Chapter 7

Andrew neither swam nor ran the following morning, not because of any drunken excess but so that he and Julian could work on child of AIMS, not now called Rakonto. Leslie and Andrew would talk later but she was having a lie in that morning. They walked over to the University College library and found a quiet corner to chat. It was all technical that morning, database structures, programming language, output fields, design and amending reports. The security requirements were both straightforward and yet complicated at the same time and in many ways, the requirements would be like designing code; iterative, lots of back and forth until a mutually acceptable solution was agreed. Inevitably that would be as much Mhairi as either of them, more probably, so they ignored it and concentrated on the product. The discussion was engrossing more than relaxing but several hours past and if not for the alarm on Julian’s watch they would have stayed much longer. They would carry on the discussions when Andrew was back in Edinburgh. Jim and Freya were out grocery shopping when they returned to the flat and so the three of them had a simple lunch before Leslie and Andrew headed out for a walk and talk session leaving Julian pondering the program some more.

“It seems like you had a productive morning?”

“We did. There have been so many years of thinking things through, bouncing ideas off each other. University College library is huge and with term being over we were able to talk without disturbing anyone else. But we don’t get heated, I can’t remember the last time we had a serious argument over computing. We must have done but none come to mind. It was good.”

More than seven years of history, it was just two friends sitting thinking and chatting about computer code.

“He is always so happy to see you, always so pleased when you spend time together.”

The thought came into Andrew’s head unbidden and he spoke before thinking.

“One of the things we are going to try and talk to, as much as I can, is my future career. But in June next year the lease on the top two floors of the office building I bought expires. The company there at present knows that there will be no renewal. I will get them renovated and upgraded over the summer but one of the things that I would like you to know is that if the two of you wanted a place to work down here then I would love that. I know that Edinburgh is your base, your home. But if the opportunity comes up to work from London for a week then you would have an office, telephone, fax, everything you would need.”

Andrew could see Leslie open and then shut her mouth twice before she was able to formulate the right words.

“Will you be there?”

Ah. Leslie didn’t need to say anything else.

“I know that it comes from a good place Andrew, so don’t take my words, harsh as they will sound, too badly. You cannot keep trying to organise your life to suit you, and expect everyone else to fall in line.”

He had spoken without thinking and although he winced at her characterisation he knew there was truth behind it. He was the one moving away from Edinburgh, lock, stock and barrel, and now he was trying to tempt his friends to come and join him, even if it was only now and again.

“I had the thought and spoke before thinking it all through. I understand what you are saying.”

Leslie squeezed his arm.

“We miss you Andrew, and however much we talk about it, say the right things, rationalise it, there is a sense of hurt that you are walking away so categorically, so absolutely. If your grandmother was to pass away would you come to Edinburgh to see Julian and I? To see Maggie and Tony?”

Wow. Tough to parent, tough to be a sibling to, and now tough to be a friend to. Ouch. It was that moment that Andrew made a lifelong promise.

“Yes. The two of you are so important to me that I would struggle to find the words to describe it. I am only here today through my friendship with the two of you, with the support from the two of you.”

Andrew stopped and something else sprang into his mind.

“Remember what Faith said that last week? We always talk about the living two lives part. But she also asked us to look out for each other, that we would need each other. Now that has changed over the years but it does not have an expiry date. So yes, know that I will always be in your life and not just as a Christmas card once a year. I will see you regularly and be in your life always. Both of you.”

Andrew shouldn’t have been surprised at Leslie’s attempt to strangle him with her hug. He had pushed the first domino and the wall fell away. They walked for a few minutes recovering their composure.

“That was important to hear, important for you to say as well. Alright, knowing that there is a place to work down here is good to know. Thank you. I don’t know how often we will be down but it will be more than if there was not a place to work. So where do you want to start?”

Andrew had talked to Freya about secrecy and what he could talk about and what he could not. He wasn’t going to announce it from the rooftops but he could tell people that he was applying to the intelligence agencies. So he talked to Leslie about them all, still having to steer clear of this past summer until they were granted clearance. He even talked round the issue of changing agency at the start of the summer. 40 minutes of uninterrupted talking.

“That is quite the brain dump, even for you.”

That was nothing more than extemporisation while Leslie marshalled her thoughts.

“So this has been the last year, maybe longer?”

He nodded.

“How do you feel about it? You are always big on what feels right.”

He smiled.

“True. I know this is going to sound incredibly odd, almost counter-intuitive, but there feels like a hierarchy to them. Because of Bond, the spies are more glamourous than the spy-catchers and that they are both more glamourous than their military equivalents. What I mean by counter-intuitive is that given how I dismissed the two London universities in favour of Cambridge I feel most comfortable when I think about the military option.”

“Why?”

He stumbled around at the start before he got his head together.

“Attitude. They remind me of people that think the world owes them a living. There is a ‘we are special don’t you know’ vibe about them. We know things you don’t know, we are the guardians of the secrets.”

Andrew stopped again and shook his head, trying to rearrange his synapses.

“They are nothing like that but it is my own prejudices coming into play. I am projecting it onto them, the whole ‘I am better than you are’ thing that always sets me off. I am going to apply to all three but the military option seems the best right now. Maybe for no other reason than I know more about it than the other two.”

“Are you sure this is the career that you want to pursue?”

“Yes. I am going to get back into coding in the evenings once I graduate and I did not even apply to any of the engineering firms or consultancies in the autumn. I have worked at this, or at least on the peripheries for all three summers, have been told I am good at it, and so I am going to give it a go.”

“So what about the office, the engineering company?”

“It is a fall-back position, in case this is a monumental error. Plus, as with coding, I will continue to play around in the evenings with the ideas from my project.”

“You seem to have come to a good solution; it all makes sense, what do you need from me?”

Andrew snorted in surprise.

“Even you just saying that calms me down. It has been a journey of months, if not years to get to this point. Also I am conveniently glossing over the whole issue of actually being selected, offered a job.”

“True, but you did recognise that you would not have been credible applying for a job at an engineering firm so backed out. You have got yourself mentally to the place where you can embrace the interview process and present yourself in the best possible light. Employers can tell when applicants are faking it, mailing it in. If you get a job at the Ministry of Defence will it impact the business?”

“It will be.”

He stopped.

“I was about to say a complication but an entry level graduate has no influence. I have no doubt it will be an administrative pain in the arse, having to disclose it, always make sure people know. But will my being an employee stop us getting selected? If they are using that as a reason then there are other issues. Lobbying behind the scenes strikes me as much more of a ‘finger on the scale’ than my job.”

“Can we talk about C&D for a bit. Do you think there is a sustainable long term business there?”

Rather than respond reflexively he considered what Leslie had asked.

“I would split the question in two. Yes there is a need, both immediately and longer term. Whether C&D can get involved and stay involved is a different question. I have thought on and off for years about computers and their impact. I think that the best I can come up with is the early days of cars and planes. Speeds and capacities increased exponentially at the beginning, tripling and quadrupling within a decade. I look at the computer your father gave me in the summer of 1979, state of the art when he bought it in 1978, and you can’t describe how limited and primitive it is compared to the computers available today. And that is the mechanics of computing, the computers themselves. What we are looking to develop is the software that runs on them. And that is where I think businesses, and especially government, are behind. The boxes are bigger and better, there is more software available but the generational reluctance to use it is the thing that is still to be tackled. Your dad said something to that effect all those years ago at the meeting with the government. The computer I used to demonstrate AIMS this summer? It wouldn’t work properly and was sitting in the corner. I had to open the case as I couldn’t figure out why one of the ports wasn’t working. It had come detached inside and I had to re-screw it back in place. Now I can’t prove it but I think that someone shook the box in some misguided way to make it work, make it work faster, even through sheer frustration. So I had to fix it. What I demonstrated using voluminous paper files was the ability to summarise key information, highlight things between files. Going back to all our software, I was letting the senior people exercise control. And their amazement reminded me of 1979, 1980, the early days when we were fixing systems. But I was a total outlier, both in age, circumstance of me being there and the fact that I was using, and was comfortable, with a computer. So last September when you talked about setting up some people, a team, to train current government staff, that was inspired. Because like I said, the people this summer, the people over all three summers looked at me like I was a two-headed monster.”

Andrew drew breathe and laughed at himself.

“My usual meanderingly long winded way of saying yes. Not designing software maybe but just being young, with the right mindset and security clearance should allow us to develop a sustainable business.”

Leslie joined in with the chuckles but squeezed his arm.

“I am used to them now. Sometimes they are all over the place and tough to follow but most of the time they are very helpful in explaining your thinking, why you think a certain way, and the potential roadblocks to success. Let’s head back and figure out what we are doing tonight. Is there anything else?”

“Now that I am more certain about what I am going to at least try to do with my career, most of the rest is just getting to the middle of next year. I have a bunch of things still to sort out but now that I am calmer about my career they don’t seem such a big deal. The house is probably the one that snuck up on me.”

“You are still thinking about letting it out again?”

“I am giving myself until the end of the summer next year before making the final decision, spend two or three months there just living in it day-to-day. I can just about rationalise the three extra bedrooms on the top floor, they are there for guests, you, your dad, whoever but the rest I struggle with. The room with no purpose just taunts me every time I go past the door and with the kitchen in the basement I am going to be up and down the stairs all the time. If I live and sleep on the first floor then passing through the ground floor to the basement six or eight times a day will just emphasise and highlight the excess of it all. Like I said I need to live in it. Even just doing a big grocery shop and having something in the fridge will probably disproportionately help.”

Andrew shrugged. It was all he could do.