The Day We Meet Again

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine, Phoebe

Paris Gare du Nord breaks through in an explosion of light and colour and noise as the train door opens. I take a breath.

Bonjour, Paris.

It’s just a station platform: grey concrete, the smell of oil, pools of light filtering through the run of glass skylights high above. It could be anywhere. Except it feels different. Dad said that the first time he took Mum to Europe in their early twenties even the echo of his own footsteps sounded ‘continental’. I don’t have to see the platform signs and illuminated advertising boards to know I’m not in London any more.

Then I am through the barrier and looking around for a man I’ve only met once before who may or may not be holding a sign. It takes a minute to get my bearings, head dizzy with light and sound and movement. I make myself breathe, summoning up a memory of being in Sam’s arms in our little space of concourse at St Pancras. It calms me.

I can do this.

Sam only just met me and he believes in me. I’ve known me for a lot longer, so maybe I should believe in myself more.

Sometimes the way to prove you’re capable of something is just to do it.

‘Phoebe!’

I follow the sound of the voice and a group of commuters disperses to my right revealing a face that’s surprisingly familiar. Tobi is smiling and waving. And he has a sign with my name on it.

I’m going to be okay.

‘Hi!’ I grin, accepting a very French double-kiss and a very un-French bear hug from my host.

‘The delay! The nightmare! My darling, are you okay? Meg told me they closed your station.’

‘They did, but I’m here now.’

‘Yes, you are. And now we celebrate your grande aventure.’ He throws an arm around my shoulders and takes my bag despite my protests. ‘First to home, then to wine!’

Twenty minutes later we’re almost at his apartment in impossibly lovely Montmartre and my head is a tumble of streets and traffic, noise and colour. It’s lovely to be in the company of someone who lives in the city. We skirt roads, pass through tiny back streets and lush green parks. Dad was right: even the everyday sounds of traffic and footsteps are unfamiliar here. Once I get my bearings it will all become second nature, I know. Like it did when I arrived in London, fresh out of horticultural college in Worcestershire and feeling as if I’d run away from the first twenty-five years of my life. London was a whim that became part of me. Maybe Paris and the countries beyond will become the same.

‘Here we are!’ Tobi exclaims, holding the apartment building door open for me to walk in first. We climb a narrow staircase with metal banisters to the second floor. Tobi opens the door and I walk into my home for the first part of my year in Europe.

It’s perfect. White walls and long white gauze curtains at the floor-to-ceiling windows; warm parquet flooring in diagonal chevrons across the open plan living room and kitchen; three large, low couches draped in jewel-bright Moroccan throws with more cushions than even Meg has in her room (which is saying something); and greenery everywhere, from large potted palms standing sentry-like in the corners of the room to the impressionist wash of green in the window boxes on the small balcony the other side of the windows.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I smile as Tobi takes my coat. ‘C’est magnifique!’

‘Ah, bon. Don’t worry. We speak English here as much as French,’ he says, as if sensing the jolt of panic that hit me as soon as I tried out my rusty French. ‘Luc is from Canada so we switch between the two all the time. Often, we argue in both.’ I remember his smile now. It’s the kind of smile that instantly puts you at ease. ‘Let me show you your room and then we can relax.’

Tobi strides down the short corridor that leads off from the living room and kitchen. Tucked away, between a compact but stylish bathroom and a larger room I imagine is his and Luc’s bedroom, is a smaller room with a futon and a large single window draped with soft yellow gauze. It’s facing the rear of the building and when I peer out I can see it overlooks a tiny courtyard. Ivy spills down from the walls to a cluster of pots on the paved floor, so it looks like a secret garden. The faded blue and terracotta pots have been planted with red and white flowers.

‘Who owns the courtyard?’ I ask, as Tobi sets my bag beside the bed and hangs my coat on a hook on the back of the door.

‘It belongs to the building and we all pay maintenance, so I guess we all own it. A few of the residents keep it looking good. Later I’ll show you how to get down there, if you like. I don’t use it much but Luc sometimes paints there in the summer.’

‘I’d like that.’

It’s such a luxury to have any kind of green space and to be honest it’s the only thing I missed about home when I moved in with Meg, Osh and Gabe. There are parks everywhere in London, of course, but having a bit of green you can call your own is special. I think the courtyard and I might become well acquainted. I love the idea of snuggling up with a book in a little hidden square of Paris.

Turning back into the room I see that the entire wall behind the head of the bed is covered with white bookshelves. The spines provide a blast of higgledy-piggledy colour like the cushions on the living room couches and are lovely to look at. The sight of them makes me feel at home.

‘Meg said you would be happy here,’ Tobi grins, nodding at the wall of books. ‘Many of them are in English – I rearranged them at the weekend so you have a whole section to choose from. I know you’re a book lover.’

My heart swells. His thoughtfulness sends the last of my concerns about being in a new place floating away like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze. ‘It’s perfect. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. Now, make yourself at home and I will fetch the wine. Are you hungry?’

Right on cue, my stomach growls and we both laugh.

An hour later, Tobi and I are relaxing in the living room, a bottle of wine almost drunk between us, catching up on the gang’s news. We’ve just started talking about Gabe’s new play when the door swings open and Tobi’s husband Luc strides in. His bag, coat and scarf are dropped in a pile in the middle of the parquet floor and I’m suddenly airborne, lifted into his hug.

‘Phoebe! You made it! Welcome!’

Luc embraces me like a long-lost friend.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I laugh, as he sets me down.

‘You too. And you’re as gorgeous as Meg said.’ His Canadian accent is unmistakable and his laugh rivals Tobi’s for volume and enthusiasm.

‘I rescued her from the station.’ Tobi heads into the kitchen for more wine, pausing to kiss his husband. I see the sparkle between them and it’s the loveliest sight.

My mum and dad sparkle like that, even now – almost forty years since they got married. My brother and I pretend we’re embarrassed by their enthusiastic PDAs whenever we’re out together, but really we’re proud. Being as daft with each other as you were in the first flush of love is rare.

Will Sam and I still be as besotted forty years from now?

When we’re basically four-hundred-year-old breathing dustbags…

‘Tobi has been reviving me with wine,’ I say.

‘Excellent plan! I’ll join you.’ Luc kicks his things behind the largest couch and accepts a huge wine glass from Tobi. ‘Sit, sit, Phoebe Jones! Tell me everything.’

So as Tobi makes dinner Luc and I talk about the journey here and the year ahead of me. Being in Paris, talking about my plans, makes them feel startlingly real. I’m here – and my adventure has already begun.

‘Tomorrow I don’t have work so I can take you on a tour, if you like? I mean, I know you know some of Paris, but I can show you all the cool bits we love.’

‘That would be great, thanks. But I don’t expect you both to take me everywhere. I know how busy you are.’

‘Luc likes to think he’s a Paris expert,’ Tobi laughs in the kitchen, releasing a cloud of fragranced steam when he lifts the lid of the pan on the hob. ‘Five years as a Parisian and he knows this place better than me.’

Seeing the city from a resident’s perspective would be good, I think. I have a list of places I’d like to see – standard tourist stuff from the guidebook I’ve marked with so many sticky-note strips its pages resemble a rainbow. But I also want to experience life here as a local; I want to discover my own special place.

Meg believes that if a city wants you to love it, it will reveal a place that’s special, just for you. In London I discovered mine in the heart of Notting Hill, in a small private park Gabe blagged us admittance into, late one night. Back then he was in a crime drama that had the nation gripped and was discovering all the good things that a single, well-placed mention of Southside could bring him. Sneaking around the darkened garden in the moonlight was when the city came alive for me and I’ve loved it ever since. Gabe’s special place is just outside the Almeida Theatre, where he made his first professional stage debut; for Meg it’s Golden Square in Soho; for Osh the centre of the Millennium Bridge at dusk, gazing out at the lights of London appearing either side of the Thames.

‘All cities have the potential,’ Meg assured me during one of my late-night wobbles in the weeks before I travelled. ‘You just have to turn off the guidebook in your head and feel the city in your heart.’ I hope she’s right.

Tobi serves dinner and we work our way through two more bottles of wine. My head will hate me in the morning but tonight I don’t care. I’m celebrating.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten, Sam

Ah Glasgow. Hello, old friend.

I’m aching and tired from the journey, but the sight of Glasgow Central’s vast, glass vaulted ceiling fires my body back into action. I take my time collecting my things and stepping down from the train, the need to hurry gone. My fellow passengers have mellowed somewhat, too, many of them lulled to sleep for part of the journey creating a symphony of snores around me, which amused me no end. I swear a couple of them even managed harmony at one point. Even so, when they disembark I see their steps quicken as our merry company disbands to our own adventures once more.

I reckon I slept too, a few half-hour snoozes at most, although my memory of the journey has already passed into a sludge of sameness. One thing’s for certain: I’ll sleep tonight. Especially if there’s alcohol involved.

I managed to get a message to Donal before reception deserted my phone completely and the reply I received was typical him:

Nae bother, pal. BEERS tonight!

Man, I’ve missed that guy.

I thought about Phoebe a lot, as the towns and cities passed into green and the hills rose to become mountains. It rained almost solidly from Lancashire onwards but as soon as we crossed the border the rainbows began. I can’t remember the last time I saw a rainbow, but on this journey I’ve seen seven. I’d forgotten that about this train journey. But now I remember travelling south from Edinburgh to Carlisle as a kid: me and my brother with our snotty noses pressed against the train glass, spotting rainbow shards illuminating passing glens and moorland.

Does Phoebe like rainbows? I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing she does. They’re bright and unexpected, completely spontaneous and elusive, and I kind of think that would appeal to the woman who’s just stolen my heart.

But a year apart from her…

I know what we said before we left London, but it struck me as I was travelling here just how much of a challenge we’ve set ourselves. Emails and postcards and once-monthly chats are all very well, but twelve months without her in my arms is suddenly a towering wall of a task. Can I do it? Can she?

I have stuff to do this year and I owe it to myself to focus on that as I planned. But I’m going to need strategies to keep perspective. At the end of this, I have to know for certain Phoebe is what I want. I owe it to both of us to be sure.

Leaving the station I ease back into Glasgow time like slipping on a favourite old pair of boots. It feels like home, even though I’ve never actually lived here. Weekends and Hogmanays and occasional weeks spent here with Donal and Kate over the years have endeared this city to my heart. As I walk its streets now, I don’t feel like a visitor. The dry humour, the unapologetic moxie of the people around me and the rise and fall of the accent welcomes me like a long-lost son.

I’ve missed this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love London. It’s my home, my place of business: my stomping ground. But I miss the humanity sometimes. The humour. The way you’re in the middle of a conversation before you know it; how every other person on the street beside you is one joke away from being a pal for life. It can be suffocating when you’re in it, but when you’re not it’s the thing you miss.

Home. Phoebe asked if I was going home and it’s only now, as I jump on a bus that will take me out north of the city to the town where my friends live, that I realise I already feel more at home in the forty minutes I’ve been here than I’ve done in London since Laura left me.

And when I get to Mull? Will that feel like home, too?

I push the concern away, along with the ghosts from my past, stuffing them all into a cupboard marked ‘LATER’. That stuff can wait. I watch the city slouching past the window, not minding the slow progress of the traffic-slowed bus to Port Glasgow. At long last, I have time. To think or not. To just be. That’s a luxury I haven’t had for years.

My stop is at the bottom of a hill that overlooks the River Clyde, the road rising steeply ahead. Though the water is some distance away, the shimmer of early evening sun on the dark river framed by purple hills on its far shore seems close enough to touch as I walk up the hill to Donal and Kate’s place. Their house is almost at the top, just where the road curves for its final ascent. The sight of Donal’s ancient yellow Mini parked on the drive makes me smile. How it’s still roadworthy is a mystery to everyone but he loves that rusting heap almost more than life itself. I have many fond and not-so-fond memories of cramming equipment into its interior and praying it up hills as we travelled to gigs across Scotland.

Donal misses the band and I get the impression he doesn’t play as many gigs locally now as he’d like. He’s one of the most gifted guitarists I know and it’s a shame more people can’t hear him play. But he’s also Dad to three of the most awesome kids on the planet, so that audience rightly gets first dibs on his time.

The front door whips open before I even set foot on the drive and I’m almost knocked off my feet by an excited clan of Cattenachs. The last time I saw the kids they were tiny; now the twins Addie and Ivor are almost level with my shoulder, and their not-so-baby sister Lexie can reach my waist when she hugs me. I’ve seen the kids in our Skype chats a couple of times a year, but being with them in person brings home to me how much they’ve grown. Somewhere in the middle of the giggling horde is Donal; Kate follows behind, her smile as bright as the sunlight dancing on the Clyde.

‘Let your poor uncle Sam get some air,’ she laughs, giving in when she’s ignored and joining the hug instead.

When they finally let me go, my sides are hurting from laughter and over-enthusiastic embraces. ‘Where the heck did you lot come from? What’s your mother been feeding you? Great big towering giants!’

‘Maybe you’ve shrunk, Sam,’ Lexie giggles, her father’s wit clearly inherited.

‘Aye, maybe I have. It’ll be all that incessant English rain falling on me, eh? I’ve shrunk in the wash!’ It’s an old joke, but like the house and the kids and the sunshine yellow Mini beside us, it’s familiar and warm and wonderful.

We pile inside the house, everyone talking at a million miles an hour, words and laughter crashing together, a joyous cacophony of noise that wraps around us. I’ve been here less than five minutes and it already feels like home. The last time I visited was almost six years ago and I’m shocked by how much has changed. I see it most in the kids, of course, but the house is different, too. Donal started the renovations they’d talked about for years just after he lost his mum eighteen months ago. His way of dealing with it, I think. When my ma passed, I wrote songs and jumped on any tour I could for a year. Syd spent six months in Ghana after his mum died, finally meeting the family she’d talked about but never visited. Losing someone puts brakes on everything else; changes how you see your priorities.

I only met Donal’s mum a handful of times, but I think Taral Cattenach would have approved of her son’s handiwork. She was an artist in India when Donal’s dad met her on an exchange visit from the company he worked for in the early 1980s, and the home they made together back in Glasgow was filled with her vivid oil paintings.

A hand slaps my shoulder and Donal grins at me. He still looks as young as he did the first day of university, the only hint at the years that have passed the first peppering of silver in the splendid jet beard that’s become his trademark.

‘One of your ma’s?’ I nod at the painting above the fireplace. A white lotus flower, its petals edged with gold, on an azure blue pool, delicate Henna-style patterns picked out in bright ochre framing the canvas.

His blue eyes glisten. It was the first thing I noticed about him when we met in the registration line in Freshers’ Week – that and the Glaswegian accent, which I’m ashamed now to say I didn’t expect, either. ‘Aye. I reckon she’d be happy to see it there.’

‘Place looks great, man.’

Donal nods. ‘Cheers. Didn’t think we’d get there but the kids helped me finish it off.’

I glance at Addie, Ivor and Lexie, still giggling with their mum. ‘I bet they’re all artistic.’

‘They’re annoyingly talented at everything,’ he chuckles. ‘No idea where they get it from. Kate and I were lucky to graduate. Addie’s taught himself so many instruments I’ve lost count, Ivor’s studying piano at the conservatoire on Saturdays and Lexi’s pretty much fluent in Gaelic, singing and playing guitar with a trad band at school.’

I love the pride with which Donal speaks about his kids, but I think he’s selling himself short. ‘I hope you’re planning on getting that guitar of yours out while I’m here.’

‘Show him the lair, Donal,’ Kate grins, and instantly the clan are dragging their father out of the patio doors into the garden. He protests, but it’s nowhere near convincing.

A large wooden building sits at the end of the garden, more a pine lodge than a shed. When we step inside, it’s a tiny studio, complete with a square vocal booth and a rack of amps and processors my studio partner Chris would be envious of.

‘Dad’s doing an EP,’ Lexie says, looping her arm through mine. ‘Mum’s singing on it, too.’

‘You kept that quiet,’ I smile at my friend who beams back.

‘Well, it’s only a bit of messing around, you know. I just figured it was time I sorted it out and rescued my guitars from the attic.’

Kate joins her daughter beside me. ‘Don’t believe him, Sam. He’s been gigging most weekends this year and he’s already working on album projects for a couple of local bands.’

‘Then it’s a business?’

Donal shrugs, but his eyes sparkle. ‘Could be. Part-time for now, but if I can get a good number of clients, who knows?’

I’m proud of my friend but also sad that I’ve only learned this now. I retreated after Laura, more concerned with my own studio venture. This year will be different, I promise myself. This year my friends come first.

After dinner the kids are grudgingly coaxed up to bed and Donal and I finally collapse in the living room at 9 p.m. I have no idea how my friends function at their frenetic pace. Their kids rock but, man, they are full-on. Kate seems to thrive on it – a fact confirmed when she appears, fresh-faced and smiling, her arms laden with beer bottles and a large bowl of crisps.

‘Right, lads. Beers.’

Those three words have heralded many an unwise imbibing of alcohol over the years and I know I’ll regret it tomorrow. But I have been looking forward to this for weeks. We grab a bottle each and handfuls of crisps, which turn out to be teddy bear-shaped snacks.

‘We ran out of the usual ones.’ Kate shrugs. ‘Don’t tell Lexie but I raided her packed lunch crisps.’

‘Very rock ’n’ roll,’ I laugh.

‘Robert Plant is a Pom-Bears fan,’ she says. I love the sparkle in her voice when she’s joking. I’ve missed it – and Donal’s hearty guffaw, too. ‘Probably. Dave Grohl too, when he isn’t drumming.’

‘So tell us about your studio, Sam. Is it going to rival Abbey Road?’

I grin at Donal. ‘One day maybe. It’s all set up now and we have bookings for the first four months.’

‘And Chris doesn’t mind you leaving, just when it’s all starting?’

‘He’s glad I’m not under his feet,’ I admit. It’s true: I was always going to be the one who funded things, while Chris was hands-on. ‘Truth is, neither of us expected to find premises as quickly as we did and by then my year out was already arranged.’

‘Like Kate and me,’ Donal says, draining his beer bottle and reaching for another. ‘She’s the brains, I’m the brawn.’

Kate bats him with the back of her hand but the way they snuggle together on the sofa warms my heart. It took long enough to get them together, but they’re inseparable now. Will Phoebe and I be like that?

My phone is on the coffee table where I left it and occasionally notifications illuminate the screen. I’m trying not to look, but each time it happens I wonder if it might be Phoebe. Is she thinking of me? I guess her first night with her hosts will call her attention from her phone more than mine. She mentioned she’s only met one of them before. That makes me glad I know the people I’m staying with.