In the café they managed to secure Colin’s favourite table by the window, and spread out the large yellow menus. The proprietor, chuckling, bald, in vest top and PVC trousers, greeted them and Wendy asked for three pints and a snack of bruschetta, tomatoes and Mozarella.
“But we mustn’t eat too much, or Belinda will be cross.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to meet her, after all,” said Timon.
Colin rolled his eyes. “Do you see yourself as a Lancastrian, then?” he asked Timon. “Do you think of people like that? As belonging in places?”
“I’m a free spirit,” said Timon frankly, as their fizzy lagers arrived in wet glasses. “I was born in London. I don’t like it there much. But I can live anywhere. With people, more than places.”
“Might you stay in Edinburgh, then?” From Colin it sounded like a challenge.
Timon was soaking up the atmosphere. Brenda Soobie on the café speakers, singing ‘What now, my love?’ “I might just,” he said easily. “We’ll just have to see how it goes.” He turned to Wendy. “Is this a café just for faggots, then?”
“Faggots and their friends,” she said.
“How nice,” he said, tartly. And Wendy thought: that’s one in the eye for Colin. Serve him right.
“It’s very cramped in here,” Colin complained, once their bread and tomatoes had arrived.
“I’ve felt cramped all day,” said Timon. “That train was murder. I was sitting with this very old American couple and you know what I’m like, Wendy. I heard all the ins and outs of their lives. All their marriage stories. She was a war bride, coming back to bonny Scotland for the first time. She couldn’t remember hardly anything. It was sad, really. She couldn’t remember which was furthest north—Aberdeen or Inverness.”
“People never know anything about Scotland,” said Colin. “They don’t know what it’s like north of Edinburgh. Just a funny little appendix to England. A few mountains.”
“Surely it’s not still like that,” said Timon. “Not now.”
Colin shrugged.
“So you felt cramped and claustrophobic all the way up,” Wendy prompted. “Forced into hearing the confessions of those Americans. Oh, you love it really, don’t you?”
“It’s hard not to feel pressed in by it after a while. The woman wouldn’t shut up. She was so on edge. I thought her hubby was going to punch her. I just did what I always do. Breathe easy, create your own atmosphere around you. Make your own head-space.”
“Head-space,” repeated Colin absently, collecting up one of his clichés. Timon eyed him warily.
“That’s how I get by,” he went on. “Then I can breathe.” He looked around again. Out of the window the tiered garden looked autumnal. The rooftops were prettily bleak. “It’s a picturesque place.”
“And a very picturesque group you’re joining!” laughed Colin. “We’re a picturesque bunch. Just you wait and see.”
When Colin went off to the toilets, Wendy said to Timon,
“What are you writing?”
“The usual stuff. Bits and pieces. I sent a whole load off to some publishers and it all came back saying it was nice, but I had to write something coherent and substantial.” He took a long slurp of lager. “Can you think of anything?”
“You won’t write about here, will you?”
“Nothing’s happened here yet,” he laughed.
“But it will. And they wouldn’t like it.”
“I’ll be good, Wendy.”
“You turn everything into your funny stories.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Is that what you’re going to turn Belinda into?”
He looked serious. “You’re really suspicious about me and Belinda, aren’t you? But you shouldn’t be. I’ve never felt as connected to another person as I am to her. Can you imagine what it feels like, being in the same city? It’s like I’m aware of her, nearby. Her mind, everything. Waiting for me.”
“She bought the biggest chicken you’ve ever seen,” Wendy said. “For dinner tonight. Everything’s been given over to your arrival.”
“Good.”
“So don’t mind Colin if he’s a bit sharp.”
“He’s all right.” Timon drained his glass. “Are we having another? That booze is really hitting the mark.” Wendy waved at the waiter. “What does he do anyway, your cousin?”
Colin slid back into his seat. “Are you talking about me?”
“Timon was just asking what you do.”
“What I do…” said Colin. “People always ask me that. You get defined by your function. Like a bloody tool kit.”
“That means he does nowt,” said Wendy.
“A gentleman of private means, of private income.”
“Thanks to the National Lottery,” Wendy smirked. “And, of course, Astrology Annie.”
“The day we won the Roll-over she forecast it would be a father with a son who was a very pretty young man with time on his hands. And it was me.”
Wendy explained. “Astrology Annie is a saint in Colin’s pantheon. Second only to Princess Diana, and a little way in front of Madonna.”
“Who’s never been the same since she was cast as Evita.”
“Right,” said Timon. “Don’t you get bored, though?”
Colin flushed. Their new drinks arrived. “I’ve got things I like to do. I fill up my long, empty hours. Nothing as elevated as writing, though.” He was about to add, “or working in a chip shop,” but he bit his tongue.
“Writing has never felt like a job,” said Timon. “I’ve made bugger all money out of it.”
“You will one day,” said Colin generously.
“Maybe I’ll write a novel about Wendy,” said Timon suddenly. “One day, when we can all see what she’s made of her life.”
“You dare,” she said.
“And I’ll do a bit of it in third person, like a biography, and some of it in first and get it as close to the tone of your eventual, grown-up self as I can. And then I’ll claim it’s all your own work. So you’ll have to get on and do lots of scandalous things for me.”
Colin laughed. “I’ll drink to that. To Wendy—and everything she’ll get up to.”
Wendy blushed furiously.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Hello again, Timon,” said
