An Impossible Thing Called Love

by Belinda Missen

  I laughed loudly and freely, glad for the company and quick wit. Soon, our smiles grew wider, as if we’d received confirmation of something special. Around us, tables emptied and filled up over again, the clash of cutlery and loud chatter eventually dying out to a late-night dull murmur.

  ‘So, I’ve just bought a place in London.’ William glanced around for the barkeep. Business had been slow enough for the last little while that he’d taken to bringing drinks to us.

  ‘I thought you lived here?’ I stabbed the table with a finger.

  ‘Here? No. My grandparents on Dad’s side are Scottish,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m only as exotic as central London.’

  For the first time tonight, I reached out and touched him, tugging at hair by his ear. ‘I was wondering where this came from.’

  ‘And it’s not even some weird genetic throwback. My father has also been touched with the ginger tinge. My sister got out of it by being blonde like Mum.’ He gathered his phone and wallet. ‘But I did study here. Actually, do you want to get out of here? I can show you some of the sights if you like?’

  ‘Oh! Yes! That would be amazing. You know the area well?’ I was up and ready before he had so much as a chance to continue.

  ‘I know where to get hot coffee and jam doughnuts on New Year’s Eve.’ He stood. ‘Welcome to William’s Rad Edinburgh Tours.’

  ‘Are they rated five-star? I’ll have you know I cannot possibly lower my standards after the holiday I’ve had. Farting boys and vomit-stained shoes, infidelity-inspired fights, and cheap souvenirs are nothing to sniff at.’

  ‘Well, then, aren’t you in for a surprise?’ He held the door open for me and we slipped out into the night.

  Traipsing bitterly cold streets, I was ushered around to ancient buildings and seedy looking alleys. Each cobblestoned street unearthed pieces of Edinburgh’s medically related history and, through it all, I got to watch this incredible man shine like a beacon of unwavering knowledge. Not only did he talk with passion, he was completely unabashed about it. He was wonky, angular, and his smile was lopsided, but I’d raced so far down the rabbit hole I couldn’t see sunlight anymore.

  ‘So, this is the Royal College of Physicians.’ William gave his best game show wave. ‘Unfortunately, we can’t get in. I think it’s a little like Hogwarts, you need a special letter or some shit, but this was established in the late 1600s. Not on this site, somewhere else. This one has been here since—’

  ‘Where do you store all this information?’ I asked.

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘Where do you keep it all?’

  ‘I did my undergrad in Edinburgh, so … a bit of time to ponder this stuff. Also, I just love it.’ He ended with a wiggle of his head.

  ‘I love that you love it.’

  ‘Oh!’ He snapped his fingers excitedly. ‘Let me take you to the School of Medicine for Women. You’ll like that, it’s back near the castle.’

  Moments later, just as we’d turned into the next street, popping sounds filled the air. The same kind of popping sounds you would expect when you were on the wrong side of the best view of the fireworks. William pushed his sleeve back, face wrought with concern.

  ‘Shit. We’re late.’ He looked at me. ‘Emmy, I am so sorry.’

  ‘Why are you sorry?’ I asked.

  William’s face fell. He sputtered something about me spending money on a trip, and airfares, time versus money and, well, he thought he’d ruined it all. In the distance, ripples of colour reflected in the sky above buildings.

  ‘So, I missed some fireworks.’ I shrugged. ‘Know what the best part about that is?’

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I can see fireworks anywhere. I can even come back for Hogmanay any time. I’m here for an experience and this, this is an experience.’

  My phone buzzed. Not for the first time tonight, Heather was urging me to get down there, down to the front of the queue, and enjoy what we’d come for: the castle, the fireworks, the party atmosphere. I had it all here, and I told her so in my text back. I’d meet them back at the hostel. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and focused my attention on William again.

  We did make it back to the castle, eventually, going by way of more old buildings and stories. It was late, but we ran on nothing more than the excitement of finding someone who picked up on small cues, banter, and that unmistakable wild humour. I kept him entertained with stories accumulated on my travels, while he filled me in on his trip up here. We laughed at the shared frustration of trying to find the best pastry in Paris, and how he had more of a chance to search now his parents had moved to the city so his father could teach at some fancy design school.

  It kept us going all the way back to my hostel, somewhere in the wee hours of the morning.

  My stomach sank like a boulder in a river. In the back of my mind, this moment had been coming all night, but I was not ready to let go. Outside my hostel, we stood about at odds for a moment, until I reached for him.

  I drew my hands up into his hair and pulled his head towards me. I brushed wayward curls from his forehead and kissed him gently. He smelt of beer, chilled air, and the best night I had ever had.

  ‘You are incredible. Don’t let anyone ever tell you any different.’ My voice choked up. ‘Thank you for the most amazing time.’

  His hands curled around my wrists, his nose rubbing against mine. It still panged a little, but I couldn’t care. ‘Likewise. Don’t go getting into any more fights.’

  ‘Promise.’ I smiled. ‘You are the best holiday souvenir ever,’ I whispered as he leant in and kissed the side of my mouth. Innocent enough to say thank you, close enough to make me want more. I took a shaking breath in.

  ‘Even better, I fulfil the cheap and tacky criteria, too.’ He grinned proudly.

  A snotty laugh rose to the surface as I let go of his jacket and of him. He skipped off into the night, stopping on the opposite kerb to curtsey and blow a kiss. I rubbed stray tears away as I laughed and waved hopelessly.

  It didn’t matter that I’d known him for no more than a single day. In my heart, I’d known him forever. The fact he was now gone only left an aching hollow in its place. A dark, rattly space only he could fill. I could bite back tears all I liked but, when it hit me that I’d not so much as got a phone number, I took off in pursuit.

  I crossed the street and disappeared into the small alley that had stolen him from me. Nothing but the echo of my footsteps and a rolling fog followed me. It had barely been minutes, but he’d vanished into the night.

  ‘William!’ I called. My heart gave a panicked throb.

  Nothing.

  A misty hotel sign at the opposite end of the street beckoned me closer. My steps got quicker the closer I got. A lone motorcycle was parked up by the front door, and the waiting area was still strikingly busy. If I’d raced to the reception desk any quicker, I’d have got an Olympic medal for walking.

  ‘Did you…’ I heaved breathlessly and clutched at the counter. ‘Did a lanky guy just walk in here? About yay high? Fiery red hair?’

  The bored concierge looked up from her magazine and threw me a smug look. ‘A guy with red hair in Edinburgh. What are the odds?’

  ‘Please?’ I pleaded. ‘My height, beautiful blue eyes, dark coat a, ah, a scarf. Did you see him?’

  ‘Miss, there have been about fifty people walk in here in the last ten minutes alone.’

  ‘His name is William.’ I reached across the counter, pointing at the archaic paper booking system. ‘Is he here? Can you call him? I need to see him.’

  With a heavy sigh, my not-so-friendly concierge scrolled down the name of bookings. ‘There’s no one here by that name. He might be staying with another guest. I don’t know.’

  I could feel my body shrink back into itself and the heels of my feet sank to the floor. He was long gone, and she wasn’t checking again. Accepting defeat, I nodded, rubbed away a frustrated tear, a
nd saw myself out.

  Finding him was tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack.

  And with that, William was just another memory.

  Chapter 3

  As I stared aimlessly at the shelves of books before me, I couldn’t decide if I wanted a biography, some new-fangled self-help title from a washed-up celebrity, or the ‘hottest’ novel of the month. I placed all three options back on the shelf and continue browsing.

  The thought of leaving had my stomach all twisted in knots, and it wasn’t just because I’d fallen head over heels in love with Europe, but more to do with a certain redhead with piercing blue eyes and a lopsided smile I’d left back in Edinburgh. It’d been almost a full week since we’d said goodbye to the Scottish capital via the rugged Highlands, and it had all passed in a blur of castles and lochs.

  ‘Have you got what you want?’ Heather idled up beside me, the colours washed out of her hair in favour of her natural mousy brown. She sipped slowly at a can of soft drink and twisted her foot around. ‘There’s a pub down the other end. Want a drink? Josh’s saved us a table.’

  ‘Sure, sounds great,’ I replied distractedly, flicking through a copy of Empire. With a sigh, Heather took the magazine from my hands, replaced it on the stacks and lead me out of the shop.

  ‘Come on misery guts, you can pine for him over a drink.’ We skirted past more souvenir shops, Heather stopping me to marvel at suits in the window of a menswear shop, and found Josh breaking off another row of Galaxy and lamenting that we couldn’t get it back home.

  ‘My shout.’ I pulled my purse out, aware that I had been a wee bit of a Debbie Downer lately. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Cider,’ they answered in unison.

  ‘You two,’ I teased, making my way over to the bar, my gaze wandering around the terminal as I waited for someone to serve me.

  Airport terminals were funny places. Time seemed to stand still; ten o’clock in the morning was deemed a respectable hour to drink, mostly because clocks seemed to be hidden. Businesswomen in Ugg boots shopped for perfume and businessmen for alcohol and overpriced shirts. I smiled to myself as a man in the café across the way, with a shock of red hair, fumbled to organise a clothes hanger, carry on suitcase and a coffee cup all at the same time.

  I straightened. My head spun so fast I could have been in a Seventies horror film.

  ‘William!’ I all but shouted his name across the bar. He looked up, head cocked to the side in that way when someone calls your name but you’re not entirely sure that you’ve heard. Though I could see him through the angles of the bar, he clearly couldn’t see me.

  I darted towards him, a sense of elation building up in my chest. ‘William!’

  He turned again, this time his eyes catching mine. They widened with surprise as he put two and two together, connected the dots, and coloured between the lines.

  ‘Emmy!’ That wild, cheeky grin that I fell for on Hogmanay spread across his face as I reached up, throwing my arms around him in a hug. With a laugh, he awkwardly hugged me back with just the one arm, before setting me before him.

  ‘Well, hello to you too, stranger. Of all the gin joints, hey?’ He fiddled with the last of his belongings.

  I let out a breathy laugh. My body felt loose with relief, almost like I was floating. I couldn’t feel my legs. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He held up the arm with the suit hanger wrapped around it. ‘Heading to France for a late family Christmas-slash-New-Year-slash-I’ve-been-a-terrible-workaholic-son-all-year type of party.’

  His eyes narrowed on my clothes, and I suddenly felt self-conscious of the activewear leggings and I HEART SCOTLAND hoodie I’d chosen as my plane outfit, especially when he looked handsome as hell in a buttoned-up navy blue sweater and matching pea coat.

  ‘Is this it then?’ he asked.

  I felt my heart tug a little at his words. Is this it? They stung, and the realisation that I was so close to leaving sat in my stomach like a pit of post-meal acid.

  ‘This is it.’ I nodded. ‘A thirty-hour flight in two metal tubes forty thousand feet in the air and I’ll be back in Sydney.’

  ‘God, and here I am internally moaning about my forty-minute flight across the channel.’ He stared at me with those piercing blue eyes. ‘Want to grab a coffee then? How long have you got?’

  I angled for a view of the departures board nearby. ‘About an hour or so. You?’

  ‘A little more than an hour or so. I thought the tube would be busier, so I came early. Just as well.’ He gave me a wink as we slid into a couple of empty chairs facing the window. Outside, planes took off, while others bounced and skidded to a stop, ferrying people to and from all corners of the world. It seemed like, here in our own little bubble, time had stood still.

  ‘How goes work?’ It was so unfair to be this excited at the mere sight of someone.

  ‘Good!’ He nodded. ‘Great. Lots of impotence, not me, of course.’ A lanky finger pointed back at himself. ‘Thrush, colds, disease incubators.’

  ‘Still not you, right?’ I teased.

  He crossed his fingers before taking a sip of coffee. ‘Promise.’

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘Just the way I like it, keeps me out of trouble.’

  I laughed, enjoying the way we fall back into the banter of Hogmanay. He asked about the rest of my trip, quizzing me on favourite landmarks and dropping random factual titbits here and there. I asked about his work and training, and went back and forth as we outlined where we’d like to be in five years.

  Slowly, without realising it, I noticed William’s hand on mine, closing his hand around my fingers. ‘Where do you want to go first?’

  ‘Hey?’ I smiled, distracted by the fact that he was actually here in front of me, holding my hand. This sort of thing did not happen in my life.

  He grinned. ‘When we travel the world together – where are we going?’

  ‘Well.’ I huffed and relaxed back into my seat, almost leaning on him. ‘I thought maybe I’d just take you home first.’

  ‘Good. Great. I’ve always wanted to go to Sydney. Where’s the first place you’re taking me?’

  If I had any doubt about him at all, the fact that he remembered so much detail told me everything I needed to know: that he felt the same.

  ‘Right. I guess the first place we’d go is the sandwich place near the train station. It’s about ten minutes’ walk from home, in this little huddle of shops, and they make the best roast pork rolls. And breakfast, they do a great breakfast, too.’

  ‘Brown sauce?’

  ‘As much as you want.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He squeezed my fingers gently. ‘I would take you … for a stroll through Soho. There are heaps of bookshops there. Cafés, obviously. We could drink coffee, read books, and duck into the small jazz bars that you don’t know are there until you’re ready for an espresso martini.’

  ‘Or…’ I poked at his chest. ‘A Fighter.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ He chuckled. ‘You need to not do that.’

  ‘After breakfast, we could head to Bondi Beach. We could fail miserably at surfing together.’

  ‘Ooh.’ William winced. ‘In the summer? Might end up a bit lobster-fied.’ He reached across and pinched at my face with pincer hands.

  I angled my face away from his grip, laughing hysterically. ‘Sunscreen is a thing.’

  ‘All the sunscreen in the world can’t protect this pale English skin, baby. Look at it, it’s…’

  ‘… alabaster?’ I tried.

  ‘Well, I was going to say porcelain, but alabaster sounds less like a toilet, doesn’t it?’

  I looked away, covering my mouth with the palm of my hand. ‘You are not a toilet.’

  He tipped the empty coffee cup in the bin next to us and looked at me. ‘You hungry?’

  ‘I could eat something.’

  Still in a comedic mood, William began prattling on randomly again. I just knew I was about to turn into the human equivalent of a be
etroot. My comment might have been a slip of the tongue, but my mind went wandering and my body ached in all the right places.

  We wandered the terminal until we snared the last table left in a Lebanese restaurant. No wonder it was full, with the smells wafting from the kitchen. It was brightly decorated with lots of reds, yellows, and mosaic tiles. We ordered a sharing plate of tapas and very responsible pre-flight sodas.

  ‘You sure you don’t want your own meal? I’m happy to pay.’ William dropped a tattered backpack by his feet.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said through a yawn. ‘We’re about to be overstuffed with bad aeroplane food anyway.’

  ‘Speaking of “we”, where is everyone? You were travelling with friends, weren’t you?’

  I pointed to some spot in the distance, in the same way a supermarket employee would tell you sugar was in aisle three, while waving in that general direction. ‘They’re back at the pub..’

  ‘You didn’t want to join them? I don’t want to keep you from them, you know, if you’re all travelling together.’

  ‘We’re about to spend the next thirty hours together. I’m good.’

  ‘Okay. Good.’

  We spent our remaining time nibbling at tapas and chatting about books, arguing over what we believed was the perfect plane read. He argued thrillers, as long as they weren’t medical in nature, and I was keen on beach romance. When those options were exhausted, we launched into a discussion about what films might be showing on the plane. It was a beautifully easy, rolling conversation. My phone buzzed a few times – Heather, wondering if I’d walked off with their cider. I whipped out a quick response saying I’d meet her at the gate.

  Just as a discussion about the universe and godly beings was getting underway, the departures board clicked over to Boarding beside my flight number. It was accompanied with the familiar ding and the professional voiceover of a flight attendant inviting all first-class and frequent flyers to board first.