Page 79 of Last Night
PS: I’m sure you know this, but. If you need me to come and get you as a matter of urgency at any point – call me. I will be straight there, no questions asked. Do not let pride stand in the way of help. X
Of course, thank you. (you would ask questions though) x
OK yes I would X
By the light of a lamp, I lie on the bed and gaze up at the ivory ceiling’s cornicing, pristine and unblemished, like a roll of marzipan icing.
Ed is jealous.I repeat that evident truth to myself. I’d sensed it during his previous tirade, but not so clearly registered it until now. I try to work out what to do with it.
27
After unwinding a croissant and sipping the sort of black coffee that reminds me how coffee is supposed to taste in a metro-tiled breakfast room that was absent of Finlay Hart, I go back up to my room, brush my teeth and head down for nine.
Finlay’s an imposing, ink-blue figure against all the wedding-cake white – unsmiling, hands thrust in pockets in his trench coat. He’s not unfriendly, exactly, but seems a little antsy, brisk, eager to get on. I shouldn’t mistake the splendour of our hotel for any pleasure he’s taking in this.
‘Tourist traps, then the family addresses, is the plan,’ Fin says, sounding stiff and somewhat disenchanted, as we emerge into the cold snap of Princes Street. ‘Following the plan set out in my father’s note.’
‘Gotcha. How about a sightseeing bus?’ I say, as one rolls past outside. ‘Cover more ground.’
Finlay looks up at the Coca-Cola-red, logo-emblazoned vehicle, sceptical. His profile is momentarily strongly redolent of Susie’s, against the morning winter sun, and I get a sharp pang, that stupefaction of remembering her loss. I’m perversely glad it’s a shock again.
‘Hmm, really? Would we recognise my dad in a crowd, from a pigeon’s vantage point?’ Finlay says.
‘We’d get off at the stops,’ I say. ‘How are we getting round them any faster, on foot?’
Fin shrugs his reluctant agreement and buys two tickets from the man in the lanyard, accepts tour leaflets and we step on.
‘Upstairs?’ I say, to his shoulder,
‘If you want,’ Fin says, glancing back, wearing the look of a tolerant weekend dad with visiting offspring. He picks seats near the front. It’s almost empty, as you’d expect from the roof-free top deck of a sightseeing bus in a rainy country at a cold time of year.
Mercifully, it has optional headsets where you can plug yourself in for an audio narration, so we get to experience the city without the soundtrack of someone bellowing jovially into a microphone about Greyfriars Bobby, as we lurch corners.
Everyone else on the deck brandishes their phone aloft on portrait mode, with both hands, taking pictures or filming.
‘Do you think any video taken on holiday ever gets watched?’ I whisper to Fin. ‘People will filmanything. How does it work, do you go home and then on a boring Tuesday say: get the beers, let’s watch three minutes of shaky footage of the Royal Mile? Or do they subject friends and family to it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Fin says. ‘I’m not a fan of the way the technology’s turned everyone into an amateur documentary maker. I saw an argument in The Bagel Hole the other month, and another customer was stood there as if it was their kid’s nativity play.’ Finlay mimes holding a phone and staringintently into it.
‘Yeah, and it’s mad the way people act like they become invisible when they hold a phone up.’
We lapse into silence and Fin still looks tense. Does he anticipate a messy scene, if we do find his dad?
A shoal of French teenagers in rucksacks stream onto the bus, exclaiming: ‘Edinbourg, Edinbourg!’ in excitement, as if they expect the identity of the city they’re craning over the bus’s railings to look at might change. Then, confusingly: ‘Skiffle! Skiffle!’
‘Skiffle?’ I whisper, with a quizzical expression.
‘Skyfall,’ Fin corrects. ‘The Bond film? Had a whole sequence in Scotland.’
‘Oh hahaha. That makes more sense than love of The Quarrymen.’
Fin smiles back, but he’s indulging me, and the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
I decide to relieve him of the burden of small talk by putting the headphones on, wrestling them out of their small plastic packet.
The Grassmarket is one of the most iconic views in the city. Themarket placelies in a hollow, well below surrounding ground levels, directly below the castle.
The bus judders to a halt and we climb off.
