Tim Comes Home

 CHAPTER 8

Tim Sullivan Senior had enjoyed his little game with Paul and Johnny. The uniforms had not been his at all, but had been borrowed from a friend who collected all sorts of militaria, simply in order for Tim to give his visitors something to talk about, and some fun. Next time they came, he would have to think of something else. The suits (for Mass and meetings) and the sports clothes (for everything else) were his, however, and he had bought the leather trousers simply because he thought they would all look dishy in them. He was right. He decided that he would have to buy another pair for Tim Junior, his own young namesake, whom he had yet to meet, but whom he heard on the grapevine was also something of a dish.

His life was getting better all the time. Just before Christmas, he had received a letter from his former wife, Sylvia. He had written to her himself, largely to apologize for having used her; he told her that he had finally acknowledged that he was gay, and hoped that she would find it in her heart to forgive him. Sylvia was not a vindictive woman; her behaviour at the trial was untypical of her, though sadly not at all untypical of divorce courts. She wrote back warmly, also frankly acknowledging her own part in the breakup. She was bitterly sorry for her unfaithfulness; she knew how much it hurt Tim, and she said that she did it partly for that reason, to try and make him jealous and notice her again. And no, she was sorry, but Catriona was not his daughter. Her father was the man that Sylvia had been married to these last few years, whom Tim had seen her with in the courtroom, whom she loved to distraction, and to whom she had not only been faithful, but had borne three more children. He was, moreover, a prosperous architect, and they had never needed Tim’s and Sylvia’s old family home, for which Tim had been paying the mortgage. Instead, they had been renting it out to students and saving the money. They felt dreadful about this, but since Tim had disappeared without leaving any forwarding address, there had been no way of contacting him. The house was still in Tim’s name, and was not needed by her or Catriona, and was therefore at his disposal; she had pleasure in enclosing a cheque for nearly ten thousand pounds back rent, and another couple of thousand pounds of Tim’s savings which Sylvia had taken from their joint account at the time of the divorce. The house agents would henceforward send Tim the rent directly, and he could either contine to rent it out as a source of income, or put the house up for sale. In any event, the house was now his, without strings attached.

Tim even went to see Sylvia in her new imposing home, and was genuinely pleased that she was now so content. Catriona had no memory whatever of this tall handsome man, but she liked him, and though now eight years old, happily sat on his knee, to be quickly joined by all her younger siblings. Tim also got on well with Sylvia’s husband, Roger, and he spent a happy few hours with him putting up the Christmas decorations. It was a sign how well Sylvia and Roger liked the new Tim that they invited him to spend Christmas with them, and it was a sign of how well Tim liked them when he genuinely regretted having to refuse, because the boys at Turling Park who had nowhere else to go used to spend the day with him.

So Tim was now relatively wealthy, and could reduce the hours he worked in the grounds to allow more time with the boys. He had received promotion, too, and was no longer the grunt who cut the grass, but he had moved to work in the vegetable and flower gardens. For this he took night classes in horticulture. He had to go and buy some ordinary trousers for this, and a couple of shirts; the first in several years. The new job brought a new home, too. He moved out of his old cottage and into one with no fewer than three bedrooms, which he would use to put up the occasional lad who found the privacy-deprived dormitories of Turling Park too much to bear in whatever grief was uppermost in his mind at that time.

Easter brought the news of the building of the new St Tarcisius’ House in the grounds of Turling Park. Tim was overjoyed. His rediscovery of Paul and Johnny’s friendship had been the biggest event of his recently new and happier life, and the thought that they would be always near was wonderful.

That summer, the old St Tarcisius boys were reunited to go on Summer Camp together. They met at the old site, sad to see their old home standing blackened and empty, and soon to be demolished, but the reunion was a happy one, and several former members of staff came for the occasion. Once the boys were seen off, the old staff, eschewing their former triumphant shout, went off to a pub for their traditional bucks fizz and caught up on the gossip.

Paul and Johnny came down to see Tim Senior again. This time, however, they spent only a couple of days at Turling Park, and Tim did not go away with to Scotland at all. Instead, the three of them took bicycles over on the ferry to France, and spent a wonderful fortnight pedalling around Normandy, squeezing together in one tent designed for four (and therefore with only enough room for two) and eating large French meals. Their delight in each other continued to deepen, and somehow the flippant humour that was naturally created in the particular combination of these three individuals kept them from the sexual consummation that each of them longed for, and yet feared.

On coming back to Turling Park, Paul and Johnny walked over the site for the new house with the architects—among whom was Roger, Sylvia’s husband—and made a lot of decisions.

The new term at Turling Park opened a new chapter in Tim’s life. He was hunkered down weeding a flower bed early one afternoon, wearing as usual only his blue football shorts, and waiting for his assigned boy assistant to arrive, when he was tapped on the shoulder.

‘Mm?’ he said.

A small voice asked ‘Are you Mr Hagrid?’

‘Grr,’ he said, without turning round. It was an old trick to play on a new boy, to make him call one of the staff by his nickname. They should try that with The Screw! As a joke, it was as old as sending a boy to the stores to ask for a tin of elbow grease.

‘I’m Mr Sullivan, Soldier, though you can call me Tim if you like, as I’m not a teacher’.

‘Erm… thanks Mr Tim. But could you please tell me where I can find Mr Hagrid?’

Tim sighed. ‘Its ok, Soldier, that’s what some people with what they think is a sense of humour call me. You’ve found me’.

He turned round on his haunches to inspect his new recruit, and looked into the piercing blue eyes and took in the light, fair hair.

‘Oh my God!’ he said, and fell on his backside into the flower bed. He was instantly transported back four, five years to that freezing night when he had rescued………this boy??……Surely not! That boy was nearly twelve, and must be sixteen or seventeen now. This boy was about thirteen. And this boy clearly did not recognize Tim.

‘Are you all right, Sir?’ said the vision.

It must be a coincidence, he thought. He pulled himself together and out of the flowerbed, brushing soil off his shorts and legs, feeling rather foolish. ‘Yes, Soldier, I’m fine, thanks. You just reminded me of someone. What’s your name?

‘Thompson, Sir. Dan Thompson.’

‘Well, Dan Thompson, we’ll get on fine, if you can tell the difference between a weed and a flower. The first lesson is to get yourself some sun. Take off your sweatshirt and sweatpants; you’ll get them filthy. Good, that’s better, isn’t it? Take off your t-shirt too, if you like, but don’t lose it, or there’ll be hell to pay from the ogres in the clothing department.’

Dan stripped quickly until he was, like Tim, dressed only in shorts. Tim looked appraisingly at the boy. He was clearly a sturdy, good-looking lad, and his initial impression of waif-likeness was immediately dissipated by his confident, athletic movements as he stripped, and the developed boyish musculature on his chest and arms. But Tim was reminded more and more of that lad whom he had rescued in the night. It was something in the way that the lad moved, as well as his striking looks.

‘Are you new here, Soldier?’

‘Yes sir. I’ve just come from Welling Court.’ Welling Court, far away in the Midlands, was the elite of the state junior homes for boys in trouble. It worked more or less like a private prep school, taking in the brighter younger boys that needed special housing and care. It had the disadvantage of removing the boys from all that was familiar, and taking them far away, but it gave them an unprecedented start in life, which they otherwise would not have. They were also kept there until they were thirteen, when some lucky boys could win scholarships to public schools. Dan was not that lucky, and so was sent to Turling Park.

The man and boy worked companionably side by side. The boy learnt quickly and worked very hard, so Tim and he finished the bed in record time, with half an hour to spare.

‘Well, Soldier, I think we’ve earned ourselves some refreshments before your carpentry class. Grab your things, and we’ll go back to my house’.

That was the start of a close friendship between Tim and Dan. Somehow they found that they understood each other without much needing to be said. Each afternoon they worked together in the gardens, and simply enjoyed each other’s company. Tim’s mind went back to what Paul had said to him about fostering, and he thought that, much as he loved the other lads, this was the first boy he could really imagine sharing his life with since his nocturnal visitor five years ago.

Dan was one of Tim’s most regular visitors during the evening free time; there was scarcely an evening when he did not put in an appearance, making himself entirely at home with confidence. His natural ease and charm, his physical strength, his intrepidity, and his prowess on the games field made him popular with the other boys and with the staff too, and so nobody questioned his growing closeness with Tim, whom he soon came to idolize. Unknown to Tim, Dan had begun to wonder whether he could persuade Tim to foster or even adopt him. And neither had any notion that the other was thinking, let alone wanting, the same thing.

One evening, Dan was Tim’s only visitor. Over the hot chocolate, Tim took his chance, and gently began to explore Dan’s background. He sensed immediately from the boy’s tension that he was going to have to go extremely carefully. On his part, Dan was apprehensive. He had never spoken to anyone about these things before, but somehow those understanding brown eyes made him think that this man was special, and so he was prepared to risk it.

Dan could not remember his mother, he said; she had died when he was an infant, but he remembered others talking about her without much respect. The only family he could remember were his father and his brother. Even at this distance of time, he cried when he remembered his brother.

‘He was the only good thing in my life at that time. I was very small, but Ben looked after me. He fed me, changed and washed my clothes, and tucked me into bed, but most of all, he protected me from Dad.’

‘How much older was your brother?’

‘I really don’t know. When you’re that small, everyone seems so adult. But I think that he can’t have been that much older, because Dad used to hang him by his arms from a hook in the roof of the caravan to beat him.’

‘Oh my God! What did he do to deserve that?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all!’ The boy was crying now. It was all pouring out of him. Somehow those warm brown eyes of Tim’s had opened gates that many counsellors had tried to breach without success. Tim moved unconsciously to hunker down in front of Dan, his knees against the boy’s, looking into his eyes. From his looks and his story, Tim was beginning to suspect who the lad was now.

‘Dad used to do something mean to Ben most nights, but some nights it was worse than others. If he had been drinking and had friends around, it was worse. Then Ben would be tied up as I said, and hit really hard with Dad’s belt. His back used to be covered with bruises. And then Dad would… I don’t know how to describe it …… he kind of pretended that Ben was a woman, and put his… his willie up Ben’s bottom. And sometimes Dad’s friends would do it too. Often there would be blood. Sometimes they took him out of the caravan to do it, and when they came back, Ben wouldn’t be with them, but he would come back later, crying. I think it was probably worse, what they did to him then.

‘The last night was the worst of all. It is stuck in my mind for ever. They tied Ben up and beat him so hard that I couldn’t bear it any more. I tried to take the belt from Dad, but he hit me across the face. That was the first and only time he ever hit me, but then he pulled my trousers off, and untied Ben to tie me up to beat me. Ben saved me again, and threw me out of the caravan door. I was terrified, so I went and hid. But I heard the terrible noises, and Ben screaming. I don’t think I can ever forget that sound.’

Dan and Tim looked into each others’ eyes; Tim was deeply shocked, and Dan was weeping hard.

‘A little while later, Ben came looking for me. He was covered in blood, his whole b…b…back was in a terrible state. He only had a towel on, and even that was covered in his blood. But he still was thinking of me! He took me back to the caravan, and tucked me up in bed. Dad and one his friends were asleep at the table. I suppose they were drunk. I wanted to stay with Ben, but he said that he had to go and get rid of the blood. He told me to be calm, that everything was all right, that he would come back for me. And he took his tracksuit trousers and went. Those were the last words he ever said to me.

‘Dad stirred at that point and I lost it. I scrambled out of bed and ran to find Ben in the shower block only just in time to see him running out of it as fast as he could go. I wondered what could have so scared him. Perhaps one of Dad’s friends was in there. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me. I started to run after him—I was only in my night things—but he was too fast for me. I followed along as best I could, but I only had little legs, and was too slow and it was too late. I found the towel soaked with his blood that he had worn around his waist, but I never saw my brother again. I still have the towel. They tried to take it away from me when I came here, but I wouldn’t let them.

‘He promised to come back for me, and he always kept his promises, especially to me. So I think he must be dead. I think Dad found him and killed him that night, or one of his friends did it.’

Dan broke down and sobbed. Tim leant over and hugged him tightly. He had such a powerful sense of the past repeating itself. Nothing had ever seemed so right as the young man in his arms now. He felt no erotic desire, just a strong protective sense. Nobody is going to hurt this lad again, if I can help it!

When Dan had calmed down, he continued,

‘I don’t remember anything else after that. I was completely lost, and the night was dark, raining and terribly cold. I remember lying down on the pavement and going to sleep with Ben’s towel in my hand, but the next thing I remember I was in the Royal Sussex Hospital, still gripping the towel.

‘They questioned me, but I hadn’t got a clue where I lived, other than in a caravan, and clearly Dad hadn’t bothered to report me missing—perhaps he was afraid that the police would discover he had killed Ben—so I was sent to Welling Court, and I’ve been there ever since, until I came here.’

Tim went over to the telephone, and rang Dan’s housemaster to ask if Dan could stay with him tonight. Permission was given for this on special occasions, and this was no exception. Tim returned to squat down in front of the lad.

‘He said you can stay the night, Soldier’. For the first time in the evening, Dan smiled. The smile was radiant, and when he saw it, Tim was now completely certain whom he had in front of him. He laid his hands on the boy’s thighs.

‘Now I’ve got something to tell you. I don’t know where your brother Ben is, nor do I know if he is even alive. But I do know by the most extraordinary coincidence that he did survive that night, and you have explained to me some of what has been perhaps the most puzzling episode in my life so far.’

And Tim proceeded to tell Dan the story of that evening when he had rescued the boy he now knew for the first time to be called Ben. And so he finished the story

‘…and at the hospital, the social workers took him. But I had had to go by then, and I never saw who took him, nor have heard of him since, though I have been looking for him all the time, because I think now that I acted wrongly to abandon him. And now perhaps you understand why I reacted the way I did when I first saw you, because you are very like your brother indeed, though something tells me you are a bit tougher. Perhaps because, thanks to him, you never got the abuse that he did, and you had his love and protection in your formative years, something he never had.’

‘I think you’re right, Sir. Am I like Ben? I’d like that; he was wonderful! But do you think that my Dad found him at the hospital and took him back home?’

‘Very unlikely. The staff at the hospital were extremely shocked at the state of Ben’s abused body, and they would never have handed him over to anyone but the proper authorities. I thought it most likely that Ben would have been brought here to Turling Park, but there was never any sign of him. He was too old for Welling Court. The only other place was St Tarcisius, the Catholic college, but your family is not Catholic, is it?’

‘No; we’re nothing, really’.

‘Yes, I remember asking Ben if he were a Catholic, and he didn’t know what the word meant’.

‘Yes, theological nicities were not frequently discussed in our family’.

Tim smiled at the lad’s precocious language. That’s Welling Court for you! Tim said;

‘But I have never given up hope that one day we will come across him. You know, he would never tell me his name, his home, his family, or anything about himself. He hoped that I might be able to take him in, but when he discovered that it was impossible—which I really thought it was, then,—he made up his mind to disappear completely, and he has succeeded only too well. When I changed my circumstances—in order to make it possible to take him in, among other reasons, by the way—it was too late, and he had vanished.

‘But I am certain in my heart that he is alive, and now that there are two of us with a real interest in finding him, perhaps we shall have better luck together.’

Dan gave Tim his radiant smile again. Tim held out his hand,

‘Come on, Soldier, time for bed.’

‘Sir, Mr Tim, could you do me a favour?’

‘Depends on the favour, Soldier’.

Give you a home for the rest of your life? Sure, kid. But Tim only thought it.

‘Would you look after my, that is, Ben’s towel for me? I’m so scared that the school will take it.’

‘Of course. I’d be honoured.’ And Tim was. The boys at Turling Park had so few things of their own, that what they had was extremely precious.

They went upstairs, and Tim showed Dan to a spare room, and showed him the bathroom. He then went and drank a thoughtful glass of whisky by himself. He had lost his heart to the brave little lad.

When all was quiet upstairs, Tim tiptoed up himself, knelt as usual to say his prayers, and went to bed. He had only just turned out the light when the door of his room opened. There was the boy, in his school shorts.

‘Tim, Sir?’

“Yes Dan?’

‘I’ve never slept on my own before. Can I sleep on your floor?’

And against all his better judgment, Tim flung back his coverlet, and the lad scrambled in to join him. Just as well, thought Tim, that he was at least wearing his shorts. He prayed hard that his instinctive, and, he thought probably stupid, action to take the boy into his bed would have no unforseen consequences.

And so that night Dan shared Tim’s bed just as his brother had done five years before. Tim pulled the youngster against his chest, and was almost surprised by the smooth and unblemished skin, where he had expected welts, blood and scars.

They both slept soundly.