‘You started it!’
‘No, you started it, pal!’ She cocked the clockwork timer, scrubbed at her own hair with her fingertips, while Dexter set the cigarette in one side of his mouth and then the other. ‘Right – thirty seconds.’
Dexter refined his pose. ‘What do we say? “Cheese”?’
‘Not “cheese”. Let’s say “one-night stand!”’ She pressed the button and the camera began to whirr. ‘Or “promiscuous!”’ She clambered over the rocks.
‘Or “thieves that pass in the night”.’
‘Thieves don’t pass in the night. That’s ships.’
‘What do thieves do?’
‘Thieves are thick.’
‘What’s wrong with just “cheese”?’
‘Let’s not say anything. Let’s just smile, look natural. Look young and full of high ideals and hope or something. Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Okay then, smile and …’
Edinburgh
‘Ring-ring. Ring-ring.’
He is woken by his daughter’s index finger pressing his nose as if it were a doorbell.
‘Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Who’s at the door? Jasmine’s at the door!!’
‘What are you doing, Jas?’
‘I’m waking you up. Ring-ring.’ Her thumb is in his eye now, pulling back the eyelid. ‘Wake up, lazybones!’
‘What time is it?’
‘Daytime!’
Beside him in the hotel bed, Maddy reaches for her watch. ‘Half past six,’ she groans into the pillow and Jasmine laughs malevolently. Dexter opens both eyes, and sees her face on the pillow next to him, her nose inches away. ‘Haven’t you got books to read or dolls to play with or something?’
‘Nope.’
‘Go and colour something in, will you?’
‘I’m hungry. Can we have room service? What time is the swimming pool open?’
The Edinburgh hotel is plush, traditional and grand, oak panels and porcelain baths. His parents stayed here once, for his graduation, and it’s a little more old-fashioned and expensive than he would like, but he thought that if they’re going to do this, they should do it in some style. They are staying for two nights – Dexter, Maddy and Jasmine – before hiring a car
and driving across to a holiday cottage near Loch Lomond. Glasgow is nearer of course, but Dexter hasn’t been to Edinburgh for fifteen years, not since a debauched weekend when he presented a TV show from the Festival. All of that seems a long, long time ago now, another lifetime. Today he has a fatherly notion that he might show his daughter round the city. Maddy, aware of the date, has decided to leave them to it.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ he asks her in the privacy of the bathroom.
‘Of course not. I’ll go to the gallery, see that exhibition.’
‘I just want to show her some places. Memory Lane. No reason why you should suffer too.’
‘Like I said, I really don’t mind.’
He regards her carefully. ‘And you don’t think I’m nuts?’
She gives a faint smile. ‘No, I don’t think you’re nuts.’
‘You don’t think it’s ghoulish or weird?’
‘Not at all.’ If she does mind, she certainly isn’t showing it. He kisses her lightly on the neck. ‘You must do whatever you want,’ she says.
The notion that it might rain for forty consecutive days had once seemed far-fetched, but not this year. All over the country it has poured daily for weeks now, high streets disappearing under flood water, and the summer has seemed so unique that it might almost be a new kind of season. A monsoon season, but as they step out onto the street, the day is still bright with high cloud, dry for the moment at least. They make plans for lunch with Maddy, and go their separate ways.
The hotel is in the Old Town, just off the Royal Mile, and Dexter takes Jasmine on the standard atmospheric tour, down alleyways and secret stairways until they find themselves on Nicolson Street, heading south out of the city centre. He remembers the street as hectic and hazy with bus fumes, but on a Sunday morning it is quiet and a little sad, and Jasmine is starting to get restless and bored now that they have left the tourist trail. Feeling her hand go heavy in his, Dexter keeps on
walking. He has found the old address on one of Emma’s letters and soon spots a sign. Rankeillor Street. They turn into the quiet residential road.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m looking for somewhere. Number seventeen.’ They are outside now. Dexter peers up at the third-floor window, its curtains drawn, blank and nondescript.
‘You see that flat there? That’s where Emma used to live when we were at University together. In fact that’s sort of where we met.’ Jasmine looks up obediently, but there is nothing to distinguish the unremarkable terraced house from those on either side, and Dexter starts to question the wisdom of this expedition. It’s indulgent, morbid and sentimental; what was he expecting to find? There is nothing here that he recalls, and the pleasure gained from nostalgia is slight and futile. For a moment he contemplates abandoning the tour, phoning Maddy and arranging to meet a little earlier, but Jasmine is pointing to the end of the street, the granite escarpment that looms incongruously over the estate below.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s Salisbury Crags. Leads up to Arthur’s Seat.’
‘There’s people up there!’
‘You can climb it. It isn’t hard. What do you think? Shall we try? Do you think you can do it?’
They head for Holyrood Park. Depressingly, his seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter clambers up the mountain path with far more energy than her father, pausing only intermittently to turn back and laugh at him, wheezing and sweating below.
‘It’s because I’ve got no grip on my shoes,’ he protests, and they keep climbing, leaving the main path and clambering over rocks before finally stumbling onto the scrubby rust-coloured plateau at the top of Arthur’s Seat. There they find the stone column that marks the highest point, and he inspects the scratchings and scribbles, half hoping to see his own initials there: ‘Fight Faschism’ ‘Alex M 5/5/07’ ‘Fiona 4ever’.
To distract Jasmine from the lewder graffiti, he lifts her up and sits her on the column, one arm round her waist, her legs dangling as he points out the landmarks. ‘That’s the castle, near the hotel. There’s the station. That’s the Firth of Forth, leading out into the North Sea. Norway’s over there somewhere. Leith, and that’s the New Town, where I used to live. Twenty years ago now, Jas. Last century. And over there, with the tower, that’s Calton Hill. We could climb that too, if you liked, this afternoon.’
‘Aren’t you too tired?’ she asks, sardonically.
‘Me? You’re kidding. I’m a natural athlete.’ Jasmine wheezes in imitation, one fist clutching at her chest. ‘Comedian.’ He lifts her off the pillar, hands tucked in her armpits, and makes to throw her off the mountainside before swinging her, screaming and laughing, under his arm.
They walk a little way from the summit and find a natural hollow nearby that overlooks the city. He lies with his hands behind his head, while Jasmine sits beside him eating salt and vinegar crisps and drinking her carton of juice with great concentration. The sun is warm on his face, but the early start to the day is starting to take its toll and within minutes he feels sleep creeping up on him.
‘Did Emma come here too?’ asks Jasmine.
Dexter opens his eyes and raises himself up onto his elbows.
‘She did. We came here together. I’ve got a photo of us at home. I’ll show you. Back when Dad was skinny.’
Jasmine puffs her cheeks out at him, then sets about licking the salt from her fingers. ‘Do you miss her?’
‘Who? Emma? Of course. Every day. She was my best friend.’ He nudges her with his elbow. ‘Why, do you?’
Jasmine frowns as she recalls. ‘I think so. I was only four, I don’t remember her that well, only when I look at pictures. I remember the wedding. She was nice though, wasn’t she?’
‘Very nice.’
‘So who’s your best friend now?’
He places a hand on the back of his daughter’s neck, fitting his thumb into the hollow there. ‘You, of course. Why, who’s your best friend?’
Her forehead creases in serious thought. ‘I think it’s probably Phoebe,’ she says, then sucks on the straw of her empty juice carton so that it gurgles rudely.
‘You can go off people you know,’ he says, and she laughs with the straw pinched between her lips. ‘Come here,’ he growls, making a grab and pulling her backwards so that she lies in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. In a moment she is still and Dexter closes his eyes once again and feels the warmth of the mid-morning sun on his eyelids.
‘Beautiful day,’ he mumbles, ‘No rain today. Not yet,’ and once again sleep starts to creep up on him. He can smell the hotel shampoo on Jasmine’s hair, feel her breath on his neck, salt and vinegar, slow and regular, as he drifts off into slumber.
He is unconscious for perhaps two minutes before her bony elbows are jabbing into his chest.
‘Dad? I’m bored. Can we go now, please?’
Emma and Dexter spent the rest of that afternoon on the hillside laughing and talking, offering up information about themselves: what their parents did, how many siblings they had, telling favoured anecdotes. In the middle of the afternoon, as if by mutual agreement, they both fell asleep, lying chastely in parallel until at five Dexter woke with a start, and they gathered together the empty bottles and the remains of the picnic and started to head woozily down the hill towards the city and home.
As they approached the park exit, Emma became aware that they would soon be saying goodbye, and that there was every chance that they would never see each other again. There might be parties, she supposed, but they both knew a different crowd, and besides he would be off travelling soon. Even if they did see each other it would be fleeting and formal, and he would
soon forget everything that had happened in that small rented room in the early hours of the morning. As they stumbled down the hill she began to feel regret creeping up on her, and realised she didn’t want him to go yet. A second night. She wanted one more night at least, so that they could finish what they had started. How might she say that? She couldn’t of course. Fainthearted as usual, she had left it too late. In the future, I’ll be braver, she told herself. In the future, I will always speak my mind, eloquently, passionately. They were at the park gates now, the place where she should probably say goodbye.
She kicked at the gravel footpath and scratched her head. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better …’
Dexter took her by the hand. ‘So, listen. Why don’t you come for a drink?’
She instructed her features to show no delight. ‘What, now?’
‘Or at least walk back with me?’
‘Aren’t your mum and dad coming round?’
‘Not ’til this evening. It’s only half-five.’
He was rubbing the knuckle of her forefinger with his thumb. She made a pretence of making a decision. ‘Go on then,’ she shrugged, indifferent, and he let go of her hand and started walking.
As they crossed the railway at North Bridge and passed into the Georgian New Town, a plan was forming in his head. He would get home by six, immediately call his parents at their hotel and arrange to meet them at the restaurant at eight rather than at the flat at six-thirty. This would give him nearly two whole hours. Callum would be with his girlfriend, they’d have the flat to themselves for two whole hours, and he would be able to kiss her again. The high-ceilinged white-walled rooms were empty save for his suitcases and a few pieces of furniture, the mattress in his bedroom, the old chaise-longue. A couple of dust-sheets and it would look like the set of a Russian play. He knew enough about Emma to know that she would be a sucker for that, and he would almost certainly be able to kiss her, even sober. Whatever
happened between them in the future, whatever rows and repercussions loomed, he knew that he very much wanted to kiss her now. The walk would take another fifteen minutes. He found himself slightly breathless. They should have got a cab.
Perhaps she had the same idea because they really were walking very fast as they headed down the steep incline of Dundas Street, their elbows occasionally brushing against each other, the Forth hazy in the distance. After all these years she was still elated by the sight of the iron-blue river in between the terraces of fine Georgian houses. ‘I might have known you’d live round here,’ she said, disapproving but envious, and as she spoke she found herself short of breath. She was going back to his well-appointed flat, they were going to do it, and she was embarrassed to find her neck flushing pink in anticipation. She ran her tongue over her teeth, attempting an ineffectual polish. Did she need to brush her teeth? Champagne always made her breath smell. Should they stop for chewing gum? Or condoms, would Dexter have condoms? Of course he would; it was like asking if he had shoes. But should she brush her teeth or should she just throw herself at him as the door closed? She tried to recall what underwear she was wearing, then remembered that it was her special mountain-climbing underwear. Too late to worry about that; they had turned into Fettes Row.
‘Not far now,’ he said and smiled, and she smiled too, and laughed, reaching for his hand, acknowledging what was about to happen. They were almost running now. He said he lived at number thirty-five, and she found herself counting down in her head. Seventy-five, seventy-three, seventy-one. Nearly there. Her chest was tightening, she felt sick. Forty-seven, forty-five, forty-three. There was a stitch in her side and an electric tingle in her fingertips and now he was pulling on her hand and they were both laughing as they ran down the street. A car horn blared. Ignore it, keep going, whatever happens do not stop.
But a woman’s voice was calling ‘Dexter! Dexter!’ and all the hope fell out of her. It felt like running into a wall.
Dexter’s father’s Jaguar was parked opposite number thirty-five,
and his mother was stepping from the car and waving at him from across the street. He had never imagined that he could be less pleased to see his parents.
‘There you are! We’ve been waiting for you!’