Page 28 of The Love of Our Lives
The van smells of wood and old leather seats, and him. He’s wearing a scraggly charcoal sweater, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing those strong forearms and that tattoo again. Something twinges in my stomach, and I turn sharply to put my seatbelt on.
We’re just friends.
For a moment though, I wonder about Emily. Did she speak to Adam too? Or would she have been out that Friday night he came by?
‘So, where are we headed?’ I say, as he pulls out on to the road.
‘Out of the city I thought,’ he says, looking ahead at the road, ‘The Pentlands.’
‘Sounds good, though I haven’t been up a hill in years.’
He glances across at me. ‘How is that possible?’
I think about all the things I stopped doing, all the places I ruled out across my life; too many to count really.
‘Well, my parents weren’t really “hill walking” people,’ I say finally.
He just laughs. ‘OK, well, I’m glad we’re doing this then.’
We breeze up through Bruntsfield, through Morningside, the sky a burnished coral above us. The streetlamps are starting to come on below, like tiny suns trying to keep the day going. People are still wandering around, dipping in and out of bars and restaurants, laughing, talking, calling to each other.
‘Hey, I noticed you don’t have a car,’ he says, ‘so feel free to use this if you need it.’
I pause, and he glances at me again.
‘What is it?’ he says.
‘Oh, just that I don’t drive.’
‘How come?’
I don’t say anything immediately. How can I explain that I never drove – despite the doctors saying it was fine. Because what if I had a heart attack at the wheel? Or blacked out? Or hurt someone else.
‘I suppose there probably wasn’t much need to in London with the underground,’ Adam says absently, ‘but if you ever want me to teach you then just say the word, though of course I’m always happy to take you anywhere you want to go.’
The enthusiasm behind his words makes me smile, even though I think it’s unlikely I’ll try. Any time I’ve got behind the wheel I’ve frozen up and got straight back out again.
‘Do you miss your old life?’ he asks now. I know he’s speaking about London, but the words still ring inside me somewhere.
My old life.
‘Sometimes,’ I say, thinking of the wanders outside my parents’ house, the calls I make to Jess, this feeling of being completely cut off from the people I love.
They’re all I’ve ever known.
‘Must be hard,’ Adam says, ‘leaving everything you know like that . . .’
I pause at his words.
‘It’s not all bad.’ I recall the run this morning, that energy coursing through me. ‘And I certainly don’t miss working around the clock at a desk.’
He grins. ‘Too right, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing really well. Just give it a bit of time, and soon you’ll feel like this life is all completely normal. Change is only jarring right before you do it.’
I let the thought settle as I stare out the window, and I wonder if this is how Emily felt at this stage – a little bit wobbly, a little bit good, just a few weeks after a big move. Alone and far from everything she’d ever known.
Adam sticks the radio on, and a Vance Joy song trickles out into the van around us, soothing my anxious thoughts. We eventually settle back in a comfortable silence as we cruise out of the city, and after about ten minutes, the rolling hills of the Pentlands rise up ahead of us. The sky is lit up like a fire tonight, all reds and pinks threaded through each other like joint hands in the vastness above. Eventually Adam turns off down a track, towards a gravelly car park with tall trees at the end.
We’re not the only people here for a walk; couples and families and lone walkers all seem to be milling around, and there’s something lovely about that, knowing that other people had the same urge to seize this beautiful evening.
