affairs and beach stones

III - V

JULIA. I'VE WRITTEN to her many times over the years, in the hope that she will forgive me. I've kept her up to date with all my activities – at least the ones of which I knew she would approve. Becoming deputy head at St Luke's. Starting the school CND group. I've shared my thoughts on the women's movement (whilst I never went on a march or burned my bra, I did take an evening course at Sussex University in feminism and literature, and found it fascinating). I have never mentioned, in these letters, Harry or you. But I think she knows what happened. I think she knows what I did. Why else would her replies be so perfunctory, even now? With each letter I hope for personal revelations, or a flash of the humour I so loved in her. But all I get are updates on her latest walks, her house and garden renovations, and sympathetic but formal declarations of how much she also misses teaching.

Sometimes I think that if I'd been braver, Julia would still be a close friend, and she would be here to help me manage your care properly. As it is, it's impossible for me to lift you on and off the commode, even though you must weigh less than I do now. Your arms are thin as a young girl's, your legs all bone. And so I take no chances. Every morning I rise at five thirty to change your waterproof pants and incontinence pad, which you wear at all hours. Nurse Pamela says we should restrict these awful garments to night-time wear, but she doesn't realise how little Harry is prepared to help, and I have no intention of mentioning this to her, knowing it will mean she'll question the suitability of our home as a base for your care. Although I'm not strong enough to lift you, I do feel, Louis, capable in other ways. I know I am up to this task. My own body, whilst potentially on the verge of decrepitude, actually works fairly well, considering I have never done a scrap of deliberate exercise in my life. The classroom kept me fairly active, I suppose. Lately I've noticed aches and stiffness in odd places – my knuckles, my groin, the backs of my ankles. But this is most likely through looking after you. The changing of sheets every day, the turning of

your body to wash you, the reaching to pull on your clean sets of pyjamas or to bring food to your mouth. All these things have taken their toll.

At the table by the window, on Harry's mother's terrible cloth, at four thirty on a Sunday morning, the seagulls protesting outside my window, smelling the dried sweat and alcohol on my own skin, my throat dry and aching, the house silent with Harry's absence, Julia's words in my head, I wrote a letter, sealed it in a plain envelope, scribbled the address on the front, affixed a stamp, and, before I could change my mind, walked to the postbox at the corner of the street and let it fall into the slot. There was a cleanness to that fall; I heard the letter find its place on top of the other post with a soft slap. I did not think about the consequences of what I had written. Over the years I've told myself that all I meant to do was give you a fright. I imagined you perhaps receiving a warning from your boss; being banned from seeing the children; losing your job at the very worst. But I knew, of course, about the sex cases in the papers. And I knew that the local police were doing all they could to restore their tarnished reputation after the corruption scandal earlier in the year.

But I felt very, very tired, and could think of nothing except the hot tea I would drink upon arriving home, and the soft bed I would curl myself into until Harry came back.

This, Louis, is what I wrote.

Mr Houghton
Head Keeper of Western Art Brighton Museum and Art Gallery Church Street
Brighton
Dear Mr Houghton,

I am writing to draw your attention to a matter of some urgency.

As I understand that Mr Louis Tomlinson, Keeper of Western Art in your museum, is currently holding art-appreciation afternoons for schoolchildren on your premises, I believe it is in your best interests to know that Mr Tomlinson is a sexual invert who is guilty of acts of gross indecency with other men.

I'm sure you'll share my concern at this news, and do your utmost to preserve both the safety of the children and the museum's good reputation.

Yours faithfully, A Friend