Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

sought out the sanctuary of his rear pocket in a casual intimacy that she did not bother to conceal.

Isabel only wanted to establish a distance between herself and Graeme. He would have to turn at the top of Candlemaker Row, and he could be heading for George IV Bridge. But he did not.

When she glanced back again, he was there a few yards behind her, not looking at her, but so close now that he would soon draw level with her and could not fail to see her.

F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E

1 9 3

She increased her pace, glancing back quickly. He was nearer now, and she saw that he was looking at her. She turned her head away; she was on Sandy Bell’s corner, the signs—

whiskies, ales, and music nightly—immediately beside her.

She hesitated for a moment, and then turned in, pushing open the swing door and entering the wood-panelled howff with its long, polished-mahogany bar and its array of whisky bottles on shelves. To her relief, she saw that the room was quite full, even now, just after five o’clock; later it would be packed, exuberant with music, filled with the sound of fiddles, whistles, singing. She approached the bar, pleased to find herself beside a woman, rather than a man. Isabel did not frequent bars, but this, now, was where she wanted to be, with people, in safety. She was convinced that Graeme had been following her, even if this was an absurd thought; people did not follow others in daylight on the streets of Edinburgh, or at least not on these streets.

The woman beside her looked at the new arrival and nodded. Isabel smiled, noticing the lines around the woman’s mouth, the small lines that advertised her status as a smoker.

The other woman was, she thought, somewhere in her thirties, but was ageing quickly—from alcohol, cares, smoking.

The barman raised an eyebrow expectantly, and for a moment she was tongue-tied. All those years ago she had gone into pubs with John Liamor, who drank Guinness, and what had she had? She looked ahead of her at the rows of bottles, and remembered the whisky nosing she had attended when Charlie Maclean had used those peculiar terms of his. She had forgotten which whisky was which, but now she saw a name she recognised, which she thought he had spoken of, and 1 9 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h she pointed to it. The barman nodded and reached for the bottle.

The woman beside her touched her glass, which was almost empty. Isabel was pleased to respond.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing towards the barman.

The woman’s face lit up. “Thank you, hen.” Isabel liked the characteristically Scottish term of affection. Hen. It was warm and old-fashioned.

“I’ve had a day and a half,” said the woman. “I’ve been on since ten this morning. Nonstop.”

Isabel raised her glass to her new companion. “What do you do?”

“Taxi,” said the woman. “My man and me. Both of us.

Taxis.”

Isabel was about to say something about this, how difficult it must be with the traffic, but then she saw him further along the bar, taking a glass of beer from the barman. The woman beside her followed her gaze.

“Recognise somebody?”

Isabel felt hollow. Graeme must have come in immediately behind her, followed her. Or could it be a coincidence? Had he been heading for Sandy Bell’s at just the time that she happened to be walking up Candlemaker Row? She did not know what to think.

She lowered herself onto a bar stool beside the other woman. Now she could not see him any more, nor he her, she imagined.

The taxi driver glanced down the bar again. “You’re upset about something, hen,” she said, her voice lowered. “Are you all right?” Then she added, “Men. Always men. The cause of all our troubles. Men.”

F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E

1 9 5

In spite of her shock, Isabel was able to smile. The woman’s remark cheered her with its assumption of solidarity. We are strong together. Women were not alone in the face of bullies. As long as they could call one another hen and stand together.

Isabel noticed that the woman had placed a small phone on the bar, next to her glass, and the sight of it gave her an idea.

She had her pocket diary in her bag, and in it were the telephone numbers she had been using recently, noted down in the pages at the end.

“Could I ask you a favour? I need to make a telephone call.”

The woman willingly slid the phone along the bar. Isabel picked it up and dialled. Her fingers fumbled, and she dialled again. He answered. He could come, if she insisted. Was it important? Yes, he would be there in however long it took to call a taxi and to make the short trip to Sandy Bell’s.

“Please hurry,” said Isabel, her voice barely more than a whisper.

A S I S A B E L WA I T E D, she exchanged a few words with the woman beside her.

“You’re frightened of somebody, aren’t you? That fellow down there?”

Isabel could not bring herself to say that she was frightened of anybody. Her world—her normal world—did not involve fear of others, but she knew that many people lived in fear. We forget.