David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 03

The Zwolldijk Competition was different from my two previous competitions. Class entries were by genre, and competitors could if they wished elect to compete in more than one class. There was no overall final with the winners of the different classes competing against one another. I had elected to enter in both the Opera and Oratorio classes, but not lieder, Marcello said I was not yet experienced enough for that. We were hard at work on several new pieces. The other difference was that in the finals of the Opera and Oratorio classes, there would be an orchestral accompaniment by the Zwolldijklands Philharmonisch Orkest, with a day set aside for orchestral rehearsals. I asked Jon to come with me to Zwolldijk, as I needed the support. Marcello unfortunately had to be in Italy at that time, so he asked me to supply would-be impresarios with his card for later negotiations. In that way too, we could hopefully keep several different offers open at the same time. We knew that after the festival there were only a few days before Jon was due to start working for the Crabtrees as nanny, so we went to the Netherlands a few days earlier to stay with my uncle in Amersfoort, a visit that I had promised to make the year before.

We flew from London-Stanstead to Schiphol and took the train to Amersfoort. My uncle and aunt were delighted to see us and we took them out for a meal on the Sunday evening when the café was not open. They said that they had not seen my little brother Jeroen for several years, and I said that I would see if I could get him to come and see them. He was quite old enough to travel on his own and could probably at 16 do some vacation work for them if they wished, even though he did not speak Dutch. I told them that he had done well in his O Level exams and that Jon had given him a substantial monetary present to encourage him in his career hopes to become an engineer. I told them too that the boy was not gay like his brother.

Zwolldijk is a large Dutch town in the northern province of Zwolldijksland. It is notorious for being the only Dutch town of its size without a railway service, being reached by bus from Groningen. We had made advance bookings at a four-star hotel in the town, and arrived the day before the competition. We looked at the final programme and discovered that Nat had also entered the festival, but not Mike.

I'm not this time going to describe all the competition details. I will just record that I won the Oratorio section and came second in the Operatic section. Nat came third in the latter class. The other positions were won by women. Although I had never performed with a full-scale orchestra before, Marcello had given me a lot of help and useful tips in my final lessons, using an orchestra-only CD. Accordingly, the orchestral finals went well. The provincial Dutch orchestra had a lot of helpful and experienced musicians in it, and what might have been a stressful ordeal became almost enjoyable. I sang 'Il mio tesoro', 'Recondità armonia', and arias from 'Messiah' and Mendelssohn's 'Elijah'. In my speech of thanks from the competitors after winning the Oratorio section, I was able to thank the organizers and judges in both Dutch and English, and I jokingly apologized for not being able to speak Zwolldijks, the regional language (according to some people almost as similar to English as it is to Dutch). I was approached by several impresarios, and there were offers of a number of small principal operatic roles and some permanent chorus jobs. There was even an offer of a one-off recording job, but not an ongoing contract. I gave all the impresarios Marcello's cards, and told them that he would be in touch as soon as he got back from Italy.

Chapter 65 David An intermediate period in our lives

The minute that we were back in Camford, I got frantically to work on my thesis. By mid-November, the Introduction was nearly finished, the draft having been approved by Charlie. Jon had started work as the Crabtrees' part-time nanny (the word 'manny' for a male nanny had not at that time been coined). Jon was far better qualified than I was for the job. He could prepare tasty meals quickly and without making a mess, he was a confident driver in taking Martin to school, he dealt gently but firmly with disciplinary problems, and the children rapidly got very fond of him. It took him a while to get used to working on his project only two days a week, but he was now so experienced, and the results were coming quite quickly, that his boss Dr ES was very happy with the new arrangement. We both knew also that being a nanny was good preparation for fatherhood. The other big change was that my performance fees were no longer being used to buy music, they were now a contribution to our monthly household budget in addition to the £50 per week that Jon had negotiated with the Crabtrees as his 'nannying' fee, slightly more than I had been offered! When Jon was working at home, to give him full advantage of his time, I insisted that we ate out, usually at the Sparrowhawk. The other nights I survived on take-aways or instant supermarket meals, with an occasional evening of 'real' cooking, involving sausages or spaghetti. Jon did cook for us at the weekend, when we were not in bed!

Marcello had lined up for me quite a lot of engagements, approximately one a month, in all parts of the country, and even the odd one in Holland or Belgium. He was also fixing up bookings for the following year. What was great about Marcello was that he did all the fee negotiating, not just for me, but also for Brian. That was an area where as a beginner in the business, I had no idea of how much to ask. During the summer would be my four-recital tour with Thomas Atkin, no fee, but all expenses met. I had deferred the master-classes that were the prize for the tenor section at Llandewi to the following year. The four recital performances would be in Cardiff, the Wigmore Hall in London, in Frankfurt and in Milan. The major engagement for the following year, which would require a huge amount of practice, was tenor soloist in Haydn's 'Creation.' Fortunately so far, all the oratorio roles that Marcello had negotiated for me involved performances in English, rather than German. There was also an operatic role at the Royal Bristol Opera.

Jon helped me a lot by reading my thesis draft during his evening babysitting sessions at the Crabtrees. I had hoped to get the thesis Discussion done by Christmas, but the distractions caused by singing engagements at that time of the year, delayed things. I was no longer singing in either College or Bach Choirs, but I was still busy with learning new stuff in my sessions with Marcello. The partnership with Brian Shaw proved extremely good. Marcello had insisted on hearing Brian play for me, and emphasized how important the accompanist's role was, especially in lieder. To my delight, he has extremely complimentary about Brian's skills, and I in turn found Brian a great source of support and encouragement. We were able to use Brian's car to go to many engagements, which was useful because Jon needed the 4x4 to drive Martin to school on the days when he was 'nannying'. Brian agreed to accompany me in the two recitals that I had been engaged for in Holland and Belgium, which were in January and February. There was of course no question of Jon coming along. Dorothea's confinement was due at the beginning of February. In the meantime, she was staying with a woman friend in Oxbridge.

Christmas was a subdued event. Jon and I went to Loxton, but only for four days, and we were back in Camford for the New Year. Jeroen had become a tall and fairly self-confident young man and was working hard at his sixth-form work, with a part-time job on Fridays and Saturdays at the local pub as a waiter. I feverishly resumed work on the thesis. The Introduction was now complete and I had made a good start on the Discussion. With luck, it would soon be done.

At the end of January, Brian and I left for Nijmegen in the the Netherlands, where I was doing a recital. It did not require massive preparation, as all the numbers were already in my repertoire. Because of possible problems with the weather, we were travelling by air, having booked cheap tickets some months before. We flew from London-Stanstead to Amsterdam-Schiphol and continued by train to Nijmegen with a change of train in Utrecht. We were to stay two nights and we had been booked in at a very comfortable, old-fashioned hotel.

We dined alone the first night and I took the opportunity to talk to Brian and find out more about him. He was a retired widower, with two daughters, one of whom lived in Fitchey, the other in London. As a young man he had passed grade 8 piano exams, and had wanted to go on to music school, but the financial circumstances of his family forced him to take a job as a bank clerk. Then he married and raised a family and had never had the opportunity to do more than play the piano as a hobby. The first time I heard him play, I realized that not only was he a skilled pianist, but he had that essential knack that accompanists need, to adjust his playing to the pace and volume set by the singer. Though no professional, he had all the skills of a fully trained accompanist. In fact he was streets ahead of Marcello in that respect. Like me, he was grateful to Marcello for negotiating his fees. It seemed to me that there was a case in recitals for me to refuse an offer with a locally provided accompanist, and insist that I be allowed always to bring Brian, appropriately remunerated of course. The collaboration was good for both of us, and I could see that Brian was beginning to develop the same sort of fatherly feelings for me as Marcello had.

The recital went extremely well, the members of the local committee were very welcoming and hospitable, and the audience received my performance with enormous applause. It was particularly pleasant for me to be able to talk in my second native language, and I found myself wondering whether Jon and I should think of establishing a residence in the Netherlands.

Chapter 66 Translation of a review in the 'Nijmeegsche Courant' of January 29, 19--

"Uitstekende voorstelling van liederen door Engelse rijzende ster-Tenor" (Excellent performance of arias by English rising star tenor) "The young English tenor David Scarborough, accompanied by pianist Brian Shaw gave a superb performance last Friday evening in the Nijmeegse Voorstellingzaal. Operatic arias by Händel, Mozart, Verdi, Donizetti and Puccini were punctuated by tenor items from 'Messiah' and Beethoven's 'Christus am Ölberge.' The soloist is a gifted newcomer on the operatic scene: he won first prize in the oratorio class and second prize in the operatic class in last year's Zwolldijk Singing Competition. He has not as yet sung his first professional role on stage, but the quality of his magnificent voice promises a very successful future for this young artist, of whom we hope to see more in the coming years. In particular, his performance in the Händel, Mozart and Beethoven numbers was specially remarkable."

Chapter 67 David Luke Cornelis Scarborough is born

On February 6, 19--, my sister Dorothea gave birth in Camford Maternity Hospital to a baby boy, weighing 3 kg. Jon, myself and Dorothea had agreed that a boy should be given the names Luke Cornelis and he was registered with his mother's surname of Scarborough. All the Scarboroughs have one Dutch first name. I am David Maurits, Dorothea is Dorothea Johanna and Jeroen is Jeroen Edmund. After a few days, Dorothea and baby Luke were collected by my father and taken to Loxton, where they were going to live until shortly before Dorothea had weaned the baby and left for Italy to take up her Ph.D. Studies. With Dorothea's full co-operation, Tim's lawyer colleague made application to the Family Court for myself as next of kin and my partner Jon to be appointed guardians of the new baby, giving us parental rights and the right to petition for full adoption within five years.

Tim's colleague must have prepared her case very well, because the application was granted without any objections being made that we were unsuitable for a parental role. I was surprised and relieved that there had been no objections from the Camfordshire children's department, who were notorious at the time for being hostile to children being brought up solely by men. To me this suggested that the presence of a skilled and experienced lawyer had been very valuable, and made me (as usual) deeply grateful to my lover that his wealth had secured for us our hearts' desire without hassle and distress.

At Easter, instead of going to France to visit Jon's mother, we went to Loxton, and Edward came with us, and by agreement with the vicar, at dawn on Easter Day, during the rites of the Dawn Mass, he baptized our new son. The godfathers were Jeroen and Edward, and the godmother was Caterina for whom my mother stood proxy. The only persons with dry eyes during the ceremony were Dorothea and Jon. My parents and myself and even my brother Jeroen were all in tears of emotion when our little boy was presented to God. After the service, we all went back home for a champagne breakfast, with bacon and eggs cooked by Jon, who had celebrated his thirty-first birthday only a couple of weeks before. It was a good age for him to become a co-father. During the meal my father stood up, and after we had drunk Luke Cornelis's health, presented Jon and myself with books on child-care and parenthood, and reminded us that we only had six months or so to familiarize ourselves with the contents! My mother had told us also that in the event of any kind of crisis after Luke had come to live with us in Camford or Ixton, she would be instantly available to come to our aid. Jeroen was thrilled that he had become an uncle.

In a way, it was a dual celebration, because before we left Camford, I had submitted my finished thesis, with the required certificate from Charlie, to the University Registry. Looking back, we could not help but recall the circumstances of four years before, when Jon had submitted his thesis and got so drunk that he had made passes at our two gay friends, Tom and Steve at the same time in a public place. Jon said that he still felt guilty when he thought of it.

After breakfast, when Luke had been fed, I persuaded Dorothea to come for a short walk. It was a warm spring morning, and I thanked her for giving Jon and me the greatest gift that we ever could have, and took her rather clumsily in my arms and kissed her. She grinned mischievously and looked happier than I had seen her for several years. "There's no need to thank me," she said, "I ought to be thanking both you and Jon for enabling me to bounce back and resume academic life after an unbelievable moment of total stupidity on my part! Luke's conception only took half an hour: I did not even spend the night with the guy! But I could NEVER have had an abortion."

"You'll have plenty of opportunities to see your son who is also our son, in the future. Because we are keeping him in the family, it's the best of both worlds. You can see that Mum and Dad are also thrilled at the outcome. If he had been adopted outside the family, they might never have seen their grandson again."

Chapter 68 Jon David's Ph.D. Examination

The Pharmacology department had moved speedily to appoint examiners, and David was summoned to defend his thesis late in May. The examination was to take place in a small room in the department, and while the occasion was theoretically open to any member of the university to attend, it was the custom for no-one other than the candidate and the examiners to be present. I set off to escort him from Fountain Street to the department, and we held hands as we walked through Jesserod Meadow. The sun was shining brilliantly on the honey-yellow stonework of the colleges, and the aura of eight hundred years of academic tradition was almost tangibly perceptible, as we strolled gently in the sunshine, Jon rather self-conscious in sub-fusc suit and white tie, the sleeves of his B.A. gown billowing behind him in the breeze. It was 11-30 in the morning, and the meadow was quiet apart from the occasional dog-walker. "I had better have a quick word with Charlie before I go in," said David.

We went into the building together and sought out Charlie Crabtree, David's doctoral supervisor, in his little office off his laboratory. He shook hands with David and wished him luck. I then said to him, "Good luck, David," and shook him by the hand. He replied with a very quick kiss, before leaving the room to the sound of students and technicians wishing him the best.

"Sit down for a few minutes, Jon," said Charlie, "and then we'll go and have coffee. How do you see your and Jon's futures, assuming that he passes today?"

"Big changes to the plans that we cherished for the past three years," I replied. "I will definitely be leaving my job with you on 30 September, because by then I will have become full-time carer for our baby son, Luke. I will be full-time in that role until Christmas. I have taken three month's leave from my part-time post-doc job to give us time to get used to being parents. By then we hope to hire a nanny or other child carer to work for us two days per week to enable me to resume my home-based computer work. David will be engaged in various part-time singing engagements, some of which will require his absence from Camford for several days at a time, for example operatic roles in Bristol, and hopefully soon in London, as well as frequent recitals and one-off oratorio performances. He has an important recital tour in July and August with Thomas Atkin that could make or break his career, depending on how many engagements he gets offered. I am afraid that I have to tell you that the need to support our family means that David can have no future as a scientist. He is obliged to earn our family living as a professional singer, and I have to assume the role of mother figure for our son. Personally, although I regret the loss to science that this may mean, he has an obligation to make the best use of another of his God-given talents, his voice."

"I understand from what David has told me in confidence, that you have considerable private wealth. Why don't you use this to allow you both to pursue your scientific careers by paying for full-time child care?"

"Charlie, you are a man with children. Would you and your wife have paid someone else to bring up your babies? Of course not. You know, as we do that the first five years of a child's life are the time when it most needs its parents. If that's true for families with a father and mother, how much more must it be true for a family with two co-fathers? Our son has to grow up feeling happy and comfortable without a mother. Any kind of female carer would inevitably end up as a mother-figure for such a child. We could have provided that by letting Luke be brought up by his grandmother. But David's mother as well as his sister felt that as we both hoped eventually to bring up a family, now was a unique and unrepeatable opportunity. His sister is not going to repeat the experience of letting herself be casually shagged by an Italian sexual adventurer! I had the experience of a mother who by her personality made me feel alienated from her, and it has left me starved of affection. We intend to supply little Luke with all the love that a father and mother can give a child, even if it permanently damages our career prospects."

"But surely David doesn't need to leave you and your son at home to go gadding off round the world singing?"

"Charlie, the chances that he has to delight others with the beauty and skills of his voice will not be available in five years' time. The offers that he is getting now will not be kept open. It is now or never for his career. He hates the idea of being away from our son for days on end, but there is no alternative, except that of treating parenthood as a rich man's hobby that we can afford just because I have an unearned income. God did not put either of us into the world to live on wealth accumulated by others. We are morally obliged to earn our own living and provide for our son out of it. The days when music and science were hobbies to occupy a man of wealth are over. We owe it to other people and to God to make use of the gifts that we have been blessed with to earn our living. The only thing that we regret is that we both have had our roles thrust upon us without any choice. David will be breadwinner, I the home-loving carer, at least until Luke goes to school. We both have to learn the childrearing skills of a mother, without being able to offer our baby the breast that seals the bond between mother and child."