Читать книгу The Day We Meet Again - Miranda Dickinson - Страница 22

Ah Glasgow. Hello, old friend.

I’m aching and tired from the journey, but the sight of Glasgow Central’s vast, glass vaulted ceiling fires my body back into action. I take my time collecting my things and stepping down from the train, the need to hurry gone. My fellow passengers have mellowed somewhat, too, many of them lulled to sleep for part of the journey creating a symphony of snores around me, which amused me no end. I swear a couple of them even managed harmony at one point. Even so, when they disembark I see their steps quicken as our merry company disbands to our own adventures once more.

I reckon I slept too, a few half-hour snoozes at most, although my memory of the journey has already passed into a sludge of sameness. One thing’s for certain: I’ll sleep tonight. Especially if there’s alcohol involved.

I managed to get a message to Donal before reception deserted my phone completely and the reply I received was typical him:

Nae bother, pal. BEERS tonight!

Man, I’ve missed that guy.

I thought about Phoebe a lot, as the towns and cities passed into green and the hills rose to become mountains. It rained almost solidly from Lancashire onwards but as soon as we crossed the border the rainbows began. I can’t remember the last time I saw a rainbow, but on this journey I’ve seen seven. I’d forgotten that about this train journey. But now I remember travelling south from Edinburgh to Carlisle as a kid: me and my brother with our snotty noses pressed against the train glass, spotting rainbow shards illuminating passing glens and moorland.

Does Phoebe like rainbows? I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing she does. They’re bright and unexpected, completely spontaneous and elusive, and I kind of think that would appeal to the woman who’s just stolen my heart.

But a year apart from her…

I know what we said before we left London, but it struck me as I was travelling here just how much of a challenge we’ve set ourselves. Emails and postcards and once-monthly chats are all very well, but twelve months without her in my arms is suddenly a towering wall of a task. Can I do it? Can she?

I have stuff to do this year and I owe it to myself to focus on that as I planned. But I’m going to need strategies to keep perspective. At the end of this, I have to know for certain Phoebe is what I want. I owe it to both of us to be sure.

Leaving the station I ease back into Glasgow time like slipping on a favourite old pair of boots. It feels like home, even though I’ve never actually lived here. Weekends and Hogmanays and occasional weeks spent here with Donal and Kate over the years have endeared this city to my heart. As I walk its streets now, I don’t feel like a visitor. The dry humour, the unapologetic moxie of the people around me and the rise and fall of the accent welcomes me like a long-lost son.

I’ve missed this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love London. It’s my home, my place of business: my stomping ground. But I miss the humanity sometimes. The humour. The way you’re in the middle of a conversation before you know it; how every other person on the street beside you is one joke away from being a pal for life. It can be suffocating when you’re in it, but when you’re not it’s the thing you miss.

Home. Phoebe asked if I was going home and it’s only now, as I jump on a bus that will take me out north of the city to the town where my friends live, that I realise I already feel more at home in the forty minutes I’ve been here than I’ve done in London since Laura left me.

And when I get to Mull? Will that feel like home, too?

I push the concern away, along with the ghosts from my past, stuffing them all into a cupboard marked ‘LATER’. That stuff can wait. I watch the city slouching past the window, not minding the slow progress of the traffic-slowed bus to Port Glasgow. At long last, I have time. To think or not. To just be. That’s a luxury I haven’t had for years.

My stop is at the bottom of a hill that overlooks the River Clyde, the road rising steeply ahead. Though the water is some distance away, the shimmer of early evening sun on the dark river framed by purple hills on its far shore seems close enough to touch as I walk up the hill to Donal and Kate’s place. Their house is almost at the top, just where the road curves for its final ascent. The sight of Donal’s ancient yellow Mini parked on the drive makes me smile. How it’s still roadworthy is a mystery to everyone but he loves that rusting heap almost more than life itself. I have many fond and not-so-fond memories of cramming equipment into its interior and praying it up hills as we travelled to gigs across Scotland.

Donal misses the band and I get the impression he doesn’t play as many gigs locally now as he’d like. He’s one of the most gifted guitarists I know and it’s a shame more people can’t hear him play. But he’s also Dad to three of the most awesome kids on the planet, so that audience rightly gets first dibs on his time.

The front door whips open before I even set foot on the drive and I’m almost knocked off my feet by an excited clan of Cattenachs. The last time I saw the kids they were tiny; now the twins Addie and Ivor are almost level with my shoulder, and their not-so-baby sister Lexie can reach my waist when she hugs me. I’ve seen the kids in our Skype chats a couple of times a year, but being with them in person brings home to me how much they’ve grown. Somewhere in the middle of the giggling horde is Donal; Kate follows behind, her smile as bright as the sunlight dancing on the Clyde.

‘Let your poor uncle Sam get some air,’ she laughs, giving in when she’s ignored and joining the hug instead.

When they finally let me go, my sides are hurting from laughter and over-enthusiastic embraces. ‘Where the heck did you lot come from? What’s your mother been feeding you? Great big towering giants!’

‘Maybe you’ve shrunk, Sam,’ Lexie giggles, her father’s wit clearly inherited.

‘Aye, maybe I have. It’ll be all that incessant English rain falling on me, eh? I’ve shrunk in the wash!’ It’s an old joke, but like the house and the kids and the sunshine yellow Mini beside us, it’s familiar and warm and wonderful.

We pile inside the house, everyone talking at a million miles an hour, words and laughter crashing together, a joyous cacophony of noise that wraps around us. I’ve been here less than five minutes and it already feels like home. The last time I visited was almost six years ago and I’m shocked by how much has changed. I see it most in the kids, of course, but the house is different, too. Donal started the renovations they’d talked about for years just after he lost his mum eighteen months ago. His way of dealing with it, I think. When my ma passed, I wrote songs and jumped on any tour I could for a year. Syd spent six months in Ghana after his mum died, finally meeting the family she’d talked about but never visited. Losing someone puts brakes on everything else; changes how you see your priorities.

I only met Donal’s mum a handful of times, but I think Taral Cattenach would have approved of her son’s handiwork. She was an artist in India when Donal’s dad met her on an exchange visit from the company he worked for in the early 1980s, and the home they made together back in Glasgow was filled with her vivid oil paintings.

A hand slaps my shoulder and Donal grins at me. He still looks as young as he did the first day of university, the only hint at the years that have passed the first peppering of silver in the splendid jet beard that’s become his trademark.

‘One of your ma’s?’ I nod at the painting above the fireplace. A white lotus flower, its petals edged with gold, on an azure blue pool, delicate Henna-style patterns picked out in bright ochre framing the canvas.

His blue eyes glisten. It was the first thing I noticed about him when we met in the registration line in Freshers’ Week – that and the Glaswegian accent, which I’m ashamed now to say I didn’t expect, either. ‘Aye. I reckon she’d be happy to see it there.’

‘Place looks great, man.’

Donal nods. ‘Cheers. Didn’t think we’d get there but the kids helped me finish it off.’

I glance at Addie, Ivor and Lexie, still giggling with their mum. ‘I bet they’re all artistic.’

‘They’re annoyingly talented at everything,’ he chuckles. ‘No idea where they get it from. Kate and I were lucky to graduate. Addie’s taught himself so many instruments I’ve lost count, Ivor’s studying piano at the conservatoire on Saturdays and Lexi’s pretty much fluent in Gaelic, singing and playing guitar with a trad band at school.’

I love the pride with which Donal speaks about his kids, but I think he’s selling himself short. ‘I hope you’re planning on getting that guitar of yours out while I’m here.’

‘Show him the lair, Donal,’ Kate grins, and instantly the clan are dragging their father out of the patio doors into the garden. He protests, but it’s nowhere near convincing.

A large wooden building sits at the end of the garden, more a pine lodge than a shed. When we step inside, it’s a tiny studio, complete with a square vocal booth and a rack of amps and processors my studio partner Chris would be envious of.

‘Dad’s doing an EP,’ Lexie says, looping her arm through mine. ‘Mum’s singing on it, too.’

‘You kept that quiet,’ I smile at my friend who beams back.

‘Well, it’s only a bit of messing around, you know. I just figured it was time I sorted it out and rescued my guitars from the attic.’

Kate joins her daughter beside me. ‘Don’t believe him, Sam. He’s been gigging most weekends this year and he’s already working on album projects for a couple of local bands.’

‘Then it’s a business?’

Donal shrugs, but his eyes sparkle. ‘Could be. Part-time for now, but if I can get a good number of clients, who knows?’

I’m proud of my friend but also sad that I’ve only learned this now. I retreated after Laura, more concerned with my own studio venture. This year will be different, I promise myself. This year my friends come first.

After dinner the kids are grudgingly coaxed up to bed and Donal and I finally collapse in the living room at 9 p.m. I have no idea how my friends function at their frenetic pace. Their kids rock but, man, they are full-on. Kate seems to thrive on it – a fact confirmed when she appears, fresh-faced and smiling, her arms laden with beer bottles and a large bowl of crisps.

‘Right, lads. Beers.’

Those three words have heralded many an unwise imbibing of alcohol over the years and I know I’ll regret it tomorrow. But I have been looking forward to this for weeks. We grab a bottle each and handfuls of crisps, which turn out to be teddy bear-shaped snacks.

‘We ran out of the usual ones.’ Kate shrugs. ‘Don’t tell Lexie but I raided her packed lunch crisps.’

‘Very rock ’n’ roll,’ I laugh.

‘Robert Plant is a Pom-Bears fan,’ she says. I love the sparkle in her voice when she’s joking. I’ve missed it – and Donal’s hearty guffaw, too. ‘Probably. Dave Grohl too, when he isn’t drumming.’

‘So tell us about your studio, Sam. Is it going to rival Abbey Road?’

I grin at Donal. ‘One day maybe. It’s all set up now and we have bookings for the first four months.’

‘And Chris doesn’t mind you leaving, just when it’s all starting?’

‘He’s glad I’m not under his feet,’ I admit. It’s true: I was always going to be the one who funded things, while Chris was hands-on. ‘Truth is, neither of us expected to find premises as quickly as we did and by then my year out was already arranged.’

‘Like Kate and me,’ Donal says, draining his beer bottle and reaching for another. ‘She’s the brains, I’m the brawn.’

Kate bats him with the back of her hand but the way they snuggle together on the sofa warms my heart. It took long enough to get them together, but they’re inseparable now. Will Phoebe and I be like that?

My phone is on the coffee table where I left it and occasionally notifications illuminate the screen. I’m trying not to look, but each time it happens I wonder if it might be Phoebe. Is she thinking of me? I guess her first night with her hosts will call her attention from her phone more than mine. She mentioned she’s only met one of them before. That makes me glad I know the people I’m staying with.

‘Will you be seeing Niven while you’re on Mull?’ Donal asks.

‘Hope so, as often as I can. Have either of you heard from him lately? I tried calling a couple of times before I left but I couldn’t get hold of him.’

There’s a very definite look that passes between my friends. ‘He’s on some kind of training course for work, I think. He’ll be in touch soon as he’s able. You know Niven.’

I smile back but it makes me wonder what they know about him that I don’t. I know things have been up in the air since his fiancée moved out, but the last I heard he was dating again. Before I can ask any more, Kate pulls out a large bottle of single malt whisky from between the sagging sofa cushions.

‘Time for this baby, I think.’

Donal and I protest, but it’s useless. Kate only has to raise an eyebrow and suggest a girl might beat us in a drinking competition and we’re both in. Years have not taught us wisdom on this. Donal fetches glasses from the sideboard while I clear a space between the empty beer bottles covering the coffee table. It’s like being in our earliest days as friends: the whisky may be more expensive now, but the friendship is as strong as it’s ever been.

We settle into an easy silence as we take our first sip of peaty liquor and I glance at the clock. Midnight already. Will Phoebe be asleep now? Kate’s head is resting on Donal’s shoulder, his eyes closed as he enjoys his dram. I sneak my phone from the coffee table and jump as the screen illuminates.

PHOEBE – 1 MESSAGE

I look up at my friends but they haven’t moved. Heart racing, I open the message.

Hi ☺ Arrived in Paris and in my new temporary home. Excuse the text but it’s just this once because I miss you. Speak soon and sleep well xx

That’s why she’s no Laura, I tell myself. Laura would only text if she wanted something, or to have a go at me. Phoebe misses me. So much that she broke her own rule of limited contact less than twenty-four hours into our year apart.

Shielding my mobile from view of my friends, I reply:

I miss you too. All good here apart from my arms being empty. Sweet dreams, beautiful xx

Kate raises her head and I pocket my phone before she notices. But I’m humming now. I can’t tell if it’s alcohol or lust… or love…? No, not love, not yet. But if I still feel like this in twelve months’ time I’ll fly faster than the train back to St Pancras and never let her go.

We talk, we laugh, we drink. My phone remains silent. But the thought that she might text again – the unpredictability of it – warms me more than any amount of single malt could.

I’ll text her when I leave here for Mull, I decide. If Phoebe can bend the rules, so can I.