Chapter 2

On Tuesday morning Suzanne drove Andrew down to the train station. He told her to use the car until she went back to Glasgow, it would allow her some freedom. The car ended up parked at the side of her parent’s drive until the end of term. As for his parents, Andrew had no contact. He left a Hermès scarf in his room for his mother and packed the rest with him. He sat on the train heading south contemplating the next few days with Jim and Freya; he did not know what to expect. Putting it out of his mind he retreated into his textbooks and the journey passed in the blink of an eye. The next two weeks were important to Andrew allowing him to review everything from the course so far and feel that he was ready for the start of the final term. There were only four weeks of classes so the amount of new material was less than the first two terms, but he still wanted to ensure that he gave himself the best chance to get a good grade in the final exams. And yes, deep down he knew he was fine, but studying was his yoga, it calmed him and turned all his focus inward.

The late morning train from Edinburgh got Andrew to King’s Cross right in the middle of the rush hour so he fought the Tube chaos over to the Baker Street station. Escaping above ground again he found the agreed pub, called the Deerstalker strangely, on the corner of Marylebone Road and Baker Street. Once inside and he saw all the paraphernalia, it hit him that he was in Sherlock Holmes territory, thus the name of the pub. Andrew nursed a pint and got engrossed back into his textbook, thermodynamics at that moment. Suddenly he heard a laugh and looked up to see Lord Barnes and Mrs. Moray standing next to him, both with smiles on their faces. He jumped up to greet them.

“Hello Andrew.”

Freya pulled him in for a hug followed by a handshake from Lord Barnes, who went off to get drinks for them. Freya sat down next to Andrew.

“It is good to see you Andrew, have you been waiting long?”

“Er, I don’t think so but I was engrossed in my book so I didn’t notice the time passing.”

“That is what was making us chuckle, you were so focused on your book you didn’t even notice us when we came in, even when we were beside you.”

He flushed, but she had a point. He was notorious for tuning the world out when he was studying. Lord Barnes came back with the drinks and joined them.

“Let’s get one thing dealt with at the beginning please Andrew. When it is just the three of us please call us Jim and Freya and let’s not waste any time on dancing around the subject, okay? I understand that you will revert to titles when there are others present but when it is just us please skip the formality.”

What he said made sense and as Andrew was staying with them he did not fight it. It still felt odd to call him Jim to his face but he had used it as a shorthand mentally when thinking about the trip. They had their drinks and the chat was all superficial, how had Edinburgh been, all that sort of thing. Once they were done it was but a five minute walk to their flat, in the appropriately named Montagu Mansions; no really that was the name of the street. They had a lovely three bedroom flat, much larger than Andrew’s own place, and they showed him their guest room which thankfully for everyone’s modesty had an ensuite. They were going to eat out but for a few minutes they talked more freely about their jobs, something they had not done in the pub. For the next hour they kept him entertained with superficial stories of the law and government, areas where his knowledge was thin. But it was also clear that the discussions were superficial, details were conspicuous by their absence.

Freya Moray had been the number two civil servant at the Scottish Office, with the title of Deputy Secretary. With Jim Barnes becoming a law lord and moving to London she had requested and been granted a transfer to a Department based in the city. She was now Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, based in Whitehall across from Downing Street and less than two blocks from the Houses of Parliament where Jim was based. The Scottish Office had one Deputy Secretary whereas the MoD had three and she was now one of them. That was all she told Andrew about the details of her job. Over the coming years he figured out what her job was but at the time all he knew she was a very senior civil servant and that was about it.

Lord Barnes had been ennobled as Baron Barnes of Cramond in the City of Edinburgh and now was one of the 11 Law Lords. He worked in the Houses of Parliament which Andrew thought was incredibly cool. The House of Commons is at the north end of the building, closer to Big Ben and Westminster Bridge, whereas the House of Lords is down at the south end of the building. Jim explained that the Law Lords used to sit and listen to cases in the actual chamber but now there was a suite of committee rooms set aside for them in which to hear cases. But again there was nothing more substantive discussed. There had been a car bomb that killed an MP right there in 1979, the IRA were active, four months earlier there had been a bomb at Harrods which had killed six people, so the threat of an attack on the Houses of Parliament was real. And Andrew had no expectations at all of any discussions of the legal issues before him.

So the discussions were both interesting and at the same time tantalising, they both knew what they could discuss but equally what they could not. The tone of the conversation changed once they had finished talking business. They had decided to marry and were now engaged. It was at this point that the ring on Freya’s finger became obvious. Andrew congratulated them both and tried, without seeming to pry, to discern what Moira’s reaction was. Like he could pull that off with this pair.

“In answer to your delicately phrased non-questions, Moira is delighted for us. She has her own life, which may or may not involve moving to Reykjavík, and although we speak every week she is not around much anymore. I have kept the Edinburgh house and she can always stay there whenever she wants. Freya decided to sell her place, it made no sense to keep three places, two seems an extravagance frankly. We do have some things we want to ask you but we should head for dinner as you must be starving.”

The first part of the evening revealed nothing of what else they wanted to ask him. Dinner was in an Italian place close to their flat where they were already known. The conversation was mostly about Andrew and especially the investment business. Most of the conversation over dinner revolved around the difficulty of finding new businesses, but also the definition of a new business and also the issue of just displacing an existing business. They listened as Andrew explained Leslie’s passion for fundamental investment, both at the school level as well as specific university research projects.

“You are trying to thread a very complicated needle with all these constraints Andrew.”

That was Jim’s observation.

“I suppose we are. But I have thought about it a lot over the last six months, and especially in the last couple of weeks. Doug Somers has drilled into us the need to make money so that we don’t fritter this opportunity away, so first of all there has to be a realistic business plan. At the same time, we look at what the business is. One of the first investment proposals was for car components, well laid out, there seemed to be substance behind it, all that sort of thing, but what was missing was a good understanding of the market. Doug convinced us that a small car component company in Scotland was not a good investment. As with all these things he never says that they cannot work, he just does not think it has much of a chance. So we try to focus on new technology rather than businesses that are haemorrhaging people at the moment. Then the final thing we consider is whether we are just moving employment from one business to another. Doug and Brian Campbell have both cautioned us about this one as it can lead you into trying to pick winners and losers and they are both adamant that we will fail if we do that. It has been a harder education for me than my university studies, which is good. At the end of the day I am trying to help businesses get established, grow and succeed. If I remember that then everything else will work out. All three of us are benefiting from the time and help of Doug Somers. He runs his own firm but without him we would still be struggling to get this all set up, and I doubt we would have raised the additional money. I think he enjoys the challenge of beating investment sense into Julian and me.”

They walked back to the flat after dinner and Andrew had the opportunity to give Freya her scarf. She was embarrassingly happy and blinked back tears before pulling him into another full body hug. For a reserved Scottish matron she sure was tactile. Hmmm. Jim gave Andrew a hard time for making his life more difficult, now Freya would expect such fancy presents from him too. Andrew really didn’t see the caché of these damn scarves but everyone loved them. Manon was going to end up with a hell of a Christmas present at this rate. He had taken the time to call both Navya and Helena before they left for dinner and was meeting Navya the following morning while Helena was going to come up to the city the day after. Andrew and Navya were going to have dinner so that he didn’t impose too much on Freya and Jim.

He was up before his hosts and after exercising set off to see if he could run round Regent’s Park. He found something called the Outer Circle, and followed it round the whole Park, twice. Walking the five blocks back to the flat allowed him to cool off and he entered the flat to discover domestic bliss going on in the kitchen. Andrew showered and just caught them both as they left for the day. While it had been nice to sit and chat with them, he was always reminded of who they were, what their jobs were, and as a result felt like he was ‘on’ the whole time. As the door closed behind them the tension left him and he could finally relax. He read over breakfast and afterwards before cleaning up and heading to Baker Street Tube station for 10.00. Navya saw Andrew before he saw her and ambushed him as he stood looking around aimlessly in the concourse of the station. He picked her up and spun her round, causing faux outrage as she smacked him on the shoulders.

“Put me down you big Scottish git, jeez.”

“I missed you too, sarcastic Indian midget.”

Her smile was wide and genuine.

“I am glad you were able to spend some time in London; the family are driving me mad. What have you been up to on your break, other than studying of course.”

Andrew’s problem was modelling in Paris was a story he was going to tell the next day when Helena was there as well. Edinburgh consisted of business, which he was not going to mention; a lot of time with Suzanne, which he was not going to mention; a lot of time with Tony and Maggie, which he was not going to mention; and studying.

“I will tell you all about Paris tomorrow when Helena gets here, I only want to go through it all once, and it is a very good story. Scotland involved catching up with friends and studying and here I am. Oh, there is one thing we need to talk about, I got a flatmate while I was home. One of my friends from school wanted to escape the family clutches and so he is my new flatmate. You are still welcome to come and stay during the summer but the logistics now get more complicated.”

“Well I doubt that I would get the parental okay to stay at a man’s flat on my own, even if there was a separate bedroom. I will see if I can come up at stay if I am in a hotel, to be honest I have held off saying anything to them. Mum in particular seems more conservative and traditional now that I have been away for a couple of terms. The attitude is ‘what have you done for me lately’; it is all well and good that both of us made it to Cambridge and Ru is only a term away from graduating but now all she thinks about is marrying us off. Make Mrs. Bennet brown and you have my mother.”

“That is tough for both of you. Do they expect Rupashi to move back home when she finishes or can she live on her own or with flatmates?”

“I have not heard it discussed but I would assume they expect her to move home. She has a job lined up with a City law firm and so I expect she will have to deal with Mum and all her scheming. Although the way Ru talks the hours are insane on a training contract and she will never be home but who knows. I can keep the wolf from the door for three more years anyway.”

They ended up spending the day at London Zoo, not Andrew’s first choice but it was not too busy and it let the two of them chat away. Andrew still thought back to his trip to Edinburgh Zoo roughly four years earlier and even although he was with Mar and they fucked afterwards, his overriding memory was of those poor zebras huddled together on the top of Corstorphine Hill, rain blowing sideways and the temperature in the low single digits. There was no specific animal that caught his eye like that, it was more the lack of space. Every single exhibit felt like it should be twice as big, if not more. But this was time with Navya and they chatted away, talking about everything and nothing just relaxing and enjoying time together. Appropriately enough considering they were at the zoo, she finally brought up the elephant in the room.

“So, are you going to call Ru while you are in town?”

“I think that will be her decision to make. It is not a secret that I am here but I don’t want to distract her on this last break before her final exams. If she wants to spend some time with me, great, but I am not going to make her life either miserable or confused, never mind the whole cultural thing with your parents. You know full well that I am really attracted to her but she deserves something better than a dalliance with me.”

“You can be sickeningly noble sometimes Andrew, do you know that? Helena comes up tomorrow and we will spend the day with her, but if I can get her to agree why don’t you spend some time with Ru on Friday. I think she could do with the break from her studying.”

Andrew shrugged which was as close to enthusiastic agreement as he was capable of. To complete their tourist adventures he ponied up and they went round Madame Toussad’s which is at the south end of Regent’s Park.

“I have lived a few stops up on the Tube from this my whole life and I have never been here.” Navya confessed.

Given it took a New Zealander to get Andrew up the Scott Monument he understood how you forget to play tourist in your own town. Dinner afterwards was in the same pub that he met Jim and Freya the previous day.

“What are you doing tonight? Any plans?”

“I don’t know for sure. Spend the night chatting to my friends I would guess. I don’t want to ignore them both tonight and tomorrow. The three of us can go wherever you want tomorrow and we should plan to have dinner out. Is Helena staying with you?”

Helena was indeed staying with Navya, through until Sunday. They arranged to meet at the same spot and then get the Tube into town and meet Helena at Waterloo. Andrew walked with Navya back to Baker Street station and saw her on her way before heading back to Jim and Freya’s. They were cleaning up after dinner and they all sat in their drawing room to chat. They both seemed slightly ill at ease and Andrew wondered if he had done something wrong. Freya started the conversation.

“There are two things I would like to discuss with you Andrew, one professional and one very personal.”

She paused and sighed before looking up at him and carrying on.

“There is a program for a number of summer students at the Ministry and I wondered whether you would be interested in applying. There are all sorts of positions for the 10-week long program. Given your academic record and involvement in the CCF and now the OTC, I think you would have a very good chance of being interviewed and selected. I brought home a form in case you did want to apply and I could drop it off in the morning.”

She looked at him expectantly and Andrew realised that it was time he understood what was going on here.

“Freya that sounds like an interesting summer job and I will complete the form after we finish up this chat but first there is something I need to ask the two of you. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, I am sitting here in your home after all, but I don’t think I can push down these questions any more.

“Why are you doing all this for me? For the last year you have been like some favourite aunt and uncle to me. Just your friendship alone is amazing but then the speech at my party and that insane evening at your Hogmanay party. I am an 18-year-old young man, unrelated to either of you, who you only met because the girl I was studying with pushed me into going and talking to, and then helping, Moira. What you have done for me, what you are still doing for me, it doesn’t add up.”

Andrew stopped and looked at them with raised eyebrows.

“I heard the phrase ‘that big old brain’ at that party of yours and now I can see that you use it, not that I doubted it mind.”

Jim was not angry, in fact he had an oddly relieved look on his face. He said nothing else but looked at Freya.

“It is tied through to the personal request that I have to make of you. Andrew, I am 54 this year and I have a difficult past. My father was a Scottish fisherman that met a Norwegian woman when forced into Bergen harbour by damage to his boat. He ended up moving to Norway, marrying my mother and they produced me. I had 10 wonderful and peaceful years in Norway until 1940. Then within the space of three weeks both my parents were killed by the invading Germans. I had no immediate family in Norway and so I was evacuated to Scotland to stay with my father’s older spinster sister. I was there for the remaining five years of the war and ended up being adopted by her. As I said I had no family in Norway willing to adopt me, a 15-year-old girl who had spent five years in Scotland. So I stayed. I came to love Scotland, I was a British citizen through my father so it was not as if I was an foreigner in a strange land. By the end of the war I sounded just like all the other children in Dingwall. I went off to university where I met my first husband, Robert Moray. This was in the mid 1950’s and we were a happy couple for nearly ten years. We were never able to have children until finally, miraculously, I became pregnant in the autumn of 1964.”

Freya paused and her voice turned bleak.

“But there was a car crash in the winter, Robert died and I lost my unborn son.”

Jim was holding her hand but saying nothing. Freya looked up and smiled sadly at Andrew.

“For too many years after that all I did was work. I was successful at my job and was repeatedly promoted but it was not until I met Jim four years ago that I started to really live again. And then on that famous night two years ago I met you. The charming young man doing something nice for a friend.”

She stopped and looked Andrew square in the eye.

“You are the same age as my son would have been, and I know I am not your family or anything crazy like that, but I wish my son would have turned out as well as you have. I would like for you to think of me, of us, as like an aunt and uncle. I have no family, and until I met Jim I was all alone here. What I would like is for you to walk me down the aisle at the wedding ceremony. Would you do that for me please Andrew?”