Authors: Saffina Desforges
72
He parked behind The Point and spent an hour killing time in the Grade II listed
thecentre:MK, casually following a couple of twelve year old truants, before
retreating to McDonald’s for a snack break, selecting a window seat.
Just a fruit juice.
From his vantage point he could see the row of bus-stops where he knew the
school children would soon be alighting.
He smiled.
There was nothing he liked more than a girl in uniform.
73
Bristow savoured the machine-rolled cigarette, toying with it between his
fingers, relishing the thick, even tube of tobacco. As he drank his tea he began
talking.
Claire let him go at his own pace. As he spoke she slowly came to realise there
was more to the man before her than the mindless, depraved monster the media had
portrayed.
“You used the term normal earlier. Ordinary. I know you don’t think me normal.
In its strictest sense I’m not, of course. Obviously my desires, for want of a
better word, are not normal. Or at least, not acceptable. But I believe they are
quite natural.”
Claire restrained a shudder. “You’ll forgive me if I disagree.”
“What’s unnatural to one culture or society may be quite acceptable to
another. In some, how can I put it, less developed societies, sexuality and
childhood go hand in hand. Would I be correct in supposing that you have never
studied anthropology?”
“I watched Disappearing World years ago.”
Bristow acknowledged the comment with a smile. “The Mehinaku Indians of South
America illustrate my point. They live on a tributary of the Xingu River in
central Brazil. In their society male and female roles are defined early,
including the role of reproduction. What I’m trying to say is, the idea that
sexuality and childhood are in some way mutually exclusive is one peculiar to
modern western culture. It’s entirely normal for pre-pubescent Mehinaku children
to simulate intercourse during play.”
He stopped himself self-consciously. “I’m sorry, that’s not what you came to
hear. All I’m saying is that different societies have different views about what
is acceptable between adults and children. The role of the child differs in
different cultures. If PIE had stuck to those kind of arguments, debating
principles instead of action, maybe they would have achieved something.”
“Pie?”
He spelt it out. “P.I.E. The Paedophile Information Exchange. You’ve heard of
it, surely?”
“Never.”
Bristow seemed surprised. “Ostensibly it was a self-help group, set up to
provide mutual support for like-minded individuals. For paedophiles.”
Claire wondered if she was doing the right thing. She said, “Go on.”
“A long time ago now. It ran into trouble with the authorities in the late
seventies, which was about the time I joined. Seventy-eight, maybe? I was very
young. It’s just a vague memory now. The group is long since defunct, of course.
Our chairman, Tom O’Carroll, God bless him, served two years for some trumped-up
charge of corrupting public morals.”
He paused to sip his tea, then slowly took a second cigarette from the gold
packet and lit it, blowing smoke into the air.
“Looking back, I think it did more harm than good. The motivation was right.
It helped a lot of people, by letting them know they weren’t alone, and that
overseas, at least, they could indulge in their fantasies more easily. Sex
tourism has been made a big thing of in recent years, but there’s nothing new
about it. PIE was coordinating trips to the Far East thirty years ago.”
He paused as he registered Claire’s reaction. “I don’t mean to upset you,
Claire, but from my, from our perspective, paedophilia is just a sexual desire
ike any other, however distasteful you may regard it. It’s far more widespread
than people want to believe.”
Claire stared at him.
“I see the doubt in your eyes, but the figures speak for themselves. In the
Philippines alone there are estimated to be at least sixty-thousand child
prostitutes. It’s a similar story throughout the poorer countries of Asia and
Latin America, and to a lesser extent even in the developed countries, in North
America and in Europe. Eastern Europe especially. Yes, of course they’re
motivated by poverty, just like the adult sex-trade. But the trade can only
exist because there is demand. Men, and women, travel from all over the world to
take advantage of the service these children provide. Can so many people be
wrong?”
74
Claire fought back the revulsion she felt, ignoring the tiny spiders crawling
under her skin. “I had no idea…”
“PIE tried to preach its message too widely. Instead of just being an agency
where like-minded people could discuss their problems, it began trying to gain
public acceptance. The whole thing backfired. It was just too soon. Society
wasn’t ready for that. We’d only just legalised homosexuality. There was no way
public opinion would tolerate, let alone come to terms with, a debate on
paedophilia. Not then.”
Claire listened quietly, trying to hide her disgust. Trying to understand.
“It was a case I argued strongly in our newsletter, Magpie. I was a regular
contributor.”
“Magpie? Wasn’t that the name of a children’s television show?”
Bristow smiled. “A most amusing coincidence. One for sorry, two for joy. Three
for a girl and four for a boy?”
Claire shuddered visibly.
“By letting Magpie become a vehicle for contacts the whole thing imploded.
Instead of generating a gentle, civilised, informed debate about paedophilia,
they ruined it all by allowing the media to focus on a few lunatics who didn’t
care about children at all. Who just wanted to abuse them as sex-objects.”
Bristow stared into his smoke trail as he spoke, seemingly oblivious to Claire’s
reactions.
“The thing is, once PIE disappeared there was nowhere else for us to go. The
Home Office set up its Sex Offenders Programme in ninety-two to provide therapy,
but you have to be serving four years or more just to qualify. And it’s got no
hope of success. No hope whatsoever.”
“Because?”
“Because it tackles the problem from the wrong end. Paedophilia isn’t an
illness, to be cured.”
“It’s not?”
“Of course not.”
Claire could not hide her confusion. “But you said last time you hated being
a… Being attracted to children.”
“You misunderstand, Claire. I hate being the social outcast that my
predilection makes me. I hate being loathed for my honesty. For caring about
children.”
She felt her voice rising. “Caring?”
Bristow nodded. “Caring deeply.”
“But you admit you’ve molested little boys!”
“I never used the word molested.”
“Then what?”
Bristow drew on his cigarette. “The problem with our society, Claire, is that
people, adults, don’t really like children.”
“A few, perhaps, but,”
Bristow persisted. “The majority. Even parents. Yes, of course, they love
their own off-spring. That’s natural instinct. But I’m talking about liking
children for their own sake, as individuals. Most people do not.”
“I do.”
He raised a doubting eyebrow. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“Can you honestly say you looked forward to it when your daughter, when
Rebecca, brought her friends round to play?”
“Absolutely. It meant she was enjoying herself. Having fun.”
“So it was a selfish gesture. Because your daughter was having fun with them,
these children were accepted in your home. But would you have enjoyed their
company onwn?”
She hesitated. “That’s different. I didn’t know them myself. They weren’t my
friends. They were just kids.”
“Just kids? But that’s precisely my point, Mrs Meadows. Claire. You spend
your time, by choice, in the company of adults, because, however much you
genuinely loved your own child, children in their own right were not a part of
your life. Because the company of children was not something you enjoyed.”
Claire had no answer to offer. Bristow continued.
“We treat children as second class citizens, Claire. Our society has no time
for them. We express token outrage when they’re harmed, of course. And sexual
abuse arouses the strongest feelings of all, but it’s not heartfelt. When I was
taken to Court for the remand hearings there were crowds outside, baying for my
blood. But an hour later these same people would be back at home, hitting their
own kids for speaking out of turn, spending their child benefit on bingo and
cheap alcohol, knowing full well that on the other side of the world children
were dying of hunger or diseases caused by dirty water, or being maimed by
weapons made in our own country, sold by our own government. As a society we
have never come to terms with children. It was barely a hundred years ago we
were sending our own children up chimneys and down the mines.”
Claire listened with mixed emotions. He spoke with an affection for children
that she’d rarely heard from anyone before. “You were a teacher, weren’t
you?”
“A while ago now, but yes. It was a job I really enjoyed. Teaching is…
Was… My first love. English. That was my subject.”
“But if you knew… Knew that you were a paedophile, That you were attracted
to children, why become a teacher? Wasn’t that just asking for trouble? Putting
temptation at your door?”
Bristow suppressed a smile. “Claire, at risk of appearing very coarse, do you
lead an active sex life yourself?”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Yes, but…”
“A heterosexual sex life? You prefer men to women? Adult men?”
She had to know where he was leading. “Yes.”
“Do you find that you want to have sex with every man you see? Every man you
find yourself in a room with? Every man you have contact with?”
“Of course not. That’s absurd!”
“I’m sorry to be personal. Please bear with me. Do you have any gay
friends?”
“One or two.”
“Do they lust after every person of their own sex that they meet or see? Would
you feel uncomfortable in a room full of lesbians? Or more relaxed in a room
full of gay men?”
“No, of course not, but…”
“Then why should a paedophile be different? Why can’t I be in a room full of
children and not want to interfere with every child there?”
75
“When they asked for my resignation, after my first arrest I was dumbstruck.
It was so… Unnecessary. It was a girls’ school. All girls. Not a boy in the
place. If they’d thought about it logically they would have realised the post
was ideal for me. I had no more sexual attraction towards young girls than I did
towards animals. I was completely safe with them.”
Claire sipped her tea, listening intently.
“That’s why I applied for the job in the first place. I’d always been a
teacher. I could bring Shakespeare or Chaucer to life in a way no-one else could
match. I was born to teach, Claire.” Bristow dragged on his cigarette.
“Being surrounded by girls like that was the most sensible thing I could do.
It avoided even the possibility of temptation, and God knows they were enough to
tempt a saint. Skirts deliberately raised, top buttons undone. You know what
adolescents are like.”
Claire conceded a knowing smile.
“But it did nothing for me. Nothing at all. Rumours began, that I must be gay.
I denied them, of course. You had to back then. They were less liberal times.”
He stopped to drink his tea, then: “One of the girls developed a crush on me.
I should have seen it a mile off, but it just didn’t register. Not at first. I
thought it was just another wind up. She was fifteen. She became very brazen
about her feelings. Making comments in class. Telling other girls she loved me.
I found the whole thing abhorrent. In retrospect I should have told the
Headmistress and put a stop to it at once. But I thought it better to try to
ignore the girl. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. That was my downfall.”
He paused to draw heavily on the cigarette.
“What happened?”
“She turned up at my flat one evening, in tears. Quite disconsolate. I invited
her in. It was a stupid thing to do with any child. Especially her. But I
thought she’d been hurt. She claimed she’d fallen off her bicycle.”
He stopped, staring into the distance. Memories. Painful memories.
Claire touched his arm. “Go on.”
“I made her comfortable. She said she’d hurt her thigh. High up. She insisted
I look at it for her. I never gave it a thought. It just didn’t occur to me what
she was doing. She wanted me to feel for bruising. I said no, that I shouldn’t,
but she lifted her skirt anyway. She had no underwear on. Of course, I should
have thrown her out, there and then.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I asked her to leave, but she refused. She told me she loved me, that she
fantasised about me. About she and I, making love. I was flustered. She… She
started touching me. Tried to kiss me. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I
hit her. Not hard, you understand. Just a slap. I had to. I had to stop her
somehow. She just stood there, in shock.”
Claire could see tears well in his eyes.
“It was a selfish gesture. Totally selfish. I didn’t stop to think about her
feelings. I made some cruel comment about spotty schoolgirls. I can’t believe I
said it. I would never treat a pupil like that normally, boy or girl. It must
have been so deeply, deeply hurtful to her. She was just a child. A child in a
woman’s body. I grabbed her by the arm and forced her out of the flat. Told her
never to come back.”
He stopped again, sipping tea. His hands tremored.
“The next morning I learned she’d hanged herself.”
76
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“It was the single worst moment of my life. I’ve never forgiven myself,
Claire. Never. Obviously the police became involved. Her diaries were full of
fantasies about she and I. Incredible fantasies. If only she could have
harnessed that imagination in her prose. In the end I was cleared of any
responsibility. Her friends confirmed I had never done anything to encourage
her. But by then it was too late.”
A tear rolled down his cheek, and Claire felt her own eyes moistening in
sympathy. His trembling free hand lit another cigarette.
“Of course the police knew about my history. They searched my home and found
some magazines. Not child porn, you understand. Quite innocent by today’s
standards. Artistic, even. But open to misinterpretation. The Board of Governors
requested my resignation the same day. Ostensibly over the girl’s suicide. They
said it would be inappropriate for me to continue in my position.”
“Was this a local school? Here in Kent?”
“In Harrow. I lived not far from Kathy. After the incident I was unemployable,
of course. No blame was attached to me for the girl’s death. The inquest
exonerated me fully. But word got round about the magazines. The rumour mill
began working over-time. Life became very unpleasant. It was inevitable that I
had to move.”
“That’s when you came to Kent?”
“Fifteen years ago now. Newington. We used to come down to Broadstairs as
kids, Kathy, my brother and I, with our parents, so it was a natural choice. I
had a little money put by. It seemed a good idea at the time. A new start. But
it proved a millstone. I appliefor jobs, but got no further than the preliminary
interview. As soon as it came to references I was finished. Even if they didn’t
know about the magazines it was enough that I had resigned over an indiscretion
resulting in a pupil’s suicide. The coroner’s exoneration counted for nothing. I
tried to move again, but nobody wanted to buy a house a pervert had lived in. I
was stuck, no job, no chance of a job, and unable to move out.”
He dragged long and hard on the cigarette, blowing a plume of smoke into the
air. “That was when I got my ice-cream van. Needless to say it didn’t work
out. I ended up with heavy debts. It was a short-lived business venture. I
promise you it was done with the best intentions. I never tried to lure children
with free ice-creams as the papers suggested.”
“I believe you.”
“Then I turned to teaching again. You have to understand, I wanted to be with
children. Near children. Not for sexual reasons, but simply because I enjoy
their company. Eventually I gave up trying to get a school post and started
advertising privately as a tutor. I tried to take on just girls, for obvious
reasons, to avoid any temptation, but it wasn’t practical. Girls are different
from boys. It’s not politically correct to say so, I know, but they learn
differently. They respond to a class environment differently. Ask anyone who
actually understands children. Not a teacher. Someone who likes children. What I
mean is, there simply weren’t enough girls in need of private tuition to make it
viable.”
“So you took on boys?”
“I had to. At first I was very careful. I made sure I was only with them when
other people were around. I did my best to make sure I didn’t compromise my or
their positions. But as I got to know them, and as their parents got to know me,
the whole thing became more relaxed, informal. My relationship with one boy,
Kevin, just developed to a stage beyond what is socially acceptable.”
He paused again, deep in thought, his eyes misted.
“Your tea will get cold.”
He picked up the cup and sipped, his mind distant. “I never hurt him, you
understand. It was never a sexual relationship as such.”
“Then what…?” Claire found herself leaning forward, wanting to know more.
“Love. Love and friendship. I’m not saying I didn’t find him attractive. He…
Kevin, was beautiful. Blonde hair. A perfect complexion. Pale blue eyes that
danced in the sunlight. It’s funny, but he was more like a girl than a boy.
You’d have thought that would be a turn-off for me, but no. I fell in love,
plain and simple.”
It was a struggle to get the words out but she had to know. “How old was
Kevin?”
“Ten.”
Ten. The same age as Rebecca. Her body recoiled but she acted as if making
herself comfortable. She stared at the man before her, not comprehending, yet
somehow sympathising. Disgusted by his words, she found herself moved by the
affection in his voice.
“It lasted a year. We became very close. Kevin started coming to my home,
after school. His parents worked late, so it meant I could give him extra
lessons and act as a childminder at the same time. A convenient arrangement all
round.”
He dredged his tea cup, eyes distant. “Kevin’s parents asked me if I would
teach him to swim. They knew I swam regularly. I agreed, for all the right
reasons. Then Kevin started bringing his friend along too. I should have put a
stop to it right there, but I thought I was in control. I was wrong. It was just
too much for me.”
He finished the cigarette and immediately lit another. “I’d always been
attracted to boys, since the Lord only knows when. Even as a child myself I
found other boys stimulating. Exciting. I was always last out of the showers
after sports. I didn’t understand it as a sexual thing then. I just knew I found
them attractive. The one day I…”
Claire leaned forward. “Thomas?”
“One day I touched another boy, while we were showering. It just happened. He
beat the h out of me, there and then, while the other boys cheered him on. The
gym teacher burst in, and when he heard what I’d done he dragged me off to the
headmaster. Literally dragged me. By the ears, naked from the shower, in front
of all my class-mates. Across the play-ground to the Head’s office on the other
side of the school, past boys and girls together. It was so humiliating. I was
caned so badly I could barely sit afterwards. But somehow, I enjoyed it. Not the
caning. Not the pain itself. But the relationship of the pain to touching my
class-mate. The being dragged naked across the playground in front of everyone.
It was pleasurable somehow. I used to fantasise over it for months after.”
He saw Claire wince. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so graphic.”
“It’s okay. Honestly.” It was a pathetic lie, but she had to know more.
“Please, continue.”