Chapter 5

Andrew woke up south of York, his journey already half over. It was a long way to go but Maggie and Tony were his friends, and more than that. They were part of his support network that compensated for his lack of a relationship with his parents. Tony was Andrew’s second oldest friend, he had only known Pete Thompson longer. As Andrew stared blankly out the window he thought of John Cuttington, dead far too young, the man that had given him a lot of fatherly advice between the ages of 10 and 12, the man who had encouraged and challenged him to get a job. It was through his proddings that Andrew ended up working for Tony in the first place. Andrew felt a sense of guilt that he had not thought of John in many years. He doubted things would be so bad with his father if John had been around.

Thinking about his support network made Andrew think about all his friends at College. He would see Pedro on Tuesday when he was back in Cambridge. Pedro was almost certain that he was going to apply for his Masters at Cambridge but was going to spend a couple of days in Balcombe with Justin and go up to London. He was going to at least consider the LSE. Matt and Navya were ever more loved up and Navya was seriously considering breaking the news to her mother, although possibly on the last day of the break. Between pretending to stay with Helena and Abi she was supposed to be able to get a couple of trips to Barnstaple during the break. Goodness only knew how Mrs. Rai would react to the news. But there was a solidity, a connection in the relationship between Matt and Navya. Helena had been incredibly busy all term, it was her final year, on top of which the Student Union took up most of her free time. He saw her every morning when he woke her, she was still shit first thing in the morning, but other than an occasional dinner they had not spent a lot of time together. But their interactions were friendly and funny, there was no hesitancy or reluctance between them. Helena was still a good friend, but they were struggling to find time to spend together. And that was mostly Andrew’s fault as he had spent every Saturday of the term away, either with the OTC or in London. But the contrast between her and Abigail was very obvious. Abi went out of her way to be friendly, she was often with them first thing in the morning at breakfast before heading to class. But Andrew could not think of one time when it had just been the two of them. It was almost the pretence of a friendship and it would occasionally cause him to pause. A year ago she was excited to go with him to Paris but now he was yesterday’s news. She had made no mention of the computer and of wanting to use it that year. They were friendlier than 1^st year but about as close. But his moments of annoyance were always tempered by the realisation that this was what she had come to university to do. She was a female complement of Pedro or Justin. She liked to be chased, and to chase as well. She was quantums more confident around men and she knew what she wanted. From being afraid of the interaction, over the course of the last three terms she had embraced it, pun intended. In many ways she was doing exactly what she said she wanted to do. Become more confident, get used and dumped, use and dump herself, she was belatedly understanding herself, and her sexuality. It was just sad that she had walked away from him without a backwards glance. Andrew always remembered her comment of women ‘putting up with me’ at the start of Easter term last year. So they had retreated to friendly rather than friends.

As for the others from the last two years most of them had drifted to the point of it was a nod of the head if you saw them. Dull David the rower was not even that. Emma from the room next to him, was never around. She had got loved up in 1^st year and it was still going strong. When Andrew stopped and thought about it, she may have been around he just never noticed. Nigel and Malcom were in a strange no-man’s land; it was more than a nod of the head but there was something missing. With Nigel it was due to his monomaniacal commitment to his comedy writing and the Footlights. He was never around and when he was he had no chat other than about it. So they still saw him, he would often join the group for dinner or breakfast but socially they had drifted apart. Malcolm was the same but in a different way. Andrew saw Malcolm a lot and he would often walk to classes with him and Matt but they never hit it off. Just an odd quirk of personalities. It was friendly and cheerful, pleasant even but there was something missing. Andrew found himself shrugging his shoulders as he tried to understand and explain it.

If Andrew had made more of an effort in the Bar, been more like Pedro and Justin were that year, then he might have known more of the students in other years. But he did not and was okay with that. He saw how Helena was at the May Ball, flitting about effortlessly and it was not him. Now if his stair in 2^nd year had been more approachable then it might have happened but between Percy the divinity student, Beth the dismissive goth and Neil the angry leftie, it just did not click. Andrew was friendly with Enfys, had danced with her at the Ball and often saw her about the College but it was friendly rather than friends. And there was only one other student in his stair that year, a final year Nat Sci male student named Beverly, whose parents obviously hated him. He studied even more than Andrew did and it was a nod in the stair, nothing more. Even the hockey team was like that. He had the safety net of Merry to shield him from the hungry gazes and he could chat away happily with Navya, but the rest it was friendly and no more. Up until the summer Andrew had only been with one woman younger than him, Gail right at the end of school. He definitely had a thing for older women!

The time on the train passed quickly, it let him take stock of him life and sort it out, slot it into place. By that time he recognised he was an odd mix of impulsive and open combined with organised and secretive. He had no idea what that meant. When he got to the flat, the catch up was quick as it had only been a week. He explained his one day trip to Edinburgh, how it had been important to him to make the effort and go and see his friends. Then he was sent to get ready for dinner. He kept dress clothes at the flat permanently now, nothing fancier than a suit and clean shirt and tie, and it was for occasions such as this or the dinner later in the week.

Andrew’s only previous experience of a London Club was Jim’s stag do which was also at the Naval and Military Club on Piccadilly. It had been a night where he had been the youngest by about 30 years and wanted to make sure he did not embarrass Jim or upset any of the others. Now most of that was in his head, but that evening was spent being on his best behaviour. Just a defence mechanism for dealing with an unknown situation. In the last year both Freya and Jim had now joined the Club as members. Although named the Naval and Military Club, it had opened its membership to people other than serving or retired members of the Armed Forces. Most importantly for Freya it had opened its membership to women 20 years previously. In 1985, with the Queen on the throne for more than 30 years and a female Prime Minister, the vast majority of the Clubs in London were still Gentleman’s Clubs, refusing to admit women members. It had been Moira who mentioned to him that the Oxford and Cambridge Club, open to graduates of the two universities, was in fact open only to male graduates. The hidebound, misogynistic, ignorance displayed by these organisations astonished Andrew. He also had to not think about it as he found that it made him irritable. It was these kinds of stupidities that fired up his well-hidden temper.

So Jim and Freya were taking him to dinner at the Naval and Military Club. Colloquially it was known as the ‘In & Out’ due to the one-way directions on the pillars of the two gates of the semi-circular drive in front of the building. One thing Andrew did remember from the night of Jim’s stag was that it was pleasant, welcoming almost while still maintaining some reserve. It wasn’t stuffy or pretentious, the ambience of the place was relaxed but dignified. Modelled after most officer’s messes within the Forces. The night was fun, Jim and Freya introduced him to several people one of whom remembered his speech from their wedding. Andrew was not sure that firebrand had ever been used to describe him but it was that night. Once they sat down to dinner it was a pleasant night out. He had indicated to Freya earlier that he had completed the Positive Vetting form, it was more of a questionnaire, and he would talk to both Mhairi and Creighton when he was back in Edinburgh giving them advance warning of official enquiries. Other than that it was not mentioned. But they were interested about the dinner on Thursday night.

“Do you know where the dinner is being held?”

Andrew thought for a second. He and Julian played like children every time Leslie mentioned it, purely to annoy her, and he was trying to remember if she had mentioned it. Nothing came to mind.

“I don’t. If I was told then I either didn’t hear or I have forgotten. My guess would be one of the big fancy hotels, it was the Savoy last year. The Ritz maybe? I am guessing, I don’t know.”

“Who is going to be there?”

“Ogilvy, Bodmer, the three of us and maybe the Lyell bloke that is in charge of donations. That is three of the four people that know about us, the other is the Finance Director so it is a short list. I would guess just the five of us but I don’t know. In answer to the unasked question I don’t think anyone’s wives will be there.”

Sir Angus Ogilvy was married to Princess Alexandra, a cousin of the Queen. If Andrew was unsure about Jim’s assertion that he was close to being part of the establishment already, meeting royalty, even just minor royalty, would cement his assertion rather than demolish it.

And that was the thing that was totally missing when an 18 year old, a 16 year old and a 13 year old, tried to lay out a plan for Andrew’s life while the latter two of them lay in their beds on the cancer ward. What was happening was utterly inevitable. Inevitable is strong, he could have stayed clear of all these trappings but given the support he had received over the years from so many people to make the Trust come to life, it seemed churlish to then expect to hide away. Brian had called Andrew on his instinctive reaction to ignore the press. They had survived two years and still the story had not leaked, or had not been able to be confirmed. If Leslie had been shy and ambivalent about meetings and dinners such as these then maybe it would have been easier just to play the shy, anonymous donor card. But she enjoyed this part of the process and he would never go against something so trivial if it meant something to her. But it wasn’t him. Over the course of the upcoming week Andrew was going with an estate agent to view three office buildings, looking to buy one of them, spending between £200,00 and £300,000. He was having dinner with a cancer survivor he had befriended two years earlier, who he had not seen since. And he was going for dinner with the husband of a minor member of the Royal Family and being there when Leslie gave them a cheque for £3m. Guess which one Andrew was most looking forward to? The cheque represented the latest installment in their commitment to support cancer research but they could have mailed it, well given the amount couriered it. Maybe after meeting Mandy on Tuesday and Wednesday then he would look on the theatre of Thursday and Friday with a less jaundiced eye. Maybe.

“How do you donate the money? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“No it is perfectly okay. We just give them a cheque, a normal small, standard cheque. We could hardly arrive with one of those big cardboard cut-out sized cheques that golfers get for winning events. Can you imagine?”

They all laughed at the ridiculousness of turning up with such a cheque for a quiet dinner at the Ritz.

“I just wondered if you gave them the money earlier or something like that.”

“No, well we did not last year. For all I know Leslie has done just that. I never worry about the details like that. She talked to me when I got back to College and we agreed to increase the amount of the donation so I don’t think she has sent anything. We will just give Bodmer the cheque while we are there, maybe even the next day, it’s not like he can go to the bank on Thursday night.”

Andrew caught Jim and Freya looking at each other and guessed the next question.

“You are increasing the amount from last year?”

Rather than a question in the form of a statement they had a question that wasn’t the real question. He decided to not be a shit and just tell them.

“Yes, we have increased the donation to £3m from £2m.”