David Begins Graduate Study Pt. 02

The New Chaplain

The new college chaplain, Edward Bairstow, decided, early in May, round about the anniversary of my engagement to Jon, to invite the chapel choir members to a drinks party in his rooms in college. He was not originally from Camford: he had done his degree at St Boniface's sister college in Oxbridge, and had come to the college as a junior fellow to do a Ph.D. and to tutor undergraduates reading theology. He was unmarried, but not gay, although a lot of Camford chaplains were. (In fact he did later get married). He was about 30, having read Greek and Hebrew as an undergraduate, and then had two years preparing for ordination at a well-known high church theological college (well known for gay ministry candidates presenting themselves as celibate). He had spent three years as a curate in London before deciding to resume his theological studies. The Diocese of London has for many years had a high proportion of gay clergy and he was very sympathetic to homosexuals of both sexes (not that the college had any Lesbian students at that time).

He came round and talked to all twenty-four choir members individually about ourselves and our futures. As a result of that evening, I arranged to go and talk to him about my spiritual development, and about my future. In particular, I wanted to talk to him about gay marriage, a concept that seemed very novel at that time. It was the first time that I had ever had any inclination to discuss sexuality with a member of the clergy, and it was entirely due to the character of this guy, whom I felt was young enough to be able to give understanding and useful spiritual advice, and with whom I might be able to become friends.

I went to his rooms in college by appointment one evening at 5 pm. He offered me a glass of Madeira, which I accepted with enthusiasm, because it suggested that we shared similar tastes. He asked me how I saw my spiritual development over the next few years, and how they might affect my life in general. I said that I hoped to remain steadfast in prayer and sacrament, and that I would strive by my love, my prayers and my example to bring my lover to faith, but I feared that it would not be an easy job. The Chaplain, who at the beginning of the conversation asked me to call him by his Christian name, then put me on the spot by asking, "What would happen if you were asked to choose between your faith in Jesus Christ, and your love for your boyfriend?"

I replied: "I am an honest person, so I have to admit that my love for Jonathan would prevail, but I recognize that that love is itself a gift from God, to whom I owe the most precious gift that He can give, next to His Son, the gift of the man I love. Every night I thank Him for that. Moreover," I continued, "I think your question is a bit unfair. How could a God who is Love ever make such a demand on me?"

"I think the answer to that is that you are elevating the second commandment of loving your neighbour above the first and great commandment," he replied.

"But the second commandment is LIKE the first," I answered, "and what about Abou Ben Adhem then in Leigh Hunt's poem, whom God blessed because he loved his fellow men?"

"I don't think that Leigh Hunt could be described as a reliable spiritual guide, any more than his friends Byron and Shelley!" Edward replied.

My reply was that I trusted in God, who understands and sympathizes with our weakness, and loves us as we are, and that it would be blasphemous to accuse such a God of bringing misfortune or evil on us. I also said, "Isn't it your job to counsel us in periods of adversity rather than to put our faith to trial?"

"All right," Edward laughed, "enough of Camford debate. What do YOU want to talk about?"

"Homosexuality," I said. "I don't want to discuss it from a scriptural point of view: I know all those arguments back to front. You have served a curacy in London, and everyone knows that London has a lot of gay clergy. I understand and agree that marriage is an institution for heterosexual partnerships. But why should the church not be prepared to officially bless same-sex relationships, using a rite totally different from the marriage service? I've read Aelred's book 'Spiritual Friendship' and I know that Christian same-sex friendship has a long and respectable history, and I have heard that rites did once exist to bless male friendships."

"Yes, and I have used such a rite several times to bless same-sex unions in private ceremonies in London."

"And did you have your incumbent's permission to carry out such rites?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, "he is a man of considerable wisdom and he sees the pastoral care of gays and lesbians as a vital part of the church's ministry. But at the same time, we have always insisted that because same-sex unions are not legally recognized that any blessing of them must be a private ceremony."

"Edward," I said, "you have restored my confidence in the Church of England! I was beginning to fear that it was falling into the hands of men who wanted to turn it into a loveless institution. I've heard of men like me being told to 'pray away the gay.' I thank God with all my heart that I am in such a civilized place as this University! You must come round and have dinner with us and meet my lover Jonathan. You will have a lot to talk about." We arranged a date for the following week, subject to Jon being available.

I went home feeling very happy, some small niggles of my conscience having been allayed. Jon seemed quite happy at entertaining a clergyman, and began to plan a simple, quick and enjoyable menu, with a litre bottle of one of our favourite Italian wines.

Chapter 14 David

A Dinner Party

The Reverend Edward Bairstow came to dinner at our flat in Fountain Street on a Tuesday in late May. He rang the bell, and I lifted the door phone and asked him to come upstairs. Jon came out of the kitchen and I introduced him to Edward, and I poured out three glasses of Prosecco. Jon started his glass, but put it down to see to things in the kitchen. He was cooking fish, which was not time-consuming, but did require his constant attention. Prosecco is made near Trieste in Venezia-Giulia and I asked Edward if he knew Italy at all. It turned out that he was a regular visitor to Italy and was particularly fond of Bologna, where he had studied for a few months one summer when up at Oxbridge.

Jon served up dinner. I asked Edward to say grace, which I normally did silently. He said the full college grace in Latin. We began with a pâté starter (bought in, not home-made), for which I opened the litre bottle of Orvieto. We moved on to the fish, which Jon had cooked with a shrimp sauce, seasonal vegetables and new potatoes, continuing with the same wine. We ended the meal continuing the Italian theme, with tiramisu, bought in from the local supermarket.

Since we had established that all of us were lovers of Italy, we talked during the meal about that land, and got on to religion via the two ancient churches in Ravenna. "How would you rate your theological position?" Jon asked Edward. "I mean how do you stand on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, priesthood of women, euthanasia, celibacy, working mothers and so on? Do you believe in vegetarianism, fasting, meditation or auricular confession? And perhaps most important of all, do any of these things really matter? As an atheist, I think religion is a lot of fuss about nothing, but I accept that since the man I love finds it so important, I must at least respect it."

"Your question about relevance is the most important," said Edward, "but the others are all matters that affect our everyday life, and therefore are also important, because unless you take a postmodernist view, religion is something that affects every aspect of our lives from cleaning our teeth to feeding the cat. In most of the areas that you mention, I think that you would describe me as a liberal."

Jon smiled. "What about the authority of the Bible? After all, doesn't Paul forbid same-sex relationships?"

"He also forbids women to have uncovered hair in churches," said Edward, "but not many people nowadays think that is important. But you will bore David to yawns if you pursue that particular line of discussion!"

The discussion over various topics carried on for about an hour, while we drank coffee and then port. It reached no conclusion, but it was obvious that Jon and Edward liked one another, and for me that was the most important outcome of the evening. Round about 11-30, Edward left to return to college, and we began to wash up. Jon said that he had decided to buy a dishwasher for the flat (there was one already installed in the new house, but we had not run it yet).

"I like your new Chaplain," he said. "Just before he left, he asked me to sit next to him at high table on Sunday. I hope he doesn't try to hold my hand! You'd better go to the pub with the choir on Sunday. Edward said something about him taking me for coffee and drinks in the SCR or his rooms."

"I'm glad that you like him," I said. "I think the college is very lucky to have him." I was hoping that if the two of them could find a rapport, then Edward might help Jon discover his true self, which I thought was a Christian self.

"He looked pretty fit," said Jon, "so I asked him what he did to keep fit. He told me that he walked, cycled and played squash. It turns out that he regularly plays squash with the President's husband. I suggested to him that he tries to persuade that man to moderate his attitude to gays. Then he told me the reason for the attitude. It turns out that one of the guy's sons came out as gay while at Oxbridge, and he blames the academics for not keeping an eye on him. He seems convinced that some older man in his college 'led him astray'!"

"What claptrap!" I said, "If a boy is old enough to go away from home to University, he's old enough to make his own decisions about his sexuality. You don't need much sex education to know whether you fancy fucking a man or being fucked by one, or whether you are merely interested in women! And there's nothing irreversible about declaring yourself gay. If you meet the right woman, you'll soon realize if you've made a mistake about your sexual orientation. And besides, lots of men are bi. Look at Antoine. He made a pass at me as well as at your mother."

"Yes, I noticed him gawping at your crotch."

"Besides," I said "In our case, it was the younger man, me, who by declaring my love led you astray. You would have put up with just friendship for a lot longer, because you thought that if you made a pass at me you would lose me. That is one of the many reasons why I love you so much."

"You're so sweet to me!" he replied. "A lot of people are deceived by the fact that so many gay relationships are just casual fucking. They seem unable to grasp that, in spite of many examples to prove it, such as Britten and Pears, two men can be lifelong soulmates. But mere friendship, which you would say was God-given, cannot satisfy a man's need for penetrative sexual intercourse."

"They don't understand about lifelong same-sex relationships because no-one reads that great mediaeval writer on male friendship, Aelred. Everyone interested in sexual relationships in the Middle Ages reads about Heloïse and Abelard instead! In case you don't know the story, Peter Abelard was a young and brilliant theologian in mediaeval Paris. It was the classic example of teacher falling in love with student. Abelard was Heloïse's tutor. She lived with her uncle Fulbert. Abelard moved into the house because he said his digs were too noisy, and bedded Heloïse, who got pregnant and had a son called Astrolabe, named after an instrument used in navigation. Maybe it was an allusion to Peter's prick, which he had so skillfully navigated into her cunt! But he was not able to enjoy penetrative intercourse for long."

"Why, what happened?"

"Heloïse's uncle got a gang of heavies to castrate him! It was all very tragic. At that time, clerical celibacy was not compulsory, but if Abelard had married the girl he loved, it would have been goodbye to further promotion in church or university. While he was trying to decide between his girl and his career, he was attacked and deprived of his manhood. Nobody seems to know what happened to Astrolabe. Heloïse was forced into a nunnery, where she became an exemplary abbess, and corresponded regularly with Abelard for the rest of their lives."

"Still," Jon replied, "it just shows the hazard of loving a woman rather than a man!" "But it's bed time. Let's get ourselves ready for bed."

One thing that was nice about sleeping in Jon's bed that I have not mentioned previously is that he had silk sheets. When I was living in college, the thing I missed most about the flat were Jon's expensive silk sheets. It had been a nightmare making sure that they were not damaged when I was doing the laundry during Jon's period on the building site. I understood then why in the early stages of our relationship, when we were only frotting, Jon was so fussy about keeping his bed clean...

I stripped off my clothes, and after cleaning my teeth, peeing and saying my evening prayers, I hopped stark naked into bed. I held out my open arms to him and he climbed into my embrace as he got into bed.

Chapter 15 Jon

Rockwell's Barn

By late May, the trees were more or less fully in leaf, except for the oaks, and Ixton looked particularly beautiful in the spring sunshine. The house was rapidly approaching a reasonably finished state. The swimming pool plant and pipework had been installed and most of the bathrooms in the house had been completed. The provision of bathrooms upstairs was relatively lavish. Each ensuite bathroom in addition to washbasin and toilet also had a bidet and shower. Our own personal ensuite bathroom had in addition to washbasin, bidet and double shower also a urinal and a large corner bathtub. All bathrooms had large, easy-clean mirrors. The lift and its machinery had been installed and tested by a specialist firm.

We proposed to furnish only two bedrooms in the first instance, our own and a spare room for visitors. Our own would have a decent-sized window and a king-size bed, the other room two queen-size beds. All the bedrooms were reasonably spacious, but none of the upstairs bathrooms were as big as our own. A new water main for the building had been required, and as it was of wide diameter (because of the need to supply the pool), its installation had been costly. The kitchen and upstairs sitting room were large, again with larger than usual windows. The kitchen was the only room where the windows were higher above the floor and without a window seat. Most of the kitchen fittings and appliances were in place, and the furniture that we had chosen for most of the rooms was on order. We had also chosen and ordered curtains for most of the rooms.

I regretted that the amount of natural light in the pool room was very small, because large windows would not have been possible, so we had opted for small windows some 2 metres above the floor, and good fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. Some natural light was provided in the pool area, because the room had an entirely glazed wall at the end, looking on to the hall of the house, so as you came down our magnificent staircase, you could see the pool on the right of the hall through the glass wall. Ultimately, hall and pool would be ornamented with trees in pots, but that would be right at the end of the furnishing operation. There would be no large carpets in the house, just rugs. Solar panels to provide hot water in summer had been installed on the roof.

Then something happened that made me change our plans. David had asked me what the running costs for the pool were going to be. I got various reference books out and began to work out the costs of water, water treatment and heating. The results came to me as a shock. The annual costs of running the pool were vast, and could not possibly be justified until we were living in the house for at least ten months per year! Reluctantly we decided not to proceed until we were permanently resident in the house. The necessary plant would be installed, but would not be commissioned. In the interim, a substantial but temporary floor would cover the tiled cavity. We had hopes also that more efficient heating technology might be developed in the next few years. I had to be grateful to David for showing me that it would be an irresponsible way of spending money.

Chapter 16 David

The Long Vacation begins

The following Sunday we dined as usual in College at separate tables, and I went off to the Lion with the rest of the choir. As we left the Hall, Jon and Edward seemed very chatty on high table. They had nowhere near finished eating, their conversation was so vigorous. Afterwards they had a small espresso in the SCR, and Edward invited Jon to join him for a drink in his rooms. By now it was clear that they were enjoying one another's company, and friendship was cemented by opening a bottle of port. Things got quite warm between them. Edward touched Jon's hand a few times in conversation, and when Jon left, they put their arms round one another, though no kissing took place. It was clear that Edward, if not actually gay, had no inhibitions about touching men in friendship. Possibly he was bi.

Soon the Pentecost term came to an end. My work in the lab got increasingly demanding. I had spent several weeks in the Biochemistry department learning the techniques of enzyme purification. Nobody in Pharmacology could give me any help, but there was a nice chap in Biochemistry who gave me a good deal of help. "Enzyme purification is an art rather than a science," he used to tell me. And indeed even now, getting on for 30 years later, it is still difficult to predict exactly what purification techniques will work with a given enzyme. I decided that it would be necessary to work for a couple of weeks on one of his projects that bore no relationship to my own, simply in order to get the necessary experience of handling these materials, the main problem of working with which is the need to keep everything cold, because of the inherent instability of proteins. I kept a sweater and scarf at the lab, to wear when working at 4 degrees in the cold room.

My time in the biochemistry department was rather spoilt by the presence of a few research students and technicians who at coffee time and during the lunch break, would make snide and rather hurtful comments about my gayness. I did not want to make a great scene and tell them either individually or collectively to fuck off, so I just tended to avoid the break periods and was glad that I was only spending a couple of weeks in that department.

My singing lessons continued through the vacations, except when Dr Fabioni was away, which happened several times a year. He was consultant to impresarios and opera companies all over the world. One day at my lesson, he said to me, "Mr Scarborough, you are not a university music student, you are a paying pupil, and I am very pleased with your progress. I would like you to call me Marcello, and I will call you David, unless you object."

"No," I said, "I appreciate it very much."

"Please then, David, sing that scale again."

This signalled a change in our relationship. Previously, Marcello had shown a rigidly formality which I had interpreted as coldness. Now his warm Mediterranean emotion began to show. When I told Jonathan about the change, he grinned. "I think that he has fatherly feelings for you," he said, "which he tried to suppress out of fear that you would think him an old queen! But now he knows you better, and your sweet nature is clear to him, he can unwind, and sooner or later, he'll give you a paternal kiss."