The Firebird
Page 7‘Well, to properly do this, I need to be able to zero in on one particular person who once owned the carving,’ I said, ‘and I thought I remembered you saying there might be a way to improve … to get better at doing that.’
‘You did rather well at it, as I recall.’
‘Did I?’
Lifting her brows at my tone, she said, ‘Nicola, you had the second-best scores in the study. Or you would have done, if you had …’
‘If I had finished it.’
‘Yes.’ It was simply a statement of fact, with no judgement attached. ‘I could look up your actual scores, if you like. I still have them on file.’ With a swivel and roll of her chair she pulled open a drawer in her filing cabinet and drew out a folder, then opened it up on her desk and examined the papers inside. ‘Here it is,’ she said, passing it over.
I looked at the scores and I knew they weren’t high enough. Not to do what I would need to do. My disappointment must have shown, because she reassured me with, ‘But it appears to be a skill that can improve with practice. Some of our subjects who started with scores rather lower than yours averaged nearly that high by the end of the study. You might have done better yourself, if …’
I said it again for her. ‘If I had stayed.’
She’d never asked me why I hadn’t, and I knew she wouldn’t ask me now. Her scientific need to know was tempered with an empathy that seemed to make her understand my conflicts. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘You can practise it anywhere, really.’
I gave a nod down at the file on her desk, and said, ‘I know you’re not allowed to tell me how anyone else did, but can you just tell me … the highest score, was it … ?’
‘Yes.’ Her lively green eyes plainly showed she knew I knew exactly whom she meant. ‘He scored direct hits, every time.’ She did give in a little, then, to curiosity. ‘Do you still see him?’
‘No.’ It wasn’t a lie, I decided. Not really. I didn’t see him in the sense that she was asking me.
‘Well.’ She defused the moment deftly with a smile. ‘I’m very glad you thought to come and see me. Another biscuit?’
‘Thanks, but no. I should be getting back up to the station.’
‘What time’s your train?’
I wasn’t altogether sure. I’d seen a couple of later Dundee trains listed up on the departures board at Waverly, so I knew that my odds of catching one of them were fairly good. But not wanting to let Dr Fulton-Wallace know that I’d been so haphazard with my travel plans, I made up a time. ‘Six o’clock.’
She stood with me. ‘It really was lovely to see you. I’m glad that you’re doing so well down in London.’
Her eyes were understanding. ‘It’s never too late. Anytime you feel ready, come back and I’ll finish your testing myself.’
But she probably knew from my face that I wouldn’t be back.
It was good to step out in the sunlight where lengthening shadows walked with me back up to the still-crowded pavement of Princes Street. It seemed a short walk back to Waverly station. The woman at the ticket window gave a dry nod as I showed her my ticket and told her, ‘I missed my connection.’
‘Aye, so you did. That train to Dundee left two hours ago.’ Squinting down at her schedule she told me, ‘I’ve one at 18:18 that’ll get you there at 19:44. Would that suit you?’
I didn’t answer straight away. My thoughts had slipped backwards to yesterday morning – the dim, shadowed room with its grey light that might have been filtered through clouds, or through rain, that I’d viewed through the eyes of a man waking up in his bed.
He’d scored perfectly, so Dr Fulton-Wallace had said. Every time we’d been given an object and asked to zero in on just one person who had used it, he had done it. Every time.
I wavered.
Only for a moment. Then I roused myself and faced the waiting woman at the ticket window. ‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind.’ I put the Dundee ticket in my pocket, and breathed deeply before telling her, ‘I’d like to have a single, please, to Berwick-upon-Tweed.’
Finding a taxi in Berwick was much easier than finding one in Edinburgh, and the driver who sped me the short distance northwards and over the border again into Scotland was a friendly man with tattoos and a thick Geordie accent, who’d spent his life working ‘off-shore’. Throughout the swift ten-minute drive, he kept the conversation going.
‘… and they have an accent all their own, do Eyemouth folk,’ he commented. ‘But likely you’ll know that already from living there.’
Not sure why he’d think that, I said, ‘I don’t live in Eyemouth.’
‘No?’ His eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise. ‘I’ve never known a woman yet to travel with no suitcases,’ he told me. ‘You’re my first.’
We’d reached the fringes of the town now, where elegant-looking Victorian homes perched on steeply banked tidy front gardens, with lights coming on to glow warmly in windows against the descent of the dark.