Sofia squeezed her eyes shut.
‘I don’t like her,’ went on Carmen. ‘She’s mean.’
‘She’s not mean! She’s very … useful. She’s good for me. She’s good for the children. Gives them good ways of living their lives.’
‘Instead of what I do, you mean?’
Sofia lost her rag, which she did very rarely. Carmen was stunned into silence.
‘That’s not what I said! God, Carmen. You insist on taking every single phrase out of my mouth and wringing it for the worst possible angle. You’re like judge, jury and executioner of me. And Mum. It’s like we can never say a single word that isn’t secretly dissing Carmen because that’s literally all we have on our minds, every hour of the day and night. Carmen Carmen Carmen. Everyone be careful. Don’t upset Carmen because she doesn’t have a job! Don’t upset Carmen because she doesn’t have a boyfriend! I swear Mum didn’t want me to have another baby because you don’t have one yet.’
‘She would never say that.’
‘She basically implied it.’
‘Well, how come? How come you get everything?’ said Carmen, stung.
‘What don’t you have?’ said Sofia. ‘You’re young, you’re fun, everyone likes hanging out with you. You’re creative – look what you’ve done in the shop. You’ve got famous guys chatting to you, you’ve got some lanky student hanging around. And yet you act like the world is so unfair just because you couldn’t be arsed to pass any exams at school and frankly it gets very boring, okay? Here’s the answer. I work my arse off. Federico works his arse off. I am exhausted all the time. I need Skylar, despite you being jealous of her, because she also works her arse off being a student and a nanny and frankly I need that for the children so they don’t end up … ’
Her voice trailed off. Sofia never lost it. She bottled it up, she worked it out, she kept calm, she was professional, she was appropriate.
Carmen stared at her.
‘ … so they don’t end up like me,’ she croaked, her breath gone.
‘No. That’s not what I was going to say.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Carmen. ‘Yes, it was.’
Sofia stared at her.
‘Well, you’ve got it out now,’ said Carmen. ‘So. Good to know, I suppose.’
‘That’s not what I meant at all!’ shouted Sofia, but Carmen had already turned and slammed out of the beautifully painted, decorated old door, and without even saying goodbye to the children.
The night was utterly freezing, and Carmen didn’t have the faintest clue where to go. The air was cold; the streets were full. She couldn’t believe that only twenty-four hours ago she had been so happy and full of excitement, playing with the children at the fair, then listening to that heavenly music. Now … oh God. She could only imagine Sofia being on the phone to their mother immediately, getting her side of the story in, the pair of them agreeing with each other, saying, oh well, wasn’t Carmen just like that. Oh God and then Skylar would get back and they could sit up gossiping – how did Sofia even know about Oke anyway? If it wasn’t for Skylar yammering on all the time …
Her fury kept her warm all the way up the street and into the Grassmarket. The bars and restaurants were overflowing, flooded with people laughing, hugging, pulling off coats, revelling in the Christmas spirit on this starry night, happy and full of goodwill towards men. Well, she bloody wasn’t. God.
There was a light still on in the bookshop. Frankly, she had no idea where to go. She knew Sofia would be anxious to smooth everything over if she went back and that made her angrier than she could say. She marched up Victoria Street and, sure enough, Ramsay and Mr McCredie were indeed killing what looked like their second bottle of burgundy, while the boys pored over a huge illustrated atlas, eating fish and chips and almost certainly getting greasy fingerprints on an expensive piece of stock, but for a moment Carmen was just relieved to see some people she wasn’t related to.