by Carrie Elks
“Just a bit stiff,” I reply. “I’ll be fine once I’ve stretched it out.”
“Now that’s something I can help with. I’ve always liked testing your flexibility.”
We take a cab into the city, heading for his flat in Marchmont. Callum keeps up a steady spiel as we travel, telling me about the university, about growing up in Morningside, and promising he’ll take me to meet his mum who still lives in a flat there.
When we stop at an imposing row of brown-brick houses, Callum climbs out, walking around to my side of the cab to open my door. I’m still full of questions but struck dumb by the opulence of the buildings, intimidated by their height and beauty, not to mention their age.
It’s obvious this is one of the wealthiest parts of town.
“You said your mum is still in Morningside,” I say as we climb the stairs to the glossy front door. “Is she still in the same place you lived in as a kid?”
He slides his key in the lock. “Yeah. After Dad died it was just me and Margaret in there.”
“Margaret?”
“My mum. She liked me calling her by her first name. She’s funny that way, a bit of an odd one. Not that she isn’t lovely,” he adds.
“It was just the two of you?” I clarify. “No brothers or sisters?”
“Nope, just us.”
“Bliss.” I smile.
Callum chuckles as we walk into the dark hallway. It’s a garden flat, bought a few months after Jane died. “I always wanted brothers and sisters, I hated being an only child.”
“That’s easy to say until you have them,” I tease. “Growing up in my house nothing was sacred. When I started my period the whole street knew thanks to Andie and Alex.”
“I’d like to meet them,” he says softly. “Your family, I mean.”
I feel my chest tighten. As much as I’m desperate for the validation his meeting my family would give our relationship, the thought of Callum seeing my crazy family is enough to give me the jitters. “Soon,” I say, hoping to placate him.
“If I show you mine, you have to show me yours.”
“How old are you?” I ask. “Twelve?”
He grins. “You’d have liked me when I was twelve. I was horny as a dog with the stamina to go with it.”
“Since I was two, I don’t think I’d have been that impressed,” I tell him.
He shakes his head and leads us into the flat, flicking the lights on as he goes. The building is as imposing in here as it is on the outside, with high ceilings, stripped floorboards and long, long windows. The wooden shutters are drawn across them, blocking out the night. I smile when I spot the cast-iron fireplace—black metal surrounded by ornate tiles—and wonder if he’s remembered to buy enough wood to satisfy his pyromaniac tendencies.
I follow him through the rooms, each one more impressive than the last. We end up in a conservatory that leads onto a lush garden. The ceiling is strung with fairy lights, casting a mystical glow across the terracotta-tiled floor. I can tell from the comfortable sofas and blankets that this is the room he uses the most. There are shelves pushed against the back wall, stuffed with well-read books. I can picture him sitting in here on a Sunday afternoon, his feet up, reading a favourite story.
“This is beautiful,” I say.
“It is,” he says, staring at me. His eyes are dark, glinting beneath the hundreds of lights hanging above us.
“Do you ever think of moving back here for good?” I ask. “You must have kept this place for a reason.”
He’s silent for a moment. I sit down in an easy chair that looks out onto the moonlit garden and he hands me a beer from the fridge in the corner.
When he finally speaks, he’s contemplative. “I can’t see myself living in London forever. If I have kids I’d like to bring them up here.”
He’d make a great dad, I know that much. While I’m not ready for babies, and don’t anticipate having them for years, part of me wants to throw myself at his feet and offer my body for procreation purposes.
Is this what they mean by being crazy in love?
“I’ve heard Edinburgh’s a beautiful city.” I change the subject, ignoring my racing heart.
“And you’ll see it tomorrow,” he promises, scooping me onto his lap. “I’ll give you the grand tour. The castle, the cathedral, the volcano. I guarantee you’ll fall in love with Auld Reekie.”
“Auld Reekie?” I question. “And wait a minute, volcano? There’s no bloody volcano here is there?”
This time he grins. “There’s a great huge one in the middle of Holyrood park, sweetheart. But don’t worry, it’s been extinct for about a million years.”
“It would be my luck if this was the weekend it woke up,” I grumble.
Callum coughs out a laugh. “I’m guessing geology isn’t your strong point, then? I said extinct, not dormant.”
“Same difference,” I mutter.
He catches my hand, pressing my palm to his groin. “The difference between dormant and extinct, babe, is that with dormant you've got a chance of it waking up. As in my cock has been lying dormant for a number of hours, but right now there's definite signs of activity.”
I press harder, feeling him stiffen against my palm. “Seems like there's a big chance of explosion,” I whisper.
“Eruption, Amy,” he retorts, his hand still firmly on mine. “Keep with the game.”
Cocky Scottish bastard, I think, but I test out his theory anyway.
* * *
He drags me out of bed at stupid o'clock the next morning. The sun's barely risen when we're sipping coffee in the garden room, propping our feet up on stools and looking out to the lush vegetation surrounding the small gravelled courtyard. The bushes are strung with lights, and I imagine it must look magical at night time, as though a thousand fireflies have come to land.
“This would be a lovely place to sleep,” I say. “If it wasn't so bloody cold. Maybe we should come in the summer, we could set up camp in here.”
I don't even feel embarrassed suggesting we'll still be together next summer.
“I can tell you've never been to Scotland before,” he remarks. “It's always bloody cold, even in the summer.”
After breakfast we head out to do some shopping on George Street, where the higher-end boutiques are found. To my surprise Callum is a laid-back customer, rifling through racks and showing me things he likes. He buys me a leather jacket and a woollen scarf to make up for the fact I underestimated how much colder it would be here than in London. Then he drags me into an elegant shoe shop, where he makes me try on flat, comfortable shoes, assuring me I'll be glad of them before the day is out.
I don't doubt him for a second.
“I didn't picture you as a shopper,” I tell him, as we head down Princes Street towards Holyrood Park. My arm is slipped inside his, and I'm luxuriating in the fact we don't know anybody here. It's so nice to be able to show him affection in public, to walk arm in arm just like any other couple.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “Everybody shops, don't they?”
“They do, but most men aren't as enthusiastic as you,” I tease. “I think you actually enjoy it.”
“Is that a bad thing? Don't all girls like shopping?”
“This girl does,” I tell him. “And it's not a bad thing at all.”
Holyrood Park takes my breath away. It's hard to believe such beauty can lie so close to a city centre. It's alive with grass and gorse, lochs and knolls. At the centre, rising majestically from a series of hills, is Arthur's Seat—the long extinct volcano Callum promised me. It's as though somebody dropped a little bit of the Highlands into the city, the wild nature co-existing peacefully with the old brownstone of the town.
“It's beautiful,” I say.
Callum seems bemused by my response. “You're like a kid who's never seen the sea before,” he says, putting his arm around me. “It's only a park.”
I shake my head. “This isn't a park. London has parks. This is like a piece of
magic. I can't believe you got to grow up so close to this. I'd have spent most of my life here if this was me.”
He seems enchanted by my response to his hometown, pulling me to him and kissing me. I kiss him back eagerly, sliding my hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and more than one passer by clears their throat loudly at us.
“Are we making a spectacle of ourselves?” I ask, still clinging tightly to him.
“Who cares?”
When we get to the foot of Arthur's Seat, Callum suggests I replace my shoes with the flats we bought back in the boutique. Though I roll my eyes, I follow his suggestion. The volcano—extinct and all—looks higher here than it does from the distance.
We follow the main route around to the right—a gentle climb at first, which Callum assures me isn't strenuous. Passing through the broad valley of Hunter's Bog, we ascend upwards on the narrow dirt path. Though it only takes twenty minutes or so to get to the top, I'm already captured by the beauty.
When we sit on a crag overlooking the city, Callum pulls a bottle of Rioja from his rucksack. Handing me two plastic wine glasses, he fills them halfway.
He puts the bottle on the ground and takes a glass, tapping it against my own. “To us,” he says, his accent broader than ever. “And a wonderful weekend.”
I take a sip. The liquid sends a blush to my cheeks, the taste of blackberries lingering in my mouth.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “Thank you for bringing me here.” My voice wobbles a little, enough for him to notice, and he slides across the rock until our hips are touching. His lips are red from a combination of wine and cold air, his eyes bright and clear. I feel everything inside me tighten.
“I'm in love with you.” His voice is deep and strong. “I think I’ve loved you since the minute you walked through my door, all brazen and angry and railing at the world.”
He sets light to me. “Tell me more.”
“You want me to tell you that you're the first thing I think about in the morning?” he asks. “And the last name on my lips at night. You want me to explain that for the first time in years I feel as if I can actually fucking breathe again, and that life might actually be worth living outside of the office?”
I nod, and he gives me a half-smile.
“Maybe I could tell you that every time you walk in a room it's as if somebody's turned the lights on inside my soul. Or that when you leave it, I feel every muscle in my body ache, and I'm counting the seconds until I can see you again.”
“You could,” I whisper. I'm greedy, I want all his pretty words. I want to store them in my mind and replay them time after time. “You should.”
He continues talking as I clamber onto his lap, straddling his thighs. Our empty glasses lay abandoned in the grass, all thoughts of wine forgotten. “You tell me you think this place is beautiful,” he whispers. “But when you're sitting here it looks like any other piece of scenery in any other town, because all I can see is you. I know it's not going to be easy, and I know that somehow we need to keep this under wraps, but I love you Amy Cartwright, and there's nothing wrong with that.”
I grasp his cheeks with my hands, brushing my lips against his. Our noses touch, their tips cold from exposure, but we're grinning at each other anyway.
“That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.” My eyes are filled with tears at his beautiful words. “If I was half as eloquent as you, I'd be able to say it right back.”
“Then do it.” He strokes my hair. I shake my head, teasing, playing. He kisses me hard, enough to make my body rock against his.
“Say it,” he demands again, tipping my head back and running his lips down my throat. “Say it, Amy.”
When he kisses the sensitive skin beneath my ear, it takes everything I have not to gasp. Instead I search for my voice, ready to stop teasing him. “I love you,” I say, my breath ragged. “I really love you, Callum James Ferguson.”
He leans back until he's laying on the rock and I'm on top of him, and we're frantically kissing and repeating the words over and over. Though it feels perfect and blissful, I still have to squash down the niggling thought at the back of my head that's desperate to be heard.
Once you've reached the summit, the only way to go is down.
24
Callum’s mum is nothing like I expected. Not that I know what I expected really. Perhaps a Dame Maggie Smith lookalike, along with the regal accent—but there’s not a hint of the Professor McGonagall to this elegant blonde lady who is sipping her wine across the table from me. She’s youthful, friendly, and delighted to meet me, her eyes twinkling as she talks.
“He’s told me all about you,” she tells me, as Callum rests on the bar, talking with the grizzled old man behind the counter. “I’m so glad you agreed to visit with him.”
“Don’t believe a word he says. It’s all lies,” I tell her. “He’s been trouble ever since I walked into his office.”
“Oh, I can believe that.”
The pub is warm and cosy, the perfect respite from the Scottish winter. A fire blazes in the corner, orange flames licking up like a hungry cat. The walls are half-wood panelled, half-flocked wallpaper, and the dark wooden floorboards bear the scrapes and dents of a thousand footfalls. It’s a typical British pub on a Sunday afternoon.
The door opens and a family hurries inside, their faces pink-cheeked from the bitterly cold Edinburgh wind. I watch as the mother fusses, sitting her children around the large square table, as her husband wanders over the bar to order their drinks.
Margaret must be watching, too, because the next minute she's asking, “Do you want children one day, Amy?”
I'm taken aback by her question. It’s the second time in two days I've had this conversation. First with the son, then with the mother. Until yesterday, it wasn’t something I'd thought about, other than as an abstract 'maybe one day' but somehow I don't think that's what she's asking.
She wants to know how serious I am about her son. It's the equivalent of a father asking a boy's intentions.
“I don't know,” I reply. “I think so. But I'd expect the father to share the responsibility.” For some reason I find myself saying more than I intend. “I was brought up in a single parent home, I wouldn't want that for my children.”
Margaret nods. “That's understandable, nobody wants to bring their kids up alone. But sometimes we don't get any choice.”
“Callum told me about his dad,” I say softly. “I'm sorry you lost him.”
She offers me a small smile. “He was taken too young. I never intended to be a widow at thirty-three, and I had no idea how to raise a boy on my own. But somehow I managed, and I think I did an okay job.”
“You did more than okay.” I mean it. He's complicated and occasionally irascible but there's a goodness in Callum that shines through. Standing at the bar, he laughs as he talks with another customer, sipping at his beer and shooting the breeze. Slowly he turns, looking over at me, his expression changing as he stares. I can feel heat flooding through my body and I start to worry how we are ever going to hide this passion back at work.
“Has he told you about Jane?” Margaret asks quietly.
I nod. “I was sorry to hear that, too.” I was, even though it sounds contradictory; because if she hadn't died I wouldn't be here, would I?
“What was she like?”
Margaret takes a long sip of her wine. “You're asking a mother. I'm afraid I'm biased.”
I want to ask her if she's biased for or against. Does it make me a bad person to hope it's the latter?
“I want to understand why he stayed with her for so long. From everything he's told me, the two of them had a toxic relationship.”
“That's a good way of describing it, though I don't think it was Callum's fault. He did everything he could to help her. But some people won't be told, and some problems can't be solved.” Margaret looks up, her wine glass drained. “I've never told him this but a part of me was glad she died without them having children
. As much as I wanted to be a grandmother, it was a blessing they were spared that.”
“Did he want children?” I ask, my voice small. The smell of roast beef wafting from the table next to us is making me feel nauseous. I watch Callum from the corner of my eye, buying another glass of wine for each of us, and I know this conversation needs to conclude very soon.
Part of me wants to know everything, and the rest wants to hide away. The contradiction seems to be pulling me from the inside out.
“I know he wants children, but I don't think he ever considered having them with Jane. He always had this hope that she'd get better, that they'd both be able to settle down, but he would never have brought a child into that situation. For all his height and strength he's a big softy. He wants to take care of his wife and children. It's something he never had—a father to look after us—and I think he wants to be able to make up for that.”
Her words make me want to cry. I imagine Callum as a little boy, longing for a father and desperate for siblings, yet somehow having to be the man of the house. With every new piece of information I learn, I'm coming to realise we're more alike than I thought.
I silence the rest of my questions when Callum carries our drinks over, sliding them onto the battered wooden table. “Everything okay?” He sits next to me on the bench, his thigh pressed to mine.
“Everything's fine.” I reach for my glass. Though we're flying home later—and I definitely need to be sober for that—I need the liquid courage right now. But it's not the wine that reassures me; it's the way he takes my hand, wrapping it in his and squeezing tightly. His skin is warm and rough, his palm large enough to encompass mine completely. ”I was telling your mum what a tyrant you are at work.”
He laughs. “Did you tell her about the coffee?”
“The coffee?” Margaret asks.
“I bought him a coffee on my second day at work, and he told me he didn't drink caffeine before nine. After that I had to go out at exactly 8:55 every morning just to satisfy his stupid drinking habits.”
“You drink coffee before nine.” Margaret glares at Callum. “I've made you enough mugs in my time to know you can't even function before you've had caffeine.”