Chapter 12

Andrew landed at Terminal 3 at Heathrow and took an airport transfer bus over to Terminal 1 where the domestic flight from Inverness was scheduled to land. He had about 20 minutes to spare so as he sat beside the exit from the gates he thought about the coming weekend. He was excited to see Suzanne, it had been 10 weeks since Andrew had seen her. He knew her so well and she knew him just as well so their time together was not tentative. He could not help but compare his time with Ara and Suzanne. He and Ara were still getting to know each other, still filling in all the myriad little details of their lives whereas Suzanne knew him better than any other person. Nothing could take the place of seven years of knowing each other, seeing each other every day for many of those years. However enjoyable his time with each of them was, Andrew was struck by an impending sense of doom to this situation. It was an odd sensation to have waiting for Suzanne to arrive but it was true. And yet all of that dark, maudlin thinking left his head when she exited onto the concourse. Andrew just stared which got him a little bite on her bottom lip before she broke into a big smile and allowed herself to be enveloped in a huge hug.

“I have said it many times but you sure are good for my ego. And stop fondling my arse in the middle of Heathrow Airport.”

Andrew hadn’t even realised his hands had drifted. He jerked them back up and looked sheepish. She laughed and took his hand as they headed for the Tube station.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“I landed about 40 minutes ago but I have only been here 15 minutes. Your plane had just landed when I checked the board so I knew you wouldn’t be long.”

“I should go and find an arrivals board and see what planes landed 40 minutes ago, try and work out where you flew in from.”

Too smart for her own good but fortunately he had landed at Terminal 3, so he was safe.

“Well you can wander around Heathrow playing detective or you can join me at the house, it is up to you.”

Suzanne was bubbly that morning, just fizzing with energy and looking insanely attractive. And it wasn’t just Andrew that thought so, viewing her through his own rose-tinted glasses. He could tell people, both men and women, were discreetly, and not so discreetly, checking her out as they waited for the Tube. But it was interesting once they had alighted at Green Park and were standing beside the Ritz waiting to cross Piccadilly, the chat became quieter and then quickly dried up, and Suzanne’s hand clasped his tightly. They walked up Berkeley Street and as they approached the Square her head was constantly moving, trying to take it all in. But Hay’s Mews was a small quiet street without any pavements and although it was right behind Berkeley Square the vibe was very different. Andrew could see Suzanne relax again as they walked towards the house. They stopped outside number 10 and she looked around.

“It is so different to everything over there.”

Her head nodded back the way they had come. She took in the front of the house and then waited for Andrew to get the door open. He stood aside and she walked in. Rather than drag her off to the bedroom, his preference but he knew a lost cause when he saw it, Andrew left Suzanne to wander the house while he made some coffee. One of the airport shops had sold small tetra-paks of milk, presumably for children, and he was pleased he had remembered to bring milk back to the house. Because as usual it was devoid of anything fresh. Some pasta, cans of soup, some frozen stuff, but nothing in the fridge. He had the coffee made and was sitting out on the back patio again when Suzanne found him. She kissed his cheek as she sat down and savoured her first mouthful of coffee.

“It doesn’t look that large from the outside but it is a big house. Deep.”

He nodded.

“I think Leslie and Julian might have been down. I got a faint whiff of the perfume that Leslie normally wears in the top floor bathroom.”

Andrew had offered the house to them, and to her father Brian, and was pleased that they had taken him up on the offer. He couldn’t tell that anyone had been there from the state of the kitchen. It looked unchanged from two weeks earlier.

“It is a lot of house for just you.”

First comment and Suzanne demonstrated how well she knew him.

“I know. I already have my doubts about living here. I think I am going to keep it until next summer but I may just rent it out again. I compare it to the flat and it seems excessive. But I am not going to make a rash decision right now.”

“A house and a flat, both sitting empty for 40 plus weeks a year.”

Suzanne’s tone was not accusatory she was simply stating the plain fact. The flat in Edinburgh had sat empty like that for years. It was not something to be proud of.

“So what can you tell me about this mysterious summer job?”

He looked at Suzanne in surprise.

“It has been tough. For a long time I didn’t enjoy it and even now although I am doing interesting work I feel isolated. I am incredibly pleased that there are only two weeks to go.”

“Has it helped you decide on life after university?”

Now Andrew saw why she was interested.

“Yes I think it has. I am pretty sure I am going to end up as a consulting engineer, based in London, working from my office in Soho.”

Suzanne smiled at his confession.

“I see.”

There seemed to be more she wanted to say but nothing else was forthcoming.

“What about you? Has being based in Inverness been okay?”

“This summer has been very good, for the most part. I have been busy and was working up near Durness the weekend you called. It wasn’t your fault but I was so mad that you called that weekend. I was in Inverness both the weekend before and the weekend after but no, you had to call on the weekend I was stuck on the north coast. Bah. But it has been fun, and I have learned a lot. The car makes a huge difference. Saves me being stuck on that slow train and I have been down to see Mum and Dad, and Leslie and Julian, a couple of times. So thank you.”

She starting giggling and it took her a minute to explain.

“You have seen the scenes, the clichés almost, in movies where the woman with big tits gets out of a speeding ticket or whatever. Well you will never believe it but it works. I got caught south of Newtonmore doing about 90.”

The speed limit was 70mph.

“But when I stopped and he came over to the car he struggled to look me in the eye and let me off with a warning. And I hadn’t even done anything, undone a button or some such thing.”

She giggled some more.

“Mind you it was a pretty tight top.”

The coffee was left to get cold as they headed to the bedroom. They fucked like a well-rehearsed dance routine. With Ara Andrew was still being careful not to go too far or do something to freak her out. With Suzanne there was nothing that he could do that would freak her out. But it was more than that, it was like sitting at a poker table with old friends where everyone knew everyone else’s tells. Suzanne crawled up the bed but not so far that he couldn’t grab an ankle and haul her down to the end. Andrew would be desperately trying to hang on and she cradled her boobs and mouth ‘come for me’ and he was lost. Nothing was formulaic but they knew what got each other off. Even things like lying on her for a minute after they both had come. Suzanne loved the feeling of being pushed into the bed, having the weight of him on her. Not for long but just long enough. Then of course it was roles reversed and she would lie along him just looking utterly intoxicating.

“I needed that.”

It was like listening to himself. Andrew pulled Suzanne up his body and they kissed for a long time.

“When are you back in Edinburgh?”

“Either the night of the 19^th or more likely Saturday the 20^th.”

“Will you run me through to Glasgow as usual? It will be the following weekend.”

“Of course, although I will have to be on the road early on the Sunday morning. I have to play grown-up for three Freshers on Sunday afternoon at College.”

He explained the College parent program and how he was to be one for three new first years.

“You don’t sound excited.”

“I think if I get three decent people then it will be fine. But I remember my own meeting. The ‘parent’ was an acerbic arse and one of the other two was in love with his own voice. It was a painful hour and I never went near any of them ever again. Knowing my luck I will get three loud mouthed idiots or worse some religious freak out to save my soul, or some such crap.”

“Well as long as you are going into it with an open mind.”

Ouch. True but ouch.

“Will I get a chance to see you during term?”

Andrew thought about it.

“Maybe twice in first term and once in term two. With OTC weekends and the course I doubt there will be many other chances. Would you let me fly you down here?”

She smiled.

“It is odd, I try not to abuse the fact that you have money too much, well other than letting you spoil me all the time, but I would like that. I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Andrew held Suzanne close as he blinked away sudden tears. Who else did he have to spoil? Suzanne wriggled down his body and licked and sucked him until he was ready to go again. Her gaze never left his until he was fully hard. Then she whispered ‘take me’ and Andrew could hear the blood pounding in his veins. The bed was the absolute perfect height and Suzanne had the absolute perfect body and so he took her. The image of her body, the shape, the curves, she was magnificent. Her knees were perched on the edge of the bed in the classic ‘head down, arse up’ position and they rutted. There wasn’t enough calculus in the world to help Andrew last but for five glorious minutes the world disappeared and there was nothing but Suzanne and him. When he came he drove forward, arching his back, his hips thrust out as much as humanly possible. A cattle prod to the small of his back could not have arched him any more than he was at that moment. But then the puppeteer cut the strings on the marionette and he fell forward, again covering her.

“Hold my hands.”

Andrew did as requested, Suzanne pinned underneath him. It was not a minute in this position this time it was beyond five.

“I want to stay like this but I can feel you running down my leg.”

They extricated themselves and went through to the bathroom. The shower was quick, really just removing fluids from their bodies, and then they dressed for swimming. It was the last weekend in August and it was another glorious day so they walked over to Marshall Street.

“Have you been able to swim?”

“There is a pool at the garrison so yes, every day. You?”

“Most evenings I will go over to the leisure centre. I am able to do five days out of seven, something like that. I always go to Warrender when I am down at the flat.”

Andrew just had to look at Suzanne and her body to know she was exercising regularly. Everything was tight but in a healthy hourglass figure, the perfect combination. And if he had any doubts she laid them to rest when they swam. She moved through the water with an effortless grace. It was just as well no one got into any difficulties while they were there because the lifeguard could hardly tear his eyes of her as she swam back and forth. Andrew didn’t blame him, he was only human. After stopping to get some lunch it was after 2.00 by the time they returned to the house and showered and dressed. They were back on the patio even although there was a sense that they were being watched from many of the office windows.

“Is there anything you would like to do while you are here?”

“Would you hate me if I said some shopping?”

Andrew looked horrified.

“It is not my first choice but sure. Although I do reserve the right to buy you some clothes as well, okay?”

“Of course, I remember the last piece of clothing you bought me. It is one of my favourites.”

Andrew was not sure a collection of straps for bondage counted as clothing but he wasn’t going to argue. The afternoon wasn’t too bad and he ended up being able to buy a dress for her. It was a simple ribbed woollen dress that clung to Suzanne and flattered her figure wonderfully. Her marked hourglass figure was highlighted and she looked sensational. But then he was biased.

He also took the opportunity to show Suzanne where the engineering company office was going to be located. He had not deliberately intended to but as they walked up Regent Street they crossed Beak Street. He could have done that morning when they went to the pool but Suzanne in a swimsuit had distracted him! So he took her along the two blocks to show her how close the office was to tourist central, but also that this particular street in Soho was in no way seedy. Leaving Regent Street and passing the end of Carnaby Street on the walk to the office did rather reinforce that this was not sleazy central. Suzanne had been very keen to see the office and at the time he did not realise why.

The best news of the summer was waiting on the answering machine when they got back to the house. Mandy’s A-level results had arrived. She had the required three ‘A’s’ and she was accepted at Trinity reading Psychology. Andrew called her back but the majority of the call was excited squealing or stemming the tears of relief. He told her he would see her in a month. Suzanne was sitting watching him and listening to his side of the conversation.

“She sounded over the moon. I could hear some of the squeals over here.”

“She was worried about her third A-level. She was doing really well in two, Psychology and English, but the third one, French I think, was borderline. It has probably been a long summer waiting to see what she ended up with. A lot of her joy is just sheer relief, that the uncertainty is over, getting in, all that.”

“Do you think she will volunteer with you?”

He hadn’t thought about that.

“I don’t know. We have never talked about it. For me it was more than four and a half years later before I considered it. She is just over two and a half years removed from it, so I don’t know. She was older than I was when I had my cancer. It is a very personal decision.”

“I presume you are going to do it again?”

“I think I have to. But it is something I am going to have to consider when I graduate. I don’t think I would volunteer in a children’s ward here in London for instance. I will be 22 by then and I might as well be 42 to a 12 or 13 year old fighting cancer. After Christmas I tried to switch to helping people that had gone into remission but most of these people had been discharged when they find out, and there are not a lot of people sitting around on a Monday night. I feel I need to do this but it is corrosive on me at the same time. A lot of death.”

A kaleidoscope of faces flashed through his mind.

“If Mandy asks me I will be honest with her, brutally honest.”

Suzanne came and sat in his lap, and although Andrew was holding her, they both knew that she was really holding him. As they lay in bed that night he realised that everything about the day had been easy, they just knew each other really well. Even clothes shopping on Regent Street had been fun, well not torture at least. It made him question his relationship with Ara, could it ever compare to what he had with Suzanne. Of course, there was the large cloud that hung over Suzanne and his relationship. Andrew could feel teenage whinging creeping up again. Enough.

They played tourist the next day and he went to Windsor with Suzanne, by train this time. It was interesting and historic and all that but it was really all about spending time with her. After a pub lunch they went for a stroll down the Long Walk.

“How has the summer been for you?”

Andrew left the question as open ended as possible. Suzanne didn’t flinch.

“Nothing has changed Andrew. I am paralysed by inertia, fear even, and don’t know how to change anything. 18 months ago I thought I knew what I wanted, what I needed, but ever since then it has been a mess. The only person that I trust is you, the one person in the whole world that I can rely on for all this stuff. I have no idea how you are meant to raise something like this as part of a normal relationship, the early stages of dating someone. That is the part that I don’t understand, and I have no concept of broaching the subject. Now is that because of Phil? Probably but I struggle with the idea of dating someone and spending time with them, opening myself up to them, just all the normal things you do at the start of a relationship, but then I try and bring up this dark secret.

“Fuck, it is not even a dark secret but it sits there all the time. The issue that can’t be ignored, the part of me that I am afraid to share now. Look at this summer. I hooked up with a couple of locals. The first one, the guy, was meh, just a typical bloke who talked to the girls and ignored me. And he was an average fuck. But the second one, Isobel is nice. Like me, she is happy to play both sides of the field and it has been a great way to relieve some stress. Now it is a summer fling but I always feel like I have this secret. Right now, Nikki and Fran know the real me but they can’t give me any advice other than to be careful. And the only other people who know are Leslie and you. I don’t think Leslie has told Julian but she too doesn’t have any experience to assist me. So that leaves you Andrew. It always ends up back with you. Even after I was so cruel to you after Leslie’s wedding you have still been there for me. And the couple of days before you left for camp give me a moment of hope.”

She sighed as they walked along.

“I think part of it is the time. The long periods where nothing happens.”