Chapter 14 #2
They pile onto the number 15 bus, climb onto the top deck and plonk themselves down on the front seats.
The route skirts the boutique shops and eateries in Morningside and Bruntsfield and passes restaurants, bars, and nightclubs on Lothian Road.
The sun shines on Edinburgh Castle as they drive along Princes Street with the beautifully presented Gardens to the right and sleek designer shops on the left, past the gothic tower of the Scott Monument and the modern design of Waverley Station.
Georgia proudly shows them key points of architecture as they travel and Trey snaps excitedly with his iPhone camera.
They get off the bus on Regent Terrace, beside Edinburgh’s old High School, and within a few minutes walking, arrive at Holyrood Palace, the monarch’s Scottish residence.
The building’s symmetrical facade is not overly ornate but its large open forecourt with ornamental iron gates gives the teenagers a sense of the opulence indoors.
Trey stops, takes a photograph then debates with Brianna and Georgia if the King is inside, and whether he’s tucking into his Thanksgiving turkey if so.
Heather doesn’t have the heart to point out that the flag would be at full mast if the monarch was in residence.
They set a brisk pace for their walk to the summit of Arthur’s Seat.
Despite their initial reluctance, Georgia, Brianna and Trey storm ahead on the tarmac path in a challenge to see who can get to the top first. Scott and Heather fall into an easy pace behind them.
‘So, what happened with that guy?’ Scott asks as they climb, ‘What was his name? Paul?’
Heather slows her pace to look at him. Evidently, he had been listening.
‘You know the script, I’m sure,’ she says.
‘You think someone’s in it with you for the long term, then the real challenge comes, like work asks them to commit to a particular Covid bubble and they choose their workmates over your supposed family because they can’t stand the idea of home schooling alongside their day job.
So, one day they’re there, the next they’re gone. ’
His eyes bulge.
‘He left just like that?’
‘Overnight with no warning. It was the first sign I had that he wasn’t on the same page as us.’
Scott shakes his head. ‘Wow. Nice guy.’
‘Yeah. Well, it’s a bit of a pattern with me.
Georgia’s dad was pretty much the same. The thing he couldn’t handle was a three-month-old baby who cried all day and all night.
I guess it made him reflect on his previous marriage and assessed it wasn’t quite so bad after all. So … I guess …. for me … twice burnt.’
He nods slowly. ‘Explains your comment about not expecting things to last.’
Heather navigates an area of rough ground as the path turns to stone and gravel before the climb in line with the sheer cliff face of Salisbury Crags.
‘I’ve tried to stop expecting too much of other people. Sounds cynical, right?’
Scott follows the pathway behind her and stops when they're next aligned.
‘I guess we can only ever be a product of our own experiences,’ he says. ‘I know losing Brianna’s mum changed me forever.’
Heather turns to face him.
‘I know she died, Scott. Brianna told me that much. Nothing else, though.’ She reaches out in an automatic movement that feels both daring and entirely natural at the same time. ‘Do you want to tell me?’ she asks with a squeeze. ‘I’m here if you do.’
SCOTT
How did she die?
The question Scott typically deflects or avoids.
But Heather’s just bared a little of her own story to him.
He knows how hard it can be to share these truths that have been hidden for years, so he turns away from her and looks out at Edinburgh’s vista of undulating green hills on one side, Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and the historic spires of the Old Town on the other.
The sun is setting, and the sky is tinged with orange.
‘Car accident,’ he says, coughing into his gloved hand.
Heather reaches over and places her hand around his upper arm. The pressure on his bicep through his jacket material is comforting, stabilising, and somehow encourages him to expand.
‘The driver was eighteen.’
Heather’s hand covers her mouth, but she’s too slow to silence the gasp. He’s talking about someone their daughters’ age, he realises.
‘I know,’ he says, allowing their eyes to meet, albeit briefly. ‘It was a young lad from our village. Leon Johnson. Just passed his test.’
Heather bites her lower lip. Perhaps she’s thinking, as he has recently, of all the young people she knows who have just attained this rite of passage.
Perhaps this story could belong to any one of them?
Wordlessly, they lean side by side against a large boulder at the edge of the path until, eventually, Scott feels able to continue.
‘He was showing off. Just before Christmas. And you can probably guess the rest – slippery road, unfamiliar car, going too fast. Lucy and Brianna were coming around the corner in the opposite direction. And … well …’
Scott claps his gloved hands together in a movement which makes Heather jump. It’s an abridged version but it will have to do. Only he and those at the trial know the full story. About how it was essentially his fault.
‘That Christmas, seven years ago, I felt obliged to sit and pretend and fake enjoyment and it was … It was fucking awful. We left the village in the new year, and we’ve not been in the UK for Christmas since. Some people say it’s running away. I call it survival.’
His final words blow out to the Firth of Forth, and they stand silently for a moment.
‘I do similar,’ Heather says, eventually, ‘only I go over the top in the opposite direction. Georgia’s dad left on Christmas Eve, and I was determined he wouldn’t ruin it for us.
So, it’s full-on Christmas spirit, the entire works for us.
Every year. I guess it’s an act of defiance on my part.
’ There’s a pause. ‘I’m sorry about your wife, Scott,’ she says.
Scott closes his eyes tightly because–shit –as if out of nowhere, he’s tearing up.
Heather roots around in her coat pocket, extracts a clean tissue, and scrunches it into his clenched fist.
‘I get angry,’ he says. Three simple words he’s only ever confided to a counsellor.
‘I’m not surprised,’ she says. ‘I would, too.’
‘It’s not so much now,’ he clarifies, wiping his leaking eyes, ‘but in the early days—’
The rest of the sentence drifts off into Edinburgh’s night sky.
‘I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.’
He turns to her. Scott’s had sympathy extended to him before, but there’s something about the way Heather allows him to sit with the pain, even if it has faded in recent years, and just lets him be for a while.
That, to him, is extraordinary. And it does an almost magical thing; it allows the pain to dissipate a touch.