Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2024 10:09:27 +0000 From: Jonah Subject: Harrovian Life chapter 12 Harrovian Life by Jonah It is a few years now since Nifty carried the story "A letter from America". A good few stories have succeded it and the action has moved about a bit too. In this one it is firmly back with Jonah in Harrow, but some twenty years later. Simon, Peter and Luke have grown up and in some cases have children of their own. This story comes immediately after "Whiteout". It is a work of fiction in every sense so, if you think you recognise yourself, or somebody else, in here - you don't. At least one of the characters was originally the creation of another author. I'd like to thank Jacob Lion, in the USA, for permission to use his characters. The story is about love - the real sort - so if you're looking for pornography, you'd best look elsewhere. Nifty doesn't charge either you or I to publish these stories, but it does cost money to publish them. Please consider donating to Nifty at https://donate.nifty.org/ so that he can keep these stories coming. chapter 12 It wasn't at all like old times having Adam at home. Some days his father was there too but, mostly, it was Adam and me.Billy was with us most evenings, since Mrs. Coleman had him working days, and Flash was also present most of the time, though James had him downstairs if I was going out. Altogether, life was better than it usually would be for a single man. I had no cause for complaint. Where was I? Oh yes, Adam. Of course, I hadn't sole responsibility for raising Adam, as I had had for Simon, Peter and Luke but, in any case, Adam was a very different person from any of those. Was that because of his suicide attempt? I doubt it. In any case his father had once tried that too. No, if I'm honest, I think Adam was just different because everybody is. When I had brought up Simon and Peter and Luke, they were wonderful people. Adam was wonderful too - just different. Of course I was different as well. I was not the same person, in my mid forties, that I had been in my mid twenties. That was bound to have its affect too. It was over a week since Garret had returned to Norfolk. I no longer shared my bed with Peter and Adam because they had moved to the other room. Now I shared my bed with Billy. Now when I say that Billy and I slept together, I mean literally that - nothing else. It was impossible to tell if Billy wanted to do more - I expect he did. Billy would not push things until he was sure that I was ready to, and - let's face it - I had gone many years without that. Was I too old to change? Billy said that I wasn't, but he also said that we'd take it slowly. Billy was a caring person and, I suppose I was in love. The trouble was that the love of a forty-something for a barely twenty-something seemed selfish. I told myself that it wasn't - nearly as often as Billy, and Peter, and Rikki told me. In fact, I didn't believe that it was. It just seemed like it. Luke and Rikki visited occasionally. Charlie and Cynthia visited too, of course, and the twins didn't spend nearly as much time sleeping as they had hitherto. Charlie was the demonstrative one, wanting to cling and hold onto people. If he could get hold of a finger you would need a crowbar to prise him loose. The thing that he and Cynthia had in common was their readiness to break out in the most enchanting smiles. Since he was working at the Central Criminal Court on a different case, Peter had taken the opportunity, when not otherwise engaged, to look in on the Crown versus Wentworth. He had suspected that the case might drag on but the defendant had stuck by his confession and pleaded guilty. He had been sentenced to five years which, with remission would probably amount to three. The guilty plea had probably paid off but Luke thought it unlikely that he'd return to Middlesex, where his face had been in the newspapers. It seemed, psyciatric team permitting, that all was clear for Adam to resume school. "Next Monday," Peter said. "If the case is over, there's no cause to keep him off," I pointed out. "It will look suspicious if he starts back mid-week, just as the newspapers announce that the case is over. By next Monday the papers should have finished reporting on it." To be honest, I couldn't disagree with that. Especially as Luke was of the same mind. "Saturday tomorrow," I told Adam, when Friday finally arrived, "and you and I are off to Clapham Junction; then, on Sunday, we can start getting you ready to get back to school." "I want to get back to school," Adam replied. "Can Shane Cooke stay over on Monday night?" "No but, if his parents agree, he can on Friday night." I replied. Adam shrugged. He knew how it worked but the shrug said, "you can't blame me for trying." I'd met Shane before - a very small blue-eye kid with sandy hair, expensively styled. His teachers thought he was a cheeky kid but, when he was with Adam, Shane was the well-behaved one. They both shared a fascination with railways and trains which neither Peter nor I would discourage. When I told Billy, he said they probably also shared a different sort of fascination. That was not the first time I had to tell him off for his dirty mind. I didn't doubt that he was probably right but, so long as the boys didn't harm each other, it was none of my business. I knew the Cookes - Nick and Angela - from Church and was sure they believed the same. "If you're off trainspotting in the morning," Billy told Adam, "you could do with an early night." "Are you sure that's why you want an early night?" replied the boy. "ADAM...." Peter began, but the boy apologised before Peter could demand it. "Come here Adam," I said. As soon as he approached I pulled the boy onto my lap "You were being cheeky," I told him. He nodded apprehensively. "We don't always mind you being cheeky. We can take a joke, and sometimes like it, but you didn't think about it that time did you?" "Why?" he whispered. "You were being cheeky to two people at once," I told him. "If you'd thought about it you'd have known that we'd never let you get away with that. I don't mind much if you're cheeky to me, and I believe Billy can take a joke too, but you should have realised that I wouldn't stand for you being cheeky to Billy, and he wouldn't stand for you being cheeky to me - which he thinks is his job - and your Dad - well, he thinks you should have higher standards." "Sorry," he whispered again. "Best go and apologise to your Dad," I whispered. Five seconds later he was on his father's lap -- a position with which they both seemed content. We got our early night. Adam got his day out trainspotting and, after Church, we got to have a chat with the Cookes. That ended in an invitation to Sunday dinner. Guess who lives in the house by the Green vacated by the Porters. I'd known the Cookes since they moved to Harrow, and I passed the house often when walking Flash, but I'd never known that the Cookes lived there. On Monday morning Peter dropped Adam off at school. It seemed so commonplace an action that it seemed impossible that he'd been off for over a month. His class teacher told him how glad everybody was to see him back, but that was it. There were no visits to the headmistress, no summonses for his father, no piles of homework. The school deemed it best for him to resume as if nothing had happened. Adam felt the same way and his friends seemed to accept that. Peter was Peter, a man of whom I was proud. When my friend, Vijay Khan had been murdered, all those years ago - and I'd discovered that I'd been named as guardian to his two sons, I could not have known what adventures lay ahead. I could not have been prouder of how those boys had turned out. For me, however, life could never be the same again. At the age of forty-six, I had finally found love. It seemed incredible but, suddenly, I could not imagine life without Billy in it. The handsome, gentle, kind, wise, loving - talk among yourselves while I reel off another two dozen adjectives - wonderful man had found his way into my heart and made it his own. Life would certainly be different from now on. But that's another story. The End