Out of Bounds

by Mike Seabrook

  “All right, I believe you. I still don’t think it was in very good principle, and as far as the police are concerned it certainly does count as theft. Even taking from someone who would have given consent if they’d known can be construed as theft, according to the police. But all this is by the by. If you’re willing to accept my explanation and apology over the locked door and the — ah — somewhat underhand way I employed to stop you, I’m quite happy to accept yours over the money. I’m not really very worried about the money in any case.

  “The real matter for discussion is this business of this… this homosexual relationship with this schoolmaster, may God have mercy on his unfortunate soul, because I find it very difficult to find much for him in mine, I’m afraid.

  “You must realize, Stephen — and I’m sure you do realize — what a terrible shock it was for us to discover this fact — if it is a fact — about our son. Especially to find out in such a brutal and shocking fashion. If you can’t imagine that you’re not the imaginative boy I’ve always believed that you were.” He hesitated. “Speaking for myself, I’m more than ready to believe that it is in fact nothing more than a… a… some sort of phase that you will forget in time — very likely in no time. It’s a phase many young people go through at school — they hero-worship an older boy or a master, or some figure to whom they look up, and that’s what we hope is the case with you. In a short time, perhaps, you’ll have forgotten this silly affection, grown up and moved on to more manly concerns. Perhaps you will come to see it as just an infatuation, and get it out of your system.

  “On the other hand, well, obviously the possibility has to be considered that it’s more than that. I hope not. With all my heart I hope not. If you do turn out to be…that way…well, I’m afraid I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to say I like the fact. There’s another thing. We’ve had to accept the fact, your mother and I, very reluctantly, that you no longer share our faith. I’m very sad about that, and so is your mother.” He looked at his wife for support, and Stephen followed his glance. She was staring down at the table-top in front of her, and had not so far contributed a word to the discussion. Becoming conscious of the silence she looked up, and nodded, looking very unhappy. After a moment she dropped her head and resumed studying her reflection in the brilliantly polished surface of the table.

  Mr Hill looked at her in some distress for a moment, then, with a visible effort, turned back to Stephen. “This is very difficult for us, Stephen. I expect you can understand that. You have, at least for the present, lapsed from the faith. Well, it’s something that happens, and it’s no good brooding about it. We both hope very profoundly that one day you may rediscover God. If you do, of course, you don’t need me to give you a sermon about it. But if you don’t, well, it’s happened to many other families, and there’s no need for it to become a cause of dissension, given good will on both sides. I’m sure we’d be able to come to an accord with you. But try to think, if you will, how this homosexuality business appears from our point of view.

  “Maybe you are thinking of us as old-fashioned fuddy-duddies, stuffy, or strait-laced, from your new position — lapsed from the faith, finding a new independence and, by the look of it, enjoying it, growing away from us, your family. Well, we always realized that it might happen. Perhaps no parents can be expected to enjoy it when their children grow apart, but it’s part of growing up and growing old. But homosexuality is something rather more than just part of growing up. It is, remember, utterly, and absolutely, forbidden by our faith. It’s not just a matter of preference, one way or the other. To us, it is a sin, a mortal sin, jeopardizing your soul. I don’t want to go on about this. There’s no point. If you still shared the faith I wouldn’t need to be saying any of this, and since you apparently don’t, what I have to say about the matter is irrelevant. It just makes me very sad. But that doesn’t get us very far.

  “That, you now see, I hope, is why we felt that we had to have this opportunity for this talk before you did something irrevocable.”

  Stephen started to say something, but his father motioned to him to wait. “Just a little longer, Stephen, then you can say anything you like. But please let me finish what I’ve got to say. It’s not easy for me to talk to you like this. Maybe I ought to be less reserved about these things, like the modern generation of parents are said to be. Maybe I’ve always been too reserved about intimate matters like this. Perhaps if I’d been able to talk about them more easily when you were younger you’d never have fallen under the influence of this man as you appear to have done. But we are as we are.

  “I know you were very angry about what happened yesterday. Perhaps you still are, though I hope not. Your brow doesn’t seem quite so thunderous…” Again there was the faint little smile. Stephen, who had dismissed his sulky mood as ridiculous and unworthy long ago, responded with a slightly less faint one. “Good”, continued his father. “I’d like to try to explain, Stephen, how we’ve felt about you. It’s never seemed necessary to explain it before. But lately you seem to have moved so far, and at so fast a pace, away from us and most of the things that we’d always thought bound the family together, that maybe it does need explaining. Maybe it always did, come to that. I don’t suppose we’ve been perfect parents, any more than any other pair of parents. But this is how we’ve always tried to feel.

  “It’s quite simple, Stephen. We loved you. You may have found it hard to believe on the odd occasion — I expect most children do. But yes, we loved you.

  “Everything we did, we tried to do with you and your interests in mind and at heart. We always wanted what was best for you. Often it may have seemed otherwise to you, but that’s in the way of things. Children often feel that they know best what’s good for them. You were, naturally, no exception. But whatever we did, we considered its effect on you, and for you, and chose as wisely as we were able. Parents often see more clearly than their children what’s for the best for their children, while the children see only with the limited wisdom of youth, and the lower horizon that their children’s stature gives.

  “We brought you up in the church. That was partly because we wanted you to grow up and mature into wisdom in the ways of the Lord. That seemed, and still seems, to us, to be a most sensible and good thing in its own right. But it was also in the belief that, when we were gone, you wouldn’t be left bereft and alone, but would still have someone at your side, to guide and counsel you in times of trouble or when you were confused and afraid.

  “Like all parents who bring their children up in their own faith, we recognized the possibility that you might, one day, apostasize. We hoped greatly that it would never happen, but we acknowledged that it might. If it happened, we thought, you would still be the son we brought into the world, reared and loved, and we would, we felt, be able to come to an accord, an understanding, with you. But at least, we felt, we would have done what we could to give you the chance of living and growing in the love of God. And when you made your decision awhile ago that you no longer wished to communicate, well, we accepted it as best we could, because we recognized that it was a very private matter, for you and you alone. We were both hurt by the decision, but we had no alternative to accepting it, so we accepted it, with the best grace we could.

  “And then we found out, to our utter horror, about your affair with this wicked man. And because we wanted, as we had always wanted, what was best for you, we decided that we had to put a stop to it. We could see, when we tried to talk about it the other day, that you saw only what you wanted, and, naturally — we didn’t hold it against you — equated what you wanted with what was best for you; but we could see that what you wanted and what was best were two different things entirely — indeed, they were opposites, as we saw the matter. So you see, Stephen, we had to try to stop your relationship with that tragically misguided but nonetheless wicked man.

  “People talk about seeing their child stretch out its hand to pick up a live coal. Well, what we saw was worse by far than t
hat. We had to contemplate the terrible prospect of watching our child stretching out his hand to mortal sin, looking at it from the point of view of one in the faith; even disregarding the faith, which is not easy, of course, for us who have it, we were at least watching our child stretching out his hand to something that was illegal, socially utterly unacceptable, and, partly because of those things, almost certainly doomed to end in terrible unhappiness. What could we do, I ask you, Stephen, but what we did? What could we do but try to stop you?

  “And so we got you back here, and I say again, I greatly regret the methods I had to use, so that we could at least have the talk we felt you owed us. I’m sorry to have turned it into a great monologue like this, but I’ve nearly finished, and then I’d like to hear anything you want to say. If it turns out that this talk, that we wanted so anxiously to have with you, doesn’t actually achieve anything tangible, it still won’t have been wasted in our view, because at least we may find it easier after it to come to the sort of accord, or understanding that I spoke of. The one thing I beg of you is to have no more of this affair with this man. Looked at in the very best light possible it’s an absurd infatuation taken to ludicrous extremes. If by any chance it’s any more than that, it’s wicked and immoral looked at from one point of view, and even if you don’t happen to share that point of view, it’s in any case potentially desperately dangerous.

  “That’s just about it, Stephen. As I said, I’m sorry it turned itself into a lengthy sermon, but I wanted desperately to put your mother’s and my own point of view to you, to try to explain the devastating sense of shock and horror that we were reeling under when we found out about this business. Now, please, tell me how you feel about what I’ve been saying.”

  Stephen sat back in his chair and looked at his fingernails, taking his time thinking about what he wanted to say.

  “Well, first of all, Dad”, he began at length, “thanks for being so reasonable. I really am sorry I took that money…” His father dismissed the matter with a gesture of his hand. “Well, I’m very glad you’ve been so decent about that. I really was going to repay it, but in a way I’m glad it’s been sorted out the way it has.

  “I’m sorry too, in a way, about doing a runner yesterday. I did it because I thought you would feel as you do about Graham and me. Admittedly, I thought — I was sure — you’d take a much harsher line, but I was pretty well right about how you’d see us. In a way, I’m even glad you managed to catch me before I got away, because this way, at least we get the chance of a clean start.

  “There are several other things you said that I’d like to comment on. You’re right about the church. I have lost the faith. Or rather, to be honest, Dad, I never had it. I always did think it was — well, there’s no point in hurting your feelings for the sake of it. I never have believed, not really, not deep down, underneath. But even if I had believed, I should think the church’s attitude to people like me would almost certainly have killed it off. Christianity ought to be tolerant and liberal if it’s anything, and I’m afraid it’s not, Dad, not at all. Not where gay people like me are concerned, anyway. I couldn’t tolerate that in anything I belonged to. So I’m afraid I’m going to stay lapsed.

  “Another point. You said an awful lot about children, and me being a child with a child’s point of view. Well, I’m not a child, or anything like a child. I’m legally an adult, and I’m mature in every way — I mean, I know I’m going to get more mature, emotionally and so on. But I’m physically, sexually and emotionally mature enough to know what I am.

  “So, granted that I’m mature in all those senses, I ought to know what my sexual orientation is. As it happens, I do know. I’m gay. Homosexual. And given that fact in turn, I ought further to know it when I meet someone and fall in love with him. And that’s what’s happened. It’s not an infatuation, Dad, nothing like one. Graham told me somebody said that if you’re really gay you have to be able to fall in love with another man, not just have sex with him. Well, that’s me, Dad. I’ve known for ages, but I’ve never said anything, because I’d heard the odd word at the church from time to time, and I realized what view the church would take of it. There didn’t really seem a lot of point.

  “The point is, I do love him, and when I’m settled with him, it’ll be just as much a marriage as if I’d settled down with a girl — except for the one thing, that we shan’t have your blessing or approval. Well, I’ve got a feeling from things Graham’s said that gay people get quite used to getting by without people’s approval.”

  He fell silent, and waited, watching his father to see his reaction. He had dropped the reference to his settling with Graham deliberately into the conversation, to test the water. His father pursed his lips in concern. Eventually he looked levelly at Stephen, and said, “Look, Stephen, as far as settling down with this man is concerned, I’m simply not willing to countenance it. I’ve found that the law states that such a relationship is legal when you reach twenty-one. Well, possibly if you were twenty-one, I might feel otherwise. But at your age, I don’t feel you should make up your mind irrevocably. No, I’m not willing to accept it. In anything else we’re ready to let you have your head and go your own way. We found your growing apart from us less painful than we had expected, because it gave us much more time to develop our own lives, follow our own pursuits. We were surprised, to be honest, though not altogether disagreeably. So, if you want to spend half your life at the cricket club, fine. If you want to live at Richard’s, fine, do that. But as to your running off to the Continent to live with this man, no, Stephen, I simply will not hear of it. You can do, within reason, what you like. But I expect to see a little of you from time to time. You’re still our son, and we miss you, often. It would be pleasant to see something of you. And if it ever comes to my knowledge that you are having dealings with this man again, I shall immediately go to the police and tell them everything I know of this relationship — with the photographs we were sent. That will assuredly result in this man’s immediate arrest in France, extradition and prosecution here for his illicit and immoral sexual relationship with you. It may even end in your being prosecuted for your part in the same relationship. I’d hate that to happen, but I’d sooner see you in court than in bed with this man, Stephen, and I owe it to you to be honest about it.

  “I’m sorry to have to do that to you, Stephen, but I shall do it without a qualm of conscience, because I feel certain that he deserves nothing better.” He sat and watched Stephen for his reaction. Stephen, however, had schooled his features to a careful neutrality, and he learned nothing of what the boy was thinking.

  “You know those photographs came from a blackmailer, Dad”, he said, without spite. “How do you feel about making use of material from a source like that?”

  “Not altogether comfortable, to be honest”, confessed his father, surprising Stephen yet again. “But there are occasions, you know, when one may, I think, legitimately take the view that the end justifies the means. Or one might even suspect the hand of providence in the matter: good coming out of evil. I simply cannot abide the thought of you, living and…and…of you living with that man. If you take my advice, you’ll put him and his corruption out of your mind and spend more time thinking about girls.”

  “Girls!” exclaimed Stephen, mortified. “Dad”, he went on after a pause, trying to sound patient. “I don’t…er…Let me see. How should I put this? Girls are not something I think about. I’m not…I’m not made that way.”

  “Oh”, said his father, his jaw dropping slightly. Stephen suppressed a mutter of impatience, wondering how it could still come as any sort of surprise. “Well”, continued his father after a brief pause, “if you don’t want to think about girls, think about cricket, instead. Now I must go. I’m going to be very late. Here, take this”, he added, taking an envelope from his pocket. “It’s your own money. I took the liberty of tearing up the train ticket you had, so I thought the least I could do was to reimburse you for it, and…I’ve added a little
extra as a top-up”, he added, shyly once again. He hurried out of the room, leaving Stephen staring after him. A few minutes later he heard his father’s car roar out of the drive.

  He looked in the envelope, and his eyes opened wide in amazement. It contained the thirty-six pounds that had remained of his own money, and even the 84 pence in change. There were also two of the fifty-pound notes, and one of the twenties.

  “He’s being jolly decent about this”, Stephen said, turning to his mother for the first time. “After I went and pinched it, too. Returning good for evil.”

  His mother looked up. “Your father’s a very good man”, she said simply. And then it was her turn to astonish her son. She got up from where she had sat silently throughout the lengthy conversation, walked quickly past him, taking exaggerated care not to come into contact with him, and left the room without a word, leaving him rooted to the spot, staring after her wide-eyed. After a moment, he shrugged, and walked out of the room himself, slipping the envelope into his pocket.

  He went upstairs and fetched his holdall. Then he looked for his passport. He found it quickly, in his father’s desk in the room he used as his study, and slipped it into his pocket with the envelope containing his entire worldly wealth. Then he picked up the holdall and went into the hall. On an impulse he went back into the study and swiped a sheet of paper, and took it into the dining room. From long indoctrination, he automatically took a heavy table mat to press on to avoid marring the albedo-like polish on the table, and wrote Dear Dad, Thanks for being such a good sport. I’m deeply grateful. You ‘re very good, and much kinder than I probably deserve. Love, Steve. He propped it against the silver cruet set in the middle of the table and left the room, closing the door softly behind him. Then, he left the house and started walking in the direction of Richard’s. He did not say goodbye to his mother.