Chapter 14

The realisation of his deepening bond with Suzanne, and the dangers of their physical relationship impacting their friendship, cast a pall over New Year. Rowan went to Grandma’s as usual but Andrew didn’t want to deal with a collection of drunks at the Strachan’s party so he skipped it. Instead he told his parents he was going out with guys from school, and told Pete and Julian that he was going out to the farm. Andrew spent the evening working away finalising the last module of the 10^th computer course. It was already final, and what he really was doing was thinking.

Moira, Suzanne, Allison, and there were already some signs of it with Ara. Andrew tended to let it get way too deep too soon. He had strong feelings for the last three but it was clear that he needed to be more careful. There were none of these problems or feelings with June, in fact in the autumn it had been the exact opposite Andrew had not felt a connection which he seemed to need for good sex. With June their friendship had solidified and deepened but the passion was under control. Andrew wished he was swimming but there was no chance for three days. It would be Tuesday before the pools opened again and school started on Wednesday. Proving himself to be the saddest 17 year old in existence he went to bed well before midnight and was up and awake at 5.45 as usual. After his exercises, Andrew set off for a long run. He set a slow pace because he was running for two hours that morning, he needed to figure some stuff out. First of all it was clear that he had to slow things down with Ara, especially talking to her while fucking her. What Andrew was struggling with, like all teenage boys, was could he give up or limit having sex? It was already limited through circumstance but other than an occasional dalliance with June could he live with that for the next nine months? It seemed unlikely, therefore he needed a plan, because he really was a slut. Gail was an obvious candidate but it remained to be seen if she was like Kate last year and just needed the emotional support or whether she was more like Moira. Other than that, everyone else was just a friend and not a very close one. Maybe that was what he needed, friendly but not too close. Like Allison was before he went overboard with her.

He also needed to stop over planning as well. There were six months of school left and Andrew knew he needed to concentrate on that. Physics was coming together but he still had a lot to do before the testing in February. The maths classes were straightforward but there was a lot of coursework, and the History A-level was enjoyable but very time consuming. This term, as much as possible it was all about school. Left over time would be on the 11^th course and the final project. Maybe his balance this term was to not have balance and just concentrate on school. Andrew was still planning to see both Ara and Suzanne as well as June so it was not like he was turning into a hermit. He staggered back to the house, wiped out from the run and showered and then went back to bed. That was the pattern until Tuesday, long run, extra sleep and his Computer Science coursework. Tuesday morning saw him and Suzanne at Warrender as usual.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

When they were settled in the coffee shop he started.

“I did a lot of thinking last week as you can imagine.”

A quick smirk crossed her face.

“And I want to apologise for how things ended. Let me finish, it was the same way with Moira and Allison, I hurt Allison very badly because of the intensity of the way I treated her. I could not give her what she wanted and she was heartbroken. I have come close with you and with one other person. I don’t know why I am like that but if there is any kind of connection with the person then I ramp up the emotional aspect and it causes problems. You made me do a lot of soul searching as to how I act and how I need to act more appropriately to the situation. You are my friend, and you deserved better, I’m sorry.”

“Part of me wants to slap you and tell you to stop being so fucking self-absorbed and such a drama queen, but the other larger part knows what you are saying and what you are going through. You are not wholly to blame though, it does take two people. All I am going to say is that I accept your apology and we are done discussing it. You will take me out to dinner on Saturday night as usual and we will work on getting everything back to an even keel, okay?”

School started back the next day and Andrew got back into it straight away. He survived giving the reading as he had drawn the first day of term. None of the prefects enjoyed reading something to 800 of their fellow pupils but it lasted two minutes and then it was over for another six or seven weeks. Andrew had one more reading to do and then would be finished with it, by far the worst part of being a prefect. On the Thursday evening Ara called to let him know that she was back in town and would see him at the Pool at 5.30 as normal.

CCF the next day dragged on, always did on the first parade of the term, and then Travis asked Andrew to stay behind to discuss camp options for the summer. He was being offered the chance to attend another Royal Engineer camp, although this time he would be at the edge of Salisbury Plain for part of it. The course for returning cadets was Combat Engineering. They would be part of an exercise with Infantry, Artillery and Armour on the Plain for three days followed by three more at Chatham. Andrew was pleased to have the opportunity and got Travis to apply for him. All this meant he was running late, but Ara was waiting for him and the hug and kiss left no doubt as to how much she missed him.

Andrew swam lengths thinking about how he was going to approach the conversation with Ara. In the end, he thought that a variation of the truth was best. She wasn’t someone he just fucked, she was his friend, so they would not be jumping in the sack at every conceivable occasion. She understood it and didn’t raise too much protest. That first evening was taken up with her gnashing her teeth at her mother for constant interference and lots of attempts at blind dates, and laughing at George being subjected to an even more thorough interference in his life. Ara would talk about Baroness Koo all the time and it drove George mad. She had not had so much fun at his expense ever. She had stopped and seen her grandfather on Wednesday night before completing the journey to Edinburgh the previous day.

“I talked to Grandfather about you Andrew, I hope you don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind Ara? What did you say to him?”

“I just went on a bit too much about you. Grandfather asked me how Mum thought about you and it just rather snowballed from there.”

“That’s fine Ara. I am not a big secret, and it sounds like he is not going to rush off and phone your mother about me.”

“No chance. He blames himself for her social climbing craziness.”

When they got back to her flat she looked at him.

“Are you going to come up?”

Andrew shook his head.

“Not tonight. Let’s take our time and let things evolve.”

She looked disappointed but nodded in agreement. The next couple of weekends followed a similar pattern, Andrew spent time with Ara on a Friday night but had reverted to the routine of earlier in the autumn and did not come up to the flat. Their conversations were interesting, he made more of an effort to ask her about her degree and what she wanted to do when she graduated and completed her PhD.

“My focus is on nationalism, the end of colonialism, events such as that. How that interplays with global power politics, Communism versus the west, and how do countries chart their own path, for example the non-aligned movement.

“Do you have an area you want to specialise in? For your 4^th year project or your PhD thesis?”

“I am not sure yet, too many choices seem appealing. I have some thoughts about the interplay between China, India and the Soviet Union, well Russia out there. China fought border skirmishes with both Russia and India in the 1960s. I will have to see.”

Andrew listened as Ara talked about nationalism and communism and its impact on Russia and China, the enormous disparity in populations in the Far East, as far as he could tell there were 10 million Russians and a billion Chinese just to their south. He had very little to add so sat and listened as Ara explained some of the issues and concepts to him. Andrew knew he was using these talks and conversations as a shield. He was very confused about his feelings and how they impacted him when he had sex. The problems that he had with Allison and Suzanne, he could see the same thing happening with Ara. Their kisses were passionate at the end of the night but Andrew was unsure about taking it any further. By the end of the month she wanted to talk about it.

“What is going on Andrew? You are out of sorts and seem almost scared of me at the end of the night. What happened over the Christmas break that has got you so spooked?”