Chapter 48

Andrew’s life returned to normal for a month after that. Mareikura had a fun day, with Andrew’s dad as her guide, wandering around the Old Town but as the day wore on it felt more and more like goodbye. This was likely to be the last time she and Andrew would spend significant time together. And he was right. His parents invited her over to dinner on the Friday before she left and they had a fun night. His dad and Mar got on really well, their shared history geekiness a common bond. At the end of the night Mar and Andrew shared a hug and gentle kiss. The week of crazy sex was already a fading memory, as if it happened to two other people. Mareikura left two days later on Sunday April 27^th. Andrew went to the airport to see her off. They exchanged addresses and Andrew kept up an infrequent correspondence with her. It was the last time he saw her for many, many years.

Andrew got back into his fitness routine which he had sorely missed. He had skipped way too many swims over the break. Just thinking that way made him smile. He had established daily exercise so firmly into his life that if he missed it he was annoyed at himself.

But best of all Andrew got back into studying. School and the Open University meant that he was studying full time. He had received an overall A for his first course but had been surprised how many hours he had to put in. He had already decided that he would not study full time over the summer, although he would try and get the week of residential study done over the summer but that would depend on whether it was independent of the modules. If it was just a way for the lecturers to meet them and review their work in person then he would try and get it out of the way while he was off. If it was dependent on how far through course four he was then it would have to wait until, well he wasn’t sure when. Andrew was hoping to finish course four during term one of 4^th year.

The best thing about returning to school was that he was tutoring again but more importantly he got his two study buddies back. Suzanne and Paula approached him in the library after the first day of school asking if he would once again tutor them. Their marks for term two had fallen quite markedly and both pairs of parents had freaked out. They had reluctantly agreed that Suzanne and Paula could ask if he would tutor them again. Andrew had missed them so was happy to work with them. Near the end of term one he felt they were really doing well with their study and needed minimal tutoring. What they needed was the sense of support and structure. He would talk to them about it over the course of the term. Going back to tutoring after school would impact his own study time which was a contributory factor in slowing down the pace of the computer course.

With everything that was happening at the weekend with Julian and trying to create a program they could sell, Andrew was acutely aware that he was getting out of balance. He had not been to see Tony at the camera shop for several weeks, it seemed to be the first thing he jettisoned when he was short of time. So each Thursday from the start of term Andrew wandered over to the shop on Thursday when the school Library closed. The shop was open late on a Thursday night and so Andrew would stand and chat to Tony. He covered the till for 10 minutes while Tony grabbed a quick bite to eat.

“You are making more of an effort this term, coming here regularly. Any reason?”

“I fill my life up, it seems to structured, too rigid. I have spent a lot of time getting to where I am with my photography and I don’t want to let it all slip away. I got an updated SLR for Christmas but have hardly used it, compared to when I got my first camera. I don’t know, it seems important not to just abandon something, and someone, that was so important two years ago. Sure school is busy, and I am having to study hard but it was you that gave me my first taste of rock music. It was your record collection that is the basis or inspiration for my own.”

Tony and Andrew were very different, at least half a generation apart, but Andrew had learned a lot from Tony Brown. Tony ran his own business, and almost by osmosis Andrew had picked up being a sharp businessman from him. Andrew had learned the value of his time early on at the shop, and when he cracked the secret to colour film developing he learned the value of having a scarce skill. He didn’t think about or reference Tony Brown when he was dealing with Mr. Strong’s firm at Christmas but the principles learned from him were evident, even if Andrew himself was unaware.

One key thing Andrew learned from Tony was fairness. Tony made money from the camera club, from his little studio and from his shop. But he treated everyone fairly. It was through him that Andrew learned about favours owed and returned, and how some people were users, takers, and how you had to watch out for them. The bloke Kenny that was originally developing all the colour film was verging on that, and Andrew saw the contrast when Tony arranged for Andrew to get a deal on his stereo equipment. Andrew had done the camera club a massive favour and Danny had returned his part of it.

And the saddest part of spending time with Tony was that Tony enjoyed, or didn’t mind, spending time with Andrew. Now in and of itself that was not sad but it was in stark contrast to his own father. There was many a bus trip where Andrew sat and wondered at the state of his relationship, or lack thereof, with his father. After seeing how happy his father was with Mareikura, Andrew needed some parenting. And they had a shared taste in music.

“I have my first gig coming up next month. I have a ticket to see Sabbath, at the Odeon. I am stoked. It is a shame Ozzy quit but it will still be awesome. Mind you, I will have the shortest hair there.”

“That’s a cool first gig. I saw Sabbath at the Odeon, six years ago I think. I am pretty sure it was 1974. I have seen Purple there twice, once when they were really new, way back in ‘69 or ‘70. It is a good venue, and bloody convenient.”

The Odeon was four blocks from Tony’s flat.

“Your folks okay with you going?”

Andrew snorted.

“It is a Friday night so they are fine but frankly it could be a Tuesday night and I don’t think they would care.”

The mention of his parents changed the mood and Andrew headed off home to get his own dinner and settle down for another night of studying. But the hour or so with Tony was important to him.

Leslie had encouraged Julian and Andrew to work on the program for the bookies and had provided slips from all four main chains. They were producing cleaner looking input screens as they started to move beyond functional programming. That had been the main part of module six from his first course. It was an early chance for them to put what they had learned into practice. Julian was going through the exercises with Andrew and had done all the assignments. They would sit and go through each of the marked assignments when he received them back. Andrew could see that Julian was seriously thinking about signing up to do the same degree course.

Leslie also had them look at the control of the shop, sort of ‘big brother’ part of it. How to communicate information to a head office. This got them into trying to understand modems. Speeds were very slow in 1980, barely a kilobit per second. That meant that the data had to be as limited as possible. Andrew and Julian worked away trying to meaningfully summarise the data into as short a report as possible. It was a slow slog but they kept at it.

The calm of April 1980 gave way to the chaos of May. The chaos came at Andrew in three different directions.

Looking back things had been too quiet at school, mind you that was how he wanted it. He had a small group of friends, enjoyed his classes and kept his head down. What Andrew had overlooked was that there were a group of guys two years ahead of him that disliked him intensely. Murray Jones, who Andrew had attacked more than a year before, as well as the two rugby players who had been turned down by Suzanne. Last term she had ignored Andrew and therefore he too could be ignored. Now they were back to studying together and the pair of them were angry again, nothing but pure jealousy. Andrew, Paula and Suzanne themselves were doing nothing but studying, none of them were ready to deal with all the baggage of going out together again, but it didn’t matter. Coupled with the humiliation of their confrontation with Valerie in the playground and it was going to only be a matter of time.

When a pupil joins Heriot’s he or she is allocated to one of four ‘houses’. There were historical reasons as to why but the main one now was for the house competition. A sort of intra-mural event covering everything the school did. Rugby, hockey, swimming, rowing, tennis and music. There were a whole lot more but that term the one that concerned Andrew was music.

The house music competition was simple. The four houses competed against each other. They played two pieces, one the same for all four houses and then an individual one that emphasised a particular strength. If one house had the best violinist then they could play part of a violin concerto. It was student led so a 6^th year acted as the conductor. All well and good. Until John Ingram approached Andrew to take part in the competition. Andrew had not been part of the school music clique in more than a year. He had not been asked nor had taken part the previous year. Now John asked if Andrew would play that year.

“Does Ford know you are asking?”

“No he doesn’t. It is not his call McLeod. You know the House competition is done by the students. Greyfriars is low on musicians this year. For our piece I want to do one of Schubert’s Quintets. Our best individual musician is Jim.”

That was Jim Nicols, also in 6^th year.

“And we have a good cellist and viola player. If you agree then we can play it. It is something different. We have been without a bass in the orchestra since you jacked it in. You will make a huge difference in both pieces.”

“Look John I want to help but Ford really hates me. He still glares at me in every music class. He may make a stink. I will play but I suggest you let him know. If we are going to do this where do we practice? I would have to ask to use the bass at school. Another reason to get his okay. Otherwise it is at someone’s house.”

John went off to figure all that out and Andrew went on with life. They would need a couple of practices together but he was not worried about the musical aspect, more the impact on Ford.

The ended up practicing at Jim Nicol’s place since he had the piano and Ingram had decided not to tell Ford about Andrew’s participation. The first Mr. Ford knew about it was when Andrew turned up on the night of the competition. They had an audience of tens of parents. Seriously, there were 37 people in the audience, Andrew was sure of the number because he counted them all. The headmaster was there as well as the heads of the four houses. Between the four houses there were more musicians than there were audience members. Andrew had arrived and put his double bass down out the way and gone and sat with the rest of Greyfriars. That was when things started to go off the rails. Murray Jones started yapping away, the verbal equivalent of an unneutered dog humping your leg. The kind where you have to get a newspaper and hit him to get him to stop. Andrew ignored Jones figuring that someone would administer the smack on the nose to shut him up. He had developed a finely-honed ability to tune people out in the last year. The more interesting confrontation was between Ford and John Ingram. The gist was that Andrew was not allowed to take part. John simply said he was a member of Greyfriars and would take part. Andrew knew John should have told Ford. It took the heads of house and the headmaster to rule that he was allowed to play. Once again Ford looked like an arse. Guess who would bear the brunt of that in future weeks? Hmmm.

The competition itself went well and Greyfriars came in second. Andrew was glad the house did well but the animus that it stirred up for him personally was not worth it. Ford was even madder at him and Murray Jones, who had been the target of more than a few snide verbal jabs at the competition, was once again angry as well. As in ‘time this little shit gets a smack’ angry with him. Jones was in the same year as the idiot rugby pair, Kerr and Brown, and the result was another visit to the hospital for Andrew.

The famous Greyfriar’s churchyard, of Greyfriar’s Bobby fame, is next to the school and it could be used as a shortcut when leaving the school. It was monitored at the end of the school day to stop hordes of pupils doing exactly that. But at 5.00 you could walk through without a problem. Technically against the school rules but nobody cared. One day in early May Andrew was cutting through in a rush to get to the City Library before it closed when he was hit on the head from behind. He stumbled and fell and was then kicked four or five times. Once in the stones, three times in the body and once in the head. Andrew would never know if he would have received a more severe beating for, fortunately for him, a tourist saw him getting attacked and ran over. It was a brave thing to do considering there were three of them. Andrew’s ribs were sore and his balls hurt like hell but it was his face that was the problem. He was bleeding heavily from a cut above his eye and needed stitches. The tourist walked with him back to the school. He had sacrificed a hankie to press against the cut. He was an Aussie and Andrew pointed over the road and told him that was the hospital. A 200 yard walk. No need to call an ambulance.

A bleeding head wound in the late afternoon is unusual so when Andrew walked into emergency he was treated immediately. The next hour was spent repeating his story to a nurse, two different doctors and then a policeman. It was at this point Andrew realised that this was serious. Between the two of them they could explain what had occurred. But not the who or the why. The only clue his Aussie Samaritan could provide was that they were in Heriot’s school uniform, were taller than him and there were three of them. The tourist had been too far away to make out faces.

Andrew’s parents were called as was a second, more senior policeman. When his dad got there, and had in turn phoned his mum to let her know Andrew was okay, the policeman started.

“This is not a schoolyard fight. This is assault in a public place. Your son could have been seriously hurt. I will be going to the school tomorrow to discuss this with the headmaster. We will be looking for suspects. The problem will be that there is not a lot of evidence to get someone arrested. The only witness was too far away to see faces and Andrew was hit from behind. Even if we have strong suspects I doubt that we will get them convicted. I wanted you to be aware of that so that you don’t have false hopes. What I do think will happen is that the school will be very upset. If this makes the newspaper, and it most likely will, it will look bad that three older pupils attacked a younger one so badly.”

His dad had thanked the Australian tourist who had saved Andrew. He was a genuinely nice bloke who didn’t want anything and had just done the right thing regardless of possible danger. He had spent three hours in total with Andrew and lost the rest of his afternoon. They did manage to get his address from him and the family sent a packet of replacement hankies to him as a thank you. He never did get his blood-soaked one back at the hospital.

The rest played out exactly like the detective sergeant had predicted. Andrew had stitches and a bandage on his cut and looked terrible. HIs ribs were bruised although fortunately not cracked or broken. The boys had recovered the quickest. An ice pack that night and a couple of painkillers had done the trick with them. When he turned up in the form room the questions flew thick and fast. Andrew figured that there was no point in hiding the truth of what had happened as it was clear on his face.

“I was beaten up by three other pupils in Greyfriars after school yesterday.”

His audience included Mrs. Hall.

“Other pupils Andrew. Who?”

“No idea. I was rescued by a tourist who saw the attack and he said they were wearing school uniforms. I was hit from behind and I didn’t see any of them. All I have are the cuts and bruises.”

That set the tone for the day. He was an object of freakish curiosity every time anyone new saw his face. Surprisingly he had not been called to the headmaster’s office during the day. He guessed the police had told them everything. Suzanne and Paula were waiting for him when he got to the library at the end of school.