Looking at the politely bland expression on Elspeth’s face, I wonder whether she’s been press-ganged into this jolly afternoon play date or whether she came willingly. Because we were good friends, once. We sat next to each other in the little primary school in the village, the only two girls in our year group. We held our own against the bigger kids when the going got boisterous and we moved on to the big school together, sharing the morning and evening bus journeys as well as our packed lunches and the answers to our homework. In the school show, she was always there in the chorus behind me when I sang my solos and it was her encouragement, in the form of a dare, that had made me try out for one of the main parts in the first place.
At seventeen, our lives took us on to separate paths, though. Mine was the road to London and a scholarship place at a performing arts school; hers was the lochside road that was already so familiar to us both. She got a job behind the bar at the hotel and did a correspondence course in bookkeeping in her spare time, working her way up to a better-paid administrative position behind the reception desk. We lost touch soon after that, although I’d heard from Mum about her engagement and marriage a few years ago to Andy McKinnes, who’d been in the year above us at school, and the subsequent arrival of little Jack.
Seeing Elspeth now, kneeling on the yellow-and-brown swirls of Bridie’s sitting room carpet as she shows her son the pictures in a book of nursery rhymes, I feel guilty in all sorts of ways. I feel guilty that I left and she stayed. I feel guilty that I haven’t been a better friend – I never once invited her down to stay with me in London. I feel guilty that I was the one who stopped writing, responding to her lengthy letters with briefer and briefer notes, and then just occasional postcards depicting Big Ben and Carnaby Street, before our correspondence dwindled and died altogether in the absence of any common ground. Remembering our encounter in the shop a few weeks ago, I feel guilty, too, that her calm, competent mothering skills put mine to shame. And, as the tiny solitaire diamond in her engagement ring catches the light when she turns a page of the picture book, I feel guilty that she’s done the whole engagement–marriage–baby thing in the socially accepted manner, whereas I’ve succeeded in making a complete mess of it.
She smiles up at me, tucking her hair behind her ear in a mannerism that I remember vividly from our teenage years, her coolness thawing just a tad at the sight of Daisy balanced on my hip.
‘Hello, Lexie. And hello, Daisy sweetheart – would you like to come and look at this book with Jack?’
Daisy surveys the pair of them, round-eyed and serious, before arriving at the decision that this looks like the opportunity for some fun and reaching her arms towards the floor. I kneel on the carpet, too, and Elspeth turns the book so that Daisy can see the pictures.
‘Isn’t that grand! I knew they’d get on like a house on fire,’ Bridie clucks from the doorway. ‘Now then, the two of them can get acquainted while I make the tea.’ She bustles off into the kitchen, satisfied that her social get-together has begun so well.
Naturally, with Elspeth here I won’t be able to quiz Bridie about my parents’ history as I’d hoped to do. In fact, she’s cleverly managed to turn the tables on me. With the help of an ally who knows me so well from years before, this is the perfect opportunity for her to question me about my recent past.
Grudgingly, I have to hand it to her. Bridie Macdonald is no fool. But the way to prise a limpet off a rock is to catch it unawares, so perhaps one of these days I’ll get the truth out of her, when her guard is down. I just need to be patient and wait for the right moment.
Forcing myself to smile, I gather Daisy on to my lap and softly join in a round of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’， conscious of the roughness of my singing. If Elspeth is surprised that this is all that’s left of the voice that once filled West End theatres, she is polite enough not to show it. Bridie, as she comes back with a tray of teacups and a jug of orange squash, is less tactful.
‘It’s lovely to hear the room filled with the weans’ giggles,’ she says, pouring juice into the baby beakers that we’ve brought with us. ‘And your singing again, too, Lexie. I remember when you sang the solo at the Christmas carol concert when you were just seven. Your mammy was so nervous for you that first time, I thought she’d burst. And by the time you’d finished there wisnae a dry eye in the hall. You were note perfect!’
I help Daisy lift the cup and drink, careful not to spill orange squash on the swirly carpet. ‘I’m afraid nowadays my singing brings tears to people’s eyes for the opposite reason,’ I say, trying to deflect the anguish I feel with humour.