What the hell?
Niall scanned the sheet.Emirates, dates, Melbourne, Dubai, Glasgow, Campbeltown.
A flight itinerary. Carli’s flight itinerary. From Melbourne to… Kintyre.
‘J? What’s this?’
‘What’s what?’ Jamie craned his neck to see the sheet his brother was fixated on. ‘Looks like a flight itinerary to me. Whose is it? Carli Caselli? That name’s… Wait? She’s the one…’
Had Jamie ended his sentence there on purpose? Itcould be the most accurate summation of Niall and Carli’s relationship – ‘she’s the one’ – but also salt to a wound, and it would be quite un-Jamie to state things in such a way. ‘… you went out with back in the day,’ his older brother added.
‘Aye, aye, she is. And it looks like she’s coming back here tomorrow.’ Niall slapped his cheek. ‘Am I about to wake up from a dream or something?’
Amanda, who’d been busy checking in the oven, declared, ‘Right, we shouldn’t have too much longer to wait… Niall, you should have a wee lie down. You’re awfully pale.’
‘I’m only pale because of this, Mum.’ Niall nodded towards the fridge. ‘I don’t get it. Is… Is Carli coming here?’
‘Oh!’ Amanda threw her palm across her mouth. ‘Of course, that’s a wee bit of a surprise for you. Do you want to sit down?’
‘Um… no.’ Niall stood stock-still, the cold can he was gripping numbing his skin. What was his mum about to tell him?
‘Carli and Eilidh got back in touch last year.’
‘Aye, I heard.’ Niall had known this and tried his best never to talk to his sisters about their rekindled friendship with his childhood sweetheart. He didn’t want the lowdown on what she was up to, how her marriage was, how many kids she had, how she was thriving after moving on from their break-up seventeen years ago. The break-up he caused because of his own stupidity.
‘Well, Carli told Eilidh she would be travelling through Scotland in September…’ His mum’s voice filtered back in. ‘So Eilidh invited her to the party, on the off chance that she could come. And Carli accepted.’
‘We didn’t think you were coming,’ Eilidh added. ‘Sorry,Noo Noo. None of us had a clue. Sean, amazingly, did such a good job of keeping a secret. And it’s too late to cancel now.’
Niall’s head was swimming, both at his sister calling him by that daft nickname – Sean’s pronunciation of his name as a toddler – and her news. ‘So Carli is coming to Dad’s party and staying here?’
‘Yes, she arrives tomorrow.’
‘And it’s just her?’ Niall had to check there was no husband or partner in tow. Didn’t mean they didn’t exist, but from the itinerary it appeared she was travelling alone.
‘Only Carli. She’s staying a few days then travelling around the country. She’s going camping and…’
Eilidh’s voice trailed off in Niall’s head. Carli would be here tomorrow. Bloody hell! Carli Caselli and him, back in Kinshore together after all these years. Sometimes he imagined seeing her again, but never in a million years did he expect it to be here. He thought there was more chance of bumping into her in Australia somewhere. But back on the home turf where they’d first seen each other, fallen for each other, lost their virginity together. That was something else.
And there was the small matter of his having broken her heart and never fully explained himself. What would her presence here mean in terms of that? Would the past have to be split open again like a piece of rotten fruit sitting on the counter, all hard on the outside and festering on the inside? This was what could be described as an emotional emergency.
Niall pulled the itinerary from the fridge, sat down slowly at the kitchen table and cracked open the Irn-Bru, the fizzing bubbles of the drink audible in the now silence of the room. He stared into space and took a large swig, thesweet, fruity, almost medicinal flavour hitting his tastebuds as well as anything alcoholic could.
Fuck.
When he looked up, everyone was staring at him.
‘You okay, bud?’ Jamie asked.
‘Aye, awesome.’ This was Niall’s boilerplate response anytime anyone asked him if he was okay, even when the answer was,no, I’m in crisis mode. ‘But I can’t have her come here and… I don’t want it to be awkward for Carli. I’m the last person she’ll want to bump into. I should go. Make myself scarce for a couple of days.’
‘Niall! You’ve just got here. Don’t you dare go anywhere,’ his mother reprimanded. ‘We can sort this out with a little preparation.’
‘Put you in adjoining rooms like Nate does with cats being introduced to each other,’ said Cara. ‘Let you sniff at each other from opposite sides of the door first.’
‘Helpful, Car.’ Niall smiled sardonically at his sister. His mum was right, though. He had to stay here, for her and his dad’s sake. He looked down at the itinerary. At Carli’s name. He could envision it now in her own perfect handwriting on the front of her school jotter, at the bottom of every letter she sent him.
I love you. Carli. xxx
