Tim Comes Home

 CHAPTER 14

The following day, the four of us set off across the meadow towards the main block of buildings and specifically to the metalwork classroom. Poor Ben (Ben, not Tim, I kept reminding myself) had to kind of hop along with us; we kept forgetting his irons, walking too quickly. In the end, Tim senior turned to him and said

‘I think that on the occasions I save you, I am supposed to carry you piggy-back. Don’t you think that we ought to be deferential to tradition, Soldier?’

‘Fuck you!’ said my polite son, and hopped as well as he could, the leg irons chafing his ankles and his balls jumping up and down painfully under their collar.

A few hundred yards further, and Ben had had enough.

‘Ok, ok, I submit. Please carry me; This isn’t working!’

So Tim made a back, and Ben clambered aboard. He only got a few hundred yards, because Ben was no longer an eleven-year-old waif, but a very muscular, and therefore very heavy, young man.

‘Oooof!’ said Tim, dumping Ben on the ground. ‘I think you’d better carry me!’

In the end, we all carried Ben, and we got to the metalwork classroom eventually.

It was really creepy being back there. Looking again at the various implements of restraint on the walls, there was no longer any doubt in our minds that The Screw and Ben’s father were one and the same man. The workmanship on Ben’s irons was identical.

Tim, always the most dexterous with his hands for any job, assembled the tools and said,

‘Right, Ben. What do you want off first?’

‘There’s no question Tim. This fucking ball collar, that has caused so much pain, not just to me, but to Dada and Uncle Paul, and you, and everyone I love’.

He tore off the studs on the breakshorts and stood before us naked without any embarrassment. We all saw him as if for the first time. He was really magnificent; despite all his suffering, and the irons that were still on his body; his physique was what models dream of. I could hardly believe that this was my little boy, that I had brought up and tended, loved and nurtured.

Tim was businesslike, however. ‘Right; up on the bench, Tarzan, and spread your legs!’

I couldn’t bear to watch, nor could Paul. We went out into the sunshine and sat on a bench overlooking a cricket pitch where the grunt groundsman, the one who had succeeded Tim, was driving a lawnmower round lazily. We took off our shirts and sat there in our shorts watching him, shoulder against shoulder, arms around each other.

‘Paul’, I said, ‘does it worry you that we don’t have sex?’

Paul sat upright and choked.

‘And they say I am the one who shoots from the hip! Worry me? ‘

He sat and thought for a long time, his knuckle between his teeth in the way I loved, and then resumed

‘Johnny, I have loved you for so long, but I love the whole you. Let us assume for a moment that God, the Church and the rest do not exist and we could do what we liked: If you were a rent boy, a hustler, as the Americans say, would I want to bed you? The answer has to be yes, yes, yes, and twice on Sunday! And I’d pay all that I had for the privilege. Your presence and your body excite me passionately. When I know you are within half a mile of me I start tingling and longing to put my arms around your amazing sexy body. Without your shirt you are a revelation. The fact that I know you are now going commando makes me so randy I can’t tell you.

‘But in the end, it is not your body that I love—I lust for your body, God knows how much—but it is you that I love. The you that is inside your body. If we were to tear off our shorts and fuck each other silly here and now, no doubt we would have huge fun. But would we respect ourselves and each other tomorrow? Could we live as Warden and Chaplain of St Tarcisius’ contentedly together? I very much doubt it. In the end, Johnny, you and I are priests, and that is more than a job we do; it is what we are. The priest is a part of the Johnny I love, and if the Johnny I love were not a priest, I think I would not love him so much. My love for you is immeasurably increased by the respect I have for you as a man, and even more as a priest.

‘My darling, you mean more to me that I can ever say. But it is the whole you, not just your body, that I love. I want to stay close to you for the rest of our lives, and then I want to be close to you when we die, I want to hold your hand and share strength when we go through Purgatory, and, please God, I want to be beside you for ever in Heaven. I never want to be away from you, my love. If you were in Tim’s cottage now, and I were here, half a mile away, I would ache, and every second away from you would be an eternity of sorrow. I don’t intend to throw away something so precious for the undoubted privilege and pleasure of sucking your cock!’

We held each other and talked of nothing for hours and hours. Our stomachs were rumbling ominously when we decided to go back to the cottage, make sandwiches, and then see what was going on in the metalwork classroom.

We were shocked when we returned to find Tim still burrowing into Ben’s groin. Both the men looked exhausted. Because of the sensitive location, Tim had to proceed with his cutter millimetre by millimetre, and the metal was extremely hard. Ben lay back on the hard table, his face unreadable, beyond embarrassment, as Tim cut slowly through the metal that held his most private parts bound. We went over; I embraced my Tim—Ben, I should say—and kissed his sweating forehead. Paul squeezed Tim’s shoulders companionably. He asked

‘Is there nothing we can do in the meantime?’

It turned out there was. Ben’s other irons, because they were not quite so intimate in location, shall we say, were much easier to deal with, if one had the proper tools, which were all there. Though we were not as good with our hands as Tim, we set to work willingly. I took Ben’s neck collar, and Paul his manacles. We had both finished before Tim had finished Ben’s ball collar. We all cheered as each of these horrors fell to the floor with a clang. Now there were only the fetters to deal with on Ben’s legs. While Tim addressed himself to these, Paul and I wandered round the classroom, discussing how we were to deal with The Screw, Ben’s father.

This was not going to be easy. In the end, there was not much evidence against him. If we charged him with assault and violence against Ben, he could produce the ‘Slave Contract’ and argue that even if the contract were invalid on account of Ben’s minority, it nonetheless made all the abuse consensual, Ben being above 16 years of age. The photographs of the boys only showed them in his irons; though if they had been prisoners, this would have been illegal, contrary to the Geneva Convention, these were not prisoners, and there was no photographic evidence of further abuse. It was just the sheer quantity of photographs that suggested the man was sick. For us, the important thing was that the man was no further threat to anyone. His sexual and extreme physical abuse had, as far as we knew, been confined to his son, and so we thought we had better leave the final decision until Ben was sufficiently recovered to make a contribution to what we were going to do. The important thing in the short term was to ensure that the boys at the school were safe from this horrible man in the future.

Paul sprinted back to Tim’s cottage, and returned soon carrying one of the unpleasant photograph albums we had found. We chose some of the pictures, and laid them out along the teacher’s bench in the classroom. We added Ben’s broken irons. When The Screw returned, he could not but know that someone at the school had been to his house, and knew everything. That was all we could think of in the short term.

There was a clatter from the other end of the classroom, and a triumphant shout. Ben was free at last of all his irons! He and Tim were sharing a warm embrace. I suppressed a momentary jealous pang, and went over with Paul to join them. We filled the others in on our ideas regarding The Screw, and they agreed that what we suggested was probably best. Ben jumped down from the bench, revelling in the freedom.

‘I just want to run and run’, he said.

‘Not quite like that’ I commented dryly.

‘Why not?’ he said. Paul went and took hold of Ben’s newly released balls:

‘Darling, you’re as naked as the day you were born!’, and he threw his arms around Ben and kissed him. ‘Oh Tim—I mean Ben—it’s so wonderful to have you back with us!’.

We all hugged, and everything was fine.

We determined to break the difficult atmosphere. Tim was, as before, the master of ceremonies. He had a job keeping order at first, as Ben kept skipping round the classroom in his delight to be free of the irons for the first time in many weeks, not embarrassed about even flipping his balls around.

‘Right, men,’ said Tim. ‘We’ve all been under a bit of tension recently, which some might regard as the understatement of the year. So right now we’re going to let off some steam. The only garments permitted for this activity are shorts and trainers—the trainers being optional, and, I suppose, the shorts being optional, if some of you kinky buggers want to go as nature intended, like our friend Ben here.’

Ben quickly pulled on the breakshorts again, and we all ran full stretch back to Tim’s cottage, leaving the classroom open. Ben came last, unsurprisingly. His limbs had not yet returned to full use, and he had never been aerobically very fit. He was humiliated, though, as he said, to be beaten by all these old granddads, and challenged us all to wrestle though, he said with a sly look at his host

‘These breakshorts aren’t very comfortable. Have you got any more of those nice shiny blue adidas shorts, Tim?’

Tim blushed. ‘Yes, several pairs, I have to admit’.

‘Well, bring them out, then, you old perv!’

These shorts had become a sort of leitmotiv of our relationship, and above all of the relationship between Tim and Ben. We all stripped and dressed in them, and wrestled. Ben beat us all, naturally, his muscular limbs beginning to recover their power. But the final wrestling was between Ben and Tim, and as the two powerful men writhed and tugged at each other, something was clearly going on between them. This was not simply a struggle for dominance, even a good-natured one. These two men were trying to learn from each other, learn about each other; they ran their hands over every part of each other’s body in a way that if they had not had the excuse of wrestling, they would never have dared, especially in front of me and Paul.

Paul and I could clearly see that these men were becoming obsessed with each other. They made a play of wrestling, but in their own way, they were courting. This was an ancient ritual, but these two had made it their own. Their play went on for a very long time, and when finally Ben sat astride Tim, their eyes were like fire, and fixed on the other. They both had erections, and did not even notice. Paul said sadly to me

‘Our little boy is growing up. I think he’s going to leave us soon’.

We swam naked in the lake, we swam races in the pool. Then we all went and stood in the shower room and washed each other. I can honestly say that never have I felt love so strongly for those three men, or for anyone else. Ben had truly joined us as an equal in our love.

Back at the cottage, Tim decided we were going out for a meal.

‘I’m paying! Don’t forget, I am a man of means these days.’

And with great care (and much changing of minds) he dressed us all in his own suits, reserving the best for Ben, who looked so handsome and adult. We stood silently and looked at him, so very happily; we were all in the shadow of this boy who had come from an abused childhood in a caravan park to be loved so very deeply by us, his three best friends. Our relationship with him as a boy had disappeared; this was so much better.

The meal was wonderful; we all gazed at each other over the food, and wondered what we had done to deserve such good friends.

That night we lit a bonfire as before, and Tim had another little ceremony to perform.

‘Ben: you’ve had the shorts, you’ve had the workout; but there is one other little thing that you lack if you are going to join our outfit.’

Ben looked wary. But Tim produced from behind his back a pair of leather trousers.

‘These are for you, with my love. And that, my love, I mean.’

Tim pulled off his shorts—what need for shyness now?—and pulled on the tight leather trousers. We all pretended we needed to help, but when finally on, the trousers looked fantastic on him, of course. Everything looked fantastic on my son. I was lost in admiration, until another pair was thrust into my face by Paul.

‘Come on, Johnny, it’s tradition, now!’

So we all wore the trousers, and Tim sang to us. No, actually, he sang to Ben; every word a word of love.

We had given Marc and Conor a mobile telephone between them, the cause of many of their fights, on the understanding that they paid for their own calls. Our first priority the following morning was to call them to let them know that their big brother had returned. Although the ever-practical Marc had been glad to snaffle Ben’s bedroom, the two boys had missed their brother terribly. Paul and I had to face it that Ben had been more of a parent to them than either of us had been, and we could not supply that combination of tender care and hero that Tim had done. The boys loved us, certainly, especially Paul, but Tim—Ben, I should say—was the one they really looked to and thought of as their ‘significant adult’. They were overjoyed that Ben had come home, and wanted to return from camp immediately. Paul told them to stay on, however, and Ben himself spoke to them (he had to do some fast work to explain to them why he was no longer Tim) and told them that there were things to be sorted out first. They accepted this, reluctantly, but only because they had no other choice, really.

Paul and I had another long chat, this time about Tim and Ben. It was clear to both of us that something very important needed to be sorted out by these two, and that our presence was making it more complicated than it need be. So we decided to let them be on their own for a few days, and see if that helped.

‘Where will you go?’ said Tim, ever the anxious, and now rather guilty, host.

‘Oh, anywhere’ said Paul. ‘A hotel somewhere, I suppose. We could do with some time together, and poor Johnny is still rather frazzled after the last week’s goings-on.’

And Tim offered us the use of his house in Brighton, the one he had shared with Sylvia during their brief marriage. Apparently it was now rented out to students, who did not use it during University vacations. So to Brighton we went. And had a wonderful time. Brighton is the British San Francisco, so we could openly walk through the town hand in hand, and nobody noticed; the only close call was when we saw Canon Riordan from the Sacred Heart Church in Hove on the other side of the road, but he did not notice us when we ducked into a doorway. We behaved disgracefully, really. We went to pubs and drank too much, we went onto the pier and played on all the arcade machines. We swang on the swings (and were thrown off for being over age; the man pompously asked us ‘Are you under fourteen?’, and we found this so funny that we rolled around with laughter, which made him even more angry) and rode on the helter-skelter. We even went to ‘Cockatoo’, entranced by the name, a gay club run by an Anglican clergyman (and we recognized one of our colleagues in the distance) but found it loud and too aggressively ‘gay’ for our tastes. We ate often in restuarants—we were thrown out of Latin in the Lanes for Paul insisting on smoking a cigar. He never smokes, so of course he did it deliberately. We went to the cinema, lay on the beach for five minutes—it’s stony—and even swam in the dilute sewage that is the English Channel. But above all, we enjoyed each other’s company. Funnily enough, even though we loved each other to desperation, sex seemed not to be much of an issue any more. Perhaps we had lanced the problem with our conversation while Ben was being freed from his irons. But our love was deepened in so many ways. Those few days were some of the best in my life, and I look back on them with the deepest gratitude to God, to Paul, and to Tim, who lent us his house.

That house was not very nice, really. It was a standard Brighton small terraced town house, with three small bedrooms, but years of renting out to students had made it very shabby. They had nailed up their posters on the walls, dropped glasses of wine on the carpets and stubbed out their joints on the soft furnishings for so long that it was like living in a sixth-form common room. With one consent, Paul and I started work. We bought tins of paint and slathered the walls in a new coat. We scoured the second-hand shops for furniture, and in the end bought lots of items from a Catholic charity in Portslade called Emmaus, giving them Tim’s in return for them to restore and sell for their work with the homeless. We scrubbed, hoovered, and did everything to make the house liveable in. And by the time we left, it was.

When Paul and I returned to Turling Park, it was all decided. Ben was moving in with Tim. Well, it made sense, I suppose. I would have had to have been blind and deaf not to have seen the extraordinary bond between those two, initially forged before either Paul or I had even met Ben. And Ben had assured me with tears that he was not abandoning me for Tim, that I was and would be always his dear Dada, and that was that. Although I cried, I didn’t worry much; after all, the new St Tarcisius House was only a hundred yards away, and we would see lots of each other. Marc and Conor’s rumbustuous return was very memorable; they had made Ben a whole selection of woodcraft ornaments to welcome him home, each more revolting and impractical than the last, (the pipe-rack and ash tray was a particular favourite, especially as Ben didn’t own a single pipe, nor did he ever smoke) but Ben took it all in his stride and pretended he loved them. Perhaps he really did, knowing whom they came from and that they were made with love.

Watching our three sons together, a solution began to present itself as to the boys’ future. We had a quiet word with Tim and Ben, and it was agreed that if the boys were happy, they could move into Tim’s home. That way they would be apart from St Tarcisius enough to feel special and part of a family, but still be near us. The boys thought the idea was wonderful, and so that was settled happily enough. Which left Dan, whom nobody but Tim had met yet. He was going to return from holiday and find his life turned upside down. As far as he knew, he was simply going to quietly move in with Tim some time in the next few months. But while he had been away, he had suddenly acquired his real brother again, as well as two foster brothers, with all of whom he was going to be living. Tim thought it was going to be all right, however, as Dan was a well balanced, sturdy lad, easily capable of holding his own against Paul’s two rascals, and of giving as good as he got.

But in the shorter term, there remained the decision of what to do about reuniting Ben and Dan. It was clearly going to be an emotional and possibly difficult occasion, and it was important to manage it carefully. Tim knew that the first evening the boys returned, his cottage was going to be full of Turling Park lads anxious to share stories of their various summer exploits in the highlands of Scotland. That was no way for Ben and Dan to meet again. Tim thought and thought, and in the end decided that the only thing to do was to go up to Scotland himself a day or two early and fetch Dan home. It would spoil the surprise a little bit, since Dan could not but conclude that something was up, but that could not be helped. And so we took Marc and Conor back to St Edwards, inviting Tim to come and join us as soon as Ben and Dan had met, in order to leave them space together. Thus it was decided.

The following morning, Tim flew to Inverness, and hired a car to take him to the school where the Turling Park boys were staying. As soon as he entered, he was mobbed by a great crowd of lads who were delighted to see him, and who were falling over themselves to tell him of their various exploits over the last couple of weeks. Tim looked vainly for a sign of Dan, but he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the whole group fell silent. The Screw was standing in a doorway, looking menacingly at Tim and the excited boys.

‘The next one to speak gets the handcuffs for 24 hours!’ he said. ‘Go about your business silently. You do not want to see me angry! Leave now; I want to talk to Mr Sullivan.’

The boys, abashed, left quietly.

‘In here,’ said The Screw coldly to Tim. They went together into a small sitting room, and sat opposite each other, looking grimly at each other. Tim had never before looked closely at The Screw, but now he studied his face, trying to find some trace of likeness between him and his sons. It was there if you looked for it; there was a sort of elusive beauty that had become somehow corrupt and twisted. He was a kind of caricature of his boys, their beauty seen in a distorting mirror; someone who could have been beautiful in body and soul, but had been changed by too much unhappiness and bitterness. Self-hatred and loathing was written into the lines of his face; there seemed nothing but despair and unhappiness. How did a man get like this? thought Tim. Was he ever a carefree and happy little boy? Is this what would have become of Ben and Dan had they stayed with their father?

Finally the Screw spoke.

‘So you are the shit who thinks he can steal my son from me again! You won’t succeed; I’ve got him back again, and he’s not going to get away.’

Immediately Tim’s thoughts jumped to Ben, and how this man had left him chained up in his house. But before he could say anything, the Screw continued,

‘Last thing I expected, to find him here, the little sod. But now he’s back with his old Dad. Oh yeah; he told me you were going to foster him, but I told him he can forget that. We’ve got years of meaningful relationship to catch up on, the two of us, and I have plans to enjoy every bloody moment. Don’t look at me like that, Sullivan; he’s my son, not yours. I have the right to do what I want with him, even if the little shit did run away seven years ago, and what I want to do with him is not to give him to you!’

Tim’s heart constricted in his chest with fear for Dan. Why, oh why did he let Dan come on this trip; he should have rescued him the moment he knew that The Screw was his father. Tim got to his feet unsteadily. Fresh air! Think, Sullivan, think! He left the room, no longer able to bear the cruel smirk on the face of The Screw. He walked quickly towards the boys’ common room, grabbing the first lad he met.

‘Nick; can you tell me where Dan Thompson is?’

‘Yes, sir; the Scr… er… Mr Thompson has put him in his own room. Sir, is it true that he is his father?’

But Tim did not answer.

‘Where’s the room, soldier?’

The boy called Nick told Tim to follow him; like the other Turling Park boys, he adored and trusted Tim implicitly. They went to a door upstairs, and Tim knocked. There was no answer. Tim tried the handle; the door was locked. He called out Ben’s name, and there was a strange shuffling, knocking sound at the other side of the door. Tim turned to Nick.

‘Quick, Soldier, go and get a couple of your friends. I’m going to break the door down, and I want some witnesses. Run, lad.’

Nick sprinted off, and within half a minute had returned with a couple of curious lads. Tim set his shoulder to the door and heaved. Nothing. He retreated to the other side of the corridor and charged. The lock broke with a sound of splintering, but the door did not open. Tim pushed hard, and there was a groan; he eased himself through the gap between door and frame into the darkened room; someone had drawn the curtains. He strode across to the window and pulled back the hangings, flooding the room with daylight; he turned to see that Nick and his friends had come in to the room, and were looking around puzzled. Why had Tim wanted to break into this room?

Tim looked back at the high door, and saw why it had been so difficult to open. Hanging on the back was a naked boy, his hands cuffed together and attached to the clothes hook above his head. He was gagged, and Tim and the others saw with horror that his back, buttocks and thighs were a mass of bruises and gashes. It was Dan, of course. Finally his father had caught up with him.

Tim groaned aloud, his eyes springing with tears. The boys gaped with horror; some of them had been abused in their past also, and understood something of what was going on.

The Screw chose that moment to return to his room.

‘What the fuck……?’

He got no further, because Tim seized him by the throat and threw him against the wall, banging his head again and again with one hand, while with the other he battered his body anywhere he could reach.

Nick thought quickly; he was seriously afraid that Tim would kill The Screw, and, though the thought brought him a certain satisfaction, he knew that it would not be a good idea. He seized a large jug of water that stood beside the bed and threw the contents over Tim’s head. Tim gasped, and came to his senses.

‘Thanks, soldier. You did right.’ He let go The Screw, who slid to the ground, unconscious. Tim turned to one of the other lads.

‘Go quickly; phone the police.’ He went to Dan and removed his gag, then, raising his body, lifted his hands over the hook. The boy began to collapse to the floor, so Tim, shouting to Nick to find the handcuff keys, lifted him into his arms and carried him out of the room to the nearest dormitory bed; he could not bear to stay in The Screw’s presence a moment longer.

It took a few minutes for Dan to come to himself, but eventually he focussed on Tim, kneeling by his bed with his arms around him, and Nick and the others. He turned his beautiful blue eyes on his saviour and simply said

‘Dad.’ The tension burst out of Tim, and he sobbed as he held the boy against him. Dan cried too, and was soon joined by Nick and the other lads, one of whom had found the handcuff key and released Dan’s chafed wrists.

The police came, and took statements, and photographs. They went to arrest The Screw, but found the room empty; clearly when he was left alone, he had revived, quickly packed up his things and made good his escape. They promised Tim that they would put out an alert for him, and would do their utmost to find him and bring him to justice. Meanwhile, they understood that even though the Screw was his father, the court order for the protection of Dan was still in force, and therefore he could remain where he was, in the care of Turling Park, though they thought he ought to be seen by a hospital.

Tim agreed, though the first step was to get Dan clean. He picked the lad up in his arms and took him to a bathroom where he carefully washed all his injuries; he discovered that Dan had also clearly been sexually violated. It all became too much, and he wept again.

‘How many times in my life am I going to have to do this?’ he cried. ‘Once was bad enough.’

‘Dad,’ said Dan, ‘please don’t cry. Actually, in a way, this makes me feel better. I always hated that Ben had had to take all the treatment; this sort of evens things out a bit. And now I understand what he went through to keep me safe!’

‘What is it with you Thompson boys, that you feel you deserve this bloody treatment?’

Tim took Dan on the long drive to Inverness General Hospital, where they were seen almost immediately. There was very little that could be done; none of the gashes were so severe that they needed stitches, though some might leave a small scar. As Tim left the treatment room, Dan panicked and called ‘Dad, don’t leave me…!’

Tim choked up, remembering Ben all those years ago, and how he had left him in a hospital.

‘No, Son, never again. I’ll be right outside. I’m here for you, always and forever. ’

Tim had phoned Ben to let him know what was going on, and that his return would be delayed, though he did not go into details. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. So Ben grew anxious, waiting for the return of his brother whom he had longed to see again for so many years. He tried all sorts of activities, simply to keep his mind off things; he went running, to try and build up his aerobic fitness, he worked out in the gym, and managed to thus pass an hour or two, but the remaining hours went painfully slowly. Would Dan even recognize him? Would he be angry with Ben for having abandoned him?

Finally at about eight in the evening, Ben heard a car draw up outside the cottage. He went outside and stood with the rays of the setting sun shining through his blond hair, which was growing back nicely now. He had thought carefully about this moment, and, remembering his last words to his brother, had chosen his clothes with care; he wore simply a pair of Tim’s blue adidas tracksuit trousers and his—now Dan’s—towel, which he carried over one arm. As he stood there, dazzled by the low sun, he heard the car doors close, followed by a gasp of shock and a crunch as baggage was dropped; the next thing was a large and solid mass of blond teenager had hurled himself at him. The brothers embraced and wept loudly, oblivious to everything around them; they never noticed Tim quietly driving himself off to stay with Johnny and Paul; they never noticed the sun setting; they were simply wrapped up in each other. After a while, Dan said, chokingly,

‘You came back for me, Ben! You kept your promise; I always knew you would!’

‘Yeah, well, I had one or two things to do, but better late than never, Dan.’

And with their arms around each other, the two brothers went into the house to talk and talk and talk.

A day later, Tim returned, as the rest of the boys were returning from Scotland the same day. He was delighted to see Ben and Dan so happy together. Since Ben was now an adult and the natural full brother of Dan, there was nothing to prevent Dan moving in straight away, the need for a foster father being now redundant, and that was done, him taking one of the two spare rooms. But Tim remained Dad to Dan; never would he forget what he had done for him. Ben moved into Dan’s room, and the two began to build up their relationship once more, though truth to tell, they related to one another as if there had never been any break at all; Dan was so utterly happy to be back with the two people he loved most in the world under one roof. It also had to be explained to him that he had two new brothers, in a way; Marc and Conor, who would soon be moving in as well, but Dan just shrugged and said that he was used to sharing a house with hundreds of boys, and so anything was an improvement.

That night there was a bonfire with the returned Turling Park boys, and Tim sang and told ghost stories to an audience of more than fifty. Ben looked at Tim with quiet pride and saw how much the boys worshipped him. He thought how proud he would be if he, too, could do something like this with his life.

On the first day of term, as Tim, Ben and Dan returned from their morning run, they found a policewoman on the doorstep of Tim’s cottage. She looked uncomfortable, and spoke to Tim;

‘Sir; would you confirm your identities, please? Am I speaking to Timothy Sullivan, Benjamin Thompson and Daniel Thompson? Thank you. I understand that the three of you know the man known as Bernard Thompson?’ The Screw.

The three confirmed this uneasily. Had he been found?

‘Would you please accompany me. I’m afraid there is an unpleasant duty needing doing. I’m sorry to trouble you.’

‘Can we change out of our running things first?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir; this needs to be done immediately.’

The three walked across the meadow with the policewoman to the school; it was clear that they were heading towards the workshops and in particular to the metalwork room. Were they going to meet The Screw now? Ben, more than anyone, was frankly terrified; he knew that he found resisting his father nearly impossible; the only times he had been able to do it was when he was defending Dan. Perhaps it was as well, after all, that Dan was coming. The classroom door was open, and there were several policemen there, the area having being cordoned off; The Screw’s car was nearby, so he was obviously home. The three squared their shoulders and went in; they saw first the desk with Ben’s broken irons and the photographs. And then they saw The Screw. As befits his name, he was swinging round and round from a hook where he had hung boys in chains. Only he was hanging by a cable around his neck, and he was dead.

Ben knelt down and sobbed with a conflict of overwhelming emotions; Dan got down beside him, weeping quietly, and the two comforted each other. By this last act, The Screw had forced the very thing that everyone was trying to avoid; publicity. Now everyone would have to know about the boys’ abuse, since it would all come out at the inquest.

‘Sir’ said the policewoman to Ben, after allowing him a pause to compose himself, ‘I need you to confirm that this is Bernard Thompson, your father.’

Ben just stood up and nodded, then strengthened his voice. ‘Yes, that is our father, Bernard Thompson. May God rest his soul and finally bring him peace.’

Tim looked at amazement at Ben, marvelling that he could find it in his heart to pray for the man who had so abused him and his brother. He looked at Ben’s face; he saw no anger, but only tranquility and a real sense of peace. He saw Ben’s arm snake around his brother’s shoulders, pulling him into himself; both young men were wearing shirts to hide the wounds and bruises both of them had received from that hateful man. Dan winced a little, but settled into his brother’s embrace, wrapping his arm around Ben’s waist.

Ben saw Tim’s look of disbelief.

‘Look, Tim. Look at our Dad; that is where hate gets you. Why should I hate him now? Isn’t he truly to be pitied? For all the unhappiness he gave us, he must have been at least twice as unhappy himself. Dan and I have each other again, and that is wonderful; I don’t think Dad ever had anyone at all. He and Mum always fought—you wouldn’t remember that, Dan—and I don’t think either one of them was ever happy. I have learnt to be happy, and I have learnt to recognize love and perhaps to give it, too. Dad never had that chance. I hope now that he has finally found Someone who loves him, and Whom he can love; God Himself. Perhaps death may be the very best thing that happened to our Dad. Suicide wasn’t the best way to do it, sure, but somehow I think that God will understand.’

‘And what about you, Dan?’

‘Look, I don’t understand all this religion stuff, but what Ben says seems to make sense to me. Where’s the point in hating him? It’ll only make us miserable, and I don’t propose to let hatred win. He can’t hurt us any more, so let’s just draw a line under it and carry on with our lives.’

And something melted within Tim. Years of barriers and self-protection crumbled. He remembered the Lord’s command to ‘Love your enemies; do good to those who hurt you,’ and the nobility and faith of the young man he loved, and the natural goodness of his brother awakened in him once more that love of God he had had as a young man; finally, finally, he began to realise what he must do.

Tim walked across to the body, now lowered to lie on a bench, and made the sign of the cross on his cold forehead. He made the Church’s solemn prayers for the commendation of the deceased, and prayed for the salvation of the man Bernard Thompson, that, though he had taken his own life, God may yet have mercy on his distress of mind, and find it in His heart to forgive all his many sins. Ben, at his shoulder, answered the prayers, and Dan joined in as best he could. All three of them found peace in the solemn and gentle words that returned surprisingly easily and quickly to Tim’s memory.

When they had finished, one of the policemen said to Tim

‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t realize you were a priest, in your running gear.’

‘I’m not a priest,’ said Tim. ‘I’m still a deacon, but somehow I think I’m going to be a priest quite soon.’

There was a great deal of upheaval over the succeeding weeks. Tim submitted his resignation to the Turling Park headmaster, and there was great distress among the staff and boys, who had come to see Tim as one of the greatest resources of the establishment. The Bishop, who had always had a soft spot for Tim, welcomed him back among the ranks of the clergy with open arms, and talked with Tim for a long time about his future. He was well aware of the important work that Tim had done at Turling Park, and was very reluctant to end it. So it was decided that instead of returning to the Seminary to prepare for priesthood, that Tim would move in with Paul and Johnny and study with them for a year, while continuing his pastoral work full time among the boys at Turling Park. If it all worked out well, he could join the staff at St Tarcisius’ House permanently; that would mean three priests on the staff, but if the Bishop didn’t have to foot the bill to pay them all, then it ought to work out all right.

The news was greeted with great relief by all concerned, and especially at Turling Park. Tim would have to vacate his cottage, however, for the new groundsman, though an appointment was not made for another year, which gave Ben and Dan the chance to build their own house next to St Tarcisius with the money from the sale of their Father’s house, the house where Ben had been tortured, and to which he wanted never to return. The house, with bedrooms for both Marc and Conor, and a flat for Tim, was complete in a couple of months, and was connected by a short corridor and hallway to the Warden’s and Chaplain’s flats in St Tarcisius House. So the family was united properly.

On Christmas Eve, in the big Cathedral at Arundel, Tim was finally ordained a priest. He would have liked to have been ordained in the new chapel at St Tarcisius House, but it was far too small to hold all the people who wanted to be there. Almost the whole of Turling Park turned out for the occasion, most of the boys deeply puzzled but intrigued at the complicated Catholic ceremonial, but deeply happy for Tim, their Hagrid, who had been father, mother and best friend to so many of them. Sylvia and her family were there—Tim had had his marriage to her easily annulled, since she had been having an affair with her present husband even at the time she and Tim had married, as were all Tim’s friends from the police force and the seminary. His brothers, their wives, his nieces and nephews; all were there to share his happiness, and all could see that Tim, finally, had come home.

The End.

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