Chapter 4

Andrew thought they would spend the afternoon walking about the house and Ara would tell him all about the changes they wanted to make. But Ara said they were going to wait until Suzanne was there. There was no rush and it was important that they did things together, particularly in the first few months. Instead they Tubed about the city looking at various different desks for the study. It was a pleasant way to fritter away the afternoon. Mind you it was also fascinating to watch the attitudes when they walked into an ‘emporium’. Of course Ara wasn’t putting up with guff like that. She was getting some ideas for a present for her father, Baron Ashland. You can imagine the rest. Obsequiousness oozed out of them like snot from a runny nosed kid. Ara also was channelling her inner Turkish haggler with the sales assistants, or whatever they are called in an ‘emporium’. Once again Andrew was relegated to the role of eye-candy; he stood there and looked pretty. But for all the fools there were one or two genuine and nice people. Andrew was drawn to big, chunky desks, what were described as library or partners’ desks. Solid desks, not overly ornate, but with a wide top surface and lots of drawers and storage. They got some ideas but he managed not to spend any money.

“That was fun. I enjoy tormenting rude shop assistants.”

“It is always fascinating to watch you turn up the posh, it makes me smile. Do you think our children will talk like you or me?”

It was sneaky and unfair and it got Ara hook, line and sinker. He got the shocked ‘o’ face, the slight blush and then the arm whack, three for three.

“That was unkind. My ovaries just got all a flutter.”

Andrew kissed her and they walked back from South Kensington, through Hyde Park and over to the house.

“It is normally women teasing men about having children. Does it not seem too soon?”

“Yes probably. But you remember you talked about not being able to see your feet when we were in Istanbul. The image of you pregnant hasn’t faded from my mind.”

Ara smiled.

“Have you thought about having children?”

“Not really, other than the generic of assuming that I would have children at some point. As for too soon, in a lot of ways of course it is, this is all still so new. But in other ways it is not. I think this is a conversation for all three of us, let’s hold off for a couple of weeks.”

They made dinner and then went out to the local, The Footman. It wasn’t that busy but they people watched and quietly made catty comments to each other. At the end of the night they made love revelling in their new closeness.

Suzanne was ready for her exams and just wanted them to be over. She was going to head south with manageable load of bags but leave the rest for when they all went back up north in June. They had agreed that they were going to spend the 18^th to the 23^rd of June driving north and breaking the news. First with Ara’s grandfather, then Andrew’s Grandma, then the Jenners. After that Leslie and Julian, and Maggie and Tony, and finally Nikki and Fran would be visited as well. The latter allowing them to get the last of Suzanne’s clothes from their flat in Glasgow. It was something excited to look forward to, while at the same time it was going to be daunting.

Andrew’s project was close to completion, there was nothing substantial but lots of odds and ends. So he was back in Cambridge after lunch on the Sunday and back to work. The largest item on his list of outstanding work was editing the report. Upshaw had provided feedback but the key point was that it needed to be tightened up. Also during that week Andrew received the working prototype of his invention that he hoped to patent. It had taken more than two months, and cost him quite a bit of money but he had something physical that showed his idea. This also allowed the patent application to be finalised. Andrew spent a lot of time on the phone to Mhairi getting everything in order. He would go the patent lawyer’s office once he had completed the testing for the Civil Service the following week. He wanted the application to be acknowledged by the Patent Office before he submitted his project. So the week was different than he was used to. It was not sitting studying, instead he went out to a precision engineering business and collecting the prototype. Long hours with Mhairi on the phone in the library and a lot of reading and re-reading of his final project report. Andrew also spent more time with Matt and Keith where they could sit and chat. Lunches and breaks were slightly longer. Nobody was skiving off but the tension was substantially less. And most of the 4^th years in the Science Faculty were in the same situation. Final exams were over and they were all working on completing their projects.

Jack and Andrew went to the OTC for the first time in nearly two months that week. Jack had left a note with the Porters at the Gate letting Andrew know that he had passed the Main Board so Andrew had left him alone to concentrate on his finals. It was good to catch up with him. It felt to Andrew that his life was completely different than when he last saw Jack.

“Well done. Thanks for the note. Did you have any issues?”

“It was touch and go on the Plan-Ex.”

This was the planning exercise, one of the key parts of the four days.

“I didn’t do great on that, but the staff here really drilled it into me to shake off anything that is not great and power on. They are looking for that attitude, be able to deal with a setback. Now I came close to fucking it up and no amount of attitude will save you then but I was positive the rest of the way and I am in.”

“Regimental selection?”

“It is done during the course at Sandhurst. I think I am going to put the Staffordshire’s first and then the Forester’s.”

“When does your course start? Are you in the September intake?”

“Hopefully, I haven’t heard yet but that seems to be the chat.”

“You will get there right as Rollie leaves.”

Jack stopped and looked at Andrew.

“Your Main Board is early June, right?”

He nodded.

“When are you doing your course? This summer?”

Jack laughed out loud.

“You could be through before I even start, you are bound to be before I am finished.”

All the facts were right there just neither of them had joined the dots. Jack laughed again.

“If there is a spot this summer then you will get to graduate around the same time as Rollie.”

There were more than a few stages Andrew had to get through first but it did give him pause for thought. He waited for Jack to nip into King’s and change out of his uniform and once Andrew had done the same they had a couple of beers at Trinity College Bar.

“It has been four good years but I can’t wait to get out of here now. Listen to me I sound an old fart.”

“I get it. I am trying to get my project finished, it is done but it is getting the write-up corrected, make sure that it is as accurate a summary as possible. I don’t want to fuck it up at the last minute but at the same time I just want it to be over. This year seems to be the endless series of milestones and ‘this is the last... ‘, pick any one of a number of things. I have interviews next week and Main Board in less than a month, I have the presentation for my project. You sound like an old fart and I sound like a whinging git.”

Jack shook his head.

“You do a bit but I am going to get out of here with a Desmond and be happy. You are still charging hard as you have a chance at being top. Does is really matter to you?”

“If it does then it is buried somewhere in my psyche. I don’t think that way, I never talk about it. Jack, I am applying for the Civil Service next week, not even one of the big engineering consultancies or firms. I am my own worst enemy.”

“Probably. Though the guys in your squad are going to hate you. Can you imagine? They hear they are going to get a new officer fresh off the TACC at Sandhurst and you turn up. Miserable Scots git and with a First from here.”

Jack laughed and Andrew shook his head. He had a point. But after a very tough couple of months these moments were important, starting to build some of his last memories of Cambridge. Jack and Rollie had been good friends for four and three years, and it was important to make sure that they kept in touch. Andrew stayed late at College on the Friday night dealing with Mhairi during the day and then sitting working on the final report late into the evening. Ara knew that he was going to be down late and though she had fallen asleep he didn’t freak her out when he finally got to the house at 1.00. They cuddled together and fell fast asleep.

The weekend was wonderful, it was relaxing and the change in how Andrew thought about his future was profound. But it was also bittersweet in that they were both conscious that Suzanne was not there and that even worse, when she arrived the following weekend he would be heading back to Cambridge. A lot of the talks, a lot of things they wanted to sit or lie and chat about were on hold until the three of them were together. In a year’s time, in six months’ time, this would have been less of an issue. But it was young love and they were apart.

Having checked with Freya about what he should tell people about his job applications, she had told Andrew to explain that he was applying for the Civil Service but for positions that would involve him getting security clearance and to just leave it there. There were thousands of civil servants who could not talk about their job, and he would be one more at one of the Foreign Office, the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence. Ara had put two and two together and knew that although there was more Andrew couldn’t talk about it. If he was offered and accepted a job with one of them then he would explain more if possible. All Ara knew was that Andrew was interviewing with the Civil Service, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

They had invited Jim and Freya out for dinner the previous weekend and so that Saturday night the four of them headed into town. Ara had dealt with the booking in advance and they had a lovely time down in Chelsea. But they both looked at each other a couple of times. It was lovely but there was someone missing. Jim and Freya were masters at the art of small talk and the evening flowed. Although the house was closer they invited Ara and Andrew to the flat as there was no booze yet at their house, an unforgiveable oversight in Jim’s opinion. Andrew needed to see if Robert MacNish would create a drink’s cabinet for him now. Walking back from swimming the next morning they both commented on how everything felt artificial somehow. Andrew was bursting to tell Freya and Jim but wanted them all to be there. June 16^th couldn’t come quickly enough.

As for the week of interviews, the day of testing was easy because it was the Briefing all over again. There were IQ and aptitude tests, leadership challenges, group discussions., the only thing he didn’t have to do were the physical tests. It wasn’t difficult and Andrew used the same mindset as he had at Briefing, and that he would have in another month at the Main Board. It was straightforward.

After the testing, done in an anonymous Government building somewhere south of the river, his first interview was with the Secret Intelligence Service. Of the three days of interviews they were the ones who questioned his CV the most. They didn’t try and pick holes in it, and if they did try it was not a big deal as Andrew could talk to all of it, but they did go through it in detail. One of the things that came out during the interviews was they were big on discretion. Hardly a surprise when he thought about it. That he had been through the Open University while at school and it was not widely known was seen as a very good thing. His cover letter when applying had directed them to ask any questions about his three summers of employment at the Ministry of Defence to them directly. Andrew did talk extensively about the process whereby he was first granted Secret Clearance and the after vetting Top Secret Clearance. He was pretty sure he was the first graduate candidate with those. He answered the questions honestly and didn’t really get stumped at any point. As with all interviews there were a couple of answers that he felt could have been better. But conversely a lot of the questions were easy for him. ‘Tell me a time when you were part of a team’, that sort of thing. Andrew could talk about stuff like that for hours. The one thing was they gave nothing away, at the end of the interview Andrew thought he had done well but was given no indication on the day.

Andrew was able to walk back to the flat because the interview was in a nice, but nondescript house at the end of Carlton Terrace. Nondescript in the sense there was no indication that it was the office for interviews for the SIS but it was a Georgian building and was beautifully situated. He exited the building and was mere paces from the Mall. It took him 10 minutes to walk home. Now this was where they conducted their interviews not where they were based but it was very odd to have an interview with the UK’s external spy agency and then come out into the middle of a mass of tourists.

Wednesday Andrew day-tripped to Cambridge to go through the edits from the final draft of the report. He spent all day slowly, painstakingly, going through everything, found three small things that needed changing and returned the manuscript to the typist. When he returned the following Monday it would be for a final review and then he could spend the next couple of days getting it printed and making sure all the appendices were in order, all the little crap that will trip you up at the very end of a project like that. It was a good use of the day and he was happy with the way the week was going, based on the first two days.

So his interview on the Tuesday with the Secret Intelligence Service had been a 10 minute walk from the house. The interview on the Thursday with the Security Service was 312 paces from the front door of the house. Andrew knew because he counted. The interview was two streets over, and then halfway down a street that he passed every day on the way to Green Park. Again this was not their main office just an old satellite office they were using for interviews but it sure was handy.

Andrew didn’t do his best that day, and didn’t think he presented himself in a good light at times. And it is mostly his own fault. There was no sign of Richard Onchett from the meeting before Christmas, but Andrew didn’t warm to the initial interviewer and found himself wondering whether he wanted to work for them before he had even finished the interviews. Not a good sign. There was probably blame on both sides but Andrew’s latent prejudices self-sabotaged his day there. On Tuesday there had been no questions about his time with the Ministry of Defence, especially the previous year, whereas there were several occasions when they brought it back up. At first Andrew was annoyed as he just kept repeating they needed to talk to them directly. But then he wondered whether it was a test as part of the interview to see if he would eventually give in just to shut them up. Either way it became a pain in the arse. So he felt Tuesday had been an okay verging on a good day but Thursday had been awful.