ll have to get in with him.’

He put his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pushed them down, throwing them over the chair. ‘Oops,’ he thought, ‘that’s one’d interest the Child Protection Agency,’ and stepped into them again. He knelt and said his prayers quickly, then got into bed behind the lad and put his arm around him.

The sleepy boy woke, nestled his wounded back against the man’s chest and sighed contentedly. The man patted his shoulder. The boy, happier than he had ever been, determined to stay awake as long as possible to treasure this moment, and so he tried to think of questions to ask the man. He wanted to know all about him; was there anybody else in his life? He had never felt so good, so secure, and he wanted to stay here forever.

‘Do you have a girlfriend, or are you married?’

The man stirred uncomfortably.

‘I used to be. My wife left me for another bloke a year ago. She took my daughter with her and most of what I had. That’s why I have to live in one room now.’

The boy didn’t understand all this, but understood that the man was sad and lonely. He turned in the bed and hugged the man back.

‘That’s so sad. Perhaps you’ll find someone to marry again.’ Find me a mother, too, was the unspoken thought.

The man answered softly, ‘Not likely, soldier. I’m a Catholic, and we marry for life.’

‘What’s a caflic?’

‘A sort of religion, lad. Now go to sleep.’

The boy fought his tiredness as hard as he could, but his exhaustion finally won through, and he slept like a log.

In the morning, the man woke early, as was his way, and somehow forgetting his bedmate, jumped violently out of bed. The boy was shaken awake, and saw his hero and saviour outlined against the window, his morning erection pushing out the front of his shorts, and his muscular chest and narrow waist silhouetted against the dawn sky. ‘That is the sort of man I want to be,’ the boy thought. ‘I wish he were my father,’ and a few silent tears made their way down his cheeks.

The man had moved off to shower himself, and the boy stirred out of bed. He had never felt so clean in his life, nor so rested, though his back and bottom still hurt a lot. It was worth it, though, just to have had this night, he thought. He would have something to think about when they took him back to Dad. And something to tell his little brother. But just the thought of going back terrified him; he had crossed too many taboo boundaries in his escape, and his father would likely beat him worse than ever before. And that was seriously frightening.

A thought struck him. After all, who but he even knew who he was? If they didn’t know who he was, how could they make him go back? A plan began to form in his mind.

He looked around the room for his tracksuit trousers, but couldn’t find them. Oh well; the man had seen absolutely everything last night, even an erection, so it wouldn’t matter being naked for a minute. The man chose that moment to come out of the shower, and came into the room completely naked himself, towelling himself vigorously. The boy looked in admiration at the man’s beautiful muscular body.

‘How do you get to look like that?’ he asked.

‘And good morning to you, too,’ the man replied, then grinned to take the sting out of his words. ‘Hard work with weights, press-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups every day. You too can have a body like mine!’

The boy didn’t understand the joke. ‘I can?’

‘Yes, soldier, but first you have to have a shower.’

‘Again? But I had a bath last night. Several baths, in fact!’

‘That was last night. This is this morning. March, soldier, and I’ll get us some breakfast.’

When the boy came out of the shower and dried off, the man shouted to him to wrap a towel round his waist and come to eat. The man was back in his shorts again, though he wore no shirt still. It seemed that he liked dressing that way when he was at home. They ate breakfast together, and if the boy thought it odd to be eating breakfast nearly naked with a nearly-naked stranger, he was enjoying the experience too much to comment. It felt so grownup and, well, male.

But ‘the talk’ had eventually to come. After breakfast, the man sat the boy down in the big armchair. He hunkered down in front of the boy, but close, so their knees touched. The boy watched the tanned, powerful lean muscles on the man’s bare thighs so near his own, and swallowed as the man rested his hands on them and rubbed them up and down their length. He watched the powerful pectoral muscles rise up and down as the man breathed gently, and the folding up and down of the strangely erotic ridges and bumps of his abdomen. It set up a strange longing in the boy, which he knew to be something like love, like desire; he longed to be with this man forever, or perhaps to be just like him in every way; that strange but intoxicating combination of strength, latent raw power, and yet extraordinary gentleness; the fascinating contrast of the man’s sleek muscles and strong handsome face with the gentle melting brown eyes that gazed steadily on the boy.

‘Sorry?’ said the boy, aware that the man had been speaking for some time.

The man patiently repeated a few questions about where the boy came from, who his family was, and above all what his name was. He was sharply surprised when the boy’s face drained of all its colour, and his bright blue eyes stared back at the man in a mixture of fear, puzzlement and determination. And he barely uttered a word of reply, but sharply evaded any attempt to get him to reveal what his name was or where he came from.

The man pressed a little harder, but the boy grew more and more distressed, until the man gave up. His heart wasn’t into pressing any further; it could be somebody else’s job. He could see the lad was determined not to give anything away, and as for himself, he wasn’t into the third degree, particularly just after breakfast. Nonetheless, there was something very appealing about this boy, and he found himself already becoming very attached to him. He certainly didn’t want to hand him over to somebody else, particularly to a comfortless official body, but that was what was going to have to be done, and a report was going to have to be filed by somebody.

‘Well, okay, lad. I may be a policeman, but this morning I’m an off-duty policeman.’

The man leant forward and placed his hands high on the boy’s thighs. The boy’s whole body thrilled with the intimate touch.

But you’ll have to tell someone, soldier, because your parents will be worried about you. They’ll want to know where you are, and what has happened to you. They need to know that you have been attacked, for instance, so that we can catch whoever did it.’

The boy, who had been looking at the man’s hands on his thighs as if they were the hands of a god, suddenly looked up into the man’s eyes, both tearful and terrified.

‘Oh shit… you mean that your parents… oh fuck… oh soldier, I’m so sorry.’

The man leant forward and hugged the boy tightly. The boy winced as his back hurt, but did not make a sound, as he was busy recording every sensation of the moment; the feel of the man’s pectoral muscles against his own, his breath on his neck, the tight, safe, sensation of those strong arms around him, to treasure in his memory forever.

The man sat back on his heels again, then unfolded his legs with lithe grace and stood smoothly upright. He looked down at the boy, who for the first time was smiling. And the smile was one of the most beautiful smiles that the man had ever seen. The boy’s eyes were intense blue and looked directly into the man’s soft brown eyes, full of trust and love, and the man found himself smiling back at his foundling and wishing that this lad could stay with him.

‘Oh, soldier,’ he said, ‘if only all the troubles of the world, or even all your troubles, could be solved with a simple hug, how much happier the world would be.’

‘Can I stay here with you? Live here, I mean?’ Had the kid read the man’s mind?

‘I’m sorry, soldier. I don’t know who you are, where you come from, only to start with. For all I know, I could get into real trouble. I live in one room which is hardly big enough for me; I only have one bed.’

‘We managed all right last night. It was really cool. And I sleep with my brother all the time.’

‘Well, I don’t, and last night was a special occasion. You’re only a youngster—how old are you, by the way?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘Bollocks! How old are you, soldier?’

In a small voice. ‘Eleven and three quarters.’

‘Right. There has to be someone taking care of you all the time; I’m a copper, and I’m often out all night and half the day; I can be called at any moment. Son, believe me when I say that I wish I could take you. I’ve already grown fond of you, but in this world some things just can’t be.’

The boy was nearly breathless. ‘He called me Son!’ he thought. ‘It’s only four and a bit years until I’m sixteen. I’ll wait. I’ll come back. Then we can share a house or something. Then he can be my dad.’ He smiled radiantly again.

The man seemed relieved, if surprised, that the boy had taken it so well, so he told the lad that he would need to visit the hospital now, to get checked up, and they would alert the social services to take care of him. The boy thankfully seemed willing enough, so the man turned to get ready.

The man stepped out of his blue soccer shorts and walked to his wardrobe to get some more suitable clothes. His casual nudity in front of the boy deeply impressed the lad, made him feel accepted and part of the manly tribe. The man pulled out a pair of khaki chinos and stepped into them. No underwear. The boy stored that away. Heroes don’t wear underwear. It was followed by a green polo shirt and a pair of deck shoes, and the man was ready to go.

‘Let’s go, lad.’

‘Like this?’ said the boy. He was still wearing only a towel.

The man hit his head with the heel of his hand—this boy was getting to him somehow—and threw the boy his track suit trousers, as clean as he could get them, and now dry.

‘Catch! Sorry if you want underwear, I don’t have any. Can’t abide it. You’ll need a shirt, though. Hang on a tick…’

The man rummaged in a drawer and came up with a faded blue and white striped football jersey.

‘This should fit you, soldier; it’s my old school one, though I’m sorry to see it go; I scored a lot of goals wearing it. I hope it brings you luck, too. It’s even got my name still inside, look! But I suppose I’ll never wear it again—it's too small for me now—and your need is greater than mine. Besides, it won’t look odd with tracksuit trousers.

The boy pulled on the shirt; it was rather big, but he was thrilled to the core to have his hero’s shirt around his chest.

‘I don’t think I’ve got any shoes to fit you, though.’

‘I’ve never worn shoes.’

‘Never? Well, OK then, we’re ready to roll, soldier.’

At the hospital, the lad was admitted to the long queue in Casualty. The man waited with him for his turn, and when the boy was taken to be examined, he held so tightly to the man’s hand that the man had to come too. The man gave the doctor a rundown of the events of the previous night, and said what he had done. The boy was made to strip, and was examined. The doctor praised the man’s quick thinking, and agreed that he had followed the best course in the circumstances, given that all the bleeding had stopped, and the essential need to warm the boy as quickly as possible.

‘But the condition of his er… back passage was surprisingly uninjured. I’m afraid that that is not as good news as it sounds, however, because it almost certainly means that he has been regularly sexually abused over a long period of time. This is a matter for the proper authorities.’

The social services were contacted; the only thing was to wait for them to arrive.

At lunchtime they had still not come, and the man had to go on duty at the police station. The boy got very tearful and frightened and the man felt himself getting tearful too. But it had to happen. The boy clung to the man’s neck and hugged him fiercely.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will never, ever, forget you.’

‘Somehow, soldier, I don’t think I will ever forget you, either.’ And the man kissed the boy on the forehead, turned and walked out to find his car; a difficult job, since he was having difficulty seeing anything much through his tears.

Social services were represented by a businesslike woman in a trouser suit. The boy, still wearing a surgical gown, was very much in awe of her. She told him that he would not be returned to his parents if he had been abused by them, which news came as a great relief to the boy. She asked for confirmation that it actually was his parents who had abused him.

The boy thought about it for a moment, trying to see what implications the question might have for him, and nodded.

‘All right, we will need to take you into care at Turling Park until we sort this out. It’s a sort of boarding school for children with special needs like yours. Unless you’re a Catholic, in which case we’ll take you to St Tarcisius’ Home for Boys. Are you a Catholic?’

The boy shrugged. That word again. He had absolutely no idea what a Catholic was, so he had no idea if he was one.

‘Now, the nurse tells me that you refuse to give your name. Why is that?’

The boy knew this game now. He stayed silent. The game went on for about twenty minutes until the woman lost her patience and snapped at the boy.

‘Oh for pity’s sake, just give us a name! Any name! Make one up, then at least we can get you off our hands!’

The nurse who had just come in with the boy’s tracksuit trousers and the man’s football shirt pursed her lips at the social worker’s explosion and said, ‘There’ll be no need for that! The boy’s name is right here on his shirt. Timothy Sullivan.’

‘Sullivan? That’s about as Irish as they come. If you weren’t Catholic before, you are now, Timothy. Put your clothes on quickly—oh, for pity’s sake, have you no underwear? We’re off to St Tarcisius. I’ve another case to pick up after you from the hospital here.’

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