Chapter 17

After the May Bank holiday, in the offices of Redmond and Compstall things settled down. June and the summer beckoned, when things became easier and slacker for the accountants. Kathy seemed very happy with her new boyfriend, and Vicky and Brendan had started to plan a spring wedding for the following year.

Things were less complicated for Aidan as well. There was the Wednesday night meet for the staff, which now included partners, fiancés and friends. Vicky and Aidan met one evening a week for a meal to assess progress and make long term plans, and Brendan often joined them, though he would usually disappear when the talk became work orientated.

Julie came to the Wednesday nights and also invited Aidan to concerts and plays, and he began to do the same. After a while they began to meet on occasional Friday nights, to eat out at first, then to eat at each other’s houses, and these outings led inevitably to the bedroom. Before long their Fridays turned into weekends and their weekends became a weekly event.

Aidan was not unaware of this progression, but was not unduly worried either. He was clear in his mind that she was not going to move in with him, and to this end he did not give Julie a key, which to his mind (and to hers) would have presaged her coming back to live with him.

However, secretly, almost so secretly he was hardly aware of it himself, there was an incipient idea that perhaps he could trust her again, and there might be a chance they could make a future together. They were certainly comfortable enough with each other, and, yes, he was happier when she was around and he did feel lonely if for some reason she could not make a date.

But ... It dawned upon him that her effect on him was as if he’d been dipped in the River Lethe and was forgetting the pain of the previous two occasions when she’d let him down. It awoke a strong emotion he could not name, pulling him back from making any further progress in their relationship. It was as if there was a quiet but insistent voice in his head telling him she was not the woman for him.

What he did know for certain was that if she were to move in as a trial, she would never move out again, and that thought frightened him. He assured himself that it would not happen, but in reality he knew the pull towards her was very strong. There should have been a warning in that neither of them had dated anyone else since they began their ‘meetings’.

Halfway through July Vicky went on holiday with Brendan, beating the school holidays for a cheaper deal, and the couple went to Spain for a fortnight. Julie asked Aidan when he was going on holiday. She was quite tentative after the problems of the previous year.

Aidan told her did not feel like going on holiday. Though he did not say so, holidays were a source of suffering for him: Julie’s fall from grace, and finding then losing Sam.

Julie went off for a fortnight with Caroline to the house in Wales, and this time Kevin was in evidence, and Kevin was at pains to inform Aidan how well behaved Julie had been. Aidan grinned at the thought: lessons had been learned. However, he thought with a grin, felons rarely commit crimes when a policeman is standing near.

However, Vicky on her return told him in no uncertain terms that he should take some time off. It was now the beginning of August and she knew the Edinburgh Festival loomed.

“Look,” she urged him, “you loved the Festival last year even before you met Sam. You can’t go avoiding places because they might bring memories. You had a great time last year, why not lay Sam’s ghost and go again?”

While his initial reaction was negative, as the first week in August passed, and Vicky nagged him all that week, he mellowed towards the idea. Vicky was right, he did have a good time the previous year. So he booked the same hotel, and took off at the beginning of the second week in August.

He did have a good time, and even visited ‘Sam’s’ hotel for another taste of that whisky. He met one or two folk from the previous year in the pub, and returned, without a Canadian in tow, at the end of the month, feeling refreshed. He had not missed Julie at all and unaccountably felt a mixture of guilt and relief about that.

“Have a good time?” asked Vicky, with an ‘I know you did’ look.

“It was ok,” Aidan said affecting reluctance.

“Told you so!” she triumphed. “You look better. Now. We’ve had a few inquiries from companies based in London. Johnson Partners translocated there and have been singing our praises. We’re going to have to expand again if those inquiries turn into contracts. I’m trying to organise some meetings in October, so we can assess all the companies in one journey. Do you fancy going down there to do the negotiating?”

“Let me get my head round the latest developments, and then I’ll see. You don’t fancy doing that yourself?” Aidan knew Vicky was very good at negotiating.

“You’re better at it than I am. You go,” she replied, and he knew she wanted to stay at home with Brendan. Ah, young love, he thought with a fond interior smile.

While the rest of their happy band of accountants got to grips with the coming end of October deadlines, Aidan got to work sorting out meetings, contracts and plans of action, and by mid October he was ready and had arranged meetings over two weeks, the last in October, and the first in November. The week before he was due to go, he arrived in Vicky’s office.

“Vicky,” he said, “I’ve done the ground work and made the arrangements, but the more I think about it, the more I think you need to be the one to go. You’re much better at these sort of things than I am, you know you are.”

“Aidan, it’s the last week in October, first in November – ring any bells? Beginning to be busy? Hmm?”

Secretly she felt intimidated by the number of the concerns who seemed interested.

“Let’s look at the outstanding stuff that needs to be done,” Aidan suggested. “See whether it can be managed.”

“I don’t want to do it on my own,” said Vicky, “if I’m to go, you come with me.”

They surveyed the outstanding customers who were always on the last minute with their returns and payments, and found the situation was tolerable.

“In any case,” said Vicky, “Tony is the best in the office for harassing clients. If we put in Saturday morning, we can leave them to steer the ship themselves. It’ll be good for them. “The hotel’s booked from Sunday night?”

Aidan nodded. “I’ll need to book another room,” he said, and did so.

They worked late on Friday and then again Saturday morning. In the afternoon, Julie turned up at the flat.

“Been busy?” she asked, superfluously, since Aidan had put her off the previous day.