Font Size:

Her voice trailed off. Sofia never lost it. She bottled it up, she worked it out, she kept calm, she was professional, she was appropriate.

Carmen stared at her.

‘ … so they don’t end up like me,’ she croaked, her breath gone.

‘No. That’s not what I was going to say.’

‘Yes, it was,’ said Carmen. ‘Yes, it was.’

Sofia stared at her.

‘Well, you’ve got it out now,’ said Carmen. ‘So. Good to know, I suppose.’

‘That’s not what I meantat all!’ shouted Sofia, but Carmen had already turned and slammed out of the beautifully painted, decorated old door, and without even saying goodbye to the children.

The night was utterly freezing, and Carmen didn’t have the faintest clue where to go. The air was cold; the streets were full. She couldn’t believe that only twenty-four hours ago she had been so happy and full of excitement, playing with the children at the fair, then listening to that heavenly music. Now … oh God. She could only imagine Sofia being on the phone to their mother immediately, getting her side of the story in, the pair of them agreeing with each other, saying, oh well, wasn’t Carmen just like that. Oh God and then Skylar would get back and they could sit up gossiping – how did Sofia even know about Oke anyway? If it wasn’t for Skylar yammering on all the time …

Her fury kept her warm all the way up the street and into the Grassmarket. The bars and restaurants were overflowing, flooded with people laughing, hugging, pulling off coats, revelling in the Christmas spirit on this starry night, happy and full of goodwill towards men. Well, she bloody wasn’t. God.

There was a light still on in the bookshop. Frankly, she had no idea where to go. She knew Sofia would be anxious to smooth everything over if she went back and that made her angrier than she could say. She marched up Victoria Street and, sure enough, Ramsay and Mr McCredie were indeed killing what looked like their second bottle of burgundy, while the boys pored over a huge illustrated atlas, eating fish and chips and almost certainly getting greasy fingerprints on an expensive piece of stock, but for a moment Carmen was just relieved to see some people she wasn’t related to.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Have you got another glass for that wine?’

‘Problems at home?’ said Ramsay. ‘Because let me tell you, nobody is more qualified to discuss domestic issues than the two of us.’

There was a pause, then both men burst out into hearty laughter.

In fact, there was massive comfort in being with the pair of them, Carmen found. Mr McCredie told stories of Antarctic derring-do, and how best to play croquet with an Adélie penguin; Ramsay spoke about how all the money AirBnB-ing one of the wings of the house had brought in had been spent on pyjamas to stop the children tearing around the house wearing more or less nothing. A couple of glasses of wine down, Carmen discovered that she was feeling much more relaxed even though her phone kept pinging every couple of seconds. She focused on utterly ignoring it.

‘So, what’s up with you?’ asked Ramsay eventually. ‘Are all men bastards?’

‘The jury,’ said Carmen heavily, ‘isout.’

‘Remember,’ said Ramsay, who had some form in this area, ‘men arerubbish. They arerubbishat going after women they like.’

‘I agree,’ said Mr McCredie, who had absolutely no form in this area.

‘I know, but he thinks … ’

‘He doesn’t know what he thinks,’ said Ramsay confidently. ‘Even if you think you have made thingsvery clearto him, you could make them more clear.’

‘It’s not that … dreadful popinjay, is it?’ said Mr McCredie, who didn’t speak a lot, but saw everything. ‘The charlatan writer.’

‘No. Kind of. Well. It was for a bit but … no. Definitely not,’ said Carmen. ‘He’s a dendrologist … that means—’

‘Tree chap,’ said Ramsay and Mr McCredie at once.

‘Oh my God, you aresuch nerds,’ said Carmen, laughing for the first time.

‘The tall boy!’ said Mr McCredie. ‘Oh yes. Absolutely. I quite approve.’

Carmen smiled. ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’

‘Is he an academic?’ frowned Ramsay. ‘I’m just saying. It would be nice forsomeoneround here to have some money.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘But you like him?’