Two of the Quad give an interview

 

If Mike were willing to be interviewed for Raith’s vlog (Doubtful!), the conversation might go something like this… (The men are in the living room.)

“Mi-ike…”

“Ye-es? What’s comin’ next? I know that ‘Mi-ike’.”

“Nothing dreadful, Mike! I just wondered if you’d do one tiny interview ‘cos I haven’t had much to talk about this week.”

“You always ‘ave things to talk about. You’re always spoutin’ rubbish.”

“Mike! Please. I need to fill a gap.”

“So that’s what you think of me, is it? I’m a gap-filler.”

“Well, actually, Mike, you do fill gaps, don’t you? With you doing all the maintenance round here.”

“Different sort of gap.”

“But will you do it? Please. Just once.”

Hard to resist those pleading eyes. “If I must. When?”

“Now. Look.” Raith whipped his recorder out of his pocket and pressed STAND BY.

“Prepared, aren’t you? I might ‘ave refused.”

“But you didn’t ‘cos you’re nice.”

“Hmmm. ‘Nice’ must equal ‘daft’ then. Let’s get it over with.”

Raith sat down, placed the mic on the back of an armchair and, after an introductory spiel and after editing out all Mike’s curses, here’s what he recorded.

“Well, Mike, can you tell us something about yourself?”

“I’m thirty-eight. Born in Bishop Auckland. Grew up there. Me, me mam and dad, our gran, three younger sisters and a younger brother, two dogs and various cats in a house that was smaller than this one.”

“And what’s your earliest memory of life in Bishop?”

“Easy one. Ridin’ pillion on me dad’s bike up Weardale. I was probably four at the time.”

“And did you have any hobbies? Apart from bikes, which I know you still love.”

“Aye. Football. I liked kickin’ a ball around and me dad used to take me to the Black Cats home games if he was goin’ himself.”

“For my international subscribers, Mike is referring to soccer and the professional team from Sunderland.”

(Raith edited out Mike’s response. Usually, he or one of the Quad had to explain to people what Raith  had said!)

“An’ fishin’. I liked fishin’. Could eat what I caught.”

“No music? Art?”

“No. No rock star ambitions or nuthin’ like that.”

“So what did you do after school?”

“Well, I worked on a construction site for a couple of years. Joined the police. Moved from the beat to Highways and then applied to CID. That’s plain-clothes detective for all your… international subscribers. Got accepted. Did well, but then I quit the force. Meanwhile, I’d met Ross. He set up BOTWAC—(Raith interrupted to explain that BOTWAC stood for the Beck on the Wear Arts Centre.)—and it made more sense for me to do the gap-fillin’, as you put it, than pay people from outside to do it. So, now I do all the maintenance around here.”

“And you do it very well, Mike.”

(Edited out: “You’ll pay for this later, you cheeky, flatterin’ sod.”)

“Some quickfire questions, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Favourite food?”

“Eggs. Fried.”

“Meal?”

“Breakfast. Full English.”

“Pudding?”

“Apple crumble and custard.”

“Drink?”

“Tea if I’m drivin’, pale ale if I’m not.”

“Sport?”

“To play?”

“Yes.”

“Not much now, unless you count weights and five miles runnin’ over the hills every day as sport.”

“To watch?”

“Football. When I ‘ave the time and I’m not gap-fillin’ or answerin’ your questions.”

“Book?”

“Not much of a reader.”

“Film?”

“God’s Own Country.”

“TV?”

“Maybe ‘Queer as Folk’. The English one.”

“Which gets us on nicely to…when did you realize you were gay?”

There was a pause.

“Nicely for you maybe. I knew by the end of the first week in secondary school. Eleven. I met Sam.”

Mike reached over to the recorder and pressed STOP. “Let’s finish this later, heh? And steer the conversation some place else.”

“Mike, I didn’t think! I got carried away. I’m sorry!”

“No problem, luv. Later, heh? Promise. You’ll get your video out.”

Mike gave Raith a peck on the cheek, went out and walked up the hill to the churchyard.

©Jude Tresswell 2021

 

Title: A Right To Know

Series: County Durham Quad 7

Author: Jude Tresswell

Publisher: KDP

Release Date: 31st July 2021

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male Menage

Length: 57300

Genre: Mystery, asexual/sexual relationship, family drama/biological father, polyamorous relationship

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Synopsis

“A son! A child! How? Why? Fuck! Phil! You can’t have! And does this sperm-child want to see you?”

Abandonment, trust, suspicion and compromise—integral parts of a mystery that involves industrial espionage, sperm donation and coming to terms with oneself and the truth.

Sperm donors know that now, under UK law, offspring who reach eighteen have the right to learn a donor’s identity and last known address, but Phil Roberts donated before the law was changed. He is shocked and dismayed to learn that he has a son called Lewis who intends to visit. Phil’s husband, Raith, is furious—and very scared.

What does Lewis Lennon really want? The man he has always called ‘dad’ is dead. Was his death suicide or was he murdered? Lewis wants Phil to find out. So, Phil, Raith, Mike and Ross, the County Durham Quad, plus their special friend, Nick, are embroiled in another investigation, but, as always, their relationships come under scrutiny too.

Phil sat at the big kitchen table. His beard, neatly trimmed as always, failed to hide the lack of colour in his face. He looked shocked. He was holding a letter.

“You alright, Phil?” Mike was puzzled and concerned. “Bad news?”

“Not ‘bad’ exactly. Unexpected. Very.” He sighed. “I’ve an eighteen-year-old son. Sperm donation.”

Raith, Phil’s husband, dropped the glass of juice he was drinking. It rolled off the table and smashed as it hit the floor.

“A son! A child! How? Why? Fuck! Phil! You can’t have! And does this sperm-child want to see you?” Raith snatched the letter from Phil’s hands. “I can’t read this fucking stuff; it’s in joined-up. Why didn’t he type it?”

“He probably felt that this was more personal,” Mike suggested, retrieving the letter from the floor where Raith had slung it in disgust and shaking it free of orange juice.

“It’s fucking personal alright. You always said they couldn’t identify you, Phil. What the fuck’s gone wrong?”

“It looks as though we might find out,” said Ross, the fourth member of the quad. He was reading the letter over Mike’s shoulder. “He intends to visit. I think we need to talk.”

***

Mike, Ross, Raith and Phil, four men who shared a home in Tunhead, a tiny hamlet in the Durham hills. Tunhead derived its name from Tun Beck, a little stream that flowed into the larger River Wear. Tun Beck lent its name to BOTWAC too—the Beck on the Wear Arts Centre. Ross managed BOTWAC, Raith provided paintings and ceramics and Mike carried out the maintenance. Phil was the only one whose work was separate. He was a surgeon at Warbridge Hospital, an hour’s drive away and, in a sense, his medical background was the cause of the morning’s shock announcement. The four of them talked about the news that evening.

“You knew I’d donated sperm, Raith.” Phil had always made it clear that when he was a medical student, like many others on his course, he had donated both for research and for procreation.

“I know that, but you’d always done it anonymously. You said so, and you never did it after they changed the law.”

Raith was referring to a change that occurred in 2005 regarding data held at UK fertility clinics. At licenced clinics, that is. Prior to the change, offspring conceived by sperm or egg donation could learn some information about their donor when they reached sixteen, but what was released was very general. If donors wished to remain anonymous, they could do so. From 2005, though, anonymity was lifted. Sixteen was still the age of release of the ‘non-identifiable information’, but at eighteen, offspring conceived by donation had the right to be told their donor’s name and date of birth and, also, their donor’s last known address.

“I didn’t donate after two thousand and five. I think I’d know if I did.”

“Sperm can be frozen though, can’t it, Phil? Perhaps it was used after the change was implemented.”

“Only for another year or so, Ross, and under the old anonymity rules. There was a transitional period but, after that, sperm could only be used in exceptional circumstances. To create a sibling, for example. I remember being contacted about it. I had the option of… going public, if you like, but I chose not to do so. I didn’t want…I didn’t want a child, well, not one that I’d feel some responsibility for. I suppose, if I’m honest, I did want to pass on my genes, have that sense of immortality—I knew it was unlikely that I’d ever father a child with a woman. I just wanted to… be helpful, I suppose. I gave a brief self-description at the time, but the details would apply to thousands of people: eyes, hair, height, weight, ethnicity. Even if you narrowed the count with ‘student medic’ and my year of birth, you’d still be talking hundreds. I was careful not to leave traces.”

“How thoughtful of you!”

“That’s not helpful, Raith.”

Ross chastised gently but, tonight, too harshly for Raith.

“Helpful! It’s not help Phil needs—it’s a fucking vasectomy, but he’s eighteen years too late. I’m going up.”

No hugs, no kisses—the little goodnight habits that told the men that they were loved and cared for and cared about. Just “I’m going up” and heavy footsteps on the stairs.

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Discover the entire series!

Tales that track the exploits of Mike, Ross, Raith and Phil, four men who live and love in County Durham, North-East England. Together with, from Book 3 onward, their friend, Nick Seabrooke, the Quad solve crimes, are accused of crimes and, occasionally, commit crimes. Their actions jeopardise their relationships. Sometimes, the biggest threat they face is staying together. Each tale comes with its own plot, and background is included to aid new readers. Feel free to jump in anywhere.

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I’m a long-married, asexual, cis-gender female who lives in southeast England. I’m from northern England though, and the north is the setting of all my stories. You can see the setting on my Youtube channel. This isn’t a #ownvoice tale, though there’s certainly some ace-rep in it. Part of the motivation was my dismay at receiving, unasked for, the results of an ancestry test earlier this year. A different situation from Phil in the story, but I felt for him! A TW: parental suicide. Again, it’s something I have experience of. I hope I have dealt with it sensitively.

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