Page 21 of The Love of Our Lives

‘Now the hands.’ She raises them both up with a flick.

I try to follow in time, end up pretty quickly in a tangle, but the funny thing is, I’m not sure I really care if I get it right.

People are staring now but the way Charlie is so enthusiastic, so very determined about us dancing like this, makes me want to follow her; makes me want to have the fun she’s having.

We keep going like that for a lot of the evening, in between drinks and chatting with Adam and Sven, and some of the other clientele even get up for a bit; bob around too.

And it feels so damn good to just hang out with a group of friends like this, to actually let my hair down for a moment and not think about when I need to get home or if I’ll ‘overdo’ it.

Adam pulls me up for a dance too, and as he takes my hands and spins me about, I feel a rush of blood to my head.

It feels good to hang out with another female again too, not just over the phone with Fran, and by some point later in the evening, with my mind hazy from alcohol, it hits me again how much I miss Jess. And Cat too.

I stop moving.

The music is still going giddily above us, but after a moment Charlie sees me and stops too.

‘You OK?’ she says, putting a hand on my arm.

‘Yup,’ I say, trying to sound upbeat, but suddenly all I can see now is Cat dancing around at one of Fraser’s gigs, Cat with her long red hair flicking up everywhere and this look of utter joy on her face.

‘I’ve . . . just got a stitch,’ I say, and walk quickly back over to the table.

Adam is chatting away with Sven when we arrive, but when he sees my face, he says, ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes, just a little stitch,’ I repeat, as though on auto mode. ‘All good.’

But even though Adam is smiling back, I can tell he knows it’s more than that.

We walk back up the road a little later, past the elegant town houses of Charlotte Square and the grand West End buildings, up towards the grey hardness of Lothian Road. The air feels even chillier now but it’s refreshing all the same.

Adam’s walking so close to me, we could be holding hands, and I can feel that faint trace of electricity between our fingers; that sense that we could connect again at any second.

Or maybe it’s the two wines I had, I’m not sure.

I do still feel a little woozy if I’m being honest, but in an easy, hazy way.

‘So, what happened earlier when you were dancing?’ he says eventually.

I tense. ‘I don’t know,’ I say then sigh, ‘I was reminded of something difficult in the past,’ I finish truthfully.

A pause.

‘You’ll work through it,’ he says. ‘If that’s what you want.’

And just the way he says it makes me feel like there’s a chance I actually will.

‘Charlie’s great,’ I say, after a few moments.

‘Yes, she is,’ Adam says, almost proudly, and I can tell how much he thinks of her – of Sven too. It’s evident they’re like family to him and I feel sort of honoured that he’s invited me into his life like this.

‘She’s so warm,’ I say.

‘And wild?’ Adam’s eyebrows raise in humour.

‘Yes, and wild, but I sort of love that.’

‘Me too.’

We pass under some office buildings, their tall domes rising up in the sky on corners of a junction and I find myself uncertain as to whether to ask about Charlie and what she said about the cocktail.

It seems a bit nosy when I’ve only just met her, but then again, she seemed very open about everything else.

‘So . . . Charlie was saying she shouldn’t really be drinking,’ I say. ‘Is she pregnant?’

He looks across at me. ‘Trying, for quite a while now.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry; is she OK?’

‘She’s all right, I think. You can see how incredibly upbeat they are about everything.’

‘I know but still, it must be hard.’

It’s not really something I’d ever considered for myself given my condition, having children. It just didn’t seem fair to anyone, as much as I secretly would have loved it – creating a unit of my own. So, I can imagine if it was something I actually tried for, it would be awful not to get it.

I have this overwhelming urge to ask him about something else Charlie said now, about Claire, and I realise in this moment that I’m jealous. Pure, senseless jealousy for this woman I’ve never even met. Who was she? Were they really in love? How long were they together?

And I have a horrible feeling that I like Adam more than I know.

‘Do you think you’ll head to one of Charlie’s classes?’ he says, and I’m jolted away from my thoughts.

I give him a wry smile. ‘Did you actually see me? Totally crap at dancing.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he says, his eyes glittering at me, ‘you were not crap. And you definitely looked like you were enjoying it, which is the main thing. I’d go with you, if you wanted?’

My stomach flutters at the suggestion, at the way he glances at me.

‘Perhaps,’ I say, uncertain if I mean it or not. I do realise I should probably make the most of this healthy body while I have it, but I was telling the truth earlier – dancing was always more Cat’s thing, even though I thought it looked like brilliant fun.

‘I’m pretty sure I have two left feet,’ I add, because I don’t want him to feel like I’m blowing him off or I don’t want to hang out with him. Because I really do.

I was just so badly burned before.

‘Well, you’ll never know unless you try,’ Adam says, and I have to wonder if he has a point.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a total disaster.

Once we’ve arrived back at our building, Adam unlocks the door and I’m walking in when I notice something outside the card shop next to it, and my heart stops. A second later and my foot catches on something and I go flying forwards into the dark.

‘Shit!’ I cry, just as Adam catches me deftly by the back of my coat; pulls me to standing.

I turn to look up at him, heart absolutely pounding in my chest, when an unexpected bubble of laughter comes out of me. ‘Two left feet,’ I say and start laughing again, and then he’s laughing too in the dark, this rumble growing between us until we are howling in the echoey stairwell.

The sound of a lock clicking open; light suddenly floods on to us.

‘What the hell is going on out here?’ a sharp, yet vaguely familiar voice says.

We both turn sharply to see an elderly man standing in the ground floor doorway.

He’s in pyjamas, a blue robe, a shock of white hair sticking up on his head.

Despite the fragility of the situation for him, his pale-blue eyes laser in on us.

‘So sorry, William,’ Adam says quickly, apologetically. ‘We just came in.’

‘I can see that,’ says William, ‘but I’ve had enough of all this racket, people coming in later and later at night. Why can’t everyone just shut up?’

The second buzzer I pressed that day .

Adam says nothing further, but I can’t help feeling bad for William.

It probably is a bit terrifying getting disturbed like that late at night, and looking down by my feet, I see what I tripped over finally – a box, with the name William Johnson across the front.

So, this is who I rent my flat from , I think, before picking it up and carrying it across.

‘Here you go,’ I say, passing it to him. ‘I fell over it coming in – that’s why we were laughing, but I’m really sorry about waking you.’

William takes it from me cagily, like I’m giving him a bomb, until he looks at the label.

‘Ah, yes,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘My funeral pamphlets. Though I’ll probably be dead by morning anyway after tonight . . .’

His words are jarring, but I’m sure I hear the trace of something lighter there too, some inkling of humour.

A shadow crosses his face again.

‘Now, he says, ‘would you kindly bugger off and let an old man sleep, or die – either one will do.’

And with that, he takes the box inside, and slams the door in my face.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Adam says a couple of minutes later, as he drops me at my door. ‘I’ve tried with William before, but he was having none of it. Maybe it’s too hard to change sometimes, after a certain point.’

But as we say our goodbyes, our eyes lingering briefly on each other as we do, I can’t help wondering if that’s really true. And I also can’t help thinking about what I saw as we came in.

A To Let sign hanging outside the card shop beneath us.