Chapter 6

The one member of his family where nothing had changed was his grandmother. Andrew knew that, as her only grandson, he was spoiled. So he still went over to her flat regularly. For the first 12 years of his life, and especially the last five when she had been his only living grandparent, Andrew and Rowan had spent a lot of Friday and Saturday nights with her. Even if his parents were having people over the two of them were shipped off so as not to disturb their parents during the evening. It was now early November and Andrew stopped by her flat one day after school. His grandmother lived only 10 minutes from his school. Normally she would be sitting watching the horse-racing with her neighbour, a similarly aged widow Violet Craig, known to Andrew as Auntie Vi.

“Hello Grandma, Auntie Vi not here today?”

“No her daughter is visiting from London and they are in town.”

Andrew had been tasked with dropping off an ornament by his mother.

“You didn’t need to come here specially to drop this off. It could have waited until the weekend.”

Andrew shrugged.

“I was told to do it today by Mum.”

“Well come in. You can help me tidy up and I will make us a cup of tea.”

When Andrew walked into the kitchen he saw that the dining table was covered with old photos. A large box rested on the edge of the table still more than two thirds full of photos.

“Nancy was on the phone this morning asking if I had a copy of one of Shona’s school pictures.”

Shona, his cousin, had left school 15 years earlier so this was some task.

“Any luck.”

“Not so far.”

There appeared to be no order to the photos and so as Andrew sat beside his grandmother the photos bounced around. There were pictures of his two aunts, his father’s older sisters, in their uniforms during the war. They both looked so young.

“What are these uniforms Grandma?”

“Nancy and Davina were in the ATS Andrew, same as the Queen.”

“Really? What did they do?”

“Nancy worked on a searchlight crew and Davina worked at the Castle as a clerk.”

“Wow, that is really cool. I hadn’t realised that they had been old enough to serve.”

Andrew carried on shuffling through the photos when he stopped suddenly. In an old sepia-tinted photograph was a startling likeness of himself.

“Grandma?”

He handed her the photo and she looked at it in surprise.

“Was this really in this box?”

“Yes, I just found it.”

“George was a handsome man.”

His grandmother smiled and looked at Andrew.

“Believe it or not, this picture was taken when Queen Victoria was alive. That is your grandfather when he was around 20, 1894 somewhere around there. I thought I had lost this photo. It is more than 25 years older than any other photo in there.”

She looked at Andrew more closely.

“I haven’t seen it in more than 20 years, since long before you were born. I had never realised that you were the spitting image of your grandfather. Look at the two of you.”

Andrew could see unshed tears in his grandmother’s eyes. But he wasn’t thinking about her, or the memories being dredged up. He was thinking back to early in the summer, to the conversation that he was never meant to hear. He carefully took it from his grandmother’s hand and tucked it into the edge of the frame with his latest school photograph.

“Leave it out. Nancy, Davina and Dad will all want to see the resemblance. Then we will get it put carefully into a frame or an album for you.”

His grandmother smiled and he caught her looking over at the photo while they rummaged through, and finally found, Shona’s school photo.

Andrew did not have a sense of relief, or of anxiety removed, when he found the evidence that confirmed him as his father’s son. He was still too young to completely understand the subtext of the exchange between his parents. Frankly he was looking forward to seeing his father’s face when he finally saw the family resemblance. He only had to wait five days to the following Sunday. The greetings were dealt with and his grandmother was pottering about at the stove. Nobody needed to say anything as both his parents saw the photo obscuring his own photo. His grandmother noticed them staring at the photo.

“I know. Can you believe it? I thought I had lost that photo of your father. We found it this week. It is amazing how George and Andrew look almost identical.”

Andrew could only see father’s profile but the half of his face that he could see was pale. No words were said but he saw his father close his eyes before turning and looking at his mother. There was a single word murmured before Andrew saw him squeeze her hand briefly. It was only two or three seconds, blink and you would have missed it.

“This is amazing Mum. I don’t know that I remember ever seeing this photo.”

“Maybe not Gavin. It is from 1894, Victoria was still on the throne. We moved about 10 years after the war and I don’t think I had seen it since. I thought that it had been lost in the move. When we found it all those memories of George came back. He was a handsome devil your father.”

As Andrew sat there, responding if necessary, but really just thinking about his father. The big unknown was how he would act towards Andrew now, and going forward. Given that Andrew wasn’t meant to know about the late night accusations being flung back and forth by his parents he was not expecting an apology but he did wonder if his father would make more of an effort.

The subsequent months showed him that he got a partial effort. The endless negativity stopped, there was no longer an overwhelming sense that nothing was ever good enough. But that was as far as it went. There was not a sudden interest in lots of father son moments. Which when Andrew thought about it was probably for the best. He wasn’t sure how he would react if his father suddenly tried to be all paternal. What was obvious was that his father was making much more of an effort with his mother. Things were much calmer between his parents and frankly some of their antics were starting to make him uncomfortable. It was almost a daily occurrence to hear ‘Gavin, stop’ followed by a giggle. It was a sign for both Rowan and him to head for their rooms. Nobody needed to hear that from their parents.

Other than that the term carried on with a familiar routine. Andrew was now busy every Saturday developing film. Word had got out to the amateur photography community in Edinburgh and now Tony was getting additional ‘sensitive’ film from other groups. Andrew was earning £25 or £30 every Saturday depending on how many rolls were waiting to be developed. Every week he would head to Ezy Ryder, the best second-hand record store in the city, and conveniently two minutes from the school. Over the course of two months he picked up more than 30 classic rock albums, nearly all duplicates of albums of Tony’s that Andrew had played at the shop, and all at a fraction of the price of getting them new. As the end of term nearer Andrew had a new music system, lots of LPs and still had £350 tucked away. School was easy, he was hardly trying and he had stayed clear of the worst of the hassles. The guys who were dickheads the previous year were still dickheads but rather than hang around them putting up with the hassle to be part of the group, Andrew had just retreated to the library.

That left one activity where he was still getting grief. In addition to learning Latin, just to ensure that he was thought of as a complete geek, Andrew also played the double bass. He had started the previous year and was already playing for the school orchestra. Now the school orchestra had players from all six senior school years, weighted towards the older pupils. There were no other double bass players in the whole school so Andrew was already part of the orchestra, and was the youngest pupil there, the only first year. As a result he had taken some shots from a couple of guys two years ahead of him. Never having spoken to them before it seemed he was being picked on for no other reason than he was the youngest and the newest member.

Now this was Heriot’s, it was middle class kids yapping away. They would have lasted about 30 seconds in a standard state high school. But it was still a hassle he could do without. One, Simon, was the motor mouth, while the other, Dave, was the physical one. Pointless nudges, knocking things out of his hand, hitting him as he went past. Nothing aggressive but he was a standard dickhead who made school that little bit shitter by being there. The last Thursday of term was the annual school Christmas concert, a big occasion in the school year. The school hired the main classical music auditorium in the city, the Usher Hall, that held 2,200 people. And they filled it as well. Of the concert itself Andrew remembered little of it later. He had walked out with the rest of the orchestra to this huge hall full of people. He almost stopped and stared but managed to hold it together. Now it was the parents and friends of all the participants so it was a friendly audience but it was still startling to him the sense of pride and achievement when everyone applauded at the end of each piece or song. As he put the cover on his double bass he figured a little bit of shit from two 3^rd years was not much of a price to pay for evenings like the one just finished.

But then everything went to hell.

On the 22^nd and 23^rd the family drove north to spend a couple of days with the Cuttingtons. Andrew had written one letter three months previously filling in John on his summer. Now he would have a chance, he hoped, to chat to John, even if it was only for a few minutes. Being up before his parents on the second morning Andrew accompanied John down to the local shop for some extra milk.

“You took my words to heart. That was quite the summer.”

“It was the phrase, or the two words, ‘challenge yourself’ that were what I kept thinking about. The camera shop is easy, the guys might be older but most of them are as geeky as me. Photography appeals to geeks.”

John laughed in agreement.

“The chance to work with the removal men was so spur of the moment that I never really had a chance to think about the pros and cons. Most of the guys were pretty okay, other than one guy on the second crew. He was a huge Hearts fan and because I supported Celtic he called me a Fenian. When I told them I wasn’t a catholic that confused them no end.”

“It is not as bad in Edinburgh as it is in Glasgow. Conflicts between Protestants and Catholics have been going on for more than 450 years. But you stuck it out, obviously.”

“Again it came back to what you had told me when you and Dad were doing National Service and about hard cases. All of them gave me crap to some extent, but there was never a chance for anything else. Every day was busy and I took my money and left at the end of the day. What has been interesting is that the mouthy guys at school are suddenly a lot less of a worry. I mean Grant, the Hearts supporter, could make them pee in their pants in 10 seconds. I am just a lot less worried about stuff. I don’t know if this makes sense but I have given up trying so hard, even at all at times, but I feel like I fit in better. Does that make any sense?”

Andrew saw John nodding.

“Yes it does. You have become more confident. As you said, you worked with men for five weeks, working class, removal men. Some snotty 12 year old in the playground suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. What else?”

Andrew pondered telling John about his work at Tony’s shop, not the normal stuff but the other stuff. But John had been really supportive of him so in the end he spent 10 minutes telling John the whole story, not all the details but the gist. John had to stop he was laughing so hard.

“Are you kidding me? Good god Andrew, that is amazing. You are really developing the negatives for a bunch of amateur photographers who bring in nude models every two weeks?”

“I solved the problem of getting the colour film developed for them. I showed Tony what colour negatives look like. People are mostly shapeless blobs and you can’t tell if they are clothed or not. I have to admit I looked carefully the first two or three times but even knowing that the model was topless or naked I could not tell from the negative. So I just ignore it now. It is precision chemistry and I leave the roll of developed negatives hanging drying. The guys all do their own printing. I must have made £150 this term, maybe more.”

John stopped and looked at Andrew.