Stronger Than Lions - 23. Downtime

Fiona found a clinic with an intensive six week program half an hour south of the city. We fetched Chris the day before his mother started treatment. He looked pretty shaken when they said goodbye.

Chris moved into Sarah’s old room—at least, this was the official story that, I suppose, would help my father sleep soundly.

And I do think Devon MacLeod was sleeping more soundly. Ever my little tumble at the Waterfront, a little brightness had appeared in my father’s eyes. The pictures of my mom were back on his nightstand. He had put them away when she died. When I noticed them again it felt like a small cold hand reached in and took hold of my heart and squeezed; it left its tiny thermal imprint there for several days.

Chris had had no further contact with his father, although Patricia saw fit to rain a torrent of histrionic texts down on my boyfriend. At Bella’s suggestion, he replied to all of them with ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

It was the night before the First Team Camp, which was held every year at the school farm near Clanwilliam up the West Coast. I tried very hard not to be an anxious other half, recalling the rumours of idiocy that supposedly happened on this testosterone-soaked weekend of mud and sweat and team-building exercises.

‘I’ll be a good boy,’ said Chris, as we cuddled the night before. He was rubbing me behind my ears and I groaned.

‘You’d make me sign my life away when you do that,’ I sighed. He pressed his hard-on against me and this withered any concerns.

‘Not fair,’ I murmured. ‘Taking advantage of me like that. Hope you enjoy your manly weekend with all the manly men in the jungle.’

‘It’s the fuckin’ Karoo in the middle of winter and you’re hotter than any of them, bru. Plus, I’ll be pretty pent up for you when I come back,’ he added, sniggering. ‘So spare a thought for me, all lonely in the frozen wastelands, pining for my man.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, not-so-secretly turned on.

Chris sat up. ‘I nearly forgot... Matt phoned me earlier today.’

‘Your big brother?’

‘It was so weird, bru. Told me he loves me and that he’s basically written my dad off. He’s very worried about Mom and was whipping himself for not coming down earlier. He was nearly on the next plane down from Durban.’

‘I knew he was a good man.’

‘Yeah. But I told him there’s no point coming down now while the clinic does its lockdown thing. So Matt’s coming down in two weeks, when she can have visitors.’

‘I think you need to see him as much as she does. He basically has been the father you needed all this time.'

‘You're right. He... also says he’s really looking forward to meeting you.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. Matt comes across traditional and stuff, but he shoots from the hip. He’d have told me if he weren’t happy. Even said he’ll speak to Tom and Andy. Though God knows where Andy is right now. I got an email from him two weeks ago saying that he’d met some French girl in Cambodia and that they were going to go island hopping in Vietnam.’

‘Lucky bastard. Didn’t you think of like, getting away from it all last year, you know, when things went pear-shaped?’

‘Nah, not really. My mom like suggested it, even said she’d fund it, but I figured I be more miserable on my own. There many places I want to see, Cal. But, you know, I’d like to see them with you.’

‘You know just how to charm a guy. Are we like living in a romance novel right now?’

‘If that’s so, I’m not sure if I want to hug the author for bringing us together or kick him in the nuts for all the kak he's put us through.’

‘Welcome to my relationship with God,’ I said. ‘My mom actually said that God wasn’t so much good or evil but a writer with deadlines, and that all this shit happens because he’s got to keep the story interesting.’

‘I’ll give you something interesting,’ he said, and grabbed my hand and stuffed it down his boxers.

So there we were: one rugby player nursing a bruised heart, one swimmer massaging a cramp in his soul. We no longer felt like teenagers but neither could we call ourselves men—not yet, not quite yet. We more innocent and callow in our lovemaking that winter than either of us expected.

And yes, it was lovemaking, even if it never ventured beyond whatever third base was supposed to be—we had entered each other’s souls long before any physical part of our bodies felt the need to do the same.

* * *

If I’m being honest, I was glad to have Chris away for the rugby weekend. I had luxuriated perhaps a little too much in the thought that he was staying with me for a whole month—sharing my bed when nobody looked!—and I needed to remind myself how grumpy I could get if I didn’t have my moments of silence.

The First Team left directly after school ended on Friday. I couldn’t help smiling as I saw him getting high fives from his teammates as he stepped into the chartered bus.

I wrote and passed my learner’s licence exam the next morning, and then spent the afternoon getting my hands used to Chopin’s Berceuse, also known as that time a composer tried to write a lullaby but somehow ended up shepherding all that was gentle and patient and kind in the universe into 71 bars of D flat major. (Sometimes the left hand does, in fact, know what the right hand is doing, it just doesn't care: in this case, the left was repeating the same languid pattern throughout the entire piece, bobbing lazily up and down like a boat on a calm sea, while the right unfurled sail after sail of luxuriant song.)

‘That’s beautiful, laddie,’ said my dad, as I ended a slow but passable rendition of the Berceuse nearly three hours later.

I stiffened at the keyboard. ‘Um. Thanks.’

‘Sorry. I know you hate people watching you when you practise.’

‘It’s fine, Dad,’ I lied, and turned myself around to face him. Einstein got up from where he had been dozing on the couch and jumped onto my lap, demanding attention. He was the only one who was allowed to keep me company when I practised.

‘Have you heard from Chris?’ he asked, as I tickled the old cat’s ears. My father was standing casually in the doorway, sipping from a mug of coffee.

‘Got a text from him earlier. He says the reception is crap on the farm but they seem to having a good time. They had to get up at five this morning and hike up a mountain.’

‘And now they’re probably doing the whole kum-bay-ya thing this evening round a campfire,’ said my dad, smirking. ‘So I was wondering…’

‘Ja?’

‘You and I haven’t really had any father-son time. Not that we’ve ever been good at that.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I thought maybe we could, I don’t know, hang out a bit as you call it. Get something to eat and have a beer or two?’

‘That sounds great. Although it would be a bit weird.’

‘What would be weird, laddie?’

‘Us drinking while Chris’s mom is in rehab.’

He blew out his cheeks. ‘It’s not the alcohol per se that’s the problem. It’s what you use it for.’

‘I know, Dad.’

‘You and Chris are young, and I know all guys get shit-faced in their youth now and then, hell, I did frequently. Just, but promise me one thing, Caleb.’

‘Ja?’

‘I don’t care what time it is, or where you are, or what happened. If you’ve had at the tipple you don’t drive. You call your old man and I’ll come out, no questions asked. The extends to any of your friends, too.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘Promise me!’

‘I promise. Jeez.’

‘Good show. Cause we’ve got to get you driving soon. I was thinking—you should have your mother’s car. If that would be okay with you. Or we could trade it in for another, if it’s too many memories.’

Mom’s little blue Honda Civic had been whiling away months in the garage, only being started once in a while by my dad to keep the battery going. Lately Einstein had taken to sleeping on its roof, something he never did when Mom was alive.

‘Wow, Dad. Thanks.’

‘That’s settled, then. So when you’re finished your practising, let’s take a walk over to Forries?’

‘Awesome. We can watch the Stormers game, it starts at four.’

My father regarded me curiously. ’I’m not going to tease you about your sudden interest in rugby,’ he said, ‘but I find myself thinking if you dated a footballer I could finally get you to watch a Man United game.’

‘Dad,’ I groaned.

‘It’s my job to embarrass you at least once a day.’

‘You’re succeeding admirably. Although… Dad…’

‘Yes, my boy?’

‘Thanks. For everything. For trying. For being so cool about me and Chris.’

‘It's nothing, laddie. It’s actually been nice having another person in the house. And for heaven’s sake tell your boyfriend he can stop sneaking back into your sister’s old room at sparrow’s fart. Really. Just close your door.’

I palmed my face as I blushed and heard my father walk away, chuckling to himself.

* * *

We sat drinking draughts and talking about all sorts of things. There was an urgency in the way my father spoke, as if he were making up for all the time that we had been emotionally disconnected.

He was halfway through his steak and chips when he he became serious. ’Caleb. I hope Chris’s mum and I didn’t embarrass you guys too much last week when we had that conversation…about, you know, birds and bees.’

‘I appreciate it, as weird as it was. This is all new.’

‘May I ask, have you ever, you know, been with a girl? With anyone?’

I squirmed a little. ‘No, Dad.’

‘If it’s anything to you, I only crossed that bridge in my twenties.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Mom always implied that you were one of the popular guys at varsity, as horrifying as that image might be.’

‘Ha. Grandma cast a lot of guilt on me and your Aunt Betty. And your grandfather never spoke about things like that. But then I met your mother, and that was that.’

‘I hope I...we... can have something like you and Mom had.’

‘Looks promising, from where I’m sitting. Of course, I thought it would be a girl.’

I shrugged. ‘What can I say?’

‘When did you know?’ he asked.

Perhaps it was the second half-pint of Hoegaarden, but the frankness of the conversation wasn’t awkward any more. ‘You know I read a lot,’ I said. ‘I read about that Kinsey guy’s research in the fifties. Mom’s fault for putting the adult books within reach on the shelf.’

‘Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Actually, I bought that one when I was a student.’

‘No way.’

‘The moment I started dental school I promised myself I’d learn more about the world. I so wanted to travel after I finished high school. But that was never going to be an option: it was varsity or join the seminary. Thank God your mother forced me to take off after I graduated and we spent those six months in Europe.’

I thought of the photo albums of my parents abroad, carefree, Dad in awful 70s clothes, Mom with gratuitously long hair: Paris, , Seville, the Dordogne, Lake Como, the Cliffs of Moher, my father’s ancestral village on the Isle of Skye. A parallel universe.

‘Then Sarah came,’ he said. ‘Made in Italy. In Venice, to be exact. I can picture the hotel room so clearly…’

‘Ew. Dad. Gross.’

‘Sorry laddie, sorry. Jesus, that day we found out, we’d travelled all the way down and were in Sorrento, this tiny Italian doctor babbling away, and all I could muster was some broken French. I first thought she’d caught a tummy bug, she was puking so much. And then before we knew it we were back in Cape Town with your beautiful sister.’

I frowned.

‘What’s wrong, son?’

‘It’s just... I dunno. I’m thinking about you and Mom, having me and Sarah... and it may be I may never pass on the family name.’

My father gave me a distant, sage look. ‘Caleb. You’re such a serious kid. Don’t weigh yourself down with that now, my boy when you’ve only just started…’

‘Whomever you end up with in the long term—and I’m not suggesting you and Christopher don’t have that potential—I’d love to be a grandpa, sure, but don’t ever feel pressured to carry on some sort of’ —he made air quotes— ‘line. Plus there are many other ways to have children if your plumbing is the same.’

‘Dad, jeez.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Grandma must be spinning in her grave.’

‘Ha!’ he chortled. ‘Don’t underestimate old battleaxes. I think she would have understood.’

‘As long as you said your prayers,’ I said, smiling, remembering her Bible laden with pressed flowers and novenas to myriad saints.

‘As long as you said your prayers,’ my dad echoed.

I raised my glass. ‘To Grandma.’

‘Sláinte!’ said my tipsy father, recalling the smattering of Gaelic he had learned from his mother.

* * *

Chris arrived back late on Sunday afternoon, filthy and exhausted.

I had my fun stripping him summarily in the bathroom and marching his rank hide into the shower. (Of course I washed him myself. Over and over again.) Afterwards we went to the kitchen where he wolfed down a pizza, damp and fresh and clad only in a towel, while I dumped his festering laundry into the washing machine and selected the hottest cycle.

I tucked him into bed soon after.

'I want to sleep for a fuckin' century, bru,' he said as he settled himself, eyes heavy. It wasn't yet seven.

'Was it worth it?' I asked. 'Are you all a band of World Cup winning brothers now? Should John Williams write the soundtrack for the documentary or are we going more for a Hans Zimmer vibe?'

'I don't know,' he said, stifling a yawn, 'but I know two things: one, you're hilarious, and two, I fuckin' missed you so bad.'

'Your dick certainly missed me, that's for sure,' I said, reaching down to give him a little pat there. 'Thank god we were in the shower, because that was the biggest load I've ever seen. I swear, you could use that for jet propulsion in space or something. Cum propulsion.'

'Fuckin' hell, Seven of Mine,' he snorted. 'Maybe that's why we call it the Milky Way.'

It was my turn to laugh. 'Good one,' I said, and mussed his golden locks. 'Now go the fuck to sleep!'

'What, no cuddles?' he said, managing to pout and yawn simultaneously.

'You've had your Chris time, I'm having my Cal time.'

'Mm. Love you.'

'Love you too, Number One.'

He closed his eyes and drifted off.

As he started snoring I kissed him on his forehead, switched off the lights, and left to go to the movies with Rob and Bella.