Chapter 52

Andrew walked away from the hotel thinking about the last four days. Both Dr. Jindal and Lord Barnes had been genuinely pleased to see him. Had his experiences with his teachers affected him so much? He still needed to get through Saturday. He was going for dinner with the Jenners after working with Julian all day. It would not do to let his guard down yet. As he walked through Princes Street Gardens he thought past the coming Saturday and considered the Christmas break. Andrew could tell he needed to recharge. There were less than four weeks of term left. His goals for the term would have to be assessed and he would have to plan carefully for the winter term. He needed to assess when he was going to get the academic work for the course completed so as to apply to the Open University for the residential school. Lots to do.

He called Leslie to let her know how the meeting had gone. Her assessment was the same as his own, Lord Barnes seemed genuinely pleased that Andrew had helped Moira and made their home life better. Afterwards he called Nikki on a whim. It was Fran who answered the phone and they talked for several minutes before he could hear Nikki starting to try and grab the phone from Fran. After much squealing at the other end eventually she came on the phone.

“I am going to get her for that. She was just dragging the conversation out to tease me.”

She sounded all huffy.

“I didn’t phone to upset domestic bliss I wanted to see how you were and ask a favour again.”

Nikki laughed.

“When do you want to visit?”

“Am I that obvious?”

They were both laughing now.

“Yes, you are but we were both wondering when you were going to visit again. You are a very low key, funny guest. I think that it helps that we can just be ourselves around you. You are always welcome. You give good advice and have been a true friend. If you were our age it would entirely unremarkable. The fact that you are still only 15 is the amazing part. I can’t believe I met you when you were 13. It is still less than two years ago.”

They both stood thinking about that on the phone.

“It does seem so much longer doesn’t it? I have grown again, much to my mother’s despair. I may be above six feet tall by the time I see you. All that Lentil soup. Mum gets huge sacks wholesale now. It looks like we run a soup kitchen with this huge pot of it. I still have it for breakfast every morning. I caught her feeding it to Scott one day. If it is the reason for my height then Scott will be a giant. Anyway, I didn’t phone you to tell you about my diet. I do have a lot of stories to tell.”

“As always. The Monday after our call I am always telling Andrew stories. My colleagues start asking about you.”

“Well that is one of my stories, about a bunch of girls telling Andrew stories out of school.”

When they finished the call Andrew was smiling. Nikki made him smile, it was good to talk to her.

The rest of the week went by uneventfully. Moira was giddy on Wednesday and repeatedly thanked him for meeting her Dad. After that things were more or less as normal. Katie and Tanvi made a point of saying hi every morning to which Andrew was still oblivious but nobody had given them a stick so how was he to know?

The CCF on Friday brought news. There was a weekend in mid-February scheduled where they could finish the proficiency courses. All of them had a practical component and this was the chance to finish their courses and get promoted. Don was completing the Infantry module and Pete, who had an interest in electronics, was doing the Signals module. As Pete had rightly predicted Andrew started doing the Engineering module and was testing for that but had also done all of the requirements for the Artillery module as well. Artillery is a popular module to start as it is the first time a pupil would be involved in the firing of explosive projectiles. Formal way of saying you got to play with the big guns. Artillery, as the instructor had said back in the summer, was all about maths. In 1980, before the widespread use of fancy calculators, this meant firing tables and a lot of trigonometry. Andrew was going to try and do both modules on the assessment weekend. He wanted to get the Engineer proficiency but the 15 year old boy in him wanted to plot six rounds and give the firing instructions. An actual artillery officer then checked your work. The grade was pass or fail. If you passed then the gun fired the six shots as you had plotted them. Never have so many teenage boys been so happy to spend two nights on snow covered hills in the middle of winter. The news had only been announced at the end of the session so the whole platoon was all buzzing afterwards. Andrew packed up and the three of them walked out the school together as usual.

“What do you reckon? Do you think we will pass?”

This was Don. Pete nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about that. The platoon wants to look good to the brass so I don’t think we would be put forward unless they thought we were ready. They always have to walk that fine line of keeping everyone motivated but not send off a bunch of Muppets who are not ready. Same with the guys at Otterburn. I think they are there to pass us as long as we perform. You know, reasons to let us pass as opposed to looking for reasons to fail us. Andrew, have you heard if they will let you to do the two tests?”

“I don’t know. Probably won’t until we get there. I overheard Shrimpy.”

Their nickname for the Contingent Commander, whose day job was as a Biology teacher. He was short and had a degree in marine biology, thus the nickname.

“Talking to one of the other teachers. They are thinking about scrapping the Artillery proficiency module as it has such a low pass rate. Lots of people flunk out on the theory and then the practical trips up a bunch more. I think I am the only person trying this time from us. I am pretty sure I will pass the Engineering test unless I have a ‘mare. If they have the guns set up anyway, they may let me try. They may also think I am a cocky little shit trying to do two tests at once and tell me to fuck off. It is the Army, who the hell knows.”

When Andrew got to the pool he was in an energised mood and less reflective than normal. After he stretched and warmed up he continued practicing the butterfly for 20 minutes. He always felt it in his core at the end of a session. After that with his initial energy burned off he got into a relaxing steady state swim. Andrew could stay at that pace for an hour and so gradually he zoned out, started thinking about the module four on his course. Module three had been returned the previous day and he had scraped another ‘A’. Three for three so far but all three had been borderline. Andrew was thinking about what he needed to do to improve that. Finally he was beat and hauled himself out and sat on the bench for a minute recovering. He saw Neil, the lifeguard who had befriended him on that first morning there nearly two years ago and wandered over to say hi. It was an odd conversation as Andrew had to stand slightly to the rear of the guard so that he can still see the water and scan everywhere. Andrew could look at Neil as they talked but he never once looked at him.

“Hi Neil, you don’t normally work the afternoon shifts. How are things?”

“Hey kid, Allen no Andrew, right? Okay I suppose. They are short a couple of guards and so I am doing some overtime. You still doing the same thing. Distance at a regular pace?”

“Yeah. I tried some interval training last year but it is not for me. Swimming is time to think for me as much as exercise. Anyway, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to say hi.”

They must have spoken 20 times over the two years but that was the extent of it. Neil had a job to do and Andrew was just another swimmer. But he would always remember the help Neil gave the 90lb skeleton that was Andrew when he first came there. He walked back towards the changing rooms. A swimmer was coming out of the lanes ahead of him and for a moment he was transfixed. The most perfect hour glass figure, darker skin, long dark hair. Andrew remembered to breathe and hurried off into the changing room before he embarrassed himself anymore with a rapidly hardening dick. Later as he waited for the bus he smiled at the memory of the young woman. Sadly that was all she was, a memory.

Saturday, the team were playing at Erskine’s again which was always handy for walking to Julian’s afterward. His mother dropped him off right at 9.00 just as the match was about to start. Andrew waved at Mr. Denofrio and Dr. Jindal but deliberately walked round to the far side of the pitch. If people didn’t know that he was a regular and could guess it was him there is no way he was recognisable. All that was visible were his eyes. Everything else was bundled up and covered. The school had relented and let the girls wear tracksuit bottoms in the awful winter weather, even so they all looked cold. The game was low scoring and the team eked out a 1-0 victory. Most of the girls headed to the changing rooms quickly to warm up. Suzanne came by briefly to reconfirm for the eighth time that he would be at her parent’s place at 6.00. Andrew started to head back round the pitch to walk up the hill to the Strongs. Most of the parents were huddled together desultorily chatting and waiting for the players to change. Andrew kept his head down and escaped without a further interrogation. Oh if only.

He was two minutes away from Julian’s and his focus had changed from hockey to computers. He was thinking through all the remaining things they needed to do to complete the program for the petrol companies. There was not much and the list was a lot of small items rather than any one significant problem. He was mentally adding things to the list when suddenly he heard.

“Andrew!”

Andrew spun his head round startled at the loud shout beside him.

“At last. We must have shouted at you four times before you noticed.”

This was Katie sitting in the back seat of the Jindal’s car. Tanvi and her dad were in the front looking over at him as well.

“Sorry I was thinking about something and was deep in thought.”

Katie laughed.

“That sounds like you.”

Tanvi piped up for the first time.

“Can we give you a lift anywhere Andrew? It is a cold day to be walking home.”

“That is kind but I am not walking home, that is all the way out in Juniper Green. I am walking to my friend’s place which is less than two minutes away. You can see the entrance to his street just down there. Thank you though.”

Andrew smiled and they pulled away, the two of them looking disappointed.

He and Julian finished the changes to the software and carefully saved it to multiple disks. They wrote out two separate envelopes with copies of the program. Once earlier in the summer, the package had gone astray so now they sent two separate copies. It was three in the afternoon and neither of them could be bothered to start anything else. Instead they were sitting in the kitchen grazing away when Julian asked an interesting question.

“What are we going to do next year Andrew, I mean school year. I graduate in June and have multiple offers for university. Do you see us carrying on working together?”

“Yeah, we should talk about this. I will have two more years left at school here in Edinburgh. I am leaning towards Engineering or something like that at university. My chances of going to Edinburgh are low. The top rated universities for Engineering are all in England, Cambridge, London and Manchester. Where are your offers?”

“Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Nottingham and Cambridge. The last is a real long shot though, three ‘A’s and a ‘B’. I have a confirmed place at the two Scottish Unis and Nottingham want an ‘A’ and two ‘B’s, which I should manage. I need to pare the list down. I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

“Okay. At one level I want to keep working on software with you. Despite being hard work and relentless some of the time, it is relaxing, we have learned a lot and most remarkably we have made a ton of money. And it looks like we are going to make even more if Kyle sells as many copies to the petrol companies as he thinks he will. You are also my friend. We never get each other’s nerves, we go to gigs together and we own a company together.