‘Yeah yeah yeah.’
His voice grew wistful for a moment.
‘Although often I find in music … ’
‘There is, like, divine stuff?’
‘Well, that is as good a word as any,’ he said, and they continued on in silence.
‘You’re a very strange person,’ said Carmen.
‘All God’s creatures are strange,’ said Oke, but he was teasing her, she knew.
The cold was biting now. Oke indicated a courtyard to their right at the top of the steps that led up to the Royal Mile.
‘This is where I stay,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Carmen.
She smiled, and suddenly found herself moving closer towards him. There was nobody else in the dark alleyway. He looked at his hands, reluctant to make an advance, but she found his hand herself, in gloves too thin for the weather, and took it and put it between hers. His green eyes locked onto hers. The freezing night fell still, silence all around. She moved towards him again under the freezing Edinburgh sky, under the grey tenement walls, hundreds of years of history on all sides, in a world as old as time; she leaned towards him …
Suddenly, footsteps hastened by, followed by a loud sobbing noise. They both glanced up.
It was Dahlia, staring at Oke, her face dissolving in tears.
‘Oh goodness,’ said Oke. ‘Are you all right?’
He went to move after her, and Carmen would have done too, not sure what was going on, when her phone blared out, the noise bouncing off the old grey stone walls, an interloper, a thing that did not belong.
Oke turned and looked back towards her as Dahlia stopped in the close leading to the street, leaning her head against the wall as if inviting Oke to comfort her. Carmen felt a lump in her throat as she waved him on, looking at her phone in case the call was from Sofia.
The number was private. She pressed ‘okay’.
‘Thisfuckinghotel room,’ said Blair. ‘It’s too big. Too fucking big. I’m coming home, gorgeous. Via that freezing cold town you live in!’
She turned round to say something to Oke, once she’d finished the conversation as quickly as she could, but he was patting Dahlia on the back as she spoke to him. Oh my God. Oh my goodness, were they … ? She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked if they were together, even after she’d seen them at the party. That was her fault. She’d let herself get swept away in the moment, and the music. He’d probably taken Dahlia down there before already – that’s how he knew the music was even happening.
As he turned round again to look at her, she kept the phone to her ear even though there was no one on the line any more.
‘Great,’ she said loudly, lashing out as she watched Oke and Dahlia’s heads close together. ‘See you,Blair.’
And she hung up, even as Oke was looking at her, his face hurt and confused, and stalked off, back the way she came.
The shouting crowds of the fair felt irritating now as Carmen pushed her way through them, her head a mess.
Blair was ridiculous. Of course he was. But he was … She felt underneath all the nonsense he was funny and cynical and she couldn’t help finding him attractive. Oke was attractive – of course he was – but Blair was a man of the world, had been everywhere, had met everyone, wasfamous– and was still texting her. She couldn’t deny it was flattering and appealing and she remembered his cold hand on her waist …
Oke was nice. Definitely nice. But he was seeing someone else anyway; he was just making a habit of acquiring shop girls as he went on.
Oh, but she had liked him. She had liked him a lot. But he belonged to someone else. Story of her life.
But Blair … he had what everyone else had round here. Money and a career and he knew what he was doing and where his life was heading. Okay, he was a doof but … God, it would be nice to have a bit of that. When everyone else in the world (she was still getting very jolly messages from Idra) seemed to have their shit together but poor old Carmen. It was all right to want that, wasn’t it?
Carmen sighed. Christmas was getting to her, she could tell. There was something about the magical pull of this town, the swirl of snowflakes that was sending her –argh–completelymad. She had nearly kissed a near-total stranger.
Mind you.
Her phone kept buzzing.
