Luke at University Pt. 04

When the two Welsh girls came in for dinner after their walk, I went up to them and said, "Please may I buy you drinks? We're celebrating! My boyfriend and I have just got engaged!" They looked very surprised to be approached in this way, but smiled and chose their drinks. They said that it was the first time that they had heard of two men getting engaged. I replied that it couldn't really happen before the Civil Partnership Act of a year or two ago. After dinner, having finished two bottles of Champagne, Tom and I continued with beer, while Dad went to bed to be fresh for his second big 'day of judgement.' We boys were decidedly sloshed as we staggered upstairs to bed. As we had had our daily dose of sex already, we went straight to sleep in Tom's bed.(We alternated between beds each night of our residence).

The next day we watched some eight men competing for the tenor class. Their ages varied from nineteen to thirty-five. I hoped that by seeing them, Tom might lose some of his inhibitions about solo performance. We made our own assessment of how the guys had done, and it was interesting to compare them with the jury's verdict. We both picked the winner, who was head-and-shoulders above the rest. He was a handsome young man of 23, a graduate of the Stamford School of Singing. His appearance might also have influenced our decision, though there was no disputing his singing skills!

One of his prizes was a week-long Master Class with Dad! Apparently Marcello Fabioni had been approached, but had said that he was now retired from teaching—he was well into his eighties now—but suggested Dad as an alternative. Dad told us that if the Class was successful, he might start to do more teaching and perform less, so that he could be at home more with Pop, who no longer had domestic responsibilities. He said that there was no longer any economic necessity for him to work to support the family, and that in addition to teaching, Pop was going every summer to accompany him on his performance trips abroad, many of which were to festivals in very attractive locations. With the crudeness that I have inherited, he said "We'll be able to fuck in all sorts of exotic places!" This made Tom blush. No wonder he had hated the crude women that his father had taken up with. He had not benefitted from an all-male upbringing as I had!

We noticed that the two Welsh girls were also in the audience, no doubt surveying the male talent sexually, as well as vocally! After the verdict, Dad told us that he had to dine with his fellow judges that evening, so would we like to take the car back to Llanmerthyr Fach, and he would come back later in a taxi. We asked the girls if they wanted a lift back to the Fiddler's Arms, and they accepted gratefully. When we got back, we decided that we would all four dine together after a shower and change of clothes.

At dinner, I asked the girls if either of them sang. They said yes, they were both choir members. So we admitted that we too sang in a choir, and Tom had to admit that he sang in two! They said that they were not surprised that we sang, as a lot of male singers seemed to be gay. The two girls were both altos and were going to hear the contralto class the next day. We were going walking, but we suggested to the girls that on the following day we should all four go out together. I was relieved that Tom seemed to enjoy female company so much. It meant that he would not be lonely and miserable when I was away. Indeed I think that Tom was now more at ease with women than I was. Maybe I was going to be the lonely one during my stay in Bologna.

The next day we had an uneventful walk. The weather was showery and we had to seek shelter in an old barn to eat our lunch. In the evening, the girls told us that a friend of theirs had won the contralto section, and they were suitably celebrating with a bottle of wine. The following day we all went out together. The weather had improved and we had a very enjoyable time. I hoped that no-one noticed that I had to lag behind the rest of them from time to time, ostensibly to take photographs, but in reality to fart! The day before we left we heard the final, and to our delight, the champion singer of the Competition was the tenor. He sang 'Di quella pira' from Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' with its high 'C,' famous for its use by Luchino Visconti in his 1954 film 'Senso,' and 'Una furtiva lagrima' from 'L'Elisir d'amore.' The day we left, it rained cats and dogs and we had a wet and misty journey home to Ixton. Before we left, we exchanged E-mail addresses with the two girls.

Chapter 59

Luke goes to Bologna

As soon as they got back to Camford, the boys visited a smart jeweller's in Fleamarket Street and bought themselves engagement rings. Like Luke's parents before them, they had them specially made; identical except for size, they each had a single small solitaire emerald. They wore the rings on the ring finger of their right hand.

Early in August Luke's exam results came out. A visit to his tutor revealed that his performance in French lay on the border between a first and an upper second, which meant that if he was to get a first in his final exams in two years' time, he would have to do extremely well in Italian, as the French would count for 33% of his final mark.

Just before Tom's spell at the Fitness Centre ended, Luke left for Italy. Both parted with heavy hearts. Tom feared that Luke might meet someone else in Italy; Luke feared that even with the support of Margaret, Tom would be unable to cope with life in college on his own. They arranged to keep in touch by weekly phone calls. They had ruled out more frequent contact because it would be unsettling to both of them. Luke would be gone less than a year: the Italian academic year started much sooner than Camford's, but also ended sooner, and Luke would be back just about the time that Tom would be sitting his exams at the beginning of July. Moreover, Luke intended to come home for Christmas and New Year and join Tom, Dad, Pop and Cathy in Nice at Easter. Cathy had got her required A Level grades and would start in Oxbridge early in October, and she was very excited to be leaving home. Tom had elected to spend his third year in a single room in college, leaving Pop living on his own in the Fountain Street flat, but spending the weekends and university vacs at Rockwell's Barn, only returning in time for Sunday dinner in college during term time.

Tom quickly settled in to his summer job at the Men's Fitness Centre. Most of the staff were the same as the previous year, and Tom's duties were as varied as ever. Sometimes he was on reception, sometimes he was a pool lifeguard, sometimes he did maintenance in the weights room, sometimes he ran errands, sometimes he cleaned the changing rooms. He worked two kinds of shift: mornings from 7-30 until 2 pm, or afternoons from 2 pm to 9 pm. He had alternate weekends off, when he would join Jon, and sometimes David, at Rockwell's Barn. He enjoyed the weekends most when David was at home, when he was allowed to accompany him on the piano in his practices. Although Tom's formal musical qualifications had ceased at Grade 6, he was a competent player, and saved David from either calling Brian out at the weekend, or using a pre-recorded CD accompaniment.

David and Jonathan had both become very fond of Tom and both of them were certain that he would make a good life-partner for their son. At their suggestion, Tom invited Margaret to spend a day with them just before the beginning of the Martinmas term. She had done extremely well in her first-year exams and had been awarded a college scholarship. Sarah had not yet got back to Camford. Cathy welcomed Margaret and the two girls spent most of the day together until Tom insisted that they came to the Jellycotes Arms with him for a drink. Tom had finally come to regard Rockwell's Barn as his home, in spite of the fact that he had to live at Fountain Street while employed at the Fitness Centre.

From time to time, he and Luke's parents got E-mails from Luke. He had found somewhere to live, a shared apartment with two Italian students. He said that Bologna was a huge and faceless university, with 90,000 students, and few contact hours. He had registered for about six modules in history, literature, politics, regional studies, and music. As he said, all he would get from Bologna was a certificate, and although he would get assessments, they would not count towards his Camford degree. Only the fact that he had studied for an extra year would be taken into account in his Camford assessment, though he would be able to use some of the knowledge acquired in Italy in his final year essays and exams. So his studies were much more laid back than in Camford, and the Italian terms were also longer.

Luke spent three weekends a month at the Mascagnolis' and one in Bologna to enable him to attend the English church there, so that he could sing in the choir. They also had a weekday service at which he was a weekly regular. These were the only times that he spoke English. He felt that he owed it to Massimo not to speak English to Dorothea, as the last thing that he wished to do was to come between his mother and her husband in any way. There was an embarrassing time when Massimo's parents came on a visit and Massimo had the unenviable job of introducing them to his wife's bastard son. Luke was uncertain as to whether Signor and Signora Mascagnoli senior knew that he was Sandro's full brother, or whether they thought that Sandro was Massimo's son, which of course in the eyes of the law, he was. Luke kept very quiet about this, but did his best to make a good impression on them. They were certainly impressed that an English boy could speak such good Italian.

The story will be continued in a later series.

THE END