Chapter 76

Andrew had not been back to the Commonwealth Pool in nearly two months. He had tried to put Ara out of his mind but still thought about her a lot. She was the first woman to affect him, his first real crush, and Andrew couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something there. He didn’t understand the way everything just petered out and why Ara blamed him for it. All these things kept Andrew away from the Pool. One Sunday near the end of term he decided he wanted to stretch out and swim in the longer lanes. The University had finished more than a week before and so he had no worries about running into Ara there. He left early in the morning for the pool as he was working a double shift at the Food Bank. It was the run-up to Christmas and Andrew knew they were always extra busy at that time of year. The pool was quiet when he got there and Andrew enjoyed the longer lengths with no one else in the lane. It was a lazy day swim, a slower pace than normal. He was thinking about Christmas presents for Maggie, Allison, Suzanne and Kate as well as all the usual people in his life. The time passed as he swam back and forth, oblivious to the world. Eventually it was time to get going, so Andrew pushed himself out of the pool and headed for the changing rooms. There were only a couple of other free swimmers and neither of them had been in his lane. Andrew watched one of them as she swam by and realised with a start it was Ara, she was still in town. She was still swimming though and he wasn’t going to sit and wait for her, just so she could shout at him again. With a shrug Andrew went and changed and headed down to Meadowbank. That night he told Leslie about seeing Ara and confessed he still had a thing for her. Andrew had moved on in some ways but in others he thought about her a lot. The only woman to have affected him so.

“I think that in the New Year you should go swimming again on a Friday night. You need to get the chance to talk to her, if only to discover what you did wrong. If you are not prepared to drop it, and even although you are trying to stay out of her way, you should try and understand the situation better.”

“I’ll think about it, but I am not sure it is the right thing or even the right approach. If there was a reason for the anger at me I could understand it but something does not add up.”

Leslie tried another tack.

“Are you sure this is not because she rejected you Andrew? You have a very high success rate with women but there are going to be some that are just not attracted to you.”

“Leslie, she did reject me, in fact got freaked out when she discovered I was only 15. Then that night in June we talked for hours and she picked up a stick and hit me with it as we walked through the Meadows. That’s the change I don’t understand.”

Something did not add up there. Other than his unsettling encounter with Ara, the end of 1981 was the best ever. Andrew went to four gigs in two weeks. As with all his reminiscences about music there was no point in a song by song review of each concert. Only a tiny handful of the acts that Andrew saw over the years were a disappointment and his thoughts both at the time and then days, weeks and months later were always variations on the theme of amazing.

He and Pete went to see Simple Minds again, back at the Nite Club right after Christmas, it was the night of Boxing Day. Pete also talked him into going to see The Police on New Year’s Eve. Andrew was not sure about that one and it was not one of the best gigs he ever went to, but live music is brilliant and he enjoyed himself; that one would be under the category of ‘glad I went, not sure I would go again’. What Andrew did remember about that gig had nothing to do with the music. His parents had gone to the farm again and so by going to the gig Andrew missed the sweeping up of the drunks on New Year’s Day. When his mum and dad came back they were laughing at the scene they had left. When they left after lunch, there were still more than a dozen, semi-drunk and hung-over farmers in the house. Josephine had told his mum that he was not allowed to skip the party next year!

When Andrew first started listening to pop music on the radio back before he had cancer, one of his favourite groups was ELO, the Electric Light Orchestra. They were still touring five years later so he decided to go. But Andrew could convince none of his friends to come with him and was mocked soundly for wanting to see a group so uncool, so ended up going on his own. They played at the largest arena in Edinburgh, where he would be back two weeks later to see The Police. They were the start of his enjoyment of music. His tastes had evolved but ELO were one of the very early bands that Andrew got into. He knew he would not see them on tour again but was also pleased that he made the effort to go and see them.

The last gig of that hectic two week period was the one Andrew was most looking forward to based on his current musical taste. It was also his Christmas present to Leslie. They were going to see Genesis at the NEC in Birmingham. They were both huge fans of the group and their excitement could barely be contained on the tortuous journey down. One great thing about having to take the train down to Birmingham is that he and Leslie had a long time to chat. She had seen how relaxed and under control the second half of the term had been, especially after he started going out regularly on Saturday nights.

“Have you ever wondered if you are like Moira and that you need regular sex to relax? Since you and Allison started going out you have been happier and calmer. Do you think it is physiological, or mental? Your life seems so under control at the moment.”

Andrew thought about this and the more he thought about it the more the theory made sense.

“You may be on to something. I thought it was that the business was so slow. Saturdays are social now as much as about coding. You come over and study while Julian and I work on the software. Ever since that first summer with your dad, every time we succeed at business it soaks up all the time. Between the business and Moira I had no time last year and life got out of balance. Now the time pressure seems less. I spend time with Grandma, you, Julian, the hockey teams, Suzanne, CCF and I go out on Saturday nights. When I look back on the last two years there were periods of calm as well as periods of chaos. This is just an extended calm stretch.

“As for regular sex, it is an interesting idea but I am not sure how we could prove it. I think about sex a lot but I am still all over the place with it in terms of wants and desires. I get the most pleasure out of unlocking hidden inner desires within the women. Help them realise that they are desirable the way they are and not to focus on their negatives. I also talk during sex, it has been called painting word pictures in their minds. I used to drive Moira crazy talking about her arse and we ended up fucking doggy style more than any other way. With Allison it is more complicated. She goes crazy when I start talking about control. I lie back and let her ride me and all the talk is how she is in control, just using me for her pleasure. She totally gets off on that, but then she wants it flipped around. Me in control, but what I say to her is that she has driven me crazy. She loves the idea that her body and sexuality can drive a man crazy. It makes her feel empowered and in control.

“I don’t know what that says about me. I do know that I have never just fucked a girl, got what I wanted and then left or gone to sleep. All four partners have been in a bed and have lasted multiple times. Infrequent maybe but the physical acts have not been hurried. You taught me well at the very beginning. I know I could not enjoy sex without being sure my partner enjoyed it as much. My usual long winded response to a simple question. It definitely helps but I don’t think you can quantify how much.”

“At the end of the day if the person you are with gets off on the way you are treating them and it turns you on too then keep doing it. This term has been unusual in that there has been no drama for more than two months. Your thoughts on just having time make a lot of sense as well. Will you be okay if, by some miracle, the business takes off?”