Chapter 8

Andrew’s calls to Edinburgh had been regular, although they were never that long, and the news was mundane, going in both directions. His Grandma was the same, watching the racing and drinking too much. Leslie and Julian were working away, neither of them shared the day to day minutiae, but they were settled and busy. And Tony and Maggie were probably 75% the same as them. But they were not yet settled, and that was the one thing that they talked with Andrew about. The rest of the businesses were thriving and Tony was starting to build a good reputation. But the property was throwing up some obstacles. Nothing insurmountable but the costs were creeping up and Maggie was stressing about it. Andrew would be back in three weeks and would sit down and go through everything with them. If the whole thing cost £30,000 more then he wouldn’t worry. And as always Andrew was still convinced money hadn’t changed him!

Having teased Helena with the thought of a threesome, and tried to suss out Meredith as to whether she had done anything like that, or would be up for something like that, Andrew had let the matter drop. He didn’t push Merry on the idea but did tease Helena about it every now and again. If only to see her blush and then get whacked for his trouble. On the drive into London his mind drifted for an enjoyable moment or two as he pictured the scene. Why was he thinking of a threesome with two women on the drive down to see a third woman? He was a man. Well there was probably more to it, mostly coming back to the issue of sex with Ara. And the fact that they were both gun-shy on the issue.

It was the penultimate weekend of term and he had coached the last hockey game of the season. They had a record of 8-6, perfectly respectable, and the team had done well and improved over the year. Andrew enjoyed coaching, he liked to watch people improve and two of the four players that wanted to get into the first eleven had made it that year and the other two were a shoo-in for the team the following year. The rest of the team took it seriously without being consumed by it. To do any sport well you have to sacrifice other things. That was why he was an okay hockey player, and a slightly above average runner and swimmer. He enjoyed doing these sports but they were part of the whole, not a focus, or a single-minded determination. When you look at any elite athlete, especially in second and third tier sports where there is limited coverage, often just the Olympics, they have sacrificed an insane amount to get where they are. Andrew was never going to be that person, for a start he didn’t have the raw, natural ability but also his focus, his determination was academics. You couldn’t have everything. And the 2^nd eleven at Trinity knew that. They enjoyed the camaraderie, the chance to get out and play something they enjoyed, keep fit, but it was part of their life, not the sole focus. And so they had fun, practiced and played hard and then retreated to the library. If the College were okay with the OTC commitments then he would be happy to coach again. And the OTC scheduled their end of term bash at the same time as the hockey end of year dinner, again, so he had a ready-made excuse.

When Andrew got to London, he collected Ara and they played tourist all day. They drove out to Windsor and spent the afternoon and evening touring the Castle, walking the grounds and then had dinner there. He had never been to the Castle before and neither had Ara, despite her school, and home, being not that far away to the south. The castle was the top of a triangle with her school and home both five miles south, the school to the south west and her home to the south east. But despite being so close she had never been round the castle and had only been in the town infrequently.

It was something different and it felt odd at times to be British in among all the foreign tourists. They were not the only Brits there but they were a minority. But as Andrew lay in his bed later that night it was clear to that it had been a way of keeping themselves busy. They had things to sort out, neither of them knew how to raise them and instead were spending their time determinedly avoiding dealing with them. Now at one level that was no hardship. Andrew really enjoyed spending time with Ara but he also knew there was more to it. He had felt closer to Ara the night they had gone out with Pedro and Justin. There was a tentativeness to their interactions which troubled him. He was up early and after a long swim returned to the safety of the Library at Cambridge.

Andrew only had three more days of classes and then he was done with lectures and labs for the year. He and Olivia had the last two days of their surveying course on the Thursday and Friday and then it was five weeks of studying before two weeks of exams. Finally, after the exams were over the next five weeks of Easter term were to be spent on two projects, the final 3^rd year requirements. Because the exams were completed at the start of the term they would know their results for the year before the end of term. One of the things that Cambridge were very good at instilling was the idea of ‘what have you done for me lately’. Every new course, every new module started with the same intensity, almost ferocity. That you as a student had got there was to be expected and what happened in the previous course or previous year was irrelevant. The University kept the pressure on you constantly. Now for some people that was incredibly stressful but Andrew thought that the science courses imposed a rigour, a discipline, on students that the arts courses didn’t. He had spent every morning for three years making sure that Helena got out of bed. On her course, English, the pressure was much more on the individual to maintain that intensity through reading, self-study or writing. The engineering course could have been put together by someone like Andrew, structure and routine were fundamental.

Olivia and Andrew survived the final week and were suitably engaged in the surveying activity to show that they worked well in a group. The labs were done, the two technical reports were done and now the surveying activity was done. And all that added up to less than 10% of their total marks. Once surveying was wrapped up the two of them went for dinner in town. Andrew was going to go out with Meredith later but they wanted to have dinner without interruptions.

“Thank goodness that is over.”

“Yes. Another thing to be checked off. What time do you want to be at the library tomorrow?”

Olivia was as bad as him when it came to studying.

“Early tomorrow because Sunday morning will be a struggle. I have the OTC formal tomorrow night.”

“I have a party as well, with the choir I sing with. Let’s meet after lunch on Sunday. How are you going to break down the studying? Concentrate on one at a time or mix it up?”

Don’t let it be said that they didn’t have riveting dinner table conversation! He thought about Olivia’s question.

“One at a time to start I think. This term first and then back to Michaelmas afterwards. There are 37 days to study and I will lose two to travel getting to and from Edinburgh, so three days per module and then see how I am doing.”

Olivia was doing the exact same as him. Staying there in Cambridge until the following weekend before spending three weeks at home. Then back for the final week before the exams started. Nearly the whole year was planning to do the same thing. She too would lose two days to travel getting to and from Clermont-Ferrand. Gradually they unwound and stopped obsessing about the exams, which were still five weeks away.

“Are you planning to do anything other than study this break?”

She thought about the question.

“It will depend on how I feel the studying is going. Part of it is the worry that if I take time off, if I think I am doing okay and can afford to skip a day, I will not be prepared. But I need to trust that I know the stuff. The other thing is I do study better with company. You are very good for me that way. We hardly ever talk but just the routine of having a study partner is a tremendous help. So I will go hard this week coming and the last week but I will see how I do when I am at home. I will go to the library of the university in town which should help. But other than that I don’t plan to do anything. You?”

“The only thing that will be different than you is I have an interview about my summer job application during the week that I am in London. So like you I will study every day until then but take that day off. If it is the Thursday or Friday of the week I am in London then I will probably drive to Edinburgh right after so that I can study the next day. If it is the start of the week then I will stay and study at University College.”

“Do you think all the courses have to study so hard before the exams?”

Andrew pondered that for a moment.

“I don’t think so. Some of them do, mostly the science degrees. I don’t know enough about the arts courses to know if that is the case. I have a friend who is doing a PhD in International Relations in London, at the LSE. Now I know a PhD is different but she spends her whole time, days on end, reading books and searching out source material, so courses like that, like history, are very different to ours. They have to study as hard but just in a different way. Reading a book or notes in an archive is just as demanding as solving equations, or understanding loads and stresses. Different sure but still hard. I don’t think I could do something like that personally.”

Olivia thought about what he said.

“I see your point. I always look at the arts courses and think that they have it so easy compared to us but it is tough. It is not like the English Faculty are easy compared to Engineering. They must apply the same pressure to their students but in a different way to us. I should stop complaining to Alice and Meredith.”

She smiled slyly as she continued.

“The two of you have been very low key and relaxed this year. No drama. Have you thought about next year?”

The flippant answer was to ask if she wanted the job but that was not their relationship. The thought of fucking up the course dynamic that the two of them had created and evolved by trying to replicate what he and Merry were doing filled Andrew with horror. So no flippant answer.

“I don’t think I will be that lucky again. And I am not sure I want to either.”

Olivia snorted.

“Yeah laugh away but it is true. I will worry about that in October.”

“I am sure some of the hockey team are finalising their plans.”

He looked askance.

“Really?”

Andrew spent his life getting pitying looks from women who couldn’t believe his stupidity.

“You don’t think some of the women see what you are doing, see the benefits? No meat markets at the clubs or the College bars. An honest and open relationship where you both know what is being offered, what is not being offered, which is very important. Meredith has been asked numerous times about the two of you. Everyone’s immediate reaction is to be horrified but they go away and think about it. It just makes so much sense. Now if you are trying to find your soulmate here then it will not work but I am not sure how that works at Cindies anyway. Too many men like the chase, whereas this just cuts all that crap out. Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised but there are not several women thinking about becoming next year’s Meredith.”

Andrew thought what he was doing was lazy and only one step up from transactional. And here was Olivia telling him that even if it was there were plenty of women who were perfectly happy with that arrangement. Women got horny too and this was no different than what he had done with Allison back in school. Andrew just was better at reigning in his emotions than he was back then. Just because you were a geek and studied constantly it didn’t mean you couldn’t get laid two or three times a week. Who knew. When he asked Merry later about what Olivia had told him her look was even more pitying than Olivia’s.

“Andrew, I vowed that I would not think about getting married until at least after I left Cambridge, and probably much later. Do we have a lot in common, of course we do? But do we have a lot that is very different, particularly timing of degrees? The answer is of course as well. So we created the perfect arrangement, time together with someone I like, regular, very good sex and allowing me to concentrate on getting my degree. While I recognise it is completely unromantic and flies in the face of every love story ever written, it is also 99% more realistic. Do I have feelings for you? Once again, of course I do. We can’t be as intimate as we are without some feelings. I went into this, we went into this, with our eyes open. This year has been so much less stressful, less boozy, more stable, than either of the first two. Once people get past the lack of romance they start to realise how much this makes sense. So in answer to your unasked question I would not be surprised if you have several offers for the same arrangement next year.”