Chapter 6

Andrew walked back to Trinity from the studio thinking about the weekend. It felt like all of the previous week had been preparation for the weekend, both OTC on Tuesday and hockey training on Wednesday had all been about the end of term socials on the Friday and Saturday nights. And yet the most important thing Andrew had done was listen to a grieving father on Sunday lunchtime, and suggest a solution that would help stop him from making a terrible situation even worse. He didn’t know what it meant but the time spent with Ron had helped de-stress the rest of his life, put things in perspective. But in the space of 24 hours he had gone from drunken revelry, to listening to Ron, to standing in his swim gear in an art studio. When he arrived back at College Pedro was waiting looking upset.

“I need to talk to you Andrew.”

He announced this before Andrew even had his door opened.

“Sure, come in.”

“I spoke to Mama this afternoon and everything is a big mess. My father has been appointed to a position in the Defence Ministry in Madrid, and it is completely unexpected. Someone got fired and they needed an immediate replacement. So Papa was there by the end of last week. He needs Mama to come and help him find a place to stay while he is there. This is likely to be his last major appointment and they may end up settling in Madrid, given that is where I am likely to be working when I graduate. So what that means is that the house is going to be empty in Ferrol. I can’t fly into Madrid and then immediately go to Ferrol without seeing my parents and there is nowhere for you to stay in Madrid. I think I am going to be on the couch.”

Andrew could tell that Pedro was disappointed.

“It is not a big deal. Are you still able to go to Paris?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Great. I will head back to Edinburgh from Paris and you can carry onto Madrid. I may even be flash and fly home rather than deal with all the trains and the ferry. It is disappointing that we can’t hang out in Ferrol but it will still be there. Maybe next year or this summer, who knows?”

Pedro relaxed, pleased that Andrew wasn’t that bothered and left to get ready for dinner. The last Sunday of term was always the busiest and eight of the ten of them were there, just David and Nigel were missing. They were a cohesive group, nobody hated anyone else at least, and it was events like these that solidified the bonds. One of the topics of discussion that night was accommodation in the coming years. First year accommodation was assigned, none of them had any say in where they ended up. Now they were faced with the intricacies of the ‘ballot’. The short version was that all prospective 2^nd years were randomly assigned a ballot number and that was the order they would select rooms in. That order was then reversed in 3^rd year so if you got a crap picking point in 2^nd year then in theory you got a great one in 3^rd year. This system led to an obsessive amount of worrying, guessing, and misdirection. Nobody randomly was walking their corridor but 1^st years were all over the College checking out what different areas were like. There were seven areas around the Great Court, or at least within a minute of it and then there were two areas over at Burrell’s Field. There were too many choices and too many unknowns so it was the perfect dinner table conversation, lots to talk about and no answers, at least not yet. It brought home the realisation that their 2^nd year would be very different with all of them scattered around the College. That night Andrew was sitting beside Justin and mentioned he would be down in London during the 4^th week of break.

“You are welcome to come down and stay for a couple of days Andrew. By the fourth week everyone will be getting on each other’s nerves so you would be a welcome distraction.”

“I am staying with friends who just moved to London. I’ll give you a call and see if we can arrange something. I can’t just bail on them without talking to them first.”

“Oh, of course not. Even if it is just for a night it will break up the monotony of the holiday.”

This would be a convenient bolt hole for Andrew if staying with Jim and Freya was painful or awkward. The rest of the night was quiet, Andrew was partied out and so were most of the others. The final week of term was quiet compared to how hectic the previous two had been. His last night at Addenbrooke’s was like many others that term, a mixture of assisting the staff and talking to some of the patients. Compared to the fuss at Christmas he said nothing about being away for a month. Andrew was doing this to help the patients not to feel good himself. The last couple of weeks of the term had been tough with several younger children not responding to treatment. Countering that harsh reality, Mandy had written twice during the term, once at the start with the second letter in early March. The tone of the second letter was chattier but at the same time more mature. Her recovery was going well and she was now both looking forward to, and at the same time dreading, going back to school. Andrew had written a response talking about what was happening and his upcoming trip to France and Spain, written before the Spain part fell through. It was an interesting experiment to see if she continued to write to him or whether it would quickly fall away once she returned to school.

OTC on the last Tuesday was, as always, preparation for the upcoming weekend away. There was an element of wanting it to be over, get through the final tests and confirm they were ready for the new and more interesting parts of OTC. Andrew wondered about the OTC and was having doubts about it. He would watch the permanent staff and listen to them where possible, basically try to eavesdrop. There was a certain dismissiveness about the cadets that they didn’t really hide. He knew that a sizeable group of the cadets were off to do adventure training with the OTC during the break, skiing in the French Alps. The permanent staff were bitterly cynical about the value of such exercises. This was 1984, if not the height of the Cold War then tensions were still high. Brezhnev had died and been replaced by Andropov but he had just died and they were on the third Soviet leader in eighteen months. All geriatric 70 year old men still spouting world communism. Andrew didn’t see how skiing in the fucking French Alps was going to defend West Germany. So he was conflicted about the OTC, although didn’t say anything to Matt, Jack or Rollie. Standing in his underwear for the Art School women was a jarring counterpoint to the OTC prep but Andrew survived his back to back evenings with them. He got a contact number for Deborah but would only use it if there was a change in plan. The plan was for him to be back on the 16^th at the studio by 10.00. In amongst all his evening activities classes finished on the Wednesday of the final week with the last lab on the Thursday. The whole term Andrew had felt more in control and in fact on both evenings of modelling he was reading in preparation for the third term.

The final weekend of OTC training was an anti-climax, military knowledge and drill were painfully easy and the section on leadership seemed artificial and stilted. There was a short meeting with the Commanding Officer to confirm Andrew had passed but as he had 60 something interviews to do it was brief to the point of being brusque. The cadets were told that there would be more lengthy detailed meetings at the start of third term when there would be the chance to work on ‘Special to Arms’ training, i.e. Andrew would do some Sapper training. It was late Sunday afternoon when he and Matt got back to the College, and arranged to meet for dinner at 6.00. Andrew would round up Pedro but everyone else on the corridor had already left. Unlike the last break the College was quiet, especially Angel Court. Andrew washed all his OTC gear although this time he didn’t sit down in the basement, instead he went to find Pedro. Pedro wanted to know the plan for the evening.

“Hey, what do you plan for tonight?”

“Quiet night, I am not even planning to leave the College. Let’s get up early and take one of the commuter trains into London, tube it to Charing Cross and grab the first train to Dover. Walk onto the ferry and then same at the other side, first train to Paris from Calais station. We should be in Paris between 5.00 and 8.00 depending on connections. Means that we can have a night out in Paris rather than a Sunday night in Cambridge.”

“I can tell you have the military planning sorted.”

Pedro seemed up for the plan. Thirty plus years later they would be able to board a train at St. Pancras and be in Paris within two and a half hours. In 1984 it was just a little slower. They were on the 7.00 train to London, and left Charing Cross just after 9.00. It took nearly two hours just to get to Dover, because they stopped at every god forsaken village in Kent on the way to the coast. They needed a cab to get to the ferry and then had to get through passport control before finally boarding the 1.00 ferry to Calais. The journey was barely an hour but 2.00 British time was 3.00 French time and so it was 7.35 when they finally alighted at Gare du Nord station in Paris. Or roughly eight hours later than using the Eurostar and tunnel. Anyone who tells you the good old days were better is talking out their arse.

The two of them were staying in a nice hotel in the centre of town not far from the Ritz. The clerk at the front desk was surprised to see two teenagers turn up but they had organised reservations and were led to their rooms. Pedro being as much the optimist as Jack thought they should get separate rooms so that nothing interfered in the parade of Parisian lovelies happy to be led to his bed. He had slightly better game than Jack, but was still delusional. But it was little things like this which were not an issue for Andrew. He was in the fortunate position of not having to worry about the cost of something. He would have been just as happy to share a room but the cost of his own was not a problem. After a quick shower they stopped at the hotel bar and planned the night.

“What time are we meeting your friend tomorrow?”

“10.00 at the courtyard of the Louvre.”

“Okay so nothing too early. Let’s go.”

They had no idea where they were going but that wasn’t going to stop them. Andrew knew that the next two nights they would be guided by Manon, if not in person then at least they would get some ideas or suggestions. That night it was a Spaniard and a Scotsman heading off who knows where. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing as long as he stuck with Pedro. Pedro spoke Spanish, fluent English and passable French. Andrew? English with a strong Scottish accent and Hindi with a borderline incomprehensible accent. Guess who was going to do all the talking? So they bar-hopped, checking out places and people as they went. The first issue they noticed was a lack of French customers. They were in the centre of the city and it was almost exclusively businesses, government offices or tourist destinations. There were no such things as locals. Now that is a swingeing exaggeration but everywhere they went was full of tourists. American, Australian, Germans, Japanese, Scandinavians, lots of different nationalities from the former French colonies in Africa, and of course lots of Brits, mainly English. They went to Paris and ended up chatting to someone from Liverpool, it seemed sad somehow.

Rather than charge in as usual, Pedro joined Andrew in people watching once they found a decent bar with plenty of younger customers. It was up near Place Clichy so they had walked away from the centre of the city and were well north of the Champs-Elysees. A Monday night in March was not high season and so they observed who was there, and why. From listening to the crowd the Americans were on Spring Break and were loudly rich. Andrew supposed they had to be to fly to all the way to Europe as a student. Most of the rest were backpackers, a lot were not students while a sizeable portion were on a year off, the typical gap year. The Europeans were there because it was cheaper and less busy than in the summer. A scene playing out across tens of thousands of bars throughout the world, theirs just happened to be in central Paris. Having done some initial recce of the place and the punters it was time to stop being wallflowers and talk to people. Given his height it was impossible to be inconspicuous so there had been more than a few glances thrown their way.

They ended up having a fun but fruitless night, all thanks to a pair of very pretty Norwegians, Kari and the wonderfully named Wenche. The way she pronounced it was ‘Venke’ but it did not stop Pedro and Andrew from acting 13 years old on the way back to the hotel. The two of them had graduated but that didn’t matter, they were funny and engaging. They were both from Oslo and were on their way to meet friends in the south of France. Pedro and Andrew explained their connection and the conversation flowed nicely. Around 11.30 Kari and Wenche gracefully departed with smiles and pecks on the cheek for both of them. They decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel, amusing themselves with terrible wench puns and jokes.

The next morning Andrew and Pedro were standing in the courtyard of the Louvre, where the Pyramid is now, then it was nothing more than a polarising idea from the French President. When Andrew spotted Manon he thought they might have to go back to the hotel and change again. He wasn’t sure into what but he felt they needed to change. Manon looked stylish and stunning, Andrew could do nothing but stare in appreciation. She wore a heavy coat, casually belted, a large scarf together with jeans and heels. It was casual but very elegant and quintessentially French.

“Andrew!”

She wrapped him up in a big hug before pulling him down for kisses on both cheeks.

“Manon. I thought you were an interior designer not a model, you look wonderful.”

She tried to bat away the praise but he could see she liked the compliment.

“This is my good friend from Spain, Pedro Garcia, a fellow student at Trinity College in Cambridge. Pedro, this is Manon Roux, a young lady that I met in London last summer who visited me in Edinburgh.”

Pedro and Manon did the whole cheek kissing thing.

“What? Am I not a good friend as well?”

A Gallic flounce punctuated the statement. Andrew started to splutter and defend himself.

“I did not want to presume, you are my friend, I am sorry, I”

He saw both her and Pedro try to stop laughing and cut his stumbling apology short. As his reward he got another hug.

“I am just teasing you Andrew. Too easy, merde. Anyway, why did you want to meet here? The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.”

Pedro and Andrew looked at each other and shrugged, they thought they should visit the museum but neither of them were really bothered.

“I have another problem. I thought I could take two days off work to spend with you but I have to work tomorrow. But I have arranged two guides for you, they are going to meet us for dinner. Both of them work with me at Hermès, our office is only a kilometre away.”

Andrew tried to tell Manon that it was not necessary but she was having none of it. She was disappointed not to be able to spend the whole two days with them but assured them that her friends were happy to play guide on the Wednesday. Manon herself would stay out for dinner that night and would come with her fiancé after work on Wednesday. With all of that being settled, well settled in the sense Manon ignored everything Andrew and Pedro tried to say and just told them to accept it, they spent the day playing tourist. They walked miles and miles; all the way up the Champs-Elysees past all the overpriced tourist shops; and then they climbed the Arc d’Triomphe to the roof where there were views in all directions, most notably the Eiffel Tower. Andrew burned through a roll of film, although Pedro took most of the pictures of Manon and Andrew with the Tower in the background, before they walked over to the Tower. They made the obligatory stop at the Palais de Chaillot to take more pictures of the Tower from the Trocadero Esplanade. It was clichéd but it is the place with the best view of the Tower, close, slightly raised from the surrounding ground, perfect. Another roll of film was used there before the three of them headed to the actual Tower itself. The queues were mercifully brief and the view from the top was amazing. And that was the tone for the day, they just played tourist. Manon was excited and proud to show them all over the centre of the city. After the Tower, they stayed on the Left Bank and walked all over the 7^th and then the 6^th arrondissements, stopping for snacks, coffees, beers, they did rather graze their way through the city, and ended up near the Sorbonne. Manon showed them where she had studied before her and Yasmine had met Andrew in London. A couple of times he thought that Justin and Judy would have loved this day, history, art, culture, fashion, all in Paris but it was the economist and the engineer instead. Oh well.

As it turned out Manon was wondering why Pedro and Andrew were not more impressed that she worked at Hermès, at their headquarters right in the centre of Paris. They in turn had no clue about Hermès. The best Andrew could come up with was that it was an aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy. Pedro knew that one too. So over a glass of wine and a couple of beers Manon tried to explain how big a deal her job was. They suitably oohed and aahed but she could tell they really didn’t get it.

“Men!”

If they had been standing she would have stamped her foot. But then her smile returned and got wider.

“Come on then, you pair of philistines. You don’t deserve, and probably won’t appreciate what I have planned for this evening.”