Chapter 8

Andrew woke up early on Friday morning needing to get back into his routine. He slid out of bed, grabbed his exercise clothes from his bedroom and started his exercises. After his push ups and sit ups he was off for his run. Two minutes to the Meadows and then peace and quiet, no traffic and very few people. Andrew ran longer than he intended but got back to the flat feeling better for it. Suzanne had his swimming gear packed and ready and three minutes later he was in the pool. Being so close to the pool was fantastic and although it was only 25m long, proximity was going to win every time.

Andrew let the chaos of the past week wash away as he swam, pushing himself with a faster pace than usual. The last four days had thrown his equilibrium off and he needed to return to the familiar. All the stuff with his parents, the revelations from Suzanne, the initial investments with the Trust, everything Mhairi had dumped on him. It seemed an endless list and he let it all flow over him and wash away as he swam back and forth. He did start to smile thinking about the weekend. The whole dynamic, the relationship with Maggie and Tony was complicated but at the same time it was also simple. If he ignored the underlying oddness of photographing one of his friends naked, it was just photographing one of his friends naked! It was both simple and a minefield all at the same time. He resolved that it would be a lot more of the former that weekend. Returning to Cambridge at the start of each new term should reset the weirdness. So, being in his own little world thinking about the weekend, it took Suzanne throwing a float board at Andrew to get his attention. Half the people in the pool were laughing when he popped up looking surprised. He finished the length and pulled himself out of the water.

“Just when I think you cannot get any more distracted in the water. Bloody hell Andrew, I am shouting and waving on the side of the pool and you are swimming away without a care in the world. And going much faster than usual.”

“Yes dear, sorry dear.”

Andrew was pretty sure he just liked to get whacked. He quickly showered at the pool and they walked back to the flat. Suzanne would shower after he left for Mhairi’s office. Andrew thought she just wanted to nest some more. She then teased him by stripping and putting on her robe while he was getting ready to leave. Andrew told her he would think up new and inventive torments for her while he was out all day. Yeah, like that was much of a threat. Andrew left Suzanne the car while he walked into town, it was just easier. He would get the bus out to her parents at the end of the day. Andrew saw Doug parking his car as he walked to Drummond’s offices so waited for him and they walked the last block together.

“I don’t want to pester you Andrew but do you have any thoughts about Brian and I’s proposal yesterday.”

“I will ask Leslie and Julian what they are planning and listen to their thoughts but unless it is something I have not thought of then my answer will be yes. I don’t need the money, in my mind I have given it away already and the idea of creating something like you suggested appeals to me. That the actions of the three of us inspired some of your friends is a nice feeling. You know what I am like Doug. My guess would be that the Leslie and Julian will be the same. One thing that I do need to do is sit down with Creighton and Mhairi over this break and figure out what I own and how much money I have. It is appalling that I have no idea, I mean not a clue. I always think it is around £2.5m but the truth is I never cared. That I don’t know and don’t care says something about me in itself.”

“Have you never thought about keeping the money, buying a big house or anything like that?”

His tone was genuinely curious.

“Speaking personally I feel the need to give back, for the good fortune in my life. I survived cancer, I am smart, healthy, fit, rich and sexually very active.”

The last caused him to laugh.

“How greedy does one man have to be?”

They arrived at Drummonds and were shown into Mhairi’s office.

“Well if it isn’t the tormentor of the legal profession in Edinburgh.”

Hello would have worked better.

“Let me guess, Mungo wasn’t happy with my outburst yesterday?”

“Oh Brian calmed him down. The client list for the enlarged Trust reads like a business who’s who of the east of Scotland. I just received an invite to Lord Barnes’ New Year’s Party and Mungo is the only other person in the office who received an invite.”

Andrew was pleased to see Mhairi enjoying cocking a snook at the old boy’s network. Once she was finished gloating they settled down to business. There were four proposals, one of which they were able to deal with quickly, another computer game wannabe with no plan and no idea what he needed to do to succeed. But he did appear to be a talented coder and so would be part of the hiring process for the computer company, when they got that sorted out. The second proposal was the hand crafted furniture maker in Brora. Between him and his two apprentices they would be investing £20,000 over four years, enough for them to live on and for him to start his business. Mhairi and Doug had all sorts of complicated arrangements to expand the business and set up a company if he was successful but that was not Andrew’s concern. This was another project that interested him but total employment between this and the shellfish farm from the day before was 10 people. It made him realise how small potatoes what they were doing was. The papers were full of layoffs in the hundreds and thousands and the response was tiny.

The third proposal produced the first disagreement, although Andrew was still thinking about the small number of jobs they were supporting, and that was influencing his behaviour. It was an application to support alternative farming, specifically hydroponics and indoor farming. It sounded scientific, it did reference academic papers and the proposal was to grow vegetables not normally able to be grown in Scotland. Andrew personally liked this as it was not displacing an existing job but creating a new one. Doug was healthily skeptical but grudgingly agreed to £10,000.

The last one was an idea Andrew had told Brian and Doug more than a year ago. A farming consultancy business, specifically one to navigate the complexities of the European Economic Community (the EEC). Both the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy were complex, seemed to be nothing but a make-work waste of time. Andrew had reckoned that there was an opportunity for consultants to assist farmers in negotiating this complexity and most importantly, to access the Common Fisheries Policy and Common Agricultural Policy funds. This was nothing more than an instinct from dealing with all the EEC forms while at Harry and Josephine’s farm. He did not know if it was a viable business or whether something like this was already in existence but Brian had found someone prepared to try and so they funded that individual. They made a note that if it was initially successful to either fund additional consultants or convert it to a business supported by CMS, or whatever they were calling the new Trust. The initial investment was another £10,000.

Strangely, it felt like a day at Addenbrooke’s, both highs and lows. Andrew was investing in people, having faith in them that they could make a success of their lives and of this business. But it also seemed so paltry compared to the challenges all around. Over the last day and a half he had invested £40,000 of the £250,000 they were investing in individuals and £120,000 in the three businesses. In addition, they were thinking about getting back into the software development business and owned a quarter of a distillery. In ten years’ time they might be able to drink a toast to themselves.

Given that he was going to be away all weekend Andrew decided to drop in on his Grandma on the way back to the flat. He might as well give her a head’s up that things were not any better with the family. He was also truthful about the flat.

“You have a flat across the Meadows?”

“Yes. Top of Spottiswoode Street across from the Baths.”

“I am not surprised that this day has come, not the way things ended at home, but that you would chafe under the control once you left home. That you bought it before you even left for university is a surprise but as I think about it, maybe it is not. Honestly Andrew, I don’t know what to think any more. The issues with your Dad are probably rooted in the time before your birth. I am just sad for you, and for Rowan and Scott. They were fine?”

“Yes they were. It was the best dinner with the five of us in, well maybe ever. Rowan seems to have calmed down and we didn’t lock horns once. The wee man was happy to show me his room, which was my old room. We sat and played with Lego before dinner.”

Andrew seemed to spend his life shrugging and shaking his head.

“Enough of all that. With everything that has been happening you haven’t really talked about your first term. Tell me about Cambridge, and don’t shock your grandmother with your wicked tales.”

Her smile made him laugh. He never enquired too closely how much she knew about his personal life, she had met Nikki and Leslie at Christmas dinners over the years but didn’t meet anyone else until the party. So he told her most of the stories, helping everyone on the first weekend, all about the course, hockey, the OTC, he even talked about Helena’s arse of a dad. Once he had done all the easy stuff Andrew talked about the time at Addenbrooke’s and how it was painful and enjoyable all at the same time.

“We never talked much after the party Andrew. You were getting ready to go to Cambridge and when we did talk Vi was here. We all know that Faith’s death haunts you to this day. Gavin told me once that the anger that you have inside you over it is frightening. He never told me the details but he once mentioned that no one would ever talk lightly about Leslie or Faith again.”

The infamous evening when Dr. Jindal said the wrong thing.

“I worry about you Andrew. You are a restless, driven young man. I remember the terrible winter of 1978 when we didn’t know if you would live or die but you pulled through. Here we are five years later and look at what you have achieved. Do you need to put yourself through the agony of knowing that some of the children you are talking to and helping are going to die? This is not sport’s injuries, broken legs or something. This is children’s cancer.”

Andrew had never really talked in this level of detail with his Grandma about his cancer, the time with Faith and life since then so he ended up staying and talking to her for more than an hour, filling in the blanks. He even told her about that last Saturday morning, the trip to the hospice and how it drove everything.

“You have a fire in you Andrew, anyone can see that. But fire consumes, take care that it doesn’t consume you. You talk about balance but I think you have to look at that again, and probably every day for the rest of your life. Live life Andrew, enjoy the moment, don’t always be chasing something else. I can see that you are not chasing fortune or glory, and you sure are good at keeping a secret.”

“I saw a shy little girl overcome cancer and leave the ward bubbly and happy, even although she was barely three stone and bald as an egg. I saw another boy bursting to get home so that he could start exercising just like I did. He didn’t know if he was cancer free yet but he had a dream. I had both sets of parents in tears in front of me to see their child bounce back. I had a 15 year old young woman want to see inside Trinity for the first time and by the time she left I had given her the dream of attending there. I sit with children whose parents are not able to see them every day. Those three people Amy, Michael and Mandy I feel like I made a difference.”

Andrew swallowed.

“And I sat with a boy with terminal brain cancer while he cried his heart out for the life he wouldn’t get to live. I don’t know why I have to do it but it is a compulsion. A surprisingly strong compulsion after hiding from it for more than four years. Look at my good fortune, health, intelligence, money and women. I have an enormous karmic debt to balance.”

“I told you, no wicked tales!”

They both smiled.

“Okay, I understand, although I can’t say that many people would do it though. I am guessing that most people at Cambridge have no idea?”

“I have told no one. I go to the library after I finish at the hospital and everyone thinks I have been studying all day.”

Grandma nodded patted his hand. It had been good to see her, to tell her, but there had been no solutions. Later he sat on the couch thinking a lot about his life. Andrew never thought about the life prior to cancer, it was old Andrew and he wasn’t interested. The only time he gave it any thought at all was when thinking about Tony, and John Cuttington, dead six years already. In the year before John’s death Andrew got more parenting, more fathering, from John than he did from his own father. Were the seeds of this broken relationship sown then, in a childhood where his father didn’t think Andrew was his own? At the end of the day, he had never really connected with his parents. Rather than embrace and be proud of his achievements they seemed intimidated of them. It was a proud Jim Barnes and a drunk Brian Campbell that seemed proudest of him just three months ago. Andrew didn’t think this was going to get better somehow. How did his parents go from being his parents to suddenly like some idiot aunt and uncle that you saw twice a year at family gatherings?

When Andrew got to the Jenners, Suzanne looked surprisingly nervous when she opened the door but he was beyond caring at this point. There was literally nothing the Jenners could say or do to him that would phase Andrew in the slightest. Other than a couple of awkward comments at the dinner table, after Vanessa had left, it was fine. Andrew didn’t blame her father, he cared for Suzanne and wanted to make sure she was safe and happy. As with all parents, the letting go of control was not going well. At the end of the day the fact that they both called the other their best friend and were honest whilst being delicate meant the Jenners accepted the situation as best they could. Happy? Probably not, but at least accepting.

“Enjoy your weekend in Glasgow. Are you coming back on Sunday or Monday morning?”

“Probably Monday. I will spend the day here with Mum and have dinner with the family. Can I come over at night?”

“Of course. The week is quiet. I have dinner with Lord Barnes on. Shit, I’ll need to find the piece of paper to check the date. I think it is Thursday night, although I am not sure.”

“I’ll stay until Thursday then if that is okay, and maybe you can drop me off here before heading on for the dinner. Mum wants me here for Christmas so that works out well. It lets me spend time with you but doesn’t piss off Mum too much.”

As it turned out the dinner was on the Wednesday but the principle was the same. Andrew dumped the car outside the flat and headed into the city. Andrew had his first chance to chat to Pete in nearly three months. He was quiet to start but loosened up after a beer.

“You really never changed, that’s the thing I can’t understand. I must have walked about five miles the Sunday after your party just thinking back over our time at school. Sure you were different when you first came back, who wouldn’t be but other than that I never noticed. I also don’t blame you for not saying anything. Nobody would have believed it or understood it.”

And with that he dropped the whole subject and they caught up. Pete had stayed in Edinburgh and was studying Marketing and Computer Science, with much more of the first than the second. Like Andrew his days were long and structured and he was enjoying it so far. Andrew had never been down to Pete’s house so had no idea what home life was like for him. Pete never complained so Andrew assumed he got on okay with his folks and siblings. Pete took a lot of joy in telling Andrew about the gigs he had been to that term including the Police just the previous weekend. The only one that Andrew was completely bummed about missing was a solo gig by Robert Plant, the former lead singer of Led Zeppelin. As they walked down the hill to the Nite Club it was like old times. Pete admitted he had not been there all term either, saving his money for the bigger gigs, but also because he hadn’t found someone who was into the local music scene as much as they had been. It wasn’t that they were into the local scene, they were just prepared to turn up and take their chance. That night the band were crap, there was a certain inevitability about that, but they arranged to do it again the following week.

After his usual morning routine of exercise, a run and then a long slow swim, Andrew was ready to start his career as a glamour photographer. Which of course was idiotic hyperbole. But as he drove down to Tony’s shop, barely five minutes from the flat, it did feel different. This weekend was more than just a weekend photographing Monica outdoors. For a start he was now photographing Maggie. As they were one and the same person this was hardly momentous yet Maggie was no longer hiding behind a construct, a fake persona, however much it was similar to herself. By being honest about what she liked about modelling she was starting to embrace it. And there were several parts of the conversation with Tony from the previous week which hadn’t yet been talked about. The journey the next day, both there and back, would be interesting. Maggie hugged him as usual but he could tell that she was itching to get started. Tony was working in the shop, waiting for Stacey to arrive at 10.00, so it was just Maggie and Andrew upstairs drinking coffee.