Stronger Than Lions - 14. What Socrates Knew

‘Maybe I should’ve gotten suspicious when Dad started going away on all these “business trips”,’ said Chris as we sat in my bedroom later that night.

He took a loud slurp of his hot chocolate and tickled Einstein under the chin. Einstein responded by purring at full blast.

‘A kid at high school shouldn’t have to be suspicious of their father,’ I offered. ‘How were you supposed to know?’

He shrugged. ‘We were so happy, bru. I was enjoying Matric. I was a prefect and had made the first rugby team and mom was matron in charge of the newborn ICU at St Lucy’s Hospital.’

‘Sounds like you were pretty much the golden boy of the school.’

He grimaced. ‘Bru, it makes me want to fuckin’ vomit thinking about it now. I was going to apply for medicine and Katie and I were going steady.’

‘Katie?’ I shifted where I had been leaning against the bed and put down my tea. ‘Girlfriend?’

Chris stopped petting Einstein, who, displeased with this, yowled and nipped him on the finger.

‘Uh. Ex-girlfriend,’ he continued. ‘Very much ex.’

‘No worries,’ I lied. ‘Go on.’

‘So one day I overhear my mom grilling my dad about all these emails and messages going forth between him and Patricia Smythe, one of his consultants.’

‘The one he took to Cuba?’

‘Yup. Which was fuckin’ weird, because Patricia Smythe was also the name of my maths teacher who was also the mom of Bradley, who’s like the first team rugby captain.’

I frowned. ‘Oh. Oh, shit.’

He reached for a tissue and blew his nose. ‘She’s a part-time statistician or something. My had hired her for this big account he was working on, even though his company has more than enough of their own number-crunchers. Found out later he met her at one of my rugby matches and they started seeing each other.’

‘I have no words, dude.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He scowled. ‘One Sunday heard I my mom crying in her bedroom and when my dad came home that night I just knew. She’d worked out he’d gone down to the South Coast for the weekend with Patricia and—get this—Bradley came with and my dad took him surfing.’ Chris balled his fists. ‘Fuckin’ surfing. Was something my dad and I used to do together. He hadn’t taken me for like ages, bru. Ages.’

‘Ouch. I was wondering about the longboard in your room.’

‘Yeah. He taught me, you know? And now I don’t ever want to get in the waves again.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said stroking his arm. ‘And Bradley’s dad?’

‘Been out of the picture for a while I think. To think I felt sorry for the guy. Respected him as a player.’

‘So your dad owned up to all of this?’

‘More like he didn’t deny it. Brian Hathaway never apologises for anything.’

I could swear my boyfriend was growling.

‘He moved out the next week. And in class this person who is now… ugh…my soon-to-be stepmom… oh God that sounds just wrong.’

‘Stepmonster then,’ I offered.

‘I like that. Well, she acted as if nothing had happened. I deliberately messed up my trig test that week but she still gave me full marks.’ He trailed off for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was low and soft.

‘It all exploded during the big game against Pretoria.’

‘Pretoria College?’ I asked with a furrowed brow. ‘You mean like, your old school’s biggest rivals?’

‘You know your rugby,’ he said, a little surprised.

‘Just because I don’t play it doesn’t mean I don’t follow it. But wait now. You and Bradley were set to play against them?’

‘Ja.’

‘Jeez. No pressure.’

‘Well, bru, I tried. I really did. In fact the game was going well. We were leading Pretoria at half-time. Then Bradley made this smarmy comment in the changing rooms that he’s taking up surfing, and we should go catch some waves sometime.’

I could feel his rage building. I could feel mine.

‘The second half was tight. When Bradley scored a drop goal with five minutes left in the game, we were leading Pretoria by two points, but then he’s just running around like a fucking circus pony, enjoying all the cheers from the crowd and… I just started boiling inside. We got into a scrum, and I tripped Brad, who then elbowed the Pretoria captain. Pretoria got a penalty awarded and scored successfully in like the 79th minute. So we lost, and I get red-carded for the rest of the season and everybody hates me.’

‘Aw, man. So that was what went down?’

He looked down at the floor. ‘That was just the beginning. Bradley was going at it like a prima donna about his ankle. I’m sure I didn’t trip him that badly. My dad and Patricia were fussing all over him like he’s a five year-old. When my dad saw me walk past he just glared and then turned his back on me. I was crying, Cal. I hadn’t cried since the time, one of our cats was run over and Dad told me, I swear to God, only girls cry. I ran off the field and then I saw Patricia Smythe’s car parked next to my dad’s Jaguar and next thing I had picked up a rock and began screaming and smashing both cars’ windows. I went fuckin apeshit.’

He froze, then turned and stared at me in horror. ‘Fuck. You must think I’m a real nutcase.’

I reached out to reassure him. ‘No. No I don’t. I understand why you snapped.’

He put his head in his hands. ‘The police were called. I got arrested and my dad just looked on when they carted me off. I was already eighteen so they put me in an adult holding cell.’

‘I’m so sorry, Chris,’ I said. ‘That’s awful.’

He wiped his eyes. He was babbling now, and I just let him get it all out.

‘My mom bailed me out. I’d never been so scared in my life, in that cell. It smelled so bad…all these scary guys looking at me…the charges were dropped, probably because I’d never had any record before and my dad was on the school governing body and he didn’t want to have a son with a criminal record—it would look bad for him, you see. Instead, I got stripped of being a prefect and expelled. They wouldn’t let me write my final exams either. It was so hard on my mom. She never said anything, but I knew I’d failed her.’

‘You didn’t fail her,’ I said. ‘It was a hard time for everybody. What about your brothers?’

‘Matthew’s still running the farm in the Midlands, but his daughter was about to be born, Tom lives in the UK and Andrew is, well Andrew. It’s been hard for them too. We all hero-worshipped Dad and never thought that our family would be ripped apart. Mom stopped working. She got depressed and was too embarrassed to speak to anybody. I think that’s when she started drinking, but not so much that anyone would notice She was angry, and she totally let my dad have it with the divorce. I know the settlement was like, substantial.’

‘Good for her. I like your mom.’

He gave a bitter chuckle. ‘Not that I was really aware. Katie broke up with me because suddenly I was worse than someone with fuckin’ leprosy. Matt told my Mom and I to come home to the farm. But she wanted to stay in Durban. I just couldn’t, I was too ashamed, so I went to Matt.’

‘I really like your big brother too.’

‘‘Fuckin’ saint. Grumpy-ass saint. He got me a job as a deputy manager. Paid me a small salary and I just did my own thing. But I should have stayed with Mom or all this wouldn’t have happened. I left her alone in that house, Cal… I should have noticed the boozing then and…’

He was tearful again. I wrapped my arms around him and waited for him to calm down. My mom would do the same with my dad when he got overwhelmed when she was so ill. I think he’s always going to feel guilty, because it never occurs to him that it’s okay that he needed her too.

‘Christopher, listen to me.’ His eyebrows shot up; he was not used to me saying his full name. I wasn’t used to saying his full name. ‘You’re not supposed to be the parent here.’

He clung to me. ‘Here we are with this huge house in Constantia and all this money and we’re completely miserable. No, that’s not right. I’m very much not miserable any more in many places because of you.’

He gave me a little kiss and for a moment his default sunlight was shining. I smiled and kissed him back.

‘My mom’s in hospital because of me.’

‘Stop that right now, Chris.’ He looked at me with wide eyes. Not many people get my serious treatment; my voice drops an octave and people do a double-take. ‘That’s absolute rubbish. Remember how you told me I was speaking rubbish about being a faggot that had turned you gay? Moenie fokken kak praat nie.’

‘Holy shit bru, I didn’t know an English city boy could curse like a Boerseun.’

‘My mother was a farm girl from the Free State,’ I said with a little pride. ‘Want it in English? Don’t fuckin’ talk shit. I can add it in Xhosa for good measure and could probably work out the Latin, not that we say that at Mass.’

‘You make me laugh, MacLeod. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. And I think I’d have gone much more psycho than you did. Good on you for trashing that harpy’s car who tore your family apart.’

‘What the hell is a harpy? I’m guessing it’s not a pleasant thing.’

‘Monster from Greek mythology. Very much unpleasant.’

‘I love it when you teach me stuff. One moment I don’t know anything. And then around you I feel like I know fuckin’ everything.’

‘Thanks for inflating my ego, but that’s not why we are here right now.’

‘I dunno. I fucked up, Cal. And then I met you. I thought this new year of school was going to be crap. But you—you were the first good thing to happen to me…not just in Cape Town but the best thing that’s happened to me in, God, I don’t know how long.’

Would the world please stop turning so fast, I thought.

‘Caleb MacLeod,’ he said, holding my face against his, ‘I think I…’

‘I think,’ I replied a little too quickly, ‘I think we should get to bed because it’s nearly 1 AM.’

‘Yeah,’ he said eventually. ‘Thanks for listening. I think I’m making up for all the times I should have cried since I was a kid.’

‘For a cry-baby you sure swear a lot,’ I said.

‘Grandpa Hathaway was a sailor,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘so maybe he and your mom would have gotten along.’

Since we could hear my father snoring down the corridor, we spooned on my bed for a bit, then said goodnight. He shuffled off to the guest room. I was exhausted from all the emotion and drifted off quickly.

I awoke just before six just in time to see Chris lift up my duvet and get in.

‘Sh,’ he said, with a naughty expression on his face. ‘Your dad’s still asleep. Perhaps we could cuddle for ten minutes?’

Ah, the stolen moments of young love.

* * *

Fiona was discharged the next day. I offered to come with, but he told me he’d prefer to fetch her himself. I really felt for him, having to deal with all this drama on his own. I thought of how Sarah had been there for my dad and I during the last months of Mom’s illness, doing what she does best when shit hits the fan: running around, making tea, cooking casseroles and vacuuming unnecessarily, Martha to our mother’s Mary.

It was hard, seeing couples holding hands during break. Even though no physical contact was allowed between pupils at the school, no one seemed to police it as long as nobody was found with their lips stuck against somebody else’s. What about us? Could we stare dreamily into each other’s eyes at a restaurant? Would people balk if we walked with our arms around each other in a mall? Would we be forced to conduct our relationship in side alleys and cars and seedy clubs in Green Point, being salivated at by creepy old men? I hadn’t prepared myself for all the questions our romance had brought. But I wasn’t going to run, even if I’d never get the answers.

For the moment, there was loads of work to distract me.

* * * 

‘I’m impressed,’ said Mrs Georgadis, as I got to the final bar of one of Rachmaninov’s Études-Tableaux.

‘You’ve… finally grasped the soul of this piece,’ she said. ‘Your technique has always been good, Caleb, but I’ve noticed that you’ve been hesitant, cautious even, with Romantic pieces. But now you’ve channelled all the drama and passion that makes it Russian.’

‘Thanks ma’am. This is like the easiest of his etudes though.’

‘Opus 39 No. 2 is not easy by any measure. There’s a change come over you, Caleb. I haven’t seen you smile for a long time. Excuse an old woman’s curiosity, but what’s happened? Are you in love?’

I blushed.

‘I bloody well knew it,’ she said, bending forward and interlacing her old sun-flecked hands. ‘Most boys your age would be totally distracted by all this, but I think it’s made you more focused.’

‘Um.’

‘I envy the lucky girl,’ she said. felt the blood draining away from my face.

‘Or is it a boy?’

I looked at her in shock. She had said it so matter-of-factly.

‘I’m sorry Caleb. I wasn’t insinuating anything. At my age the brain becomes sometimes disengages.’

‘It’s fine, ma’am… I…’

‘If it helps, I’m a proud Greek woman, and I think you know well many of our great mythological heroes liked men often as much as they liked women. Achilles’s love story, while way too tragic, is so much more interesting than the godforsaken heel.’

I bit my lip.

‘As long as you two are happy, whomever he or she is. Who cares what the world thinks! My Socrates taught me that.’

‘Socrates?’

‘My husband.’ She looked out of the window towards the mountain. ‘Yes, that was his name. We would have been married forty-two years this year. I’ll always remember what he told me about his namesake.’ She indicated the faux marble bust of the old Greek philosopher on the bookshelf, sitting somewhat out of place among the busts of Beethoven and Brahms. ‘Socrates of legend he was the wisest philosopher because he knew that he knew nothing.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said.

‘It didn’t to the people of Athens either. So they condemned him to death for corrupting the youth. But I guess just meant that he knew his limits. My husband improved on that. He said that because he knew his own limits, his love wouldn’t have any.’

‘That’s pretty cool.’

She smiled. ‘You know I have a cousin in Corfu who has been together with his boyfriend for twenty-four years. My husband and I visited them three years ago. Just before his heart attack.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ I said. ‘You must miss him.’

She wiped her eyes and crossed herself. I resisted the urge to do the same. ‘Every day. And you, dear child, so unnecessarily graceful after the passing of your mother...I apologise for the ramblings of an old woman. Back to work. Let’s take it from the poco piú vivo, your left hand becomes a bit uneven there.’

* * *

I had just finished the music lesson and was walking to my bike, when it occurred to me that I’d never gone to watch Chris at rugby practice. I sniggered at the thought of sitting with all the girls coming to watch their beaux play.

I sat down on one of the grandstands overlooking the field where both the second and first teams were going through rucks and mauls. I chose a spot away from where everybody else was sitting, self-consciously taking out my iPod and some books to hide the fact that I was looking at Chris. The books would also conveniently hide any boner.

He looked so sexy on the field in his rugby kit, running about like a gazelle. I was grateful for the books: I knew very well what was under his jersey and also his shorts.

‘Hi, Cal,’ said a voice. I turned around. It was Veronica, Jason’s girlfriend. I don’t think she’d ever acknowledged my existence before.

‘Hi,’ I said cautiously. ‘You um, come out to support the guys? I believe it’s the big clash against St Dominic’s next week.’

‘With them?’ she said, indicating the cheerleading crowd. ‘Yes and no.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I just hang with Tricia and the girls because she’s going out with Frank and Frank is Jason’s best friend.’ She waved nonchalantly to Tricia, who was staring at us with disapproval.

I was mesmerised by her caramel skin and jet-black hair. I couldn’t believe I was having a casual conversation with the girlfriend of my arch-nemesis.

‘Your friend is quite a talented player,’ she said, looking at Chris, who was standing in the middle of the field with arms akimbo, panting like a dog.

‘I guess,’ I said, shrugging.

‘He could very easily move up into the First Team, you know,’ she added. ‘That’s what they’re saying. And then there’s you.’

‘Me?’

‘Good luck for the provincial try-outs. Heard you guys are really sizzling on the swim team.’

She got up and gave me a wave and walked towards what was supposedly her natural habitat of mean girls. That was weird, I thought. Weird, but cool.

The players stopped for a break. Chris noticed me and waved.

‘Hey Cal!’ he called, jogging towards the stands. I walked down to the pitch.

‘Hey there.’

Little beads of sweat were dripping from his hair. His muscles were taut against his rugby jersey and the veins in his arms were huge. I could smell his sweaty body mixed with his cologne and fresh grass.

‘You came to watch your boyfriend play?’ he whispered, grinning.

‘Shh. They’ll hear.’

He became animated. ‘Oh, jeez, I nearly forgot to tell you!’

‘What?’

‘Got an A for my chemistry test. And it’s all because of you!’

‘I knew you could do it’. I high-fived him. Frank walked past us to the drinking fountain, frowning.‘Ignore him,’ said Chris. ‘Listen, I have lots of news… all good, just a lot to talk about. So, um… I was thinking…’

‘Yeah?’ He looked all bashful.

‘Would you go out with me tomorrow night? I thought we should, you know, have our first official, well, date.’

A delicious dizziness overtook me.

‘Holy shit,’ I said, incredulous. ‘I’ve never been asked out before.’

‘Cal?’

I couldn’t contain my grin now. ‘Hell yeah! That would be awesome.’

‘Maybe pizza and a movie? I know, that’s like so old and lame, but…’

‘It sounds perfect,’ I said. ‘But I choose the movie. There’s a great sci-fi horror showing. Don’t worry, I will protect you.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘I will comply, Seven of Mine.’

The coach whistled for the guys to get back on the field.

I don’t quite remember cycling home, I was in such a heady blur of happiness. I knew nothing about the world, but I knew everything about the universe.