540

“When I came here, after Brent …. killed himself, I decided not to use my money, because in the end it was money and fussing about money that killed Brent.  And my selfishness.  So I decided to work for my living and not use any of my inheritance.  But money is like any other weapon—or tool.  It can be used for good.  And if you have money and … um … high birth you have power, power to do good.  And I thought, you know, there’s Keith who was thrown out of home because he was gay, or bi, anyway, and Bart who was driven to his death”—his voice faltered for a moment—“and then Brent, who wasn’t driven out of his home by his parents and was accepted by all the blokes in the cricket club but wasn’t accepted by my … by who I used to think were my friends.  So I’m going to make a difference.  Something to change the world, something to help gay and bisexual and lesbian and trans young people so that they can come to terms with themselves and be happy.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#539)       Next MF post(#541)

Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

539

By this time the toast was made and table set.  Eleanor came in and wished them both a good day. 

While they were eating, Jason avoided any deep topics.  They talked of simple things, until when they were finished, just crumbs on the tablecloth and dregs in the teacups, he said, “Eleanor, I have to tell you something.”

She cocked her head at him, her iron-grey hair already coming loose from its grips.  Bolt whined a little at Jason’s feet, wanting another morsel of buttered toast.

“Well, I haven’t been honest with you.”

She raised her eyebrows, her eyes intelligent and kind and a little amused.

“My real name isn’t Jason Wellbury.  You remember I told you that was my name when I first came here?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“It’s … well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.  A lot more complicated. Unfortunately.  My father is the Duke of Coniston. Wellbury was my mother’s maiden name.  My real surname is Armstrong-Beaufort.  But it is such a mouthful and anyway I also have a title, Viscount Saint James.  I didn’t want any fuss.  I wanted to get away from England, from the whole situation there and …”

“I know.”  Eleanor placidly sipped her tea.

“You do?  How?” 

She smiled at Jason’s surprise.

“I guessed last night after Lucasta talked about the Queen.  I looked it up in my very old Who’s Who.  Of course, you weren’t in it, but you,” she turned to Lucasta, “were.”  She smiled slightly.

“Oh.  Right.”  Jason and his grandmother exchanged glances.  “You see, Eleanor, I’ve decided to stay in Australia, and to set up a place, a kind of hostel where gay or bisexual children who’ve been thrown out of their homes can stay.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#538)       Next MF post(#540)

Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

536

“I’m going to do something with my money, grandam.” He looked away, absently wiping crumbs from the counter.  “I’m going to set up a trust for children or teenagers who’re thrown out of their home by their parents for being gay or effeminate or just different.”

She knew at once what he was telling her.  “I wondered whether you’d be coming back to England,” she said.

“Not to live.”  He shook his head.  “That’s why I’ve decided to tell them.  They’re—I don’t want any lies.  And I want to do something good in the world.  Make a difference.  I don’t just want to be a drone, a parasite.  You see, with Brent I … scr—failed.”  He was silent for a few heartbeats.  “It won’t be just my money.  I’ll register a charity and raise funds.  Use my money—and my name—to raise more money.  Make a splash.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#535)       Next MF post(#537)

Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

530

I could do something about prejudice, Jason thought at last.  I have the money.  My own money.  So much money.  I wouldn’t be using it for myself.  It would be something for Bart and Brent.  Why didn’t I think of that before?  I’ll start a foundation.  Something for homeless gay kids.  I saw a news report about that.  More than half of all kids on the streets have been thrown out by their parents.  

Comforted by this resolve, he slipped into sleep and when he dreamt it was a happy dream, one where he and Brent were together, picnicking next to an English river in the rare perfection of a beautiful English summer’s day.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#529)       Next MF post(#531)

Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

529

Alone in his bedroom, Jason took up Bart’s diary again.  He hadn’t looked at it for a couple of weeks.  He flipped it open towards the end.

Monday.  Saw ____ again at footy.  I love him.  He’s so cute and handsome.  But I haven’t told him.  I wish I had the courage to tell him.  

Tuesday.  _____ accused me of being a homo in front of a whole group of his friends.  I feel so ashamed.  I wish I wasn’t gay.  After school some of them waited for me and taunted me as I walked home.  It was only just outside the door that they stopped.  I know mum saw it but she didn’t say anything.

Wednesday.  More of the same.  In class I felt that even Father McAlister knew, from the way he was looking at me.  When I sat down at my desk I could smell dogshit.  Someone had put some in my desk.  When I opened the lid there were chortles from half the boys in my class. Father McAlister didn’t stop them, though he’s normally so strict.  He just watched me with his eyes so hard, his mouth a thin line.  I wish I was dead.

Jason couldn’t bear to read any more.  He was filled with rage at the bullies, at the judgments and prejudice.  It didn’t seem that it had happened twenty years ago.  It felt immediate, real.  He wondered if any of them had ever regretted what they had done.  Did they lie abed awake, staring at the ceiling?  Did they try and make amends now?  Or had they just gone blithely along with the rest of their lives, forgetting the young man they had driven to his death? Did they ever look at a gay guy now, and think about Bart? 

Then he remembered that he himself had done wrong; that Brent too had killed himself, not because he was gay but because—in the end—because he had been ashamed of being poor, and had stolen money to try and keep up with Jason.  And Jason hadn’t been there for him.  Knuckling tears from his eyes, Jason wept for himself and Brent and Bart.  He wept for humanity.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#528)       Next MF post(#530)

Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

487

As they drove west across the city towards the next possible ‘St Joseph’s’, Cody asked, “What did you mean, ‘no straight guy would do that’, Lou?”

“W-e-l-l …. I don’t mean exactly that straight guys can’t be perverts and monsters.  But … we have to hide what we are.  We can’t walk hand-in-hand down the street ….”

“… we kissed in the chemist …”

“…But did you see how the assistant carefully avoided looking at us?  And that was Smith Street, hardly Christian Fundi Central.  Anyway, even if it’s changed now, for the previous generation it was always a problem.  And the killer sounds to me like he was, he went to, a Catholic or one of those happy-clappy fundi schools.  And they teach you to hate yourself if you’re a homo.  I should know.  But the thing is, if you hate yourself, it perverts you.  Everybody’s different.  With me …..”

Cody waited.  At last, he said, as neutrally as possible, “Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not ‘nothing’.”

Luigi didn’t want to say, because he was with an example of how he chose poorly: Cody.  He had been going to say that he chose straight-acting men who would always treat him badly.  Many of them had beaten him up.  How big a step was it from enjoying in a perverted way the punishments inflicted on him to turning that outwards onto others?  From turning your self-hatred outwards onto others?  From trying the kill the thing you hated about yourself by killing others?

Instead of saying what he’d been thinking, Luigi said, “I think I still despise myself.  No matter how many times I tell myself that I’m worthwhile and the Church and the bigots have it wrong, I still, somewhere deep down believe them.”

“Yeah.”  Cody’s voice trembled a little.  Yep, thought Luigi.  We’ve all been down that road.  Fuck them all.  Fuck them!

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#486)       Next MF post(#488)

Episodes 1 to 460 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)  

486

They walked down to the church and its school again, and sauntered through the small church car park trying—and failing—to look inconspicuous.  There was no Kombi there and they didn’t see the grey Corolla either.    

“All right, the next place is where?” asked Luigi when they’d got back into the car.

Cody consulted the sheaf of papers he’d stashed on the back seat.  “The nearest is about 5 k’s away.  Near Northcote.”

When they got there, it was an old age home.  And it looked very staid and institutional.  There wasn’t a single person wandering its spacious but dreary grounds. 

“Didn’t you say that the Kombi was kitted out for camping?” asked Luigi. 

“Yeah.  Looked like it.  A little stove, cupboards, a bed.”

“So not really for old people.  I mean, OK, there are some who might go camping, but wouldn’t they want more comfort?  It sounds more like someone, an adult, with, let’s guess, a couple of youngsters along.”

“Yep.”  Cody paused.  “ You know … a boy’s home or a school does sound more likely.  A horrible thought.  What does he do to the schoolboys?”

Luigi’s face hardened.  “Yeah.  But he’s a closeted homo, isn’t he?  I mean, no straight guy would do that.  Cut you and then rape you.  So maybe, he’s …. Maybe he pretends with the boys.  Maybe … not.  There’ve been some horrible things in the church.  Rapes of schoolboys and choirboys.  The newspapers are full of it.”

“We have to nail him, Lou.  I … I know about pretending and stuff.  But …. Jeez, Lou, he was … he was evil.  I didn’t use to believe in that, but … he was.”

“Yeah.  We’ll get him.”  Luigi’s face was grim and hard.  “Come on.  We have two more places to look at and then I want to take you somewhere.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see!”  And Luigi’s smile transformed his face so that the grim anger was only a memory.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#485)       Next MF post(#487)

Episodes 1 to 460 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)  

470

“Yes,” she said crossly, annoyed at her muddle and blaming him for it. 

His mouth curled up at the corners and his eyes smiled, and he said, “That’s the whaole point, love.”

Love?  He’d never called her that before.

“What?  To confuse me with all your masculine wiles?”

He opened his hands in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get gesture.  “Moi?”  He pronounced it ‘moy’.  “Plain old moi?”

“Yeah, well, you know you’re sexy.  Don’t play the ingénu with me!”

He sobered.  “I’ve been thinkin’ of you ever since the last toime.  ’Cos I want ya to have … a good toime …”  Esmé made an inarticulate protest.  “…yeah, a good toime, because ya deserve it. Just because your dad was a vile loathsome bully and pervert doesn’t mean …”

“He used to say gays were perverts and abominations,” Esmé observed quietly.

Keith stared at her.  “After what he did to you?  What a prick!  What a cunt!  He is the abomination!  A loathsome worthless piece of dogshit!”

She was glad of his fury.  It proved—and despite all the evidence which he’d already given her that he loved her—it proved that he did.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#469)       Next MF post(#471)

Episodes 1 to 460 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter) 

447

On the way back to the car, Eleanor was looking pensive and a little sad. Jason slipped his arm through hers.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s an old pain, my dear, but it never goes away.  The last time I came here was with Bart.  Not long before …. he died.  And what your grandmother said made me think about how we keep on trying to force people to conform.  At such cost.”

“Yes,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  We shouldn’t have come.”

“Oh no, not at all.  Bart would have been glad we came.  I often wonder whether he would have got on with you.  I would have liked that.”

Jason remembered Bart’s diary, which, with all the dramas of the last few days, he had not read recently.  He resolved to read some more when they got home later.  It had been painful reading about Bart’s horrible life at school. About his loneliness, about the relentless mockery and bullying, knowing all the time what was going to happen.  But he owed it to Eleanor to read on, onto the end.  He owed it to himself too, because it was his own arrogance which had led him to desert Brent just when he was needed most.  And he would never be able to undo that.  What he had to do is try harder to be more genuinely compassionate and to care about his friends instead of seeing everything through a self-centred prism.  And Eleanor was his friend.

“Yes, it would.”  Impulsively he put his other arm round her and hugged her.

 First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#446)       Next MF post(#448)

Episodes 1 to 260 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter 

431

“When I came out to my father, he beat me up.  Locked me in my bedroom.  Told me he wouldn’t let me out until I promised I would be straight.  Well, I couldn’t see very well—he’d hit me on one eye—and there was blood dripping down my face.  My bedroom was on the second floor, so I suppose he thought I wouldn’t try to escape.  But I tied together the sheets on my bed and dragged the bed up to just under the window and tied the end of the sheet to one leg of the bed.  I didn’t know whether it would hold me or how long but, you know, I was beyond caring by then.  I thought … well I thought if I died it might be a good thing.  Best for everyone.”

He didn’t speak for many seconds.  Cody leant his head against Luigi’s shoulder.

“Go on,” he said.

“Yeah.  Well, just as well my ma has an obsession with quality.  The sheets were thick and they held and so did the bed.  I abseiled down the wall.”

“Abseiled?”

“You know, where you let yourself down bit by bit, using the wall and the rope or in this case the sheets.”

“Abseiled?”

Luigi turned to look at Cody, who was grinning slyly at him.  “Just because I’m a swishy queen doesn’t mean I’m not good at gymnastics.”  He grinned back then pulled Cody closer before going on.  “It helps to have a rope and a harness, but you can do it with two sheets.  Just.  They’re not as long as you think.  And the first floor is higher than you think, too.  I had to drop the last half a metre.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I walked to my grandmother’s.  I didn’t know for sure what she would do but she’s always been on my side.  She’s always loved me.  So I walked there.  10 k’s.”

“How long did that take you?”

“Nearly two hours.”

“Yeah, I think that’s how far I walked.  Yesterday.  Maybe longer, even.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#430)       Next MF post(#432)

Episodes 1 to 260 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter

423

Cody sniffed and hiccupped all the way home, and Luigi noticed the tax driver’s eyes in the mirror looking at them, judging and censorious.  He felt like shouting at the man, at abusing him.  He didn’t give the driver a tip, though, and in return the driver didn’t say goodbye but roared off in his taxi, making the tires squeal.

Needless to say, there was no space in Luigi’s cupboards for Cody’s clothes, but Luigi was sick of half the stuff he had and he was glad to have a clean out.

Cody didn’t help, but sat on the bed and then lay down with his face to the wall.

Luigi lay down next to Cody and put his arms round him.  Cody remained unresponsive.  Luigi kissed his neck, but didn’t speak.  He was at a loss how to proceed.  No matter that Cody had hurt him, Luigi still loved him.  But Cody had been so damaged by the abduction and rapes, by the sinister violence, by the close brush with a horrible death.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#422)       Next MF post(#424)

Episodes 1 to 260 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter