‘But you definitely believe in God?’
He shrugged good-naturedly.
‘Ask any physicist. Something is looking at us.’
Carmen didn’t understand this but she pressed on.
‘But do you believe … in the Bible and the baby Jesus and stuff? And ooh, I am asking you and I know you can’t lie, ha!’
He blinked.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I think if anyone were to believe in something more than themselves, if you were to believe in something, I would say it is not unreasonable to think that when you touch a baby’s face you are touching the face of God. Have you ever seen a baby in an old people’s home? They are worshipped. They become divine.’
‘Hmm,’ said Carmen.
‘So I can see the appeal. But I do not have a true church, no. I was raised a very strict Quaker, in a place that has very few Quakers so … we all stuck together. But no.’
Carmen smiled.
‘You’re a faker Quaker?’
‘Yeah yeah yeah.’
His voice grew wistful for a moment.
‘Although often I find in music … ’
‘There is, like, divine stuff?’
‘Well, that is as good a word as any,’ he said, and they continued on in silence.
‘You’re a very strange person,’ said Carmen.
‘All God’s creatures are strange,’ said Oke, but he was teasing her, she knew.
The cold was biting now. Oke indicated a courtyard to their right at the top of the steps that led up to the Royal Mile.
‘This is where I stay,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Carmen.
She smiled, and suddenly found herself moving closer towards him. There was nobody else in the dark alleyway. He looked at his hands, reluctant to make an advance, but she found his hand herself, in gloves too thin for the weather, and took it and put it between hers. His green eyes locked onto hers. The freezing night fell still, silence all around. She moved towards him again under the freezing Edinburgh sky, under the grey tenement walls, hundreds of years of history on all sides, in a world as old as time; she leaned towards him …
Suddenly, footsteps hastened by, followed by a loud sobbing noise. They both glanced up.
It was Dahlia, staring at Oke, her face dissolving in tears.
‘Oh goodness,’ said Oke. ‘Are you all right?’
He went to move after her, and Carmen would have done too, not sure what was going on, when her phone blared out, the noise bouncing off the old grey stone walls, an interloper, a thing that did not belong.
Oke turned and looked back towards her as Dahlia stopped in the close leading to the street, leaning her head against the wall as if inviting Oke to comfort her. Carmen felt a lump in her throat as she waved him on, looking at her phone in case the call was from Sofia.
The number was private. She pressed ‘okay’。
‘This fucking hotel room,’ said Blair. ‘It’s too big. Too fucking big. I’m coming home, gorgeous. Via that freezing cold town you live in!’
She turned round to say something to Oke, once she’d finished the conversation as quickly as she could, but he was patting Dahlia on the back as she spoke to him. Oh my God. Oh my goodness, were they … ? She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked if they were together, even after she’d seen them at the party. That was her fault. She’d let herself get swept away in the moment, and the music. He’d probably taken Dahlia down there before already – that’s how he knew the music was even happening.