The Un-Nuclear Family by Morgan Starr
Categories: Contemporary Romance | Gay
Word Count: 29,541 Heat Rating: 3 Price: $ .99 Available here:
 
Morgan's and the Project's 2nd @Allromance bestseller. The first was
And Joey Makes Three.
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After 25 years of marriage and working hard, Will and Stewart are looking forward to taking things a little easier. But it seems that everyone else has other plans. The fuse in this powder keg of events is lit when Stewart's son Anthony goes AWOL, dumping his son Jonah on the pair.
In having to look after the two-year-old boy, Will, in particular, is forced to reconnect with the nightmare of his own fatherless childhood, which was also dominated by his mother's addiction to drugs and alcohol. Only Gran and Grandad were there to keep things together - and in some respects, they still do. When Anthony's scheming ex demands custody of Jonah, Will and Stewart are faced with the prospect of losing him, and they are forced to make some difficult choices, with startling results. When Will's mother dies, and his grandfather admits to a painful truth, Will has no choice but to resolve the hurts of the past and embrace the future. I would be very happy to receive your feedback. If you wish to contact me directly, please email me at: MorganStarrAuthor@outlook.com. Please visit my website, www.MorganStarrAuthor.weebly.com, for updates on my next story. Thank you, Morgan |
Chapter One - Red Salmon
“Go and tell Grandad that tea’s almost ready, would you, sweetheart? Tell him it’s red salmon and it might jivvy him up a bit.”
“But it’s pilchards.”
“If you tell him it’s pilchards, we won’t see him until after Songs of Praise. Where’s Stewart?”
“He just texted; he’s on his way.”
“I’ll pop the kettle on ...”
Sunday teatime at Gran and Grandad’s is a kind of ritual - no; it is a ritual, but an enjoyable one.
I exit through the kitchen door into the garden and pick my way through the gnomes to the door at the side of the garage.
“Grandad; Gran says tea’s almost ready ...”
I find him - as usual - tinkering with the car. There is an outside chance that one day, he’ll let me drive her.
He looks up and gives me a smile.
“... it’s red salmon.”
“It’s pilchards ... Where’s that wonderful fella of yours?”
“On his way, Grandad. He had a stint at the hospice this afternoon.”
“That boy’s a saint.”
He is rather heavenly ... but a saint? Far too wicked to qualify.
“He’ll do your corns later if you want him to.”
“If he can shave that in-growing toenail, I’d be grateful; giving me no end of gyp. Tell Delia Smith that I’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“Will do ...”
Stewart. You wouldn’t think to look at him; you’d have said a nightclub bouncer or a hod carrier ... chiropodist? No. Built like a brick shithouse, sporting tats and piercings; definitely not someone who spends their days looking after people’s feet.
“He won’t be long, Gran.”
“I don’t mind telling you, Willow, but he’s been acting a bit strange lately.”
“What do you mean?”
“Secretive ...”
Further questioning is curtailed by Stewart’s arrival. We set up in the back parlour; the only time the room gets used - tea on a Sunday, Songs of Praise and maybe a game of cards. She’ll have run the carpet sweeper over it this morning and dusted - I can smell the polish; a smell that will forever be associated with my childhood. The name Willow should have been a clue. My mother - whose name is Sharon - rebelled most spectacularly when she was eighteen. Took herself off to Woodstock. Came back pregnant - swears she met Jim Morrison and, well, had a night to remember. Everyone knows that Jim Morrison and The Doors didn’t play Woodstock. I imagine it was quite the adventure for a young woman of eighteen from Portslade. In any event, I was the product of her phantom date with Jim. Gran and Grandad did their best - for the most part for me - because she also seemed hell bent on continuing her association with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Enter Christophe. Real name Darren. A loser. He comes and he goes - she’s besotted with the lanky pole - and from what I can tell, he’s got a polecat about his person - reeks of booze, dope and patchouli. Two sixty-five-year-old hippies, playing the same old slightly sad tune. He was round there when I popped in before heading to Gran and Grandad’s. The two of them were swaying to Donovan, stripped down to their underwear.
After pilchards, Gran and I clear up while Stewart dispenses love and affection on Grandad’s in-growing toenail. I can’t complain; I have feet like porcelain thanks to him - his are like the gnarled roots of a century-old vine. Gran will get her feet done while me and Grandad tour the greenhouse and sneak a puff at the bottom of the garden, swearing blind to Gran afterwards that the smell is compost and not Fleur de Pays Blond No.1 mix.
“What do you mean; secretive?”
“Letter came; official looking. I says ‘what’s that?’ ‘Junk mail’ he says. It didn’t end up in the junk mail pile, and ever since, he’s been acting strange.”
“What do you think it could be?”
“I don’t know. Snapped at me when I asked, and that hasn’t happened for forty-three years.”
“What happened back then?”
“I dared to suggest that he loved that car more than me.”
“Gran; you know better than to play with fire.”
“I didn’t then; I have ever since. Do you think it could be a debt?”
“Seems pretty unlikely. What would he go into debt for?”
“Don’t ferret but if he says anything, I would be grateful if you would tell me ... I’m worried.”
“Don’t worry, Gran; it’ll be nothing.”
We finish clearing up while dissecting the comings and goings of next door but one, who looks to be having far too many gentleman callers to pass herself off as a spirit medium.
“Her mother was a tart - excuse my language. Rolling drunk every night, with a different fella on her arm. If Wendy is a spirit medium then I’m the blessed Queen of Sheba!”
Judging by the brand new Mercedes in the driveway, she isn’t so much reading fortunes as making one.
Stewart comes to collect Gran, and me and Grandad sneak out, having turned the radio on to mask our escape.
“How’s young Anthony? Haven’t seen him in a while,” Grandad asks.
“Struggling a bit, Grandad. Little Jonah clips his wings - his choice. He was the one who got the silly little tart banged up in the first place.”
“And where’s the mother now?”
“Last Stewart heard, shacked up with some bloke in Dunstable. Doesn’t ever want a thing to do with Jonah. We do as much as we can; gave Anthony and Jonah a home when they needed it, as you know - precious little gratitude, I have to say.”
“Young fellas don’t think.”
“You were barely twenty when you had Mum.”
“Very different world, Will, back then. We was expected to get married and start a family as soon as possible. We did for Sharon like you and Stewart are doing for Anthony - it’s what parents do.”
“Hopefully, he’s got an interview next week - fingers crossed.”
We saunter through the greenhouse where Grandad halts proceedings while he rolls two cigarettes from his stash of tobacco and papers that are kept in a tin under the potting compost. After which, we step lively to the bottom of the garden and light up.
“I’m worried about your mum, Will.”
“You and me both, Grandad. She’s sixty-five next week. It’s a bloody miracle that she’s lasted this long, what with the booze and pills that she takes.”
“She was round here, begging for money the day before yesterday; couldn’t understand a blessed word she said half the time. You should have heard the language when Gran refused point blank to give her a penny, knowing that she’d be straight round to the off-licence. I just wish I could understand why she is the way she is ... She brought that fella of hers with her but I refused to let him in - he stinks ...”
We contemplate the shrubbery for a minute. He doesn’t give the impression of a man with a secret. I’m inclined to think that Gran has it wrong.
“You and Gran coming for your tea on Wednesday? I know you’ve got the quack in the afternoon.”
“And miss the football on your flat screen? We’ll be there.”
“You could have your own, you know?”
“What, and have Songs of bloody Praise in surround sound? I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
“Fair enough. Stewart will pick you up on his way home from work.”
“You’ve got a good man there, Will. Given the start you had, I wasn’t sure you’d make it ...”
I did have my own spectacular rebellion at around the age of twenty-three. Amounted to nothing more than touring Europe on my motorbike - a BMW R60. I thought I was Steve McQueen. During which time, I met Stewart in Berlin.
“I have you to thank that I did.”
“I don’t think it qualifies as nepotism - me and George were retiring and Barstow’s needed new blood.”
“I was grateful then and I’m still grateful now, especially with two more mouths to feed.”
“Speaking of which, let’s make a cuppa and convince your Gran to open the cake tin.”
There’ll be a Battenberg Cake on a plate and a pot of tea waiting for us when we go back in. She’ll have bought it special on pension day, along with a packet of chocolate buttons for Jonah.
After an hour debating the finer points of the Brexit vote, we bid Gran and Grandad goodnight.
“See you Wednesday then?”
“I’ll pick you up at six on my way home,” confirms Stewart.
“Bye Gran; bye Grandad ...”
oOo
The conversation on the way home kicks off with Anthony’s interview and trying to get him to take Jonah to pre-school just a couple of mornings a week.
“Too fucking stubborn - just like his mother.”
“Did she call?”
“I think Anthony spoke to her the other night. She didn’t make it to the christening or his first or his second birthday ... I hardly think she’s gonna give a toss about pre-school.”
“Isn’t that more to do with avoiding you?”
“Probably. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after twenty-four years, she’d have come to terms with the fact that we were too young and neither of us knew shit ... Granted, I was the one who called time on our sham of a marriage when it was obvious that I preferred blokes ... She’s been married and divorced twice since then ...”
“I’ll never forget that night in Berlin ...”
“We can do it all over again on our anniversary.”
“Twenty-five bloody years ... I don’t suppose that club is still there, do you?”
“We’ll find out. Whether we can get into it is another matter.”
“Forty-eight is hardly decrepit, Stewart.”
“Wear the jeans that you wore that night and they’ll roll out the red carpet.”
“Liposuction it is then.”
“I bet you can still get into them.”
“Well; I ain’t called Will-O-The-Wisp for nothing ... but that might be a stretch too far.”
“When you turned round and I could see the rips in them just under your bum cheeks, I creamed my pants.”
“I thought you were going to eat me.”
“The look on your face when I said that I wanted you to fuck me.”
“You’re just a big old pussy bear, aren’t you?”
“I want you to fuck me tonight ...”
He reaches over and grabs my tent pole.
“Stewart! Keep both hands on the wheel ... I’ll nail you; you don’t have to worry about that ...”
“Go and tell Grandad that tea’s almost ready, would you, sweetheart? Tell him it’s red salmon and it might jivvy him up a bit.”
“But it’s pilchards.”
“If you tell him it’s pilchards, we won’t see him until after Songs of Praise. Where’s Stewart?”
“He just texted; he’s on his way.”
“I’ll pop the kettle on ...”
Sunday teatime at Gran and Grandad’s is a kind of ritual - no; it is a ritual, but an enjoyable one.
I exit through the kitchen door into the garden and pick my way through the gnomes to the door at the side of the garage.
“Grandad; Gran says tea’s almost ready ...”
I find him - as usual - tinkering with the car. There is an outside chance that one day, he’ll let me drive her.
He looks up and gives me a smile.
“... it’s red salmon.”
“It’s pilchards ... Where’s that wonderful fella of yours?”
“On his way, Grandad. He had a stint at the hospice this afternoon.”
“That boy’s a saint.”
He is rather heavenly ... but a saint? Far too wicked to qualify.
“He’ll do your corns later if you want him to.”
“If he can shave that in-growing toenail, I’d be grateful; giving me no end of gyp. Tell Delia Smith that I’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“Will do ...”
Stewart. You wouldn’t think to look at him; you’d have said a nightclub bouncer or a hod carrier ... chiropodist? No. Built like a brick shithouse, sporting tats and piercings; definitely not someone who spends their days looking after people’s feet.
“He won’t be long, Gran.”
“I don’t mind telling you, Willow, but he’s been acting a bit strange lately.”
“What do you mean?”
“Secretive ...”
Further questioning is curtailed by Stewart’s arrival. We set up in the back parlour; the only time the room gets used - tea on a Sunday, Songs of Praise and maybe a game of cards. She’ll have run the carpet sweeper over it this morning and dusted - I can smell the polish; a smell that will forever be associated with my childhood. The name Willow should have been a clue. My mother - whose name is Sharon - rebelled most spectacularly when she was eighteen. Took herself off to Woodstock. Came back pregnant - swears she met Jim Morrison and, well, had a night to remember. Everyone knows that Jim Morrison and The Doors didn’t play Woodstock. I imagine it was quite the adventure for a young woman of eighteen from Portslade. In any event, I was the product of her phantom date with Jim. Gran and Grandad did their best - for the most part for me - because she also seemed hell bent on continuing her association with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Enter Christophe. Real name Darren. A loser. He comes and he goes - she’s besotted with the lanky pole - and from what I can tell, he’s got a polecat about his person - reeks of booze, dope and patchouli. Two sixty-five-year-old hippies, playing the same old slightly sad tune. He was round there when I popped in before heading to Gran and Grandad’s. The two of them were swaying to Donovan, stripped down to their underwear.
After pilchards, Gran and I clear up while Stewart dispenses love and affection on Grandad’s in-growing toenail. I can’t complain; I have feet like porcelain thanks to him - his are like the gnarled roots of a century-old vine. Gran will get her feet done while me and Grandad tour the greenhouse and sneak a puff at the bottom of the garden, swearing blind to Gran afterwards that the smell is compost and not Fleur de Pays Blond No.1 mix.
“What do you mean; secretive?”
“Letter came; official looking. I says ‘what’s that?’ ‘Junk mail’ he says. It didn’t end up in the junk mail pile, and ever since, he’s been acting strange.”
“What do you think it could be?”
“I don’t know. Snapped at me when I asked, and that hasn’t happened for forty-three years.”
“What happened back then?”
“I dared to suggest that he loved that car more than me.”
“Gran; you know better than to play with fire.”
“I didn’t then; I have ever since. Do you think it could be a debt?”
“Seems pretty unlikely. What would he go into debt for?”
“Don’t ferret but if he says anything, I would be grateful if you would tell me ... I’m worried.”
“Don’t worry, Gran; it’ll be nothing.”
We finish clearing up while dissecting the comings and goings of next door but one, who looks to be having far too many gentleman callers to pass herself off as a spirit medium.
“Her mother was a tart - excuse my language. Rolling drunk every night, with a different fella on her arm. If Wendy is a spirit medium then I’m the blessed Queen of Sheba!”
Judging by the brand new Mercedes in the driveway, she isn’t so much reading fortunes as making one.
Stewart comes to collect Gran, and me and Grandad sneak out, having turned the radio on to mask our escape.
“How’s young Anthony? Haven’t seen him in a while,” Grandad asks.
“Struggling a bit, Grandad. Little Jonah clips his wings - his choice. He was the one who got the silly little tart banged up in the first place.”
“And where’s the mother now?”
“Last Stewart heard, shacked up with some bloke in Dunstable. Doesn’t ever want a thing to do with Jonah. We do as much as we can; gave Anthony and Jonah a home when they needed it, as you know - precious little gratitude, I have to say.”
“Young fellas don’t think.”
“You were barely twenty when you had Mum.”
“Very different world, Will, back then. We was expected to get married and start a family as soon as possible. We did for Sharon like you and Stewart are doing for Anthony - it’s what parents do.”
“Hopefully, he’s got an interview next week - fingers crossed.”
We saunter through the greenhouse where Grandad halts proceedings while he rolls two cigarettes from his stash of tobacco and papers that are kept in a tin under the potting compost. After which, we step lively to the bottom of the garden and light up.
“I’m worried about your mum, Will.”
“You and me both, Grandad. She’s sixty-five next week. It’s a bloody miracle that she’s lasted this long, what with the booze and pills that she takes.”
“She was round here, begging for money the day before yesterday; couldn’t understand a blessed word she said half the time. You should have heard the language when Gran refused point blank to give her a penny, knowing that she’d be straight round to the off-licence. I just wish I could understand why she is the way she is ... She brought that fella of hers with her but I refused to let him in - he stinks ...”
We contemplate the shrubbery for a minute. He doesn’t give the impression of a man with a secret. I’m inclined to think that Gran has it wrong.
“You and Gran coming for your tea on Wednesday? I know you’ve got the quack in the afternoon.”
“And miss the football on your flat screen? We’ll be there.”
“You could have your own, you know?”
“What, and have Songs of bloody Praise in surround sound? I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
“Fair enough. Stewart will pick you up on his way home from work.”
“You’ve got a good man there, Will. Given the start you had, I wasn’t sure you’d make it ...”
I did have my own spectacular rebellion at around the age of twenty-three. Amounted to nothing more than touring Europe on my motorbike - a BMW R60. I thought I was Steve McQueen. During which time, I met Stewart in Berlin.
“I have you to thank that I did.”
“I don’t think it qualifies as nepotism - me and George were retiring and Barstow’s needed new blood.”
“I was grateful then and I’m still grateful now, especially with two more mouths to feed.”
“Speaking of which, let’s make a cuppa and convince your Gran to open the cake tin.”
There’ll be a Battenberg Cake on a plate and a pot of tea waiting for us when we go back in. She’ll have bought it special on pension day, along with a packet of chocolate buttons for Jonah.
After an hour debating the finer points of the Brexit vote, we bid Gran and Grandad goodnight.
“See you Wednesday then?”
“I’ll pick you up at six on my way home,” confirms Stewart.
“Bye Gran; bye Grandad ...”
oOo
The conversation on the way home kicks off with Anthony’s interview and trying to get him to take Jonah to pre-school just a couple of mornings a week.
“Too fucking stubborn - just like his mother.”
“Did she call?”
“I think Anthony spoke to her the other night. She didn’t make it to the christening or his first or his second birthday ... I hardly think she’s gonna give a toss about pre-school.”
“Isn’t that more to do with avoiding you?”
“Probably. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after twenty-four years, she’d have come to terms with the fact that we were too young and neither of us knew shit ... Granted, I was the one who called time on our sham of a marriage when it was obvious that I preferred blokes ... She’s been married and divorced twice since then ...”
“I’ll never forget that night in Berlin ...”
“We can do it all over again on our anniversary.”
“Twenty-five bloody years ... I don’t suppose that club is still there, do you?”
“We’ll find out. Whether we can get into it is another matter.”
“Forty-eight is hardly decrepit, Stewart.”
“Wear the jeans that you wore that night and they’ll roll out the red carpet.”
“Liposuction it is then.”
“I bet you can still get into them.”
“Well; I ain’t called Will-O-The-Wisp for nothing ... but that might be a stretch too far.”
“When you turned round and I could see the rips in them just under your bum cheeks, I creamed my pants.”
“I thought you were going to eat me.”
“The look on your face when I said that I wanted you to fuck me.”
“You’re just a big old pussy bear, aren’t you?”
“I want you to fuck me tonight ...”
He reaches over and grabs my tent pole.
“Stewart! Keep both hands on the wheel ... I’ll nail you; you don’t have to worry about that ...”
