Chapter 7

Andrew lay on his bed thinking about Abi’s comments. They were both true and fair, but they were also self-absorbed and one-sided. Was it a stage they were at in their lives? He could lie there and think about all the ways Abi’s comments were unfair but it wasn’t going to change anything. Abi’s comments made Andrew think about Suzanne and how the two of them were going to reconnect in any meaningful way. He took that moment to write a long letter to her, filling her in on most of his life. He stayed clear of the modelling, it all happened after she went quiet during the autumn and if he did decide to talk about it then it would be face to face. But he talked about everything else, trying to be as open and chatty as possible. Now it was obvious as hell that Andrew was trying too hard, it all but leapt off the page, but it was a start. Regardless of responses he was going to write to her every couple of weeks, although the middle part of the term would inevitably be variations on ‘I studied today, the same as yesterday and again tomorrow’.

As for Abi, and Heloise as well, it was how they felt, but he was not going to change. He felt he had been extremely supportive to both of them that year and if they thought he could or should have done more, shared more, well there was nothing Andrew could do about that. He also was going to give Heloise the benefit of the doubt as she had not acted that way with him a week earlier. But Andrew would have to work hard to not change his demeanour with Abi because he was not going to change.

And so term started. The easy intimacy of the first term between Abi and him was a thing of the past. She still wanted to come over and use the computer, but it was on a Monday when she knew he would be out but there were no requests for discussions about men or relationships. It was to Helena that she turned and so his dealings with her were as friends but with this odd distance between them. Andrew enjoyed her company, they often sat at dinner together, but that shared sense of discovery was gone. He realised that he didn’t trust her. Just as she was not confiding in him, so he was the same. One day at the weekend when he was having a long relaxing swim he realised that he wasn’t pining for Abi at all. She was still the most beautiful woman in the whole College but Andrew wasn’t crushing on her. This realisation brought to mind Arabella, still the only woman that he had ever crushed over. Hmmm.

As for Easter term, it was the same as the previous year. Andrew studied, although he was not as manic as the previous year. He was out every Friday and Saturday night, dinner, cards, they went to a show, just standard student term time activities. But during the day, all week and weekends, Andrew was in classes or studying. The activities that defined the academic year in the first two terms just didn’t happen. No trips to either Edinburgh or London, only a single OTC day at the weekend, it was the usual quiet studious month and a half.

There were quite a few highlights during that time, the OTC exercise planning session being perhaps the most notable. The proper name for the exercise was Tactical Exercise Without Troops, TEWT. You as a cadet were given a scenario and had to draw up a set of orders as if commanding a platoon of men. That was the easy half of the task, and something Andrew had no trouble with. Passing this element was essential to becoming a senior under-officer cadet. After that point you started to put this book learning into effect on the training weekends and would lead groups of cadets in attacks, ambushes and patrols, working with increasing numbers over the year. All of that was to come. He passed the TEWT without difficulty and OTC wound down until after the end of term.

Matt, Keith, Olivia and Andrew spent more time together that term, especially in the 10 days between the end of classes and the start of their exams. They worked quietly away on their own separate study plans but were there to support each other. Often they were joined by Navya and Pedro, especially at the weekends, and a couple of Olivia’s friends would sit with them at lunchtime, Alice and Meredith.

Within the Engineering Department there had been a series of lunchtime talks going through the different options for third (and fourth) year. Andrew attended all of them just to make sure there was nothing that he was missing but at the end there was no doubt. His final two years at Cambridge Andrew would be studying Civil and Structural Engineering. He had all but told Professor Cannon in their start of term meeting so it was no surprise to the department. Matt chose Mechanical, Keith chose Electrical, and Olivia chose Civil the same as Andrew. It was one of the unfortunate consequences of specialisation. They had been friendly with lots of other people on the course so both Matt and Keith would be fine but Andrew was pleased that he and Olivia would still be in the same classes. As it turned out there were lectures going on across the different disciplines at the same time and the four of them would still be able to hang out several times a week. Anyway, nothing had changed from when he started at Cambridge, he was heavily inclined to Structural Engineering then and had now chosen that as his degree specialisation. It was almost anti-climactic in a sense.

One of the things that Andrew did not miss during the third term, although it was both funny and fascinating to watch everyone else, was the running around about the room ballot. As a senior scholar he was at the top of the heap; and he learned that there was a fourth year in a room in one of the stairs in Nevile’s Court. It was a set which meant he could finally have a separate bedroom and there were several tutor’s rooms on the stair as well so there was less pressure on the bathroom. So Andrew knew where he was going to be in the coming year. Matt, Abi, Navya and Justin all had junior scholarships so they were okay as well but Pedro and Helena worried they might end up at Burrell’s Field. As with the previous year there was way too much energy invested into the process but everyone ended up with what they wanted. The big thing appeared to be inertia. Matt and Navya stayed out in Burrell’s and got rooms close to each other. Justin stayed where he was, just moved stair, as did Abi. Helena lucked out and got a small set in Great Court so had a fabulous view with the downside of more noise between Hall, the Bar and the Common Room. Pedro stayed in New Court and ended up in Andrew’s current stair but lower down, warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

Andrew called his Grandma every week, often not for long, but he filled her in on his limited news. It was a conscious choice given that he had not seen his parents since Christmas Day. He had sent one letter at the start of term but other than that they were more and more at the periphery of his life. He spoke to Freya, and Julian and Leslie, every couple of weeks. Again, the calls were not that long, but it was the effort, keeping the connection. The longest calls, by far, were with Maggie and Tony. He had thought they might be every couple of weeks, maybe even less frequently than that, but he ended up chatting to them every week. Mainly so that they could keep him informed on everything happening with the photography business.

The very first call had been excited and positive. Elspeth had brought her mother of all people to the shop and had her go through some of the old photographs. She identified various starlets from the 1950s that she remembered from seeing on television or at the cinema. While her mother was doing that Elspeth started to phone around seeing if there was a market for these old photographs. Being utterly useless at popular culture, and hopelessly out of touch, Andrew hadn’t realised that Diana Dors had died the previous year. That there were previously unseen photographs of her produced interest in the run up to the anniversary of her death. Tony had been down to see Mhairi several times to make sure they maximised the income from them, and they ended up being sold to one of the big tabloids. What all the time with Mhairi resulted in was that EPIC did not sell the rights to the photographs, they licensed them. EPIC Photography still owned the pictures. And that first deal, the money was modest but still very welcome, put in place the structure they used going forward. Andrew had bought all the rights to these photographs from Charlie McWilliams’ daughter. EPIC weren’t selling any rights, they licensed instead. So the first call, and parts of subsequent ones, were full of good news.

But this was countered by the Planning Department of Edinburgh City Council. Guess whose father hadn’t applied for or received planning permission for the stairs between the shop and the flat above? Now they had been there for 25 years, something like that but such details didn’t interest or sway the inspector who was there signing off on the changes to the flat. That was achieved without fuss, unlike the issue of the stairs. It was only finally resolved when Tony was told he had to remove the door, and fill in the doorway. There was no way to get round it, final approval of the two studios was dependent on the door to the shop below being dealt with. It delayed everything by a month but by the end of May they were approved and starting to accept bookings. Elspeth had to use the original front door of the flat and walk down and round to the shop and studio. It was a pain but workable.

On the property outside Burntisland, it was hurry up and wait. They knew they needed to confirm deep soil samples and that work was ongoing. They might have sufficient information by the time Andrew’s term was over but it was all guesswork. There was progress but it didn’t feel like it. But Maggie and Tony visited the site every Sunday checking the shipyard as much as anything else. There didn’t seem to be a lot happening there and there had been nothing dumped in the junkyard since they first found the site.

Other than that the six weeks just flew by. Helena came over at least twice and often three times a week and her and Andrew provided relief for each other. She would occasionally mention something Abi had talked about but for the most part they used their time together as an escape from talking about their respective courses. And Helena, more than any other woman he knew, got off on anal sex. During the week of her period Andrew fucked her arse practically every day, at Helena’s urging. The initial mental excitement had morphed into physiological pleasure. She had tried to explain it to him.

“When you are in me and fully penetrate me, I can feel the sensation and there is such a sense of the taboo. But then when you pull all the way back it physically feels great. I don’t feel any discomfort from the shaft of your dick but when the base of your head rubs against me, right before you thrust back in, there is real sexual pleasure. I don’t think I could come from just anal but it feels really great. As you fuck me back and forth it is the dual sensations, physical then mental, physical then mental.”

They even tried to arrange mirrors so that Helena could see him fucking her. It never quite worked but Helena was someone who would get off on seeing herself getting fucked. It was the perfect stress relief after studying and in the run up to the exams. Their talks about life as grown-ups happened, either when walking outside or lying in bed together, were all over the place, looking back on them they were probably premature, but talking about some of the issues at least made them think. It was more playing at grown up thinking than actually being grown-up. But it was their way of getting closer, edging nearer to the point where they could think about being a couple. Neither of them was in a rush for such a step but at the same time were no longer adamantly against it either. Being good friends that hung out together and fucked regularly, the classic friends with benefits, a phrase not in common usage at the time, seemed almost lazy. But they were being very tentative in moving towards anything else.