Chapter 41

The hockey team was at Watson’s which was the closest school to Andrew’s home that they played at, just a short bus journey. He arrived about a minute after the game started. He couldn’t get over to the far side of the pitch so stood off to the side of the few parents who were there watching the game. This also kept him out of Lyle’s sightline as well. The team was being beaten pretty handily 3-0 at halftime. A couple of the players waved dejectedly at him as they gathered round their coach. Andrew was walking up and down keeping warm when one of the parents approached him. He really needed to stop coming to hockey games.

“Are you Andrew?”

A short man, with a moustache and a smile that didn’t quite make his eyes. Andrew looked at him.

“Yes sir, Andrew McLeod.”

Andrew held out his hand. The man pulled off his glove and shook it.

“Dominic Denofrio. I believe you know my daughter?”

Where was his lawyer when he needed her?

“Yes I do, we are in the same class, and she is a friend.”

“She has spoken many times about you. You were one of the few boys in her class who was welcoming to the girls when they first arrived at Heriot’s. This week she asked if she could go to the movies with you as a friend. She said that you told her to ask us. Why?”

His blunt reaction was not unexpected.

“Trust and control sir. I have seen parents not trust their daughter and want to continue to exercise control over them. That is a family issue. If you and your wife decide to trust your daughter then you will allow it. If you don’t then you will exert control and tell her no. She is a 14 year old Catholic girl from a family of Italian heritage. She has family, church, community pressures on her as do you. I have a friend who is older but is Greek Orthodox. She faces similar pressures from her family. As I told Allie, I am a 14 year old boy who is notionally Protestant but in truth is not much of anything at all. Neither Allie nor I have the control here. You do. She is my friend, and she will be whether you let her go to the movies with me or not.”

Nothing else needed to be said.

“An honest and thoughtful answer. Thank you for talking to me.”

He shook Andrew’s hand again and they turned back to the pitch to see a very worried looking Allie staring at the pair of them. Dominic snorted.

“I am going to get a good telling off on the drive home.”

“No comment sir.”

They parted with a laugh. Of course, as soon as the game was over, Allie made a beeline for him.

“Did he give you a hard time Andrew?”

“Actually he was really pleasant. I think he is worried you are going to give him a telling off on the way home.”

It is difficult to talk to one girl about dealing with her father while at least six others are listening intently. Suzanne was looking sad, Kate was smirking and Katie was standing at the back of the group watching him with an impassive face. Andrew escaped from the group, said goodbye to Mr. Denofrio and headed for Julian’s.

“Alright, we have the loose ends of the game tied up. Do you have any ideas for what to code now?”

Andrew looked at Julian hopefully.

“Nope, not one. I am starting to wonder if we should just keep working on a game?”

He sounded a bit down.

“Most businesses are not yet computerised. The one business I know a little about is farming. I wondered about designing a program to help farmers. Once I thought about farming I realised that there are lots of businesses that we know nothing about that we could design a program for. We just don’t know them. Do you have any relatives, family friends that own or run their own business? Anyone that we could talk to? Remember that simple inventory program that was in one of the magazines. Should we build on that idea? Update inventory records, record sales, generate an invoice, something small and simple but that is a big time saver and will hopefully sell well. That is the best that I can come up with. I thought about asking your dad but I don’t want to bug him all the time with this stuff.”

Julian laughed.

“Dad loves this stuff, he won’t mind.”

They talked to Mr. Strong for a long time. Julian was right he was happy to chat away. They didn’t come up with a specific business. What they realised was they didn’t need the business yet. They had the outlines of a program, an inventory system updated with sales. They could build on that as they increased their skills. They didn’t need to worry about what business it was yet, there was loads of work to do just designing and coding the bare bones. They were both relieved that they could stop worrying about this and get back to what they enjoyed doing best, coding. The remainder of the day passed with them barely saying 20 further words. They had music on in the background and just sat and coded. Andrew ended up staying for dinner they worked so late.

Sunday was Nikki’s penultimate day. She had let Dave know and now it was common knowledge that she was leaving. Gord came up as they were leaving at the end of the afternoon.

“You are going to be without a partner after next week Andrew.”

“Yeah, but something will work out. I started working with Nikki for a couple of weeks to get up to speed on stuff and we never stopped. I have no idea what Dave plans.”

“True, I forgot that you only worked with Nikki for training. Is he finally trained yet Nikki?”

Vintage Gord.

“More than you, useless git.”

Zing. Nikki wasn’t taking prisoners today. Gord just laughed.

“It will be different without you around. Miserable old bat.”

They all laughed but Gord was right it would be strange. He and Leslie caught up that night. She had her first two week placement as a student teacher starting in a couple of weeks and she was getting surprisingly nervous.

“You’ll do fine. I thought you said you only had to observe this time. You don’t start teaching until next year.”

Andrew looked at her for confirmation.

“You are right. I don’t know why I am so worked up, just something unknown.”

Other than her worries about her placement college was going well. She had started to make a good group of friends and was out most Friday and Saturday nights. Andrew was pleased for her. They had talked about business briefly and then he told her about his meeting with Allie’s dad.

“You handled it about as well as you could. You didn’t seem too bad, you threw it back to him to decide. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

She was at the same place he was. No point in worrying about it.

“How is the computer course?”

“Easy so far. There are six assignments on each course. I have completed two already and submitted them. They were all on things I knew. I am working on the code for the 3^rd assignment and I should have that away before the end of the week. If I pass the six assignments then I pass the course. The next course is theory, the one after is more programming and the final course is maths. I will see how I am doing when I receive the assignments back. My goal is to try and get the first four courses done by the end of the summer. More realistically is the end of the year but I’ll see. Depends on whether I work over the summer or not.”

They switched to talking about the business and Andrew told her about the meetings with the father and son Davies.

“You should come to the next meeting with the accountants, Leslie. It is going to be essential to saving money, and investing the money.”

Andrew wanted Leslie to be involved from the start. He had not talked to her about a salary. It would depend on whether they made any more money. And so far, there had been nothing over the last two weeks. Leslie then changed tack completely.

“Andrew, what about Kenzie? Do you think about her, about that night?”

“I am a 14 year old boy Leslie, of course I think about her. But it is strange, there was so little interaction before that night, it feels as if she is a dream. And the circumstances were unique. Look at this way. Suppose Allie and I decided that we wanted to get physical. How and where is that going to happen? And if Kenzie and I want to do something it won’t be until next July if I decide to work on the farm. Is Harry going to let me live out there, above the barn? Why would I want to? Unless there was an ulterior motive. I just don’t have a chance of anything like that happening again. Not until the summer at the earliest.”

It was disappointing but realistic.

Andrew was getting settled in the library after school on Monday when Allie came in.

“Hello Allie, I wondered if I would see you. You looked like you wanted to talk to me all day. Grab a seat.”

“Dad and I had an interesting chat on the way home on Saturday.”

Andrew laughed.

“He was worried about that.”

“No it was respectful. We talked and he listened to me. He appreciated your honesty and that you weren’t a stammering fool in front of him.”

“I might have been if I had known he was going to talk to me. I didn’t have time to get nervous. I am also getting fed up with adults thinking that they are the only ones who know anything. I constantly see it with the teachers. I see it with a lot of adults that I deal with. I have much less patience for patronising adult bullshit. I saw it with Lyle, the headmaster and someone over the holidays.

“So did you come to me with good news? I am free this Saturday!”

“Good news and bad news, Andrew. I can go out with you as a friend. However, as Dad said ‘invite your friend round to dinner’. There is not one without the other.”

“Fuck. Talk about being busted by your own bullshit. So if we go out as friends then it is no big deal if a friend comes over for dinner. But if the friend is afraid to come over for dinner then is he really to be trusted as a friend at the movies. Your father is a cunning man Allie.”

Andrew looked at her with a smile on his face.

“Sure, why not. Most parents love me.”

She looked pleased at his acceptance.

“Allie, I have to tell you though I mean it about not dealing well with uncalled for attitude. You need to tell me and probably your parents if you think this is a mistake. I am not going to sit there and take shit just because they are your parents. I have done nothing to you or to any woman to merit such treatment. I will just get up and leave.”

She could tell he was serious.

“I will talk to them about this. There is no point in arranging a fight at my house.”

“When would you like to have your friend round to dinner?”

“They have asked you to come to dinner next Saturday and if that goes well then we can go out when we want.”

“Saturday it is then. Where do you live?” she told him. “Oh I know where that is. Sure, I should be there about 5.45. That okay?”

When Allie left Andrew thought about this for a minute. If they wanted to give him a hard time, make uncalled for comments then he would just leave. It was Allie that had to be nervous about the behaviour of her parents. There was a message waiting for him when he got home asking him to go to Drummonds at 4.30 on Wednesday. Andrew had no idea why.

Allie didn’t say much to him over the next couple of days and he wasn’t going to push it.

As Andrew was walking down the Mound on the way to Drummonds he reflected on the fact that he seemed to be having a lot of meetings. He wanted all this to die down. He was struggling to get into a quiet routine this term. But when he thought about this as he waited at the various corners to cross the street he realised it was a reflection that he was friends with more people. That friendship was messy and was not organised to suit his convenience. Andrew needed to get used to this new normal. There may be weeks when it was quiet and controlled but there would be many more where he would have disruptions to his routine.

Balance Andrew, balance. He repeated that like some kind of mantra

When Andrew got to Drummonds he was led through to the board room and was very surprised to see Leslie, her Dad, Julian Strong senior, Mhairi Connelly and Creighton Davies. Andrew looked at Leslie and she motioned him over.

“It wasn’t meant to be this many but a lot has happened today so I asked Dad to come over. Mhairi asked Mr. Strong.”

She spoke quietly and urgently.

“Okay, you are in charge, remember?”

“This is potential pretty big news. Sit and listen okay?”

Leslie looked at him so he nodded. Mhairi called everyone over to the table.

“Thank you all for coming over. Andrew, I asked Mr. Strong to stay after he came for a meeting this afternoon. Leslie, asked her father to attend. Let me explain what has been happening.”

Between them Mhairi and Mr. Strong explained that the company that sold the computer equipment to Mr. Strong’s firm had been in touch. They were being sued by Strong’s firm and had recently been hit with a bunch of other lawsuits. Where it all became both interesting and complicated was that they were owned by a Canadian company. The Canadians were freaking out at all the lawsuits and someone from their management was over dealing with their Scottish company. The issue was that this Scottish company, ComputerCom, that they owned, had done a really great job of selling computer systems and a really lousy job of installing them. They were attempting to hire people to fix this problem and hopefully settle the lawsuits before the situation got worse. There were too many firms chasing too few people and they were struggling. They wanted Andrew and Julian to work for them fixing their problems. They were desperate and would pay £20/hr any time that he and Julian could spare to help them. This offer was good through until the end of April at least. There were in a bind and they had some large companies ready to sue them for huge amounts of money.

“Are you serious? That is a lot of money to throw at a couple of school kids.”

“Well it took a fair bit of negotiating.” This was Mhairi. “I had been dealing with the Canadian about this offer. Initially he wasn’t prepared to pay half that amount. At the same time he was dealing with Mr. Strong. I called Mr. Strong and when the Canadian, he is called Kyle Turner by the way, went to the office he was shown round the office and got to see the quality of your work. He also saw several staff using your templates. That is when he made the deal.”

Andrew sat and did the maths in his head. More than £5,000 just to the end of the Easter break, more than £6,000 for Julian if he worked all day on the Sunday.

“Okay. You look like you have more to tell me.”

“They want to buy the templates off you. Have them as part of the installation on new systems. Apparently, Turner was very impressed with them.”

Mhairi actually looked excited.

“How much are they offering?”

“£5,000 Andrew. You can still install them yourself just not to any of their customers.”

Andrew could tell Mhairi was expecting him to be happier than he appeared.

“I will think about the offer for the software. Let’s deal with the install support contract first. What are people’s thoughts?”

He went round the room. Everyone was for it although both Creighton and Mhairi wanted protections in the contract and money up front. Andrew would leave them to negotiate that. He took the opportunity to thank Mr. Strong for everything he had done. Andrew told him that Mhairi would have a letter over to Julian junior letting him know and offering him the chance to work as a contractor for FC Computer Company. He had just help make his son a ton of money. Everyone shook his hand and Andrew walked with him to the door.

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t go to the golf club with you all those times you asked?”

Mr. Strong smiled with him.

“I know, I am never going to ask him again. Thank you Andrew for everything. Julian loves nothing better to remind me how much money he is making from working with you on computers. We have gotten closer over the last year through computers, it is amazing. I’ll let you tell him the good news.”

“Ask him to meet me at the library tomorrow. I will give him the scoop then.”

After they parted Andrew went back through to the boardroom.

“Wow. That was unexpected. Julian and I were commenting just on Saturday that it was disappointing that we had not heard from anyone. What does everyone think about this offer for the templates?”

Mhairi and Creighton thought it was a good price. Brian and Leslie did not think so. Andrew asked Leslie why not.

“Simple maths Andrew. You and Julian are going to fix 500 to 600 systems between now and the end of the break.”

She gave them a run-down of the maths and although there were some details you could quibble about; the basics were spot on.

“At £10 per that is more than they are offering and at £20 per it is only half that amount. They are going to have other teams out there and that is just on fixing the mistakes never mind new sales. I think £10,000 is the minimum you should accept.”

She finished and looked at her dad.

“What do you think Dad?”

“Spot on darling, spot on. Apart from the point that Andrew always makes, this is a small window. Customers will start to get better at using VisiCalc. Andrew developed a lot of these over last summer. It didn’t take him that much time. He also asked me a lot of business and accounting questions in order to create them and make them do what I needed them to do. I wonder if we ask for too much that they won’t get someone else to sit and do this.”

“Thank you. Those are interesting points. I presume no one thinks we should link the two contracts.”

There were shakes of heads all around.

“Okay. We will get the installation support contract done first and signed before we start on the second one. I hear exactly what you are saying Brian. But they are distracted right now and can’t spare anyone. Mhairi, can you draw up a contract for a purchase price of £20,000. Given the way that Mr. Strong talked about the potential lawsuits they have sold a lot of systems. When they argue and try and negotiate tell them they are paying for the installed systems and effectively getting all the new sales at no charge.”

Only Creighton looked shocked. Mhairi nodded and took notes, Leslie looked thoughtful and Brian Campbell burst out laughing.

“Never do anything by half measures eh Andrew?”

Turning to Creighton.

“It is never a dull moment with Andrew.”

The meeting broke up and Andrew walked with Leslie and her Dad to the door.

“Do you think I am being too greedy?”

“Oh yes, completely Andrew. But I also think you have a 50:50 shot of getting it as well. You are pushing the line but you haven’t crossed it.”

The sale of the templates took a while to finalise but Andrew got the asking price, after they had signed the support deal. Their installed base was even bigger than he had guessed so they bought a lot of goodwill with this freebie that they gave all their upset customers. It didn’t stop all the lawsuits but it dealt with many of them and took a lot of the bitterness out of it. Andrew don’t know for how long the templates had value. Once he sold them he no longer worried about them. HIs days as a VisiCalc expert were over. If he and Julian ever had some free time again then they had the sales and inventory system to work on.