535

His grandmother was in the kitchen, making toast to fill the toast rack.  The kitchen smelled warm and homely.  The kettle was starting its hum as the water in it heated up.  He went over to her and kissed her.  She had a slightly stuffy sour close old-woman smell, but he didn’t mind.

“Morning, grandam.”

“Morning Jason dear such a lovely morning but getting chilly now one always forgets that the seasons are back to front here but I love autumn it’s my favourite season like champagne or maybe sauterne and all the leaves.”

He smiled at her, filled with love, and finding even her disjointed chatter wonderful. 

“I’m sorry about that blunder last night.”  She was unusually direct.

He shook his head. 

“Not to worry.  I think I’m going to tell them.  I trust them, and they trust me.”  He smiled at her.  “So it’s all right.”

“Yes but still sometimes I do ramble on and then I let things slip and I was enjoying myself so much.”

“It’s lovely to have you here.  Don’t worry.  It’s not something I’m ashamed of. ”  Jason kissed her again.  

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

534

When Jason woke in the morning, the first thought that came into his head was his plan to set up a trust to help gay kids who’d been made homeless by homophobic parents.  He lay in bed, the warmth welcome on this chilly late autumn morning.  I want to stay here, he thought.  In Australia.  This is where my heart is.  England will always be about Brent, about how I and all my arrogant “friends” drove him to kill himself.  This country, this city is my home now.  I feel at home now in just a few months.  People have made me welcome.  Eleanor, Keith, Luigi, Graeme, Esmé.  People have taken me into their hearts.  I want to stay.  Which means I need to extend my visa. Do I have to tell them about me?  Can’t I keep it a secret?

He lay for a while staring at the ceiling, his thoughts far away.

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533

The Killer was tortured by dreams about sex.  Sex with beautiful boys and handsome young men.  Sex with Father McAlister.  Approval.  Love.  Belonging.  Even when it hurt, he had someone to love, with Father.  Until the end.

I’m not gay, he screamed in his dreams.  I’m not.  But what he dreamed about was love with men, of being held safe and warm in a man’s arms. Of a man inside him stroking him to ecstasy. Of the more sinister but much sharper pleasure of killing.  Sluts.  They deserved to die.  God was with him.  But in his dreams he was in vast echoing rooms and God’s voice was Father McAlister’s, and there was no approval or love in it.  And he was utterly, utterly alone.

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532

Cody lay in Luigi’s arms listening to him breathe.  What was true, he wondered.  He’d been unfaithful to his wife, and he loved her, deeply.  Yet he had sneaked out to pick up men, he had had sex with men.  And sex was so intimate.  Worse, he had shared his soul with Philippa, and she with him, and now, maybe they would never meet again.  Would he ever see his children?  He loved Luigi, but he loved Philippa too.  Luigi had been forgiving and patient, but he’d seen the occasional flashes of irritation in Luigi’s eyes at his grief and doubts.  Without Luigi he had nothing.  Nothing.  But what did he have with Luigi? Did Luigi still love him? What if Luigi stopped loving him?  He had, if nothing else, Luigi’s friends, yet even there, they were Luigi’s champions not his.  Jason had made it plain that if Cody ever hurt Luigi he would have him to answer too.  But he wouldn’t hurt Luigi.  Would he?  What if Philippa said she would have him back?  Would he go back?  Could he promise he would never again have sex—fall in love—with another man?  And if Luigi had fallen out of love with him, what then?

Like Lucasta Ellesmere, he fell into a disturbed sleep, but his dreams were about running through a forest in the dark in despair, trying to escape a killer.

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531

A blunder, thought Lucasta to herself.  So stupid of me I do rattle on and then I say silly things becoming quite senile really though I remember Elaine at school being quite sharp with me when I said something silly whatever happened to her and why should I remember her after all these years good grief.   I’d better talk it over with Jason tomorrow and see whether I’ve done too much damage it’s like coming out I suppose and finding that people look at your differently well in the end perhaps there is nothing you can do about that because in the end you can’t control other people’s perceptions of you because you just are what you are and that’s that.  Poor lamb he can’t deny what he is, and I think it’s been easier for him to tell people that’s he’s gay though the way he was looking at the dear girl Esmé was quite ungay come to think of it I wonder what’s going on there well at least she’s not a fortune hunter because she doesn’t know about his money and she looked so sad I wonder what that’s about so much suffering was there less when we were young?

She fretted into a dream-filled sleep, in which she wandered empty castles filled with presences which weren’t quite ghosts but were also un-benign.

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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.

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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.

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