But Chris tries not to think about that.
Why here? He could have opened his restaurant anywhere. Why Edinburgh? Why Leith? It’s not as if he has very many fond memories of the place. His most recent time here definitely wasn’t great. What brought him back? Is it that he does, in a begrudging, Scottish sort of way, love this city, with its vibrant clash of old and new, rich and poor? Its neighborhoods like little towns in themselves, clustered around a sort of high street with the obligatory butcher, baker, and newsagents where you can buy the latest gossip rag, a bottle of cheap plonk, and freshly made samosas, all in a space roughly the size of Chris’s bedroom.
Or maybe it’s not the city, but the people in it that drew him home. He’s never encountered anyone else quite like the Scots. These are a people who refuse to let go of the past entirely, squeezing awkwardly into old buildings and maintaining a grudge against the English that everyone else thinks they should have let go of centuries ago. But to a Scot, Culloden may as well have happened yesterday. The Scots are people of stone, they are. They remember, and they refuse to budge. They withstand, and though you may think you’ve beaten them, you haven’t. You never will. They’ll play their banned instruments and wear kilts unironically in the most inhospitable weather and just dare you to say anything about it. They will rise again and again and again, holding tight to their traditions even as they maneuver themselves into position as a modern society worth paying attention to.
Maybe it’s neither of those things. Maybe Chris has come back to give an emphatic middle finger to the neighborhood that once almost ruined him. He’s returned successful and famous, and the restaurant will just be the capper to it all. You see, a boy from the Banana Flats can make good. We council house kids can rise to the top, and to hell with all the people like the Napiers who used to look down on us.
Damn. He’d hoped to keep Susan from his mind—he’s managed so well these past several years. But here she is again, rising like a wraith. Invading his city (how very English of her!). As he wanders over to a window and looks out at a collection of buildings turned sullen gray by centuries of soot and industry, he wonders: What the hell is Susan Napier doing in Edinburgh?
Seeing her younger sister, maybe? The one who was up here, at Edinburgh University, when he and Susan were together? He’s never met that sister, but Chris imagines she’s just like Julia. Susan had seemed such an odd one out in her family. He’d sort of loved that about her. And he’d definitely loved the fact it didn’t seem to bother her.
He digs his nails into his palms and tries not to remember the things he’d loved. The time she showed up for a date with a massive box of biscuits in half a dozen different flavors (“I was experimenting today”) or how she frowned and bit the left corner of her bottom lip as she really concentrated on getting something right. Or the feel of her hair, or the smell of her …
Chris forces himself to dredge up another memory: of coming home, after a double shift and the worst news of his life (up to that point), to find her standing beside two packed bags. No warning, no explanation. That was it, she was gone. It hurt even worse than he’d expected, and then what happened next …
Chris closes his eyes and digs his nails in harder. He had risked everything for her and got nothing back. And that’s when he realized he’d been nothing to her. A taste of something exotic: a rich girl slumming. Someone to distract her when her life got hard. And when she was done with him, she’d dropped him without a thought and never looked back.
Maybe she’s more like Julia than he thought.
And now, here she is again. Wandering back into his orbit, just when he truly believed he’d put all that far, far behind him. Seeing her at the airport had been like a leap into a steaming pool that turned out to be freezing. It was such a shock, he hadn’t known what to do, so he flailed, bewildered. Looked away to collect himself, and then she was gone.
Maybe she hadn’t really been there at all. Maybe he’d just imagined it. It would make sense—she looked exactly as he remembered her, and who doesn’t change in ten years? That dark, wavy hair cut short, framing a heart-shaped face with skin as smooth and pale as milk. There was a scattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks—how many times had he tried to kiss each and every one? How many times had he tried to come up with a better way to describe the color of her eyes than “mackerel belly”?
But it was her. He knew it was. She has changed, subtly. Her face is a little thinner. Her eyes a little sadder. And she seemed just as shocked to see him. Nothing you conjure up is going to seem surprised to see you.
Hopefully she’s just in town for a quick trip. A couple of days with her sister, and then she’ll be gone.
The sooner the better, Chris thinks.
He has a restaurant to open and a book coming out. He has his hands more than full, And anyway, he sternly reminds himself, Susan’s a bitch. She used him, got what she wanted or needed, and then dropped him. And when he needed her, she hadn’t been there. Even today, in the airport, she hadn’t had the grace to come over and speak to him. And really, she should make the first move, right? After all, she was in the wrong.
Of course, she was shocked too. Maybe she will make the next move, if given the opportunity. Does he want to give it to her?
Without allowing a chance to talk himself out of it, he pulls out his mobile and dials a number.
“Yes, hi, it’s Chris Baker,” he says to the bright voice on the other end of the line. “I just want to leave a message for Russell Cox. Could you please tell him I’ll do his event?”
Chapter Three
All the Delight of Unpleasant Recollections
Edinburgh smells of porridge. It’s the first thing Susan notices, as she steps outside. Is that something they do for the tourists? she wonders, bemused. It isn’t: there’s a brewery or a distillery—she can’t remember which—outside the city, and so some days the pleasant, toasty, quintessentially Scottish smell permeates parts of the city.
Chris first told her about that.
“Can’t smell it in Leith, though,” he’d added with a slightly bitter smile. “Different sorts of smells there.”
Chris. She spent the entire taxi ride from the airport trying to calm herself down and wondering what the hell he was doing in Edinburgh. Yes, he’d grown up here, but she had always been under the impression he was happy to have left. Maybe he’s just visiting friends. Or his sister—he mentioned a sister a few times. Beth.
A visit, of course. But it seems so bizarre, seeing him just after finding that album. It was as if she’d conjured him up. Maybe she had. Maybe that hadn’t been him at all, just some other man with a similar build and coloring. Scotland is full of muscular redheads, if popular culture and Highland Games are to be believed. It was seeing that photograph; it put him in her head, primed her to see him where he couldn’t be. Because, surely, if it had been him, he’d have said something?
Then again, maybe not. Not after what she did.
She grimaces just thinking about it, as she turns down Forres Street and begins the steep climb past Charlotte Square. Locked up tight now, in two months the Square will throw open its gates for the Book Festival. Every available space in the city will open itself to the grand August festival triad: Book, International, Fringe. The city will swarm with people, and no one will want for entertainment at any hour of the day or night. And they’ll all need feeding.