Chapter 10

Abi lay beside Andrew resting on her right side as he rested on his left. The conversation had veered all over the place that evening and he was not sure what to make of it all. But Abi had articulated what many others had alluded to, Andrew kept people at arm’s length and engaged them very much on his own terms.

“I have not heard it expressed that way before but I know what you mean. I think some people are naturally open, almost eager to share too much, and others are more private. I am like the later, so maybe that does translate through into an emotional reserve. The way you have described it makes it sound like a bad thing but I am not sure that it is. I am just as lost as you are in terms of what I want from life, how to deal with other people, both male and female, what attraction to a person means, the difference between sex and love. By listening to you as you explore your life, it helps me figure things out. Often talks such as these give me some insights. As for not being emotional, everyone here is growing up, exploring, nobody needs to deal with a clingy love-struck fool, especially not in first year. So sure I have an emotional reserve, a wall as you say, but it is the same for all of us. Maybe mine is just more noticeable, I don’t know. I wasn’t going to get all heavy and overbearing with Helena on the second day at Cambridge. She wouldn’t have wanted that. As for later in the term and year, I am an engineer with the soul of an engineer.”

Abi laughed with him.

“Exactly. Helena’s father was a fucking arse with me at the end of term one, total dickhead. So there is a big hit. Helena is doing a three year degree to my four year degree. So there is another hit. She is a friend, and I hope that we stay friends, yesterday was a big positive step, but she was not my soulmate, not that I have a clue what a soulmate is or what that person looks like. Being willing to open up to them, trust them is a huge step.”

Unbidden Suzanne sprang into his mind.

“You trusted me in the summer.”

A statement as a question.

“Yes, I did. I had to make a decision and I chose to tell you the whole truth regarding the modelling. The way you described yourself, the fact that you asked if you could tell your mother, all things that helped. I told you more than anyone else at College.”

“Do you trust anyone?”

“My three closest friends in Edinburgh, Leslie, Julian and Suzanne. What about you?”

“Mum and Dad and my friend Stephanie. Did surviving cancer make you secretive?”

Andrew responded reflexively.

“Yes. But also no. It was not surviving cancer that made me secretive it was stuff during the treatment, especially near the end. Most of my most private memories are from that period and some of those have made me secretive.”

“I don’t know what to say to that other than me intensely curious which is disrespectful to what you went through.”

“I know what you are trying to say. It took me years before either Julian or Suzanne knew everything so I have a track record of being cautious before telling people stuff. Only Leslie knew everything from the start.”

“She made you who you are in many ways.”

“Absolutely. How I treat women both in and out of bed is hugely influenced by her and the talks that we had. I have this constant sense of not wanting to let her down.”

It was a wandering conversation touching on all sorts of things. But it was interesting and made Andrew stop and ponder. Without thinking he pulled Abi in for a hug. When they broke apart she looked bemused.

“Sorry, I just realised that these conversations are going to help me as much as you. I will have something to think about tomorrow morning while I swim.”

Abigail Wilson was going to keep Andrew on his toes all year. She turned around so that they could spoon and wiggled her butt into his groin until she was comfortable with his rapidly rising dick, lifted his hand onto her breast and was asleep within minutes. Oddly enough, it took him a little longer! Monday morning was routine other than walking Abi to her staircase. Abi sat with Malcolm, Matt and Andrew at breakfast before the three of them headed off.

“What’s with Abigail?”

Matt was looking at Andrew closely.

“I think she has a morning heavy schedule like we do. At the moment we are all eating in last year’s groups, the stairs are all too new.”

“I know all that, but she never came near you last year.”

Andrew shrugged which was a surprisingly effective conversation stopper. The intense pace of lectures and labs continued and it as only at the end of the day that he had a chance to talk to Olivia for a moment.

“Do you have a minute?”

“Sure Andrew, what is it?”

Sometimes they would ask Olivia to read a paragraph from the textbook just to hear her talk with that French accent. Only Olivia could make electrical engineering sexy. Anyway.

“I wanted to give you a present as a thank you for all your help last year.”

She looked confused.

“What help?”

“In the labs. I don’t know how many times you kept the three of us from doing something stupid.”

“Pah, it was nothing. I saved you five minutes here or there.”

“Well it felt more substantial than that, so I have this for you.”

Have you ever been berated in French for giving a gift? It started in English but within two sentences was exasperated French.

“Why do you do this? It is too much.”

It looked like Andrew’s reputation was going to take another hit at Newnham.

“Olivia, stop shouting at me in French and let me explain.”

So he told her the edited version of his trip to Paris, how he had some scarves left over and wanted her to have one as a thank you.

“Andrew, I helped you as a friend. I didn’t do it to get a gift.”

She sounded like she was about to cry. Or shout at him again.

“Olivia, this is going to sound wrong but I have four Hermès scarves sitting in my room. I misjudged how many I needed. It is totally over the top as a thank you I know. But it is also something that I have come to learn women appreciate and they are just sitting going to waste in my room. I know that you didn’t help to get some kind of gift. Wear it, don’t wear it, give it to someone in your corridor, I don’t mind. I just thought that an elegant French student would like a Hermès scarf.”

Looking at him very suspiciously she finally relaxed a little.

“You are a sneaky man. How can I turn down something so beautiful? You really have a friend who works at Hermès?”

“Yes, a random tourist who I met in London. She and a friend came to Edinburgh and I showed her around the city. When I went to Paris in March Pedro and I found out she worked at Hermès. When she first told me I didn’t even know what Hermès was, or what they made.”

Olivia’s face was the standard picture at that revelation.

“So when it was time to go Manon suggested I get some scarves as gifts for some friends, as she would be able to use her staff discount to get them much cheaper than normal. So I went a little crazy and got too many, you are now the lucky beneficiary.”

It should be noted that throughout her harangue and after, Olivia had been holding the scarf giving no indication that she would let it out of her grasp.

“I am sorry for shouting at you. It just took me by surprise. Everyone will be so jealous. Thank you.”

As quickly as she had blown up it was over. With an air kiss on his cheek she left, her new scarf round her neck. Andrew headed back to College happy to have survived the occasion.

Later, as he waited for the bus back into town from the hospital he wondered about his volunteering. Was he doing something different that was limiting the engagement with the patients? Was it a subconscious defence mechanism given that so many of the young patients were fighting terrible odds? Andrew was thinking those thoughts because his first day back after 15 or 16 weeks was no different than so many other Monday nights earlier that calendar year. Now half his time was spent helping the nursing staff with odd jobs round the ward, moving things, lifting heavy cases or bags, generally being the tall guy that they could use for some tasks which weren’t suited to people 5’6” tall. He preferred this as it let him move around the ward, often carrying something for a nurse so he was around and about. It made him seem more familiar and helped break the ice. That night he had spoken to a couple of the teenage patients, one battling nausea after a chemo session. But the chink in the armour was not there and it was all superficial. It was a regular occurrence that Andrew had to remind himself he was trying to make a difference for the patients not for his own benefit. He wished he could recapture some of the moments of joy and excitement from the first term but it had not happened. Maybe those four or five weeks in term one were the outliers and this was the normal. When he returned to his room Abi was working away at the computer. The door was unlocked and she jumped a little when he came into the room before smiling and turning back to the computer. Andrew saw her save her work.

“Would you mind if I leave this here tonight? Save me carrying it back and forth since I will be here tomorrow evening.”

“No worries. I rarely study in my room and it is not in the way. Feel productive?”

“Yes it was super. Nice and quiet, occasional voices from down on the lane but it was so different to how the computer lab would be.”

With a hug and a kiss she was off. Olivia turned up wearing her new scarf at class the following morning.

“I could not believe how many people came up to me to ask about the scarf.”

Matt and Keith looked back and forth between the two of them.

“I gave Olivia the scarf as a thank you for all her help last year. I got shouted at in French for 10 minutes but once I explained she graciously accepted.”

Keith got in just ahead of Matt.

“How the hell do you have a fancy scarf to give to Liv?”

“I have a friend who works for the company that makes them. I bought too many and I had this one sitting around my room just going to waste. I didn’t buy it for her, I got it back in March but it seemed that it would be better to be worn than just sit gathering dust in my room. Olivia always looks so stylish, it suits her.”

With a shrug the matter was dropped. Matt brought it up again on the walk home.

“Can I ask you about those scarves Mac? That is what, the fourth one you have given out here. Olivia, Abigail, Helena and Navya. Do they mean anything?”

Matt and Navya had kept their liaisons relatively low-key but Andrew knew that they were like Helena and he had been the previous year. Was Matt concerned about Navya and Andrew?

“No. Look, the scarves came in a gift set of six. Now I knew I needed seven and so rather than just get a pack and then one more single scarf, I bought two gift packs, 12 in total. Of course I only needed seven and so this moment of expensive weakness meant that I had several left over. I am now just trying to find nice people that I know that will appreciate them. I can’t take them back and so they are just on a shelf in a cupboard in my room. Navya was the first person that I talked to here, as a first year I mean, and we have been friends from mid-morning on that first Freshers Saturday, that’s all.”

Matt tried to hide his relief, and failed badly, and the matter was dropped. Andrew was surprised that he had been so sensitive about it, and so possessive about Navya. After dinner, leaving Abi in his room again, the pair of them were walking the mean streets of Cambridge on the way to the TA Centre.

“Do you reckon we will have to do any drill tonight? This was the day last year when I came down to see about the OTC.”

“Depends how many show up. Did you talk to cadets last year or the Permanent Staff?”

“The Staff, Marrak mostly. Did you remember seeing many returning cadets? I didn’t.”

“Now you mention it, not really.”

When they got to the Centre they were split into their different specialties. Most cadets had not bothered with this and so were all general infantry, but there were groups of signals, medics, artillery as well as engineers. Andrew spent the evening reviewing camp and then planning the year ahead. He was the only person who had not spent the week at Chattenden.

“Where did the send you?”

“Salisbury Plain sir, Perham Down.”

“Why? Ignore that. What were you doing?”

“Observing exercise planning. Last year we turned up in time for the exercise, this year we were a week earlier for the equivalent exercise and saw the planning.”

Andrew spent five minutes describing the what they had seen, the difficulty with the jargon, trying to stay on top of a thousand little things. Once he had his five minutes of fame it was on to the current year. The first term was leadership training for the whole company with only two weekends, one just a Saturday, the other Friday night to Sunday night. It all seemed reasonable. Term two, like the previous year, would have more weekend training as the theory of term one was applied. They were dismissed back to the main hall but the Captain in charge of the Engineer section asked him to stay behind.

“I didn’t want to bring it up in front of everyone else but why were you at Perham? Everybody was supposed to be at Chattenden.”

“I go where they tell me to sir. That was my third Royal Engineer camp, I went to the first before my final year at school, did the second last year between school and here and now this third one. Maybe someone is keeping track. Sir.”

The Captain looked at him.

“How many were there with you?”

“25 or 30. Blokes from across the whole country, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

That was the thing, it wasn’t as if it was just Andrew. One or two blokes from each OTC had ended up there.

“You are right. Looks like they are starting to track this stuff. No different than the Regulars. I was just surprised you did something other than dig latrines for a week.”

Andrew was dismissed and thought nothing else of it, the Captain was just being nosy. It was late by the time they finally made it into Cindies, the queue was long that early in term. And it was chaos, full of drunk first years. Andrew never even made it to the bar before Lily dragged him onto the dancefloor.