Chapter 13

“Is it just me or are you bored of telling everybody already?”

Ara and Suzanne nodded in agreement. It was early afternoon and they had returned from Suzanne’s parents after a relaxed lunch. But it was still good to be back in the flat on their own.

“It is important to tell everyone but the explanations are always the same thing. Plus it is not like we can talk about some of it anyway. Do you not want to tell Leslie and Julian? Or Maggie and Tony?”

“No, I want to tell them but the conversation will be pretty much the same as with Freya. And then it will be Nikki and Fran on Monday, Gwen on Saturday and then Ara’s parents on Sunday.”

“It is going to encourage us to be quiet about our relationship, isn’t it?”

“That’s the part that frustrates me. I don’t want to be quiet about it, I want to shout it from the rooftops but what I don’t want to deal with is all the hand wringing and ‘are you sure?’.”

“What is the plan for tomorrow?”

“I was going to take Ara to Grandma’s with me. When I thought about it later I was disappointed that she didn’t make more of an effort to get to know her yesterday. Do you want to borrow the car and go and see your grandmother?”

“That would be great. She gets confused with too many people, so it would make more sense for me to go on my own. The last time I was there she didn’t really recognise me.”

In the 1980s old people were ‘confused’. But their couple of hours of peace and quiet were interrupted by knocking on the front door. Andrew went to see who it was, to discover Maggie and Tony smiling back at him. It looked like they were telling his friends in two stages!

“Come in.”

Andrew led them through to the living room and another round of introductions. But then he just went ‘fuck it’, this was Tony and Maggie.

“We are up for Suzanne’s graduation on Monday but also telling family and friends our news. The three of us are going to live together, as a three.”

The wording was still clunky but with some people it was easier than with others. With Tony and Maggie it was surprise for three seconds then smiles, hugs and handshakes. Then the questions started. At first they were mainly to Ara, almost a complete unknown to the two of them but it was friendly and open, just getting to know someone. Andrew and Tony went to make the tea, leaving the three women chattering away at a million miles an hour.

“You are a dark horse.”

Andrew nodded. He gave Tony the three minute version.

“I know Suzanne, and Ara seems nice. You are either insane or insanely lucky. There is no middle ground.”

And like Jim Barnes Tony moved on. They took the tea through and rejoined the others. The next hour was a lot of rehashing of old ground. Andrew wasn’t closely involved, Maggie, Ara and Suzanne were getting on fine and he and Tony were sitting quietly chatting about what he had been working on, the last three months had been busy for Tony. But the focus of the conversation swung away from Ara and the three of them and onto Maggie and Tony and their history with Andrew. He had told Suzanne about Maggie’s past as a nude model, although it was a secret or a surprise to Ara. But even for Suzanne there was a difference between knowing about it and hearing Maggie talk openly about it. Like Andrew she went through the near 10 years skipping lots of parts. And Maggie’s innate intelligence showed as she could see the question Ara wanted to ask but didn’t know how. Again Suzanne knew a lot of this but was still interested.

“I can see you trying to figure out how to ask the fundamental question. How did Andrew become friends with a woman seven years older than him who moonlighted as a nude model? While he was a teenager.”

Ara guiltily smiled and nodded.

“So I had been teasing Andrew on and off for a couple of years. He knew I was a nude model. In fact it was when he started to develop the film that I first properly talked to him.”

“Develop the film?”

“Yes, clever clogs over there figured out how to develop colour film. At least consistently. He was 12 at the time. Maybe he was 13, it doesn’t matter, he was way too young.”

Suzanne and Ara had whipped round to look at Andrew but he smiled and let Maggie carry on.

“Don’t worry, developing is a two stage process. Andrew would develop the rolls of film into the negatives, but he didn’t print out the pictures. Well for a couple of years anyway.”

Andrew knew there would be lots of questions about that later.

“Then he got sick, and it affected me more than it should have. My grandfather had died the previous year from cancer and then this scrawny little private school kid that I teased suddenly was fighting cancer. Andrew’s recovery was important, which is stupid and obvious, but I was more pleased than I realised at the time. So I am 20 and a complete tease. When he was back working at the shop whenever I was there, which wasn’t much, but every time I was there I used to tease him. I used to pull him into my chest just to make him blush. I was terrible.”

Both Maggie and Andrew were smiling, the memories coming flooding back.

“But then one day I ran into Andrew in the street, not at the shop, with two women from work. And one thing I should have mentioned before was that I modelled under another name, Monica, and Andrew knew me as Monica. If he had said ‘hello Monica’ just something as simple as that, then it would have led to lots of awkward questions. But he didn’t. I think the next time I saw him I finally stopped teasing him and just thanked him for not ‘outing’ me. And so we started meeting once or twice a term for a chat and a cup of coffee. Why?”

Maggie stopped and Andrew could see that Ara and Suzanne were fascinated.

“Lots of reasons. We both changed but also influenced the other. So Andrew was getting older and going through his belated but endless growth spurt. Every time I met him he was taller. And although I teased the 12 year old kid he treated me very well. There was a sufficient gap, and when we started chatting he was still young, that it never was really sexual. But Andrew listened to me, talked to me, and didn’t treat me as a secretary who had left school at 17. And over the various meetings I talked about why I was a nude model, why I wouldn’t sign model release forms, not wanting to deal with the comments and judgements, like I had when I was at school. And just the general sense of ‘what’s the big deal?’.”

And right then they got it. Within half a second of each other Suzanne and Ara looked round at Andrew. He nodded and they smiled. Suzanne pulled Maggie to her feet and hugged her. And held it for a long time. Once she was done Ara did the same, though not as long as Suzanne. Tony was looking back and forth, confusion on his face, and when Maggie sat down she look puzzled as well.

“Maggie, the three of us are going to live together as a three. We know that general society would judge us, would love to judge us, but for the three of us, ‘what’s the big deal?’.”

They both got it and Maggie look flustered and proud.

“Wow, really?”

Ara nodded.

“Oh completely. All the stages of my journey, our journey, are going against the mainstream. You taught Andrew discretion, although he is a natural at that, and normalised things that were different. So come on, tell us the rest, I am fascinated to hear more.”

So Maggie revisited the key events from when Andrew was 15 to 18.

“You modelled nude for him as a 16^th birthday present.”

Maggie smiled and nodded.

“Twice.”

She explained the abortive first session and then the solo session a month later.

“After that I started modelling for Andrew two or three times a year. Sometimes it was more.”

Another vital question was posed.

“Why did you both do it?”

Maggie went first.

“I am an exhibitionist, I love showing off, and I loved being a nude model. But at the same time after what I went through at school I was very worried about being judged. But with Andrew it was relaxed and a lot of fun. And it was through him that I discover that I loved outdoor shoots. We have shot at the Castle, up Arthur’s Seat, the Scott Monument, on a beach overlooking the Forth Bridges, so many places.”

Ara and Suzanne were captivated and were surprised when Tony took over.

“When Maggie and I started to go out we came to the realisation that I liked watching her pose, watching her model, and she in turn loved modelling. I had been photographing models for more than 10 years at that point. But as you start dating someone, and become exclusive, and then get engaged and married, you have all these expectations, these norms, that go against watching your girlfriend, and then wife, modelling naked for other men. So Maggie slowly stopped modelling for other people and for the last three years she has only modelled for Andrew.”

Suzanne and Ara were going to get whiplash as they kept looking at the three of them. Suzanne found her voice first.

“You still model for Andrew?”

Maggie looked at Andrew and ruefully smiled.

“I thought I would only have to tell one woman, I never thought it would be two.”

Some of the tension left the room. Some but not all.

“You two go and make some more tea, let me talk to Suzanne and Ara.”

Standing in the kitchen Tony looked at Andrew.

“How do you think they are going to react?”

“I don’t think they will care about what has happened in the past, if anything I think they will ask Maggie a million questions. But going forward? I have no idea. Let’s face it they are hardly in a place to judge, in fact I know they won’t. But will they be okay with me photographing Maggie?”

Andrew shrugged. Although they put the kettle on the two of them sat at the dining room table and chatted.

“How has everyone reacted?”

“Pretty well for the most part. Suzanne’s dad Mike threw a wobbly last night but then he was much better this morning. The bad one will be Ara’s parents, especially her mother, we are going to see them next weekend. How are things with you two?”

“Things are really good. We had Maggie’s parents over. As you can imagine they were gobsmacked at the house. But when we told them we had owned it for more than a year although we had just moved in they started to calm down. In many ways it was the same as we were with you. A lot of our worries were around how they would react. They were please for Maggie, for us, but didn’t go on about it. They see her as their daughter, they love her but are also happy that she has changed. Her dad was very eloquent about it. They see that she is happy, we are being successful. He had a good way of looking at it. He said it made him feel proud as a father, not just for what she had achieved, but also that he couldn’t have been too bad as a father, as a parent. He didn’t take the credit, it was more relief. Maggie’s worries about her folks were much ado about nothing.”

Andrew waited.

“Her worries about her brother on the other hand...”

Tony sighed.

“We had the families over two Christmases in a row when we were renting Julian’s flat. We don’t need to have them over for, well years I hope. But we just ignore the two of them, him and his wife. They are just not welcome at the house. Other than that everything is going great. It cost us a fortune the first time using Mhairi to deal with the film company but we got the studio rented out. Well, one of the sets on the 2^nd floor and the ground floor. And they are using the empty 1^st floor for make-up and stuff like that. And we are making great money off them. What else? Maggie has given her notice and the Planning Department are pretty upset. They are trying to get her to stay but the new woman in charge of all the secretaries is a right bitch and so she finishes up in three weeks. She is going to take a break for a couple of weeks and then start.”

They were interrupted by the three ladies coming through to the dining room.

“You didn’t need to hide through here.”

Ara and Suzanne kissed Andrew very passionately, to the amusement of Maggie and Tony.

“We should go, we will be late for dinner.”

They walked down to Leslie and Julian’s place. Ara and Suzanne walked ahead with Tony and left Maggie to talk to Andrew. He never even got to ask a single question.

“They were fine. They had lots of questions but were amazingly cool about it. They are okay with you continuing to take photographs they just want you to tell them all about it.”

Maggie fanned herself.

“I nearly dragged Tony off to your spare bedroom. I mean, you are going to be there, hungry eyes and a hungry camera lens. But now in addition to all that you are going to tell your two completely hot wives all about it. And it means that I am likely to discuss it with them later as well.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Did you hear what I said? It is going to make it even more intense. My husband is going to get so lucky tonight.”

Andrew had to laugh at her earnest statement.

“They will tell you all about it, and ask you lots of questions but they seemed to think it was something to be encouraged not stopped.”

And in a clearly choreographed move while waiting at a set of traffic lights she stood next to Tony and Ara and Suzanne came back and hugged Andrew.

“We have a million questions but they can wait. But I will say this. Maggie might be the second most important person in making you the guy you are. Leslie is clearly the most important, but I don’t know that the three of us would be together without you adopting her ‘what’s the big deal?’ mentality.”

Suzanne took over from Ara.

“You always told me that photography relaxed you, but it might be that it was just hanging out with Maggie. I can’t believe that the time flew by. The whole three of us together was dealt with in the first minutes. Hopefully it will be the same with Leslie and Julian.”

They were already walking down the side of the cemetery. Ara couldn’t believe how different it was just a 10 minute walk from student central.