The Sins of the Father
by N Fourbois
Chapter 31
Monday at school ran smoothly and as close to normality and routine as any schoolday could. Rufus arrived, met William and Toby, had assembly, lessons and break, study periods and more lessons followed by lunch. Eddie came and flirted for a couple of minutes at the boys' table. 'You need to watch out, Eddie Hurdle,' Rufus thought to himself. 'One of these days you're going to regret – or love – coming tarting round here.' Rufus's nob was never entirely unmoved when he saw Eddie, even today after a highly sexually active weekend. Rufus wondered about himself. 'These days it seems that if it's human and got a prick and two balls between its legs, I'm interested.' (A slight exaggeration.) 'I must talk to Mike about it.' Lunch was followed by more lessons and study periods, socialising in the Sixth Form Centre and then it was time to go home.
Putting his cycle away, Rufus noticed that his father was already home. 'Is it that late already?' he thought. As he went into the kitchen, he saw Carl sitting at the table, with a very mournful face, a letter in his hand. Was that a tear rolling down his cheek.
"Are you all right, Dad?" 'Why aren't Hugo and Magnus here to help me?'
"Sit down, son." Obediently, Rufus took off his backpack and sat down opposite his father. "I'm not going to read you the letter, but basically your mother has moved out… left us."
"Does she say why?" Carl hesitated.
"I don't know how to say this in a gentler way, but she finds us… well… 'abhorrent' is the word she uses."
"Us? All of us?" Carl walked round the table, sat next to Rufus, put his arm round him and said in a low voice
"No, not all of us… you and me."
"Why us two? What have we done? What have we done that Hugo and Magnus haven't done?"
"You're being too rational, Rufus. This is not a rational act and you're not dealing in this instance with a rational person. It's a woman thing, partly the menopause, but that is not the entire answer. And in everything else your mother is her normal, well organised self, which I'll come to in a minute, but I'll try and answer your question the best I can first.
"Have you noticed anything strange about your mother recently?"
"Well, she's had a lot to do at work and she's been bringing work home, which she hasn't done before."
"Can you remember when it first started?"
"In the middle of summer. When we'd just finished our exams. In fact, both of you were acting a bit odd. Remember we met you in the park after you'd left work early?"
"You've almost got the right time. Can you think of anything more specific?" There was a silence while Rufus thought back to the light, bright days of summer.
"Why yes. The twins' eighteenth birthday celebration when they officially came out, then I did too."
"And can you be more precise? I'm not hammering this point home to hurt you, son. I want you to understand." After a moment's pause
"Yes, it was when I came out."
"Right." Carl took a deep breath. "What I'm going to tell you may not be pleasant, but you asked the question and I don't want to dodge the answer because that will cause more hurt than facing up to it. If you want me to stop, just say so."
"No, Dad, go on."
"When your mother and I were courting, she knew about my past and Björn, she knew that I had had a gay relationship and we both believed it was only a phase that many adolescents go through. Indeed, it's the only gay relationship I've had. I won't deny that I still find some males attractive, in the street, on the television and in films. I've even had sneak reads of your GY magazine. It might be a phase, but it never really leaves you, and I was so proud when you brought Michel home. He's such an attractive young man and you deserve to be happy together. But I'm straying from the point.
"I had to tell your mother about my relationship with Björn. She would eventually meet him, but I didn't tell her about the sauna and the thrashings. They weren't relevant at the time and only became so when the twins, and you, started your experiments with bondage." Rufus blushed. "Björn was no longer a danger to our relationship. It was all in the past, he was happy with his partner and the only person for me was your mother. We married and the twins came along, followed by you some eighteen months later. To be expecting twins is a shock to any parent, but we coped. Don't get me wrong. You were wanted, we love you dearly, but your mother did want a girl and as you know from your lessons at school it is the father that 'decides' the sex of the child. Do you understand what I am leading up to?" Rufus nodded.
"I think so. From Mum's point of view neither of us did what was expected of us."
"Exactly. Brilliant. You're so typical of the third child in a family of the same sex."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You're interested in psychology. You'll learn about that, but ask me another time or it will become just another red herring to distract us and we have more important things to think about at the moment.
"I hope we have both treated you three boys equally and fairly, but having said that, a woman tends to favour her first born. It's her nature, her instinct. In your mother's case it was complicated by her producing twins and I know you haven't failed to notice that over this business of being gay your mother accepted it more readily with Hugo and Magnus than she did with you. You were her hope for a family, for grandchildren.
"So I have disappointed you?"
"No, Rufus, no." Carl almost shouted it in his anguish. "Your mother maybe…" he trailed off. "… apparently, but certainly not me." He hugged Rufus tighter. "To get back to what we were talking about, that was when Mum's troubles started, when you came out. We tried to hide that from all of you. Then it was compounded by the bondage business because she began to ask questions. If the boys had inherited their homosexuality from their father, where had their taste for bondage come from? I might have hidden it from her all those years, but I have never lied to her. As you have seen, our relationship deteriorated. I think you noticed and felt it more than the twins. They've always had one another and have been inward looking. Still are.
"I think your mother has been planning this for a little while now and this last week three things conjoined to create the straw which broke the camel's back. Though not in chronological order, first of all came the fact that the twins would be leaving home and she would have to live here with just us two. Secondly you brought home not simply a boyfriend, but who happened to be one of her star models and the third was the moment Hugo broke his wrist. 'Carl, why weren't you there to deal with it?' and of course it had to be Hugo, her first born. 'I had to leave work at a critical moment and you should have had your mobile switched on. Where were you?' And so on." Finally Carl stopped speaking which gave them time to reflect.
After a minute or so Carl spoke. "As I said, your mother seems to be off the rails in this one respect. She's left her orders, as it were, here in the letter. She has gone off to stay with a friend and we mustn't try and guess who or where. She must have been home during the day since a lot of her clothes have gone and papers from her office. Don't try to contact her for a couple of days until she has sorted out her affairs. That applies to both of us. Then only call her mobile and leave a message. We're not under any circumstances to call her at the agency. We're not to contact the twins until tomorrow as she wants to tell them herself this evening. That's fair enough. They will probably call us anyway. She says she still loves us, her family, but because of the things that have happened she can't abide being around us at the moment. That's the bit I can't get my head round. I'm going to have a glass of whisky. Do you want one, Rufus?"
"No thanks, Dad. I'm going upstairs to think things through. I don't know what to think at the moment. I don't feel angry. I feel more hurt, probably at being third best. And despite what Mum says, I might ring the twins. After all, that letter was written to you, not me. What are we going to do about supper?"
"We'll go out somewhere," said Carl. "I don't feel like cooking."
"If you're going to drink, we'll call a taxi, or better still I'll ring up for a takeaway. Chinese?"
"Anything. I don't feel very hungry at the moment. And Rufus. You'll never be third best to me."
"I'll telephone when I've done my homework. Luckily I did most of it in study periods today. And will you write a note for school, please? They're always telling us they need updates on family circumstances and that it's for our good ultimately." Rufus had taken control, and in a very detached and businesslike manner. He had obviously inherited at least some of his mother's genes.
Once in his room Rufus changed out of his school uniform. He looked at himself in the mirror. He took a picture of his face, loaded it onto the computer and flipped it so that he could see himself as others saw him. He was trying to figure out whether he took after his father or his mother and could come to no conclusion. He went downstairs and brought up a family portrait of all five. That made things no clearer. All you could say was that the three children were brothers. He looked at his flaming red hair, longer in the photo. There was no doubt he had inherited that from the male line. A dominant gene he'd been told in PHSE lessons and of course he had been pointed out as a prime example. Why didn't the twins inherit it? All the Weasley family did in Harry Potter , but then both Mr and Mrs Weasley had ginger hair and so there was no escape for their children. I love my hair anyway. It makes me stand out from the crowd. He went and lay down on his bed. The word 'abhorrent' kept going round in his head. Abhorrent for being gay? No. Abhorrent for being into bondage? No. If so, why not the twins? Abhorrent for being ginger? No. Why after nearly seventeen years? And Dad's not ginger. He wasn't even as a boy. It was Björn that was ginger. He took his mobile and pressed the quickdial button for Michel. Voicemail. 'I won't ring the twins yet. If I ring at ten past ten I might even catch them in the middle of fun time,' he thought mischievously. 'I'd better get this homework done.'
Next day Rufus went to school as usual. He had slept surprisingly well, but he had also taken a stand. He had to protect his father. The twins were too far away. If they hadn't been, he could have counted on Magnus. He wasn't so sure about Hugo. Rufus wanted to remain neutral, but rejected by his mother and seeing the state of his father the previous night, he realised that would be pretty difficult. Toby and William could see there was something wrong by his face as soon as they met that morning. Full of concern they asked him what the matter was. At last he had someone to talk to. He had failed to contact either Michel or the twins the previous evening. They had their phones switched off. Even Eddie Hurdle could see something was up at lunch and he had the sense just to say 'hello' and disappear.
Later Eddie and William caught up in the boys' toilets.
"Nice cock, Will," said Eddie, looking across while they were peeing and grinning.
"And yours," answered Will.
"You can always play with it, if you want to."
"Do you mean that?" asked William.
"Sure," replied Eddie. "I'd do anything for you three guys."
"How about half term? Remember we're only a bike ride away. My house would be best because my mother's at work all day."
"We'll swap mobile numbers when we get out of here," said Eddie. Both boys shook off, zipped up and washed their hands. Outside in the corridor they punched each other's numbers in and William gave Eddie Toby's and Rufus's. "What was up with you lot at lunch?" William was able to tell him about Rufus and the situation between his parents which Eddie was able to understand.
When William rejoined his friends, he told them what he had done to the approval of the other two.
"Of course, it's our duty to educate the next generation," said Rufus. The other two burst out in fits of laughter at how pompous Rufus sounded, but they acknowledged that not only was he right in principle, but in secret they all fancied Eddie and it would be a good opportunity to have some fun with him.
Carl had spent an uneasy night and consequently slept in late. Rufus managed to get a message to his PA to say that he would be late in. Fortunately he always kept Tuesday morning free of client appointments and so she only had internal meetings to re-arrange or cancel. Rufus had also managed to hide the whisky bottle after Carl had poured his first glass and so he was in reasonable shape when he did eventually emerge, and in full accountant mode. The first thing he did on his way to work was to stop at the bank and re-arrange his bank accounts in case Veronica launched a vengeful attack on them.
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