Chapter 12

After another day of studying Andrew was parked at the bottom of Cockburn Street and Maggie jumped into the car two minutes after 5.00. She gave him a peck on the cheek and they chatted idly as Andrew concentrated on getting out of the city centre. They got caught at a traffic light and as Andrew sat there waiting Maggie pounced. She was smiling but he was whacked on the arm repeatedly.

“Hey. Ow! Stop that.”

The first couple of whacks had been a shock but as they continued Andrew realised this was his penance for his housewarming gift.

“I always knew you had an obsession with my arse Andrew McLeod. What I didn’t realise was that it is a contagious condition. My loving husband has been infected with it now as well. Bad Andrew.”

The final whack was delivered with the same big smile. She rubbed his arm and leaned over and gave him another peck on the cheek.

“You will never guess what we will be shooting tonight.”

Andrew laughed. The prospect of an evening photographing Maggie Brown’s arse, suitably plugged, was suddenly all he could think of.

“Do you know what they funny thing is. I was jealous of Elspeth. I could hardly believe my ears when she told me about how she had posed. But I was also jealous. She had caught up to my raciness and shot right past me. So although I was shocked, for about five seconds when we opened the box, but then all I could think about was the next shoot. I don’t know what it says about me that my only male friend keeps buying me sex toys. With hints and encouragement from my husband.”

They held off talking about the business until they got to the house and Tony could be included. He had finished in the studio and had dinner waiting for them when they arrived just before 6.00. As they ate Maggie started.

“You know how I used to talk about the old battle-axes who made everyone’s life miserable, and that when they retired I was able to get promoted. Well the last of that pre-war generation has finally retired. But her replacement is worse. You have a degree already and are weeks away from getting another one from Cambridge University, yet you never treat Tony and I as stupid because we didn’t go to university. We had always worried that you would change when you went to Cambridge after school. It was at that memorable party that we found out that you had been at university practically the whole time we had known you. Anyway, you treat us, you treat me, no differently even although we don’t have a degree. Well the new woman in charge of all the assistants and secretaries has a degree and thinks that she is clever and always correct, and that we are all idiots and usually wrong. I mean you let me spend nearly quarter of a million pounds between altering the flat and then building the studio out there. She thinks I can’t order office supplies without it being checked.”

Maggie stopped and sighed.

“I wanted to talk to you about running the photography business, being in overall charge. I think that is how we can expand into other cities. I have had Alex create a business plan, and have sat and gone through it with Leslie a couple of times as well. At our current levels the business would make a small profit even when paying me. And if we start to expand in Glasgow or Newcastle then the cost would be absorbed over more parts of the business. I think it is how we can start to work with other auction houses, and start to grow that business. And the business plan doesn’t include any external film studio work, just the photographers that use the studio.”

Andrew sat there looking amazed. He was a combination of sad, happy and excited. He knew all too well about academic snobbery, he was at Cambridge for goodness sake, but it saddened him that Maggie’s obvious intelligence was being overlooked because she didn’t have a degree. But that it meant that she had a chance to grow the photography business? He was both happy and excited at the prospect.

“Can we show you the business plan please?”

“Why?”

Maggie’s face stilled.

“To explain everything.”

Andrew realised they were taking it the wrong way.

“You prepared it with Alex who is a qualified accountant, yes?”

Maggie nodded.

“And then you had Leslie review it, twice?”

Another nod.

“The lady who manages my own investments and also manages more than £60m of money for the Trusts and her friends?”

A third nod.

“Why on earth are you bothering to show it to me? Is this something you want to do?”

“Yes.”

“Okay I agree, I approve.”

Maggie started crying, but having faced many women crying at him over the years Andrew didn’t immediately panic. He hoped it was happy tears. He was right. Once she had calmed down, and climbed off Tony’s lap when he had held and comforted her, she was finally able to speak.

“I shouldn’t have been so surprised. The emotions caught me by surprise, but the last couple of months at the Council have been a grind. For you just to say okay and that you trusted me with everything.”

She did a very Andrew-esque shrug. She pottered around in the kitchen making tea and recovering her composure. Finally she sat at the table again.

“How are you doing Andrew, you seemed weary on Saturday night?”

“You heard my brief chat then. I tried to do way too much. I let the project consume me, and when I designed the prototype then it was even worse. It felt relentless. But Mhairi and Grace were great with all the paperwork, I have a specialised engineering company making the prototype and the Professor who is my project supervisor is happy. The end is in sight. And my studying is going really well. Rather than just keep up an insane schedule things are calmer. I saw Elspeth on Monday late afternoon, Mhairi yesterday morning and I am going to talk computing with Julian tomorrow afternoon. When you add in spending time with the two of you this evening then I am much calmer and more balanced. When I talked to Elspeth I told her that my time being a photographer is therapeutic, it reminds me that there is life outside engineering. And I need that this break. I was stupid last term.”

“Being a photographer is therapeutic?”

“She laughed when I said it to her, but yes. It is important for both of you yet at the same time it is light hearted and frivolous. I am always relaxed after spending time with the two of you as models. It seems odd frankly but it is true.”

Maggie’s earlier crying jag was long gone and she smiled over at her husband and Andrew.

“Come on then, if it is therapy for you then I should go and find that nurse’s outfit.”

They laughed and she went off to get changed while Tony and Andrew tidied up.

“You excited to be working for the wife?”

He snorted.

“She already tells me what to do here, it will be no different.”

Andrew knew that Tony was joking. Although he had been a good self-taught businessman for years, now he left all that to Maggie and concentrated on the creative side. He was busy, the ultimate test of whether a photographer was any good or not. He was happy leaving the empire building to Maggie. She came back downstairs wearing trainers and a robe, carrying a small bag. They walked across the garden and down to the hidden entrance to the studio.

“Is there anything special you want to shoot tonight?”

Maggie just smirked back at him.

“Andrew we all know that I going to be on my hands and knees, judging by your presents my best feature to the fore, and my husband is going to tease me with our house-warming gift while you take pictures.”

It was said so matter of factly. And for three rolls of film that was exactly what Maggie did. She only posed with the first three plugs, training was going to be required for the last two. She had two main expressions. Her most common expression was a hypnotic mix of smirking, smiling, generally giddiness and sultry happiness. Andrew had a pet peeve about glamour models who were asked to pose with feigned ecstasy. There was nothing feigned with Maggie’s expressions. The other expressions were all variations of ‘oh my god what are you sticking up my bum?’. She wasn’t faking the winces as the widest part of the plug slipped into her arse. And after three rolls of film and the occasional wandering hand from Tony Maggie was hot to trot. Andrew understood why he had been given a house key and discreetly made his escape back to the house. He had the kettle on for the two of them when they returned 25 minutes later. Maggie came over and kissed him before sitting down at the table.

“Therapeutic is a great word. That was exactly what that was.”

Tony clapped Andrew on the shoulder but said nothing.

“We always have these moments of doubt where it feels like we are taking advantage of your good nature. But then you talk about how it helps you as well and all my, our, doubts disappear. Even something as simple as tonight, hell I could just posed on the couch or one of the beds. But there is something about the studio or especially outside that gets me going.”

“You like posing outside?”

Even Andrew realised it was a silly question as soon as he said it.

“Sorry, that was stupid.”

“It is this delicious dichotomy within me. I like the thought of being caught but without actually being caught. In my imagination if I am caught it is by people like us, or that lovely old man up north, they smile, watch for a moment or two and then go on their way. But it is balanced by the worry that it will be some judgemental shrew that will make a scene or a fuss. I think it is that balance that keeps me in check. If everyone I met was like you, ‘what’s the big deal?’, then I would be more daring. But just like my modelling I know that it is not like that at all. And then there is the issue of accidentally flashing kids. So I like to push the boundaries but so far, and no further. That is why the boat holidays are wonderful. I can be naked but hidden, driving the boat wearing just a bikini top, things like that. Never mind later in the cabin.”

“This is going to be another stupid question based on an hour ago but you still need it, not just you but both of you?”

Maggie looked at Tony.

“For me there are two parts. Firstly it is clear as day that Maggie not just loves posing but also needs it. But the other part is about my imagination. I am not a family portrait photographer, or someone who shoots landscapes or wildlife. I am a glamour photographer, and so I see women in various stages of undress, from short skirts and lots of cleavage to blatant and explicit nudity. I am attracted to women who like posing as models. They are confident and it takes a certain bravery to pose like that. It was what first attracted me to Maggie. And although I am now married I still like to work with glamour models. But my imagination now thinks about Maggie. Let’s see if I can explain this. When it is just the three of us and Maggie is posing, I am there obviously. But I also sort of imagine myself as you, as the photographer. When I am working with a model professionally then nothing ever happens, but when you are there, playing me in my own mind, then I can be thoroughly unprofessional with my wife. Does that make sense?”

Andrew mulled it over.

“So you have a dirty imagination when you are working and when I turn up you get to act it out?”

“That is a good way of looking at it. And because I can act it out with Maggie then I find that I am more professional with the models I am working with. And in some ways it is not even that I have a dirty imagination with them. I don’t have to think that about them because I can think that about Maggie, when you are playing the role of me. Bloody hell, it makes me sound schizophrenic.”

Maggie laughed but carried on.

“I am going to be 29 in the summer, and I have come such a long way in the last 10 years. I am married, we live in this wonderful house, and I am about to run my own business that I helped build. But I still like showing off. I am not going to be like Elspeth, what she is doing is so utterly amazing. I am not that brave, I am not that person, but I have the same need to show off, to pose, to model, just like she does, and the same way that she does. And rather than go through life frustrated at myself for my reservations I get to use you as the proxy for the rest of the world. When Elspeth’s first picture set comes out I will be so happy for her, but I will also be jealous. Jealous that she had the courage to do it. And you know I don’t mean this the way it is going to sound but I have the model’s body and she doesn’t. Yet she is going to be the one staring up from the page.”

She sighed at her own honesty.

“Right now the need to pose for you is stronger than it has been since. I don’t know, the first Norfolk trip maybe. It doesn’t make sense but it is very real.”

Tony had told Andrew there was a coastal walking path at the foot of the hill so in the morning he walked down to it and ran the mile or so along the coast to the next little town, Aberdour. He went back and forth three times and got his run in. After breakfast they left Tony heading to the studio and he and Maggie joined the commuter flow over to Edinburgh. Once he had dropped Maggie off at her office Andrew studied on the Thursday morning before going down to Julian’s office after lunch to finally talk about how the program was doing.

“What you were doing last summer was tailor-made for AIMS. I have had Kenny and Aiden work on isolated sub-routines while we wait for their clearance. They are both excited about the opportunity and had no qualms about this type of work. I have started to think of the program as Cascade now.”

They had talked about this a couple of weeks earlier.

“Sure, it is as good a name as any other.”

“Thank you for that resounding endorsement but moving on. The big news this week is that your crazy idea about being OTC cadets is now happening. I was signed into Redford last week and we are in a separate building out the back. We received the formal request to tender and if we are selected then it looks like it will really happen.”

“How big is the order?”

“The initial order is only 500 copies, but they want training as well. Just like Leslie predicted. The trainer needs to have Top Secret clearance and be prepared to travel.”

“We are going to price the software and training separately, yes?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You have repeatedly talked about how the people you worked with were nervous, scared even around computers.”

Andrew realised that he could now talk to Julian about all three summers, not the details but at least where he worked.

“I saw it when I first started at the Ministry of Defence. They sent me to the MoD Police my first year.”

“Really, the police?”

“A civilian employee in the record centre in the basement, glamourous it was not. But at the end of the first week I got sent out to accompany some files to Colchester, there was a big investigation. They kept me as the guy to run errands and while I was there I saw an AIMS printout. I made the mistake of smiling. All that time and effort and there it was. I was pleased and proud. Of course, I was spotted and they thought I knew something about what was on the paper. I hadn’t even looked at what was on the damn page I was just pleased to see an AIMS printout. Which when you tell that to a collection of grumpy policemen sounds particularly gash. So I had to tell them I wrote the program. Remember I asked you to send a copy down for me.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now.”

“Nobody knew where the hell the program had come from. The MoD Police thought it was a German program. Exactly. So guess who became the office computer expert?”

“Really?”

“You can’t make this shit up. Really. I was back the following year and it was then that one of the guys that I worked with that first summer told me that everyone was running scared of the things. Huge amounts of the Civil Service joined straight from school and a lot of them have been there for 20 years and more. What the hell to they know about computers.”