Chapter 10

Andrew often called Leslie a balm for his soul but Suzanne now had that effect too. Sunday morning he ran for more than an hour with a smile on his face thinking about his friend. Her comments at the end of dinner played over and over in his head. She was getting to be as close a friend as Leslie and Andrew saw and talked to her more than he did any other person. The sex with her was great and the vibrancy of her now that she was fitter and healthier was a perpetual aphrodisiac, but it was so much more than that. She made him laugh, want to spoil her and protect her. For the first time Andrew wondered about love, how would he know? He had no idea about that. At 17 he felt it was far too young to even be thinking like that. As she had said the night before, one thing was for sure. Suzanne Jenner was going to be in his life going forward, even if each of them followed their own paths. But on the drive over to the Pool he knew that any thoughts of love were far too premature, here he was off to meet another woman, his one and only crush. He was there early but so too was Ara. The difference in her demeanour from Friday was striking.

“Based on your happy face, I am guessing your mother is on the train back to London?”

“She left yesterday afternoon, it was easier than I thought. I stonewalled her with regard to you, and so she didn’t have an opening that was anything other than conjecture. Penny, that conniving bitch, is clearly the source of her info, Mum looked over at her a couple of times when she thought I wasn’t looking. Gwen was a big help and added to the story about George without any prompting from me. I don’t think Mum slept all night she was so worried about what he was up to. The point about always following the Prince’s example really hit home. I heard her on the phone with him in the morning giving him a right interrogation. She then talked to Dad as well before she left on the afternoon train. After she left I told Penny that she needed to find a new flat to stay in next term, as I wanted her out of mine. She tried to act all disappointed and let down but I ignored that, it is all an act. And fortunately she never signed a lease, so the bitch can go to hell.”

“I am glad everything has worked out well. Come on, let’s swim and then we can talk more over lunch.”

90 minutes later they were sitting in their usual café on South Clerk Street chatting away.

“Have you heard when your interviews are for your university applications?”

Ara never talked about this.

“Yes, all during the week of December 13^th, Tuesday and Wednesday in London at University College and then Imperial followed by Trinity College at Cambridge on the Thursday. I am in Imperial Halls on the Tuesday night and in a room at Trinity on the Wednesday night.”

“I could come up to town on the Tuesday and we could meet for dinner or a show?”

“I would love that. When are you going returning to backwater Surrey?”

“Virginia Water, as you well know. Probably the weekend before, the 11^th and 12^th. I normally stay with Grandfather for a night on the way down and the way back. I would get home in the afternoon on the 12^th.”

It was all set. The rest of the morning was spent on inconsequential yet necessary idle chat. It was part of the process of filling in all the blanks in their lives. Ara had tales of boarding school that were more than a little eye-opening. There were more tales there Andrew was sure. She asked about his family and Andrew told her about his parents, what they did, his strained relationship with Rowan and the strangeness of having a three year old baby brother. Rowan was in 4^th year now at St. Margaret’s School where she had been since starting school 11 years before. She had her own life and Andrew had his. If he was home for dinner he would see her then but other than that Andrew had no idea about her life. There was a petty meanness to Rowan now that Andrew disliked and so he was happy to have limited dealings with her. The endless favouritism by their father had spoiled her as a child and since he had recovered from cancer it seemed to have gotten worse. Looking back it cannot have been easy to have been his sister, there appeared to be no rules for him and he was always doing well at school. But the biggest issue between the two of them was they were total strangers. Andrew glossed over most of this, all it did was make him upset or sad.

Ara was the same with George but the other way round. George wasn’t stupid but he was not as clever as his little sister. Skipping a year and heading to university at 16 only reinforced the feeling of inferiority. She struggled to define George much the same way as Andrew struggled to define Rowan. They were their siblings but there was no closeness in either relationship. What they had not talked about was his cancer and the aftermath. There had been one short conversation about it 18 months earlier but just as with Ara’s grandmother there was a lot of detail that had not been explained. Before the end of the term Andrew figured he was going to have to explain to Ara about the cancer, the treatment and the following four years. How much was he going to share with her? When he asked Leslie that night she laughed in his face.

“Oh Andrew, she hit you with a stick and you still don’t get it. You are going to tell her everything. I know that the only thing that you never talk about is the Saturday before Faith died. Other than that you have told Julian, Suzanne and Allison the rest of the story. Ara is not going to be any different.”

Was it that obvious? So much for overthinking that topic.

The end of November settled down a bit except for dealing with his personal money. As with all the financial stuff in his life it was easy to get bogged down in detail. Andrew trusted Leslie, Mhairi and Creighton and didn’t have the time or interest in all the minutiae of what he was trying to do. Brian had introduced Andrew to three of his friends and the five of them had agreed to invest £50,000 each to fund individuals that wanted to change career having been laid off. The idea was to support people with modest amounts of money while they established a new business or career. The group had left one of the guys, Doug Somers who was an investment manager, to set up the structure, all the details of how they invested, how they got our money back etc. Another one of the guys, Ruaridh McCall, was a lawyer and papered it all for them. But it was all small scale, they were looking to invest thousands of pounds not tens of thousands. When Andrew and Leslie set up CM Venture Investments everything was on a bigger scale. The reason Doug had set up the first smaller fund was because he was already involved in this industry. He had contacts and the group was planning on doing the investing through word of mouth to start. When CM Ventures was set up and funded after the CSG and ComputerCom money was received they had to decide how seriously to do this. This was not something they could wave their hand at and make happen. If they wanted to make a difference then they had to invest that most limited and precious of resources, their time. So the two of them sat with Brian initially, because they didn’t have to pay him, and mapped out a possible structure. Creighton Davies was the obvious contact person for the fund and the person who would review all the investment proposals. He also was a convenient front man to shield them from scrutiny, especially Andrew, about their ages.

“You are going to have overhead, try to minimise it but accept it. Pay Creighton to do the job and pay for space at his dad’s office. Just the same as you are doing with the trust. Spend time getting to know Doug Somers as well. He is going to be the conduit for a lot of proposals. It will work both ways, if he can be the person who knows how to access additional sources of investment funds. This is not a game, you need to schedule time regularly with Creighton and Doug on your investments and the three of you as Trustees need to spend time with Creighton on the Trust. If you are not prepared to do that, then put the money in the stock market or property and walk away.”

Brian was pretty blunt and in their face but it was a necessary talk. The time with Doug was the most interesting because he forced Andrew to define what he wanted to invest in, and like Brian before him gave Andrew a very thorough understanding of markets, government support, costs, benefits, and the consequences of not providing it.

“What the two of you are trying to do is commendable. A lot of people would have blown this money or bought some big fancy house. You are trying to make a difference which is great. But there are lots of things that you need to think about. You have to do this to make money. Every single investment is made with the object of making money. Not just getting the original money back but making money, anything else is charity and if you want to be charitable then you do not need to set all this up. Don’t try and fix history, you can’t. Just like Cnut with the tide you will get rolled over. Invest in the future not in the past. The reason you have this money to invest is because of your abilities with future technology. If you want to make a difference to the people of Scotland then that is what you have to do. I do not think a car plant in Scotland will survive in this day and age. Focus instead on new technologies coming out of universities. Finally, accept that you cannot pick all winners. Some of these businesses will fail and you will lose your investment that is why you have to make sure every investment is going to make money. You need the winners to cover the losers, spread your risk around. Everything else is logistics and process.”

Andrew often thought about the education that he received for free from Brian and Doug and people like them. It was based on years of experience and it had such value. The tales of CM Ventures unfolded over many years but the foundation was set at the end of 1982 and early 1983. Creighton and Doug were key to them achieving what they had set out to do.

Life became calmer as Andrew felt more balanced with his money. He started to see it as karmic the way that he dealt with it. It was not charity but he needed to do something good, or at least attempt to. Once he had a way to do that, as he defined it within this context, he felt better. Karma and balance were more aligned. Sometimes Andrew did not know what he needed to do until he did something and immediately a weight he was not aware of fell away. So it was with his personal wealth, more than a third was being invested in a way to help others but it felt right.