2
A Declaration

Christ, I’m not as fit as I used to be, David thought as he puffed his way up Chambers Street. He was ten minutes late and he was working up a sweat in the close August heat. He had worn two layers, a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, assuming it would be cold out, but the day had thrown him a curve ball and was almost relentlessly bright and sticky. The arse of his jeans was wet with sweat and his feet were hotting up in his Golas.

He looked ahead at the museum but couldn’t see anyone waiting. Shit, she’s already left, he thought; either that or she decided not to come at all. He couldn’t blame her, it had seemed surprising when she suggested it in the first place. Maybe she’d been drunk last night, and had forgotten the conversation. No, she had an eight-year-old daughter, she wouldn’t be sitting loaded in the house with her, would she? Why not, he supposed – there were no rules about that sort of thing, were there?

After he’d put the phone down he’d had another few whiskies, but the memory of the chat was still strong in his mind. Her voice sounded more grown-up than he remembered. She still did that thing where it sounded like she was about to laugh after every single sentence, but not in an annoying way, more like she just found any situation thoroughly entertaining.

He got to the museum’s entrance and there was definitely no one there. He was knackered. Is this what happens to your body in your thirties, he thought, you start getting worn out just from walking fast? He had to start getting fit again, soon. He’d said that to himself so many times over the last three years that he now just ignored himself, knowing it would never happen. He was standing with his hands on his knees, getting his breath back when he looked up. There she was.

His throat felt tight as he looked at her. Goddamn it, she looked fine. She was beautiful. Her hair was a little shorter, more stylish maybe, but still a bit all over the place. Her wide smile and clear, hazel eyes were as welcoming as he remembered and that nose, that kooky little nose just killed him. She was wearing a pair of sleek black trousers and a flimsy fawn blouse, and seemed taller somehow. He remembered her as being pretty but always slightly uncomfortable with that fact. She had definitely grown into her looks, she fitted her features better and seemed so at ease with herself, confident.

Her smile grew wider as she approached him, and he felt himself responding with an idiotic grin. He awkwardly stuck out a hand and she laughed, grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks before standing back and giving him the once-over, her hands still on his shoulders.

‘You haven’t changed a bit, is the correct cliché, I believe,’ she said, and her nose went for a wiggle. David felt the knot in his stomach disappearing and knew they were going to get along just fine.

‘That cliché applies much more to yourself, I suspect,’ David said, ‘except you actually look younger and better than you did fifteen years ago. Whereas I’m just the same, except with two stone of weight added on somewhere.’

‘Well, you were always too skinny at school,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it, David Lindsay from Arbroath, as I live and breathe. How about that?’

‘Actually, most folk call me Dave these days.’

‘I think I’ll stick with David. It’s more grown-up. And weren’t you David in school?’

‘Yeah, I changed it when I came to Edinburgh.’

‘Ah, the old “drop a syllable” routine. Never succumbed to it myself. Day one of “throwing off the shackles of the past” and all that. I think I’ll stick with David, how would that be?’

‘That would be just fine.’

‘Good stuff. So what now, David? Fancy a trawl through thousands of years of Scottish history?’

‘Not really, to be honest. It seems like such a nice day maybe we could just find a beer garden or something…’

‘Nonsense. Apart from anything else, I’ll burn to a bloody crisp in this sun, my pasty face can’t handle it. And anyway, I love this building and all the old stuff they’ve got in there. You didn’t do history at school, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then I can be your informal guide through the corridors of time’ – she was putting on a booming voice-over voice – ‘through thousands of years of bloodthirsty mayhem and savage carnage.’ She returned to her normal voice with a laugh. ‘Eat yer heart out, Simon Schama. Come on, I won’t lecture you too much, and I promise to go for a pint later on. How’s that?’

David couldn’t give a damn about the last five thousand years of Scottish history, but he sure as hell wanted to spend the next few hours with Nicola Cruickshank. He motioned towards the museum’s squat, sandy turret of an entrance.

‘After you, madam. Is age before beauty the appropriate cliché?’

‘Watch it, I’m only a few months older than you,’ said Nicola, punching him on the arm and laughing to herself. David watched her go inside with wide eyes, a big smile and feeling for all the world like he was eighteen years old again.

The air was cool inside and it was so dark compared to the glare of the street that it took David a couple of minutes to see things clearly. Gangs of rucksacked foreign schoolkids filled the airy space with shrill chatter, while tired-looking families trudged around the main concourse. Nicola was a few yards ahead of him already, heading past a crumbly sandstone cross into a section marked Kingdom of the Scots. She turned back, beamed that smile at him and waved her hand in encouragement.

David wasn’t hot on museums. He didn’t really see the point in all that ancient history, and the exhibits always seemed so dry, dusty and disconnected with anything remotely like a real life that someone might actually have lived. Maybe he just didn’t have the leap of imagination necessary to fully appreciate what all this old crap was meant to signify. But for the sake of hanging out with Nicola he could easily stomach a few lumps of old rock and metal, the odd statue or bit of broken pottery. He could see her at the first spotlit display. My god, she was beautiful. He walked into the first room keeping his eyes on her all the way.

Nicola was studiously examining a tiny metallic trinket box in the display cabinet, but she was thinking about David. She knew he was watching her. When you were a woman with years of experience of catching men’s eyes, you knew when someone was watching you, you could just sense it. She didn’t often appreciate it, but she liked the feeling today because she knew that he was comparing her school self with herself now, and she reckoned that modern Nicola won hands down. She couldn’t figure out why exactly, but she just felt like more of a human being than that awkward, gawky kid she had been all those years before.

She’d made a joke about it, but David really hadn’t changed. Well, OK, physically he had filled out a little, she could see that around his face, but that really was a good thing in her book; she’d always thought he had a kind of haunted look about him when he was younger, like there wasn’t quite enough flesh under the skin stretched tight across his cheeks. He had shorter hair and it was a mess, but it was a cool mess. He was dressing younger than his age, a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, skater-boy jeans and trainers, but then there was nothing wrong with that as long as you didn’t look ridiculous. And David didn’t look ridiculous. Far from it. He looked pretty damn cute. She wasn’t getting carried away or anything. But he was cute.

‘The Monymusk reliquary,’ said David, reading the blurb. ‘Associated with St Columba and Robert the Bruce. It’s tiny. What does it do?’

‘You keep ancient relics in it.’

‘Relics?’

‘Bones. Of saints. This one was small so they could wear it round their necks. They paraded it in front of the troops at Bannockburn, so they say.’

‘Who says?’

‘Historians.’

‘Ah, them.’

‘It sounds like you don’t hold much truck with the word of historians. And before you say anything, bear in mind that I’ve got an honours degree in history and archaeology from Glasgow Uni.’

‘I was just about to say that historians are great, and always right.’

‘Nah, you’re right, they’re a bunch of speculative bastards. Especially all the high-profile television ones.’ She looked away from the strange shiny box in front of them and around the room. ‘Recognize anything in here?’

David looked around. In front of them was a small sign which said ‘Scotland Defined’. That seemed like quite a claim, he thought, but he let it pass. On either side the walls were covered in large quotations, done in fancy script, and he realized straight away that they were quotations from the Declaration of Arbroath. They had, of course, done it to fucking death at school, seeing as how it was the town’s main claim to fame. The Scottish nobility’s letter to the Pope backing Robert the Bruce as king, asking the Pope to recognize Scotland as an independent nation and asking if he’d mind having a go at the English for hammering the crap out of us. Written, signed and sealed in Arbroath Abbey in 1320. The primary school history lessons were trickling back now. He read the two inscriptions, one about not cowing down to the English while a hundred of us are still kicking around, the other about fighting for freedom. It was all very Braveheart.

‘Ah, I get it,’ he said. ‘A not-so-subtle piece of subliminal advertising for the school reunion, is that it? Surround me with messages from the past about the importance of Arbroath in our history?’

‘Nah, I just thought it would be a cheeky laugh to bring you here,’ she said. ‘My own declaration of Arbroath. Or something. Actually it didn’t occur to me until after I put the phone down last night. But it fits quite nicely, don’t you think?’

She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were a very attractive shade of brown. They were smiling at each other now, both caught in a moment, wondering what was really going on here. Nicola moved first, breaking eye contact and heading through into the next room of the museum in a casual saunter that felt slightly on the forced side.

David followed on, feeling a bit like a dog on a lead, but happily wagging his tail. They wandered around the rest of the floor, swapping comments on the bits and bobs in glass cases, the stone sculptures, the old swords, armour, coins, trinkets, spears and a multitude of other pieces of the pointless past. He paid scant attention to the exhibits, his thoughts constantly returning to Nicola. What were they doing here? Why had she asked him? Why had he agreed to come?

He made an effort to concentrate at a display of Robert the Bruce stuff, reading the accompanying blurb which said that everything in the case was either ‘a facsimile of the original’, ‘rumoured to have belonged to Robert the Bruce’ or ‘found at Bannockburn, but possibly a later forgery’. Christ, the stuff in here wasn’t even the original old crap, it was less ancient copies of old crap. A thought suddenly struck him.

‘Is the Declaration of Arbroath here?’ he said.

‘No, it’s in Register House on Charlotte Square.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows? Historian politics? It’s a backbiting business, the study of Scottish history. Not quite as bloodthirsty as the history itself, but not without its battles.’

By this time they had worked their way around the ground floor. The restrained air of the place, the relentlessly studious vibe, was beginning to tire him. He looked up from the open-plan concourse and the building seemed to go up forever, shafts of daylight splitting the dusty air at irregular intervals.

‘How many floors has this place got?’

‘Six.’

‘Jesus. You’re joking.’

Nicola looked at David’s face. She’d realized straight away that he wasn’t at all interested in the museum and its exhibits, and she’d kept on slowly heading round the place to wind him up, see how long he could put on a brave face just to stay with her. She was testing him and she knew it was a bit puerile, but she had enjoyed doing it all the same. She laughed, looking at his hangdog expression, and took his arm, turning him towards the exit.

‘OK, David Lindsay from Arbroath, no more history for today. You’ve earned your pint.’

‘Too right I have,’ said David, relieved to be leaving, exhilarated to be arm in arm with this woman and damn well looking forward to the first pint of the day.

Sandy Bell’s was that rarest of things, a traditional pub still going strong in the centre of town. The tiny space was dominated by a large ornate gantry lined with dozens of single malt bottles. Half a dozen crumpled old men lined the bar. A young couple sat in the corner in front of the toilets playing guitar and fiddle gently, the melodies and rhythms intertwining with the thick fog of cigarette smoke that danced in the sunlight filtering through the windows. Nicola and David were squeezed into the table at the front of the bar, both nursing pints of lager, and they could just see the arse end of the museum across the road. They clinked glasses together in a cheers and drank.

‘So,’ said David with a deliberately ironic air of clunky formality. ‘Nicola Cruickshank. From Arbroath. Tell me about your life for the last fifteen years.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘The concise version, or the ultra-concise one?’

‘Concise version, please.’

‘Left school, four years at Glasgow, backpacked round the world, worked in Australia, came home, discovered I was pregnant, had Amy, worked at Arbroath Abbey, moved to Edinburgh.’

She had been counting off the points on her fingers with a smile, and now returned to her pint.

‘Wow, what the hell is the ultra-concise version like?’

‘Graduated, travelled, Amy, job.’

‘Fair enough. So… a daughter, eh?’

‘Yes, indeed. I assume you’re wondering about the father? Well, I haven’t seen him since before Amy was born. He’s Australian, we had a thing going over there for a while, nothing even remotely serious, then we split up and I came back to Scotland. Two weeks after I got off the plane I discovered I was two months pregnant. That was 1995. He knows about her, I post pictures and he sends stuff on birthdays and Christmas, but he’s about as interested in us as we are in him, to be honest. He’s also six years younger than me, barely more than a baby himself when I got pregnant, and on the other side of the world, so I can’t really blame him for not taking more of an interest.’

They both took another swig of lager as a plaintive violin line meandered around the room.

‘I guess that must’ve been tricky, bringing a daughter up yourself.’

‘I had the family. My folks were great about it, they couldn’t get enough of her. Still can’t. After a year or two I managed to get a job at the abbey, doing the tourist guide stint. I suppose I was slumming it with a degree and everything, but it was a decent enough job. Plus I got a foot in the door at Historic Scotland, and now I work at the headquarters at Salisbury Place, inspecting and categorizing listed buildings and that sort of malarkey. It’s a job I really enjoy, and it’s good to be out of Arbroath.’

She swigged the remains of her pint and squeezed out from behind the table to get the round in.

‘Same again?’

‘Yeah, cheers.’

David watched her as she went to the bar and couldn’t help noticing her figure. She was as slim as she’d always been, but she still had curves where women were supposed to have curves. He wondered how his own body had changed over the last fifteen years. It didn’t look as good as hers, that’s for sure. When Nicola turned back with the pints he self-consciously turned away to look down at his empty pint glass. Nicola noticed, smiled and squeezed back into her seat.

‘So,’ she said, drawling the word in a parody of his earlier opening gambit. ‘David Lindsay. From Arbroath. A potted history, if you please.’

‘I’m afraid mine isn’t nearly so interesting. If I count them on my fingers like you I’ll probably only get to about three.’

‘Quit stalling and make with the info.’

‘OK. Left school, came to Edinburgh to do computer science, graduated with a 2:2, worked in pubs for a couple of years, did a post-grad at Napier in web design, worked through a string of gradually less impressive and less exciting jobs over the last’ – he counted in his head – ‘Jesus, eight years. I’ve been doing this shit for eight years.’

‘And now?’

‘And now what?’

‘What about this place you’re at now – what is it, Run Deep?’

‘Still Waters, I like what you’ve done there. Nah, it’s a shithole, and a failing one at that. The arse has fallen out the web-design market, everyone and their bloody dog can do it nowadays. I suspect the dole queue beckons soon, to be honest.’

‘Really? Sorry to hear that. Although it doesn’t sound as if you particularly like the job anyway.’

‘No, I don’t suppose I do, but it pays the bills.’

‘That is surely the saddest phrase in the English language – “it pays the bills”.’

‘I know what you mean. But it does.’

David took a breather and a few slugs of lager. Just the mention of his mundane, depressing work was enough to get him down. Nicola couldn’t help noticing.

‘Anyway, enough talk about work,’ she said. ‘This is a Saturday after all. Instead, let me apply some peer pressure on you about this school reunion. Give me your hand.’

David offered up his arm and Nicola grabbed his wrist and started twisting.

‘Chinese burn, Chinese burn,’ she said. ‘Are you gonna come to this bloody thing?’

David drew his arm away laughing.

‘I don’t know. It makes me feel a bit queasy even thinking about it.’

‘Come on. I know we’ve only just re-met after fifteen years, but we’re getting along OK, aren’t we?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, it’ll be the same with everyone else, won’t it?’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well… I don’t know.’

‘Not good enough.’

‘The trouble is, you’ve obviously kept in touch with people from back there over the years. I haven’t. Not only have I not kept in touch, I haven’t even set foot in the place since…’

‘Since Colin died?’

David was jolted by the mention of it.

‘Yeah.’

Nicola had a look that was part sympathy, part exasperation.

‘Really, David, that’s all ancient history. I mean it was fifteen years ago. No one will ever know whether it was an accident or suicide and…’

‘It was an accident,’ said David automatically.

Nicola stopped in her tracks. She reached out and took his hand across the table.

‘It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. These things happen all the time. OK, so it was an accident – if there’s one thing teenagers are prone to, it’s accidents. So he fell off the cliffs. It’s sad, it’s a fucking waste, of course it is, but it was so long ago now that surely you can’t still be upset about it.’

‘That’s not the problem,’ said David, enjoying the touch of her skin on his. ‘I mean, initially that was my problem with the place, I suppose. The fact that I associated Arbroath with Colin’s death. But it’s become more ingrained than that. Don’t you see, even the physical act of returning seems totally alien to me. I’m not sitting around here pining for Colin. I long ago reached the conclusion that this sort of shite just happens every day and people have to get on with it. I used to remember the anniversary of the accident every year, but I haven’t for the last five years at least. That’s not the point. The point is a plain and simple one, I haven’t kept in touch with the people or the place, and I don’t see any point in doing it now.’

‘OK then, what about all our other mates from the time? What about Gary and Neil, for example? The three of you and Colin were pretty close back then. Wouldn’t you like to know what they’ve been up to for the last decade and a half?’

‘That’s just the thing – I haven’t bothered until now, so why start?’

‘But if you never bother about what’s gone before, how can you know who you are? Everything that happens to us over the years makes us into what we are today. Don’t you think?’

David didn’t really want to tell her that he didn’t think that, that people reinvented themselves successfully every day all around the world. He was enjoying holding her hand too much. He looked her in the eye and he could see real compassion in there. She seemed to care about him, although why she should, since they hadn’t spoken a word in years before yesterday, was a bit beyond him. It felt good, though, having someone looking out for him. He hadn’t had that feeling for a long while.

‘Look, we can go together,’ said Nicola, relaxing a little and letting go of his hand. David didn’t want the contact to stop, but he didn’t know how to keep it going so he just grabbed his pint and started drinking while she talked. ‘We can be the sarky, cool pair at the back slagging everyone else off for being boring bastards, how about that? We can get stupidly drunk and carry on like a pair of idiots, and if we offend everyone then fuck it, we don’t have to ever see any of them ever again. Christ, I could do with a serious piss-up, I haven’t been hammered in a long, long time. These things happen when you’re a responsible parent and you’ve got kiddies’ parties and school uniforms and packed lunches and trips to see Shrek followed by your tea at Pizza Hut to worry about. But up in Arbroath next weekend I’ll have my folks looking after Amy. So go on, how about it?’

David had been half-listening, thinking about what she’d said earlier about ignoring your past. He was over Colin’s death years ago, but the vacuum left in his life was still there, the space where a background should’ve been. Part of him thanked his parents for moving away, giving him an excuse to never go back, but part of him also blamed them for not giving him the option, ever, of returning to the place where he’d grown up, played football, ridden his bike, got drunk in the park and briefly, all too briefly, snogged Nicola Cruickshank outside Boots one Hogmanay.

‘I’ll go.’

‘Really?’

‘Why the hell not, eh?’

He wasn’t at all sure why he was saying this, but his half-drunk instinct had brought him this far – to a smoky pub on a summer day across a table from a beautiful woman with her head screwed on tight – so he could trust it a little further. He finished his pint and got up.

‘Same again?’

Nicola nodded. He got them in and came back to the table. Nicola was grinning from ear to ear.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Nothing. Just looking forward to going to this bloody thing now.’

‘Me too.’

‘Really?’ She sounded dubious. David laughed.

‘No, not really. But if you promise to hold my hand if it gets too scary, I’m sure I’ll manage.’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ She raised her glass and they clinked them together again. ‘To the Keptie High School class of ’88 reunion!’

‘Jesus. There’s still time to change my mind, if you keep up that enthusiastic, cheerleading shit.’

‘Don’t knock it, mister. I’d look great in a ra-ra skirt and pom-poms, even now.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

They both took a drink, David thinking about Nicola in a cheerleader outfit, Nicola smiling at him over her pint, fully aware of that fact.

After their third pint it was time for Nicola to pick up Amy from her mate’s party. They were getting on so well David badly wanted to stay out with her but he realized that couldn’t happen and offered to walk Nicola up the road.

‘Where’s the party?’ he said.

‘Livingstone Place, just across the Meadows. It’s one street along from our own flat, in Gladstone Terrace.’

‘Really? I’m just down the road in Rankeillor Street.’

‘Small world.’

‘How long did you say you’ve been in Edinburgh?’

‘Four years.’

‘And we’ve never seen each other.’

‘Hardly that surprising unless you spend your time loitering outside Sciennes Primary School, or my work. I scarcely get anywhere else these days.’

They were walking through the Meadows, the large park spread across the area south of the university. The sun was still blazing away in the early evening, and the grass was covered with semi-clad students, tourists and festival-goers, all soaking up rare and valuable rays. Groups of lads kicked footballs about and frisbees got flung far and wide. They walked past some hippies practising firestick juggling, and accepted flyers from some androgynous oriental types for the Ladyboys of Bangkok spectacular. The festival was getting properly going, thought David as he took another handful of flyers from some posh twat for a student revue show in a cave somewhere. He put all the flyers in the next bin. He really hated the fucking festival. They reached the bottom of Livingstone Place and stood kind of awkwardly loitering, like they were at the end of a first date.

‘I’m just going to pick up Amy then head home, do you want to meet her?’ said Nicola, fully expecting David to say no. Why would he want to meet her daughter, just because they’d spent a few hours together after fifteen years of silence?

‘Yeah, why not?’ he said.

‘Really? That’s cool. I could do with the back-up, to be honest. Lots of Amy’s pals seem to have really posh parents, and they all look down on me, single mum and all that. Stuck-up twats. Mind you, if I turn up stinking of booze with a strange man, I don’t suppose that’s gonna endear me to the members of the PTA, now, is it?’

Nicola rang the bell of the main-door flat and a dumpy woman in glasses and a turtleneck answered. She reminded David of that girl from Scooby Doo, not the sexy one, but the one who was always losing her glasses, and who always worked it out in the end.

‘Cassandra,’ said Nicola, turning on the charm, ‘how’s everything going?’

‘Oh, mayhem, as you might expect. Come on in and watch your step, Melissa’s junk is everywhere.’

They followed her down the hall, Nicola turning to whisper to David. ‘Ever been in a room full of eight-year-old girls before?’

‘Not that I remember, which means either no or I was very drunk.’

She made a face as they entered the living room. David looked around but the carnage didn’t seem that bad. There was a blur of fast-moving pink bodies scooting around the large bay-windowed room, and a noise a bit like a gannet colony in mating season, but he’d been at parties dafter than this.

David hung about in the background as Nicola extricated Amy from proceedings. It seemed quite easy, Amy apparently not at all bothered to be leaving. David spotted which one was Amy straight away. She had inherited her mother’s looks, her smile not quite so wide but her eyes bigger and deeper brown, and goddamn it, she had the family nose, that wee squint kink that he liked so much in Nicola. She stood out from the crowd by virtue of the fact she was the only one not in regulation pink; instead she sported a cornflower blue summer dress with yellow shoes and matching Alice band and bangles. She was also the only one not running around in that daft stomping gait that children have; instead she seemed light on her feet.

‘Amy meet David; David meet Amy,’ said Nicola, gently touching Amy’s back as she guided her towards the door.

‘Hello, Amy,’ said David, trying to sound as normal as possible. Had he ever spoken to an eight-year-old girl before? Not since he was eight himself, probably.

‘Have you been drinking with Mum?’ said Amy, using her big eyes on David.

‘Yes, I have,’ said David with a laugh.

‘You smell of beer, Mum,’ said Amy.

‘That’s what happens when you go out with strange men, dear. I hope you don’t find that out for yourself for a very long time.’

Amy rolled her eyes and looked at David as if to say, ‘See what I have to put up with’. She turned and waved goodbye to the pink flurry of the room, which briefly stopped to wave and shout back, then she headed out the door. Nicola looked at David, smiled and shook her head slightly. Amy, at the front door now, shouted ‘Come on!’, and David and Nicola made their way down the hall and out the door sniggering like a pair of kids themselves.

At the end of the next street David and Nicola did that mooning-around thing again, as if on a date, this time with Amy hanging around looking bored next to them.

‘Can we go, Mum? I want to see X Factor,’ said Amy, swinging off her mum’s arm.

‘Hold your horses.’ Nicola turned to David. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you next Saturday, then. Unless you bottle it, in which case I’ll never speak to you again.’

‘What, not for another fifteen years?’ He had said it as a joke, but the thought of it sent a tiny shiver down his spine.

‘Exactly. That’ll teach you.’

‘Maybe I could call you through the week?’ He held her gaze for longer than was necessary, and she held it right back.

‘Yeah, you could do that.’

They looked at each other for a few more seconds smiling, then David leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

‘OK, I’ll see you.’ He looked down at Amy, who was scuffing her yellow shoes on the edge of the kerb. ‘Nice meeting you, Amy.’

‘Yeah,’ Amy replied, noncommittally.

With that David reluctantly turned and walked away towards the edge of the Meadows and his own flat beyond.

‘How was the party, then, madam?’ Nicola asked, taking Amy’s hand and turning up Gladstone Terrace towards home.

‘All right, I suppose,’ said Amy. ‘But Melissa thinks she’s better than everyone else, and her mum made us play stupid games for little kids.’

‘Right,’ said Nicola. ‘Let’s get a pizza in and you can tell me all about it.’ She waited a moment then said, ‘What did you think of David?’

Amy thought for a moment.

‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘All right.’ She thought for another few seconds. ‘He had cool trainers.’

‘Right,’ said Nicola. ‘Cool trainers.’

A few hundred yards away David let himself into his flat and opened a beer from the fridge. He thought about Nicola and he thought about Arbroath. He would go there to spend more time with her, it was as simple as that. He wished he was with her right now, but he knew enough not to rush into anything. It was Saturday night, but he didn’t feel like going out. He finished his beer and opened another, took the phone off the hook and sat thinking about Nicola some more.