Everywhere in Edinburgh is uphill. This doesn’t seem like it can possibly be true, but it is.
And possibly nowhere truer than Waverley Station, sunk at the very bottom of a drained loch, perched incongruously in the middle of a city, where other more sensible cities have rivers and bridges and appropriate things.
And in the dark freezing afternoon numbness of the grey station, full of whistles and the smell of coffee drifting across the terminal, a small, cross figure was hoisting a rucksack on her shoulders and staring upwards mutinously.
‘Oh you don’t have to get a cab, it’s hardly any distance,’ Sofia had texted, but it turned out if you had to walk uphill constantly and it was a howling gale it did feel like a big, gigantic, ginormous distance.
First off, from the top of the wind-strewn staircase leading from the station, the city rose around her, but Carmen barely noticed it for the thousands of tourists in front of her taking up all the space with their huge backpacks. She’d been to the city before of course, on school trips, or up to the festival, but she didn’t know it well. As she shoved her way up, head down against the wind, the first thing she saw was a huge outdoor bar propped right in front of the station, with a live band and twinkly lights all around it.
Further on, leading into the darkening evening, was a winter funfair as far as the eye could see, as well as stalls selling sausages, mulled wine, hot chocolate and schnapps. Obviously they started early around here.
People were everywhere: little children, eyes wide, in their light-up trainers; teenagers laughing and shoving each other; young girls in sleeveless tops and short skirts, oblivious to the weather. Carmen noticed none of it, blindly following the map on her phone and trying not to get run over by what, to her shock when she glanced up, turned out to be a tram, dinging angrily at her.
They have trams? she thought, jumping back. Who knew?
She remembered once again her parents’ strained looks of disappointment as her mother had let slip, as kindly as she was able, that her sister’s law firm handled the affairs of someone who had a shop and was looking for some seasonal help.
‘You letSofiafind me ajob?’ said Carmen, distraught.
She had been quite capable of looking for a job herself. Okay, she had also been doing quite a lot of doomscrolling and watching Netflix and reading all theAnne of Green Gablesbooks again, because that was just self-care and she was grieving for the loss of the job and the life she’d had and why wasn’t that okay?
‘So Sofia knows best again?’
Her mother and father looked at one another.
‘She’s just trying to help,’ said her mother.
‘She’s justshowing off. What if I hate it?’
Carmen was aware she was being a brat, sitting at home, getting her laundry done and her meals cooked and her father – her gentle father, who almost never reproached his girls – nonetheless looked up from over his crossword and raised his eyebrows.
Her voice cracked.
‘I mean … you know this is a very hard time for me.’
She had applied for so many jobs, but without a degree or any qualifications, she wasn’t having any luck at all, unless she either wanted to be an exotic dancer or a delivery driver. Carmen was not a hundred per cent sure which of these she’d be worse at.
She waited for her parents to spring to her defence as they always did, say she was going through a bad patch, that the shop closing obviously wasn’t her fault, that she deserved a bit of down time to recover from the blow.
Neither of them said anything. Her father stared at the floor. Her mother looked miserable, but didn’t open her mouth.
‘You all think I’m being a brat,’ said Carmen, devastated.
‘No,chica,’ said her mother. ‘It’s just … we just want to see you on your feet and … ’
‘You think I’m wasting my life.’
‘No life is wasted,’ said her father, but it had sounded an empty platitude in the tidy, tiny kitchen.
I will be nice. I will be grateful, Carmen said to herself as she finally pulled herself onto the correct street.
She’d been sent pictures of the house but Carmen had never really paid attention, just assuming it would be big and posh and stupid. She didn’t expect it to be all of those things, but also heartbreakingly adorable.
Sofia felt nervous and trepidatious answering the door. This was ridiculous, she told herself. It was her sister. They could be close. Other people were close to their sisters! She wished Federico was here and not in Hong Kong. He was good with Carmen – at teasing her and bringing out her fun side, and not prodding her sensitive spots, namely how she compared to Sofia and how skint she was. Still, at least Carmen would be slimmer than her for once. Sofia took a lot of care over her food and working out, while Carmen ate a lot of pizza and moaned that Sofia was ‘lucky’.
And their mother, while being quietly thrilled, had pledged that she wasn’t going to interfere or contact them. It was really for her own sanity: she couldn’t handle them on the phone every five minutes complaining about the other one. She would miss her grandchildren – she doted on them – but maybe this would be the spur Carmen needed to get to know her own family.
She very much hoped so.
