CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Third Anniversary
Last Summer
SUNDAY 15 JULY 2007
Edinburgh
‘Ring-ring. Ring-ring.’
He is woken by his daughter’s index finger pressing his nose as if it were a doorbell.
‘Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Who’s at the door? Jasmine’s at the door!!’
‘What are you doing, Jas?’
‘I’m waking you up. Ring-ring.’ Her thumb is in his eye now, pulling back the eyelid. ‘Wake up, lazybones!’
‘What time is it?’
‘Daytime!’
Beside him in the hotel bed, Maddy reaches for her watch. ‘Half past six,’ she groans into the pillow and Jasmine laughs malevolently. Dexter opens both eyes, and sees her face on the pillow next to him, her nose inches away. ‘Haven’t you got books to read or dolls to play with or something?’
‘Nope.’
‘Go and colour something in, will you?’
‘I’m hungry. Can we have room service? What time is the swimming pool open?’
The Edinburgh hotel is plush, traditional and grand, oak panels and porcelain baths. His parents stayed here once, for his graduation, and it’s a little more old-fashioned and expensive than he would like, but he thought that if they’re going to do this, they should do it in some style. They are staying for two nights – Dexter, Maddy and Jasmine – before hiring a car and driving across to a holiday cottage near Loch Lomond. Glasgow is nearer of course, but Dexter hasn’t been to Edinburgh for fifteen years, not since a debauched weekend when he presented a TV show from the Festival. All of that seems a long, long time ago now, another lifetime. Today he has a fatherly notion that he might show his daughter round the city. Maddy, aware of the date, has decided to leave them to it.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ he asks her in the privacy of the bathroom.
‘Of course not. I’ll go to the gallery, see that exhibition.’
‘I just want to show her some places. Memory Lane. No reason why you should suffer too.’
‘Like I said, I really don’t mind.’
He regards her carefully. ‘And you don’t think I’m nuts?’
She gives a faint smile. ‘No, I don’t think you’re nuts.’
‘You don’t think it’s ghoulish or weird?’
‘Not at all.’ If she does mind, she certainly isn’t showing it. He kisses her lightly on the neck. ‘You must do whatever you want,’ she says.
The notion that it might rain for forty consecutive days had once seemed far-fetched, but not this year. All over the country it has poured daily for weeks now, high streets disappearing under flood water, and the summer has seemed so unique that it might almost be a new kind of season. A monsoon season, but as they step out onto the street, the day is still bright with high cloud, dry for the moment at least. They make plans for lunch with Maddy, and go their separate ways.
The hotel is in the Old Town, just off the Royal Mile, and Dexter takes Jasmine on the standard atmospheric tour, down alleyways and secret stairways until they find themselves on Nicolson Street, heading south out of the city centre. He remembers the street as hectic and hazy with bus fumes, but on a Sunday morning it is quiet and a little sad, and Jasmine is starting to get restless and bored now that they have left the tourist trail. Feeling her hand go heavy in his, Dexter keeps on walking. He has found the old address on one of Emma’s letters and soon spots a sign. Rankeillor Street. They turn into the quiet residential road.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m looking for somewhere. Number seventeen.’ They are outside now. Dexter peers up at the third-floor window, its curtains drawn, blank and nondescript.
‘You see that flat there? That’s where Emma used to live when we were at University together. In fact that’s sort of where we met.’ Jasmine looks up obediently, but there is nothing to distinguish the unremarkable terraced house from those on either side, and Dexter starts to question the wisdom of this expedition. It’s indulgent, morbid and sentimental; what was he expecting to find? There is nothing here that he recalls, and the pleasure gained from nostalgia is slight and futile. For a moment he contemplates abandoning the tour, phoning Maddy and arranging to meet a little earlier, but Jasmine is pointing to the end of the street, the granite escarpment that looms incongruously over the estate below.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s Salisbury Crags. Leads up to Arthur’s Seat.’
‘There’s people up there!’
‘You can climb it. It isn’t hard. What do you think? Shall we try? Do you think you can do it?’
They head for Holyrood Park. Depressingly, his seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter clambers up the mountain path with far more energy than her father, pausing only intermittently to turn back and laugh at him, wheezing and sweating below.
‘It’s because I’ve got no grip on my shoes,’ he protests, and they keep climbing, leaving the main path and clambering over rocks before finally stumbling onto the scrubby rust-coloured plateau at the top of Arthur’s Seat. There they find the stone column that marks the highest point, and he inspects the scratchings and scribbles, half hoping to see his own initials there: ‘Fight Faschism’ ‘Alex M 5/5/07’ ‘Fiona 4ever’.
To distract Jasmine from the lewder graffiti, he lifts her up and sits her on the column, one arm round her waist, her legs dangling as he points out the landmarks. ‘That’s the castle, near the hotel. There’s the station. That’s the Firth of Forth, leading out into the North Sea. Norway’s over there somewhere. Leith, and that’s the New Town, where I used to live. Twenty years ago now, Jas. Last century. And over there, with the tower, that’s Calton Hill. We could climb that too, if you liked, this afternoon.’
‘Aren’t you too tired?’ she asks, sardonically.
‘Me? You’re kidding. I’m a natural athlete.’ Jasmine wheezes in imitation, one fist clutching at her chest. ‘Comedian.’ He lifts her off the pillar, hands tucked in her armpits, and makes to throw her off the mountainside before swinging her, screaming and laughing, under his arm.
They walk a little way from the summit and find a natural hollow nearby that overlooks the city. He lies with his hands behind his head, while Jasmine sits beside him eating salt and vinegar crisps and drinking her carton of juice with great concentration. The sun is warm on his face, but the early start to the day is starting to take its toll and within minutes he feels sleep creeping up on him.
‘Did Emma come here too?’ asks Jasmine.
Dexter opens his eyes and raises himself up onto his elbows.
‘She did. We came here together. I’ve got a photo of us at home. I’ll show you. Back when Dad was skinny.’
Jasmine puffs her cheeks out at him, then sets about licking the salt from her fingers. ‘Do you miss her?’
‘Who? Emma? Of course. Every day. She was my best friend.’ He nudges her with his elbow. ‘Why, do you?’
Jasmine frowns as she recalls. ‘I think so. I was only four, I don’t remember her that well, only when I look at pictures. I remember the wedding. She was nice though, wasn’t she?’
‘Very nice.’
‘So who’s your best friend now?’
He places a hand on the back of his daughter’s neck, fitting his thumb into the hollow there. ‘You, of course. Why, who’s your best friend?’