Tom and Luke Get Their Degrees

The choir sang an anthem by Robert Parsons, Byrd's predecessor as Master of Elizabeth I's Chapel Royal, the soprano line transposed by the organ scholar to the tenor range, 'Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo?' (Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?) David joined the choir and sight-read the tenor part. So for the first time, I ate God's Body and gave my body up to Him as a dwelling place. Every eucharist is an act of surrender of our souls and bodies to God, Who will be assimilated into our bodies and fill us with His grace.

After the service, Francis took the Bishop and Edward off to dine on high table, Luke's two cofathers went off to Boni's for dinner and the rest of us went into dinner in hall as usual. As a special honour the bible clerk had asked me, as one of the senior scholars, to deputize for him in saying the college Latin grace. I realized, perhaps for the first time, the thrill and privilege of belonging to a 400-year-old community. Two years ago, no-one would have asked me, even though by then I was a scholar. I had heard the Latin words so often in the last three years that I knew them off by heart without any need to be trained in the pronunciation.

That night was the first time that day we had had time to ourselves. My sweet Luke had been enormously moved by the events of the afternoon. Indeed, during the baptism he had been in tears. "My darling Tom," he said, "welcome to faith. God has brought you home to Him, and we can now feel ourselves together in spirit as well as in mind and flesh." We celebrated my spiritual milestone in our room with a few glasses of Marsala, and a bit of carnal pleasure on Luke's bed. For the first time, I will not go into details about our sex, because on this occasion it was too precious and too private. It was almost like an old-fashioned newly married couple's first time together. But don't worry, there will be more sex later on in this story!

Chapter Twenty-nine

Our fourth Easter vacation

As usual, there was a conference in Buckingham beginning on the Monday of the first week of the Easter vacation, so once more we had to pack up our chattels and get out. We took them by cab to Fountain Street, where we settled in, as there were two weeks before Easter, and I had a lot to do in the lab. By now I had got pretty skilled in synthesizing putative intermediates in the metabolic pathway we were tracing, and results were beginning to come.

Luke had an assessed dissertation to write as part of his Final exams, and it was to be completed by the second week of the Pentecost term, so our trip to Nice would be short and swift. The dissertation was a short study of the plays of Goldoni with a comparative study of the works that he wrote in Italian, and those that he wrote in French. This meant that he spent a lot of time in the Watsonian Library. I couldn't of course make any contribution to the content, but I helped him by checking the text and references, hoping that he would do the same for me when I set pen to paper (or finger to keys!) in the Pentecost term.

Our work during this period kept us too busy for there to be much of interest for you the reader. Even our lovemaking was restricted to active sex a couple of times a week. I had decided at Christmas that I would not be able to work at the Fitness Centre in August. I would be frantically trying to finish my Master's work. Moreover in September we were due to become Civil Partners, and we would have to have a very short honeymoon. Fortunately, the Manager of the Fitness Centre was happy to allow me to keep my employee privilege of out-of-hours swimming on Tuesdays until the end of September.

On Maundy Thursday, the five of us, Luke and Cathy, their two fathers and myself flew from Bristol to Nice. I drove us to the airport. In Nice, we took a cab to our hotel and after unpacking, we all went to see Mrs Singleton. "I hear that you've got religion, Tom!" was her greeting to me. "You're just like the other men in this family: too pious for your own good. You should all try sinning a bit more. You would find life a lot more fun!" She was in one of her offensive moods, when she went out of her way to be rude. Saying outrageous things was one of the few pleasures that she had left in old age. Still, it was difficult for the three younger ones of the party to take offence, as she had been very generous in giving us so much money! We took her out to dinner at one of her favourite restaurants, and she enjoyed herself very much. She told us that she didn't want us to visit on Good Friday, as she was meeting some friends.

Luke and I went to church on Good Friday and then the five of us decided to dine in the hotel. It was the first time that we had been together as a family for ages and we spent it catching up on each others' news. Cathy told us that she was going out with a young man in Oxbridge, an engineering student whom she rather fancied, but said that things had not yet reached the stage of him meeting her family, and indeed might never get to that stage. She didn't say anything about sleeping with him either. Jon told us that he was going to spend the whole of July and August with David in Heemstede. David told us that one of the reasons for shortening his performance season was Brian's increasing age. A load that sometimes amounted to as many as a hundred piano-playing sessions per year was getting too much for Brian. David told us that he had accepted an invitation to be artistic adviser to the Dutch Classical Singing Festival (Het Nederlandse Klassieke Zangfestival), which would entail recommending artists to be invited to perform at future festivals. He was looking for a part-time Dutch personal assistant, preferably female, to organize the complexities of his "double life." He also said that the change in his life pattern meant that he could make more recordings. He had recently signed a contract with Philips. Brian would come over to the Netherlands for the recording sessions and spend a few days in Heemestede as a holiday.

David said that he had planned on a daily work programme in Heemstede of not more than ten lessons per week, with Saturdays or Sundays free on alternate weeks. His pupils would be essentially advanced students of singing, beyond the equivalent of British Grade 8. Some would be Music College students. He had become a part-time teacher at two Dutch conservatories. In the lessons, he would play the students' accompaniment himself. If he needed to be hands-free, he would use a CD for the accompaniment. He also said firmly to Luke and me that he expected that the two of us would spend at least one week every summer with him and Jon together in Heemstede. "We have so few opportunities to live together as a foursome, and I think it's bad for family life. I don't feel that I know my son's partner as well as I ought, even though I know that you are a great admirer of my singing, Tom!" he said, "after all, we are both chemists by training, even though I haven't laid hands on a test-tube for nearly thirty years!"

Jon said jokingly that there were a few things that David liked handling besides test-tubes, which made us boys giggle and David blush. Jon said that he wanted to be there to check out the boys (and girls) and make sure that David did not get too friendly with them, or with his new P.A. when she had been appointed! Also, he said, he needed a break from Camford. It would be the first time since Luke had been adopted that Jon and David would be together every night for eight weeks. Luke would be done with his exams by then and could take charge of organizing the September celebrations in Camford and Ixton. We had fixed the date of our partnership registration, and the slot at the Registry Office and all the rooms at the Jellycotes Arms had already been reserved. The catering firm had been booked.

The Saturday was warm and springlike, and Luke and I satisfied Mrs Singleton's voyeuristic needs by swimming naked for her again in the next-door neighbours' pool, having warned Cathy to stay away. We all dined out with her in the evening. On Easter Day, we all went to the English church, where I was able to make my first Easter communion. In the evening, we split up. David and Jon took Mrs Singleton out for dinner, and the three of us went out to another restaurant. It was I think, the first time since Cathy went to Oxbridge that she had dined out with her brother. She was now in her second year there. I liked Cathy very much and hoped that if she got deeply involved with a man, it would be someone who appreciated and respected her. She hoped for a career in the IT industry. "I don't understand how you boys can flaunt yourselves naked in front of my grandmother," she said.

"Most men don't care a toss about being seen naked," I replied, "and your grandmother has been very generous to us. She's a woman who enjoys a vicarious thrill in her old age! I admire her, because there are not many women of any age who admit that they like seeing young men naked. After she comes to our civil partnership ceremony, she wants us to show her the sights of swinging London, rather than go off on honeymoon, and we've agreed! It will only be for a few days. We owe her that. She wants to go to places that we would never choose to go, like Madame Tussaud's, so it will be a learning experience for us. She also wants to be wined and dined at restaurants frequented by celebrities, whereas we prefer to eat at the family-run Italian restaurant that your fathers introduced us to."

On the Monday Mrs Singleton took us all to the opera. She had hired a box. It was the first time that any of us had watched opera from a box, even Jon. Even more impressive was that a waiter came and served us champagne in our box during the interval. We men all felt that we preferred the much cheaper Prosecco to champagne, but in spite of Nice's proximity to Italy, Italian wines were only available in supermarkets. The opera was Donizetti's 'La Fille du Régiment,' and we all enjoyed it, even though my hero (David) was not in it. David particularly enjoyed it because he said that he rarely watched a whole opera, just the scenes that he wasn't in, and then only in rehearsal! He also said that he couldn't see himself playing the role of Tonio, although he felt that the tenor had sung very well. He had not studied French at the National Opera Studio, where he had learnt his German and improved his Italian, and it was his weakest language. He said that his French was nowhere near as good as Luke's. Luke says that his French is not that good however, certainly not as good as Jon's, who started to learn the language when he was seven. It was our first visit to an opera since Luke's decision to go into opera house management, and he took careful note of all that went on.

On the Tuesday, Luke and I visited one of Nice's gay bars. Luke was anxious to survey the dress talent of the Nice gays. At least, that's what he said! We also wanted to check out how they compared with the habitués of the Randy Soldier, the Camford gay pub. It was a great contrast to such places in England. No noisy beat music and half-undressed men dancing wildly, instead smoochy, Édith Piaf-type music, and couples shuffling around the dance floor. We ordered two beers and sat down. The beer was pretty awful. We had some some desultory conversation with a couple of boys with tattoos and one with a ring in his nose, in which I was not able to participate. My schoolboy French was quite insufficient to cope with the gay argot. The one with the ring in his nose was trying to get hold of Luke's hand. I glared at him, and he let go. We sat there in some discomfort for about ten minutes and we then quickly finished our beer, said "Bon soir" to the two French gays and left hastily, hurrying until we got to a street with a fair number of passers-by. "I couldn't have dealt with those two if they had turned nasty!" I told Luke. "As you know, I will go to any lengths to defend you, but not being able to speak the language makes it difficult for me to handle the situation gently, and I was on the verge of trying to threaten them if they touched you, though even that would be difficult when I don't know the French for 'Fuck off!'"

"Yes, it was a mistake to go there," said Luke. "I spent so much time gazing at the tattoos, that I scarcely noticed the clothes! You know how I hate tattoos, I was getting the thrill of revulsion!"

When we got back to Camford, we had ten days before the Pentecost term began. We installed ourselves in the flat in Fountain Street, whereas Jon and Cathy decided to stay at home in Ixton. My work in the lab was getting more and more feverish, as I needed get finished in the lab in time to spend four weeks or so writing my Part Two dissertation for my degree finals. It had to be handed in before the last day of term, and two weeks later there would be an oral examination by a visiting examiner before our class list would be posted in the last week in July. Jon would have joined David in Heemstede by then. Luke's Final exams were in the last week of term and the first week of the vacation, so he also was busy, either in the flat or in the Watsonian. But my Part Two was not the end of my lab work. I had to try to get my research finished by the time of our civil partnership ceremony in September. After that I would still have to complete the Master's thesis, submit it, and be examined. We hoped to fit in a honeymoon some time before Christmas. We still had no idea about when or where we would go to Italy, or whether I could get funding for a Ph.D. there. In the next academic year, Margaret would have to go to concerts alone, or find another companion to go with her. Despite all these outside pressures, we still took advantage of the queen-sized bed and silk sheets to enjoy each other's bodies before the move back into college forced us into separate beds.

Chapter Thirty

Our final undergraduate term

Such leisure as we had in that final Pentecost term was often spent on the river. Camford is like a little Venice: there are small streams that have been enlarged to become navigable channels branching off the river Camwell and criss-crossing the whole town among the colleges. It gives the city a romantic uniqueness only shared by other watery cities like Amsterdam, Stockholm and Delft.

One of the few advantages of the cramped site of Buckingham College was a short, dead-end branch of the Camwell that led right into the college, to a boathouse that housed three punts. From there, at least once a week Luke and I would set off with a bag of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer or wine and pole our punt up the Camwell out into the adjacent meadows that surround the town, where we would embed the pole in the mud of the river, tie up the punt to it, and cuddle up together to eat our lunch, kissing and fondling one another as we ate and drank. For years afterwards we would have happy memories of the blissful moments that we enjoyed in the boat. It was not unknown for couples to have sex in a punt, but we found it uncomfortable as well as open to public observation, so we limited our lovemaking to activities that did not require us to lie down! The weather was warm and dry that spring and summer, and as the examination period approached, the weather got even warmer.

Sometimes we went out in a punt as a foursome with Steve and Alex, who were also approaching their finals. The use of college punts was free to college members, and this was an enormous saving on commercial hire. On one occasion, Steve told us that he was having money problems, and his family was in no state to help him out, he had four younger brothers and sisters in their teens. He said that he and Alex could not afford to go out unless Alex paid, and he did not know how he was going to pay his battels at the end of term. We knew the boys well enough to know that their student lifestyle was not extravagant. They were not into drugs, were moderate drinkers, did not frequent nightclubs and did not belong to expensive student clubs. As a gesture of brotherly friendship and gay solidarity, Luke and I each offered Steve £250, repayable before the end of September, which after some hesitation, he accepted. He said that fortunately he had no outstanding credit-card bills, and he was going to take a temporary job as soon as he went down at the end of term. He told us that it was a job that he had done every summer, shelf-stacking in his local supermarket, and was always open for him. He would be able to pay us back at the rate of £50 per week. This occurrence highlighted for us the problem of student poverty. The opportunities for students to spend money extravagantly in Camford were numerous, and it was often difficult for teenagers to distinguish between essential and non-essential expenditure, except for students like me, who had bitter experience of learning to watch the pennies.

One night, when we were in our room talking, Luke said, "I am worried about this problem of student poverty. It's undeniable that Camford is an expensive place to live, and Camford University does not make adequate provision for many of its less affluent students. I'm going to talk to Pop about this and see if I can get him to make money available via the colleges to help students whose poverty denies them the chance of enjoying all the activities and facilities available. For instance, they should be able to pay the fee for membership of the Men's Fitness Centre. There would have to be some kind of simple means test, but not something that takes pages of paperwork and hours to fill in."

Early in June, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday. The proximity of the exams made it a very low-key event. We went out for a meal at the Sparrowhawk, then returned to college where Luke gave me a prayer-book as a present, and some silk underpants. We retired to the shower before going to bed, where we washed one another thoroughly and ended up with Luke making me a present of his rear end, which I penetrated with enthusiasm that turned into love as we both came together.

Eventually, the exams arrived. I made the deadline for submission of my dissertation with a couple of days to spare, and it was then just a matter of awaiting the call to an oral exam with the External Examiner, a Professor from Edinburgh University. Luke had six written papers in his Finals, including papers in literature, history and a translation paper. He also had an oral exam exclusively in Italian, but that was not to be held until the written papers had been marked. On his last exam day, I turned up at the Exam Schools with the by now usual bottle of Prosecco and four plastic glasses, because Margaret and Sarah also came along to wish Luke well. We all adjourned to the Venezia, Luke still in sub-fusc, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner at a table for four. I noticed that the waiters, whom we knew well from our frequent visits, were vastly amused at the way we were paired off, man with man and woman with woman! It was the first time that we had all dined out together. We drank Verdicchio and Bardolino, and enjoyed it hugely. The girls were going to their respective homes until the exam results were published. They were going to miss one another. Rejoicing that I was in a position to do so, I paid the whole bill for the evening, which was tinged with sadness. Sarah's course was finished, and she would be looking for a job. Margaret had a year's lab work yet to do for her Part Two. Luke and I walked back to college hand-in-hand. As we walked, I said to him, "I'm feeling randy. Are you up for a fuck when we get in?"

"Yes," he replied, "you know my hole is always at your disposal. I willingly submit to your vile and unnatural carnal lusts. Humiliate me by letting loose your bestial appetites and buggering me senseless! Squirt your evil man-juice deep into my guts! Give reign to your perverted desires! I know that I will love every moment of it!"