Nick Turner

Tim Comes Home

This story takes place in Southern England, in the Counties of East and West Sussex which lie directly South of London, along the coast. The lively City of Brighton and Hove lies on the seafront, and all the action takes place within a few miles of it.

Chapter 1

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 an 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 by-pass 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 barechested 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 home-made 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."

But 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 track suit 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 knew even 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 grown-up 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 an 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 ok, 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 tic… "

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 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 business-like 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 was very tight lipped with 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.

Chapter 2

"Johnny, have you ever thought of fostering?" It was like a bolt from the blue.

"What about it?" I asked suspiciously. "You want me to come and work here some more? I don't mind; you know I love the boys."

"No, you old sod, I mean take a boy home. We're getting over-full here, and could really use a bit of space."

"Less of the old sod; I'm only thirty. Same age as you! Anyway, what do I know about kids?"

"You're really good with them. They warm to you because you're friendly, but you stay yourself with them. You don't try and pretend you're a teenager, like some priests do, which the lads see through straightaway and really hate. And they don't just like you, they also respect you."

I mulled this over for a minute. "Well, thanks, I think. It's true, I'm very fond of kids, but it's a big step from liking them to having them in my home 24/7. Don't you think there might be a reason why priests don't foster?"

"Johnny; you have one of the smallest parishes in the diocese; it really can't take all your time. You can't be that busy."

"I write." That's true; I write theological textbooks that people who like that sort of thing are kind enough to find useful. Don't go looking for them yourself, though, unless you find it difficult to sleep.

"Exactly; you're at home almost all the time. It couldn't be more ideal."

I thought of the clinching argument: "The Bishop would never agree."

"He already has. He thinks it's a brilliant idea."

"WHAT? You've already spoken to the Bishop, you bastard? Well, thanks a bunch!" I was cross, most of all at having my most clinching argument blown away. Well, the most clinching argument that I was prepared to let on about then, anyway. I was saving the big guns for later.

Paul was smug. "Well, whatever it takes. My boys come first, in my mind, and if I get a whiff of a good home for them, I want to see them happy. We do our best here at St Tarcisius for them, but really we are a sort of all-the-year-round boarding school, and we can never give them the individual love, care and attention they desperately need. Their lives are a desperate scramble for love, and when they don't get it, they try to grab our attention in other ways, and that means that, despite all we do, many end up in juvenile courts by the time they are sixteen. What do you expect me to do? I'm asking you to take one – well, perhaps another one later – because I am finding it difficult to find enough love for sixty-three."

I was silent. What could I say to that? I knew exactly what he meant; whenever I came to St Tar's, the smaller boys would clamber all over me like monkeys looking for attention, and the older boys would hang back, too cool to say anything, but looking with longing eyes at the smaller boys' frank admission of their need. I was very fond of the boys already, and felt deeply for them in their unsatisfactory upbringing. The only thing that could be said for it was that the Catholic home was better than Turling Park, the state alternative. I was weakening, but I thought that I had better stop this before I became so interested that I would be going home with a lad in the back of my car. I was going to have to tell the truth. Time for the big guns!

"Look, Paul, there's something you need to know, and I think it's going to change your mind about my suitability. I'm going to have to ask for a lot of understanding here, and ask you to respect the confidentiality of what I am about to say. Since there's no easy way to say this, I'm just going to have to come out with it, Paul, and you're going to have to deal with it in your own way. Erm,… I'm afraid that I'm gay."

There was an uncomfortable silence; Paul's face was unreadable.

I thought it necessary to add, "I have always kept my vow of celibacy, though, if that's any comfort."

"Did you think I didn't know you were gay?" Paul said in an amused voice, smiling now.

"Wha…?"

"Close your mouth, or the flies will get in! Oh Johnny, I've known you continually since you were twenty-one, including living with you at the Seminary. I watched you perving at me when I was playing football or coming back from the showers… oh, don't worry; I was flattered, and you know enough about me to know that I'm not one for holding back if I'm upset about something. And besides, you're my best friend. I reckoned that if you were going to make a move on anyone you'd have made it on me, and you've never tried anything except steal a glance now and then."

"Paul… I don't know what to say! I'm so embarrassed! But it's true, you were then, and still are, a really beautiful guy, body and soul. I love you properly, as well as fancy you improperly."

Actually, I more than fancied him improperly; I was deeply in love with him, and had been for years. I smiled nervously at the very good-looking man who had occupied my fantasies for the last nine years and who was also my dearest friend. Paul kept himself at the peak of fitness, and had been sent to run St Tar's because three women in his last appointment, a parish, had fallen for him and fought amongst themselves for his favour. The repercussions were horrible, but I don't want to go into that here.

"You're not so bad-looking yourself, you know, Johnny. And you don't act gay; I don't imagine anyone even suspects, unless they know you as well as I do." he said back. Which was also true, I suppose, if truth be told. I have many women friends and have even been accused of having affairs with some. Which, as Simon, an openly gay friend, commented, did my reputation no harm whatever. "Anyway," he continued, "the issue here is that I know how you perv, and you've never perved on the boys."

"No," I said. "Kids, thank God, do nothing for me in that area, apart from general admiration of their cuteness and so on. But that's not what people think. People think that all priests are child molestors these days; there's me with one or two cute boys living with me; what could I say if people start spreading malicious gossip? And don't say that isn't a possibility, because in fact it's only too likely."

"Yes, I can't deny that that is an issue, and we'd be fools to ignore it," said Paul. "So I think you need to get yourself a housekeeper. A female woman of the feminine gender. Not live-in, necessarily, just somebody to be a presence every day, who can spread positive gossip about what goes on in the house. And it'll be good for the boys as well, they need some feminine influence in their lives; this is far too masculine an atmosphere here at St Tar's."

"A breeder?" I said in my best queeny voice, "You want me to bring a breeder into my home, leaving fishy trails all over the furniture?" The crude joke made us both giggle and broke the rather tense atmosphere. It was followed by a few more cracks, and when we had subsided, I discovered that I was already making plans in my mind, taking it for granted that I would now have a family.

Suddenly it hit me, and there were tears in my eyes; not having a family was the thing I most resented about being gay (though I suppose priesthood was hardly a way down that trail, either) and suddenly it looked like it was going to be possible. I knew now I really wanted to do this, that it was a fulfillment of a dream for which I had never dared hope.

"No girls," I said. "I've got nothing against girls; I like girls, but I wouldn't know what to do with one. I have no sisters, or even female cousins. I went to an all-boys school. What do I know about times of the month and frilly knickers? And I've only got one bathroom!"

"No, don't worry," said Paul. "We only have boys here; Tim is very definitely a boy, and he's longing to meet you."

"Wha… ? You've spoken to a lad already? You're bloody sure of yourself!" I was suddenly furious, aware that I'd been manipulated all through this conversation. "You already have every detail sorted out before I've even agreed? What about the boy? Don't we even get a chance to work out if we're going to like each other? What's the poor lad done to get dumped on a total stranger for the rest of his childhood?"

"Trust me; I'm very good at my job, and I haven't gone wrong yet. Real parents don't get to choose their children, and in my experience it's better that way. This is not a consumer choice, Johnny, but a Christlike act. And anyway, you're not a total stranger, he knows you quite well; you've been coming often to St Tar's for a few years now."

"Yes, but do I know him?"

"I suppose not; Tim's a quiet lad, thirteen and a half years old, and tends to hang at the back of groups. When he came here he was completely illiterate, but he's made excellent progress and if anything, he's quite bookish now. His home seems to have been sexually abusive and violent – his back is scarred – though he refuses to talk about it at all. Never a word. He's very gentle, and doesn't like the normal boyish rough and tumble, which might be due to his past, or our team sports, though he has recently been using the weights in the gym quite a lot. He's only got a couple of friends, but he's frantically loyal to them and they to him. And to be perfectly honest with you, I think he's probably beginning to suspect that he may be gay."

"Poor little bugger. Sorry, no pun intended."

"He's really a lovely lad, and I very much doubt he will give you any trouble; food, drink, clothes and love will be all he'll need. He'll be watching television with the others now; shall we go and meet him?"

"For God's sake, no, Paul! I'm stinking of whisky, and this has all been too much to take in at once. Paul, this last couple of hours has turned my life upside-down and I've got a great deal of thinking to do."

"Sure, Johnny. I'm sorry; I'm just so keen to get you together. I know you'll love each other." Paul pulled himself up from the sofa in one strong and beautiful movement. He went over to his desk, where he rummaged for a few moments and brought back to me a photograph.

"This is Tim; it was taken last week at the local swimming pool."

For the first time I looked at the face that was going to become so important to me; the person I was going to love before anyone other than God. He had middle-blond hair, cut short, but not too short, and piercing blue, blue, eyes; a chiselled face with high cheek-bones and a smile that would make you do anything for him; this boy was truly beautiful, but with a sadness in his eyes that went straight to my heart. Was this to be my son?

"Can I keep this?" I asked.

"Sure; it was taken for you anyway."

I went home in a whirl, and I stayed in a whirl for the next month. The local child care authority came to inspect the house, interview me again and again, and run police checks on my background. I advertised in the parish magazine for a housekeeper and managed to secure the services of Teresa, a big Scottish mumsy widow with two sons who had grown up and left home. Perfect. I didn't mind cooking for an army, but washing and cleaning clothes and house were jobs I hated. Scrubbing boys' collars and cuffs, ironing school shirts and throwing football kit into the washing machine were things I was definitely not looking forward to. But Teresa said to me with a smile that she loved nosing around other people's homes, and cleaning was the best way to do it, so we were suited.

My first meeting with Tim was not the great event I thought it would be. We met at St Tar's, just about the most awkward place for a good chat, so we shook hands uncomfortably, and I took him out for the afternoon. I recognized him as soon as I set eyes on him; he had always been around when I visited, hanging to the back of groups, but never saying a word. Somehow, I had never seen that magical smile, nor heard him speak, and so we had missed each other – or rather, as I was to find out, I had missed him. He already knew me very well.

That particular afternoon, I was rather at a loss where to begin; I asked him what he wanted to do, and he had no particular ideas either, so we ended up simply wandering around the shops. I couldn't help noticing that his clothes were terribly ill-fitting – he told me later that boys had to fight among themselves whenever any new (which meant second-hand) clothes arrived at St Tarcisius. Being by nature self-effacing that meant that he was left with what remained when others had taken what they wanted, which often meant that what he got was nothing. He had on a scruffy old pair of jeans; the holes in its fabric were not fashionable ones, but caused by wear and tear. They were clearly too tight and too long; he had worn away the hems as they caught under his feet and the threads trailed behind him in the dust. He wore mismatched socks, and his plain once-white t-shirt was far too small, leaving his midriff bare whenever he moved. Automatically and unselfconsciously he was always tugging it down. His training shoes were so old that they were actually back in fashion, but these were the originals. Again they were too small for him, and the backs were broken down by his heels which extended beyond the back of the shoes. So he walked along with a type of shuffle that had become part of him. My heart was broken just to watch him, simply because it did not seem to occur to him that he was in any way to be pitied. And I was filled with puzzlement and even anger at Paul and the other staff at St Tarcisius who had not noticed how neglected this lad was. Time would soon show just how I misunderstood them. Tim had a way of simply not being noticeable, of disappearing into the background; indeed it was his habitual state, especially when he didn't want to be found.

We found a McDonald's and, much as I abhor the place, I know that healthy lads love it. So we went in – Tim's eyes noticably brightening – and we had a Big Mac each and a drink.

"Do you come here often?" I asked, mentally kicking myself for such a brilliant and original opening gambit.

"No; this is my first time," said Tim, speaking around a huge mouthful. "I've heard about it from some of the others, though; it's brilliant, isn't it."

"Hm; it's alright for some, if they like this sort of thing." I said grumpily.

I immediately saw the pain in Tim's eyes as the food turned to ashes in his mouth; he said quickly, "Would you rather go somewhere else; honestly, it's fine by me?" He was so eager to please, or rather desperate to please, that it hurt.

I backtracked quickly. "I wouldn't dream of it, Tim. I want you to be happy this afternoon, and if this makes you happy, then there is nowhere else I'd rather be."

Tim smiled then, that same smile that he had made for the photograph – this time it was for me – and I began to love this quiet boy. He said softly, "Nobody has ever said that to me before."

I had the most difficult time keeping the tears back. Why the fuck do people do this to children? I have no difficulty at all in believing in the existence of a devil.

I was sorry when the time came to take Tim back. Although we hadn't said much to each other, we had 'connected', and the silence was companionable, rather than strained.

Back at the Home, I spoke rather sharply to Paul about Tim's clothes, asking if it was all right for me to buy him some more. Paul discouraged me, saying that he knew Tim was terribly shabby, but to get him clothes now would just rub into the face of the others that Tim was about to be fostered out of St Tar's, and simply emphasize their own need. Though I was still cross, I saw the point straight away.

"Besides," said Paul, "Shopping is what I do best, and I'm not going to miss the little spree you and Tim will have when he moves in, for anything!"

Three weeks later, again amidst the garish reds and yellows of McDonald's Tim and I looked at each other over our polystyrene containers and polystyrene food and said nothing with words, but a bond was forming in our hearts. We had spent six or eight afternoons together by this stage.

"So," said Tim casually, "are you going to be my dad, then?"

I choked on my Diet Coke, "Bloody hell; you move quickly, Tim!" I saw the pain and insecurity in his eyes again, and he shrank back as if I was going to strike him. I saw immediately that I was going to have to tread very carefully with this lad. "Tim; it's very early days; there are a lot of hoops to jump through first for both of us. We've got to get to know each other better, you've got to come and see where I live, to see if you'd like it, there's school to be discussed, and so many other things, don't you think?"

Tim shook his head obstinately. "I know already," he said.

"Know what?"

He looked exasperated. "Know that I want to come home with you. I don't care about the details; anything is fine with me. I'll sleep in the coal shed if I must. I just want to come home. Actually, I want to do it today. Now. I'm tired of waiting. I want to be your son. I want you to be my dad. What's the point of hanging around even longer?"

"The point is, Tim, we hardly know each other. Look, I understand you want a home; hell, life must have been dreadful to you up till now, but there may well be a better alternative to anything that I could offer you. With me, your life would be a bit odd, to say the least; as for a real home; brothers and sisters, a mother; I can't offer you anything like that. You really have to be sure that you can do without these things if you are going to come with me. You mustn't just take the first option that comes along simply because it's a quick way out of St Tar's; it's got to be the right option."

Tim went bright red and his eyes teared up. "That's bollocks, bollocks, bollocks! Sorry, Father John, but it is. You often come to St Tar's, I've listened to you, I've been to confession to you, I've watched you and dreamed that one day you would take me home with you, that you could be my father in reality, and not just as in 'bless me Father for I have sinned'. And you're not the first; Father Paul has tried me with two other families, and I wouldn't have them, because I knew what was right, I know where I belong. I wouldn't stay with them, because I knew I belonged with you."

This impassioned speech took me aback, and left me mute for a minute while I gathered my thoughts. When I could speak again, I said, "Do you mean that this is all your own idea, about me becoming a foster-father, I mean?"

"Well yes… er… no… well, it was a sort of mixture. After my last try with a family, I talked with Father Paul, and he was pretty cross with me for messing it up. The family was really nice, and they wanted me, but I didn't want to be there. He asked me what I did really want, and I told him I wanted to go with you. I thought he would blow up, but he didn't, he just went all quiet like you did just now. Then he said «You know, Tim, I'd been wondering whether Fr John would make a good foster father. We can always ask him, there's no harm in that.» And I've been praying every day since then for this."

Tim squared his shoulders, and looked me in the eyes with his piercing blue ones that I found so irresistible. He said firmly, "Look: what I want isn't in doubt. The only question is whether you want me. And I want you to tell me, today. Do you?"

I looked down. Was this really only a thirteen year old speaking to me? Thirteen going on thirty, perhaps. I looked up to be sure, and met his swimming eyes, filled with a deep appeal and need for that which he obviously felt only I could supply. I saw love there already, love and trust such as I had always longed for from an adult, and never thought to look for in a child. I thought to myself "If I say no, I am going to destroy him. He feels this to be his first and only chance of happiness. But am I ready for this? Is this going to destroy my life? I'm not ready to make this choice. It's too soon! Can I love this lad enough to be my son?" I looked up again at him, and the distress in his eyes brought a sudden pain to my heart; I felt his hurt as my own, and sensed for the first time an urge so overpoweringly strong to protect this boy, that anything that brought him pain I would resist to the last ounce of my strength. So I looked straight at him and, not able to bring myself to say a word, I just simply nodded.

The tears in his eyes broke their bounds and poured down his cheeks. In a flash he was in my arms sobbing his heart out. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest as he clutched me fiercely to him. He turned his head so that his mouth was by my ear and said one word;

"Dad!"

In a moment I joined him in his sobbing, and we held each other there in McDonald's while the crowds round us looked on curiously as they stuffed their faces with french fries, unknowing that here in their presence the world had jumped on its axis, the Jordan had turned back on its course, the mountains had skipped like rams, and the hills like yearling sheep.

I pressed my face into his blond hair and for the first time smelt his special smell. I kissed the smooth lightly-tanned skin of his forehead.

"Tim, my son," I whispered.

Chapter 3

Both young men had persevered at the seminary, and were ordained deacons, (the step immediately before priesthood) taking their vows of celibacy at the age of 24. But in his diaconate year, when working in his first parish, Tim met a pretty barmaid in a pub and fell hard. He abandoned all thought of the priesthood, and applied to Rome to be returned to the lay state. His dispensation from celibacy came through, and six months later Paul, now a priest, and not without private reservations, officiated at Tim's wedding to Sylvia. A little over a year later, baby Catriona was born, looking (as new-born babies will) like neither of her parents.

Having now to choose another career, Tim had decided to join the police, and his five older brothers clubbed together and put down a deposit for a mortgage on a small house in Brighton. And, as the saying goes, Tim and Sylvia lived happily ever after until the next day. It was about a year and a half after the marriage that Tim returned home unexpectedly to find Sylvia in their marital bed with a stranger. Tim hit the stranger, and flung him out of the front door in his underwear, throwing his other clothes out of the upstairs window. It was the first and only time in his life that he had behaved violently. Sylvia could not understand Tim's rage and grief; she was a simple soul who liked to give her affections freely, and in her opinion, Tim was out of order. There was no meeting of minds. They raged at each other, and in the end, a couple of weeks later, Tim moved out and found himself a small flat. When he went to put a deposit down for the landlord, he found that the joint account he had with Sylvia had been emptied; it had contained all his life savings. The landlord was understanding, and gave Tim time to go back to his brothers and ask for a loan, which they willingly turned into a gift, together with something to help him buy again all the necessities of life, like saucepans, towels and spaghetti.

A solicitor's letter arrived shortly, stating that Sylvia was divorcing him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour and desertion. The court case did not go well, Tim was sullen and aggrieved, and behaved badly; the magistrate – a dyke if ever there was one, he thought – was utterly unsympathetic to Tim on principle, as the violent and unstable man who walked out on his wife and their baby, and not faced up to the problems. She was not interested in Sylvia's adultery, which she considered understandable 'under the circumstances'. In granting the divorce she ordered Tim, as the 'aggressor', to pay all the court costs, maintenance for baby Catriona (to whom he could have one hour's supervised access every other month), and ninety percent of the mortgage of the house. Sylvia left the court and smiled smugly at a devastated Tim. She walked arm-in-arm with the man Tim had seen in her bed, who was wearing an expensive suit, and he decided then and there never to see her again.

In order to meet his crippling financial obligations, and also to fill his mind with something not to do with Sylvia and Catriona, Tim began to work all the hours God sent. He took all overtime that was offered, and cajoled his colleagues into letting him do more. Unsurprisingly, after a while, he began to get seriously depressed, and it was only the intervention of a colleague at the Police Station that changed things. The friend, Thomas, was a serious keep-fit fanatic. He would call by Tim's bedsit, and sometimes physically strip Tim and force him into his sports gear. At times, Tim thought he hated Thomas, but as his fitness level grew, the world looked a kinder place, and he found his depression lifting. When Thomas was transferred to a station far away in the North East, Tim was functioning again, and had become once again a very fit and very good-looking young man, spending all his free time, such as it was, either in the gym or running. A substantial legacy from an understanding great-aunt helped to pay off a lot of the mortgage for the house he could never even visit, and he felt able to meet the world again. He had also grown in self-understanding, and the suffering he had experienced had made him a good listener, something not often found in policemen. At work, many of the people on his patch had a very soft spot for their local constable, and he loved that part of his job. But other parts he hated. He hated the violence, he hated the hatred, the bitterness of horrible people. He hated the police stereotype; the brutal over-careful enunciation in a South London accent that was supposed to suggest to the listener that this copper was someone to be reckoned with. As a gentle-spoken man himself, he was despised by many of his colleagues as being 'superior', and not 'one of the lads'. Since he was naturally affectionate, this got to him too.

So his career, then, was going nowhere fast. He considered himself a good copper; his averages were among the highest in his station, but he had been several years in the Force, and was still a mere Police Constable. Only promotion could make the unpleasant aspects of the job more bearable. He had no illusions. He had been approached once or twice with offers to join the Freemasons, but his principles, as well as his Catholic faith, rendered that impossible. As a result, he was never promoted.

Then one rainy night, Tim had met a young lad who had begun to change the way he looked at the world. He hadn't been on duty, he was just out for a run in the freezing rain and found this battered waif by the roadside. Taking the lad back home with him, he had cared for him like a baby, before handing him over to the hospital and social services the following day. The lad had somehow opened a window in his heart, and he realised as if for the first time that his real problem was loneliness, and the need for someone to love, unconditionally, and be loved in return. Remarriage was out, on account of his faith, so it was going to have to be something else. Something, perhaps, to do with children. That lad had been the first child he had ever interacted with; he himself was the youngest of six brothers, and he had always been surrounded with people who were either his own age, as at the school and the seminary, or older than him, who had shown him nothing but affection. Unlike that poor lad; the first person younger than Tim who had shown him affection, and who had actually needed him.

And then, one night about a year and a half later, Tim had got beaten up when he was walking down a dark alley on his regular foot patrol. He never saw who did it, he just woke up in hospital with multiple fractures and abrasions. The month he spent in bed provided a lot of time doing nothing – the first time since the divorce when he had not been able to fill his mind with distraction – and, not being able even to hold a book at first, he spent the time thinking. He remembered how the lad he had rescued had wanted to stay with him, and he remembered the strange resonance that he found in himself. He couldn't even remember the boy's name, though the memory of his face, and above all his wonderful smile, was as fresh as anything. In fact, he remembered that he had never even known the boy's name. When he could stagger around the hospital feebly with a stick, he managed to take himself down to Casualty to see if they had a record of his visit. The ward clerk there rather primly told him that the records were confidential, and he had no right to any information. So that was that.

One day he had a bedside visit from his old school and seminary friend Father Paul Topham, now the Headmaster of St Tarcisius' Home for Boys. It was wonderful to see him again, and they gossiped about their friends and what they were doing. Soon, Tim found himself pouring out his heart to Paul, and Paul was, as ever, straightforward in his advice.

"Get out of the police, Tim. They don't deserve you, frankly, and as far as I can see it's doing you more harm than good in all sorts of ways."

"What else can I do Paul? I've made such a fuck-up of my life so far! I've failed in everything I've turned my hand to. I'm a failed Franciscan, a failed priest, a failed husband and father, and now a failed policeman."

There were tears of self-pity in Tim's eyes, and Paul gave his friend a hug.

"Never a failure, Tim. You just haven't found your niche yet. But you have so much love to give, and you're like a blocked pipe; with no outlet for it."

Tim began to tell Paul all about the boy he had rescued in the night, and how he kept thinking about him, and how he would like to give him a home. He asked Paul how he might find him.

Paul said, "Without a name, it's very difficult. If he were a Catholic, that would narrow it down a bit, because if he wasn't returned to his family, he'd have ended up with me at St Tar's. Was he a Catholic, do you think? Though, I suppose, the finer points of theology were not something you discussed in your evening together."

Tim thought, and then remembered a conversation in bed. "No, I'm certain he isn't a Catholic. He'd never even heard the word."

"Then start looking at Turling Park. That's where most of the others go."

And when Paul left, Tim began to think about his life, and what he might do with it, and how he might find that strange boy.

Back home at last, he submitted his resignation to the Police Force, then began cutting out advertisements for job vacancies. He applied for many, and received many offers, but the only post that really jumped out at him was that of a groundsman at Turling Park, the regional state home for boys with special needs. An orphanage, by any other name. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps he would meet that strange lad again who had opened his heart which had been closed for so long. At any rate, there would be lots of people needing love there, and he could, as a sporty man, perhaps, have something more to offer the lads than just mowing their lawns.

He applied for the job, citing Paul as his referee, went for interview, and was pleased to be offered the post two days later.

Chapter 4

"I guess that's settled, then."

I was taken aback; I had thought that I was going to have to do some quick talking to even set the fostering on the road. But Paul took us both into his office and told me that all the checks had been approved. The only remaining authority to satisfy was Paul himself.

"And I know you only too well, mate. Congratulations, both of you!"

"How soon can Tim come home?" I asked. "He hasn't even seen where I, no, we, live yet."

"Right now, if you want. If, in the very unlikely event it doesn't work out, you can always bring him back here, but I think that what he needs right now is love and stability. As for the latter, I know you well, and I'm sure he'll have that. And as for the love, I can see it from here. God bless you both."

My head was spinning. So much had happened in a few hours, and with that short speech the course of my life was definitively changed. I looked at my foster son, and his face was shining, that is the only word for it, with that special radiant smile which had won me when I first saw it on the photograph. But this time it was for me, me alone, and that thought made me feel ten feet tall.

"Run and get your things, Tim. We're going home."

Tim was off like a flash, as fast as his ill-shod feet could carry him. When he left the office, Paul pushed some papers across the desk. I read them, and signed them. Paul countersigned them, then looked seriously at me.

"Johnny, I ought to warn you of something. As I said to you, I am pretty sure that Tim has been seriously abused, physically and sexually, and perhaps over a long period. No doubt you have seen for yourself that he is a lovely lad and appears quite balanced. But abuse always leaves psychological scars of one sort of another; as he moves into his teens, you're going to have to watch him so very carefully, especially to see that he does not turn to abuse of others. I think, given his loving personality, that this is unlikely, but there may well be other things; theft, self-mutilation, even suicide – I don't want to alarm you unduly, but these are possibilities. People who are abused often feel that in some way they deserved what they got, that there is a sort of justice about it. Given his reticence, and the importance he attaches to his own privacy, I don't think it is a good idea to force Tim to talk about it – indeed, I'd be surprised if he'd let the subject be addressed at all, given our lack of success in this area – but if it comes up, be ready for it, and certainly expect more than the usual traumas of adolescence."

Paul must have seen the apprehension on my face, because he then came around the desk and pulled me into his arms.

"Oh Johnny, I feel so guilty at young Tim and me having manipulated you into this. I know we haven't let your feet touch the ground, but if we had let you hesitate, you would have prevaricated and procrastinated like you always do, and this would never have happened. Trust me, this is really going to work out. I can't tell you what joy it gives me to bring two of my favourite people together. Tim is a really special lad, one of the loveliest boys here, and if he is with you, I'll be able to go on seeing him, too."

And Paul kissed me on the cheek.

Mm. Nice! He had never done that before.

"Yeah, well," he said, looking at my shocked face, "I've done a bit of perving in my time, too, you old stud."

Before I could regain my wits or think of something to say, Tim burst back into the office and said, "I'm ready!"

"That didn't take long! Okay, lad, time to go home."

Tim turned to Paul and said, simply, "Thank you. Thank you so very much for everything, Father Paul." He hesitated a moment, and then ran to him and hugged him tightly. Paul hugged Tim back, patting his shoulder and saying "Be happy now, Tim, and, you know, I'll still be seeing a lot of you, because I come over to St Edward's parish often to see Father John. And I want you to know that I will always be here for you if you want to talk, or want anything I can help with." We all got a bit sniffy and so I said, "Come on, let's go. Where's your luggage?"

"Here," said Tim happily, and he held up a single Tesco plastic carrier bag.

"Is that all?" My heart wept again for the boy's deprived life. Tim nodded cheerfully; he didn't care if he had nothing. He had a home now, and a dad, and that was all that mattered.

Teresa was in the house when we arrived. She knew that I was probably going to have a lad to live with me some time in the future, but she was understandably taken aback to find it happen so suddenly. Nevertheless, having had two boys of her own, she was accustomed to taking shocks in her stride, and she opened her arms to Tim and gave him a huge bosomy hug. Tim looked over her shoulder at me crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth to suggest that he was being crushed to death, but he hugged back enthusiastically enough. Teresa then held him at arms length and said, "I'm Mrs Wright, Tim, Teresa Wright, but I think it might be best if you were to call me Aunt Tess. That way, we'll get on just fine."

I thanked God for Teresa's quick wit. She had understood that what Tim needed most was to feel he belonged, and this was certainly going to help.

I hadn't even thought about which room Tim might occupy, so we went straight upstairs to have a look. There was no contest; he fell in love immediately with the attic room, up its own little flight of stairs and lit by skylights and a single dormer window. It had cheerful blue and yellow paint and colourful painted furniture.

"Is this all for me? Just for me?" He gaped.

"Just for you, Tim. Glad you like it. This is your very own space, to do with what you want – within reason. Now let's unpack and get your things hung up in the wardrobe."

Tim upended his carrier bag and spilled all his worldly possessions onto the bed. There was a spare t-shirt, even tattier than the one he wore, a pair of blue adidas tracksuit bottoms, a old blue and white football shirt, a pair of navy nylon football shorts, seven assorted socks, a rosary and missal (standard St Tar's issue), some odd coins not amounting to more than fifty pence and a worn and dirty teddy bear. There was certainly nothing worth hanging up.

I said, in horror, "Tim, is this really everything you own? You had nothing else at St Tar's?" I found it impossible to believe that Paul would have let the lad live so shamefully poorly. But then, as I was to learn, Tim was apt to fade into the background, and simply get overlooked. Tim answered, "Well, there were a few other clothes and stuff, but we have a rule at St Tar's among the guys that when someone gets lucky, he leaves the best things for the others who have to stay. I'm not expecting you to buy me new stuff, it's just that I didn't want to be mean to the others. So I just took enough to get me by for a couple of years."

"A couple of years? Tim, one thing I know about boys is that they grow. Those jeans are already so tight on you that I suspect that your voice is never going to break while you still wear them. And you're going to break your neck tripping on the hems one day." I picked up the tracksuit bottoms and looked at the label; "For boys 10-11 years," I read out loud.

"They're ok, they're stretchy," Tim mumbled.

"No, Tim, they won't do. Tomorrow we go shopping. It's a shame that tonight is too late. But it isn't too late to make a start. Put these things into a drawer now; I'll be right back."

I went downstairs, shaking my head, to ask Teresa if she had a measuring tape. I told her about the contents of the carrier bag, and she put her hand to her mouth.

"Oh, the poor wee lad."

"Quite!" I said. "We'll go shopping for some new clothes tomorrow."

"I'm sure I can put my hands on some of my boys' old stuff," she said; "I'll bring a load tomorrow."

"Thanks, Teresa, but no thanks. I think that for the first time in his life Tim is going to get some brand new clothes that fit him, and that no one else has ever worn before."

She squeezed my arm and smiled. "You're a good man. I'll get you the measuring tape."

Back upstairs, Tim was sitting on the bed, smiling, and bouncing up and down, clutching his teddy. Suddenly he looked nine, not thirteen. I looked at him, and the most extraordinary protective instinct kicked in again. In a matter of hours his life, even more than mine, had been turned upside down, even if it was for the better, or at least I hoped so.

"Slip your t-shirt and jeans off, Tim, and we'll get you measured."

He complied quickly, pulling the shirt over his head to throw it on the bed, and then sucking in his tummy to get a bit of slack to lower his trousers. And there was the next shock of the day. He had no underwear on. I remembered then that there had been none in the carrier bag, either. And I couldn't help but notice that for a lad of his age he was very well endowed, as they say. Still hairless, as one would expect, but that only made the generous proportions all the more obvious.

"Gosh, Tim, don't you have any underpants?"

"No, never have. Well, only occasionally. Can't abide them." Abide? strange word for a lad, I thought; it's as though he's quoting someone.

"Didn't they mind at St Tarcisius?"

"They never found out. There were an awful lot of us, and not all of us wear them."

"Why?"

"They make me sweat, they tangle my tackle and get caught in my bum, if you want to know."

Frank enough, I suppose. He'd obviously said that before, too. I thought about arguing, but then I postponed that particular battle for another day. He was so adamant about it that I could see he was going to take some convincing, and I didn't want to spoil his pleasure in the day of his great escape from St Tar's.

"Well I'm not going to measure you like that, wearing only your odd socks, with your wedding tackle in the way."

Tim giggled and said, "That's easily put right; I'll take my socks off!" and he did.

"Tart," I said without thinking. But Tim didn't notice. He took his navy nylon shorts out of the drawer and pulled them on; I was pleased to see that for once we had found a garment that actually fitted him. No doubt he had acquired them when they were far too big. I took an appraising look at my son's body for the first time and noticed that he was really pretty muscular, with strong well-defined pectorals and abdomen.

"Most of us work out in St Tar's," he said, seeing what I was looking at. "Survival of the fittest! Not bad, eh?" he preened.

"Not bad is right!"

I began to take his measurements and as he lifted his arms to let me put the tape round his bare chest, I saw several little scars dotted here and there, mostly on his pectorals. Cigarette burns. My heart thudded. I turned him round, and there were several long white scars on his back and the backs of his thighs. They were all old.

"Excuse me, Tim," I said, and pulled down his shorts a little to reveal a web of welts on his buttocks. I pulled his shorts back up and turned him round, looking deeply into his eyes. I pulled him into a fierce hug, all my protective instincts raging, raging, raging. I wanted to kill someone.

"My son, who did this to you?" I asked in a shaking voice.

"Them," said Tim tonelessly, his mood suddenly turned black. I was startled at his voice.

"Who's them?"

"Just Them. The sperm donor and the owner of the cunt I came out of," he spat viciously.

"Your mother and father?"

"NO!" He suddenly shouted. "They are not my parents, they are never my parents. YOU are my father. I don't WANT another. I HAVE no other." He broke into a storm of weeping, so I took him in my arms, sat on the bed and rocked him gently until he calmed down. I was staggered at this sudden tempest that had come out of nowhere. I was going to have to go carefully.

"Ssh, my son, ssh. You're safe now, you're home. Nobody is going to hurt you any more. Ssh, my son, my beloved son."

I don't know how long we sat there, but when I looked up, there was Teresa in the doorway, tears in her eyes.

"Poor wee laddie," she whispered. "What a lot of sadness he's seen in his short lifetime. We'll have to do our best to make it up to him."

I could only smile ruefully. I was thinking that this was only the beginning of a long road that Tim and I were going to have to travel together while we unpicked all of this. Tim himself had had an awful emotional rollercoaster of a day, and now he was fast asleep in my arms. All for the best. I gently lifted him and laid him on the bed, pulling the duvet up over his bare chest. I kissed his forehead; his features had relaxed again and he gently smiled in his sleep, his good mood restored in slumber.

"Has he eaten?" said Teresa.

I smacked my head. Neither of us had even finished our McDonald's burgers early in the afternoon. It was now eight in the evening.

"I'll make him a sandwich, Father," (she pronounced it 'sangwich') "and leave it by his bed. I'll do you one, too."

"Bless you, Teresa, for everything. But it's long after your going home time now."

"Ah well, it's a special occasion, isn't it? I've the car with me anyway."

After Teresa left, I sat down in my den and put my feet up to think about the events of this momentous day. No sooner had I done so, then the door bell rang.

"Fuck!" I swore out loud. No doubt some old biddy wanting a Mass card signed. No peace, it seems, for the wicked.

"I heard that, Father! Not very priestly, I must say," came a voice through the letter box.

"Paul, you bastard!" I said, opening the door to my best friend, he being dressed casually in chinos and a blue shirt. "But you're just the bastard I want to see right now."

We hugged, and he gave me a bottle:

"It's the rest of the whisky we didn't finish the other day. I thought we might have another stab at it. Where's the lad?"

"Fast asleep upstairs. Emotionally worn out, I guess. I'm pretty fucked myself."

"You wish!"

"Piss off! Grab yourself a glass."

We sat together on the sofa in companionable silence. After a while, Paul asked me how it had all gone. I told him about the day, and about how it had ended. Paul gave a low whistle.

"I knew about the scars, of course, but he would never say who had given them to him. We guessed that it was probably his parents, but he has told nobody before. You've done really well for a first day!"

"Who were his parents?"

"We haven't a clue. Tim was found wandering on the Brighton and Hove bypass at night eighteen months or so ago, wearing only some old tracksuit bottoms. It was late November, and he was suffering from hypothermia. He never gave any details of his family; we don't even know if has given us his real name. He was sent to us because Sullivan, being Irish, would make him probably a Catholic and the local authorities were anxious not to have to take another mouth into the county home, Turling Park, which is like a borstal in my opinion anyway, and therefore Tim's good luck. In the event, Tim hadn't a clue as to whether he was a Catholic or not, but took to it all like a duck to water, so after he begged, I baptized him and gave him his first Holy Communion last June. He is fixated with the idea of God as his father, Mary as his mother, and Jesus as his brother, so I guess it all fits together, especially his wanting to come to you. He badly needs to belong somewhere, or to someone. I think our faith supplies deep needs in him. Which is nice all round."

"Paul, I need to ask you a question, and it's been burning me for a while. Why is Tim dressed so badly? It can't have escaped your notice that he looks like a street kid. Surely St Tar's isn't that short of cash?"

"Well, we are pretty strapped, Johnny, but no, we usually do better than that for the boys. Honestly, Tim would never take clothes or anything from us, more than the simple minimum. We do get clothes and toys given us quite frequently. We'd noticed that Tim tended to hang back when the scrum was on, and so got little or nothing, so we'd put one or two things aside for him. He'd give them to the other kids, though, saying that as he wasn't going to be here long, he didn't need them. They took them happily enough, as you can imagine. So we began to shift heaven and earth to get Tim fostered as quickly as possible. I even wondered whether he were playing some clever game and had manipulated us into this very thing. But then he turned down not just one family, but two. Unheard of! The other boys thought he was mad. I think he just wanted you, and was waiting for you to notice him. Finally, he had to stir it a bit."

We talked for a couple of hours about everything, and by the end of it we were both very relaxed and pretty drunk. Paul, leaning forward with his hand on my thigh, shook the last drops from the bottle into my glass and said, "A pious bottle; made a good death with not one, but two priests." He thought a moment. "Shit, I can't drive; I must be well over the limit. Can I stay?"

"Of course. As long as you want." Forever, I thought.

"I've got nothing with me, though."

"I'll give you a pair of my footie shorts and a new toothbrush. That do you?"

"Mm. Fantastic. Am I in my usual place in the attic?"

"No, that's Tim's room now. You can have the room opposite me: the bed's made up. Good night!"

"'Night." We got up. Paul stumbled a little, or appeared to, and steadied himself on my shoulder.

"Mm, you smell nice," he said, and he paused, looking intently into my eyes. An eternity passed, and then he gently leaned forward and kissed me for the second time that day, but this time full on the lips. I was too shocked to respond, even if I had known how. I looked into his beautiful brown eyes, and realised that neither he nor I were as drunk as we made out.

"Sleep well, Paul," was all I could say.

"Mm, you too."

In the middle of the night I woke up. There was someone in my room. I remembered Paul's kiss and my heart gave a bound of mingled desire and dread. I put the light on and saw Tim, still in his shorts, looking tousled and sleepy. He also had a raging erection.

"Dad" (my heart beat even faster to hear myself called that) "Dad, I really need to pee, and I can't find the bathroom."

"Oh Tim, I'm so sorry, we never even gave you the grand tour of the house." I hauled myself out of bed, wearing my usual footie shorts, and took him to the loo, leaving him to find his own way back. He did, but he appeared in my room, not his own.

"Dad, can I stay in here tonight?"

"What's wrong with your own room, Tim?"

"It's lovely but it's all so quiet. I can't sleep very well." Then, reluctantly, he added, "and I'm a bit scared."

It then dawned on me that maybe Tim had never had to sleep in a room on his own before.

"Er, well, sure… but how are we going to manage; there's only one bed?"

Tim grinned happily and jumped into my bed, scooting over to the far side. All sorts of warning bells rang, including the fact that the director of St Tarcisius' Home was sleeping just on the other side of the corridor, and he would presumably not be at all happy to find us cuddled up together on our first night as foster father and son. The bed was only a large single, not even a double.

I had to ask myself whether I was any danger to Tim. Had I any sexual desires for him? None whatever, I concluded. On the contrary, my urges were all to protect this lad, not exploit him. Tim, looking puzzled at my delay, patted the bed.

"Come on, you'll get cold."

"Cheeky sod."

So I got in, and my son snuggled close to me. We slept with my right arm protectively wrapped around him. It was a first for me, too.

Chapter 5

Paul was the last person Tim expected to see, and especially like this. And Paul, with his headmasterly dignity to consider was shocked to be caught by a boy when in the nude.

By the time I had made it to the bathroom, Paul had dropped the razor and pulled on his (or rather my) shorts.

Tim found the whole thing highly amusing. I could see him trying to work out how to tell his friends back at St Tarcisius. He said to Paul, "Nice to see you, Father Paul. I seem to be seeing quite a lot of you lately," and then collapsed into fits of giggles at his own joke.

"Cheeky bugger," said Paul, going red, but smiling at me affectionately over Tim's head.

Tim intercepted the glance, and stopped giggling.

"Oh," he said, knowingly. "Are you and Dad… you know?"

"Know what?" said Paul, puzzled. Then it dawned on both of us what the precocious little git meant. An Item.

"NO!!"

"BLOODY HELL! NO!"

We were both aghast. Well perhaps not very aghast. My mind went back to that kiss.

"Look, Tim," I said, "Father Paul is my dearest and closest friend. As he said yesterday, he comes here often, and frequently stays the night. As you brought up the subject and you seem wiser about these things than you should be, you should also know that I love him very much, but we are just friends. You know very well we keep separate rooms. And we are both priests. We are married in a way, to the Church, and so are not free to have that sort of a relationship with each other. Even if it were allowed, which it isn't.

"And not that we want to," I added firmly, though the last twenty four hours had begun to shake my convictions on that score even further than before.

"Shame," said Tim. "I'd love it if my two favourite people could live together."

"Fucking little charmer!" said Paul, though not without affection.

"Oooh, Uncle Paul, you used a bad word!" Tim smirked.

"What did you call me?"

"Uncle Paul. Do you mind?"

"No, Tim, I love it very much indeed. Call me that always." Paul suddenly sounded choked up.

Tim was always hungry, I was soon to discover.

"When's breakfast?"

"After Mass."

"Cool. When's Mass."

"Nine o'clock, that's in half an hour's time. Do you know how to serve at Mass?"

"Er, no. Can I have something to eat now?"

"Nope, sorry. Too late if you're going to Communion."

He accepted this calmly. Was this boy real?

"In the meantime, you'd better put some clothes on." He was still only in his shorts. He disappeared upstairs, passing Paul coming down.

"Morning, handsome," Paul said to me, and kissed me on the cheek. Again! That's the third kiss. I was really confused now. I had spent the last ten longing years thinking Paul was terminally straight. But then, from what he said, he seems to have been thinking the same about me, or at least waiting to for me to admit my gayness to him. Isn't life a cock-up sometimes?

Hang on; wasn't Paul in khaki chinos and a blue polo shirt last night? And surely he brought nothing with him? Now he was in a black clerical suit with smart clerical stock and collar.

"Hope you don't mind," he said. "I found this in your bedroom, and it all fits really well. I wanted to say Mass with you this morning, and thought I should be properly dressed."

So far from minding, to tell you the truth I was a little turned on by the idea of the man of my dreams wearing my clothes. What on earth was happening to me? These last twenty-four hours had been the most extraordinary in my life.

"No, you're welcome. Actually, you've given me an idea. You say the Mass on your own – I hate concelebrating anyway – and I'll serve you with Tim. I can teach him, so that he can do it on his own in future."

"Fine."

At that moment, Tim came downstairs wearing his tracksuit bottoms and the other t-shirt.

"My jeans have gone," he said.

"Oh yes, Tere…, er Aunt Tess took them last night to see if anything can be done with them."

"And it can't," said Teresa coming into the house. "Morning, Father John. Morning, Father Paul, Morning, Tim. So I've thrown them away. They were coming apart at the seams. I really think that if you had run in them again, they'd have fallen apart, and you'd have been left in your boxer shorts on the High Street."

Remembering that he never wore underwear, Tim and I both suddenly looked at each other and blushed, thinking that it wouldn't be boxer shorts that would flutter in the breeze.

"And, Mother of God, what are you wearing now, boy?" Teresa said. We all looked at Tim. The tracksuit bottoms did stretch to cover him, but were stretched so tightly that nothing at all was left to the imagination as he stood in the sunny kitchen. He might as well have been wearing lycra. The t-shirt was even smaller than yesterday's.

"Tim," I said to him quietly, "you can't go out dressed like that; you'd better go and put your shorts on again instead. And take a t-shirt from my room; better too big than too small."

When the boy reappeared, relatively decently dressed for once in shorts and t-shirt, Teresa produced a pair of sandals. "These might fit you, Tim. I bought them for myself, and it was only when I got home that I realised they were men's."

Finally, we were ready to go to Mass. It all went very well; the parishioners always liked it when Paul came to visit, as he celebrated Mass with reverence and always had something interesting to say after the Gospel. Tim learnt very quickly to serve, and I began to realise that he was naturally very bright as well as devout. Afterwards I introduced Tim to everyone and he was surrounded with surprised laughs as being 'the priest's son', and made very welcome. He beamed with happiness, and I glowed inside to see that glorious smile that had already so endeared him to me. My life already felt so very, very full.

I cooked a huge breakfast – Tim and I had eaten very little for ages – and afterwards as Paul and Teresa washed up I finished measuring Tim for his new clothes.

Paul and I took off our black gear and changed into casual things. With a wicked thought, I went into the room where he had spent the night and put on his chinos and polo shirt. They fit perfectly. So Paul had to rifle through my cupboards and found some white jeans and an open-neck deep blue shirt. He looked amazing.

"You look like a rent boy," I said.

"Trust you to know," he retorted. "I wouldn't have any idea; and anyway, they're your clothes!"

Paul, Tim and I set off for the shopping centre, ten miles [15 km] away. I had made up my mind that I was going to spend a thousand pounds at least today on my boy. Sod the holiday this year. This was going to be much more fun, and give us all far more pleasure.

Tim was surprisingly fussy. I had expected him to resist being bought for, as he had resisted being given clothes at St Tar's. But on the contrary, perhaps because these purchases were further links binding him to his new home, and perhaps because he could see the pleasure it was giving me, he was determined to spend my money like Edina Monsoon.

He turned into quite a dandy for the day. No blue jeans, he swore. "I've worn them and nothing else for the last two years, and that's enough!" So he had to have khaki chinos like mine ("actually, erm, they're Fa… , er your Uncle Paul's") and white jeans like Paul was wearing. Some t-shirts, and plenty of polo shirts and button up shirts. A school uniform for the autumn term two months away, with black trousers, black shoes and socks, a blue blazer with the school arms and motto on the breast pocket, white shirts and striped tie. Then two suits, one in sober navy blue and another, which he begged for, in a sort of shiny silvery material. It wouldn't have suited an adult, but when he came out from the fitting room, Paul and I drew breath because he looked so handsome in it. Then socks, but we had a tussle again over underwear.

"I told you, Dad, there's no point. I won't wear them, so why bother buying them? If you want to throw your money away, let's get another shirt, or another pair of trousers."

I turned for support to Paul, who was watching the exchange, highly amused.

"Don't look at me, Johnny," he said, "I never wear underwear either."

I felt the stirrings of sexuality once more. I would never look on those white jeans of mine that Paul was wearing now in the same light again.

"Ok, ok, ok," I sighed. "For now, but this argument isn't over yet."

"Whatever," said Tim.

Then came the most expensive visits: the sport shops. Paul, fortunately, seemed to have a good sense of what was fashionable. Trainers, a (decent!) track suit, white socks, various sports shirts and shorts. Tim wanted some pairs of football shorts like the ones Paul and I had worn last night, but he insisted for some reason that they had to be by adidas, in royal blue. Then he had to have a back pack. And finally I threw away the last of my savings and bought him a mountain bicycle, arranging for it to be delivered.

Paul, who seemed not to want to be outdone, decided that if he was going to be Paul's uncle, and not his headmaster any more, put the crown on the day by taking Tim to Computer World and buying him the latest Apple Mac computer. In the shop, Tim suddenly started crying uncontrollably, clearly unnerving the nice lady shop assistant.

"Y… y… yesterday I had n… n… nobody and n… nothing," he sobbed "and now a family and all this. I'm terrified I'm going to wake up now."

He ran to Paul, and threw his arms around him, giving him a huge kiss on the cheek, and then did the same to me. It was the first time my son had kissed me, and I began to cry too, to see his happiness. I looked up and saw Paul doing the same. Even the shop assistant gave a sniffle or two. I gave Tim my handkerchief, as his shorts had no pockets, and after he had used it, I used it myself.

The way families do, I suddenly thought. It wasn't disgusting, it was beautiful. And then I grinned when it occurred to me that it wasn't my handkerchief, but Paul's, from his trousers. He grinned back at me and blew his nose loudly in my hanky which he took from my white jeans.

The three of us had a blast. Tim made us buy some things for ourselves, including sunglasses (which he called 'shades') and said we looked 'really cool'. And as we made our progress down the high street, a handsome trio, we drew admiring glances from many of the passers-by. Not often that happens in a priest's life, I can tell you.

Chapter 6

That wasn't Tim. Tim provided the unskilled labour; he had to drive the big motorized lawn mower and keep the acres of grass trimmed, and was responsible for keeping the hedges and trees cut back. One of the things that made the work such a pleasure was that every afternoon a couple of boys would be assigned to him as his assistants.

Another pleasure was finally getting rid of his police uniform. He had hated the sweaty man-made fibre trousers and tunic which were unbearably hot in the summer, even though worn without underwear. He hated the belts that hung around his waist with walkie-talkie, handcuffs, plasticuffs, truncheon and half a dozen other impedimenta whose weight pulled down the waistband of his trousers and made them sag at the arse. He hated the helmet that looked like a tit, and made him feel like a tit. Now, especially in the summer, in the morning he could jump out of bed, into the shower, and just pull on a pair of footie shorts, and he was ready for work. That was all he needed until the evening when, if it got cool, he could add a t-shirt. In the winter, he could add a sweatshirt, but except for going to Mass, or special occasions, there was no reason, really, why he need ever wear trousers again.

He revelled in the fresh air and in the sunshine, in which he tanned a smooth golden-brown quickly. He loved the hard exercise that his job provided, and the beautiful grounds and surrounding countryside in which he could run to his heart's content in the morning or when the day's work was over. He loved the well-equipped gym that the regional authority provided, and he loved it that the boys used to ask him for help on their workouts, seeing him as a sort of unofficial expert coach. He loved the olympic-sized pool in which he could relax as an alternative, or in addition to the run, and in which he could race and play with the lads.

And he loved the little house that came with the job. For the first time since his divorce, he had a home with more than one room, and at first he found it difficult to fill up the space. But soon the boys discovered that he was good with his hands, and they brought to him their broken toys and then found out that he was equally good at dealing with broken hearts, and Tim found out that his loneliness had largely dissipated, and his life, as well as his house, was full.

The boys at Turling Park had a tough life. The principle was that if they were kept busy, they would have little time to brood on their unhappy backgrounds. So the place was run along the lines of a boot camp. They were woken by an electric bell at 6.15am, on hearing which they had five minutes to put on their shorts and trainers, and shirt if they wanted (which most eschewed), and report to the front of the school for their morning run for which they were given a time within which it had to be completed. They ran a mile for each year that they were there, beginning at the age of 11 with one mile, up to the big lads of seventeen and eighteen who were expected to run nearly eight miles [13 km]. When they got back, there were press-ups and crunches and other exercises, and then showers, which, unlike those of earlier generations, were no longer cold, but as a concession to modern soft living, had plenty of hot water. They could then dress in the comfortable but drab uniform of navy nylon shorts (which doubled as underwear) under grey sweatpants and t-shirts under grey hooded sweatshirts which they would wear for the rest of the day. These clothes were not their own; when returned from laundry, the boys would simply help themselves to any of the identical garments in a size that fitted them. In fact, they had very few possessions of their own, just an occasional toy or photograph, and they received no money, for fear that they would be tempted to escape in order to spend it in unsuitable ways.

After their showers, beds were made, and breakfast was eaten in silence. Then the boys were left for half an hour to do whatever they needed, and classes began for the rest of the morning. Lunch was followed by a compulsory siesta, and then there was garden work, when the boys would strip to their shorts in fine weather and learn the management of land. There was 'Trades' after this, when the boys would learn computing, carpentry, metalwork, plumbing, electrics and other skills. Finally, they had an hour to do with as they wished, and it was then that there would be a well worn path trodden to the house of the junior groundsman by those privileged souls who had got to know him, to listen and talk and drink his hot chocolate, and feel for once that they were more than just a number on the college books.

If Turling Park excelled in its facilities, far beyond anything St Tarcisius' Home could offer, what it lacked was the human dimension. The staff were not uncaring, just far too few and far too busy to provide what the too-many boys needed on the scale it was necessary. The only answer to their lack of human resources was regimentation, and so the boys were very tightly regimented indeed. Most of the staff were kindly intentioned, though harassed and overworked, and this meant that the boys were given very little liberty. Counsellors came in droves every day, but the boys rarely availed themselves willingly of their services. There was something too artificial, too contrived, about the soft lighting and fake plants and antiseptic atmosphere of the rooms, and the professional caring voices that were not even remotely a substitute for what the boys really needed; a loving family.

But not every member of staff was good or was liked. Since caning or beating was as illegal at Turling Park as in any other school in Britain, it was very much down to the individual staff member to improvise his or her own methods of enforcing discipline. It was not easy, as the boys had few privileges that could be withdrawn, and the teacher would have to be imaginitive. The metalwork teacher, known to the boys simply as The Screw, due to his previous employment as a prison warder, was especially feared and loathed. He had lost his last job because of his brutality to the prisoners, but this was never made known to the authorities at Turling Park, in case it reflected badly on the Prison service, who were under scrutiny at that time by the Government. In his metalwork classroom, The Screw had made a number of sets of handcuffs, leg irons, heavy collars and other implements, which hung up on the walls. Any misdemeanour by one of the boys – and it seemed that The Screw's list of punishable offences was longer than any one else's – would see the lad have to strip to his shorts and be locked into one or more of these artefacts for as long as it pleased the teacher. It wasn't so much the irons themselves that frightened the boys – that had a certain element of dressing up and showing off to it – as the intense look that came into The Screw's piercing grey-blue eyes, and a certain menacing stillness. The older boys of seventeen or eighteen had also noticed that when they were stripped and locked into their irons, The Screw would develop a visible erection; the lads pretended to joke about it with each other, but secretly they deeply feared this man and what he might do, given the opportunity.

The staff were not fools, and most of them were genuinely good people; they could see that if The Screw was a little unhinged, Tim on the other hand was providing the boys with a more than special service, something they all knew was really lacking, and so they were all prepared to turn a blind eye when a distressed lad would flee his class or his tormentors and run to where the motorized lawn mower was turning round and round on the cricket pitch, because they would see the machine stop, and a tall, barechested man get off and hunker down by the lad. Sometimes, he would pick the lad up on his back, or if he was bigger, put an arm round his shoulder, and leaving the machine, would walk over to his house where they would chat for an hour or so. The lad would always come out looking much happier, and often with a toy or a sweet, or something else good. The head groundsman was annoyed at first, but soon realised that Tim made the time up later, and was such a good worker anyway that it was worth tolerating his eccentricities. The care staff were relieved that Tim would find time to provide what they could not.

Inevitably, in an atmosphere where Harry Potter was all the rage, Tim came to be known to both boys and staff as Hagrid.

The summer came, with its long lazy days, and the classes stopped. Many of the luckier boys were able to go for the summer to stay with relatives or friends, or good people who were prepared to take a boy for a few weeks in the holidays; lots of others joined the many summer programmes available around the country. The grass became scorched, and it was no longer necessary to cut it so frequently, and so by mutual agreement of care and grounds staff Tim was free far longer to mingle with the twenty or so unfortunate boys who remained, to find things for them to do in their copious free time. He took them swimming in the large ornamental lake, and went hiking with them on the Downs round about, where they would play wide games; hunt the flag, manhunts, bulldog and all those sorts of activities that would be considered too rough if they were played within sight of Turling Park. They would end each day around a bonfire not far from Tim's cottage, where they would bake potatoes, and burn sausages and burgers, drinking copious quantities of drinking chocolate, as Tim sang to them and played his guitar and told them ghost stories in the firelight.

One day, they were joined by the Principal of St Tarcisius' Home, Father Paul Topham, for a hike. Paul and Tim met infrequently these days, but had remained in close touch ever since their school days. As they walked along, keeping an eye on the kids, who were ever likely to get up to something, they caught up on everything that had happened to them since they had last met by Tim's hospital bed. Paul said, after Tim had just stopped a lad falling over into a river,

"Tim; I have never seen such a natural at this job. You are really wonderful with the boys. I am as furious as all hell that I didn't think to get you for St Tar's. Somehow, I never connected you with this sort of work. You're wasted, cutting grass."

"To be honest, Paul, I never connected myself with it, either. I have a daughter of my own, but I haven't seen her since she was a toddler."

Tim had tried to go for his statutary visits, but Sylvia always found some excuse why it was not convenient, and eventually Tim realized it was useless, and stopped trying. He went on:

"But then there was my mysterious visitor. That perhaps should have told me something sooner; I really connected with that lad, and both looking for him and my new interest in kids made me think of coming to work here."

"Oh yes; I'd forgotten about him. Did you find him here?"

"No. There's nobody even like him, and believe me, I have looked… OY! YOU TWO! LEAVE JOEL ALONE!"

Tim yelled at two bigger boys who were throwing another little one between them, and he sprinted off to deal with it.

Paul stayed for the bonfire that night, and as Tim sang, he looked at the boys' faces. It was like Christmas for them; from the age of eleven up to eighteen, the lads were all entranced. They would remember the happiness of this time for all their lives, Paul thought, and in his heart he blessed his friend Tim Sullivan for having brought joy to this unhappy place. He was clearly no longer a failure.

When the boys had been reluctantly seen off to their beds, Tim and Paul sat in the cottage talking over several large tumblers of whisky. It had been agreed that Paul was going to stay the night, and he had borrowed a pair of shorts from Tim (borrowing clothes was one of his favourite activities) and the two of them were sitting together companionably dressed only in their shorts. The whisky had relaxed many of their inhibitions, and they were in a very frank and confidential mood. Paul said: "Tim, I've been thinking, while watching you today. Have you ever thought of fostering somebody yourself?"

"Well, only that lad I told you about whom I brought home that night. But I'm not really sure I'd be suitable. I'm a single man, for one thing. Isn't that rather frowned upon? And I'm divorced. Wouldn't that make me count as unstable?"

"I very much doubt it. I know you very well, and can vouch for your stability, and I'm sure the staff here would be agree enthusiastically. Anyway, lots of single men are fostering. You must remember Johnny from the seminary: he's fostered a smashing lad from St Tar's."

"Johnny? Never!"

"Yeah, honestly. And he's doing a really good job. The two of them are really happy together. I see a lot of them; Johnny and I have become close friends since we were ordained, and since you went your own way."

"But Johnny, he's… well,… . oh, never mind."

"What were you going to say?" asked Paul, suspecting what was coming.

"Well, when we were in the Sem, I used to see him… erm,… "

"You mean he was perving on you? Did that bother you?"

"Paul! Honestly! Great subtlety, Soldier! Eat your heart out, Shakespeare! But, yeah, that's what I mean, though it's your word, not mine. For instance, I used to catch him sometimes intently watching me when I was shirtless for any reason, not that I ever need much reason to be shirtless. And I remember he 'perved' on you too."

"Hm. That didn't, and doesn't, worry me at all. In fact, I was flattered! And I'd be flattered if I were you, as well."

"What the hell do you mean by that, Paul?"

"Just what I said. Johnny's very attractive: he's handsome, a really great-looking guy, something of a hunk, and a really lovely person as well, don't you think?"

Tim went red, then white with shock and then anger.

"Handsome? Something of a hunk? What's that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me that you, whom I have known almost all my life – or obviously not known all my life – and are now sitting drinking my whisky, are… are… "

"Are what, Tim? Gay?"

But Tim was silent, his mind working furiously. So Paul continued

"No, I'm not trying to tell you that. You could have worked that out for yourself if you had tried. In fact, I'm surprised you didn't. No, what I'm asking you is whether you think that Johnny is a great-looking, handsome guy, and a lovely person."

Tim spat out "God! You're really in the mood for shooting from the hip tonight! But I suppose that's always been your way. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Fuck, Paul, it's just not good enough! And for your information, read my lips, no I don't think that Johnny is really handsome. I don't think he's something of a hunk. I don't think about it at all! Have some more whisky, and let's change the subject, for Pete's sake."

There was silence for a while. Tim writhed uncomfortably in his chair, the horsehair bristles poking through the fabric and irritating his bare back and thighs. Paul watched him, an unfathomable sympathy in his eyes. Tim caught the look, and it held him, and as they looked at each other, tears began to well up in Tim's eyes, and he began to weep. He had not cried properly in years, even when Sylvia had betrayed him, but he cried now, like a little baby. No doubt the whisky had something to do with it. Paul rushed over to the other side of the room and drew his friend into a tight hug.

"It's okay, Tim, it's okay."

"It's not okay. I told you again and again, I have totally fucked up my own life. How can I possibly unfuck somebody else's life, especially a child who's already fucked up by life?"

"Let's not talk about all of this now."

"No, you don't understand. I want to. The point is…" and here Tim was sobbing hard, and had to try and master himself "… the point is, that I meant what I said, that Johnny is not in my opinion really handsome. In my… in my opinion…" Tim pulled himself away from Paul's grasp, stood up, and went to look out of the darkened window with his back to the room.

"… In my opinion Johnny is drop dead fucking gorgeous! I have been so desperately in love with him since the Seminary, so hard that it hurts. All the time, all the fucking time…" and he broke into sobs again.

He continued, when he had mastered himself, "I saw him draw close to you, Paul, I watched him watching you, and I hated you for it. I could see he found me attractive, but he adores you, Paul. I realized that only when I was a Deacon. I decided that I could never go through life like this, yearning after the unattainable, so I made the decision to turn myself into a man before it was too late, rather than a heartbroken castrate existence as a celibate, and what is worse, a faggoty castrate."

Paul winced, but Tim continued,

"Yes, a real man. I bought porn magazines with girls' pictures and tried to masturbate, with some success, but hey, when you're young even misshapen carrots turn you on. I went to the pub and got drunk till I puked. I went to football matches – I even supported Brighton and Hove Albion; there's desperation for you – I learnt to strip an engine and put it back together again. I joined the police, one of the most macho jobs I could think of. I proposed to Sylvia and almost forced her to marry me. She was so slim, almost like a guy… Oh God, I did a wicked thing to her. No wonder she found me unsatisfactory in bed. I'm almost certain my supposed daughter is not mine, because we hardly had sex after the marriage, let alone before it!

"The divorce magistrate was right, you see. I'm a rascal and a loser. In everything I've done I've failed spectacularly! And I'm as much of a celibate as I would be if I had been ordained. And all this time, I've played the sympathy card with all of you for all it was worth. Poor Tim, abandoned by his tart of a wife, and shafted afterwards by her and her new boyfriend. You see: I'm a hypocrite, all along. And now you know that I'm a poof too. No, they would never trust me with a child to foster." And he sobbed again.

Paul got up and put his arms around his friend again, and held him until the sobs died down. He asked

"Have you ever told anyone this before?"

"Never, not even myself, really."

"You poor, poor, lamb. Tim, you can't spend your whole life yearning over the impossible. But there is lots of possible happiness for you. You are certainly suitable to foster; I know of no-one better, in fact. I know that this is a strange time to bring it up, but fostering has brought such joy to Johnny! Yes, you're right, Johnny and I are very much in love. We've never said it to each other, and we probably never will; being faggoty castrates…

Tim interrupted "… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that to apply to you… "

"… not at all. As you know, I approve of saying what you mean as directly as possible, and it is just a very direct way of saying celibate gays. And since we both love being priests, we are going to have to be very careful how much rein we give to our love. The love which I cannot express for Johnny, I lavish on my boys at St Tar's. And Johnny lavishes love on his Tim. There never was a boy who was so loved."

"His Tim?"

"His Tim. His foster son. By some weird coincidence, his foster son has the exact same name as you; he's another Tim Sullivan, as if one wasn't enough. Perhaps you are distantly related,."

"That's extraordinary! I'd love to meet him." Distracted for a minute, Tim began to cheer up.

"And so you shall. But not for a while, because Tim is going away to summer camp with the other St Tarcisius lads; he begged and begged so hard to be allowed to go, in order to catch up with his friends, that we agreed. And as there was no way that Johnny could afford a holiday this year, it seemed a good solution. Besides, it'll give me a little time to be with Johnny on our own."

The normal talk had calmed Tim down, and he felt at last and suddenly supremely at his ease, as if a huge burden had lifted off his shoulders. Oddly, even talking about Johnny had not produced the same agonies of heart that it had done for so long, even as recently as twenty minutes ago. Tim felt waves of the deepest affection and gratitude to Paul for having given him this occasion to say what he needed to say at last.

"Paul," he began. "I can't begin to thank you enough for helping me to discuss and accept this. Just talking about it in a normal way for the first time has been so amazing. I thought that if I told you the truth, you would hate me, I would lose my job and all my friends. But in your generosity you 'came out' to me first, so that I might have the courage to admit it to myself. Did you really know what was going on all along?

"Oh yeah, Tim. It's sad, really. In the seminary, you perved on Johnny, Johnny perved on me, and until I fell for Johnny myself, I perved on you, Tim. I've always had a thing for you, even at school. It was a sad little love triangle, with each person aware only of their own love, and watching their own love loving someone else."

"Bloody hell! Was everybody in the Sem a poofter?"

"Not at all. Most weren't. But I suspect that there were a larger proportion than in the general population. After all, if you are a devout Catholic, especially these days, you would find it very difficult to explain to your family and friends just why you are not bringing girlfriends home. A vocation to priesthood is an honourable way not to find girls attractive.

Paul went on, "But I think that in the case of each of the three of us, there was a real vocation."

"The three of us?"

"Yes, you too, Timmy."

"Paul, I really have fucked up, haven't I?"

"Oh come here and give me a kiss, you great butch thing, you!"

By contrast, the following morning, Tim was in a buoyant mood. He had been thinking about a great deal of things after he went to bed, and he had an idea to propose to Paul. Over breakfast, they talked. Tim said, "Paul, did I hear you say that you and Johnny can't afford a holiday this year, and that this other Tim is going away with St Tar's. Do I assume that you are not going to camp with them?"

"Spot on. I have them all year round; this is my holiday, too."

"So you and Johnny were just going to stay in the parish? Not much of a holiday for Johnny, then. Why don't the two of you come here? The St Tar's camp is for a month, isn't it? Turling Park sends all the boys who remain here away to a boarding school in the highlands of Scotland for a fortnight during that period. I'm going, too. So why don't the two of you come and use my cottage for as much of that month as you want. I'll be here for part of it, but there'll be two weeks when you'll have the place to yourselves. What do you say?"

"Tim, that would be just perfect. It's really kind of you! I know that Johnny will be thrilled, not just at your offer, but at the chance to catch up with you again. Honestly, it's time the three of us grew up, and found our friendship once more. It used to mean so much to us."

And so it was arranged.

Tim Sullivan Junior was duly packed off to camp, too excited to eat his breakfast on the morning of departure. Johnny drove him to St Tarcisius' Home, the place that Tim had previously hoped he would never have to see again, and there was a great reunion. He had a small bag with him with some old clothes; bizarrely, they were new old clothes, and had to be specially bought from Oxfam, as Tim's own clothes were all new; Johnny had impressed on him how important it was not to make the other boys jealous, or feel second-rate. Tim began to climb onto the bus, and then it suddenly struck him that he would be leaving his new father for the first time. He suddenly felt insecure, and he panicked, running back to Johnny, and hugging him hard.

"Dad, I've changed my mind; I don't want to go!"

Johnny tugged him by the hair. "Listen, sunshine, you've got to learn to run on your own for a while. We've had a blast over the last few months. I'm going to miss you like crazy, but you'll be fine with all your old friends. Go! go and have a wonderful time." He kissed the top of Tim's head, and pushed him towards the bus, hoping that Tim would not see the tears in his own eyes, and hear what his heart was shouting "Tim, I don't want you to go either!"

Johnny waved hard until the bus was out of sight. Then all the St Tar's staff let out a huge cheer; "FREEDOM! YEAH!!" It was an annual custom, and Johnny was laughing hard, despite the sudden ache in his heart at the first departure of his son. They all went into the staff dining room to drink bucks fizz and let their hair down. By tradition, the staff party went on most of the day, and after an hour or two Johnny was already maudlin, missing Tim desperately. The rest of the party became increasingly difficult, and he was heartily glad when the last of the revellers went off home. Then he felt arms round him from behind, and a chin on his shoulder.

"Just you and me, now, for a whole month."

"Yeah, and Tim."

"Tim's gone. He's having a whale of a time on the bus with his friends, and he's forgotten you exist already."

"No, not Tim Sullivan you silly bugger, but Tim Sullivan."

"Oh, that Tim Sullivan. Well, only for a week. And it'll be fine, you'll see."

And so it was. Though Tim senior's vigorous fitness regime was rather more energetic than either Johnny or Paul were prepared for.

Paul and Johnny arrived at Tim's cottage that same afternoon in one car. Tim was out cutting grass, but he saw them and waved. He stopped the engine, and jumped off the machine, loping easily over the cricket field towards them, passing under the sprinklers as he ran. The water fell on his tanned and muscular torso, and glinted in the sun. Johnny had to swallow hard. This man, once a close friend, whom he had not seen for nearly ten years had become utterly gorgeous. Johnny gulped again.

"Oh my! He's stunning! A real running wet dream!"

Paul nudged him hard in the ribs. "Don't you dare perv on him! You're suppposed to perv on me, and anyway, Tim's still very uneasy with all that sort of thing."

The vision of beauty came near; though running, he was scarcely breathing any more heavily than normal. He went straight up to Paul and flung his arms around him, and kissed him full on the lips. Then he did the same to Johnny. Both men were flabbergasted.

Johnny looked at Paul as if to say "uneasy with all that sort of thing, eh?"

"There!" said Tim. "That's just to get us off on the right foot. We'll start as we mean to go on. No more angst! No more bloody nonsense from me! We are three mates, and we are going to have a real hoot this week! Come on in. Oh, there's one problem; there's only one bedroom, I'm afraid, so if you, Paul would kindly take your usual couch downstairs here… ?"

"Fine!"

"… I'll take Johnny upstairs to my room and fuck him silly, like I've been wanting to do for years!"

It took a moment for Johnny and Paul to realize that Tim was joking, but when it had sunk in, the three of them were crying with laughter. And the week got better from there. The boys had already left for their summer break in Scotland, and so the three men would have the run of the entire school and grounds, and have it all to themselves.

Tim tossed a coin for beds, and ended up with the couch himself. Paul and Johnny got the big bed upstairs between them, which both excited and rather alarmed them. They rather suspected that Tim had engineered the toss this way, and had done so to give them what he thought they needed, but without embarrassment to to the visitors for having pitched their host out of his own bed.

The first night, Tim built a big bonfire where he usually did for the boys, and the three friends cooked a sort of meal on it, and sat around until the small hours of the morning, drinking wine, reminiscing, and quickly rebuilding their relationship. Both Paul and Johnny realized how much they had missed Tim, and on his part he was thrilled to the marrow to have his closest friends back again. Above all, he now had two people with whom he could discuss the things that had been burdening him for so long. He, who was so good at helping other people through their difficulties, had had nobody to talk to about his own. But all that was changed now, and the deep loneliness he had borne for so many years was finally beginning to recede.

The three friends found their way somehow to bed that night and fell immediately asleep.

About eight o'clock in the morning, when Tim had been up and fretting around, bored, for two hours, he went up the stairs quietly to the bedroom. There he saw Paul and Johnny side by side on the bed, the sheets flung back because of the heat, they were not touching but lying on their backs, still fast asleep. And both of them were tenting out the fronts of their shorts with vast erections. Tim giggled quietly as an idea struck him. He tiptoed downstairs and filled a jug with ice from the freezer. Then returning to the room, he took a handful of ice in each hand and deftly pushed a hand down the front of each sleeper's shorts. In a New York second, the air was blue with foul language, and a moment later there was a three-way wrestle on the bed going on, with each participant trying to stuff ice into the others' various crevices. It was wonderful to be a kid again. When all the ice had melted, the three of them lay entangled in each others' limbs, like so many puppies, laughing and enjoying the moment.

"Paul," said Tim.

"Yeah?"

"The bed's wet."

"So it is. Who's fault's that, I wonder?"

Pause.

"Tim," said Johnny.

"Yeah?"

"When's breakfast?"

"Not for ages yet. Put your running shoes on, both of you."

"Why?"

"Run first, then breakfast."

"Run? Me? Ooooooh, no. It's a while since I swore off that sort of thing for life! I'm a born-again couch potato!"

"No breakfast, then."

"Okay. Fine by me, we'll just go back to sleep and get up for lunch."

Pause.

"I'm going to tickle you until you put your trainers on."

"Fuck you!"

"Right! You asked for it!"

Five minutes later, the three men were out of bed and jogging down the drive together.

Despite their protests for Tim's benefit, neither Johnny nor Paul were as unfit as they alleged, but they were certainly not nearly as fit as their host. He made allowances for them, and set a gentle pace, so that they could talk as they ran. While they trotted past a lake and waterfall, Paul said quietly;

"This seems almost too simple, and at the same time, too good to be true. My life normally seems so complicated, and yet here I am running through this wonderful scenery, accompanied by this wonderful scenery" – he looked at Tim and Johnny and smiled – "and I'm far happier than I was in my complex own life. I have just rolled out of bed, and thrown on a pair of trainers, and am now out and about in the same pair of shorts I slept in and nothing else. And I feel wonderful. Does life get any better than this?"

"Yes, it does." said Tim gravely. "It gets better every day now, I find."

They ran for about eight miles [13 km], and then returned to Turling Park. However, Tim would not let them rest, but pushed them through a series of gruelling physical exercises until every muscle group had, in Tim's case, received a good workout, and in the others' cases caused what was beginning to hint at some serious aches later. But Tim jumped up and jogged lightly off again, and the others had no choice but, groaning, to follow him. However, he didn't go far before he entered a big building and jogged down a tiled corridor to a set of double doors.

"This," he said, "is one of the biggest pleasures of this place." It was a vast shower room, with about twenty heads, so that the whole room would fill with hot spray. "It's made to take fifty boys at a time. Kick your trainers off," he said, setting the example, and throwing them outside the door. He suddenly threw a switch, and the room was filled with freezing rain. The three of them gasped with shock, but the water could not be escaped. Slowly it warmed up until the temperature was almost as high as they could bear. They took soap from the wall dispensers, and washed themselves, both their bodies and their shorts.

"Simplicity." said Tim, "This way you only need one pair of shorts; you keep them clean all the time. And if the shorts are nylon, as all mine are, they dry in no time."

By common consent, they stood washing themselves close together far longer than was necessary, drinking in the sight of each others' hands caressing their own bodies, disappearing below the wet shiny shorts and washing below in the secret areas. Then, at some unspoken moment, they started washing each other slowly and tenderly. None of them could by this stage have said which of the other two he loved more; every sense was straining to suck in every detail of the others standing so close. The atmosphere between them was electric; the sexual tension zinged in the tropical downpour as by common consent they each pushed their neighbour's shorts to the floor and kicked them away. They stood there in the steamy rain of the showers, standing still, fascinated at what was before their eyes. They had never before seen each other completely naked, and they just wanted to experience the moment, wishing that it would last forever. They gently began to touch and run their hands over each others' bodies; their palms felt the hard ridges of each others' abdomens and their fingers brushed their pectoral muscles and nipples until their penises strained and strained for release. That release would certainly have come quickly had not the hot water run out, and they were all suddenly drenched and deflated by an icy downpour. The tension of the moment relaxed, and they waited together, their hands in each others' hair, laughing with laddish and rather foolish joy until they had accustomed themselves to the cold, and were enjoying its refreshing vigour.

"You're going to ache so badly later," said Tim, turning the water off. "We'd better give you a massage." And on the benches in the changing room they took turns kneading each others' limbs and torsos until each felt utterly relaxed. Finally, they pulled on their wet clammy shorts and went to dry off in the sunshine and eat breakfast.

They wandered around the grounds after breakfast, and talked of their lives. They swam naked in the lake later on; Tim said that he had always wanted to do that, but with the boys around it was not a good idea. Then they lunched lightly with a bottle of white wine. After a siesta, Tim woke them again and took them to the gym, where they worked out under his direction for an hour, followed by another swim, this time in the pool. Then the three of them lay in the afternoon sun; the priests prayed their breviaries while they tanned, and then they talked and talked. At sunset they lit the bonfire. Tim sang to them with a passion that he had never felt before, and in the circle of the firelight their love blossomed and grew strong.

They were all exhausted by eleven o'clock, and went indoors. Tim turned to go to the sofa as on the night before, but by one consent Johnny and Paul each took a hand and led him upstairs, where the three fell onto the (now dry) bed. The three of them wrapped their arms around each other, and relaxed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Each day the week following was like this, and both Paul and Johnny grew visibly younger-looking. Their waistlines tightened, their tans deepened, and they grew clearly more relaxed. The love that the three felt often came to the surface, but one of them would usually head off the passion with a funny remark or a practical joke. As the end of the first week drew near, they began to sadden, as Tim prepared to go away to join the Turling Park boys in Scotland. Not that the packing took long. As Tim said: "For the journey, shorts, t-shirt, trainers. For changing into, another pair of shorts, another t-shirt. Plus, wallet, sunglasses, toothbrush, towel, rosary. I think that's all I'll need for a fortnight."

"The simple life," said Johnny admiringly.

Tim gave them no warning of his departure; he simply left early one morning while the others still slept, leaving a note on the kitchen table.

At first, Paul and Johnny were lost without Tim, and rather depressed. But their joy at their good fortune at being where they were soon reasserted itself, and they resumed the vigorous regime that Tim had bullied them into. He had left his school keys for them, and they were able to continue to use the gym, pool and showers as before. In return, they were supposed to keep an eye on the buildings and drive the lawn mower around the cricket pitch once or twice.

Paul was amused. "How many businesses would employ the managing director of their rival to look after their property in their absence?" But he took the opportunity to look over the wonderful facilities at Turling Park and plan how to persuade the diocese to invest more in St Tarcisius' Home.

And he and Johnny found after all that the absence of either of the Tims was no brake at all on their fun. They regressed to childhood; they grew daring, scampering naked up and down the corridors of the college, playing hide and seek in the empty classrooms. They found the school uniform store, and tried on the drab uniforms, grimacing at the scratchy rough nylon of the boys' shorts. They climbed the climbing frames in the gym and swung from the ropes, doing Tarzan impressions. They had fun in the chemistry labs, trying to remember from their schooldays what made things go bang. They made rude pots in the pottery room, and, giggling, hid them among the prize exhibits on display, with false names attached. They found the headmaster's study and, dressed only in school shorts and his academic gowns, sat at his desk drinking his sherry.

And then they found the metalwork classroom, with its bizarre display of fetters, yokes, collars and handcuffs hanging on the walls. They shouted with laughter, thinking the dungeon ironmongery was hugely camp, and assumed that the teacher responsible was both gay and quite self-mocking. They found the keys to the locks in the teacher's desk drawer, and tried on the various fetters and collars, photographing each other. Paul hung Johnny on the wall in manacles from a hook, Johnny locked Paul into a sort of yoke that held his hands out on either side of his neck.

"If we took our shorts off, we could sell these photographs for a fortune on the internet," Paul joked.

"It's no joke," said Johnny, yanking down Paul's shorts, and taking a snap. "I've got my retirement to save for."

Five minutes later, with a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Johnny suddenly went quiet.

"What's up, Johnners?" said Paul, concerned that he had fastened them too tight.

"Paul, there's blood on these cuffs."

"Shit." Suddenly the two of them shivered, and unlocked all the irons they had put on each other. They hung them back on the wall and went to put the keys in the drawer. Their mood was broken. As Paul pulled the drawer out he caught sight of a photograph. He took it out and looked at it, turning white. It was a boy, an adolescent, fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed only in school shorts and wearing presumably the same yoke that Paul had worn. The boy had fetters on his ankles too, and he looked the picture of misery. A short search revealed half a dozen similar pictures. Suddenly the two men wanted to get out of the room. They felt sick.

For the first time in a fortnight, Johnny and Paul went back to the cottage and dressed properly in shirts and trousers. The naughtiness of playing in the school had somehow lost its appeal.

"You know," said Paul, "St Tar's boys call this place Alcatraz. They don't seem to be far off the mark."

The following day, the friends resumed their active regime, though they confined their visits to the school to the gym, the pool and the showers. They simply did a routine patrol through the other corridors to check on security.

"There is one thing we haven't done, though," said Paul, one afternoon.

"What's that?"

"Gone through Tim's clothes and tried them on!"

"You're awful! Paul, you are such a fabric queen! Does it really turn you on to wear other people's clothes?"

"You have no idea! Particularly when they are as gorgeous as you or Tim."

"Well there's one thing, at any rate. It won't take long. Something tells me that Tim's wardrobe is not going to give you a lot of scope."

But Johnny was wrong. Tim's collection of sportsgear, especially shiny nylon shorts, was extensive.

"A little bit of a fetish here, I think," said Paul, gleefully. "I'm really disappointed I didn't find this little hoard sooner; it'd be fun to go running in a different pair each day." But he tried them all on, anyway, and then insisted that the reluctant Johnny do the same. Another cupboard turned out to be full of uniforms. That was a real surprise. There were Tim's old police uniforms, but also an imposing collection of military ones. Since Tim and both Paul and Johnny were slim and fit, the uniforms looked magnificent on them, and the camera came out again.

Then there were suits; about five really good suits, hardly worn, and three new pairs of leather trousers. But no underwear, anywhere.

"Why three identical pairs of leather trousers?" said Paul. "What a lot you can learn from a guy's wardrobe!"

"What a lot you can learn from watching a guy learning from another guy's wardrobe," said Johnny, highly amused. "Look, Paul, what is it, this underwear thing? What have you got against it?"

"Nothing at all," he replied. "Underwear is very useful if you've got a hernia, or you are incontinent, or unhygienic, or you want to kill off your sperm, or you're so impossibly hugely endowed that you can't even carry your own weight."

Look," he went on. "Tim and I went to the same school, as you know. In fact, we were really close friends, and we were both what the Americans call "jocks'; Tim has carried all that on, but I've let it slide, rather. At school I used to be even fitter than he was. Our school used to insist that none of us ever wore anything under our sports kit; they said it was unhygienic, with all the sweating going on. Dead right, I think. But it was the jock thing to do; it was manly and virile, the badge of our status, to do without underwear all the time, particularly when we heard that Mohammed Ali never wore it. Both Tim and I swore off underwear at fourteen, and have never changed our minds, nor have had cause to regret it. And others at our school who admired us did the same. By that age, both Tim and I were doing our own washing, so our families never knew. Happy now?"

"Well, I understand a bit better, but I still don't get why everyone I love seems to feel the need to go without!"

We lit our evening bonfire as usual, and we lay together with a bottle of wine, each of us wearing a pair of Tim's leather trousers (and nothing underneath, at Paul's insistence), looking at each other in the light of the flames, and watching the flickering light playing on our bare torsos. We drank each other in more greedily than the wine; there was no need for words. We moved closer together; I lay against the scratchy trunk of a tree, my legs wide apart and Paul came to lie with his back against my chest. I folded my legs around his waist and pulled him to me with my arms around his torso. His hand began running up and down my leathered thigh, while I let my hands roam over his smooth chest. I leant my head over his shoulder and began to blow gently in his ear. I explored its whorls and cavities with my tongue, while he gasped. I wanted to taste every inch of this man I loved. I clenched my hands hard on his pectorals as I bit gently on his earlobe. I could see his hard cock straining against the leather, and the sweat running down his beautiful chest, catching the firelight, as he writhed ecstatically in my grasp. The same writhing had made me painfully erect, my cock trapped in the tight leather as Paul frotted and rubbed at my groin with the waistband of his trousers. The sensation, at once painful and so very sweet made me clench my teeth on his earlobe and crush his nipples in my fists. Together we cried out and came at the same moment, subsiding into each other's arms in ecstasy.

After a minute or two, Paul turned in my arms and began to kiss me passionately. We rolled on the grass there in the firelight, trying to suck the life out of each other – or was it trying to give each other our own life? We paused for breath, me underneath, and Paul on top, his beloved handsome face only a couple of inches from my own. I gazed at him, my chest suddenly constricting as I felt a rush of the most ardent emotion.

"Oh Paul," I began, "I lo… " but he covered my mouth with his own.

When we separated again, he said, "Don't say it. Don't say the L word. There's still too much at stake."

I was saddened, but agreed. We got up and went hand-in-hand to Tim's cottage, stripped off the leather trousers, peeling them away from our caked privates (ow!) and tried to clean them up as best we could. Then we got into Tim's tiny shower together, and washed each other tenderly.

We each put on a pair of Tim's shorts and went to bed, holding hands, lying and looking at each other until we could keep awake no more.

The following morning, we ran as usual; this time Paul insisted that we ran wearing the official school shorts "out of solidarity for the poor bastards who have to wear them all the time." By this time much fitter, we were really able to speed along, and there was no breath for talking. So when we reached the waterfall, I took Paul's arm.

"Paul, I want to talk a minute."

"Anything you want, baby. And I mean anything." He smiled wickedly. "But I'm only too glad to stop, because these rough shorts are giving my tender bits no end of gyp. Why don't they just make them of sandpaper? It would surely be kinder. Poor bloody sods here at the school have nothing else to wear, ever. Perhaps they are designed to cool their adolescent ardour!"

But I was serious.

"Paul, up to this point, it's all been fun. But last night we crossed a barrier. Things are different now. We may not have said the L word, but we have had orgasm together, and taken physical, sexual pleasure in a way that is different from what was before. We could kid ourselves before that we were playing. But last night was not playing."

"I certainly enjoyed myself!"

"Paul, be serious for a minute! Do you think we actually did the deed?"

"The big nasty? Well we didn't bugger each other, if that's what you mean."

"Did we have sex?"

Paul sighed. "Well, sort of. If you're splitting hairs, we helped each other to achieve orgasm. But it wasn't directly intended. I wasn't directly trying to make you cum, and I suppose you weren't directly trying to make me cum. It just happened, though you might fairly say that our activities made it pretty inevitable. Don't worry about it, darling, just enjoy the memory. I certainly do!"

And Paul laid a gentle kiss on my forehead, kissing away the worry lines he saw there. He added, smiling: "And don't ask me to hear your confession, because if I absolve an accomplice, we'll both be excommunicated."

"Let's swim under the waterfall."

So we kicked off our trainers, and jumped in the water, and frolicked for a while before running back to the cottage.

Tim returned a few days later. We had frantically tidied everything up, and put everything back in its place, as well as we could remember, but we still felt anxious that he might detect that we had been on the rampage. He came breezing in looking the picture of health and fitness. Bitch. He floored us with his first sentence.

"I hope you girls had fun with all those uniforms while I was away!"

We didn't know what to say.

"Well I certainly hope so: I was having no end of fantasies imagining you in all the various outfits! I can see you both in the leather trousers, now."

We must have looked guilty, for Tim gave a wicked laugh.

"Well, we've only got two full days before the horrors return from Scotland, and a week before you go, so we'd better make the most of it."

He had us into all the uniforms again, until he decided that we were all best in the leather trousers. And that was that for the evening, all three of us. I wonder now if Tim hadn't bought three pairs in anticipation of our coming. No pun intended. In some ways wearing them that evening desentitized us to that particular garment, for Tim kept chattering merrily in a way that kept any sexual tension out of our interaction.

It also gave us an opportunity to bring up what we had found in the metalwork room. Tim looked grim.

"Thompson. The boys call him 'The Screw', and they're all scared of him. He certainly gives me the creeps, but as far as I know, he's never laid a finger on a boy in a sexual way; he has only used those irons as short-term punishment. But he uses them too frequently, and now that you have told me about the pictures, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. It ought to be stopped in any event. It's pretty seedy."

At the end of the week, we went home. Paul had to prepare for the new term at St Tarcisius, and I couldn't wait any longer to see my beloved son home again.

Chapter 7

Tim Jnr grew over his fear of sleeping alone, and grew to love his attic room, where he surrounded himself with all the things that boys of his age like. I had warned him that priests didn't earn a lot of money, and the big expensive shopping blow-out we had when he first moved in was going to be a very rare, and possibly unique, event. He didn't mind, and seemed to manage on the pocket money I could find for him, plus little extras he managed to charm out of parishioners from time to time, especially at Christmas, when he benefitted from the bonanza that priests tend to receive from their parish. For me it was bottles of wine and whisky; for Tim, computer games, footballs and book tokens. The parish had adopted him as a sort of mascot, and he revelled in the attention. Boys in residential homes are starved of attention, but now he had amassed an audience of several hundred!

It was now early summer again, when Tim had been with me for about a year, and we had settled down very happily indeed. Paul had indeed been correct that we were made for each other, and I blessed him for his intuition. The weather had grown unseasonably hot, and I could hear Tim in the attic room above me tossing and turning on his bed as indeed I was doing on mine. I heard a car pull up outside erratically, crunching into something, followed by a big crash as if a dustbin had been knocked over.

"Shit." I thought. "Another drunk."

The doorbell rang and rang. This happens to priests rather a lot; drunks and tramps think that the presbytery is the very place to get whatever they want. Which is usually money, and the time is almost always unsocial.

As usual, I was only in my shorts, so I pulled on a t-shirt and went to the door.

I was confronted with a most terrible sight. A man stood swaying in front of me, his hair and face a mess of blood, his clothes torn. I gasped. The vision spoke indistinctly, "Johnny, Johnny, please help, please…," and fell forward into my arms. I was frantic. It was Paul! I half carried, half dragged him inside to the sofa. I heard Tim call down

"Dad, who is it?". I didn't want him to see Paul like this, so I said as calmly as I could, "It's your Uncle Paul, Son. Go back to bed." But he must have heard something in my voice, so he came downstairs and saw his beloved Uncle in that dreadful state. I fully expected hysterics, but was reassured when he said calmly to me: "Shall I ring for an ambulance, Dad?"

"Yes, Son, good idea." Inside, it was me who was nearly in hysterics.

Paul started slurring again "please, please… "

"Oh God! Paul, the ambulance is coming; hold on, my love."

Paul began to get agitated.

"NO, NO, please, please, St Tar's, breaking it up, boys in danger, please p'leeease."

Now I understood: Police. I shouted to Tim, "Tim, urgent, Police to St Tars!" Paul collapsed back in relief and closed his eyes. Soon after, his breathing became erratic; I put my ear to his chest and could hear that his heart beat was irregular, too. "O please God, no!"

I ran for the holy oils, then absolved and anointed my beloved as the tears ran down my face. I clutched him to me hard, "Oh Paul, Paul, please don't die. I have never said that I loved you! Oh Paul my love, my love, my heart!" I was frantic.

I had forgotten that Tim was there listening, but he said to me quietly, "Dad, I'm sorry, but you'd better put Uncle Paul down; there may be internal injuries."

He was right. I wasn't thinking straight. I stood up, my t-shirt covered with my beloved's blood, in a mental state little better than his. It seemed like an eternity, but it must have been only a minute or two before the ambulance came. Tim, still calm, let them in, and his tranquility brought me to a sense of myself again.

The ambulance men were friendly, steady and professional. While Tim brought me a clean t-shirt, they asked me for Paul's details, and for his next of kin. I told them that we were the nearest thing Paul had to family, and that I thought Paul had named me as his next of kin. So Tim and I got to ride in the ambulance to the hospital.

On the way, Tim talked to me to keep me calm; he said that when he had called for the police to go to St Tarcisius', it had been unnecessary; someone else had called both them and the fire service. And of course, that makes sense; it must have taken Paul at least twenty minutes to drive from St Tar's to my home, especially in the state he was in. It still baffles me to think how he managed to drive at all, though it is wonderfully comforting to think that he turned for help to me first.

At the hospital, Paul was rushed into emergency care, and from then on there was nothing we could do but sit in the corridor in our bare feet, shorts and t-shirts leaning against each other for comfort. We said the rosary on our fingers and just waited. Tim remained calm as ever, and my heart, even in its distressed state, swelled with pride in my beloved son.

"Don't cry, Dad, it'll all be fine. You'll see."

My son was no fool. He had always known that I loved Paul: he saw the way we interacted, but had the good sense to keep his knowledge to himself. I dared not ask him whether he thought my feelings were returned, because no doubt he would know that too. And I wasn't sure I'd be able to cope with the answer – whichever answer it was. I thought back to the night nearly a year before when Paul had put his hand over my mouth to prevent me telling him I loved him, and the thought tormented me now.

A kindly nurse brought us a blanket and a warm drink, seeing that we had no pockets in our shorts, and therefore no money with us, and we fell asleep in each other's arms. An hour or so later, a policeman called and woke us in order to take a statement. We learnt what had happened at St Tarcisius before and after the attack on Paul.

A drunken man whose child had just been taken into care and placed at St Tarcisius by Social Services had gone on the rampage, attacking Paul with an iron bar and running amok. Eventually he set fire to the whole building. Thanks to Paul's warning, no lives had been lost, and the boys and staff were being taken care of in a local school. The man was in custody; the irony was that his son was not even at St Tar's but away for the night, staying with his grandmother.

St Tarcisius Home for Boys, however, was no more; it had been entirely gutted by fire; the roofs had fallen in. All the students and resident staff had lost everything they owned except the night clothes they stood up in.

The news cast another gloomy pall over us after the policeman left. St Tarcisius' Home had saved so many unhappy lives over its hundred years of existence. Tim was especially downcast. It had been the place he called home for eighteen months, and had been the beginning of his happier life. He was also worried for his friends who were now homeless.

But with the dawn came better news of Paul. He was safe, thank God, though terribly battered and weak. The wounds to his head were all superficial, though they looked so awful; the important thing was that his skull was not broken. His right collarbone, however, was shattered, and the shoulder itself was dislocated and his left forearm and upper arm were broken where he had tried to shield his body from the iron bar. Several ribs were broken, and there was extensive bruising and lacerations over all his body. The irregular breathing and heartbeat that had so freaked me were the result of the shock he had taken, and these had both now stabilized. Apparently, the fact that he had become so fit on our last summer holiday, and had got his muscles so strong and firm had probably saved his life. We had both kept up our exercise since.

We were allowed in to see him for a few minutes, and we each took hold gently of a bandaged hand and spoke to him of our love, though we were unaware whether he could hear us. A nurse came in, and ushered us out, and we left. It was as we were at the front entrance that we both suddenly realised that we were still in bare feet, clothed only in football shorts and t-shirts. Well that was not too strange, since it was hot summer, but several miles to walk in bare feet during morning rush hour was a little daunting. Then Tim thought of Teresa, and slipped in to charm the receptionist into letting him phone her. She arrived shortly, full of concern for Paul.

Paul recovered slowly in hospital, and I was with him when at last he woke. His first thought was to smile at me, "Hello, handsome," and then he said, his face clouding over:

"My boys?"

"They're all fine, Paul; nobody except you was in the least hurt."

After Paul had visibly relaxed, we chatted quietly for a while, and I was able to fill him in on the details, which were nearly all sad news for him.

"All the boys have been rehoused with families or at the Seminary or the ones with the short straw at Turling Park, poor sods. It's a bit tougher on the staff, because they have lost everything, but the diocese and the local authority are seeing to them. I guess there'll be a huge insurance claim. You don't have to worry; it's all being taken care of."

But then I had to break to him the news that St Tarcisius' was destroyed beyond the hope of rebuilding, and that with it he had lost everything he himself possessed. I hated to have to tell him. But he looked at me and said quietly, "at least I still have something which means more to me than anything else."

I looked enquiringly at him.

"You, above all," he said. "But Tim, too. Both Tims, in fact."

A fortnight later he was discharged into my care. Tim and I turned up at the hospital with a pair of my shorts and a t-shirt, since he had lost all his own clothes in the fire, and those he had been wearing on the night of the attack had to be thrown away. Somehow the nurses got him dressed, but from there on it was down to us. It was a terrible job to get him into the car with both arms in plaster; we couldn't even grasp him around the torso because of his broken ribs. In the end, we sat him on the passenger seat and swung his legs in. Getting him out wasn't quite as bad, and I was relieved to get him upstairs and into my own bed which, being bigger, was better for the purpose than the guest bed he had always used before.

As he eased back onto the pillows he said to me, "Oh Johnny! It's good to be home."

I just smiled down at him, thrilled that he thought of my home as his, then I leant forward and kissed his forehead.

"Mmm. That's nice. That reminds me," he continued, smiling, "I have this faint memory that somebody not a million miles from here told me that he loved me when I was bleeding myself dry over his sofa."

Shit! He had remembered, even through all that. So, the moment had come, and I was dreading the time of acknowledgement.

"Oh Paul: I'm so sorry; it came out all on its own! I couldn't help it; I was so terrified I was going to lose you that I didn't know what I was saying."

"Are you saying it wasn't true, then?"

"No, never that. I can't deny it; I do love you. Always, everywhere, with all my heart. And I simply couldn't have lost you without telling you."

"And now you've got me into your bed at last, you old pervert, hmm? Still, there won't be much hot passion with me plastered up like this, so I think the Vatican can relax for now."

I think Paul saw my distress, so he grew serious for a minute. "Come here," he said. "Kiss me again." So I did, on the cheek.

"No, you blushing virgin, properly!" So I kissed him on the lips, so very gently. And he turned and whispered in my ear "And I love you too, and I think I always have done from the first day I saw you at the Seminary. And now that I have found you again, I find that I cannot bear being away from you; my heart sings when I see you, when I smell you, when I hear the sound of your voice, I love you always and forever."

There were no tears, but a silent content. I got onto the bed and lay by his side. And Tim, who had been watching from the doorway, having heard everything, tiptoed out and left us together.

It was Paul who broke the silence with a little giggle.

"Ow! my ribs! Johnny: I've got this little problem."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Actually, it's a big problem; I desperately need to take a leak."

"Well, you can stand, you can walk, you can use the loo, can't you?"

It was then that the problem struck me, and I was both amused and appalled. How was he going to extract his little friend to do his business, with both arms in rigid plaster? He looked at my consternation and tried to laugh.

"I've had Nurse Nasty doing it for the last couple of days, after they took out that bloody catheter. It was so embarrassing! To have you do it will be infinitely preferable, believe me."

"It wasn't your embarrassment I was thinking of; it was mine!"

Paul only smiled.

It didn't work out well at first. If we were simply two mates, no doubt it would have been fine, bar a little embarrassment, which a couple of crude jokes would have solved. I got Paul off the bed and once he was on his feet, he walked to the bathroom easily. But when the moment came to begin operations, my hand began to shake with the sexual tension there was always between us, and the same tension made him nervous when I approached the leg of his shorts to extract his pride and joy. In short, he dried up.

"Hell, I'm not going to be able to go now!" he said.

But, nothing daunted, I found his penis and drew it out with trembling fingers. All I could think was "Here I am, holding Paul's cock at last." A similar thought must have crossed Paul's mind, because he began to grow hard. That was the end as far as peeing was concerned. And then I grew hard too.

"This is so fucking humiliating!" he said, and then characteristically started laughing, and yelping in pain from his ribs. In a moment we were both hysterically cackling. When we recovered, I had another idea; Before he could protest, I jerked down his shorts over his erect penis ("Ow, careful!") and spun him round to sit down on the loo. I reached over for the shower head, and turned the tap to cold. I aimed at his groin."

"Johnny, no, please, NO!! Aaargh! You BASTARD! I HATE YOU!! Oh shit, that's cold. Haha! Oh! my poor ribs!"

He swung himself from the waist and clonked me on the side of the head as hard as he could with a heavy plastered arm, but I pushed him back and persisted until his equipment was soft. His urine released then, and he sighed with relief. I said smugly, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"

That night Tim and I tried to undress Paul. There was no way we could get the t-shirt off, twist as we might, without causing him excruciating pain, and so we resorted to scissors. He would have to stay barechested until the plaster casts came off. Naturally this distressed me enormously. Not!

I then went off to sleep in the guest room. But Paul spend a dreadful night on his own, with all the little discomforts that hot weather, illness and incapacity bring, literally being unable to move a finger to alleviate them, and unable to wake me through two doors when he called for help. When I went in to see him in the morning, late, since I thought to let him catch up on sleep, I found him exhausted and drawn, sorry for himself, and a little fractious and tearful. So the next night, I slept on the floor by his bed, which was almost where I wanted really to be, and tended his little needs through the night. It made me so happy just to be near him, listening to his breathing close to me, and taking in his special smell. Tim suggested we move the spare bed in for me and put it next to Paul, and that is what we did. I could lie awake and just look my fill at my beloved, asking myself "who needs sex?" I nearly convinced myself, too!

Tim's sixteenth birthday came and went; he was so much part of our lives now that I could not imagine life without him. His quiet logical presence, so accepting of the strange relationship between Paul and me, gave me daily more joy. There seemed to be no problems of adolescent angst, and even the humiliating agony of acne hardly troubled him. His schoolwork gave no cause for concern, though the headmaster told me that he was very reluctant to join in the violent games that most boys enjoy; the school had a good rugby tradition, and Tim would be physically sick with apprehension before every game. I went into school and had a chat with the head, and mentioned confidentially the fact that Tim had had an abusive past, which might have led to an exaggerated fear of violence. Secretly, I suspected that the real reason Tim hated rugby was that he was simply gay. So, every day, when the other boys were hitting each other around on the rugby pitch or soccer field, Tim was allowed to go to the school gym weights room, pumping iron. It was already beginning to show in his deepening chest, his broadening shoulders and his narrow waist and hips. And as a result, he was beginning to attract attention from the girls who liked to hang around the school gate, and the boys who simply tend to hang around the jocks. It rather amused the three of us to think of Tim being thought of as a jock!

The hot weather, which continued well into the autumn, meant that I had to wash Paul three or four times a day. It was hardly a chore. I loved tending to his beautiful smooth body, kneeling on the bed astride his slim waist, and our intimacy grew apace. I had to do almost every action for him from feeding him every mouthful to cleaning him when he went to the lavatory. But I loved every minute of it and would let nobody else help. Our summer holiday the year before both of us had regarded as something different, out of the ordinary conduct of our relationship. Midsummer madness had taken us over then, and we treasured the memory without thinking that it would be the norm. We had both taken our vows of celibacy freely and joyfully, and neither of us took that line beloved of certain High-Church Anglican clergy who thought that celibacy was simply not having sex with women. But would we ever have taken those vows at all if we had known at the time that our love was reciprocated? Probably, because our vocations meant so much to us both.

We were also both on the more traditional wing of the Church, and we really believed that the consummation of our love which we both desired would not be a good idea. So there we were; not an ideal situation. But we loved each other, and loved each other's company, chattering about absolutely anything and nothing, so I was getting very little writing done which was annoying my publisher. No doubt it was all for the best when first one, and then another plaster came off Paul's arms, and he was released into the world once more. But I missed having my little captive audience; I missed the intimacy, frankly.

Paul had lost all his belongings in the fire, as I said, and at first he twitted me, saying that he wanted me to outfit him as I had Tim. But there really was not the money any more; that had been a one-off, there was not a lot left, and Tim had to be my first priority. So, since we were the same size and build, I told him he could share my clothes with me. I knew the naughty effect that would have on him. And truth to tell, we both found the idea very intimate and rather erotic; it served as a kind of secret surrogate bodily love. Thereafter, whenever either of us bought clothes they went into the common wardrobe.

Our weeks of intimacy had blunted the sad loss of St Tar's for Paul, but there was little doubt that he had lost a part of himself too, because he had loved the work, and adored the boys. He missed them all and worried about them terribly. I had had to hold the phone to his ear while he made detailed enquiries about each of them, and where they were, and how they were doing. When the plaster came off his arms, I had to drive him round to see all the boys, so that he could see for himself that they were well treated. He worried most about the ones at Turling Park, and spent a lot of energy unsuccessfully trying to convince the headmaster there (with guilty glances at his sherry bottle) that none of 'his' boys would benefit at all from the metalwork classes. He couldn't come out with his accusations against The Screw without admitting that he had himself been rampaging round the school during the holidays!

Tim having been so easy, and there being a lot of homeless boys since the destruction of St Tar's, Paul (now living with me) and I began to apply our minds to fostering again. It was hard to choose among the boys, but in the end we decided to take two of those who had been sent to Turling Park, and of whom Paul had been particularly fond. So Marc, who was 12, and Conor, an Irish boy of 10, arrived in time for Christmas. Tim was delighted with the prospect of two new brothers, and spent all his free time decorating the spare room for them to share. This left us with a problem. There was no bedroom left for Paul. Tim, characteristically, offered to move in with his soon-to-be-brothers, but we told him that we thought that he needed his privacy. Which, let the reader understand, meant that we knew very well just how badly sixteen year old young men need their privacy, and we didn't want Marc and Conor finding out about all that sooner than they would find it out for themselves anyway. And secretly, we thought that if we left ourselves no other option, Paul and I could continue sharing a room with a clear conscience. As long as we had separate beds, nobody could point the finger. We hoped.

From the first, Marc and Conor were a complete delight, though they were far noisier and much more rumbustuous that Tim had ever been. Paul, believing that the St Tarcisius phase of his life had come to an end, had decided himself to be the fostering parent, and so he was 'Dad' to them, and I was Uncle Johnny. It worked fine; Teresa had easily fallen back in to the role of part-time-mother, and she said that she felt ten years younger. But really, Tim did most of the work with the lads; he was truly wonderful with them. Even then, Paul and I wondered whether he had done this sort of thing before; he seemed a complete natural with younger boys. The first time they saw Tim shirtless in the bathroom, the boys conceived a towering awe of this godlike muscular hunk who was their new big brother; they started walking like him, imitating all his little catch phrases, and dressing like him, never wearing their blue jeans again, but sticking to khaki chinos and slim-fitting white jeans. And on his part, he kept an eye out for them at school; he took them there, and brought them home. He picked them up and comforted them when they got hurt (which was often, for both the boys were very athletic and competitive), and even mended their clothes. He sorted out their many quarrels and occasionally, when he thought we were not looking, clouted them over the head for some misdemeanour. He taught them to serve Mass reverently, and would pray the rosary with them every night. In our own prayers, Paul and I used to thank God fervently for Tim, for we should never have managed the lads so well without him. And the boys simply adored him.

As he began to get fit once more, Paul started to worry that being made jobless by the loss of St Tarcisius' Home, the Bishop would now send him to be a Parish Priest at the other end of the diocese and we would be separated just as our life together was becoming so rich. He hated the thought of being far from Tim, too, for the two had become closer and closer, and separating Tim from Marc and Conor just was not to be thought of. Then finally, just before Easter, the summons came. Instead of just sending for Paul, however, unexpectedly the Bishop sent for us both, and so, with our three sons in tow (all in smart suits), we set off to hear Paul's fate.

The Bishop was charming, and put us at our ease straight away, complimenting Tim on being a fine young man and a credit to his father, and then asking the two lads about school football statistics, complimenting them on their prowess. He was a canny man, who knew that even in the case of priests, the way to parents' hearts is through flattery of their children. He then sent the three lads out to feed the ducks in the local pond, (Tim was a little chagrined at that) and finally turned to us. He got to the point straight away. There were, he confirmed sadly, no plans to rebuild St Tarcisius. The project was just too large to contemplate, even with the insurance money. The land would be sold for housing. Therefore, henceforward all Catholic boys would have to be sent to Turling Park.

I saw Paul's look of horror, and I groaned inwardly. However, the Bishop had not finished. The Headmaster and Governors of Turling Park had agreed to the construction of a Catholic house in the grounds of the College, and the Bishop wanted Paul as its Warden, and me as its Chaplain, both jobs to be residential and full-time. The insurance money from the destroyed Home, plus the money for the sale of the land, should pay for the building work, and also provide a substantial endowment for the new House. The school would provide the land free of charge, since it would benefit from the greater numbers (hence getting more money from the state), and be able to hire more staff overall, to everybody's satisfaction, and the new St Tarcisius House would mean that the boys could benefit from the wonderful resources of Turling Park while still having the loving family atmosphere that had always been a feature of St Tarcisius' Home for Boys. The best of both worlds, in other words. In the meantime, we could both continue at St Edwards until the new building was ready. The boys made homeless by the destruction of their old home could stay at the seminary for the time being, but would be admitted gradually to the existing Turling Park buildings as soon as places became available, and when the new building was ready, hopefully in two years' time or so, they could all move in together. In the meantime, Paul could go in on a regular basis to keep in touch with the boys. By this time, Paul was grinning from ear to ear. His recovery was complete.

We celebrated that night with champagne and a big dinner. Even Marc and Conor got a little champagne, and a lot tipsy. Tim carried both of them up to bed as they fell asleep.

Chapter 8

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.

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