“These Scottish winters are harsh,” observed Dan emphatically, handing over his coat to a waiter. Martha nodded in agreement and reluctantly handed hers over too, opting to keep her scarf on for a while until she warmed up.
The waiter then led them to a table at the rear of the restaurant.
Dan slid along a banquette against the wall, under a shelf bearing a large ceramic dragon, and laced his hands together, blowing into the gap between his thumbs and forefingers to warm them.
Martha sat down on the leather straight-backed armchair which had been pulled out for her and shunted it in toward the table slightly, then took a moment to look around at her surroundings.
The restaurant was cosy and just a little mysterious, lit by small table lamps throughout, which glowed warm from under red and pink shades. Small fairy lights had been strung along the picture rail – a nod to the season that approached without a full commitment to all things festive. The walls were painted in warm colours and the artwork paid tribute to the architect after whom the restaurant was named – ceramic pieces, pen-and-ink sketches of his famous buildings. An inviting smell floated through the swinging kitchen doors.
Martha settled herself, accepted the menu that the waiter handed her and began to study it, raising her head to glance at Dan when she realised he hadn’t yet even opened his own. She saw that he was turned awkwardly in the seat, lying partially across it, looking above him to take in their ceramic companion on the shelf above. He turned and smiled, pointing at the mosaic dragon, faithfully recreated from the original with its blue, yellow and ochre tiles.
“Remember this guy?” he said. “Parc Guell?”
Martha smiled. “I don’t remember him as much as I remember how ill I was the day we went to see him,” she replied and resumed studying the menu. She wasn’t expecting the hearty guffaw that Dan gave in response.
“What was it you ate again?” he laughed.
She smiled, continuing to stare at the menu. “Prawns,” she replied.
“Prawns! That’s right.” Dan laughed again and took another look at the ornament before finally opening his menu, chuckling. “Have you been back? Barcelona?”
Martha glanced at him to see what he was getting at, but he was running his finger down the list of tapas plates as he spoke.
“I have actually,” she said. “We – eh – Will has, well, had a place there so we’ve been a couple of times.”
“Nice,” responded Dan. “Remember the first time though, eh? That Mayday weekend when you ate the prawns . . .”
“Okay, Dan, I get it, I ate the prawns,” growled Martha but with a lightness to her tone. She found that couldn’t stop herself smiling, however much against her will it was to remember times like that with Dan. It hadn’t all been bad, she conceded to herself. At the beginning, when they were just starting out . . .
The thought came as a revelation to her. For the two years since she had discovered his deception she hadn’t been able to think of him without bile rising in her throat, without thinking that if she ever saw him again that she’d kill him with her bare hands. And yet here she was, at a table in Edinburgh, having spent the last few hours together, and it was all strangely civilised and mature. It didn’t feel normal by any means, but it wasn’t so odd as to make her feel that she wanted to get up and run.
They were momentarily interrupted by the waiter who stood silently by the table awaiting their order.
“Oh, um, I’ll have the –” began Martha.
Dan cut across her. Again.
“Let’s have the cheese and meat selection,” he began, running his finger again down the menu until he found the items he’d earmarked. “And a big old plate of patatas fritas . . . and some olives . . . you like olives still, don’t you, Mar?”
He stopped himself suddenly, looking straight at her.
She thought she detected him blush yet again.
“Christ, I’m doing it again – I’m really sorry. What would you like?” he said apologetically.
Martha shook her head and sighed. “Not at all. That’s fine actually. All of that will be great.” It was exactly what she had chosen herself from the menu. That was something that used to often happen to them, she remembered – that they’d order exactly the same dishes.
Dan slammed his menu closed. “That’ll be all, thanks,” he said, handing the leather-bound folder back to the waiter. “Oh, and a bottle of house Cava as well, please.”
“Not for me!” exclaimed Martha. “I have to get back – and I have a long drive in the morning.”
The waiter hesitated.
Dan looked sheepish and stuck out his lower lip. “Just the one glass, eh?” he pleaded. “To celebrate what we’ve just signed. For Ruby?”
The waiter glared at her and Martha felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the two men. Reluctantly she nodded. “Just the one then,” she said quietly and Dan beamed at the waiter who lifted her menu from the table where she’d laid it and without a word made his way back to the kitchen.
There was a silence between Martha and Dan for a few moments.
“You must know Barcelona quite well, then?” Dan asked.
Martha shrugged and looked around her. It was true, this wasn’t as difficult as she thought it might be but she still found it tough to look her ex-husband in the eye.
“Not really,” she said. “We tended really to stick to the gothic quarter, the port, the beach – the apartment was in the heart of the old town.”
“Oh wow, not near that church, was it?” Dan clicked his fingers as he tried to remember. “What was the name of it?”
“Santa Maria del Mar,” replied Martha quietly.
Dan jumped on the response. “Oh my word, what an amazing place that was – do you remember sitting in the square outside just as evening fell? Drinking rosé and just watching the world go by?”
Martha hated to admit it but she did remember. Vividly. She looked at the picture in her head, her younger self, in a white linen skirt and a dark-green cotton top. Her hair was darker then and longer, and she’d worn her shades, face turned upward toward the sun, with the promise of her whole life ahead of her. It was their engagement-celebration weekend Dan was referring to, she realised. She remembered the diamond solitaire ring, bought three weeks previously in Antwerp, sparkling on her finger. It was shoved in the very back of her underwear drawer now. They were genuinely in love then, she thought. A whole life ahead of them. It was hard, for a moment, to feel as harshly toward Dan as she normally did.
Dan, leaning across the table, roused her from her memory.
“I have a confession. I’ve sort of brought you here under false pretences,” he said in a low voice, picking up the salt cellar and shaking it from side to side, watching the grains shift as he spoke.
Martha sat up, at once tense again. “What do you mean?”
“Oh God, nothing sinister,” he replied reassuringly. “I only mean that I knew this place was here and I thought you’d really like it – we loved Barcelona so much. I’ve eaten here a couple of times actually since I’ve been in Edinburgh.”
Martha was at once curious. “How long exactly have you been here?” she asked. “And don’t you have to go back to work some time?”
“Work,” repeated Dan, an odd smile crossing his face. He paused as the waiter arrived and undertook the ceremony of opening the Cava, allowing Dan to taste, pouring Martha’s glass and then topping Dan’s up before leaving the bottle in an ice bucket on the side of the table.
“To new beginnings!” toasted Dan.
Martha followed suit by clinking her glass against his, but she remained silent. She wasn’t quite sure that she wanted to celebrate new beginnings with Dan just yet, if ever. They sipped from their glasses and Dan smacked his lips appreciatively before continuing.
“Where was I, oh yes – work. Yes. Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s a big new beginning taking place on that front actually, in that I’ve left A&M and I
’m setting up on my own. That’s how I have all this time to spend here in Edinburgh. Change is as good as a rest and all that.”
Martha’s eyes widened at the news. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Dan had always worked at A&M, had fought his way up from being an assistant to being one of the best account directors that the advertising agency employed. He was ruthless and always hungry for new business. He was their golden boy, their biggest asset. She had been sure that he would have been in line for a directorship at some stage, maybe even MD? Yet here he was, going solo?
“Is it a good time to do that?” she asked tentatively. “With the recession?”
“I’ve got a few core clients who have agreed to come with me,” he replied, taking a sip from his glass. “Tom Anderson won’t be happy about it but that’s how business works. It’s enough for me to be getting on with it until I can build my client base.”
“I thought you loved it there?”
Dan took another slug. “Oh I did. But there just came a time about six months ago that I thought . . . I just decided that I wanted something different. To claim my own space, you know? Not be Dan Smith from A&M any more but be Dan Smith from Dan Smith Advertising. Maybe that sounds silly?”
Martha shook her head. “Not at all,” she replied. “When I had my book published I felt exactly the same way.”
“God, yes, I’d forgotten about your book,” replied Dan, draining his glass and reaching for the bottle, topping both glasses up, even though Martha had barely taken a sip. “Congratulations. You achieved your dream, didn’t you?”
Martha nodded again and drank automatically from the glass. She didn’t know why it upset her, why she felt emotional to hear him say that. When they were married he hadn’t paid any attention to her dream. It didn’t rate on his scale of achievement. And yet here he was . . . first Narnia and now this. Maybe he had known her a little better than she thought, she realised. Maybe her memories of him – her feelings about him – were coloured slightly with two years of accumulated bitterness. Could it be that Dan Smith wasn’t actually such an awful guy? She’d only gone and married him once, for heaven’s sake! Could her judgement have been so wrong?
“And Paula and I have split up,” he added suddenly.
Martha choked sharply on the fizzy liquid and fought back a full-on coughing fit. She reddened. That was the news she had waited those full two years to hear, what she’d hoped he wanted to tell her in The Scotsman. And now here it was. Her eyes widened as she took it in. She had thought, with the passage of time, with settling down with Will, that the news wouldn’t have such a huge impact on her. But it did, she realised. The longing to hear those words was so ingrained in her that on hearing them, her subconscious jumped to attention. There, it said. There you go. It’s over. She doesn’t want him. Or he doesn’t want her. You can have him back.
She flinched at her own thoughts. She didn’t want him back. He was the last person that she wanted back in her life. She took a large swig from her glass to focus herself on something.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she managed and was greeted with another of Dan’s grins. This time she looked at it, full on. That hundred-watt smile, she remembered. The foppish look, the single lock of hair that hung down his forehead like a matinee idol. Her heart gave a little start, out of habit she decided, some long-forgotten bodily function, some muscle-memory triggered in her body without her permission.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, smiling softly and stood. “Just nipping to wash my hands.” He slid out from behind the table, leaving Martha to greet the waiter who was just arriving with their food.
Martha took the opportunity to check her phone, to text Sue to let her know that she had monumental gossip, changing the words to ‘big news’ before she sent it. It seemed almost disrespectful to label this as tittle-tattle when somehow it felt bigger, more important than that. Sue texted back almost immediately to let her know that she was fine to hold the fort, and that Ruby was smoking crack cocaine. Martha smiled. A smile that turned sour as she checked through her other messages and saw that there was nothing from Will. She’d asked him to let her know when they arrived in Dubhglas and they must have been there for hours now, however much they might have been delayed on the road. Couldn’t he just text her and let her know that they’d arrived safely?
She was disturbed by Dan’s return to the table and returned the phone politely to her handbag. They began to eat in silence.
By the time that Martha pushed her plate away, feeling ready to burst at the seams, she had fully warmed up and was feeling exceptionally relaxed. The Cava was sweet and the meats and cheeses had been particularly good.
“That’s the trouble with tapas,” she observed as Dan spooned himself another plate-load of patatas fritas. “I always think that they’re never going to fill me and then I completely overindulge. I’m stuffed.” She rubbed a hand across her stomach and Dan raised his glass again in a toast. Martha sipped at her drink, toying with an olive on her plate, rolling it around with a knife.
“What would you say to some copywriting work?” Dan said suddenly.
Martha stopped what she was doing and looked at him full on. “You mean advertising copy?” she asked.
Dan nodded and reached for a piece of bread with which to swipe the sauce from his plate.
“You’re an award-winner, and now a successful children’s author – just the calibre of person I need. You’re the best at your game. It would be a real help to have you on board.”
Martha trailed her finger through the condensation on her glass. “I don’t know, Dan,” she said. “I hated the advertising game.” She’d never dared admit that to him before, she realised. He loved it, so therefore she had to love it too. But he was right. Whatever about how much she liked or disliked the industry, she was bloody good at coming up with the goods.
“I totally respect that,” said Dan.
Martha knew she should have felt shocked at that but right now she felt too mellow, too relaxed to let it get to her. Dan respecting her. Whaddya know, she said to herself. Didn’t see that one coming.
“So we’d do it on your terms – you could work part-time, freelance – whatever suits you. Obviously you’re going to be here and my office would be in London. Unless, of course, you thought it might be a good idea for me to set up here in Edinburgh?” He offered the statement teasingly almost, popping the last of the bread in his mouth and pushing his own plate away, leaning back against the banquette for more comfort.
Martha widened her eyes again. She was relaxed in her own seat, feeling terribly comfortable and the way that the bubbles shot to the surface of her glass and exploded there looked too beautiful for her to look away. She noticed Dan’s gesture for the waiter to bring a second bottle but couldn’t bestir herself to object.
“I’ve no ties to London any more,” he continued. “In fact, I’ve now got more ties up here than down there.”
This time Martha looked, out of habit. To assess his expression, see the sneer that she felt sure must be there. It wasn’t. He was looking at her almost from under his eyelashes, sussing her out, genuinely awaiting her response. She straightened in her chair.
“Ruby,” he explained. “And you.”
The statement fell between them on the table. You don’t have me, she knew she should say, but she didn’t. She let it hang. There was a certain merit to the idea after all. If he was going to be more of a dad to Ruby, for example, then his being based here would mean that there wouldn’t be that horrible separation of sending her to London to see him if it came to that . . . with the added fear that she might like it there . . .
And Martha had to admit to herself that there was a part of her that was enjoying this. It was a revelation – revisiting the past, being reminded that their years together hadn’t been a total waste. She’d been so angry after they’d separated. Over time, she knew that the anger was mostly aimed at herself, for allowing herself to love him so much
, to give herself up for him. And now, hearing that he had some shred of respect for her dreams and concerns? Finding that it could be easy again. It could work, she found herself thinking.
“Trial run,” she heard herself say. “I call the shots. I write, and write only. I don’t deal with the clients. I sit in an ivory tower, or – better still – my house – and produce the goods and you pay me and that’s that, okay? I am untouchable!” She giggled.
Dan laughed too. “You’ve got it,” he replied. “That’s great to hear, Martha. Thank you. Such a relief that I’ve got the best on my side again.”
The statement was loaded. They looked straight at each other as Dan topped their glasses and handed Martha’s hers.
“A toast,” he said. “To the newest – to the second member of Team Smith. Gawd bless ’er and all who sail in ’er!”
Again, Martha didn’t repeat the words but she clinked her glass enthusiastically and smiled sincerely across the table.
“You don’t think Will would mind, do you?” asked Dan, sinking back into his seat and crossing his legs, making himself more comfortable.
Martha shook her head. “Don’t see why he would,” she replied. She was aware of a very slight slur in her voice all of a sudden and made a mental note to order a strong coffee. “It’s all money, isn’t it? Which reminds me, where’s Ruby’s maintenance money gone? Is that your start-up capital? Are you taking food from your daughter’s mouth to rent a glitzy office? Did you use it to buy one of those ‘zecutive toys, you know the ones with the dangly balls?”
They both burst out laughing. At least he’s tipsy too,thought Martha, proud of herself for having brought up the subject in such a diplomatic way.
“It’s a fair cop!” laughed Dan, holding his hands up. “I’m really sorry about that – no, I mean it! I’m going to get the whole lot to you when I free up some assets. It’s a bit complicated, and I’m awfully embarrassed about it. Things haven’t been – easy of late.”
His face grew sombre and Martha felt sorry for him. No matter what sort of a bitch Paula was, it wasn’t easy breaking up a long-term relationship. Of all people she knew that. He wouldn’t be the first to get up and run away somewhere. She shuddered for a moment as her thoughts strayed to when she ran herself.
The Dark Water Page 23