Chapter 7 #2
The other downside was that Eilidh was nosey as hell.
Had Niall been sitting next to Carli herself, he could control the output of information about her life.
Instead, he had to listen to Eilidh prod her for details and wait with a knot in his gut for the answers.
When it came to the part about her love life, he had to stand up and excuse himself under the guise of getting more wine, despite not actually drinking the stuff.
After dinner, there were speeches. Copious lovely tributes to his dad and his influence on everyone from the family to locals who’d been touched by his professionalism or his charity.
You could fill all the empty wine bottles with the tears.
Then the ceilidh band struck up, and the marquee transformed into a dance space. The floorboards were vibrating with bodies bounding up and down the room, laughter rich like spun treacle and the accompanying smells of whisky, leather and perfume doing a dance of their own.
As promised, Niall danced the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’ with June McDougall, ‘Strip the Willow’ with June’s best friend, then the ‘Gay Gordons’ with Jamie’s partner, Alicia.
But the one person he wanted to dance with wasn’t dancing at all.
Socialising, yes, laughing captivatingly, yes, but dancing, no.
Strange, as Carli had always loved to dance.
One of his best memories of her was turning on the radio in the kitchen one day to find it playing ceilidh music and dancing an impromptu ‘Military Two-Step’ together.
He could still hear her contagious laughter as they’d gone round and round countless times, him calling the moves and her telling him not to be so bossy.
Something flitted into his mind. A memory from his second night of jet lag insomnia, only marginally different from the usual insomnia he experienced.
He’d been on Instagram, his eye caught by Eilidh’s post tagging Cara and Carli at the beach.
Niall clicked into her profile, but what stood out, apart from the countless beautiful photos of her, was her bio: ‘Yoga teacher, classes for Fibro and chronic pain’.
And when he’d googled ‘Fibro’, he stalled.
Did Carli have this condition, of being in pain all the time, or was she someone who helped others who had it?
Now, seeing her sitting out of the dancing, he couldn’t help but wonder if it might be both.
He approached her when she was sitting alone, drinking a glass of water. The ceilidh had ended and the live band gave way to more contemporary music.
‘Would you like to dance?’ The instinct was to extend his hand like a bloke in those historical dramas his mum and sisters watched, but he also wished his kilt had pockets to sink his awkwardness into.
Was there a shimmer of hesitation in her soft brown eyes?
Carli had a way of appearing to like you when she was hoping you’d fuck off.
It was how she won people round and sifted out the losers.
Lucky for him, he’d never been on the fuck off side of things.
Until possibly now. Had he played this wrong?
Fingers accidentally glancing over a can of Irn-Bru was one thing, but dancing was another.
You should have waited.
But Carli simply smiled that might like you, might not smile of hers that did funny things to him, and said, ‘Sure’.
Together, they walked to the dance floor, literal inches between them, metaphorical miles, Niall’s hand flexing by his side like it should be somewhere else. In Carli’s.
‘You sure you’re alright with this?’ he asked as they melded in with the other couples who were dancing to a ballad that Niall could only describe as ‘tragic’. Was this the soundtrack to his life now?
Carli nodded and he took her hand – so small and delicate, although her character was anything but.
She rested the other on his shoulder and he cupped his left palm into the dip of her lower back.
When they were together, he’d loved to hold her there; it fanned the flames of a fierce protective instinct within him.
Still did.
The scent of violets from Carli’s skin was heady, like they were dancing in an exotic night garden. His wee Cass had well and truly graduated from inexpensive girly body spray to a bold, womanly fragrance. Adverts would describe it as being evocative of oriental nights or something.
Nights with Carli.
Okay, do not think of that right now. Keep yourself together.
But then, as one song segued into another, it wasn’t what was under his kilt that Niall had to worry about.
It was his heart.
‘Did you…?’ He gaped up at the ceiling as if that’s where the music was coming from, then back to Carli whose face told of her surprise. ‘“Flame Trees?”’
She shook her head. Did he imagine it, or had she moved back from him a little, as if he’d orchestrated this song to be played to try and bring them closer together?
‘It wasn’t me, Cass. I promise.’
She shrugged. ‘Wasn’t me either. Eilidh and Cara borrowed my Spotify earlier to choose some songs, so there was a bit of something for everyone, but I didn’t tell them to play this song. I would never have told them to play it.’
‘Ah, Eilidh and Cara. Well, there’s the answer.’ Those thick-as-thieves sisters of his. Trying to rekindle their fire. That would be typical. Niall scanned the room for their crafty, smug faces, but they were nowhere to be seen.
He turned back to Carli and examined her askance.
‘Flame Trees’ had been her favourite song; she’d played it to him so many times, he knew all the words.
They’d kissed to it, done other things to it.
‘An Aussie classic,’ she’d told him, and if you dated an Aussie, you should know it too.
‘Is that enshrined in law?’ he’d asked. And she’d told him it was Carli’s law.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, yeah. Good.’ She stared out across the dance floor and he pulled her closer, tried to concentrate on finding the rhythm with her again.
He wasn’t sure if she was okay, or if he was okay.
The truth was this song tore him apart, the lyrics telling the tale of a man returning to his hometown and lamenting the changes, including the space left by an old flame.
For Carli, when she’d introduced him to the song, it reminded her of Australia, the home that she missed.
But for him, it would always be pain, losing her.
An aching, an emptiness, like a long-excavated mine.
As they danced, Niall wondered if Carli felt his heart pounding through his shirt, beating out a 4/4 rhythm of regret in time with the music.
How he wanted to close the distance between them and hold her like he’d imagined while listening to this song on his own.
There couldn’t be a single person in this room who was feeling the feelings he was from ‘Flame Trees’ and dancing with this woman.
To be fair, it was unlikely anyone else here had ever heard this song.
‘So, um. You over your motion sickness now?’ Diverting to something mundane was possibly wise. ‘From the plane, that is, not this dance? I’m presuming that’s still ongoing.’
She smiled, grateful maybe, of the tension being broken with small talk.
‘So much better,’ she said, ‘although jet lag is trying to control me, but I’m pretending to my body that everything is normal, and it seems to believe me.’
Niall scrutinised her face for signs that she’d implied a double meaning.
He could have said the same, except his body wasn’t believing that everything was normal at all, and it was nothing to do with jet lag.
If you’d taken a blood sample from him and analysed it, it would come back with elevated levels of desire and longing for Carli Caselli.
The only pretending he was doing was for the sake of decency at a family party where pensioners and children were present.
‘How’s your jet lag?’ Carli returned the question.
‘Och, fine, yeah,’ Niall lied. ‘I’m in control of the body Butler so far.’
‘The body Butler,’ she said. ‘I like that.’
Okay, that was it. Niall couldn’t keep up this dance/charade or whatever it was. He had to do something.
‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ he asked. ‘Watch the sunset or something cheesy like that?’
This won him a smile. ‘I could do with a little fresh air,’ she said, as the closing bars of the song played out. ‘It’s kind of stifling inside this marquee.’
‘Aye, it is. How about you meet me outside in a second. I have to get my jacket.’
‘I thought you Scotsmen were immune to the cold.’
‘It’s not for me. It’s for you. That wee cardigan thing you’ve got looks like it might have shrunk in the wash.’
Carli laughed. ‘It’s a shrug.’
Niall shrugged and smiled, hoping she got his non-verbal humour. ‘I’ll be two seconds, Cass. I promise. I won’t be leaving you out in the cold again.’
And he left Carli looking doubtful but knowing in his heart that he was telling the truth.