Stronger Than Lions - 16. Rugby, Telescopes, Champagne

The Easter weekend was almost upon us. The traditional rugby match between St Francis our ancient rivals, St Dominic’s, fell on Maundy Thursday. School was to finish early and the matches would commence at noon, with the First Team kicking off at three. I was more interested in the Second XV as my man would be playing.

St Frank’s hadn’t won the game in over five years and the Wolves were baying for blood. I couldn’t wait for the holiday that followed. For two weeks there would be no school—which meant Chris and I could be alone during the day.

On the day of the match, we managed a quick snog in the back of the science lab after classes finished, under the pretence of helping Mrs Pillay put the reagents back in the chemical store.

‘I’ll be right in front,’ I said as he walked out. ‘Go get them, Number One.’

By the time the Second XV’s game kicked off the stands were full. Rob had improvised his own ‘Rugby for Idiots’ schematic for Bella to follow, neatly printed out on an A4 sheet that he’d even laminated.

‘I didn’t know you were into rugby,’ she said to Rob, reading the cheat sheet. ‘This is nicely explained too. Cal obviously has his reasons now, but you, Mr Jordan?’

‘It’s all reducible to equations. The rules are fascinating. Did you know the difference between rugby union and rugby league involves…’

‘Sh. Chris’s team is coming on!’

The game was tight, with both teams sharing possession of the ball until the second half, when St Frank’s gradually gained the upper hand.

It was hypnotic watching him. He was playing his heart out. I’d previously thought of rugby as a disorganised bout of mass wrestling, but watching him run and kick and tackle turned the game into a muscular ballet.

I was shouting myself hoarse as he kicked a successful drop goal and helped inch St Frank’s to a 14-12 victory. If the First Team won, we would have trounced St Dominic’s in all games except one.

‘Is he going to get lucky tonight?’ Bella whispered into my ear as the Seconds ran around the field waving to the crowd.

She giggled as my cheeks flushed.

We ambled to the entrance of the changing rooms, hoping to say hi to Chris. In a little while he emerged, freshly-showered and looking extremely cute in his tracksuit.

‘You were great,’ I said, trying with all my might not to reach out and hug or kiss him.

‘Not too shabby,’ added Bella. ‘But tell me, what do your teammates get up to in the changing room, when you’re already so homoerotic on the field?’

‘That’s for you and your fan-fiction to decide online,’ said Chris. ‘I’ll rather take my homoeroticism with this beautiful man right here.’

He mussed my hair, my friends laughed, and we walked back to the stand. Tricia was leading the St Frank’s appreciation machine with an elaborate display of gymnastics that was bordering on contortionism. I begrudgingly thought it was pretty impressive.

If the previous game had been exciting, the First Team clash was a white-knuckle ride.

In the 70th minute Mike Delport, our star fly-half, deftly scooped the ball from the scrum-half. It looked like he was setting up a magnificent try when, almost in slow motion, we saw him shift all his weight onto his left foot.

There was a horrible snapping sound. Mike fell to the ground groaning, grabbing his ankle. Bewildered players crowded around him and medics raced onto the field. He had torn his Achilles tendon. He was carried off the field groaning in pain.

As gameplay resumed, the crowd was eerily quiet until Frank Arliss sneaked the winning try across the line. It took a couple of seconds for everyone to register that we had won.

Frank ran triumphant around the field, beating his chest. The team hoisted him up and the crowd’s screams were deafening.

I couldn’t believe I was applauding him. St Francis had broken its five-year curse.

* * *

Like the cafeteria Catholic I am, I became hastily devout during Holy Week.

I’ve tried, but I’ve neither been able to swallow the dogma wholesale nor wash the Church out of my system completely. Perhaps it dyed my soul as a child. Even after science and psychology bleached away most of the guilt and self-castigation, there’s this faint residue of something that remains, something beautiful, something terrifying.

‘What do you want to do for your birthday, son?’ said my father as we drove home from the Good Friday service.

I hadn’t thought of doing anything at all, and it would be in exactly a week’s time.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s your eighteenth. You’re on holiday. We should definitely celebrate. How about we go out for dinner somewhere nice, maybe try that new place by the Waterfront? Invite everyone you want.’

‘Sounds good,’ I said, staring out of the window. I was preoccupied with my decision not to take Communion. Somehow, I was not “pure of heart” anymore, as if what had happened with Chris made me a reprobate.

Much later that evening, I was lying on my bed reading when I heard something hit the window. I ignored it, but then it happened again. Irritated, I got up to investigate. I opened the window and peered out.

‘Cal!’ came a loud whisper.

I looked down. Chris was hiding in one of the bushes at the base of the big tree outside, mischief rampant on his face.

He clambered up the tree and within moments scrambled up to the branch outside my window.

‘You’re going to fall off and kill yourself, you idiot!’

In a single fluid movement, he stepped over onto the sill and hauled himself into my room.

‘Hello,’ he said beaming drawing me into a hug.

‘How was that even possible?’

‘I’ve had loads of practice sneaking into houses. I missed you, so I thought I’d come say goodnight.’

I couldn’t help swooning a little.

We flopped on the bed and cuddled for a while, checking every so often for my father’s snoring.

‘Does he suspect anything?’ said Chris.

‘I don’t think so. But how long can we keep this a secret?’

‘Shit, bru, I never thought how difficult some of this would be. It’s really hard for me not to, like, hold hands with you in public.’

‘I know. I wanted to jump you yesterday after the rugby match. You’re so hot on the field.’

‘Aw.’ He ran his fingers through my hair.

‘What about your mom?’ I asked. ‘Does she… would she…’

‘I dunno about your old man but my mom’s pretty open-minded. Though I don’t think she’s aware of anything. She really likes you, you know.’

‘I’m so shit scared.’

‘Me too, bru. Maybe it’ll get easier, when we’re done with school. But now we have two weeks.’ He let out an evil mad scientist chuckle. ‘So I believe someone is turning eighteen next week? I hope we’re celebrating!’

‘Ja, how about that. It hasn’t really been on my mind. But my dad was suggesting we go out for dinner.’

‘Abso-fuckin’-lutely. And I’m buying you your first official legal drink.’

‘You’re on. Speaking of which—um,’

‘Hm?’

‘How’s your mom?’

‘She’s okay,’ said Chris, shrugging. ‘She hasn’t touched a drop since that night. Said she’s going to start going to AA meetings as well.’

‘That’s progress. How’s this going down with you?’

‘I’ll be okay. But my dad’s still coming to Cape Town just after the holidays and he wants to see me.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I’m like so confused. I miss him but I’m so angry with him.’

I had to fight hard to not voice my opinion that Chris’s dad was a complete fuckwit.

‘When last did you see him?’

‘Just before Christmas. The whole new Land Rover saga. Matt said it’s still on the farm gathering dust. Maybe I should tell my brother to should sell it and give the money to charity or something.’

‘Your dad probably thinks you’re ungrateful, when all you were doing was letting him know that you don’t approve of what he did. Which was entirely the correct response.’

‘Thanks, Cal. I don’t know who else I can talk to about this. But never mind my shit. How was church?’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Long, as usual. Tiring. Good Friday is never the happiest occasion. My dad takes the whole fasting thing seriously. Grandma MacLeod was hard-line. He still has fish on Fridays, though it’s not compulsory.’

‘That’s harsh. Do you guys do the whole Easter Vigil shebang?’

‘Yeah. Highlight of the liturgical year. But it takes hours, dude. People with ADHD don’t do well. I hear it’s even worse if you’re in the Orthodox Church.’

‘You’re funny. Do you think, uh, I could come with you tomorrow night? I’ve always wanted to see what it’s about. I was raised Anglican which is like Catholic-lite but I’d be interested to see the source.’

‘We might burst into flames when we walk in.’

He laughed. ‘Well, it’s not like you burst into flames when you jerked off for the very first time. And I know what your church says about that.’

‘Ha. The guilt starts the moment you grow your first pubic hair. I don’t even know what I believe anymore. I feel like such a fake sometimes.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m clinging to all these traditions… but it’s like they make less and less sense the more I learn about the world.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Chris, putting an arm around me. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever believed in anything. But I don’t think it’s fake to want to have those traditions. There’s pretty stuff, and if it gives people comfort…’

‘I feel safe inside a church,’ I said. I became aware of strange ache inside my gut.

‘What’s wrong, Cal?’

‘It’s just, you know, apart from Christmas, until today I hadn’t been inside a church since… since…’

‘Your mom’s funeral,’ he said, drawing me in closer. ‘It’s okay.’ He kissed the side of my head.

Sometimes the smallest of gestures have titanic effects. His small kiss, was softer than the flutter of a hummingbird’s wing, but sent my whole body into spasm. I let out a wild, searing sob. I barely had the presence of mind to bury my head in his shirt to muffle the sound. His arms tightened around me as I the tears came.

‘Let it out,’ he whispered. ‘I’m here.’

‘I’m so fucking angry,’ I managed haphazardly between sobs. ‘Why did she have to get so sick? Why her? Why would God make her suffer like that?’

He didn’t say anything, but continued holding me. I let the wave of emotion carry me where it wanted; somehow I felt I finally could.

‘Your shirt,’ I said, sniffing. ‘Again.’

‘At your service, Seven of Mine.’

He pulled his white tee off and wiped my face with it. I inhaled the dark fragrance of his scent; an opiate to my pain inside.

‘You can soak any of my shirts, any time,’ he said with a little smile. ‘Come here.’ He lay back and gently pulled my head onto his warm bare chest. He stroked my hair as my breathing gradually calmed.

‘I haven’t cried… about… my mom until... until now.’

‘Matt says everybody’s different. It’s just your time now. I’m glad you’re letting things out.’

‘You know, I don’t even know if God exists right now but I’m still angry with Him.’

‘I’d be kinda pissed off too. Are you feeling a little better, tbough, or do I need to find another shirt?’

‘Better,’ I said with a weak smile. I was now in that torpor you get into after having had a good cry, where every breath is a deep gulp of air, and the world around you seems to disintegrate into a million little points, like one of those paintings by Seurat my mom loved.

I yawned.

‘Sleepy, hey?’ he said. He lifted up the duvet and motioned me to get in. I don’t think I’d been tucked in since I was eight years old. He got in next to me and held me. ‘I’ll stay here until you fall asleep.’

* * *

It would be easy to imagine that, as far as things physical were concerned, Chris and I went from zero to two hundred miles per hour… especially with a vacation ahead of us with no parents interfering. But it didn’t happen that way. It went very slowly. And it didn’t seem to bother either of us. We were still courting each other that autumn: there was a shyness in everything, even as the contours of his body became as familiar to me as my own. Something had deepened too, as we shared our secrets with each other, him anguishing over his parents’ break-up, me trying to make sense of a lake of sorrows of which I had yet to plumb the depths.

It was difficult to decide whether we were behaving as best friends or as lovers. One moment we’d be in the car staring dreamily into each other’s eyes, the next we’d be tossing a ball about on the beach like any two friends our age. It didn’t matter—it all felt good.

My birthday arrived. Rob and Chris and Bella and I spent the morning on Clifton beach. We laughed at the foreigners who were braving the Atlantic, instantly and cruelly disabused of their belief that because they were in Africa, temperatures were a uniform blood-heat everywhere. We drove up to the amusement park in Century City and rode all the thrill rides. Chris had too much candy floss and the sugar made him bounce about like a Jack Russell on crystal meth. Bella shocked us by looking extremely bored on every ride and taking pictures with her new megapixel phone. Mid-roller coaster, Rob puked up blue Slush Puppie on an very loud American girl. I was delighted: she had been telling everybody in earshot how she was spending her gap year “in Africa”, saving all the children in Khayelitsha from the scourge of genetically modified crops with her involvement in an organic vegetable planting programme.

Chris dropped me off at my house in the afternoon. Dad had organised supper with my buddies and the family at a restaurant on the Waterfront.

‘Had a good day so far?’ asked my father as I entered the house.

‘It’s been great, Dad.’

‘Go up to your room. There’s a little something there for you.’

I entered my bedroom and then I saw it: sleek and shiny, pointing out the window to the heavens.

It was a telescope—not just any amateur telescope, but the sexy apochromatic refractor I’d always dreamt about.

I ran around like an excited little boy, imagining the moons of Jupiter and faraway globular clusters.

‘Like it?’ said my father walking in with a smirk on his face.

I tackled him with a hug. ‘This is awesome. Thank you so much!’

‘Happy birthday, laddie,’ he said, squeezing my shoulder. ‘Your mum and I discussed this a while ago, so it’s from both of us. She was adamant that you get it for your eighteenth.’

His voice was cracking, and he quickly changed the subject. ‘I can’t believe my boy is now a man,’ he said, looking away.

‘Aw, Dad. I still feel the same.’

‘It was like that for me too. But I can pinpoint the exact moment I felt fully grown-up for the first time.’

‘When was that?’

‘The day your sister was born. When I held her in my arms for the first time.’

The secret was out; Devon MacLeod was a six-foot, two-inch anthropomorphic kitten merely masquerading as a gruff suburban dentist.

‘I’ll leave you and your new girlfriend to get acquainted. Sarah’s picking us up at seven, so be ready.’

* * *

We—the gang, Dad, Sarah, Dave and I—had a lazy, chatty dinner looking out at the harbour lights.

‘Veuve Cliquot?’ I said. ‘That’s like very expensive, Dad!’

‘It’s not every day a child of mine grows up,’ he said. ‘And bugger it, I’ve gotten us the vintage stuff. Your mother had expensive taste in champagne, so I figured, why not?’

Chris rapped a knife against a glass and stood up with a ditzy smile on his face. He looked adorable in his preppy shirt and boot-cut jeans.

‘I know I’ve only been part of this posse for a short while, but I’d like to propose a toast to my new best friend Caleb.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Rob.

‘Cal, now that you’re legal, you’re going to need wingmen, three to be exact, so this is just to say that Rob and Bella and I will be there to bail you out of jail whenever and wherever, no questions asked.’

The crowd laughed.

‘So, Cal, I’m guessing this is your first official glass of champagne. And I know you’re quite the astronomer, and did you know the two are linked? I did some reading up and I found out how champagne was discovered by accident. There were like these monks who left some wine in a cave and it fermented. One of them tasted the stuff and the legend has it he said, “Come quick, I’m tasting the stars!” So… Cal, I know that you won’t only taste the stars but that you’ll reach them and put them in your back pocket. Happy Birthday.’

I wanted to get up right there and hold him close and kiss him forever. I knocked back the Veuve in a gulp as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” in English and Xhosa, as was our family tradition. The dryness of the Veuve made my eyes water, but I could taste it was good stuff. I

I opened my presents. Rob had gotten me a copy of a new space shoot-em-up I’d been wanting and a bottle of appropriately 18-year-old Scotch single malt. He’d written in his card that every gentleman gamer needed to sip something sophisticated when blowing up a planet or conceding the loss of his imperial navy. Bella gave me a set of mother-of-pearl cufflinks and a year’s digital subscription to Scientific American. Sarah (and supposedly Dave) had bought me the complete six seasons of Star Trek: Voyager remastered on Blu-Ray.

I got up to go to the bathroom. On my return, Chris caught me walking back to where we had been sitting on the terrace overlooking the waterfront.

‘Hey,’ he said, giving me a clandestine hug. ‘Come walk with me a bit.’

I followed him past the rows of restaurant tables onto one of the piers. Myriad coloured lights were dancing on the dark water as we settled against the railing.

‘This is for you,’ he said, handing me a large parcel.

Carefully, I opened it. It was a massive book about the history of the constellations.

‘Oh my God, Chris. This is beautiful.’ I paged through it, letting out a little gasp. The rich illustrations and photographs cleverly paired old etchings and medieval drawings with the latest high-resolution pictures of space taken with deep-field telescopes.

‘I wrote a little something in it,’ he said.

I turned to the frontispiece. In his spidery hand, he had written:

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star”—Friedrich Nietzsche.

To Cal, the man who has taught me to look at the stars. Happy Birthday, With love, Chris.

I flung my arms around him and kissed him furiously.

I didn’t see my father coming up to us until his hands were on my shoulders, pulling us apart.

‘What's going on here?’

‘Dad!’ I felt nauseous. No, no, no.

‘Dr MacLeod...’ Chris backed away, his hands up, submissive. My father’s face was red. He lunged forward and grabbed Chris by the shoulders.

‘What do you think you’re doing with my son?’ he growled.

I forced myself between them. ‘It’s not what you think, Dad!'

‘I think you should leave, Chris,’ said my father quietly.

‘Dad!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Chris, eyes downcast. He turned around and jogged away.

I ran after him but my father grabbed me by my collar.

‘Caleb, wait. I’m only trying to protect you.’

‘Let me go!’

I tore myself away from him and he staggered backwards, shouting and swearing. I ran off, trying to catch up with Chris, who was walking quickly towards the plaza opposite the main restaurant strip. In the distance I could see my friends and family staring at the commotion.

My face was hot and my eyes were blurred with rage and tears, so I didn’t see the tourist bus swinging around the corner of the access road in front of the pier.

The last thing I remember was hitting the cement and seeing the lights of the harbour upside down.