Chapter Seven

       Jack

      My God, but she’s lovely. I’d thought she was gorgeous in her work clothes, all casual, but in her simple blue dress she really is something else.

      ‘Are you sure your friends won’t be missing you?’ Nadia asks as – miraculously – we find a tiny table tucked away at the back of the pub.

      ‘I’m sure they’ll cope without me,’ I tell her as we sit down. ‘So, what else would you have been doing tonight?’

      She smiles. It’s a lovely smile: generous and open, but a little hesitant. Her eyes are an incredible shade of green, her skin glowing, her hair long, dark and shiny, falling around her shoulders in soft waves. ‘If Alfie had come home, we’d probably have watched some Christmas movies together,’ she explains. ‘We’d have cracked open the snacks – the nuts, the Twiglets, all the festive delicacies.’ She chuckles, and her eyes seem to actually sparkle, which does something peculiar to my insides. ‘We really know how to have a good time,’ she adds.

      ‘Alfie’s your son?’ I ask, unnecessarily.

      ‘Yes – he’s a twin. Molly, his sister, is home already, but I’ve hardly seen her. And Alfie’s spending Christmas at his girlfriend’s parents’ hunting lodge up in the wilds of Aberdeenshire …’

      ‘A hunting lodge?’ I repeat.

      Nadia sips her white wine. ‘That’s kind of misleading. You’d think it might mean a little wooden shack out in the hills, wellies piled up at the front door …’

      ‘That’s exactly what I’d think,’ I agree, although I can’t say the subject has ever crossed my mind before.

      ‘Yes, well that’s what I assumed. Alfie keeps insisting they’re not that posh, but I managed to coax him into telling me the name of their place – this lodge – and of course I googled it immediately …’

      ‘Of course! Who wouldn’t?’

      She chuckles. ‘Yep, well, it’s actually a Baronial mansion with twenty-four rooms and a dedicated annexe for falcons.’

      ‘Falcons. Wow.’

      ‘Someone’s specifically employed to be the falcon keeper. I mean, that’s all they do.’

      ‘They probably involve quite a lot of care and attention,’ I suggest.

      She laughs and pushes a strand of hair from her face. ‘Sorry. I’m really going on. It’s the time of year, y’know. It’s all a bit … heady.’

      ‘I know what you mean,’ I say, thinking: heady is precisely the right word, and I want this kind of headiness to stretch on and on. I do hope she’s in no hurry to go home.

      ‘So, what are you doing for Christmas?’ she asks. ‘You mentioned your daughter …’

      ‘Yeah, Lori’s fourteen – she’s my only one – and me and her mum take it in turns to have her on Christmas Day.’ I grimace. ‘Have her. I mean, enjoy her delightful company …’

      ‘And this year?’ Nadia asks with a smile.

      ‘I’ll see her on Boxing Day when I’m back in town. I’m off to my parents’ first thing in the morning. They’re up in Perthshire, near Crieff but out in the country. They have a dairy farm …’

      ‘Is that where you grew up? You’re a farmer’s boy?’

      ‘That’s right.’ I smile, reluctant to bore her to death with my entire life history – although her interest seems genuine. ‘But I moved here when I was nineteen,’ I add.

      ‘Desperate to get to the big city,’ she suggests.

      ‘God, yes. No doubt I still smelt of the farm …’

      Nadia flashes another smile. ‘Do your parents still have it?’

      ‘Yes, incredibly – they’re both seventy this year.’

      ‘Pretty young parents,’ she remarks.

      I nod. ‘Yeah – they were still teenagers when Craig, my big brother, was born. He and his wife handle a lot of the day-to-day now.’

      ‘And there’s just the two of you? You and your brother, I mean?’

      ‘Erm, we had another brother,’ I murmur, ‘but there was an accident …’

      ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Nadia exclaims.

      ‘A long time ago now,’ I say briskly; Christ, the last thing I want to do is heap all that stuff on this beautiful woman whom I’ve only just met. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s Christmas Eve, she is utterly lovely and I’ve somehow swerved onto the subject of death … ‘So, how about you?’ I ask quickly.

      ‘Um, you mean … my background and stuff?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘God, where to start?’ She laughs, and her eyes meet mine, and there seems to be a kind of … moment between us. An understanding, perhaps, that we will talk about other, deeper things; not tonight, but later on, when we know each other better. Because there will be a later on, I’m sure of it already, and I sense she feels it too.

      ‘I grew up in Ayrshire,’ Nadia is telling me, ‘and we moved to Glasgow when I was a teenager. There’s just me and my sister, Sarah – she’s the truly grown-up one. A fully formed adult by the age of ten. Then I moved to Dundee, went to art college …’

      ‘You’re an artist as well as working at the shop?’ I cut in.

      She colours slightly. ‘Well, um, I kind of … dabble.’

      ‘Right. I have to say, I can’t even draw stick men. So, how long’ve you worked in—’

      ‘Would you like another drink?’ she asks quickly.

      ‘Oh, erm – yes, but I’ll get them …’

      ‘No, it’s my round.’ She has already leapt to her feet.