A Woman's Place (41 page)

It had not occurred to him, ever, to ask why that should be so. His innate reserve left him wary. That was how he was brought up. His parents had reared two offspring perfectly well in a calm, controlled atmosphere; he could not remember a single occasion when his mother had cuddled him, while his only direct contact with his father was an occasional bluff handshake. His sister, a more demonstrative character, would fling her arms around his neck, but accepted that such was not his style.

Perhaps he was one of those people for whom sex didn't matter much. He certainly wasn't like Harrison with his undiscriminating appetites. Anthony could easily imagine himself instead in a celibate world – in medieval times he would have been content as a monk. Then his strange urges could have been chastised with a hair-shirt or birchings. As a penitent he'd have been stripped and tied to a post or held down, as brother monks chanted prayers and waved incense at him …

Anthony gasped: the thought of being beaten, whatever its objective, filled him with intense excitement. As he heard the cane swish through the air towards his flesh he could also feel the erection. Pain had become not a punishment but a sexual release in itself.

Beside him the phone rang shrilly. Cursing he picked it up. It was his Private Secretary.

‘I am so sorry, Minister,' the voice murmured, ‘but he insisted on speaking to you himself. It's a Mr Jim Betts of the
Globe
newspaper. Says it's urgent. A press release he's just had. Shall I tell him you're busy?'

‘No, put him on.' An inquiry about the latest health statistics might be a useful distraction.

The phone clicked. ‘You're through.'

‘Ah, Mr York? Good afternoon. Betts here. This won't take a moment.' The accent was Liverpudlian overlaid by several years in London. The effect was not pleasant. There was a pause.

‘Yes, Mr Betts. How can I help you?' Anthony let his voice lift in impatience.

Betts cleared his throat. It sounded as if the journalist was flicking through sheets of paper. Anthony was about to speak again when suddenly the question came, loud and clear.

‘Did you know, Mr York, that your name appears on the latest list of homosexuals to be outed by the gay group Outrage? Do you have any comment to make? Mr York – Mr York…?'

Karen heard the door open downstairs and the heavy footfalls on the stair. From the direction they then took it must be Anthony.

He was early; usually he didn't come home in the late afternoon, not since he had joined her mother at the DHWF. On a normal weekday it simply wasn't worthwhile, not with votes and
late-night
adjournment debates at the House.

If her landlord wanted a drink or tea he could presumably make it himself; there was no need for her to go down. On the other hand, it would be polite and friendly to be in the kitchen when he entered it, which would presumably be his next move. He had been looking so peaky lately. It worried her that anybody near her should be unhappy, especially when her own life had taken such a positive turn.

But she was home to work. The essay she was writing had reached a tricky point. Far better to
finish it, then go downstairs.

As Karen debated lazily with herself, Anthony's bedroom door slammed. He retraced his steps and in a moment had gone, banging the front door behind him. He could hardly have been in the house five minutes. She heard the car door open, then close.

Puzzled, she rose and peered out of the window and watched as Anthony put the car in gear and drove off at speed, heading back towards the river. Before she let the curtain fall she glanced down the road. Another car's lights, quickly switched on, caught her attention. It was parked on the other side about thirty yards away. It too moved from the kerb and came past. It seemed to be following Anthony. As the second vehicle briefly drew level with the house she recognised the driver.

Jim Betts.

It was almost dusk. He would have to move carefully in such unfamiliar surroundings. Above him the darkened tree branches, still in heavy leaf after the summer, rustled in the wind. In the distance street lights began to glow orange: down there, in respectable households, curtains would be drawn, televisions switched on for the evening news. Out on the bleak hillside in North London, however, the air was dank. Litter blew around. A dog barked repeatedly several streets away and was not silenced. It was a God-forsaken place.

He sat in the car, engine switched off, the window half wound down. Other cars pulled up, engines purring, then drove past, through the gates and further down the hill. Their drivers peered furtively at Anthony. Some mouthed a word. One waved and tried to attract his attention. Each car had only one occupant.

From the pub came the noise of raucous laughter and music. Jack Straw's Castle, it was called. Along here two centuries ago highwaymen waited as the stagecoach, filled with exhausted but wealthy travellers, made its way towards London. Perhaps the criminals had hidden under the same trees. The pub's lights were inviting but he would not enter. Whatever was in his psyche, whatever distortion or madness he might be subject to, the answer did not lie indoors. Not tonight.

A small white van drew up in front of him. In the fading light Anthony, nonplussed, could just distinguish the logo of the local health authority. A muffled figure emerged and set up a folding table and chair beneath the largest tree. He removed various smaller packets from a box, laid out a clipboard and a couple of pens, placed a pair of spectacles on his nose and began to serve himself from the contents of a Thermos flask.

Anthony pulled on a jacket, tucked a woollen scarf around the lower half of his face and locked the car. Hands in pockets, he walked slowly towards the table.

‘Evening. You want some condoms? They're free.'

The muffled figure was a bearded man in a grubby purple anorak. The smell of tomato soup rose incongruously as he sipped, hands clasped around the mug, seeking its warmth. The spectacles gave him an owlish look. Anthony did not reply.

‘We give them out, see. In the evenings. Safer sex. It's all right, honestly. The police know we're here and they won't bother us.'

‘Ah. I see.' Anthony wanted him to go on talking.

‘No, you're OK here. It's a long time since the Met chased the boys around the Heath. Not unless there's trouble. Here, take a few.'

A gloved paw was held out, its contents hidden. The man smiled up at Anthony, an open, pleasant expression on his face: a professional helper. Anthony thrust his own hands deeper into his pockets and shook his head.

A tall man in a light-coloured coat and leather trousers walked past them. In his lapel was a mauve badge. He did a sideways shuffle, exchanged a muttered greeting with the health worker and accepted the offer of condoms. For a moment there was eye contact between Anthony and the
newcomer, who paused for a moment as if to judge his intentions, then shrugged and disappeared down the hillside.

‘The badge – what's that?' Anthony gestured at the retreating back but kept his face hidden.

‘HIV awareness. It means he goes in for safe sex and is AIDS-aware.'

‘Does that mean he has AIDS?' Anthony was incredulous, then checked himself. A person's needs didn't change just because he had contracted the virus.

‘Maybe. More likely not. It means he can be approached by men who have. He doesn't mind, see. Sets their minds at rest that they won't infect anybody else. Sets other minds at rest that he won't pass on an infection. Not just HIV, either.'

‘My God,' Anthony muttered. These were worlds of which he had no knowledge, despite his position in a health department. Behind him he sensed rather than saw other men arrive, mostly in cars which were parked neatly under the trees and who walked down out of sight, singly at first, then paired off. Several stood quietly as if waiting for somebody.

The man in the anorak twisted around to get a better view of his interlocutor. ‘You're new, aren't you? No, I don't want your name. You'd be surprised how well known this place is all over the world. We had one guy last week who'd come straight off the plane from San Francisco. Took a taxi from Heathrow and found a partner less than an hour after landing. He'd read about it in a contact magazine.'

So had Anthony.

An edge came into the man's voice. ‘You're not press, are you? 'Cause if you are you're not welcome.' He turned his back with a huffy air.

‘No – no, I'm not press. I'm just … not sure, that's all.'

The man laughed softly. ‘Few of us are, to begin with.' He rose and held out his hand to Anthony. In his fingers was a small white card. ‘You might find it helpful to call this number. It's the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard. Advice and information, any time, day or night. Good people –'

That was the last thing Anthony wanted to have found in his pocket. The man stood there, smiling, his hand out in friendship, spectacles glinting dully in the reflected light from the pub.

Anthony suddenly felt violently sick. So this was what it meant. Out on a chilly hillside in a public park. With strangers whose face he could not see, his own face hidden. A phone number to talk to more strangers. No names, no recall, no comeback. No pride, no love, either. Only shame and furtive fumblings and the sudden thrust, crying out, then a wiping, readjustment, the tidying up of clothes before stumbling away. The morals of dogs, serving each other in tumbled semi-nakedness. Desperate, urgent, dangerous. Horrible.

No
!

With a great yell he upended the table, sending condoms, Thermos, papers and pens into the air. As the health worker protested, Anthony turned on him in fury, then stared in astonishment. This was no longer a seedy man in a purple anorak. Instead a tall hooded black shape strode towards him down a rain-sodden pathway. Within its cloak several shapes shimmered, merged and separated, all of them familiar to him. He did not need to ask the apparition's identity, he had always known it – the prefect at school with his clammy hands, the whispering youth in Paris, the old man in the lane, whose visage he had never seen. The voice was too easily recognised, the invitation too gross, too tempting. It was Chadwick…

Anthony screamed as he formed his hand into a fist and thrust it blindly at that dreadful spectre. He heard the crunch as spectacles broke on the bridge of the nose and the squeal of fear and indignation. He lashed out again and the cry turned to a shriek of pain. Then others came running, shouting; he was shoved to the ground and found himself pinned down in the mud. Somebody sat on his arm, twisting it back as if it would break. As he struggled, the pressure increased. At last he gave
up and lay panting but still.

‘Bloody 'ell! What's goin' on 'ere?'

‘Fucking homophobe. Asking questions. Jesus. I can't see.'

‘You all right, Carl? We'd better get you to casualty.'

‘Anybody know the bloke?'

‘Somebody take Carl here to the Royal Free. I'll get a statement from him later.'

‘Lord, what a mess.'

A heavy hand was laid on Anthony's shoulder. ‘Right, matey. Let's be having you. Up, now. And no more punches.'

Anthony found himself hauled upright. A torch was shone into his face. His sodden scarf was dragged roughly from his mouth. He blinked away dirt.

‘Now who the hell are you, and what do you think you're doing lashing out at people going about their lawful business?'

The thickset police officer was as tall and solid as Anthony. His glare was direct and angry. Behind him the injured man, nose and mouth streaming blood, was being comforted by friends and helped into a car. The man with the mauve badge moved in the shadows nearby, his profile in the headlights pale and grim. The crowd of men surged, frightened and upset. The revving of engines bore witness to those who had no wish to be discovered at such a scene.

The policeman sighed. ‘Right, mate. Hold out your hands for the cuffs. It is my duty to warn you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'

‘Oh Christ.'

‘Right.'

‘Christ Almighty. Is it on the PA tapes yet?'

‘Oh, aye, Chief. There was a reporter on the spot in seconds. They listen to the police radios.'

‘Tipped off, probably. Looks as if the
Globe
man was there and saw it happen.'

‘Set up?'

‘Who knows? Doesn't matter, anyway. Our chap shouldn't have been anywhere near Hampstead Heath. At least, not that bit. And not without good reason.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘Rosslyn Hill police station. In the cells.'

‘Bloody hell. What's his story, then?'

‘Haven't the foggiest. Maybe he was doing research for the Health Department.'

‘That'd be original.'

A pause. The Chief Whip in his office at Number 12 could be heard issuing rapid instructions as the Party Chairman and Jackson, Anthony's whip, conferred in the whips' office.

The Chief returned to the line. ‘Has he been charged yet?'

‘Yes. Affray and actual bodily harm.'

‘Not gross indecency or anything like that?'

‘No-o. Kept his trousers on. Seems he laid into one of the other blokes there. Unprovoked. The chap may lose an eye.'

‘Christ. Somebody get on to his parents, will you? We don't want them finding out from the press.'

‘Too late. They beat us to it.'

‘Oh, hell. Anthony York, of all people. I'd rather he was gay: that at least we could defend – his own business and so on. Though if he was charged he'd have to resign. But queer-bashing …
nobody can wave that away.'

‘Shows you never can tell.'

‘Chief, we have to issue some kind of statement.'