The Sins of the Father

by N Fourbois

Chapter 40

"Are you sitting comfortably, Rufus?"

"Yes, fine, Dad."

"You don't want to go to bed early with school tomorrow?"

"No, I'm okay. I've had a whole week to relax. What's this all about?"

"This could be a long session. That's all." Rufus kicked off his slippers. "Basically I've got three things to talk about. The first one is on Friday your mother sent to the office by recorded delivery divorce papers, the grounds incompatibility, which covers a multitude of sins. I didn't want to tell you then because I knew you had this important weekend coming up and I didn't want to spoil it for you. It also gave me an opportunity to think." Carl paused to give Rufus time to take the news in.

"You disguised it very well, Dad."

"Maybe, or perhaps you don't know just what I have been disguising. These past few months have been agonising. I've felt like an outsider watching my family disintegrate without being able to interact. What's worse I have had to watch the attitudes of my three sons, probably – now – the most valuable possessions I have in my life, go their own way and now their attitudes are polarising."

"How do you mean?"

"I'll talk about that in a minute."

"So how do you feel now, Dad?"

"Relieved. Relieved as you do when the inevitable finally happens. The shock was that your mother went off to live with a woman. If she had gone off with another man, at least I could have gone and punched him on the nose. How do you feel, Rufus?"

"Like you relief, but perhaps for a different reason. The tension and the not knowing have gone, especially now that we know where Mum's living. Are you going to fight it?"

"No. What's the point? Your mother has chosen her path in life."

"Would you take her back?"

"Probably. Would she take me back? Probably not. I'm not going to stand in her way. The problem will be the settlement. Not too great a one, though. She's owns her own successful business and she is quite wealthy in her own right. I don't think she's vengeful. Financially I'm okay. The only thing I would insist on is keeping possession of this house, at least all the time you're at home. I don't see that she should get all her own way. Circumstances will change when you leave home and the twins have gone permanently."

"How did the twins take all this?" asked Rufus.

"The annoying thing is that they knew about the divorce some days ago and didn't talk to me. Your mother's quite a formidable woman and can easily impose her will. And now I'll go back to what we were saying just now and correct me if I'm wrong. She has complete control over Hugo. He shows attitude towards me and I can't work out why. Magnus is completely neutral and of you three boys probably the most hurt by all this, and you for whatever reason have been rejected by your mother." Carl wanted to avoid saying '… and you, Rufus, are on my side,' in order not to appear as if he were cajoling him into giving his support.

"So she's playing a pretty good game of divide and rule," said Rufus. "And with the way Hugo's behaving, she might well succeed. It does explain why Hugo's been such a bastard towards me over the last few weeks, and why he's adopted certain attitudes that are the opposite of to mine, such as his attitude towards Michel Ledivin. Although to give him his due he didn't know that Mike and I would get together when he started being anti. I'm afraid that is one thing where Mum and Hugo are not going to succeed. If we ever split, and that doesn't look likely at the moment, it will be because of a decision we've made." Rufus stared into the middle distance, just thinking and trying to take this information overload in. "I probably shouldn't say this, Dad, but you've got my full support. I'm not going to slag off Mum, or even Hugo, but I don't think they would accept my support even if I offered it." Carl stood up and gave Rufus a huge hug. There was a tear in his eye.

"Thank you, son."

"I'll go and brew some more coffee," said Rufus "and then you can tell me the third thing on your list."

Rufus brought in the cafetière along with a packet of biscuits.

"Well, how did your Sunday go with Mike?"

"Good. Good good. Or even good good good. Don't think I'm deserting you, but I might have to spend the odd Saturday night at his place. Just to keep his mother company as much as anything. Her WI apart she doesn't see a lot of people."

"Don't worry about me," said Carl. "You're already doing more than enough for me. Which brings me to my third point. As you have probably realised, Christmas is going to be different this year. As far as I am concerned, you boys have a free choice between me and your mother. On the other hand I do need some help from you, Rufus."

"So no skiing, no touring on a cruise ship or lounging in the sun by a pool somewhere?"

"Not this year. There are two things I thought I'd like to do for the family. On Boxing Day have a buffet lunch for the family and invite your friends' families. So that would be the Cholmondeleys, Mrs McClarney, Mrs Dwight and Mrs Hurdle." Rufus raised an eyebrow at the last name mentioned. "Then I thought it would be nice if we had something more formal on New Year's Eve, such as dinner, but stag with your friends. What do you think?"

"Sounds great, but can we manage it?"

"I'm sure if we work together we can do it. That roast dinner you produced earlier looked so good, and if push comes to shove we can always get outside caterers in."

"Have you asked the twins?"

"Not yet. The guests are mainly your friends and the twins will do their own thing anyway."

"Okay, Dad, let's go for it. We'd better get the invitations out this week even though there's two months to go. You know how booked up people get."

Carl and Rufus sat back in their chairs and were silent for a few minutes

"That was a bit of a marathon. I think I'm off to bed now. I need to think. Good night, Dad."

"Good night, son," and Carl gave Rufus a hug and a kiss.

Next day it was back to school, with a difference. Cycling was out until the longer days of spring. It was too hazardous in the dark. That meant catching buses. Luckily the town buses were quite frequent. The pals were pleased to see one another again. Some hadn't seen each other for all of three days. At lunch William was catching up with Toby on what he had missed out on, not that he had actually missed out, for had William been there, there would have been no action. There was another development. Eddie brought his tray of food along, set it down on the table and instead of his usual routine of tarting with the sixth formers, he just sat down got on with his meal. He was one of the gang, and he was so flaming attractive that not one of them wanted to tell him to go and sit with his own year group.

On Wednesday rugby training was quite hard after a fortnight off. Despite being warned, the squad members had done very little to maintain their fitness. Apparently sexual gymnastics didn't count. Rufus went off on his weekly visit to the Dwight household and was able to deliver an invitation at the same time. He and Michel made another attempt at 'sit-on-my-dick' with Rufus being sat on, but with little more success than on Sunday.

Saturday's matches were in the afternoon and so Michel had spent Friday night at the Lindstroms'. Carl was out on the golf course, but would be back to see Rufus playing and Michel could go along as well. The boys were in the middle of breakfast when the front doorbell rang. Who should be standing there? None other than Eddie Hurdle, resplendent in a pullover, tight, well washed Levi's which left the trained observer in no doubt that was going commando.

"Hi, Rufus."

"Hey, Eddie. You'd better come in." Rufus put his hand up between Eddie's legs. "Mmm, nice. Just checking. So you are freeballing."

"Of course. I do at school when I'm in the mood. Haven't you noticed?"

"If you want me to notice, you have to leave your blazer unbuttoned. So what brings you here on a Saturday morning?" Meanwhile they had reached the kitchen. "This is Mike."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"Mind your own business," said Rufus.

"Look. He's freeballing as well. I'm not the only one."

"Mind your own business,' said Michel.

"So he is your boyfriend," said Eddie.

"Mind your own business!" shouted the other two in unison.

"Can I touch it, Mike. You can touch mine." Before Michel could answer, he had. "Nice dick, couldn't feel your balls."

"Mike is the one that gets the posters printed," interrupted Rufus, trying to change the subject. "What brings you here on a Saturday morning?"

"You know you said after that incident at school, Rufus, that if I needed any help, all I had to do was asked? I had a bit of difficulty with last night's maths homework and I wondered whether you could help me."

Rufus had a look at the problem and saw straight away how to do it. He explained it to Eddie who then picked it up quite quickly and it was all over and done with within five minutes.

"Okay, no difficulty there?"

"Thank you, Rufus."

"Now, Master Hurdle, would you like to come clean and tell us why you're really here?" Eddie blushed when he realised how transparent he had been. He stuttered

"It's… er… just that after we went swimming last week I now know what a hunk you are and…"

"He might be a hunk," interrupted Michel, "but he is my hunk and you'd do well to remember that." Rufus had never known Michel to be so possessive.

"Okay, Eddie, you've got a crush on me and I'm honoured, but you're not so bad yourself. So what was the 'and'?" Eddie blushed an even deeper shade of red and found it hard to find the words.

"You know I said I was gay. I see all you gay guys having fun and I want to enjoy being gay as well and I want to do the job properly, but… but I'm still a virgin and I want to lose my virginity… er, front and back."

"And what has that got to do with me?" asked Rufus.

"I didn't know Mike would be here and so I thought you might have… er… stolen my cherry. I think that's the expression." Rufus got up and put his arm round Eddie as he had done all those weeks ago and said

"Look, Eddie, I love you dearly, but not in that way. I'm nearly seventeen and you're fourteen, a boy with the gay equivalent of an Œdipus complex. It would be rape rather than simply losing your cherry. You should get yourself a boyfriend and then things might happen."

"But I don't know how to get one."

"Why don't you ask someone out on a date – cinema, ten pin bowling, a snack at Burger Star or just to hang out?"

"But I don't know who to ask."

"I thought you were Mr Gaydar."

"It's not that. I know who most of the gay boys in the school are – and a lot of them are not even out – but I need to find someone to ask. I don't know who."

"I don't know if this will help," said Rufus, "but Oliver Cholmondeley is gay…"

"I know."

"Shh a minute and listen. He's about your age and got lots of friends, though I don't know whether he has a boyfriend, and he gets quite randy. Wait here a minute and I'll try to find out."

Rufus went up to his room and closed the door. He took his mobile and speed dialled Toby.

"Hi, Tobes, I've got a problem you might be able to help with." Rufus explained what had just happened. "So has Oliver got a boyfriend?"

«Not as far as I know. He's anybody's. I'll ask him.» … «No.»

"Would you like to play Cupid?"

«Yeah, okay. He'll be at the match this afternoon. I'll see what I can do, but a bit more notice would have helped. See ya at one.»

"You're a toff, Toby. See ya later."

Rufus went back down to the kitchen.

"You're in luck, Eddie. Oliver is unattached and he is going to be at the rugby this afternoon. So if you'd like to come along too, you can try your luck with a better chance of succeeding than this morning." Eddie hugged Rufus.

"I haven't much time then. I'd better get going," at which he picked up his things and saw himself out.

"Phew!" said Rufus. "Mike, can you make me some banana sandwiches, please, and some for yourself while I get my school uniform on and gather all my kit together? That's put me all behind. If Dad's not back from golf by a quarter past twelve, we'll have to catch the bus and meet him there. Thank goodness it's a home match."