Out of Bounds

by Mike Seabrook

  His parents goggled at him. He didn’t feel very proud of the feeling, but he couldn’t help it: the more they radiated horror and dismay, the more powerfully he felt a current of exhilaration thrumming through him. He waited, trying to keep the grin off his face.

  “But…but this is frightful”, groaned his father eventually, in genuine dismay. “This man is a master in charge of you and other boys at school, isn’t he? He’s been picking you up and transporting you to the cricket matches all this time”, he went on, his expression becoming more and more aghast as further implications of his son’s admission struck him. “Are you telling us that all that time he has been seducing you?…”

  “Most of the time he didn’t need to”, said Stephen in mock gravity. “I was hooked within a few weeks. After that it was me who did most of the pushing. He was hanging back because of his position. It took me a hell of a long time to get him into bed, but I managed it in the end.” He could hardly contain the laughter bubbling up inside him now.

  His father gazed at him, his expression skittering back and forth between horror, disgust, anger and concern. Anger won. “But this is appalling”, he said, flushing. “This man must be prosecuted. Molesting boys in his care. I don’t know what next. The police must be informed. I shall have to speak with the headmaster immediately.”

  “No!” snapped Stephen sharply. “He won’t be prosecuted”, he went on quickly, instantly serious. “He’s no longer a master at the school. The headmaster let him resign, and agreed not to take any action, because of my age and the fact that I consented to the affair. And he’s not in this country any more — he’s left the country for good. I’m joining him as soon as I finish my A-levels.”

  “He must be prosecuted”, said his father decisively. “Not only has he grossly abused his position of trust with regard to you and the other boys, he has also committed a terrible sin, for which he must be punished. Your own views in the matter, and those of the headmaster, are irrelevant. What he has done—and it applies to you also — is against the will of God Himself.” Stephen could hear the capital letters.

  “Oh, please”, he groaned, “you’re not going to start dragging in the bloody bible, are you?”

  “Be silent”, ordered his father, appalled. His mother, who had not yet said a word, let out a soft hiss of fright at the blasphemy.

  “There’s another reason why you won’t be calling in the law”, said Stephen, feeling calm and implacable.

  “And what may that be?”

  “Because it won’t do a lot for your image if you’re seen conspiring with a blackmailer to persecute someone for being in love, and dragging your own son’s name through the same dirt in the process”, he said nastily.

  “Blackmailer? What blackmailer?” snapped his father.

  “Where did those come from?” asked Stephen, gesturing at the photographs.

  “They were sent anonymously, presumably by someone concerned about your well-being”, said his father. At least he had the grace to look a little shifty as he said it, thought Stephen.

  “What was that about being disingenuous?” jeered Stephen, openly hostile now. “Concerned? About my well-being? Just who does he wish well to in this case, would you say?” He waited for a moment, then went on, the jeer in his voice more pronounced. “I know who sent those pictures. He’s already tried to use them to blackmail us, only we told him to go to hell. Then he tried to use them to get Graham sacked from his job, but Graham was too quick for him. Now he’s obviously just trying to do as much damage as he can. And you’re mug enough to let him use you as his dupe”, he snorted disgustedly.

  His parents looked at each other in some perplexity. “We shall have to talk about this at length”, said his father eventually. “In the meantime, you will consider yourself confined to this house. You have further A-level papers to attend. You will be driven to school to sit those, and collected and brought back here afterwards. I don’t think otherwise you can be trusted to your own devices.”

  He sat back and watched the expression of almost amused disbelief on Stephen’s face. “I think we must accept our share of responsibility for this outbreak”, he said after a pause. “We allowed you a very great deal more freedom than we ought to have done, and I suppose we should have realized that it was possible that that freedom would be abused and turned into licence. We could not possibly have expected it to deteriorate into outright licentiousness as it has. I must confess that I’m utterly shocked — stunned — as well as appalled, to find the path you have been seduced into following. I cannot believe that you found such a path of vice voluntarily. Therefore, you must have been directed into it by a wicked and sinful man, older in years and practised in the ways of vice. For the moment, you will go to your room, and remain there until we call you to discuss the matter with you. I think it had better wait for a while, to allow the very unpleasant attitude of defiance and rebellion to fall from you.”

  “You’re not seriously thinking about trying to send me to my room like a little boy, are you?” gasped Stephen in amazement, staring at his father as if he had grown a second head.

  “I’m not thinking about it at all”, said his father grimly. “I’ve decided, and there will be no argument about it.” He got up, advanced on Stephen, and dropped a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re fucking right there won’t be any argument about it”, yelled Stephen. “I’m eighteen, which means I’m an adult, and if you think you can treat me like a child you’ve got another thing coming, as you’ll find out before too long.” He knocked his father’s hand off his shoulder, darted round the table, and shot out of the room.

  They caught up with him at the front door. It stuck a little, and he had to wrestle with it for an all-important second or two. He managed to scramble it open as they caught at him, and got halfway through it before they dragged him back into the house. Then, in a turmoil of confusion, disbelief that such things could still happen, and most of all, boiling, incoherent rage, he was lugged upstairs by main force, and locked in his bedroom.

  It took him some time to convince himself that it had all actually happened. He sat on the bed and went over it in his mind, working himself up into a passion of bitter rage as he reflected how they must have planned it all before their carefully non-committal request to him to come there from Richard’s. He went to the window and looked out, wondering if he might climb down by drainpipes or other aids, but there was nothing to give the slightest handhold. He supposed grimly that if there had been he would have been incarcerated in another room. He sat down again and considered various ways of escape, from subterfuge to outright violence.

  After three-quarters of an hour the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and his father, grim-faced, ordered him to accompany him downstairs. When they entered the dining room he saw instantly that they had called in reinforcements, in the shape of the minister from their church. His lips curled in a bitter sneer.

  He dropped into a seat close to the door, without being asked, and bestowed a ferocious glare of contempt on all three of them. He decided to open the batting himself. “If you think trundling out the God Squad’s going to do your cause any good”, he said acidly, “that’s just one of the many things you’re going to have to think again about.” Having delivered this opening salvo, he sat back and glared defiance while he waited to see what they might possibly have to say to him.

  “You see, rector”, said Mr Hill. “See how he persists in his defiance. You hear how he speaks. This is not the son we had until a few months ago. He seems to rejoice in speaking disrespectfully, almost violently, and in disparaging and insulting everything that was once a part of his own life, and is still a part of ours. I don’t know what to do, but I felt that you might be able to bring the boy back to some sense of reason.”

  “Well, Stephen”, said the minister, cheerfully. “What have you been getting up to, to bring your parents round to me in a panic? They seem to think you’ve been going to the devil. I’m her
e to see if you can be reasoned with… Can you?”

  Stephen had not expected this pleasant, friendly approach, and it took some of the wind out of his sails. But he quickly suppressed the smile that had been on the point of appearing, and resumed his earlier defensive frame of mind, suspicious of everything. “I may be reasoned with”, he said, watching the clergyman alertly, “but I’m not to be bullied, or threatened, or imprisoned either. I’m old enough to know my own mind, and to go my own way, and I won’t allow anyone to get in my way. I was caught last time, because I wasn’t expecting them to resort to downright violence, but you don’t catch the same fish twice on the same fly…”

  The argument went on for some time, and as it proceeded Stephen watched his father and the clergyman covertly, from under his eyelashes, but alertly, waiting for them to relax in the reassurance of each other’s presence.

  At length the clergyman sat back and said judicially, as if Stephen himself was not there in the room with them, “Well, we don’t seem to be making any headway. The boy seems set on pursuing his new ways, on spurning his parents and dismissing the guidance of his church and the bible with contempt. It’s as bad a case as I’ve come across. I think, perhaps, the police ought to be asked to come into the matter. Stephen appears to be associating with some of the lowest forms of life — not merely perverts, which would be bad enough, but blackmailers and common ruffians as well.”

  “Tell me”, said Stephen, speaking in a soft, deadly voice. Three pairs of eyes turned on him. “Is it an especially serious kind of assault to hit a priest?” he asked. “Because if you” — he turned and addressed the clergyman directly — “ever dare to call certain people perverts again in my hearing, I’ll hit you right between your fucking eyes. And if I can’t do it, I know people who will.”

  He had said it calculatingly, guessing that it would cause such shock and consternation that the chance he had been waiting for might offer itself. It did. They turned to look at each other, appalled, and for a split second he was unwatched. He stood up, unobtrusively and fast, and was through the door and into the front hall before anyone had moved. This time he was ready for the sticking of the front door, and he was out in the street before they had reached it. Once free he took to his heels and ran as if the devil himself was after him.

  * * *

  “Richard? Thank Christ for that!” he panted when the much-loved voice came on the line. “It’s me.”

  “Where are you?” asked Richard, surprised to hear his friend on the telephone.

  “Look, there’s no time to explain on the phone. You’ve got to get out of there, quick. My people will be there any moment, and they’re after me. Can you get out and meet me somewhere?” He thought for a moment. “Can you get to that pub we use? I can be there in twenty minutes or less. I’ve got a fair bit of cash on me, but can you bring my building society book with you? It’s in the drawer of the dresser where my stuff is. Just grab that, and then get out. They’re in a nasty mood, I can tell you.”

  “Okay”, said Richard, easily. “Though what they can do to me I can’t…”

  “I’ll explain everything”, said Stephen hastily. “But get away quick, while you can, and for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone see where you go.”

  “I’m on my way”, said Richard, and the line went dead.

  * * *

  “Golly!” said Richard. His eyes opened wide as he listened to Stephen’s account of the scene at his home.

  They were sitting at their usual table in the pub. Stephen had swallowed a pint almost in one draught, and was well advanced on his second, watched a little anxiously by Richard. As he described what had happened Richard’s expression changed from disbelief to astonishment to indignation and finally to cold anger. “They can’t do that, can they?” he queried. “Christ, this is the twentieth century. Don’t they live in the real world?”

  “No”, said Stephen bitterly. “They don’t, and I should have known it. I should never have let them con me into going back there like that. But I did, and it’s too late now. I’ve got to get away. I’ll have to get away to France as soon as possible. The trouble is, I don’t know where Graham is. And another thing — I’ve got to warn him. He’d just come back thinking everything was perfectly all right and normal, and they’re talking about having him arrested. I’ve got to get word to him not to come back at all.” He sat and pondered for a while, then brightened as an idea struck him.

  “Look”, he said, “he’s going to phone me at your place as soon as he’s found what he’s looking for. Can you stay there, wait for him to call, and tell him to ring me? I know where I can hole up for a couple of days, and he can ring me there. Then I can tell him to stay put where he is, and join him as soon as I’ve taken my last few…” He broke off in dismay. “Jesus”, he groaned. “Of course, that’s where they can catch me. They know I’ve got more papers to sit. They’ll just tell the school, and I’ll get run in as soon as I show my face there. Oh, Christ! That tears it. I’ll have to skip the other papers, won’t I?”

  Richard stared at him, anxious and alarmed, and ready to help him in any way possible, but not clear what he was talking about. “Calm down”, he urged him, “and tell me what you’re on about.”

  Eventually he got it out of him, and sat considering the impasse they appeared to have reached. “What’s this plan you’ve got? Where can you lay up?” he asked.

  “That’s no problem, in itself”, said Stephen. “I could stay in Graham’s flat. I’ve got a key — he gave me one ages ago — and he said I could use the flat any time I liked, to revise in, if I needed somewhere quiet, or if I needed to borrow any of his books. But the point is, they want to catch me, and then they’ll find some way of keeping me. I don’t know how, or even if it’s legal, but that’s what they’ll try and do. And they know I’ve got more A-levels to take, so all they’ve got to do is wait for me at school, and nab me when I turn up there.”

  “But what’ll you do about the exams, then?” asked Richard. “You can’t take them anywhere else, can you? And you can’t just not take them.”

  “Of course I can”, said Stephen. “I can’t afford to take them. It’s just too bad. Anyway, what do A-levels matter? Especially as I’ll be in France. No”, he said incisively, “I’ll just have to give the rest of them a miss. It’ll only mean missing the last two papers in the English, and who needs an A-level in that? I speak it all right, don’t I? I’ll have got the French and German, and they’re the ones that matter.”

  “I shouldn’t’ve thought Graham’s flat was a very good idea, either”, ruminated Richard. “I’d’ve thought that would be one of the first places they’d look, especially if they get the police involved. No, I don’t think that’s safe for you. Crikey, I can’t think of anywhere that is safe. You can’t come to mine, that’s obvious.” He sat staring into space as he pummelled his brains to think of somewhere. “You could stay at a hotel, I suppose”, he muttered to himself, “but that’d cost a lot of money… I know! What about the cricket club? Couldn’t you doss down in the clubhouse there?”

  “No good”, said Stephen, with regret. “That’s another of the first places they’d look.” They both fell silent, thinking furiously.

  “I wonder if I could go to Reggie Westwood’s” Stephen ruminated. But he dismissed the idea as quickly as he had thought of it. “No, it wouldn’t be fair on the poor old sod”, he muttered. “An old friend of Graham’s”, he elaborated for Richard’s benefit. “He lives in London, and Graham took me to see him the other day. But he’s ever so old, and he’s been very ill. I couldn’t go there dragging the police and Christ knows who else with me. It just wouldn’t be fair.”

  “I’ve got an idea”, said Richard, tentatively. Stephen looked up hopefully. “What about that chap at the cricket club? The one who bought us a drink that time, you know, the one time I went there with you? He seemed a decent sort of bloke. Big bloke with a big moustache and a face like the back of a bus.”

 
Stephen sat brooding on it for a few moments, then looked up at Richard with his eyes shining in admiration and gratitude. “Bill”, he said to himself. “Old Bill. Yes, why not? He’s a good sort — and a good sport, too. He wouldn’t give me away to them. Richard, I think you’ve hit it.” He went and got more beer, and came back with his face alight with triumph. “I really do think you’ve got the answer”, he said. “I’ll sneak round there this evening, when he’ll be there. But there’s another thing, too”, he added.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to have to burgle my house. There’s some things of mine there that I’ll have to have. My passport, mainly. I can do without the other things, but I must have that, for when I have to go to France. And I’d like to collect some of my clothes and things, if possible. I don’t want to go over there in just what I stand up in. It wouldn’t be fair to Graham to expect him to buy me things. I’m supposed to be his lover, not his son!”

  Richard’s eyes widened in excitement at the idea of a burglary. “I’m on for that”, he said gleefully. “You’ve got to let me help with the burglary. You wouldn’t leave me out of that, would you?”

  “No, of course I won’t”, said Stephen, laughing despite his anxiety. “We’ll have to be bloody careful, though. Look, here’s what I think we do…”

  * * *

  When they finished their drinks they went into the town, and Stephen drew the entire balance from his building society account. “There was a bit more than I thought there was in it”, he said in satisfaction as he rejoined Richard, who was keeping watch outside. “I’ve got just over a hundred quid. That must be enough to get me to France. And I’ll swipe anything I can find when we break in home tonight, as well.” Richard looked a little doubtful. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, I’m only thinking of you, love. Are you sure you want to steal from them, even after the way they’ve treated you?”