The London-Edinburgh leg was more crowded, and with only a single class of travel in that flight, less comfortable. We were in the third row, seats A and B. C was already occupied when we arrived, by a guy who looked as if he’d been a rugby prop forward in his youth, and had put on a lot of weight since. Tom gave him one glance and pushed me towards the window seat.
We arrived on time, and amazingly, so did our luggage. We wheeled it to the Hertz desk … quite a long wheel in Edinburgh these days, and soon we were on our way. It had been a while since I was last in Glasgow, so I was grateful for the satnav that Audrey had specified when she’d booked the car. It’s not that I don’t know how to find the city, but road systems change all the time, and in some it’s possible to see your destination without being able to get anywhere near it, if you don’t know exactly how. I needn’t have worried, though; West George Street still ran in the same direction as it had the last time I was there. We came off the M8 and more or less drove straight to the door.
I let the door crew take care of the luggage and of parking the car, and led Tom through the imposing entrance into the foyer of a building that had once been an episcopal church.
There have been times in my life, very few of them, when I’ve refused to believe the evidence of my own eyes. That was one of them. There was a guy standing beside reception, and for a moment I thought it was Liam, but I dismissed the silly notion and marched on without giving him a second glance, until Tom exclaimed, ‘Hey, how did you get here? You were in St Martí when we were at Barcelona Airport.’
‘That is true, buddy,’ he conceded, ‘but what’s the point of being a GWA superhero if you don’t exercise your superpowers from time to time?’
I stared at him, still in denial. ‘But …’ was all I could say, and then he smiled and I more or less melted into him. ‘But,’ I sighed, ‘I am so fucking glad you’re here. I don’t know why, for I am a forceful and independent woman … “My Way” could have been written for me … but I am. Now, how the hell did you manage it?’
‘You can thank my ex,’ he said, as I released him from my grasp. ‘After you called, I was sitting there worrying about you two. I reckoned a little back-up wouldn’t do any harm even if I couldn’t get to you till tomorrow. So I went online and saw there was a flight from Girona to Prestwick, today, with a couple of hours to departure. It was showing “Full” but I took a wild chance and phoned Erin. Miracle of miracles, her husband was the pilot; she called him and he got me a jump seat. I made it to the airport just in time. Honest, I’ll never say another bad word about the guy, or about his airline.’
‘When did you get here?’
‘About two minutes ago. I was just in the process of booking myself a room when you walked through the door.’
‘You don’t need to do that,’ Tom volunteered. ‘We’ve got a room spare, now that Audrey isn’t coming.’
That was true, but it wasn’t how I wanted things to work out. I looked at Liam. ‘Wait there and do nothing,’ I ordered.
I took my son across to the window to the right of the door. ‘It’s big boy time,’ I said. ‘How would you feel if Liam and I shared a room?’
‘Would it be forever?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea. But he’s a good man, I like him and I want to be with him just now. Could you handle that?’
He looked up at me, but only up by a couple of inches. ‘In my English class,’ he began, ‘we’ve been doing a poem called “The Lady of Shallot”. Do you know it?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I love it. It’s how our language is supposed to be. Do you like it?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Because when I read the words, they make me think of you, and that’s sad. Dad’s dead, Mum, he’s not coming back, and it’s time you had a loyal knight and true, not just a pageboy like me. I don’t want you to wind up like the Lady did.’
Profound? All parents think we know our kids, and what their capabilities are, but mostly we’re wrong. Our expectations are usually over the top, or we take the gloomy view, that they’ll get by and that’ll be enough. I’ve always tried to expect nothing of Tom, other than decency, honesty and integrity, and he’s shown me every one of those. But when he said that to me, I was plain flat out astonished.
‘How long have you thought that way?’ I asked.
‘For a while now. I want you to be happy. I wouldn’t want you to be with a culo like Duncan Culshaw, but you’re too sensible ever to pick anyone like him. I like Liam, so if you want to live en pareja with him, I won’t mind.’
‘I’ll still be your best pal, you know,’ I said.
‘You’ll still be my mum and that’s the important thing.’
I gave him a quick kiss on the forehead and then returned to reception, where I did a deal. Two minutes later, Liam and I had what they called a Rock ’n’ Roll suite, for a reason that still escapes me, and Tom had a room along the corridor. It had just gone six thirty; I booked a table in the brasserie for half past eight and told Tom that we’d knock on his door on the way down.
You probably imagine that we put those two hours to good use. You’d be quite right, but you may continue to imagine the details, for I’m not planning to describe them. There was a moment when it did seem a little weird to be in bed with a man on the day that a long-standing friend had died, but it didn’t take me longer than another moment to realise that if our roles in the day’s drama had been reversed, Susie would have done exactly the same thing.
The only things I will say are that it was good, and that having a man’s seed sown deep inside me … don’t worry, I was nowhere near ovulation, although I made a mental note to go back on the pill for as long as I needed it … put my Barcelona bunny friend in its proper perspective. I made a mental note to attend the next Estartit car boot sale and slip it into someone’s car, in a box labelled ‘Ten euro’ when they weren’t looking. I had the very lady in mind for the nice surprise.
We didn’t talk much, Liam and I, not for a while at any rate, not until we were soaping each other in the suite’s enormous shower … you could have fitted the whole Rock ’n’ Roll band in there. ‘Tom okay?’ he asked me, finally.
‘Tom is fine. He sees you as Lancelot … and I want no lewd cracks about that name,’ I added, as I explained what he’d said about Tennyson’s poem.
‘Bloody hell!’ Liam exclaimed. ‘I assume he takes his sensitivity from his mother’s side of the family, for it was never evident in his old man, not that I could see.’ As he spoke, he felt his nose, checking that it was intact.
I smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, he does. My mother was an author, and my dad, whom I plan for you to meet later this week, is a craftsman, in wood. That’s if you’re willing, of course. I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved with families yet.’
‘Given the disaster that mine was?’
‘No! I didn’t mean that at all. The thought never occurred to me. We’ve only known each other … or been reacquainted … for three days. This could be just a fling for both of us. I’m not naive; I understand that. Christ, man, we live on different continents.’
‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus,’ he sang softly, in a rather nice tenor voice. ‘Primavera, my love,’ I smiled, a little coyly no doubt, at his use of the ‘L’ word, ‘I can’t wait to meet your old man. You’re forgetting, he’s the only member of your family I haven’t met yet, given that I’ve worked for your brother-in-law a couple of times, and met your sister in the process.’
‘In that case, prepare yourself for a gentle interrogation in Auchterarder, and for being taken to the pub. My father’s not a big boozer, but he does like an occasional pint of Guinness … don’t worry, though, he won’t force it on you.’