Living Two Lives - Book 2

Chapter 1

Mr. Kearns had been waiting for Andrew when he turned up at school at 7.25. Neither had any way of knowing whether the other would be there but both took the chance and it paid off. Andrew started his one stroke plan and enjoyed just swimming without having to count laps or worry about times. He swam until Mr. Kearns yelled that they had to stop so they could shower and change.

“No backstroke Andrew?”

They were heading into the changing rooms.

“I got spoiled swimming at the Commonwealth over 50m. With it only being 25m here I am going to just swim one stroke each morning and alternate them. Backstroke tomorrow. No need to count so I can just enjoy the swim. I do a lot of my thinking while I swim.”

“Makes sense.” Kearns paused before carrying on “I started doing this as a way to help you recover from the cancer. What I didn’t anticipate is; one how committed you are to your swimming; and two how much I have enjoyed it as well. When I saw you walking over the playground this morning I was pleased. I would have been gutted not to have swum this morning. I am sure you know that I am the coach of the school swim team. Normally the team is only fifth and sixth years, just because of ability. Occasionally there will be a strong fourth year who will make the team. Tomorrow once you are warmed up will you let me time you for 100 and 200 metres backstroke and then on Wednesday time you on 100, 200 and 400 metres front crawl? It will be a different style of swimming. I would like you to go as hard as possible and see how you do. I don’t know whether you will make the team or not but I would like to see how your times are.”

Once again, Andrew’s self-image was different than how others now saw him. He had not made any kind of school sports team ever. Never thought about it, never considered it.

“Sure, I would be intrigued to see what my times are both front and back.”

Andrew wasn’t over the top happy when he arrived at his form room but the day had started very well. Surprisingly the door to the classroom had been open even although there was no sign of Mrs. Hall. Andrew was standing chatting to Pete Thompson, catching up about what they had been doing over the summer when suddenly the room went completely silent, cathedral quiet. Mrs. Hall had come into the room leading five girls. There were going to be girls in their class. They all found seats and Andrew sat there watching them he remembered Leslie’s words from all those months ago. ‘Think how they will be feeling when they walk into the room’. They looked like Christians at the Coliseum and the rest of the class were the lions. Wow. The girls all sat together at one table, no surprise there, and Mrs. Hall did a quick attendance. Then she wanted to talk to them.

“As you can see five young ladies have joined this class. You will get the chance to meet them in your classes over the course of today. 153 girls joined the school today and there are ten in 3^rd year. Five here in 3A and five more in 3C. I know that you will treat them well. Don’t let me hear otherwise, right?”

Then they were off to assembly. The girls stayed as a pack so there was no chance to chat to any of them individually and there was no way Andrew was going to talk to them one on five. He might be working on his confidence but he was not crazy! It was not until after lunch that he actually spoke to one of new classmates. They were sitting in Chemistry Lab which was still assigned alphabetically. So Katherine Maxwell was sitting next to him. Channeling everything Leslie had talked about, Andrew smiled and introduced himself.

“Hi, I am Andrew, Andrew McLeod. How are you coping so far? Better or worse than you feared?”

He continued smiling at her trying to look non-threatening but probably coming off as a rabid fool, who knows.

“Hi I am Kate Maxwell. You are the first boy brave enough to talk to me. The guy sitting next to me in Maths looked like he was going to pass out. We all knew the first couple of days would be rough just from the novelty factor. Our year and the year below probably have it the worst.”

Andrew thought back to who she was sitting beside at Maths. Dougie Newsome. Andrew felt sorry for him as one year ago that would have been him. Terrified with no idea what to say.

“Don’t be too hard on Dougie. Remember this was an all-boys school up until four hours ago. A lot of us have very limited or no experience with girls.”

Andrew laughed and shook his head.

“Probably best not to talk to Dougie for the first couple of days. He really might faint.”

Kate laughed and then the class started and the conversation dropped. At the end of the class they headed off to a double period of English to finish the first day. Whoever thought that particular schedule up needed a smack!

“Andrew, right?”

Kate had turned back to him. He nodded.

“How come you haven’t pass out. In fact you initiated our chat.”

Andrew could see the rest of the girls waiting at the door for Kate so it was time to for him to escape.

“Who says I’m not about to?”

He nodded at the girls.

“Safety in numbers. Your group awaits.”

Andrew walked off his heart beating furiously in his chest. As he headed over to the old building Pete came up to him.

“What were you saying to that girl?”

Pete’s tone was jealous, amazed and accusatory all at once. Quite the trifecta to pull off. Andrew looked at him.

“I said hi, and introduced myself. Her name is Kate something. Hang on, Maxwell. Yes Kate Maxwell. She was laughing about how none of the boys were talking to the girls yet. She said Dougie looked like he was about to pass out in Maths.”

Pete laughed at this.

“Yeah, he still looks flustered.”

Andrew leaned forward.

“That might be his look all year!”

Pete laughed even louder and they wandered into the English class. Caldwell was still their teacher and it was good to see he was still being an arse, just not to Andrew this time.

“Good afternoon ladies. Welcome. I would like you to split up please and not all sit together. You two can sit in these empty seats here. McLeod, move to the back please. Urquhart move over here. Right then, grab a seat and we will start.”

Andrew ended up in the back row beside Pete, not very good planning from Caldwell. On the other side of Pete was one of the empty desks and another of the girls sat down. Now Pete might have wanted to know what Andrew said to Kate but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Chatty with the girl next to him. Caldwell got the girls to introduce themselves and the girl next to Pete was Hannah Adams.

They survived an hour and twenty minutes of English to finish the first day. After class Andrew headed over to the school library. The library at school stayed open until 5.00pm. He wanted to get back into the routine of studying but also wanted to put up a couple of flyers on the noticeboard.

Tutoring fellow students after school seemed to be the easiest way to make money. Andrew had no idea if it was possible or whether anyone would actually pay for the help but it was time to find out.

The flyer was simple and clear.

The flyer also had his home phone number if people wanted to call him out of school.

The second flyer was more personal. Andrew wanted to find some fellow computer enthusiasts. Same simple flyer design.

Once he had them posted he sat down and started to review the day. They had escaped homework on the first day but he knew it was coming. Andrew read ahead on each of the textbooks for his classes the next day and at 5.00 headed home. There was no need to use the Physics Dept. computer this year now that he had his own so each afternoon Andrew was planning to go to the library and study. Wednesday after Sports he was going to study at the City Library where Nikki worked to read the latest magazines.

School felt very comfortable. One day back and Andrew was happy. Sometimes being a nerd is great!

Andrew met Mr. Kearns at the pool on Tuesday morning as normal. He started doing back stroke slowly to warm up then Kearns had him prepare to do a competition start. Andrew never normally bothered doing this when he was swimming although he was now doing flip turns. Kearns gave him a three two one start and Andrew was off. Kearns wanted him to do the eight lengths as hard as he could just to see what his time was. Andrew had no idea of the standards or times for any distance so he just followed Kearns’ instructions. He pushed himself much more than he ever normally did. By the second 100m Andrew could feel it in both his arms and legs. When he completed the eight lengths he was breathing heavily. Andrew’s normal swimming was coasting compared to this. He looked up as Kearns checked his stop watch.

“Good Andrew. I saw you dig deep there in the second 100. How are you feeling?”

“Can definitely feel it in my arms and my legs. I was pushing myself way more than when I am just doing time and distance. I will go easy for the rest of the morning and see how I feel tomorrow, especially if I am going to try 400m front crawl. How were my times? And can you put them into context for me please. I have never swum competitively so I don’t know whether something is good or not.”

Andrew waited for Kearns to tell him his times.

“Your 100 was 1.35 and your 200 was 3.13. Those are good times for a swimmer who has never swum competitively or even practiced these events. You have built up good muscles and are strong and fit. The top boys in your age group are doing between 1.25 and 1.30 for the 100 and around 3.00 for the 200m. Go and enjoy the rest of your swim time and we can talk about next steps later.”

It was the same on Wednesday. Andrew warmed up and then went hard for 16 lengths to get to 400m. The last 50m He was really struggling and knew that he slowed down at the end. After Andrew caught his breath Kearns told him the times.

“You were 1.24 for the 100, 2.50 for the 200 and 5.55 for the 400m. You lost about 10 seconds on these last two laps. If you had managed to maintain form until the end then it was more like 5.45. Best guys at your age group are doing around 1.17, 2.35 and 5.20 for the three distances. Like I said yesterday these are good times for a complete novice competitive swimmer. Swim easy for the rest of our time.”

Once they were showered and getting changed for school, Kearns talked to him about interval training. Doing set distances, rest periods, a burst of flat out swimming, all sorts of things. Kearns explained that in addition to just putting the laps in, by doing interval training you were increasing the power of your muscles. The other point was Andrew had rudimentary technique. Just by developing the proper technique he could save seconds off his time. Andrew had a lot to think about. Did he want to join the school swim team? He needed more info about training sessions and when meets were held. But he could not believe how proud he felt to at least be considered for the swim team. Any kind of physical or sporting achievement still was such a surprise that the feeling on pride was intense. Andrew, of course, went to the City Library on Wednesday and found a book on swimming training and borrowed it to read. He waved over at Nikki but didn’t get a chance to say hi.

School continue to be entertaining as 1400 boys were thoroughly disrupted by 150 girls. There were so many moments of comedy. Some of the best ones in the year were from the three classes that had not been assigned girls. The B class was always mad at the A’s anyway. Now they had one more chip to put on their shoulders. Andrew’s confidence was still too new and shallow for him to engage in verbal hostilities, so he lived it all vicariously. The most obvious jibes were the best. ‘Not only were the B’s stupid but they were ugly as well.’ ‘They had let all the girls pick which class they went into and nobody picked the B’s.’ Juvenile he knew, but still funny. Not funny? Screw ‘em the B’s deserved it.

Andrew had introduced himself to the other four girls in the class over the course of the week. He had said hi to Hannah Adams in English and made Pete introduce himself as well. Pete managed to remember his own name but not much more and he was grumpy with Andrew afterwards. Alessandro Denofrio sat next to Andrew in music and they chatted a little bit. She asked him why Ford kept glaring at him. Andrew told her he had dropped orchestra and joined the CCF and Ford was still mad. No need to go into too much more detail. June Wyatt and Mary Jones he met in the library one lunchtime. Andrew thought they were just checking it out but they came up to him and introduced themselves. He managed a five minute conversation with them. A new record.

The first week had been fine, no drama. Andrew had to decide what to do about swim team but that was a nice problem to have. CCF at the end of the week was truncated. They were concerned that the pupils might have forgotten how to march. So after an hour of marching about they were dismissed early.

The first Saturday of term Andrew paid a long overdue visit to Tony’s camera shop. With working at the farm and then for Mr. Campbell it had been weeks since he had popped in. Aiden was serving a customer as Andrew arrived but waved him behind the counter to go and see Tony. The darkroom door was open but the darkroom was empty. Andrew was about to shout up the stairs to check if Tony was in the flat when he noticed the door in the back wall of the stockroom was open. The door to the studio. Andrew had never even seen in the studio never mind actually been in it so he walked over. Standing at the doorway he saw Tony up a ladder changing a light bulb on one of the studio lights.

“Can I come in?”

“Andrew? Hey kid, sure come in.”

Andrew walked round the studio looking at everything. It was roughly the size of four garages, although the ceilings were higher. More than half the space was taken up with several sets. There was a mock office, a kitchen set, an area with a couch, and most intriguingly, an area with a bed. There were all sorts of back drops behind them. There were several stands of lights, two arrays that appeared to be permanently suspended from the ceiling and then several others on stands that looked like they could be moved and positioned. Tony was up the ladder fixing a bulb on one of the permanent arrays. The back half of the studio had a separate room in the corner, and when Andrew poked his head in he saw it was a changing room. The rest of the space had an assortment of stands, tripods, several tables, two dressers and a couple of racks of clothes. It was an impressive sight. A variety of sets, that could be lit in a variety of different ways with lots of costume or clothing options for the model. Andrew was impressed and surprised at the professionalism of the space. Tony come down the ladder.

“Have you never been in here before?”

Andrew shook his head.

“No. This is my first time.”

“What do you think?”

“I am impressed. It is bigger than I thought, there is more options than I had imagined.”

“My Dad opened the studio 20 years ago, right at the start of the 60’s. He built it up slowly, it was one backdrop, an old sofa and a couple of lights when he got going. When I left school I joined him in running the shop and we were able to expand the studio. The secret is to use it as much as possible, don’t let it sit around empty and unused. So I rent it out to photographers throughout the area. I get a fair bit of trade in the shop in return. If they are a customer of the shop then they get 20% of the hire price. It works out well. It is a bit of a labour of love.”

Tony had been speaking proudly of the studio while they looked round.

“So where have you been for the last what? Six weeks?”

Andrew filled Tony in on his sojourn as a farmer. The mocking was mild as Tony was someone who recognised hard work, and he was interested in some of the jobs Andrew had been assigned. Andrew was only there for an hour but it was good to chat to Tony, to keep in touch.

On Sunday over dinner Andrew was telling Leslie and her parents about the first week of school with girls. He told Brian and Mary that it was due to Faith and Leslie that he had been able to talk to some girls that week. Leslie smiled over at him as Andrew tried to keep Faith’s memory positive with them. Brian recommended that Andrew get a savings account at a bank or a building society and put the remaining £1,700 in there. Brian had talked to him about investing but that was pretty complicated even for adults in 1979 in the UK, or so Brian said. Andrew would need his parents to complete a lot of paperwork to be able to buy shares. Until Andrew had saved enough money to make this worthwhile he was better to leave it earning interest in the bank.

Andrew’s life went through phases, often lasting several weeks or a month, where there was a sameness or routine to it. September 1979 stood out as one of those periods. Andrew was not sure he could tell what happened in one week versus another because they were so similar. Exercise and swimming, school, study hard, work on some balance, try to be a better friend and classmate, CCF, study some more, work on his computer projects in the evenings and weekends, visit Tony, volunteer on Sundays, catch up with Leslie on Sunday evening. There is three weeks of his life in less than three lines. It was true though. At his core Andrew was a nerd who liked school and studying, including now computers. Everything else was an adjunct to that. Now history will record that something of note must have happened in September 1979 but not to him, yet!

The autumn of Andrew’s 3^rd year made up for the calm start to the new school year. In the space of one month he started tutoring, met someone also interested in computers, decided not to join the swim team, became an object of scrutiny to the girls in his year and discovered something about one of his friends.

Andrew had decided that he was not going to join the swim team. He explained to Mr. Kearns that due to the CCF on a Friday and his volunteering every Sunday afternoon it was not possible. Swim meets happened on the weekend with some Fridays afternoons. Andrew’s current activities meant he would not be able to commit to regular attendance. He did however, start to adopt swim team training methods in the morning. Kearns was still prepared to swim with him in the morning and they were joined by a couple of team members, although most swam at private pools rather than the school. If they were ever short Andrew would help out where he could but he wasn’t putting this ahead of established activities.

So that was easy. Then one day in early October a scruffy fifth year came up to Andrew in the library at lunchtime He introduced himself as Julian Strong.

“You McLeod? The one that put up the flyer.”

He waved vaguely at the noticeboard.

“Yeah, that’s me, you into computers?”

“Totally. Have been for about 18 months now. What about you?”

The older pupil had become more animated as he sat down.

“Less than that. Just this year. I have done quite a bit of coding, installed some hardware and used some applications. A little bit of everything. I code in the evenings and weekends. I am working on some of the example programs they have each month in Practical Computing. I do not really want start a club with meetings and rules or stuff like that. I am just looking to meet a couple of like-minded guys. Teaching ourselves, lots of trial and error, get some hints and tips, share some of the same. Nothing fancy, that sound okay?”

Andrew had rattled everything off in a staccato fashion. He might as well see if this guy was serious.

“Wow. Similar ideas to me, especially about meetings and rules. I have not used any applications, I have not had any need. I have a TRS-80 that I code on. I am looking to add some hardware to it but it is as I got it a year ago. Do you have a computer?”

“Yes. Apple II with a RAM upgrade and twin disk drives.”

“Wow. When did you get that?”

“I got it at the end of the summer from a friend’s dad. He had upgraded to II Plus and he gave me the old one. It was a thank you for working for him over the summer. I did a ton of work with VisiCalc which is where I got my application experience.”

Andrew brought the conversation back on track.

“I am trying to figure out what to do with computing. There are no courses, no examinations, nothing. If I am going to learn to code what is it for? I am only just started third year so I have plenty of time. I want to learn as much as possible and see what happens.”

“Yeah, I’m interested. So you know my name and here is home address and phone number. I live over in Murrayfield, near the stadium. What about you?”

Andrew gave him his information as well.

“How about I come over to yours on Saturday this week. I will see how long it takes me to pack up and set up my computer. Following week you can come to mine. Just go through what we have so far and think about what to tackle next. If that works and your folks are cool with me being there all day then swing by here tomorrow and confirm. I will be over at 10.00 if we are a go. Okay?”

“Deal. I’ll confirm tonight but there should be no issue. They will be amazed I am having someone over. For the last year it has been me working away alone at my computer.”

“I know that life. See you tomorrow.”

Andrew was excited. Julian had been programming for a year longer than him. Andrew should learn a ton from him. Andrew hoped he could show some skills as well and Julian didn’t feel like he was getting the better deal. They would see on Saturday.

Andrew’s third adventure led to the fourth and started friendships with several of his class and year mates. He and Kate Maxwell were lab partners in Chemistry. This was fine, everyone had a lab partner and Kate took it seriously and was organised. They got the work done without drama. The issue arose when one of the guys on the opposite side of the bench made some comment like ‘at least you are showing up to do the labs this year’. Not a big deal but none of the girls knew Andrew had been sick. By this time that felt like old Andrew and he didn’t want it to be the defining thing about him so Andrew had consciously avoided bringing it up. Kate on the other hand….

“Andrew, what did he mean ‘at least you showed up’?”

She asked him at the end of the class. How to respond? Don’t lie but don’t encourage any other questions.

“I missed a few labs as I was off sick for a bit. I was allowed to make them up at the end of term. Kenny is just bitter that I beat him at Chemistry last year.”

Andrew packed his bag and headed for the door. Kate hurried to catch him up. One of the things that undid him was that the girls had stopped walking as a group everywhere. Now they just walked with the rest of them between classes. So Kate tagged along with him and Pete. Andrew had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to leave this alone.

“Why were you off Andrew?”

One nil to Andrew.

“I prefer not to go into it Kate. I am better now so it doesn’t really matter.”

This was all going so well right up until Pete opened his big yap.

“Everyone knows Andrew, well except the girls since they weren’t here. You should let them know.”

So near and yet so far. Kate was looking between them clearly expecting him to say something.

“Can we just drop it please? I don’t want to talk about it.”

One last try at moving on. And they were saved by their arrival at Caldwell’s English class. As Andrew sat at his desk at the back of class he talked to Pete and told him to can it.

“Christ Pete, give it a rest. I had cancer, I was off, I am better, and I am back. I really hate talking about it. Can you please let it go? I don’t want to have to relive those times. It was a long time ago.”

Pete could see he was serious and promised to shut up. The flaw in this cunning plan was that Hannah was sitting on Pete’s other side and had got the gist of the conversation. He gave the girls half a clue and they were off. A couple of days later and Andrew started to get an odd feeling. People were looking at him. More specifically, it felt like all the girls in his year were looking at him. The five in his class as well as the five in 3C. Andrew didn’t know how many times he checked his fly. One morning Kate came up to him on the walk between Maths and Geography, again between two separate buildings.

“Why don’t you want to tell us you had cancer?”

Nice touch. Personalise the affront as well as get all the scoop.

“I don’t like talking about it. It is nobody’s business except mine.”

His retort was blunt.

“Okay, okay. It’s just you have been nice to the girls since we started and we were talking.”

The girls have been talking about him. Oh. Oh.

“And wondering about your hair, and then we find out that you had cancer. Andrew, are you still sick, is that why your hair is so short?”

If Kate hadn’t sounded so worried Andrew would have laughed out loud. Talk about adding two plus two and getting seven.

“Jeesh Kate. Let it be. I had cancer. I am better now. When my hair grew back after the chemo it was patchy so I cut it short. Now I am used to it so I just keep it short.”

Andrew hurried off, shaking his head. He didn’t need the gossip. He avoided the girls in the class until the following week in Chemistry when he was beside Kate as usual. She sat down next to him.

“Don’t be mad at us Andrew. I am sorry, we are sorry. You are a nice guy who has treated us normally and made us feel welcome. We don’t want you to be mad at us. I should have left it alone.”

Here she paused before carrying on.

“We also know about the fight and you leaving the orchestra.”

Andrew looked at her in disbelief.

“How on earth did you find out about that?”

“We asked about you to some of the guys in the class and they told us.”

So teenage boys gossip as badly as teenage girls. He laughed mirthlessly.

“A year ago I was an anonymous nerd, just like Dougie Newsome. Completely invisible. I hated that life but right now it seems pretty good. Oh well I’ll have some stories to tell this weekend.”

This last was more of a mumble to himself.

“Okay Kate. I can accept your apology or be mad at my lab partner all year. I choose the apology. But let the cancer go, it is a part of my life I am trying to put behind me, okay?”

She nodded and so they moved on. What Andrew hadn’t realised during all this drama about his health was that the other group of girls in 3C were not having a particularly nice time. The five girls in his class were all clever and fitted in academically without a problem. The other five girls were grouped in 3C but were much wider apart in ability. A couple were already struggling, so there were some issues in class. On top of that two of the girls were busty. No point in any euphemisms, they had big tits. So there was a lot of staring and fair amount of commenting.

Other than assembly and walks between classes, Andrew never saw 3C so he had no idea any of this was happening. But the girls in his class did. With only ten girls in the whole year they talked to each other. There were definitely two groups but they did talk. Andrew found out all the pieces of the story over the following weeks.

The ten of them had been hanging out one lunchtime and one of the girls in 3C was complaining about life in her class. Suzanne Jenner was one of the girls struggling with her studies and also with the comments and stares about her body. She was railing against the boys in her class and her year.

It was another differentiator between the two groups of girls. The five in the ‘A’ class were dealing with boys who were, for the most part, nerdy and shy. So the first month had been about the class starting to talk to each other, as opposed to existing in two separate bubbles. This had what made Andrew stand out, he had been pleasant and moderately chatty, probably the chattiest boy in the class. But what Andrew had not realised was that not all the guys in the year were shy around girls. The girls in the ‘C’ class had been chatted to by a lot of the rest of the year, especially their own class. And the chat had been as sensitive and appropriate as only 14 year old boys could manage. This led on to a conversation about how everyone else was doing with boys and were they all awful? Kate had mentioned Andrew as someone who treated her normally. Alessandra, Hannah and June all said the same thing and so his reputation started. One of the girls in 3C had no idea who he was so June said he was the guy with the cropped hair. It was at this point that the bad maths started. Kate suddenly piped up that Andrew had been off ill the previous year but he wouldn’t say what with. Hannah, having overheard him and Pete, breathlessly announced that he had been off fighting cancer. The snowball was gathering momentum as it crashed down the slope and the avalanche burst. Was he still fighting cancer? Was that why Andrew had no hair.

Thus Kate’s conversation with him. But the girls in 3C wanted to get into the action as well. It was them that had found out about the fight, the suspension and dropping orchestra. There was no subterfuge, they just asked a couple of guys in their class and they told them. No big deal right. That is the (very) abridged version of how all this came about. Andrew only found out these details weeks later in lots of separate conversations.

Now this was all background to the fact that Suzanne became his first tutoring pupil. Andrew was working in the library after school one day when she nervously came in. She spotted him and came over. He was reading and didn’t notice her at first. Suddenly he was aware of her and looked up with a start.

“I’m sorry I was too focused on the book. Can I help you?”

“Are you Andrew McLeod?”

She looked very nervous.

“Yes. I recognise you as one of the girls in my year but we have never been introduced.”

Andrew stuck out his hand, inwardly smiling that his mother would be very proud.

“Hi, I am Suzanne Jenner and you’re right. I am in 3C.” they shook hands “I came to see if you were still offering tutoring.”

A customer. Big smile.

“Well not so much still offering as haven’t started yet. You will be the first.”

Andrew smiled and tried to get her to relax.

“What subject would you like me to help you with?”

“All of them”

She blurted out. And then looked embarrassed.

“Okay. All of them. Let’s try and narrow it down slightly. First of all relax, I am just as new at this as you are. We are going to learn how to do this together.”

He stopped and tried to figure out what the first stage should be.

“Why do you think you need help in all your subjects? You passed the admission test to get in here. Is it just the new school that’s doing this?”

Tears started to well in her eyes. Bloody hell. Really, in less than two minutes!

Suzanne was unhappy. She had been pleased to start at Heriot’s but had ‘bloomed’ over the summer and was now the object of a lot of attention, most of it unwelcome. She had fallen behind at the schoolwork; her confidence had taken a hit and was now struggling to play catch up.

“Alright. How about we phrase it this way. You are behind in all your subjects rather than struggling. What I need from you is a commitment to hard work. You can’t magic your way out of this.

“Do you have some time today?” Suzanne nodded. “Good, then get your notes out and let’s spend your first hour getting everything sorted out. We will assess where you are and where you need to catch up to.”

Suzanne visibly relaxed and they spent the whole of the next hour going through the past four weeks of her classes and where she was with each subject.

“Suzanne, I am going to help you. But I am not going to do your homework and I can’t do your exams. You need to work harder. Not crazy hard but every day you need to do two hours. What I propose is tutoring here in the library after school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.”

They had Sports after school on the Wednesday.

“I will work with you and actively tutor you for the first hour. The second hour you will work on your homework here. It is good to have a study buddy and if I am here you won’t goof off or get distracted by the TV. Two hours a day on those three days and a commitment from you to an additional two hours on Sunday. Do that and you will be fine for the end of term exams. Once you are caught up you probably won’t need tutoring but it is a good to get into the habit of studying.”

He thought about her other issue and decided to try and help.

“I am going to tell you a story. I have been a solitary kid all my life. Happier with books than people. So recently I was in a group setting and was getting ribbed by a couple of guys. Nothing mean but I realised that I didn’t know how to banter with people. Bust their chops, give them shit. You know typical guy stuff. But I had no exposure or experience. So I asked a friend. She is the youngest child in her family and had four older brothers. So she is giving me help in being ‘one of the lads’. What to say, what not to say.”

Suzanne was laughing with him as Andrew told his tale. He looked her squarely in the eye.

“What I am saying is that you need to find a friend. What I have seen is that the girls are looking out for each other as you all settle in, especially being outnumbered 10 to 1. Find a girl in fifth or sixth year who is similarly developed.”

Here they both blushed.

“Ask if she can spare you some time and ask her how she dealt with it. Coping mechanisms, put downs, responses. I don’t even begin to know what to say to you to fix this so go find someone who can.”

Andrew took a deep breath, he had managed to say that without too much embarrassment.

“It is 4.00. If you want to head off and figure some stuff out in your head that is fine. I will be here for another hour if you want to sit and start your homework.”

He was pleased to see that after thinking for a second Suzanne remained at the adjacent table and got out her work. He told her to ask him any questions she had and they would get through this. And so Andrew had his first tutoring pupil.

The last new excitement in September was with his friend Nikki. They had been working together for more than six months now. He would occasionally see her in the library but his days of almost daily visits the previous winter were over. It was now just once a week. Andrew enjoyed his time with her, they were a team at the warehouse and worked well together. She was also continuing to give him tips about dealing with boys in group situations. One of them was watch and learn. There would always be one or two guys who were quick with the comeback, master of the putdown. The guys that everyone knew not to mess with because they would verbally squish you and make you look like a fool. Nikki told Andrew to watch them, listen, and see how they responded. So she was helping him mature and be more comfortable in dealing with groups of guys.

Andrew normally arrived right before 1.00, it was the timing of the buses and he got there when he could. Nikki was always there before him and would be standing talking to a couple of people. Over the previous three or four weeks she had been talking to one particular woman, her age maybe slightly older, a new volunteer. Whenever Nikki saw Andrew she would finish up her conversation and they would start working. He thought nothing of it. He knew some people by name, more by sight, although hadn’t yet met this new volunteer. There was a lot of turnover of volunteers in the first month. She may not be there the next week.

Given everything that was going on at school Andrew was distracted anyway and as usual, thinking about himself. The following Wednesday after Sports he stopped by the City Library. He wanted to sit and see if there were any new computing magazines. Andrew was thinking about coding and the possibilities of learning new stuff, the usual him, just geeking out. He wandered past the main desk on the way to the periodicals section. It was a bit of a rush as there was less than an hour as the library closed at six. Nikki was running the main desk and he waved although she didn’t see him, she was dealing with a borrower. Then Andrew realised that the borrower was the lady from the Food Bank. Small world but whatever, right? When Nikki saw him however the look on her face was awful. She looked guilty and scared. Caught with her hand in the till guilty. Andrew turned and walked over.

“Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost?”

The lady from the Food Bank had turned and left and so it was just the two of them. Nikki still hadn’t said anything.

“Nikki, are you okay? Do you need some assistance?”

“I am fine, I am fine.”

Not very convincing but all he was getting.

“Do you want me to wait here with you for a few minutes? I was just going down to the magazine section.”

Andrew waved his arm over in the direction of the stairs behind him.

“You go, I’ll be fine. Hurry up now, you don’t have much time.”

She had gone from barely responding to shooing him away. Andrew thought about Nikki as long as it took to get to the magazines. Computing World stole his attention and before he knew it the library was closing. Nikki was not at the desk on the way out and so their strange meeting slipped from his mind.

So Andrew blithely walked into the warehouse the following Sunday. All was well with the world and he and Julian had started to map out some interesting things to code. When he started work Nikki seemed tense and quiet. Small chit chat still eluded him so they worked together in silence. Not companionable silence, strained silence. When they stopped to grab some water she wouldn’t look at him. Being a teenage boy and the centre of his own universe Andrew immediately assumed he had done something wrong. No idea what but he had screwed up somehow. It had to be about him, didn’t it?

“Em, Nikki you seem mad at me today. I don’t know what I have done wrong.”

Andrew spoke to her gently. Nikki spun round looking surprised, and worryingly for him, slightly angry.

“I am not mad at you Andrew. I am mad at myself. Have you told anybody?”

This last was said with a much more plaintive tone. Told anybody? What?

“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. Who would I tell about what?”

Andrew didn’t have to try to sound confused. He was.

“About me and Francesca.”

She hissed back at him. He was still confused but she seemed upset and this had gone on too long.

“Nikki, let’s take a step back. I have no clue what you are talking about. I don’t know who Francesca is and I still don’t know who I am supposed to have talked to.”

“Oh, when I saw you on Wednesday I thought that you…” she trailed off.

The girl at the library, the same one that Nikki talked to here, apparently named Francesca and Nikki was scared he was going to talk to someone. Andrew suddenly froze. Wow. His friend Nikki. Wow. He looked at her and she was looking scared again, with unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

“Nikki, this is not the time to try and sort this all out. We will talk at the end of our shift before I catch the bus home.”

Andrew gently took her hand for a second.

“Just so you know, all I want to do is give you a big hug, not talk to anyone.”

And with that he walked back to work. The tension eased ever so slightly but they were not their usual chatty selves. Andrew walked with Nikki to her car after the shift and sat with her. She wouldn’t look at him.

“I don’t even know where to begin with this Nikki. I think you need this.”

So he did as he said he would and held her in a hug. Now she was stiff as a board when he first held her but gradually she relaxed. Andrew let her go but tentatively held her hand.

“I am not saying this in an accusatory manner but you brought this on yourself Nikki. Your reactions to me on Wednesday and today confirmed suspicions I didn’t have.”

She looked up at him at this.

“Not a clue. Now I am a 14 year old boy, generally clueless about everything especially to do with women, but it never crossed my mind.

“Do other people have suspicions which is why you are so skittish?” she nodded. “Family or work?”

“Both.”

“You have had a tough couple of days. Do you want to talk about it now, later or never? Your choice Nikki. I have no perspective to offer other than this. You are my friend. You helped me as part of your job, you helped me get this volunteering opportunity and I enjoy spending time with you. You are the reason that the time flies by when I am here. It is fun to listen to you have your little rants about your family, although I can see some of the underlying tension now. And you have been helping me mature and deal with life. So I don’t care. I am not judgemental about stuff like that. Know you have a friend if you want to talk and that you have a friend even if you don’t want to talk.”

She was still silent so Andrew guessed she wanted to go with options B or C so went to grab the door handle and leave. She stopped him with a touch on his arm.

“Thank you. You might be my only male friend. I will talk to you and soon but I am wrung out now and just need to get home.”

“I understand completely. See next week.”

Andrew thought about Nikki and what she must be going through on the bus on the way home. The pressure on her must have been pretty severe for her to overreact so badly to a coincidental meeting. He vowed to try and be a good friend to her. The way she was acting she needed one.

 

Chapter 2

So late September and October brought a bunch of changes to Andrew’s ordered life and for the most part it was great. He was still exercising every morning before getting to school to swim. Kearns seemed a creature of routine the same as Andrew was and enjoyed the exercise in the morning before class. They warmed up and then Andrew would start some interval training. Kearns would stop, watch him for a bit, give him a couple of pointers and then go back to swimming himself. Some mornings there would be other swim team members there and Kearns would spend more time coaching than swimming.

Even just a few weeks later Andrew didn’t have a lot of recollection of schoolwork during this time. He was bored at school, enjoyed the subjects but unless he pushed himself he was bored. It sounded conceited, and there is truth to that contention, but it didn’t make it untrue. There were days where Andrew wondered if he should be in 4^th year or doing some of his exams early. It was never raised by the school or by his parents so it came to nothing. He became a fixture in the library, was there every lunchtime except Thursday, when he went over to the University Music School for his double bass lesson. Andrew’s bass teacher worked there and had found a study room they could use. That is when being right in the centre of the city was a huge benefit. It was a five minute walk from the school over to the University so Andrew was able to keep playing his bass even though he had ditched the school orchestra. Study after school centred on helping Suzanne now. They studied on the three afternoons as agreed skipping the Wednesday because of after school Sports. The school had started hockey teams with the arrival of the girls at the school. All strictly segregated. Guys played rugby or did cross country running, girls did field hockey and something else. Andrew didn’t ask what the non-hockey alternative for the girls was, there may not even have been one. However, there was no crossover. The sports were kept segregated. Suzanne played hockey while Andrew did cross country. Andrew had played rugby for the last two years of primary school. By his own admission he was crap, small, afraid of getting hit and not particularly happy about getting dirty. So not ideal rugby player material. Those with no interest in continuing rugby did cross country running instead. It was running, there was no cross country aspect to it at all. Maybe once upon a time. It wasn’t much of a stretch for Andrew, given that he ran for 30 minutes every morning.

Tutoring Suzanne was very good for him as initially Andrew was not a good tutor. School came too easy for him and so to take his time and break a subject down and, mostly importantly, not be an arrogant arse challenged him in a way he was not expecting. What helped was that Suzanne stayed and studied as well. They got into a routine where Andrew was more of an on-call tutor helping out at specific points as Suzanne did her study review, rather than an hour of tutoring followed by an hour of her studying on her own. The two of them learned to be tutor and pupil at the same time.

Andrew had understood peer pressure through his own athletic experiences. He never had any peer pressure at academics. As usual, it didn’t occur to him that students felt peer pressure on academics. He never felt it so he never thought about it. What Andrew worried about was sports, his lack of talent, not being cool, wanting to fit in. What Suzanne showed him was wanting to fit in was precisely what peer pressure was, but it could happen in the classroom as well. So many people were opening his eyes to new ways of looking at things. He had even read Mockingbird the previous year but the point Atticus made to Scout never hit him. It was embarrassing.

Andrew mentioned this to Suzanne one day when she was thanking him for his help. She had done well in a test in class and was feeling better about herself. Andrew told her that she was helping him as well. She was surprised and he explained how he was a better tutor because of some of the trial and error that they had gone through at the beginning.

“Andrew, Paula did not do as well as I did on the test yesterday. She has been resisting coming here with me despite me telling her it has been good for me. I think she realises now that she needs help. Will you help her too?”

“Of course I will help her. All I ask is that she have the same commitment to study as you and I do. After school for two hours for the three days that we are free and two plus hours on a Sunday. It is the study habit that is helping you the most now. Eight to ten hours a week of study and homework and you can keep up and do well in class. Now that I think about it you shouldn’t be paying me £20 a week. I don’t think you are getting full value anymore.”

“Pah, the money is nothing Andrew. My parents are now paying. I had talked to Mum about our initial conversation and how you had agreed to help me. To say that she was suspicious about you was to put it mildly. She thought you were too good to be true. But then she saw how I started to became more like my old self. She was still unsure about you but at least she wasn’t as negative to my face.”

Suzanne paused here and looked over at him and carried on in a quieter voice.

“I also did as you suggested and approached a girl in sixth year. She was so nice and kind. She really helped me. Girls can be so catty and awful to each other but she searched me out in the playground at break and talked to me, making sure to squelch a couple of the guys in my class who were bugging me. I still get stared at a lot but the comments have dried up. But Mum still kept bugging me about you. Eventually I had enough of her questioning you and your motives and told her the whole conversation. She went from suspicious of you to embarrassed that a boy had helped her daughter rather than she herself. When I got the test back yesterday and showed them they were both delighted. Dad asked me how much I was paying you and when I told him he gave me £100 right there to cover all the money I had spent already. He said that my allowance was going up by the £20 to cover the cost. So please take the money. It has worked out great for me.”

Her genuine enthusiasm made Andrew smile and he nodded. Her demeanour turned pensive and she suddenly looked shy. Her voice was quiet and hesitant.

“Can I ask you a personal question Andrew?”

He looked at her suddenly suspicious.

“Okay. But I might choose not to answer so don’t be upset if I that happens, okay?”

Andrew could see where this was heading. She nodded her agreement.

“When Mum said you were too good to be true I brushed it off at the time. It stuck in my mind however and over the last few weeks I have thought about it more and more. My question is why are you the way you are? Was it because of what happened last year?”

She looked over at him with a worried expression on her face. He had to smile.

“Bloody hell, I didn’t realise I had been so mean to Kate. I’m not going to bite your head off. Relax.”

Andrew could see her shoulders sag slightly as some of the tension left her body.

“Am I talking to you or am I talking to all ten of you? I don’t like being gossiped about. That was part of what bugged me last month. The other part is that I really don’t like being defined by my cancer. I think of that as old Andrew. I am a different person today than the person who had cancer.”

He waited for her response.

“It was me asking for myself and I won’t tell anyone. It just you are very different from most of the other boys in our year, at least the ones I have to deal with. I was curious as to why.”

At least this was honest.

“Suzanne, I will tell you some of the story. Most of the story is private and painful. There are some parts of it that I never talk about to anyone. Not my parents, no one. The other thing is I have trust issues. If you gossip about this and break my trust then I will stop tutoring you. Friends don’t do that. At least my friends don’t. Okay?”

Andrew stared at her waiting for her confirmation. She nodded.

“I understand. This remains between the two of us.”

So he gave her the abbreviated version with no mention of Faith or Leslie. How as a result of getting a clean bill of health he wanted to change. Andrew talked about how he had a plan with goals and realised that nothing was guaranteed in life. Make the most of it. This is where the changes had started. He talked about Nikki and helping him at the library. He mentioned the guard Neil at the Commonwealth Pool helping him get back into swimming. Harry and Mac helping him to work over the summer. The only goals of his six he shared were the personal balance/relationship one and the karmic balance one. Suzanne fell into both those goals. He ended it on a sombre note.

“In some ways I am different than other guys in the year. I am driven and focused. It is this focus that is the difference. I don’t want this to end on a downer but here is the truth and the reason I am the way I am. You were very astute when you asked if having cancer made me the way I am. I watched kids die Suzanne.”

Andrew could feel his eyes beginning to water and blinked for a second to compose himself. He was surprised he had got so emotional.

“Lying there in the Sick Kids undergoing my treatment I saw children younger than me not response and fade away and die. I got a reprieve. It was not my time. So I decided to grab life by the throat and go full throttle. Having people like you in my life stops me from becoming completely driven by academics. I need balance and my friends provide that.”

He stopped and looked at her.

“I can see why you are the way you are.”

She smiled tentatively at him.

“You have gone through a lot. I am glad you shared this with me Andrew. It makes you easier to understand. Although I am surprised at one thing.”

She stopped and looked at him with a gleam in her eye.

“It is very presumptuous of you to consider yourself my friend!”

He really need to work on picking up signals. Old Andrew dashed to the fore, he blushed, he stammered and couldn’t even get the words out to apologise to her.

“It is good to see you are human you big doofus. I am teasing. I am pleased to be your friend. Jeesh.”

Her smile was wide and her whole face lit up.

“Bloody hell you got me good. As you can see dealing with teasing girls is very much still a work in progress. Come on let’s get out of here. I’ll never concentrate now after all this. I want to swing by the City Library. I have no idea where you live. Is that on the way to your bus?”

He started to pack up his unread books.

“Andrew McLeod, skipping studying? Oh my. Sure, I go that way. I either get a bus or walk down to Princes Street and catch a bus out to Corstorphine.”

They walked round until they got to the City Library.

“What do you need to do here Andrew?”

“I have a computer at home and I come in once a week to get another book or two and check out the latest magazines. If one of them is full of good stuff then I can buy it myself. It is what I do most evenings.”

He really couldn’t have sounded any nerdier.

“Okay, I will see you on Monday. Thank you for trusting me Andrew. I won’t let you down.”

So tutoring was going well and he was about to get a second pupil. Later, sitting on the bus on his way home, Andrew thought about what he had explained to Suzanne. He mulled it over in his mind and thought his drive, his focus. The summer had embedded that drive firmly within him. For the first five months after he got the all clear he followed the plan that the three of them had mapped out. But the relentless pace of the summer, rather than overwhelm that drive, had locked it in place. He sat there, staring out the window, looking but not seeing, and realised that he was thriving on the pace of his life. For the first time in months he specifically thought about Faith’s request, to live two lives. Living two lives meant charging hard all the time. As he got off the bus and walked the last block to his house Andrew realised he was getting used to it. He smiled a sad smile as he thought about Faith before squaring his shoulders. He had made a promise to a dying young woman, his friend of only a few weeks but he was going to keep it.

He and Julian had hit it off in a talking about nothing but computers sort of way. They had got into a rhythm of alternating between each other’s houses on a Saturday. They would play around with bits of code and try things set out in some of the magazines. They both had created some of the simple games that were always included in the early computing magazines and had talked about trying to create a more complicated game themselves but it was nothing but talk at present. A couple of geeky boys playing with their computers.

The first time Andrew had arrived at Julian’s house with two large boxes of computer stuff his parents had been funny. Andrew had never met parents who teased their son and his friends. He got to the front door and Julian grabbed one of the boxes while Andrew grabbed the other and they headed to his room. They met his father on the stairs.

“Oh lord, more computer stuff. Come on. You need to get out. Let’s go to the golf club.”

Not hello or an introduction or anything. This was the first thing Andrew ever heard from him.

“Give it a rest Dad. At least wait one day for him to get used to you.”

Turning back to Andrew.

“Ignore him, early dementia I think.”

And with a laugh led him on up the stairs to his room. Mr. Strong had also just laughed and carried on downstairs.

“That was Dad. Harmless but never gives it a rest. You will learn to ignore him. Mum and I do all the time.”

Julian was relaxed about his odd father. The Strongs were great fun. Andrew could see that Julian had a nice family. They were both much older than his own parents and it turned out that Julian was a bit of a miracle baby. They didn’t think they could have children, never stopped practicing, never started protecting and lo, Julian.

His obsession with computers worried them but at least there was now someone who shared his obsession. Mr. Strong was funny in an odd way. He gave Julian a hard time about his computing at every opportunity. The third time Andrew was over at their house they were sitting down having a bite to eat when Mr. Strong started on Julian, but really both of them, again.

“It is a beautiful day. You should be outside while the weather is still good. We should go to the golf club.”

This was his favourite made up destination for them. They both needed to be at the golf course.

“I never understand why you are cooped in your bedroom. Seems such a waste.”

It was time to defend them. Mr. Strong didn’t mean any harm but it got wearing after a while to listen to him moan all the time, even if it was in pretend funny tones.

“Why do you think it is such a waste Mr. Strong? We are not causing any trouble.”

Julian looked at Andrew and both of his parents eyed him.

“We are not just playing games either. We are learning how to create games. We have talked about trying to make our own computer games. This is all very new Mr. Strong. The reason we meet every week is because there are no courses, no exams. We are teaching ourselves.”

Mrs. Strong appeared to be trying to contain a smile and Julian was looking at his father with interest waiting for his reply.

“When you put it like that you do make a good point Andrew. What I wonder though is where is it all going to go. The fact that there are no exams worries me when Julian only has a year and a half of school left. What can he do with this self-taught computer stuff?”

Mr. Strong waved his arms to encompass all the computer ‘stuff’.

“I am not being disrespectful sir, but there is a huge amount that he can do. We have learned how to add hardware to our computers. We know how to program and code. Our skills are growing rapidly. Software, meaning computer code is not just for games and time wasting. There is a spreadsheet program called VisiCalc that is selling tens of thousands of copies every month. Someone created that. Someone sat and wrote the code and fixed all the bugs and made a business out of it. Businesses are using it in every larger quantities.”

Andrew shrugged. Maybe Mr. Strong would never understand.

“I have heard of VisiCalc. Is it as good as people say? Have you seen it?”

Ah, Andrew had his opening.

“I worked all summer using VisiCalc. I worked for the father of my best friend. He had me creating reports and uploading a bunch of data. He was using the information from his accounting system to produce new reports. He went out and bought a brand new top of the range computer just to use VisiCalc. He was hugely pleased with the results.”

Andrew’s advocating for VisiCalc changed the whole tenor of the conversation. Now Mr. Strong looked very interested and his tone was less flippant.

“You spent all summer using VisiCalc.”

Andrew nodded.

“Can you explain what you were doing? I know that my firm has been debating whether to go ahead and buy this. The program is not very expensive but the computers to run it are and we have been going back and forth as to whether it is worth the cost.”

“I was doing a lot of work for the company that my friend’s dad runs. I don’t think it is my place to talk about his business without getting his approval.”

He could see Mr. Strong nodding approvingly at this.

“I will be there tomorrow for dinner. I will talk to him. If you are okay with it I will give him your number and ask him to give you a call. Then you can have a proper business conversation without running everything through me and he can decide which parts he is okay sharing and which he wants to keep private. Would that be okay?”

Mr. Strong smiled broadly.

“That is a very appropriate way of dealing with this. I would be pleased if you gave him my name and number. Can I ask his name in case he does go ahead and call me?”

“His name is Brian Campbell. I will let him tell you about his business himself. I am sure he will give you a short call at least even if he doesn’t get into a whole lot of the detail.”

When Andrew said Mr. Campbell’s name Mr. Strong looked at him oddly but didn’t say anything. Lunch was over and he and Julian escaped back up to his room.

“Sorry about that with your dad but sometimes he just needs to give it a rest. This is the future. He seemed to calm down once he could put it in a business context.”

“It was great the way you stuck up for us. I have got to the stage where I totally tune him out on all this stuff. I have given up trying to convince them. Once you brought up using VisiCalc then he changed his tune. Maybe he’ll lay of the golf shit for a while.”

And with that they went right back into discussing programming.

“Do you think we can create something anyone will want to play?” Julian asked.

They looked at each other thinking about it.

“I don’t see why not. We have recreated some of the games featured in Computer Gaming based on the code they have provided. So we know some of the routines that you use to create the game. I think we need to decide what we want our game to do. If we can agree on a concept for the game then we can try and program it. Even if it doesn’t work it will be cool experience.”

The rest of the day they didn’t actually use our computers that much. Instead it was paper and brain storming about games they liked and why. What could they do that was different? Could they actually make something that worked? All sorts of questions. The time flew by.

Andrew didn’t do any computing on a Sunday, and only limited studying. He exercised in the morning but it was much later than usual. He used Sundays as his lie-in day. It was also the time that he got to see Nikki while he was at the Food Bank warehouse. Things had gradually gone back to normal with them. Andrew would still see her talking to Francesca when he arrived but he never got a chance to speak to her. Nikki would come over and they would get started on the sorting. Several weeks after Nikki’s meltdown afternoon she asked if they could talk after the shift. Andrew had an hour before he would be late for dinner at the Campbells so he said sure. He jumped into her car when they finished up and she drove down to the shore where there was a wee café still open. Once they had their coffee and tea in front of them she started.

“Thank you for being so nice to me. I am very jumpy at the moment and feeling very pressured. As you worked out, based on my own words and reactions, I am a lesbian. I am attracted to women, I always have been and I have never been attracted to men. As I have got older I have found it more difficult to manage. I am Greek Orthodox and have gone to church my whole life. My family is also all Orthodox. Homosexuality is a sin to the church. My parents and brothers are also all interfering busybodies and matchmakers. Work is less of an issue but there are a couple of people who have made veiled or intrusive comments either to me or about me to other people. I feel trapped. I also got paranoid that everyone knew and they were all judging me. That is what made me so twitchy when you saw Francesca at the library.”

She stopped and looked at him.

“You are very easy to talk to Andrew; do you know that?”

He did his usual eloquent shrug.

“Do you think your family will reject you if you tell them?”

Nikki nodded.

“Based on conversations around the dinner table I don’t think they will accept me.”

Well that sucked.

“I don’t think I can offer any worthwhile advice. You are stuck being true to yourself and being honest about who you are as a woman and alienating your family, church and some friends. The alternative is the opposite of that. Keep pretending, continue to deal with annoying family and feeling trapped while not being open with someone or people that you care about. You will feel your whole life is a lie.

“Shit. Talk about between a rock and a hard place.”

Andrew exhaled noisily as he thought all this through.

“This is your decision. Not anyone else’s. But know that you have some friends that will stick by you no matter what.”

He didn’t know what else to say. She had a pair of sucky choices awaiting her.

“Thank you for that Andrew. Unfortunately, I had come to the same conclusions and there is not an easy answer to this. You are a good friend. You are someone who is a good listener and offers sound advice. Can I ask you what you would do? I would like to hear what you think.”

Hmmm. Andrew wasn’t sure about that.

“I don’t think it is relevant Nikki. I would prefer not to. Your decision. No one else’s.”

She reluctantly accepted that and dropped him off in town so that he could catch the bus over to the Campbells. Andrew’s time with Leslie was always great. He was always ready to see her and because they only met once a week now there was always lots to talk about.

College was going well for her. Moray House was the teacher training college and was close to the centre of Edinburgh, maybe a 20 minute walk to Princes Street. She had found that she had missed close female company and although it was still early days she was starting to make some new friends. Andrew was pleased for her. He had been worried that she was too involved in his life to the detriment of her own. This was not true. They still had three or four hours together on a Sunday night but the rest of the time was their own. Not that Andrew didn’t think of her a lot but it was a calm reassuring presence. He arrived a few minutes later than usual after his chat with Nikki. Leslie had greeted him at the door with a big hug. They immediately got into a discussion about her course and how she was doing. This included a discussion about a date she had gone on the previous evening.

“We never decided how we were going to handle discussing dates and relationships and stuff. Does it bother you to listen to me talk about my dates?”

“It really doesn’t. I don’t think we need to share everything but talking about a date and how you feel and why and his good and bad sides. That all seems fine. Let’s try it and see how it goes? We can always dial it back later. I am very happy that heading back to college after the year that you had has turned out so well. I must admit I was a little worried about how you would get back into the swing of it. That you are dating is just a bonus.”

“Cool. I thought that would be your attitude but wanted to check. How about you? How are things with all the girls in your year? I am not even going to bother asking about your schoolwork!”

“I have an interesting story to tell you. So you know about the two plus two equals seven drama that they came up with regarding my cancer?” she nodded. “Well I have been tutoring one of them. I talked about her before, Suzanne Jenner. She did really well on a test on Wednesday so when I saw her she was really bubbly. She has convinced one of her classmates to join her in studying on Monday. Looks like I have my second customer. There was a second part to her story which I didn’t tell you about. She is the bustiest girl in the year. She is a nice person but she gets stared at a lot. So when she first came for tutoring part of her problem was that she was struggling with confidence because of dumb-arse boys. So I suggested to her that she approach a girl with similar development in one of the older years and get some help. How to cope, how to deal with annoying boys, put downs, all that kind of stuff. I remembered what you and Faith talked to me about that memorable afternoon when we talked sex and puberty and dealing with girls.”

Leslie smiled with pride as Andrew told her this part.

“Turns out that she did exactly as I suggested. Asked one of the girls in sixth year who turned out to be a total sweetie. Looks out for her in the playground. Has slapped down a couple of the louder jackasses. All of this leads up to the point where she feels brave enough to ask me about last year. Not specifics but couched as ‘why am I different?’ So I shared some stuff with her. How she was helping me with my goals, helping others, keeping balance. I kept the two of you totally out of it. It seemed too personal, too private. I told her there were going to be parts I wasn’t going to get into. I admitted that I had changed because of what I had gone through. I also said it was because I saw kids die, not get better like me. Kept it focused on the Sick Kids. I got surprisingly emotional, had tears in my eyes at some points. At the end of it we were closer and I have my first female friend in the year. I am quite pleased. To cap it off I have been helping my friend Nikki, you know the librarian who works at the Food Bank with me on a Sunday. It is not my story to tell but she is having a tough time with her family at present and just needed to chat for a bit which is why I was a few minutes late, I missed my usual bus.”

“You have been busy, haven’t you? Well done Andrew.”

He butted in.

“Oh sorry to interrupt but I also have someone that wants your dad to give them a call about VisiCalc.”

He proceeded to tell her about Julian’s dad and how he wanted Mr. Campbell to give him a call. Leslie was laughing at him by now.

“Hells teeth Andrew. Slow down a bit. At least wait until you are 15 to take on the world!”

Andrew started laughing with her.

“Oh Leslie, I am never going to get too big for my britches, am I?”

It was over dinner that things got a little surreal. It was Leslie who brought up Andrew’s computer buddy’s father wanting to talk to her dad about VisiCalc. Mr. Campbell looked at him curiously.

“What did you say to him Andrew?”

There was just a slight edge to his voice. So Andrew told Brian the whole story and the only thing Mr. Strong knew was his name and that he loved VisiCalc. Andrew had created reports but he had not told him what kind. It was all completely anonymous. Andrew had not even mentioned the company name. Brian had relaxed while he talked and was smiling by the end.

“I should have trusted that you would be discreet. I never actually asked you to keep this all to yourself but you did exactly what I would have done. Okay what is this guy’s name and number? I’ll give him a call this week.”

Andrew handed over the piece of paper with Mr. Strong’s name and phone number on it. Brian looked up sharply.

“You know Julian Strong?”

“Yes, through his son, also called Julian confusingly. Why?”

“What do you do with his son?”

He never answered Andrew’s question. Andrew looked perplexed but explained about meeting Julian through the computer club flyer and how they alternated between each other’s houses on a Saturday morning. Mr. Campbell was looking askance at him.

“Damn, Edinburgh is a small town at times. Why does this not surprise me?”

Hardly an enlightening answer and Andrew still sat there looking confused. He glanced over at Leslie but she just shrugged helplessly at him.

“Andrew, do you know what we did this summer? What I was having you work on?”

“I got the sense you were concerned about something at your firm sir. You were having me re-enter a bunch of invoices and then checking the reports I prepared against something in that folder you kept in your office. You also had me create reports which you also checked. Other than you being pretty stressed at the end, you never gave any indication what you were concerned about.”

Andrew stared back at Mr. Campbell.

“What does Leslie call it? ‘That big old brain’. Shit Andrew that is scarily accurate. I cannot talk about any of it but what I can tell you is that I engaged a law firm to help me with the next steps. Those next steps are based on a lot of the work that you helped me with. Julian Strong is the managing partner at that law firm. He is not on the file but he knows about the work we have hired them to assist us with.”

He was right. Edinburgh is a small town. That would explain the look that Julian senior gave Andrew when he mentioned Brian’s full name. Of course Brian went off to talk to Julian Strong senior right after dinner. At one point Andrew could hear him laughing which he took as a positive sign. He was tempted to escape before Brian was off the phone but was told to stop being a chicken by his good friend and as she had the car keys he stopped being a chicken and waited for Brian to come out. It was hardly worth waiting for as he was infuriatingly vague. All he said was that Mr. Strong would be buying computers and VisiCalc. Between the two of them they had convinced him. Leslie was happy, verging on giddy on the way home.

“You always keep me entertained Andrew. Talking of which do you want to go to a movie next Saturday night?”

“Are you sure? Won’t you have a date? It is Saturday night.”

“Nope, want to go out with you. It is always fun to spend time with you. Let’s do it.”

Andrew shrugged.

“Sure. I would love that. I’ll tell Julian that we need to wrap our computer stuff earlier. He is due over at my place next weekend.”

 

Chapter 3

Andrew’s exercise regime was still going strong. He was now at 140 sit ups and 70 push ups every morning. After that he went for a 30 minute run, gradually expanding how far he ran. It was the height of simplicity, he ran as far as he could for 15 minutes and then turned round and went back. Every couple of weeks he got his mum or dad to drive the car along the route and Andrew would get an estimate of how far he was running and work out an approximation of how fast. By mid-October he was running close to four miles in 30 minutes, so around 7.5 minute mile pace. He was pleased as it got his heart rate up in the morning. He changed tee shirt but stayed in his sweats for the bus to school, taking his uniform in a bag with him, finally showering after swimming. The mornings were pretty hectic, Andrew woke at 5.45 am to do the exercises then run. He had 10 minutes to grab some breakfast, soup and Weetabix, then hustle to get to the bus stop for the journey into town. When Andrew sat down in class after assembly he had been on the go for more than three hours.

He was still doing well at school although some of the classes were better than others. Chemistry after lunch was fine but the double English as the last class on a Monday was still a pain in the arse. He and Kate worked well together, she was always prepared and as it was a single period they had to be organised to have the experiment completed in the 40 minutes. They were walking over to English when out of the blue she started to question him.

“We never see you at rugby Andrew?”

It was more of a question than a statement.

“I don’t play Kate. I run cross country over at the Meadows.”

Where was this going? Andrew was getting ever more suspicious of Kate Maxwell.

“Why not Andrew? I mean look at you.”

Look at him? What the hell.

“You are straying back into areas I asked to leave alone Kate. I was unable to play last year. But that didn’t matter. I haven’t played rugby for three years, since primary school. I was wretched, not bad, not poor, wretched. I run every day anyway so Cross Country is easy.”

“This has nothing to do with last year Andrew. What I mean is now. Look at you.”

She was staring at him although Andrew had no idea what she was going on about.

“You keep saying look at me. What do you mean Kate? I am reasonably tall but skinny and I have no coordination when it comes to ball sports. None. I am crap. Footie, rugby, tennis, rounders, done them all, been crap at them all.”

Andrew was trying not to sound exasperated. Kate was laughing at him now.

“You are the least vain man in school Andrew. What did you call yourself? Old Andrew and new Andrew. Well your description was of old Andrew. New Andrew is not just tall and skinny, he is tall and strong. New Andrew is starting to become a hunk. I just thought you ought to know that.”

Mr. Caldwell told them where The Ark of the Covenant was hidden during that English class. Andrew never heard a damn word. Okay that was a slight exaggeration but not much. A hunk. Kate bloody Maxwell, self-image again. He never saw it coming. Andrew stopped and thought about it. was that really true? He knew he was getting fitter, and faster and able to swim longer distances. Well at least he would have plenty to talk to Leslie about at the weekend. If he survived that long. At the end of the class Andrew was packing up and Dougie Newsome said ‘see yah’ as he headed off. Andrew waved back, in just over a year he had gone from Dougie to being called a hunk. Confidence Andrew, confidence. He got settled down at his usual seat in the library when Suzanne came in with another one of the 3^rd year girls who Andrew recognised but didn’t know.

“Andrew, I am sure you recognise Paula Rae. Paula this is Andrew McLeod.”

They both eyed each other up rather warily.

“Hello Paula, Suzanne told me that you were interested in getting some tutoring. Suzanne do mind sitting over there for 20 minutes so I can chat to Paula.”

She looked a little miffed but settled down in a seat just out of easy hearing range. Paula looked even more nervous now.

“Apparently I come across as a monster! You can relax. I am not horrible.”

She blushed shyly but didn’t really change her tense expression.

“What would you like some help with? Is there one particular subject you are struggling with?”

Easy questions. Get her to open up a bit.

“I feel I am playing catch up on all my subjects. I thought I was doing okay at Maths but then Suzanne smoked me on the test last week. A month earlier I had beaten her easily. She seems more in control now since she started getting tutoring help. She said you are a good teacher and very patient. I think I need a patient teacher. So here I am.”

She sighed as she finished.

“Okay, here is what we will do and here are the rules. Rules first. I am not doing your homework. You do the work. You need to study at least 10 hours a week. Six here after school Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with the rest in the evenings. I recommend at least two hours on a Sunday in prep for Monday school. If you don’t put in the time then you are just wasting your money. £20 a week in case Suzanne didn’t tell you.

“So there are the rules. Only really one now that I think of it. I will sit and go through each subject for an hour or so this week and help you get caught up on each subject in turn. Build up your confidence. The second hour you will sit and study your current work, today’s homework for example. Once we are caught up and you feel comfortable with the subjects then the tutoring is on an as needed basis. Like today at four Suzanne can start asking about the stuff that she needs some guidance on from today’s work. Her old man is happy to pay the £20. I am not sure I am providing that much value but I’m not going to turn the money down. A lot of my tutoring is getting you to remember that you can do this. Confidence. We all need it and we all need others to help give us a boost now and again. Part of the reason Suzanne is doing so well is because she is confident that she can do it. Do you have any questions?”

It was time to actually do some work. Paula looked slightly shocked but nodded. Andrew told her to get her stuff out and waved to Suzanne to rejoin them. The pattern that he and Suzanne had established was repeated. Paula got the benefit of Suzanne having been the guinea pig for a lot of this. Andrew was more comfortable and a better tutor the second time round. At five o’clock they were ushered out and he walked with the girls to the gate of the school.

“It was nice to get to meet you at last Paula. See you both tomorrow.”

And with a wave Andrew was off to catch the bus home. Tutoring two students meant that he would likely have to finish homework at home now rather than at school. After dinner when he said he was off to finish his homework both his parents looked at him.

“Do your homework? We thought you did that after school. What were you doing instead?”

The question was innocent enough but the underlying tone was interested, bordering on suspicious. Andrew laughed at them.

“Relax, the opium den is term two.”

They had the grace to blush slightly.

“I am tutoring a couple of the pupils in my year. I had one and today I got the second. They took up all my time so I have to finish a couple of things here. No biggie.”

His parents stared at him.

“Tutoring. You. At school.”

“Yes Dad. In the library after school.”

Andrew managed to escape that night but he knew that just meant they had more time to plot the follow up questions! That week like so many others followed an eerily similar pattern. Paula had trouble getting settled down in the library and seemed more easily distracted than Suzanne. But Andrew persevered and it was getting better. He ran into Julian on a cross over between buildings and told him that they would have to be done by 5.00 on Saturday as he was going out that night. Julian nodded. Often that was the extent of their communication. Grunts and nods. The second Chemistry class of the week was not until Thursday morning. Andrew had stayed out of the way of Kate the last two days. The damn woman unnerved him. The ghost of old Andrew hovered in the air like a spectre waiting to pounce. It was a lecture that day rather than an experiment and so there was limited chances to talk, small blessings. Andrew knew that Kate would get him at the end of the class. She waited for him so that they could walk over to History together. Andrew laughed and shook his head.

“What’s so funny, Andrew?”

“Boys and girls Kate, boys and girls.”

That was a preview of Living Two Lives - Book 2. To read the rest purchase the book.

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