Chapter 12
LACHLAN
‘Well, check you out in your fancy Range Rover,’ Margaux teased him, as he jumped out of the car in front of the pub they were meeting in.
He had no idea how long she’d been in the doorway, but hopefully not long, because wrestling that Range Rover into the space now that the snow was even thicker had been like guiding an oil tanker round a lazy river.
‘Pity you park like a ninety-year-old man with cataracts though,’ she added, just when he thought he’d got away with it.
Margaux lived in Renfrew now, in a flat on the edge of the River Clyde, next to the shopping centre he’d popped into for a jacket earlier.
The pub they’d arranged to meet in was adjacent to the shopping centre, and only a two-minute walk from her home.
Or rather, a three-minute trudge in this weather, but Margaux was super-fit and had refused his offer to pick her up on the way.
They found a table in the corner, out of earshot of the few other people who’d ventured out today, and both peeled off their heavy jackets.
‘Thanks for dressing up for me,’ he teased her, gesturing to her usual uniform of athleisure wear – today was bright pink yoga flares and a sage green sweatshirt, with sleeves that came down over her hands, apart from the two thumbs that were making a bid for escape.
‘Sorry, my tiara is being cleaned. But I’ve got on my diamond knickers, so I did make an effort.’ Grinning, she leaned over the table and put her hands on his. ‘Liking the longer hair by the way. Oh, I’ve missed your ugly face.’
‘Just haven’t had time to get it cut. And I’ve missed yours too.’ His words oozed affection.
Margaux Mackay was, and always had been, his closest friend.
Her family had lived next door to his when they moved to Glasgow, and their six-year-old selves had become inseparable immediately.
They’d gone through all of their young lives together, including the era in their early twenties when she’d bribed him with post-workout tequilas to be her guinea pig as she practised before her exams to become a fully-qualified yoga instructor.
He’d reached levels of bendiness that he’d never been able to replicate since.
Now they spoke most days on the phone, so they were still fully invested in each other’s worlds. She was the only thing about living here that he missed. Everything else was tainted.
‘Can we get the tough stuff out of the way first? How are you doing? How did this morning go? Are you hating being back here?’
He thought about lying, but what was the point? She knew him so well her bullshit detector would go off like a car alarm. ‘Every minute until this one.’
‘Okay, I need details…’
Before she could continue, a waitress with a friendly face appeared at their table. ‘Hi, are you ready to order?’
‘I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries, and a soda water with lime please.
’ Margaux followed that up with an innocent shrug in Lachlan’s direction.
‘What? That’s just a light snack.’ It had always been an in-joke that she looked like she survived on kale and beetroot, but actually ate like a trucker with an insatiable appetite and a fondness for carbs, even when, like today, she’d be teaching a class in a couple of hours.
Lachlan shot a quick glance at the menu in front of him and picked the first thing that jumped out. Steak pie. His favourite. His mother used to make steak pies from scratch, and it had always been his go-to comfort food. ‘And a coffee too, please. Just black – no sugar.’
When the waitress left, Margaux picked up where she left off. ‘Okay, tell me everything that happened this morning. I still can’t believe your dad is gone. I always thought he was indestructible.’
‘Me too. It’s a weird feeling, though. We were never close, but I miss knowing he’s out there somewhere.
You know he was always pretty distant and tied up in his work while Mum was alive, but I think losing her gave him some sense of mortality, so he went the opposite way when he married Demi.
He took off, didn’t look back and finally eased up on work and enjoyed his life. I’m glad he had that time.’
‘I get that. Although, thank God for your lovely mum. If you’d had two non-present parents, you could have ended up being a therapist’s dream.
’ She paused. ‘Speaking of therapist’s dreams…
How did it go with Jason this morning?’ Her eyes went to his hands.
‘No bruises on the knuckles, so I take it you didn’t deck him. Proud of you.’
Margaux had obviously known Jason all his life too, but she’d never been a fan.
One of Lachlan’s favourite memories was of Jason hitting on Margaux when they were about eighteen, and her informing him that she somehow had the strength to resist him because ‘despite the fact that, granted, you do resemble Zac Efron in a dim light, I’m only attracted to guys who aren’t cocky, arrogant big shits’.
Jason was so unused to rejection that he’d probably never recovered.
‘Thank you. It did take discipline. Especially when…’ Lachlan went on to give her a brief recap of the meeting this morning, rounding it off as the food arrived, with, ‘So I signed. Done. Dusted.’
Neither of them lifted their cutlery, because she had one more question. ‘And you still won’t consider moving back here? There’s still nothing I can do to persuade you?’
He didn’t even hesitate. ‘I can’t, Margaux. Much as I’d love to see your daft face every day. There are just too many memories.’
She continued to physically lean in, the exact opposite of how everyone else had reacted to him after the losses he’d endured.
‘I understand. I mean, I live in hope, but I do get it. You went through stuff that leaves scars, Lachie. The baby…’
The baby. Thomas. They’d found out the gender when Tanya was eighteen weeks pregnant and they’d named him straight away.
Thomas Martyn Morden, after Tanya’s dad and his.
The instinct to do something so traditional had taken him by surprise, but it had felt right.
In fact, every single thing about their lives had felt so right.
They’d moved into their dream home in Hyndland, in the west end of the city, a renovation project, but one that would grow with their family.
They’d planned their wedding, and it was only a few weeks away.
Their babymoon was booked to St Lucia and they were both thriving at work.
They weren’t smug, but they were grateful.
Life was perfect. And that’s why it had stunned them when a wrecking ball tore through the very fabric of their existence.
At twenty weeks, just a fortnight before they should have married, Tanya lost the baby.
Then he lost Tanya. And none of the other stuff mattered any more.
He didn’t reply, so Margaux filled the space with nothing but concern and care. ‘That’s a piece broken right off your heart, Lachlan.’
‘It is.’ He tried to muster a grateful smile for her understanding, but he wasn’t sure that he’d managed it.
‘I don’t think I’d have got through it without you.
And, you know, eventually fleeing the country.
’ He said that with a wry smile, because it was true.
He’d gone for head in the sand and denial for a long time now.
And he wasn’t ready to change that yet. Maybe he never would be.
‘You don’t want to keep talking about this, do you?’ Margaux asked, perceptive as ever.
He squeezed her hand. ‘I definitely do not.’
‘So shall we eat our food and move right on to unrelated nonsense and trivial matters?’
‘I think that sounds like a great idea.’
And that’s what they did.
They spent the next hour or so avoiding the tough stuff and stuck to swapping stories of a million stupid or funny things they’d shared over the years, and the daft things that had happened to her since he left.
The woeful tale of her date with an accountant who’d brought his mother along was one that he’d never tire of listening to.
She groaned and put her head in her hands. ‘God, life would have been so much simpler if we’d got together. Why did we never do that?’
Lachlan laughed. ‘We’ve had this conversation way too many times and we both know it’s because we have the sexual chemistry of a pot plant.’
‘So sad, but so true,’ she said wistfully. ‘I kept hoping that those good looks of yours would stir up my ovaries one of these days, but they never did. It’s tragic, really.’
‘One of the great mysteries of our time,’ he agreed, laughing .
‘If you were any kind of friend, you’d set me up with one of your loaded clients. Is Dax Price single? I could totally be a WAG.’
Lachlan hated to break it to her, but, ‘Last I heard, he was dating a fitness model influencer with 10 million followers.’
She lowered her eyes to take in her outfit of chaos. ‘I think he may be out of my league. Anyway…’ She quickly snapped out of her state of mock despair. ‘What time is your flight tonight?’
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘So what are you going to do until then?’
He realised he didn’t know the answer to that question.
They both automatically looked at the huge train station clock that had been repurposed as a decorative piece behind the bar.
It was a few minutes to one o’clock. Before today, all he’d been able to think about was how much he’d been dreading the meeting this morning.
He hadn’t contemplated what he’d do after it.
He’d booked a later flight because he wasn’t sure how long the meeting would last or how it would go.
Now he was wishing he had an afternoon one instead.