She had the knife in her hand now, provoking a ripple of laughter and a loud, ‘Go’an yerself!’ from the piper, which she chose to interpret as positive encouragement.
‘Aboon them a’ ye tak your place!’ she cried, whipping herself up into a happy fervour.
She’d made it. She was one of them. Different, but still one of the Cairn Dhu folk.
She opened her mouth for the next line, discarding her paper, knowing that if she could memorise over a hundred medicines, their usages and side effects for that pharmacology exam, she could recall this one poem.
That’s when the door burst open with a loud bang.
Everyone tore their eyes from her and stared at the man dashing in, his face overwritten with concern, his chest heaving as though he’d run here, all dressed up for a formal night out.
She faltered, almost dropping the knife for real.
The poetry flew from her brain and all she could do was gasp out his name.
‘Bastian!’
26
‘What are you doing here?’ shrieked Alice, as soon as she’d murdered that haggis and got off stage, dragging Bastian into one of the hotel’s service corridors under the gossiping gaze of the entire town. Damn right she’d finished her poem, once she’d recovered from the initial shock of seeing the man who, little more than a month ago, hadn’t even wanted to speak to her, and now here he was, bursting in on her big moment, just when she’d found her composure.
‘Cranmer said he was worried about you, told me you had some big performance tonight and you were terrified. And… I was worried about you too.’
‘What did you do? Drive all this way?’
He shrugged it off. ‘It’s really nothing in the AMG. She ate up those roads.’
‘Ugh!’ Alice winced at his smugness. ‘I have to get back in there. I’m the guest of honour.’
After the whole town got behind her when she was struggling with nerves in a sympathetic symphony of soothing breathing, shereallydidn’t want to leave the party. Besides, there was going to be more poetry and Carenza was going to sing, and she hadn’t even tasted her haggis, neeps and tatties yet.
‘I’m sorry you’ve come all this way, but as you can see, I’m fine.’ She turned back for the ballroom.
‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Bastian manoeuvred in front of her. ‘Don’t you think we should talk? You owe me that, at least.’
‘I owe you? I told you I had a new job, you flipped out and stopped talking to me. End of story. We broke up.’
‘Did we? I feel like there was still so much to say.’
‘Like what?’ she seethed.
‘Like I’m sorry. I really am.’
That was unexpected. Bastian rarely apologised for anything.
‘I sulked when I should have supported you. I think it’s great that you’ve got your own practice up here.’ He looked around the tartan-wallpapered corridor with the antlers mounted on plaques like this was what the whole town must be like. ‘No, honestly, I do.’
‘It’s notmypractice. I’m only here to complete my training, then I’ll find something…’ She was going to say ‘closer to home’, but it struck her that maybe this place had begun to feel like a kind of home. ‘I’ll find something else,’ she said. Though that didn’t sit well either.
‘I reckon you’re turning into a wee Scotch lassie,’ he said in a terrible Scottish accent.
Alice had learned enough to know that no one living here would ever call themselves ‘Scotch’, but she kept that to herself. Bastian had a fingertip on the plastic thistle pinned to her frock and was hungrily taking in her dress, his eyes adazzle. ‘It really suits you.’
‘Shut up.’ She shoved his hand away, wanting not to smile. It shouldn’t be that easy. ‘You didn’t even wish me luck, or wave me off or anything,’ she said.
‘I know. I had a lot on my mind, trying out for the cardiology programme. Your dad’s been coaching me for these interviews coming up, you know?’
‘Yeah, I know. He’s such a great guy.’ She tried to keep the irony out of her voice but it slipped through.
