Kit - 1. Kit Chapter 1

It has been a while now since I have been home to Australia, and life for me has changed quite dramatically, beginning with the day that I was kicked out of home for been gay. Lucky for me, I have an uncle who was understanding and was willing to take me in, and help me get through my final few years of been a teenager.

My uncle has been awesome, always willing to listening to me, as I tell him about my daily problems at school and asking how I may be able to resolve the issue, and together, we usually come up with a plan that gets me through the tough times, and I continue to work on having a better future.

Uncle Mathias is my mother’s older first cousin, and he is a widower with no kids, and had been living alone for a few years until I came along, and he has told me a number of times that he is glad that I have moved into his life, as his life was in a deep hole, with no way out, what ever that meant, I guess that he was just lonely and he was happy to have someone to keep him company and busy.

His job is a corporate accountant, for a large international firm, that originates from and is headquartered in my home state of Western Australia, but also has offices in Sydney, Auckland in New Zealand, Milan in Italy, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and I have been lucky enough to travel to those places, when Uncle Mathias has had to travel for business.

One good thing that I was able to do when I moved away from home at the age of just twelve, was changing schools, especially since this all happened at the end of my first year at the local high school in my home town of Keyway.

Located 252 kilometres north-north-east of Perth, and about 120 kilometres inland from the west coast, Keyway has a population of 2,750 people, and apart from two primary schools, it also has one government and one private high school, a hospital, and a number of churches.

It is an alright place, but it also has its issues with the lower-class and middle-class people in town, who cause issues when there is drugs or alcohol involved. Our family has owned a reasonable sized mixed farm in the district for the past 70 plus years, with the main farm house, which is made of thick local stone walls, making it very cool in the hot summer months and warm in the winter months, located in the centre of a sixty-acre paddock, near the front of the property.

There is also a 3 bay machinery shed that includes a workshop area, a workers quarters and the old original barn, which are all built from the local stone, and I used to spend a lot of time hidden in the barn, just to have some time to myself, instead of been hounded by my parents or my brothers.

I am the oldest of three boys, with my younger brothers – Lucas been eight years younger and Trent been twelve years younger, and I never really got along with them because there is such a big age difference, and even when they tried to get along with me, I just ignored them, which often resulted in them playing up and I would get in trouble for stirring them up.

Back then, after been kicked out from home, which happened a week before the end of the school year, and moving in with Uncle Mathias, I spent two wonderful weeks during Christmas in New Zealand, checking out all of the film locations of the famous Lord of the Rings movies, taking long distance train rides, and soaking up the Māori culture, which I found very interesting.

Uncle Mathias owns a three-bedroom house, which has filtered views of the Swan River, and with it been just one block from the southern boundary of Kings Park, I spent a lot of my spare time for the first few months in Perth walking through the numerous hiking bush tracks.

I was enrolled into a prestigious private school located in South Perth, and I would catch a bus and a ferry to get to and from school each day. At times when Uncle Mathias had a business trip which didn’t match up with school holidays, I would become a boarder at the school, which I didn’t mind at all, as I had made a few friends at this school.

Every now and then, my uncle would let me know of any news from home, with the first bit happening, two thirds of the way through my first year in Perth, when I learnt that most of the family farm was been sold, and that Dad was using his original qualifications to get a job as a diesel mechanic with the local shire council.

I also learnt that the family would be retaining the small block of land that has the family home and few sheds on it, while the remaining 4,380 acres was been split up and sold to three neighbouring farmers.

By the end of my first full year away from my home, I had not heard anything from my parents, with the only news from my home town, was what my Uncle Mathias passed on to me, but I didn’t really care, as I have a caring Uncle, a roof over my head and I am going to an awesome private school in the city, the only thing that I missed was the peace and quiet of being in the country, but I did have an alternative to that, with my regular hikes in Kings Park.

A few days after the end of the school year and just three days before Christmas, Uncle Mathias announced to me during dinner, that we would be having a white Christmas this year, and that I needed to pack and be ready to leave at 11 am tomorrow.

When I asked where we will be sending Christmas, all my Uncle said was to pack for a northern Winter, which I had very little of suitable clothing, and the look on my face made my Uncle laugh. “Yes, Kye, we will be going shopping first thing tomorrow morning to get you a heap of suitable clothes,” I said to me, as he opened up what looked like a passport.

“I don’t know what you were thinking, wearing what you had when this photo was taken, but for now it will have to do,” Uncle Mathias said to me as he handed the passport over to me, which was issued last year, before our trip to New Zealand.

“Kye Mathias Seabrook, born 28^th January, Kings Park Ave, Crawley” I said reading out the details on the back page of the passport, before flipping it to the front page, where there was my passport photo, and I groaned, silently agreeing with my Uncle that I had made a bad choice of dress shirt that day, but I also smiled that uncle had arranged for my surname to be officially changed From Greenwood, to my grandmothers maiden name and his surname of Seabrook.

After a mad dash around the shopping centre in Claremont, where the better quality of clothing and footwear are available, and also a new suitcase and backpack included, it was all quickly washed, dried and carefully packed, ready for the trip, and at 2pm precisely, we climbed into a limo and headed towards the international terminal of the Perth Airport.

Uncle Mathias led me directly to the Business Class check-in with Qantas, which I half expected, as for the past few times that I have travelled with him to Auckland, Singapore and to Sydney, we have travelled Business Class. “Good Afternoon sir, where are you travelling to today, and what is your surname please,” the lady at the counter asked my uncle.

“Hello, we are travelling to Rome, via London, and the names are Mathias Seabrook, and my nephew here is Kye Seabrook,” my uncle replied, as my mouth dropped open in surprise, that we were going to Italy. “Close your mouth buddy, or you may swallow a fly,” I uncle whispered to me, and I snapped my mouth closed.

“Andiamo in Italia?” I asked in Italian, which I had been learning at school, and with my Uncle fluent in the language, I was able to get quite good at it, as my uncle chuckled at this surprised question. “Si, per una settimana, poi una settimana Regno Inito,” my uncle replied, informing me that we were spending a week in Italy followed by a week in the UK.

We had completed check-in quickly and set off to be processed through customs and quarantine, before relaxing in the departure lounge with over 2 ½ hours to go before departure, but with the comfortable facilities available, I relaxed and listened to an audio book, knowing now that we had a fairly long flight ahead of us, of 18 hours before landing at Heathrow at 5am there time.

With just a two-hour layover in London, we would be remaining at the Heathrow terminal, until our 2 ½ hour flight to Rome departs. While we waited, I also did some research, and worked out from the information on my boarding ticket, that the 787 Jumbo that we would be flying on to London, my Uncle and I had the two centre aisle seats, which are very spacious.

Just like the business class travels I have done before, we would be able to turn our seats into beds, if we need to sleep, which I planned to do for this long flight. After a very long day of flights, and crossing a number of time zones, we finally arrive in Rome, and arrived at our hotel in the late morning, nearly 24 hours after we had boarded our first flight at Perth Airport.

I was not sure what Uncle Mathias had planned for our holiday, but it was already looking very good, since I was now in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time, even if it was damn cold. We were shown to two connecting suites on the third floor of the hotel, which has a central lounge area, with a kitchen servery area, a dining table and also a nice wide balcony overlooking the beautiful rear gardens of the hotel, and the adjoining golf course.

Once we had settled in, Uncle Mathias sat me down and informed me that we would only be staying at this hotel for one night at first, and that we would be back for our last night, before flying back to the UK. Tomorrow, which is Christmas eve, we would be flying north to the city of Milano, where we would collect a hire car and drive north-west for an hour, to the town of Arona, where we would be spending Christmas and a few days with some old friends of his, from when he was in university.

After a delicious lunch, my uncle suggested we have a game of golf together. Although I knew the basics of the game, I hadn’t played a proper game before, and I was very reluctant to do so, especially when it is in the middle of winter in Italy, but since it was a surprisingly clear afternoon, I agreed to have a go at playing a game of nine holes with my uncle.

The following day, we returned to the main airport and flew north to Milano, where Uncle Mathias hired a car and we drove north-west for an hour, through some beautiful Italian countryside, until we arrived in Arona, on the banks of Lake Maggiore.

Once off the main highway, we wound through a number of streets until we turned into the driveway if a magnificent villa. “Welcome to our home for the next week,” my uncle said as we parked at the front, just as the main door to the villa opened and a gentleman about the same age as my uncle stepped out, and on reaching my uncle they hugged then shook hands.

“Hello my old friend, welcome back to my holiday villa, I hope that you and your nephew will enjoy your stay here,” the gentleman said to Uncle Mathias in Italian, “Thankyou Marco, it is great to be back here. It has been far too long. May I introduce my nephew, Kye Seabrook. Kye, thus is my old and good friend from my university days, Marco de Lancia,” my Uncle said in reply.

I shook his hand and in my best Italian, I said hello and thanked him for allowing us to stay. “My word, you have very good Italian, how long have you been speaking the language?” Mr de Lancia asked me, “Only one year sir, but my uncle has been helping me keep in practice, and now that we are here, I know why he was doing that,” I replied in Italian, and both my uncle and Mr de Lancia laughed.

“Welcome young Kye, I hope you enjoy your stay here,” Mr de Lancia said in good English with a slight British accent, which surprised me a little. “Where did you both go to university, if I may ask?” I said to both men, “Oxford, in the UK, Marco studied Law, while I studied Accountancy, and we were room-mates at the same college for two years,” my Uncle replied.

I learnt that the villa that we were staying in, belongs to Mr de Lancia’s family, who have owned the villa for many years, and that it is usually rented out as holiday accommodation during he busy summer months, and for some of the winter months. Mr de Lancia actually lives and works in Milan, and he also owns a small apartment in Manbello, where he prefers to stay instead of at the villa.

We would have the rest of the day to relax, before the be Christmas lunch celebrations, which would be held here at the Villa, but Marco and his husband Paolo, and his sister and family would be organising all of the food and wine for the event, so we didn’t need to worry about anything, as it was all organised.

On Christmas morning, when I woke up and headed to the main lounge area, I found Uncle Mathias and Mr de Lancia talking while drinking coffee, and before I could say good morning, I spotted a number of gift-wrapped presents, sitting on the coffee table in the lounge room.

“Those are all for you, Merry Christmas, nephew,” Uncle Mathias said to me, as I slowly approached the table and glanced at the four presents of various sizes. After unwrapping everything, I discovered that I had received a new laptop computer, the latest Apple I-phone, and two parcels of new clothing, two full set of tailor-made suits, which looked very smart and very expensive.

“Any particular reason that I am getting the clothing?” I asked, as I started to wonder if there was actually a lot more to this trip to Europe than what I have been told so far, and my Uncle chuckled at this comment. “You are a very bright young man, and I can see that you are going to do very well in the future,” my Uncle replied, before he announced that after Christmas, we would be going to have a tour of an International School located in nearby Torino, and another International school in Milan, which caught me totally by surprise.

“Why?” I asked, “Because, I have been offered a position with the company to work here at the Italian office, and I would like to continue to be close by to you, so that I can look after you when on school holidays,” my uncle replied. “Wow… yes, I agree, and I think it will be great to live and study in a completely different country,” I answered.