Chapter Thirty
Eddie feels super-charged as he strides along Princes Street. No lolloping walk now. He bounds along as if he’d guzzled a whole tub of Raj and Calum’s vitamins and his hourly quota of water according to the markings on the giant plastic bottle. He isn’t smoking a roll-up because he’s trying to stop smoking, as of forty-five minutes ago when he woke up.
Already it’s making him weirdly sticky-eyed and hyper-aware of every nerve in his body, but he just needs to ride through it. Can’t be smoking around a baby, he’s decided. Can’t be all stinky with Rizlas, filters and lighters stuffed in his pockets when he has his newborn son or daughter in his arms.
The irony of having to ask Lyla for her address isn’t lost on him as he walks past a bagpiper, the squawks and drone so discordantly awful, it sounds as if the pipes are being reversed over by a truck. But it feels good, like some kind of progression. Of course he’d been to her flat before – on the night it happened – but he’d never have been able to find it again. And now he knows where she lives!
He is smiling as he rides the escalator down to Marks a tiny person that they definitely shouldn’t be having sex in the vicinity of. But Lyla pulls him close and into her, and as she gasps in pleasure, Eddie feels his worries floating away like dust particles dancing in the morning sun.
*
‘OH MY GOD WHAT TIME IS IT!’ Eddie shoots out of bed and scrambles for his phone. Where is it?
‘What’s wrong?’ Lyla asks, blinking in the light.
‘We fell asleep! I’ve got to go to work! What time is it?’
‘Oh. God. Hang on …’ She pushes tangled hair from her face and clambers slowly out of bed. Normally Eddie would be transfixed by this. By a beautiful naked girl strolling casually around her bedroom, looking for something. But now he’s filled with panic and already pulling on his clothes.
‘Fucking hell … he’s going to kill me …’
‘Who?’ She frowns. Finally her own phone is extracted from the pocket of her discarded sweat pants.
‘Marius! My boss!’
She looks at him, nonplussed. Of course Lyla doesn’t have a boss. She doesn’t have to go out to a restaurant and prep vegetables and fillet fish and make sauces as per Marius’s precise instructions, which is what Eddie should be doing seven minutes from now because Lyla has just announced, ‘It’s eleven fifty-three. What time d’you—’
‘Gotta go!’ he cries. ‘Where’s my phone?’
‘I don’t know! Hang on, we’ll find it—’
‘There isn’t time!’ Then: ‘Can I see you tomorrow? I’m on an early shift. I’ll be finished by four—’
‘Okay,’ she says, smiling. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Why don’t I come over to yours? I don’t even know where you live.’
A wave of alarm crashes over him. ‘Shall I just come here?’
‘Are you ashamed of your place?’ She laughs. ‘Is it a boys’ hovel?’
‘It’s a bit—’ He stops. No time for negotiations now. ‘It’s fine. Come over.’ He rattles off the address and she taps it into notes on her phone. She beams at him and he plants the briefest kiss on her beautiful full mouth before hurtling out of her flat, down the stairs and out into the bright morning sunshine.
Now he runs, already feeling the benefit of having quit smoking, what, three hours ago? He sprints through the New Town, swerving around corners and almost colliding with a street sweeper truck – ‘Steady on, pal!’ the man yells – and clattering onwards until the restaurant is in sight.
Scooting up the alley now, Eddie flies in through the side door to the bank of lockers. By some miracle of God or something – suddenly Eddie thinks there might be a God after all – he locates his key in his pocket and kicks off his trainers and then, not caring if anyone sees, he pulls off his jeans and yanks up his chef’s trousers and tugs on his slip-on kitchen shoes and hurries through to the kitchen.
‘All right, Eddie?’ Paulina throws him a bemused look.
‘Yeah.’ Eddie tries to steady his breathing as he unpacks his own kitchen knife. Only now does he dare to look around at the kitchen clock. He is eight minutes late.
‘Is Marius about?’ he asks Paulina.
‘Nah, he’s gone to meet a supplier or something …’
‘Great. Fine.’ Eddie positions himself at his station, his whole body flooding with relief as he gets to work.
The shift is long and hectic, but it goes fine. Better than fine, as Eddie is propelled along by sheer happiness and exhilaration. He isn’t even upset about not having his phone right now. For what feels like the first time in his life, he feels fully alive.
Him and Lyla. He can hardly believe what happened this morning. It was better – far better – than the first time as, for one thing, there wasn’t a river of beer and vodka sloshing through his veins. He was fully present and sober and it was wonderful. Falling asleep afterwards, and the ensuing panic, wasn’t quite so great. But it’s all fine now. Marius didn’t even know he was late.
At eleven-thirty, the shift is almost over. Eddie’s boss is jovial as he grabs a cloth and dabs at his shiny forehead. ‘Great effort today,’ he announces, looking around at his team. ‘New menu’s rolled out really well. You pulled it off and I’m proud of you all.’ He pauses, fixing Eddie with a look. ‘Nice work, Eddie. You’re really coming on, mate. Must be impending fatherhood. Found out how to change a nappy yet?’ He guffaws.
‘I’ll figure it out,’ Eddie says with a grin.
‘’Course you will. Nothing to it.’ Then he looks around at the others who are launching into the final clean-up at the end of the night. ‘So you all remember Jill Gilbert’s in tomorrow? She’s here at one. Table for two. Remember, guys, I need you all on it and no messing about.’