I spent a second to take a breath because I knew I was worked up, then wandered over to him trying to keep calm. I knew he was in his late thirties but he looked so much younger in his black jeans, a NASA sweatshirt and a baseball cap that said, Writer in the Courier New font. He was wearing a backpack.
“Doctor Hawnett?” I asked. I’m not sure why as I knew it was him.
“That’s right. Are you Malachi?” He frowned.
I nodded.
“And it’s just, Sam,” he said. “Sorry, but I thought you were older.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I ever mentioned my age.”
“Well that will teach me to make assumptions.” He seemed to relax at once. “What are you, sixteen? Your writing makes you seem much older.”
I wasn’t sure if I should correct him or not. No, I made the decision right there that I wasn’t going to lie to him. “I’m thirteen. Fourteen in two months.”
“Well in that case you should have told me.” He looked slighted. I was worried that he was about to tell me to get lost. “I hope at least you have permission from your parents.” I wasn’t sure if the look he was giving me was out of concern for me or for him.
“I didn’t think I needed it. I’m just coming to the science museum. I’ve been here loads of time before, by myself.” I nodded like a maniac.
“But meeting someone… I hope you wouldn’t do this with anyone.”
So it was genuine concern for me. Nice.
“Besides,” I said, “my dad knows you.”
’Does he? Who is he?“
“Peter Russell, you appeared on some TV debates together.”
Sam laughed. For a moment his face was a children’s jigsaw puzzle. Then he nodded. “I do know who you are. I read about you in your dad’s book before the last debate. What was it? How to…”
“How to build the perfect Christian family. It should have been called, How to Fool Yourself Into Believing Your Son’s a Christian.”
Sam laughed. It was so unrestrained that that I laughed too. “So you’re the kid who God has blessed with the ability to get A-stars in exam after exam.” There was something defiant in the way he looked at me. I don’t know if that’s what it was exactly but I knew it was positive. I knew he wasn’t going to send me away now.
“So, what do you know about heat engines?”
We spent a few hours wandering around the museum. Sam asked me questions and corrected me when I got things wrong or didn’t have the whole picture. I got the feeling that the whole time he was sizing me up for some reason. When we got to the nuclear physics section I told him my idea about photons.
“I think that there is only one photon,” I said.
“What?” He stopped in his tracks, “Did you read that somewhere?”
“No, it’s just an idea I had.”
“Tell me what made you think that.”
“A photon has no mass and it travels at the speed of light. The theory of relativity tells us that if you travel at the speed of light you won’t experience time, which means a photon could travel an infinite distance without experiencing time, so it could be at every point in the universe at once. It would also go some way to explaining quantum entanglement.”
“That’s very clever.” said Sam. “I’m sorry to tell you this but you’re not the first person to think about this idea. My own hero, Richard Feynman, once considered that possibility and concluded it was incorrect.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’ll have more ideas.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will.” He took off his backpack, knelt down and opened it up. Inside were eleven books. “I should give you these, but you didn’t bring a bag.”
“Don’t worry. I can’t take them anyway. It’ll only lead to questions from my parents that I can’t answer honestly. Besides, I’ve already read them all. I wanted to meet you, it’s been prize enough. I don’t have anyone like you to talk to. I wanted to know what life will be like when I go to university and do have people to talk to and I think now I do.”
“So that’s it, you’re done with me now?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. He looked up then nodded as if making his mind up about something. “You deserve some kind of genuine prize. Are you hungry? Would you like to go and get some lunch. I know a fantastic tapas place not far from here.”
The day was turning out to be better than anything I could have hoped for. “Sure, why not? As long as I’m back home by six it will be fine.”
We left the museum and walked towards the high street. The entire way he was telling me how important my grades would be for university. “Oxford,” he said, “not Cambridge.” He seemed to have no doubt that’s where I would end up.
“I’m going to get A stars.”
He laughed. “Your dad will be pleased. He'll be able to put it in his next book.”
Entering the restaurant was like walking into another country. The decoration was creamy wallpaper over varnished wooden panels that gave the place a Catalonian feel, as did the guitar music which was playing in the background.
Over on one side was a bar with more bottles of alcohol than I had ever seen. A very cute guy in a white shirt, waistcoat and bow tie mixed drinks using all the bottles and would throw one up in the air and catch it open end down, pouring the variegated liquids into glasses and metal jugs.
The waitress showed us to a booth at the other side of the bar and we were quite apart from the few customers who were already eating.
“Nice and quiet here.” Sam didn’t even look at the menu. “Four cokes.” He looked at me. “Museuming is thirsty work. And bring us eight plates of your finest fare.”
“Your son is so very cute,” said the waitress in an accent as thick as a tortilla. “Just like you.” She gave him a wink then walked away.
I laughed. “I was never called cute before.”
“Ah, when you get to university the girls will come a flooding.”
I shook my head. “Girls aren’t my thing.”
“That’s all right too. Guys then.”
How cool was that? He’s gay friendly. But I knew that already from his blog of course.
Our drinks arrived. He removed the straws from one of his drinks and gulped back half of it. Then put it back down. “But wait, I’m finally putting this all together.”
I looked up from my drink and freed my mouth from the straws. “This?”
“You. You wanting to meet me…” He tapped his straws on the table in a consistent rhythm.
“I read all your books…”
“What’s my wife’s name?” He turned his head as if preparing his ear better for the answer.
“Catherine.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a doctor.”
“I’m a doctor!” His voice went up. I thought he was holding back a smile.
“Yeah you are but not the kind that can actually help anybody.”
He laughed again without a care in the world. No worries. No worries about anything. What must that be like?
“I’m a fan, what do you want me to say?” I know it comes from the route fanatic, but that’s not what this was. Well, it was only part of what this was.
The waitress came back with a huge tray and laid out eight plates of food on our table: garlic bread, calamari, asparagus wrapped in bacon, patatas bravas, charcuterie, two different salads, and paella, my absolute favourite.
Sam rested his hands on the table and then began loading his plate. “Go on, dig in.”
I went for the paella and had never tasted better. Theirs was a mixture of two types of fish, one I’m sure was haddock but I couldn’t place the other. There were also shrimp and scallops, and at the back of it a smoky taste.
He paused after two pieces of calamari. “I’ve been on television with your dad. I take it your parents don’t know?”
I swallowed my mouthful. “Don’t know what? That I want to be a scientist rather than a minister? That I’m here with you, who�
�d make somewhere on the top five of their list of the last people on Earth they’d want me to be hanging out with? That I’m an atheist? Or that I’m gay?”
He took a drink. “Okay, that’s fairly obvious. I’m sorry. I’m not used to this type of situation. You have to give me a chance. To be fair I thought I should knock it on the head when I saw how young you were.”
My face did something at that point. I think I must have sneered at him.
“Malachi, you have to understand that a lot of people would have a problem with a man meeting a boy of your age without his parents knowing.”
“So why didn’t you run off?”
“I don’t know. I don’t believe in fate or anything but I believe in right. In your email I thought I saw a mind, a real mind behind it. I mean, I made a guess that you were post-doctorate. And this is what cultured, intelligent, socialised people do.” He picked up a fork and started loading one of the salads onto his plate.
Thought he saw a mind? That hurt. “They meet and eat tapas?” I finished the last of the paella before I realised that Sam might have wanted some. “So answer me this. How many other people did you have to send signed copies of your books to?”
“I won’t answer that.” He picked up the empty paella bowl. “Was that good?”
“It was none! And I know that cause you posted it on your blog, yesterday.” If I said that didn’t make me feel proud and big headed I would be a liar.
“What’s your point?” He put the bowl down.
“That it’s still me. Can’t you look past my age? I am that mind you saw.”
“I know you are. I think what I’m asking is why are you here? Is it teenage rebellion or something else? It's one thing meeting people you admire and I know people who are like that. You don't strike me as one of them. You're not a twelve year old girl and I am not Johnny Depp.”
So I told him. I told him everything. I told him how solitary my life was and that I had no friends. I told him about the deal I’d made with myself, that my mind was a constant battleground between what I could control and the emotions that told me to run away or tell my parents to fuck off. How I was an atheist and couldn’t stand another day not telling my parents but knew until I could get out of there I had to keep it to myself. I told him I was sick of having no friends I could talk to about any of this, because anything that got out at the school would get back to my dad, and, anyway, all of the kids at school were Christian and not at all friendly about gays or atheists.
By the end of it I was sobbing, reliving my animal isolation. This was the first time I’d told anyone about any of this and I couldn’t stop the emotions coming out with the details.
“I wanted something to keep me going. I had to know I wouldn’t be stuck where I am forever.”
The waitress came over to check on us but Sam held a hand up and she went away at once.
He sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. I didn’t freak out. My head dove into his chest all by itself as I cried it all out. My nose filling with the scented smell of his deodorant. I looked up at him into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to tell you any of that. It spilled over. I don't want you to think I thought you can fix any of it. I needed a taste of my future to keep me going.”
“I get it,” he said. “I get it now.”
The rest of the meal was quieter, we were both too busy eating. Other than the paella, I'd never had tapas before but I think it’s now my favourite type of cuisine.
He paid for everything then walked me back to South Kensington. He opened his arms to offer a hug. I hate touching people but when he put his arm around me in the restaurant something happened that allowed him in. I hugged him and held on tight.
"Listen, you won't be stuck there forever."
I looked up at him and I could feel tears forming in my eyes.
“Will you keep writing to me?”
I nodded and let go of him. I turned and headed towards the station before he could see me cry again.
“Wait,” he called. “One second.”
I turned back to him and he pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “It’s my number. If you need anything or you have an emergency. Call me, day or night, all right?”
And then I noticed something about him had changed. He no longer looked so carefree. He looked worried – trying to hide it but worried all the same. What was on his mind? I don’t know. He touched me goodbye.
I kept looking at the card on the way home. I was annoyed at myself for not thanking him. I don't know what happened that day but something he did or said changed me. I felt different, excited about the future. I looked at the card one last time and then tore it up. I put it in a bin before I got back home. I couldn’t let my parents find it. Besides, I’d remember the number. I remember everything I see.
A sudden jolt brings me back to the present. The younger boy is awake and looking at me. He’s been crying. His eyes as wide as a hangman’s noose.
“Hi, I’m Malachi.”
“N-noah.” He looks at me as though desperate for answers.
“It’ll be okay.” How the hell can I know that? I need to learn to shut my stupid mouth.
There’s another bump and after I see lights somewhere outside, the car pulls up. The thugs take us out of the car.
Fresh air at last and so different than in London. I can smell the earth and the trees around us.
“There’s no point in running,” says the bald man. “There’s nothing around here for miles and we’ll have to come and get you. And you don’t want to do that – it’ll make us mad.”
We’re led over to another area. I can make out some structures but I’m not sure what they are. We stop outside a big building and I can see a load of sleeping bags on the ground. Only three are left unoccupied.
“Each of you take a bag,” says the bald thug. “You’ll be sleeping outside tonight. And no talking.” He walks away with the others and it seems, along with the other inmates, we’re left alone.
I drop my backpack at the head of one of the bags and get in fully clothed. Noah bunks next to me. He faces me as soon as we’re both in.
“I’m scared,” he whispers.
I wish I could find some words of reassurance but it hits me that here is someone worse off than me, because of his age, because of his vulnerability. What can I do? I won’t lie to him.
In his eyes I see all the fear, anger and confusion that I feel myself and I hate him for it. I don’t know him but I hate him. I hate the way he makes me feel because there’s fucking no one here for me either.
I let my hand slip out of the sleeping bag and he meets it with his own, soft, cold and clammy, and I don’t mind him touching me. In fact, it feels like loosing a terrible choice or winning a doubtful fate.
“Me too,” I say.
Part Two – The Crucifixion
Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned
By sickness, death's herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison,
But damned and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh make thy self with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.
John Donne
Chapter Six
I awaken to the sound of clanging metal and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, which have dried out in the open forest air. The sun is still low behind the trees and hasn’t yet begun to the heat the ground. My right hand, still out of the sleeping bag, is numb with the cold.
Noah opens his
eyes and smiles at me. He takes my hand for a second and then lets it go, perhaps so no one will notice. That simple reminder of his touch makes me want to kiss him. It's an urge I feel as strongly as I do to avoid the touch of most.
I smile back. My nose is full of snot and I don't have a tissue. As soon as I sit up it runs down and I have to wipe it off with my sleeve.
“Everybody up.” An American man paces up and down the line of sleeping bags. He looks like a cowboy, dressed in denims, boots and a white leather Stetson. He holds a metal dustbin lid which he’s beating with a stick. He looks old but spry. His blond whiskers are going gray in places.
The other captives are as quick to stir and get up as I. There are twelve of us here. All very different at first glance but all with the same unmistakable look of fear in the eyes. Noah seems to be the youngest, looking even more vulnerable in the daylight than he had the night before. Is he twelve? Even younger? My dad said the camp was for teenagers so he must be at least thirteen. The oldest boys here seem to be seventeen or eighteen but I find ages hard to guess at so can’t be sure. None of them look happy. I can’t believe that any of them are here by choice.
In the daylight I can see that we’re in a dried mud courtyard between six smaller brick buildings, a wooden shed and a large hall that might in the past have been a barn. In the centre of the courtyard, to the side of where we'd slept, is a fire pit which is loaded with logs, ready to burn. On the other side of the fire pit stand four young men shifting their weight from foot to foot. At first glance I think they might also be captives but they have different kinds of expressions on their faces. They look bored. Then I notice they’re all in black Leviticus Ministries track suits and look like they're in their early twenties. There is no sign of the thugs who brought us here and that at least gives me some sense of relief.
‘“Pack up your sleeping bags,” says the cowboy, “and come stand around the fire.” He drops the lid and stick, then pulls a leather bound bible out of his side pocket.
The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Malachi the Queer Page 6
