Dorothy loved Middle Meadow Walk, the stream of students coming and going, cyclists passing in a blur, even the weird buskers. A guy up the road was playing a funky shuffle on a beaten-up old drum kit, and she smiled as she pictured her own kit gleaming in the second-floor studio back at the house. The festival was over and she was relieved when the city stopped being an assault course of kids trying to push flyers into your hand, but she missed that energy too. It was quickly replaced by students excited about a new adventure in the big city. The Walk was a long, wide boulevard stretching from Marchmont to the heart of the Old Town. Students lived in the former and studied in the latter, so it felt like an artery, and Dorothy imagined she was a blood cell, heading to another part of Edinburgh’s body, transporting her nutrients to where they were needed.

As she reached Söderberg she saw Thomas sitting outside. He wore a dark-green jacket, white T-shirt, jeans, black-rimmed glasses. The day was bright and clear, a slight edge in the air, the whisper of winter coming. He was reading a book, and as she reached him she saw it was by a Japanese woman.

She touched his shoulder. ‘Any good?’

He turned and removed his glasses, smiled and closed the book. ‘Very.’ He stood up and embraced her. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘You too.’

‘How are you?’ The question was loaded.

She considered it instead of just saying she was fine. ‘I’ll be OK, I think.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Thomas said, pulling out a chair for her.34

They were at a small table outside the café. The building was large and glass-fronted, part of the modern Quartermile development nestled amongst the spires of the old hospital and university buildings. There was an open-plan Swedish bakery through the back, one of the reasons Dorothy liked it. Light, classy Nordic furniture everywhere made her long for a place of clean lines and minimalism she’d never been to.

They ordered pastries and coffee, Thomas swapping a few Swedish words with the student waiter who took their order.

‘He’s studying philosophy,’ Thomas said when the waiter was gone.

‘Good luck to him.’

Dorothy enjoyed the way their voices told a story. Her faint traces of California, his edge of Scandinavia, the two of them in middle and old age, sitting in the weak Scottish sunlight, both immigrants because of love, now alone. When you live somewhere else for a long time you don’t really have a home anymore. She loved Edinburgh, loved the Scottish self-deprecating humour, but her heart yearned for the honesty and ambition of the Pacific Coast. She wondered what Thomas missed of Gothenburg.

‘So,’ Thomas said, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘Your mysterious bank payments.’