‘Fuck you, Hannah,’ he said, placing the glass in the washer. ‘I hope you find Mel, but fuck you.’

50

11

DOROTHY

Craigentinny didn’t look like anyone’s idea of Edinburgh. It wasn’t the castle and spires of the tourist centre or the jumble of tenements in the Old Town. It wasn’t the Georgian townhouses of the New Town or the scrappy schemes of Trainspotting. These were wide, bland roads full of 1930s bungalows, small gardens and garages attached, the occasional caravan in a driveway. This was suburbia close to the sea flanked by a council golf course and a recycling centre. Dorothy looked at the backside of Arthur’s Seat, gentle gorse-laden slopes compared to the steep cliffs of the front, like seeing under the skirts of Edinburgh’s grand old lady.

She checked the address Thomas had given her, 72 Craigentinny Avenue. Grey brick, dormer window at the front, white Ford Ka parked outside. Someone’s perfect little home. Dorothy never got used to the lack of space in Scottish houses. People seemed to be happy with a tiny sliver of land, living on top of each other. Back in Pismo Beach they weren’t exactly rich, but she grew up in a house as big as the Skelf place, sprawling, low-level with new additions jutting out in different directions. In comparison, Scottish houses seemed dour, repressed. Like the people in them, maybe.

She linked her fingers over her heart for a moment, breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, tried to find her centre. She reminded herself that this woman wasn’t expecting her, it would be a shock. And what the woman had to say might also shock Dorothy.

She opened the black gate, walked up the path and rang the doorbell.

Waited.51

Saw movement through the dimpled glass of the door then it was opened by a girl, maybe ten years old, in school uniform, white polo shirt with a maroon cardy. The gold crest on her cardy read ‘Craigentinny’ across the top and ‘I Byde it’ underneath. In between was a hunting horn, what looked like candy canes and an artist’s palette. Dorothy knew enough Scots to know ‘byde’ meant ‘live’, but that didn’t make sense. ‘I live it’, what kind of school motto was that?

She smiled. ‘Hi, what’s your name?’

‘Natalie.’

‘Is your mum or dad in?’

She nodded and turned. ‘Mum.’ This was a holler up the stairs. ‘She’s just coming.’ Natalie stayed at the door staring at the pattern on Dorothy’s blue dress.

Dorothy heard footsteps then the door widened.