He waved her away. She persisted, showing him a page of notes. “Did you like what I wrote, ho-nee?”
“I didn’t have time to read it in depth,” he said stiffly. “But it made sense. It was all right.”
“I want to get it down. So we can entertain ourselves later, ho-nee, with all the things we’d usually forget. Like a souvenir. I wanted to write down about that place we visited. About those girls we saw, ho-nee. About the unusualness of the way they were dressed.”
The old man sighed.
They were quiet until the train reached Waverley Station. When the crowd surged up to the window and everyone on board started making for the exits, she flew into a panic again, getting all their things together. Timon helped them, said goodbye, and hoisted his backpack down off the rack. He hated leaving them behind. He wanted to hear what the old American said to his wife when they were alone together.
Then he was on the pale platform, under the dirty, translucent ceiling of the station.
John Menzies, Wendy had told him. We’ll meet you outside the paper stand. Timon breezed along in the crowd, as strangers greeted each other, sought out porters, lit cigarettes. He felt buoyant and wanted to explore.
Wendy’s hair was different, much shorter, and stiff with wax. She was in a purple t-shirt of some velvety material. She was even wearing a dark lipstick. She ran up and almost knocked him over. They clutched each other and it was some moments before Timon saw Colin standing there awkwardly, grinning. He was dressed almost the same as Wendy, both of them too lightly for winter. And yet the air here seemed quite mild.
“Look at you!” Wendy gabbled. “You look gorgeous!”
Timon shrugged, embarrassed.
“Colin, take his bag…”
“I can take it,” Timon protested. Colin looked far too skinny to pick it up. “Where are we going?”
Wendy looked shifty. “We can’t go straight to the flat. They’re cooking and getting ready for you.”
“For me?”
“Belinda’s cooking something special.”
“Is she?”
Wendy took his arm. “So we have to keep out of the way for a couple of hours. Come on. Let’s get a cab to the Scarlet Empress. Get a few pints down us first.”
Timon laughed. “You mean you won’t make me drink martini and liqueurs and god-knows-what flavour vodka anymore?”
“Oh no,” she grinned. “Those days are gone.”
Then, with practiced ease, she got them a cab.
On the way into town Colin had asked his cousin, “Will I fall in love with him?”
“I hope not,” she said. “There’s far too much of that going on.”
“I’m always falling for straight blokes.”
She wondered if he had his sights on David from the record shop. “Timon doesn’t really pay attention to what people think of him. He thinks he’s invisible.”
“He’s interested in what Belinda thinks.”
“That’s what worries me about this.”
“And Belinda’s got herself all worked up. She’s frazzled about getting the roast potatoes done. And doing the Yorkshire puddings right. She thinks he’ll like them. Belinda seems to think Blackpool is in Yorkshire.”
Wendy thought Colin was being cruel. He was going to enjoy this.
“He’ll write about us, won’t he?” said Colin as they crossed Princess Street, by the great black tower of the Scott memorial. He was making Wendy jittery with his questions.
“Not if I ask him not to.”
“He’ll try, then?”
“Timon writes about everything. He’s obsessed.”
“And you’re still his best mate?”
“He never lets me see what he’s written. I’m not sure I’d want to read what he’s put about me.”
“If he ever mentions me, I’ll want to see it.”
Wendy looked at him. “You’d love someone to write about you, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d find it very flattering, whatever it was. It’s a great compliment.”
“You’ll have to get yourself noticed then,” said Wendy.
Then they were caught up in the flurry of the arriving train. To her Timon looked the same as ever. Blithe bordering on cocky, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Once she’d asked him how he managed to look so composed. He said he hummed little tune to himself, inside his head. A constant soundtrack to everything he observed. That sounded mad to her. But it explained the way he was distant sometimes.
The cab they took got stuck in the traffic round George Street.
“You look immaculate,” Wendy told her visitor. “How is it that when I travel on a train, I come off at the other end looking like a bag of shite?”
He laughed and shrugged. He seemed shy with her. She wondered if that had anything to do with his recent effusions of apparent love. He was trying to talk to Colin.
“You’re not Scottish though, are you?”
“I’ve lived here most of my life, but no. I still identify as English, at a push. I’m not as closed-in as the Scottish tend to be.”
“Is that what they’re like? Belinda’s born Scottish, isn’t she?”
Wendy nodded. “One of the few real Scots living in central Edinburgh. And she’s not know for being closed-in. Colin’s give to these sweeping generalisations.”
“You know what I mean, though,” Colin said. “Scots have a great capacity for ignoring what’s going on right in front of them. Like when Princess Diana died. Off went the Royals to church at Balmoral, the very same morning. And in the service, the death of Saint Diana wasn’t mentioned once. That’s exactly it. Put a lid on it. Ignore it. That’s the Scots.”
“But that was more to do with the Queen,” she said. “I think you’re being unfair.”
“Well,” said Colin. “I’ve been involved with more Scottish people than you have.”
For the rest of the trip to the Scarlet Empress on the slow decline of Broughton Street, Wendy thought about the Sunday Diana died. Coin had wept throughout the day, for the death of a princess, an icon, someone he saw as bringing common sense and the common touch.
