Chapter 9

Abi was gone when Andrew returned from the pool and he didn’t see her before he left for the Department. The first day was as bad as everyone expected and it was a numb group of 2^nd year engineers that staggered back to the Colleges. But after a quick dinner Andrew headed over to the College of Art. His first night modelling set the stage for the whole year. Professor Wilkens was there that first night, introduced Andrew, before explaining what he expected of the class. There were more than 20 people in the class, two thirds women, and Andrew would move position every hour after his break so that everyone got three perspectives. There were two post-grads who were there to assist the students but other than nodding hello he had limited interaction with them. One of them would explain the pose and that would be it. There were a few giggles when Andrew set up an old music stand and placed his textbook on it but within 30 minutes the room was quiet and the only noise was the scrape of pencil or brush on paper. Andrew needed the time to get caught up with his reading. The first day’s lectures had covered a lot of ground, and worse had assumed that they knew a lot of things as well. Still they were all in the same boat. The thing that was different to modelling the year before was at the end of the session. As he was getting dressed Lily and a couple of friends came up to him.

“Let’s go for a drink Andrew.”

The group had been very diverse in dress, appearance, some looking archetypally rebellious while others could have been in his engineering lectures that morning. Engineers not being the world’s most adventurous dressers. Lily’s friends were Chelsea and Amy and so the four of them went to the same pub on Mill Road that Andrew had been to several times the previous year. It was an Art College bar and he recognised a couple of the students from the studio. Amy was the chatty one.

“I couldn’t believe when you set up that music stand and put that enormous book on it. That is your course textbook?”

“Sadly just one of them.”

Chelsea jumped in.

“You totally zoned out, you could have been anywhere. Only your hand moving when you turned the page showed you weren’t comatose. Do you find it hard to hold the poses?”

“Some more than others. But I find the problems happen when I don’t have enough to study. As long as I have some work to do then I am fine. There is an awful lot of reading this term so most weeks it will be like that. A big book and me reading.”

“I watched you last year Andrew. You were very relaxed with the four final year students. Was it different today. There are guys in the class.”

Andrew shrugged.

“I don’t really think about it like that. I am wearing swimming trunks, same as at the pool. I was just down the road there at Parkside this morning wearing the same thing. That is where Deborah first saw me. I meant to ask you, I thought Raquel Peters took this class. It was her that got sent to talk to me about modelling, at Cindies of all places.”

“She dropped out, nobody knows why. She was homesick and went home a lot.”

When you hear something like that sometimes it is difficult to know what to say. No point in him saying ‘that’s a shame’ to these girls. Students drop out, it is not that uncommon. Lily brought it back to his modelling.

“Don’t you get embarrassed about standing in what is basically your underwear?”

Andrew’s reflexive answer was to say no, he was back there doing it again wasn’t he? Had he gone from being surprised women liked his body to showing it off?

“You made me stop and think about it. Last summer at the end of the third term Professor Wilkins asked me if I would model all year. I am committed through two terms. So I don’t think I do get embarrassed. But he also asked if I would do figure modelling and that was a step too far.”

“He asked you to pose naked?”

Andrew nodded.

“Wow. I can see why that would make you pause. Don’t you worry about what people think?”

“Why?”

“Stripping down for money.”

“I am not doing it for the money, I told them to donate my pay to the student hardship fund at the College. I am doing it because I can, I don’t mind it and I do get a lot of studying done. Which as you can see from the size of the textbook is necessary.”

That silenced them. Finally.

“You come and pose for us for what, fun?”

Andrew gave them a very edited version of Paris.

“If I hadn’t done the modelling last year then I would not have had the chance to be photographed for Hermès. I did a nice thing for four students who asked for my help and I got repaid many times over. I had to sign a model release form and everything. So when Wilkins asked me a month later I thought ‘why the hell not’.”

Andrew smiled over at them.

“Plus I slowed danced with Lily on Tuesday night and I am sitting here with the three of you tonight. You are not telling me that you won’t be at Cindies at 10.15 next Tuesday?”

That got giggles and blushes from Lily but the look from the other two was altogether different.

Friday was a full day in the Department and Andrew stayed late before wearily wandering home after 7.00. He avoided everyone and read for a bit that night. Saturday Andrew ran for an hour, just following the road north out of town past Girton, before turning round and retracing his steps. He was seven minutes longer on the way back but felt better for stretching his legs. At lunch he was given the expected ration of shit for being ‘a miserable, boring, Scottish git’ and threatened with bodily harm with his textbook if he did it again. Even Andrew realised he was pretty sad to be studying on the first Friday night of term.

A group of them wandered round the Fresher’s Fair but Andrew wasn’t interested in joining any new clubs or societies this year. Between the OTC, volunteering and modelling he was doing plenty. He was technically a member of the Engineering Society but never went to any meetings. The group ebbed and flowed as they strolled round all the different stands and when they left there was only Justin, Helena, Abi and Andrew. Back at College the South Paddock was quiet and the four of them lay down and chatted. Nobody even bothered making a comment when Andrew put on his ugly hat.

“Last year, were we as young, drunk and stupid as this year’s Freshers?”

Could Justin have sounded any older?

“I think Nigel was?”

“Oh, that’s right. He had a tough first couple of weeks.”

“At least we are away from most of the carnage now, although there are some out at Burrell’s that we hear meandering home of an evening.”

This was Helena. Justin thought for a moment.

“It takes you a while to get over the freedom of being away from home, everyone is so crazy that first couple of weeks. I know that when I slept in for an 11.00 lecture that I needed to get a grip. Anyone else?”

“I managed to not get too carried away. Sure there were a couple of rough mornings but I know I am a lightweight so I tend to be careful. Sadly there are too many horror stories of things happening to women when they are drunk. My issue was rolling over and going back to sleep in the morning.”

Helena nodded at Andrew.

“So I got the human alarm clock over there to knock on my door when he came back from swimming. If I dragged my sorry butt out of bed then I was okay. Every day for the whole year.”

“Every day?”

Justin sounded amazed.

“Wouldn’t you do that for friend, especially when she wears lacy little nighties to bed.”

He dodged the hit from Helena only to cop it from Abi instead.

“It was no big deal. Sometimes it took a minute but she got up.”

Justin just shook his head. Andrew carried on.

“It is easier on the science courses, you have to get up for the lectures and labs. But I used to get up before 6.00 for the last four years of school. Your body gets used to it.”

“I would sometimes feel him slip out of bed just after six. I would just roll over and go back to sleep. How he does it every day I don’t know. Oh for goodness sake Andrew. Everyone knows we slept together last year. I appreciate your discretion but the contrary woman in me sometimes wishes you would show a little appreciation of the fact.”

They all laughed and even Helena smiled ruefully.

“It is one of the things that I liked about Andrew when I met him that first weekend. He was his own man and was not into the mindless drinking. I saw him leave the bar on the second night and there I was surrounded by these drunk schoolboys all talking to my chest. I swear they had never seen a pair of tits before. So I just walked out and the two of us went for a walk. Were you ever really drunk last year Andrew?”

“The hockey do at the end of Michaelmas was on the Friday and the OTC black tie event was on the Saturday, so that weekend for sure. I was probably the soberest person there, which is pretty scary and sad when I think about it because I was hammered. All these Army camps I go to, there is some ferocious drinking. My Grandma is an alcoholic so it never really appealed. And you all heard the story about my first time, it has played into my attitude to alcohol ever since. I don’t have to drink to talk to women or to try and fit in.”

“Do you really believe that Andrew?”

Abi sounded skeptical.

“Yes I do. You see it in bars and clubs across town. The very first time I was in Cindies I ended up dancing with this woman who was really tall, nearly as tall as me. But she was hammered, it was the only way she had worked up the courage to ask me, or anyone, to dance. I ended up having to half carry half drag her back to her dorm as all her friends were tiny. Then when I got back to College there was Nigel passed out at the Gate with a Porter wondering what to do with him. We stood him up and then had to dodge the pebbledash. Two of them blind drunk in the first week. One to work up the courage to talk to a guy and the other just to try and fit in. Me, I am not a teetotaller, I drink a fair bit but I tend not to get past four beers very often. But you know me, I live life on my own terms and do not care what others think.”

“And it goes back to the cancer?”

“Yes. After that what did I care if someone thought that I was a nerd for studying at lunchtime, or not keeping up with the ‘men’. Remember I coached the women’s hockey teams for two years. I took a lot of shit, especially the first year I did it, from the rugby players. Every pathetic name under the sun, homo, fag, wuss, pansy, nancy-boy, you name it I was called it. This from the guys who grab each other in the shorts and pile on top of each other. All I had to do was spend four hours a week with more than 30 fit young women in short skirts and tight tops. I’ll take the name calling every time.”

Although everyone laughed appropriately Andrew could see them all thinking about what he said. Most of the story was well-known but you can hear a story many times and it is only when you are ready to listen that the message sinks in.

“Although I didn’t think of it at the time, it was a display of group think. I have not done any psychology or anthropology courses or anything like that, but the more I think back about it the more it, I don’t know, confuses me, even scares me slightly. The need to fit in, not stand out, not be different. I wonder if I was Nigel’s size or was a stammering fool who had never seen a woman naked whether I would be so comfortable going against the grain so much.”

They changed the topic and Justin regaled them with some tales from the art world.

“I talked to Dad at the end of last year about having been at the Art College show, and mentioned to him that one or two of the pieces were decent. Now there is a sort of travelling circus of critics, gallery owners and collectors that does a circuit of all the Colleges and Dad hadn’t been on it for years. But he came up the day before he collected me at the end of term and looked round the exhibit. He did like one or two of the pieces but several of the best ones had been snapped up by a new gallery in Edinburgh. I think he is going to visit it the next time he is in Scotland.”

Andrew had a terrible poker face and so faked a coughing fit to cover his discomfort. He would be fascinated to hear what Mr. Adams thought of Robert MacNish’s furniture.

“When you first came here Helena you had no idea what your career was going to be. A year in, is it any clearer?”

“I submitted several articles for Stop Press last year and two of them were published. I am going to try and submit something regularly this year and see how many make it into the paper. So I am considering journalism.”

They talked about possible career paths but none of them had a clue as to how to break into journalism. When Andrew looked back on this time he was sometimes amazed they achieved anything. It seemed more slapdash and haphazard. The perception of privilege and the impact of who you know comes from this. Was there an exclusionary sense to it? Of course. Information is power and the powerful guard and protect that power very carefully. But as Andrew looked back on that time he saw how important the impact of who you knew was, he was the recipient of that many times over, as you have read already. Without the benefit of resources to point you in the right direction, it was often who you knew that was a key part in getting a job, changing jobs or getting a promotion. But it was also not inviolate. Andrew had gone to private school, his parents wanted to give him the best education possible. But from there his life had unfolded in ways they could never have imagined, in fact how his life had turned out and exposed deep-seated issues with his father. Andrew was prejudiced against people who asserted privilege as a right, and Cambridge was full of them. He worked hard and saw himself as lucky rather than as privileged, but then again he was pretty sure he was full of it. Then it was Abi’s turn.

“What about you Abigail? What does a degree in Computer Science lead to?”

It was like listening to himself talk. Abigail talked about the computerisation of the world. But then Helena brought up an interesting point.

“Are you going to use computers or are you going to work with them? The way you talk, a lot of things are going to become computerised. Are you going to become an expert at using the computer or are you going to stick in the background and work in the, I don’t know what to call it, the plumbing of the computer?”

Abi and Andrew laughed at Helena’s characterisation.

“You know what I mean. I have seen Andrew’s computer on occasionally but I don’t know all the right terminology.”

“Let me answer your question with a question. Why do you write? Why do you want to get something you have written into the paper?”

“Em, to show that I can. To demonstrate my ability, my creativity, something like that. Pride I suppose as well.”

“That is the key word, Helena. Creativity. I like to sit and figure something out, create something from nothing, use language just like you use language, totally different languages but the same thought process. And at the end of the day I get satisfaction and pride from producing something. When I created my first program, completely my own work rather than something I had copied or amended from a magazine, I was so excited. It took Mum and Dad ages to understand why I was so happy. Computer Science is a combination of hard science and creative art. You have to have a strong imagination to visualise solutions to some of the problems that you are presented with on the course.”

Andrew had never heard it articulated so well before. He was a scientist, not an arty type, at least in his own mind, but here was Abi being passionate about the creative process that was part of programming. He joined in.

“Justin, is computer code art?”

Well didn’t he just pull the pin on a hand grenade and throw it onto the bonfire. The time flew by as they lay there passionately arguing back and forth, no rancour, at least not from Andrew, one of the first free-flowing discussions or arguments he was part of at Cambridge. Nothing was going to be resolved but it was a fun diversion on a warm, early autumn afternoon. Rather than face Hall they went out for dinner, waited for a table at one of the Chinese restaurants in town and finally were crammed round a table meant for two. The first weekend had everyone out and about. In the end they all held their plates to eat but the food was good and nobody really cared.

“I can’t be bothered with the bar tonight, do you want to come over to my room, I have a set this year and so have more space. Wine, music, cards, anything but Trinity College Bar?”

A set was a Cambridge term for when your accommodation had two rooms, a living and study area and a separate bedroom. Still without a bathroom or even a toilet. One of the challenges in living in protected heritage buildings was that retrofitting plumbing was nigh on impossible. But this meant that Justin had more space and could close the door on his bedroom, something the other three could not.

They played bridge all night, with a surprising intensity from all of them, swapping partners after each rubber; no sniggering. A day such as that was what Andrew felt he was missing in 1^st year. This fitted the image of university in his mind and he was pleased that it had happened so organically. Of course he felt sandpaper smooth the next morning. But after his exercises, a little slower than normal, Andrew walked down to the pool. A slow pace was perfect for the morning and he swam for just over an hour, letting the excesses of the night before wash away. He was in his room for all of two minutes to hang up the swimming stuff and grab his books before spending the rest of the day in the library. With only two days of notes there was nothing really to review, it was all catching up on pre-reading and trying to get ahead where possible.