Catering with Benefits (1) - 4. FAG

After the incident with the handyman at school the family seemed to get over it and things went well for a few months until one day when Justin’s mother, Jessica, came home from work in a very strange mood, but did not tell her husband or Justin what was bothering her. It seems that the school where she taught was about to employ a new handyman. He had been interviewed, his references checked and the principal was about to appoint him to the staff but needed the formal approval of the state education department & a working with children certificate before making any staff appointments. Jessica’s friend Narelle worked as the staff office assistant and had to prepare the applicant’s paperwork to send to the education department. She realised when photocopying the documents that she recognised the photograph of the applicant. She remembered she had seen him before at St. Patrick’s school doing lane markings and other maintenance work when she attended sports days of her nephew who was a pupil at St. Patrick’s. When she came to copying the references there was none from St. Patrick’s school. When she checked his resume, she saw that he had shown that period as being on a working holiday in the UK. This seemed odd to her but she did not tell the principal in case she was mistaken about having seen him at St. Patrick’s. She decided to ask her friend Jessica, as she knew her son went to that school. Jessica did not know the name Sam Hiscock, but when shown the photograph recognised him as the previous gardener at St. Patrick’s. When this was confirmed, Narelle thought she should tell the principal, who then immediately called St. Patrick’s for a reference. Brother Francis told principal Edwards, principal to principal what had happened, but said it was to be kept confidential as the student was underage and the school did not want any scandal.

Hiscock never returned to St. Patrick’s and the school never actually dismissed him. Hiscock was afraid that if he had returned the school would certainly dismiss him and may involve the police as well. Brother Francis was of the opinion that if he formally dismissed Hiscock then he would have to put it in writing and give a reason for dismissal. This would create a record of the incident, which he did not want. Conveniently for the school his employment was terminated on the grounds of abandonment. Catholic institutions were already under a cloud of suspicion about sexual abuse and he did not want to add to that. Principal Edwards told Narelle not to send the documents to head office because there was a problem with the applicant’s references. He did not explain why but she was suspicious and told Jessica.

When Jessica went home her husband, Brendan, was already home and Justin was still at gymnastics training. She asked her husband if he knew Sam Hiscock and why he would not reference the school as a previous employer. He denied any knowledge of ever knowing Hiscock. Jessica suggested that he might have met him on that day about six months ago when he was called to the school to fix their plumbing. She said she would expect the maintenance person from the school to be involved in calling on his assistance. He said there was someone, but he did not remember his name. She then described Sam, hoping it might trigger a memory in her husband. By this time Brendan was getting tired of his wife’s interrogation and started to become agitated. His manner became such that she became suspicious of her husband’s denials, but knew better than to press him any further as she had experienced his anger before.

A few days later she casually brought up the name of Sam Hiscock in conversation with Justin and first asked him if he remembered the man. Justin said he used to be the maintenance man at school, but wanted to know why she was asking. She said that it was not important but he had applied for a job at her school and had been unsuccessful because he did not have a reference from St. Patrick’s. She asked Justin if he remembered him ever being in trouble at his school. He said no, but knew exactly what she was referring to, even though he felt she did not really know. He did not want to be questioned any further in case he accidently gave anything away or motherly intuition kicked in, so he excused himself to go and do his homework before dinner.

When Jessica ran into Narelle in the staff room the next day, she told Narelle neither her husband nor her son knew anything about any incident at St. Patrick’s involving Sam Hiscock. This further piqued Narelle’s interest in the matter and so the two became the Cagney & Lacey of Blacktown High and set out to solve the mystery. School staff rooms are usually a hotbed of gossip, but over the next few days, neither of them could get even a whisper of scandal out of their colleagues. When they next met they concluded that either they were being left out of the loop by their colleagues or for the first time they genuinely did not know of some inter-school scandal. If it were the latter then they would have to step up their investigation. But if it were the former then why were they not being taken into the confidence of the local gossips. They both secretly hoped it was not because one of them was somehow involved.

Narelle decided to put some pressure on Principal Edwards, as she was sure he knew more than he was telling her. But she would have to be subtle or he would just clam up if he thought she was just after gossip. She thought she would try the tea and Tim Tams approach. He usually took his tea break in the relatively peaceful atmosphere of his office rather than go to the noisy staff room. Sometimes he would invite Narelle to join him so they could discuss school business. So, the next day Narelle decided to invite herself to a morning tea discussion. She showed up in Principal Edwards’ office with tea, Tim Tams, some trivial school matter to be the subject of their meeting and the application papers of Sam Hiscock. She used the pretext of what to do with the papers as a way of opening up further discussion after dealing with the other minor matter. She asked if she should file them, destroy them or did the principal have any further use for them. He could sense that she was fishing for information, but as she had always been a trusted assistant and had not previously broken any confidences, he decided to tell her enough to satisfy her curiosity. Narelle had indeed always been loyal to the principal and kept school matters confidential. But on this occasion she also had a duty to her best friend. The information she had to pass on to Jessica could be explosive.

If Jessica was not on playground duty during lunch break the two usually joined the rest of the staff in the communal staff room. On this day Narelle invited her friend to join her for lunch in the park across the road. She told her friend what she could from her discussion with the Principal. She felt there was no need to tell her to keep the information confidential. That was obvious given the nature of the revelation. What piqued Jessica’s interest was that Brother Francis had let it slip in his conversation with principal Edwards that the boy involved was the son of a local plumber.

Justin’s mum did not think it could be her son and certainly did not want to even entertain such an idea. When she asked her husband if he knew any other plumbers in the area whose son might attend St. Patrick’s, he wanted to know why. He had not forgotten about the incident but did not connect that with his wife’s question. He asked her why she wanted to know about other plumbers so she told him what she had heard about Sam Hiscock. He was furious and thought she knew and was just trying to get him to admit to it. His denial was so strong that she then became very suspicious, so to save having an argument she dropped the whole subject. Her husband could have a frightful temper and she did not want him angry when Justin came home.

Brendan appeared to calm down after his first beer, but when Justin arrived home he took him out to the backyard and started questioning him, assuming he might have told someone who leaked it back to his mother. The situation quickly moved from a discussion to accusation to shouting and was about to become physical when Justin’s mother, who had been watching from the kitchen window, went out to stop them. He then attempted to take a swipe at his wife. He had done this in the past but she had learned to duck and always covered for him later. Justin decided to tell his mum in the hope that if it was brought out into the open then there would be no more need for secrets. He told his mother the whole story and in doing so outed himself. Jessica comforted him, and screamed at her husband that he had no right to hide this from her and in so doing cause Justin to suffer so much. She was close to her boy and said she was not disappointed if he was gay, he was still her son, still the same person he was before and she would support him fully. She then turned to her husband and suggested he say the same. Instead of doing so he remained silent for a few moments, but they could both see the anger boiling in him and knew that when he let it out, there would be no peace in the Haynes household that night.

Justin and his mother left the house in her car and went out for dinner, hoping that upon their return, he would have calmed down. They thought even if he could not accept Justin’s sexual orientation at least he would tolerate it for the sake of the family. While eating Justin told his mum now he had outed himself to her, then he felt he could come out to anybody. It was her he did not want to hurt, but in fact it turned out she would be his closest ally. She asked him to be cautious about that, but knew her son would have his way.

By the time they returned home, the empties on the floor revealed that Brendan had consumed a number of beers and was now half way through a bottle of scotch. He was not of the nature that alcohol could calm. In fact it was just the opposite, it made him even more pig-heated and sometimes violent. When Justin went to his room to avoid any further confrontation he saw that there were two large garbage bags and his backpack on his bed. Still opened but both full of his clothes and other personal items. Sitting on top of his backpack was his pack of condoms with FAG, written in marker pen. Jessica followed him to the room a few minutes later. Brendan had already told her he was throwing Justin out of the house. She did not say anything to him as it would just antagonise him further. Justin and her looked at each other, both knowing what the packed bags meant. They left the house and she drove him over to his aunt’s home.

Julia was Brendan’s sister and lived with her partner Hannah and their two sons. Each was the birth mother of one child. Julia said she was not surprised by her brother’s actions. It was what she had come to expect of him over the years, especially after the way he treated her when she told him she was gay. They had not spoken since then. Both women welcomed Justin into their home and offered his mum a bed for the night also, but she declined knowing it would only make it worse when she eventually returned home. The two boys were thrilled to have their older cousin in the house, although they did not fully understand why he was there. After a week or so, there was a further family conference held without Justin’s father. The purpose was to decide about Justin’s future. It was agreed by all that Justin should stay with his aunt for the meantime to finish school. He would complete his school certificate this year and he needed peace and security for that. If he completed that successfully then he would be welcome to stay there for the next two year to complete his higher school certificate. They did not expect any financial support from his father, so the aunts offered him bed and board and his mother would pay his school fees and other educational expenses out of her wages, as well as pocket money. That plan was carried through until Justin successfully completed his HSC two years later. He had no contact with his father in that time.

*****

Justin was soon regularly staying over at Craig’s flat. On Craig’s days off they would treat it as a weekend and Justin would stay for two or three night at a time. Other times it might just be one night, depending on Craig’s nursing roster. To assist Justin in knowing when he was available and when not to call, because he might be sleeping after shift work, Craig started to give Justin his nursing rosters, which were usually planned a month in advance. This generally worked well for Justin, but as he had more time off than Craig he was often on his own and would call Craig whenever he thought he was not working or sleeping. But, then often he could not reach Craig even on what should have been free time. He started to wonder if Craig was also dating someone else, but did not ask as he did not want to seem jealous or possessive.

All their dates so far had been just the two of them and Craig felt it was time to introduce Justin to his friends and maybe a bit later, his family. He arranged a small dinner party as his home with just four others so that Justin would not feel overwhelmed and would have the opportunity to join in the conversation. He invited his four closest friends, that included a couple; Romel was a nursing colleague and his partner was Edward, an IT geek. Craig was not absolutely sure what he did, just that he was good with computers and such and often helped Craig with his computer and phone problems. The other two friends were Raj, who worked in his parents’ Indian restaurant and Tristan who was a professional dancer with Sydney’s premier contemporary ballet dance company.