While he shakes Ross’s hand, I’m treated to a scrutiny as uncertain as it is unsubtle.
‘I heard there was still no news,’ he says, still looking at me, and the penny drops. He thinks I’m El, but at the same time he knows I’m not.
‘No, not yet,’ Ross says. ‘Sorry, this is, em … Cat, El’s twin sister. Cat, this is Michele. He also owns Favoloso in the Old Town.’
Michele shakes his head. ‘Aye, it’s a terrible thing … a terrible thing.’ His gaze slides back to me. ‘It’s uncanny, hen, how much ye look like her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ross says again. ‘I know we haven’t booked or anything, but I wondered …’
‘Aye, of course, no worries. Come wi’ me.’
We weave around tables until we reach the rear of the restaurant. I can hear the muted clatter and chatter of the kitchen. Michele ushers us towards a corner booth. ‘I’m afraid it’s a wee bit, em …’
It is a wee bit em. The booth chairs are high, and two long-stem candles flicker at each side of the table, a single red rose in a vase between them. There are no other tables anywhere near it. Clearly this is the designated special romantic occasion corner.
‘It’s fine,’ Ross says. ‘Thanks.’
I take off my coat, and when Ross looks at me, I try not to enjoy the brief flare in his eyes.
He clears his throat, sits down. ‘You look great.’
We order some antipasti and a Frascati that Michele recommends. His departure precipitates what seems like an endless procession of waiters to our table. It’s around about the fifth – a teenage boy bearing a second basket of bread – that I realise this is just more scrutiny. I feel like a freak show curiosity.
‘How many times have you and El come here?’
Ross stops pretending to be oblivious, rubs a hand over his face. ‘I’m sorry, Cat. I didn’t think this would be weird, not even when I got here, you know? I’m really, really sorry. D’you want to go?’
‘No. It’s fine.’ Even though it isn’t. But it’s the situation that I’m really angry with, not him. It’s El. The whole Mouse thing isn’t just annoying, it’s snide. Because she’d always really been my friend, not El’s. The Mouse to my Cat. My creation. Her existence meant that I couldn’t ever be at the very bottom of the pecking order; meant, too, that I could always be guaranteed kind company, a sympathetic hearing. And now El’s hijacked even that. So why the hell should Ross and I feel like a sideshow? Why should we feel guilty? We haven’t done anything wrong.
Our starters are delivered to the table by a waitress who tries so hard to avoid looking at us, she ends up nearly dropping Ross’s plate into his lap. It makes me want to laugh, but I can see it just makes Ross even more tense. When she goes, he starts eating like it’s his last meal. I want so much for him to relax. I wish I could take just a small part of his worry, his stress, his pain, and swap it for my anger. But I know he won’t appreciate the effort, won’t even want to listen to it, so all I can do is distract him.
‘D’you remember the Rosemount?’
He stops, fork halfway to his mouth. ‘The Marshalsea Prison?’
‘It wasn’t that bad.’
‘It was, according to El.’
‘Not that she isn’t prone to exaggeration.’ The wine has settled my nerves somewhat, stretched me less thin. ‘Remember the Shank in Mirrorland? Now, that was bad.’
‘Of course I remember.’ He looks at me a little too sharply. ‘Do you?’
‘Of course.’
El pretending to be Andy Dufresne, ordering me about: hide there, spy there, look out there. I think of the old gravel yard – replaced now by that flat paving in the back garden – the only part of Mirrorland that was ever outside. An exercise yard that El would insist she and I march around and around for endless, restless hours. Sometimes in the rain, sometimes until dark. Kicking up those silver and grey chuckies. The sound of their crunch and give under our prison boots, their powder chalky against the too-long drag of our prison clothes: Grandpa’s old waxy fishing dungarees and jackets.
Inside the Shank, Ross was always the warder or the wing guard of Cellblock 5, built on top of the old wooden fruit-crates that used to be Boomtown’s boardwalk. I remember his stern glares of authority. The illicit thrill of his threats to lock us up and never let us go. We’d been fast approaching our teens by then; the Shank was the last bad gasp of Mirrorland, I suppose.
‘I remember the Rosemount, but only vaguely,’ Ross says. He refills our glasses. ‘You’d both already done nearly six years’ hard time when I saw you again.’
I’m struck, then, by how easily, how vividly I can remember that day. Its colours, its smells. It was spring cold, coal-smoke sharp and white-pink with blossom. I was leaning against one of the pillars of the Scottish National Gallery, bored, chilly, waiting for El to come out. She could spend all day in an art gallery, from opening to closing, and even though we were barely speaking by then, I was still determined to at least try.
I saw Ross on the other side of Princes Street, coming out of a department store, carrying bags. Even now I can’t describe how seeing him again made me feel. By 2004, the prospect of leaving the Rosemount loomed no longer as an opportunity, but a terrifying prospect. The carers kept talking to us about ageing out as if we were a hundred and fifty instead of seventeen approaching eighteen. They also kept talking us through our options, enough that we knew we had very few. Ross was such a large part of our first life, already long abandoned and left for dead. So when I saw him – taller, bigger, just the same – that first initial bolt of joy and excitement was straightaway tempered with a sense of loss. Unease.
I didn’t move, but he saw me anyway. My heart fluttered and my stomach cramped as he crossed the road, started running. He stopped only when he got to within six feet of me, his breath fogging the space between us, his smile warm and big.
‘Cat.’
‘Hi, Ross.’
There were tears in his eyes before there were tears in mine. But I couldn’t swear to who initiated first contact. One minute, Ross wasn’t in my life any more, and the next his arms were tight around me and my face was pressed up against his chest. And he was all I could smell, breathe, feel.
‘Where have you been? Are you okay?’ The end of his nose was rosy red. His eyes shone. ‘I tried to find you. I tried to find both of you, but …’
‘I’m sorry.’ Because we, of course, had always known where he was. That was part of the deal we’d made with each other at Granton Harbour – nothing from our first life could survive, no matter how much we might want it to.
His grin returned. ‘It’s okay. I’ve found you now.’
And then I know I was the one to hug him, because my face burned hot with working up the nerve to do it. To throw my hands around his neck, feel the broader span of his shoulders under my palms, feel the stranger adult scratch of his cheek against mine.
I didn’t want El to come out of the gallery any more. She would ruin this, I knew. But just as surely as if I’d conjured her, there she was.
Ross let go of me. ‘El?’
If it was a question, she didn’t answer it. I was dreading the moment he stepped past me to her. The moment he touched her, kissed her, pulled her close. The moment when we resumed our old roles; where both of them forgot I even existed.
It didn’t happen. When Ross moved forward, El moved back. Only a few steps, but enough to make Ross pause. ‘El?’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I … I just saw Cat standing there, and …’ I saw him swallow hard. His face was a study in hurt confusion.