Blades

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

It doesn't take long for me to decide that the English have no clue how to party in comparison to the Scots. The hall is massive, its wood-panelled walls decorated with fairy lights and sprigs of heather wrapped in tartan, and the balconies over the Thames are lit with strings of lanterns. At one end of the room is a stage and on it a seven-piece ceilidh band already playing the most rousing music I've ever heard. It's loud and crowded and every face in the room has a look of determination to have a really good night. I am both intimidated by and utterly in love with the atmosphere I've walked into.

Sandy steers me carefully with a hand on the small of my back. We weave through the crowd towards the bar behind Anna and Alastair, who is wearing a kilt that matches Sandy's. When I asked about it I got given a long spiel about how it's the family tartan dating back some ridiculous number of centuries to when they were part of a clan and I now feel that my own family has a severe lack of heritage. I barely know where my great-grandparents were from.

Sandy and I make conversation with Fiona's boyfriend. He's one of the few men in the room not in a kilt but he's still impeccably dressed and I can't decide if that's why Fi likes him or if she, in fact, chose his outfit. Sandy holds my hand the entire time that we're talking to him and I find myself listening to little of what's said. All I can focus on is how tightly we're gripping each other and the soft movement of his thumb back and forth across the back of my hand. It feels right and illicit at the same time.

I've just finished my coke when a man on stage starts introducing the night into a microphone.

"That's the caller," Sandy whispers. His lips brush my ear every time they move and slowly every hair on the back of my neck raises. "He tells you what to do in each dance so you don't get lost. But you don't need to worry. We got taught all of these at school back home."

"So, let's begin the proper way," says the caller. His Scottish accent is thicker than Sandy's but less melodious. "With the Gay Gordons." Most of the room – who have clearly done this before – whoop with joy. I can't tell if they're mostly already drunk or just really love ceilidhs.

Sandy takes my empty glass from me and leads me on to the dance floor without detaching our hands.

"If I step on you," I say, "I'm sorry in advance."

He laughs, "You're a dancer and they're really not that difficult. You'll be fine."

As it turns out, he's right. Once the caller has been through the sequence of each dance and you've run it once or twice they aren't difficult to do or remember, especially with a partner who knows what he's doing inside out. The joyous, raucous atmosphere seeps into me and I stop thinking about what I'm doing too hard. The two of us chuck ourselves into the dances, spinning and dosey doeing and waltzing and stamping through the Canadian Barn Dance and Dashing White Seargent and St Bernard's Waltz and tens of other dances that I forget the names of. With each one he holds me a little bit closer and, although many of the dances have you swapping partners during them, we always seem to meet each other's eyes across the room. I can tell that the etiquette is to dance with different partners for different dances but Sandy shows no signs of leaving my side. We're both dripping with sweat and I'm sure I look like a wreck (the waterproof makeup was definitely a good idea) and I couldn't care less.

The party is still in full swing by half eleven but Sandy and I slip out onto the balcony so that we won't miss the fireworks come midnight. The moment we're outside he slips off his silver-buttoned jacket – I don't know how he's kept it on all this time – and lays it over my shoulders. I'm not actually cold with all the dancing but the gesture is too sweet for me to refuse.

"No wonder you miss Scotland," I say, "if it's always like this."

He laughs, "It's not always like this. But it is often enough that I still don't understand what you English mean by a party." I laugh too, and then we both look out across the river. The night air is full of the sound of celebration, music, shouting and laughter.

"Was it good to go home last week?" I ask, no longer afraid of the answer.

"It was. Very. I do miss it all." He sighs. "But I missed here, while I was away. Here's home now, not Edinburgh. And that's true because of you." He doesn't say it like it's a deep, romantic statement, just as a fact. I don't know whether he means that I've just helped him see London as his home or, more profoundly, that I am somehow his home now, but I don't feel it matters. We're quiet again in a warm sort of way, despite the chill of the breeze off the river. "Can I say something?" he asks suddenly, "Before we get to midnight?"

I look over, "Of course."

He takes my hand, all serious again. "Next year's our first season. It's not going to be easy. But I want you to know that I believe that if we do this together, that if we work through it all as a team, we can do it. We can do more than just get through it, we can get further because of it. I'm serious about us, every part of us. And on top of that, I'm stubborn. I'll do whatever it takes for next year to be the best it can, for both of us." His eyebrows are knotted, his eyes earnest. How could anyone ever refuse him?

"Me too," I say, my smile involuntary.

He chuckles, "I know. I wouldn't say all that if I didn't know you agreed, deep down."

My mouth quirks, "You're getting better at knowing what I think than I am."

"To be fair, Freddie, that's not very difficult," he says as the chuckle becomes a laugh. I poke his cheek affectionately.

"Stop it."

I shiver a little, my warmth from dancing having worn off. Sandy gently turns me round and wraps his arms around my waist, his head on my shoulder and my back against his chest, absorbing his body heat. We're still like that when the count down on Big Ben starts, now with most of the ceilidh party surrounding us on the balcony.

"Ten," Sandy says in my ear after the first gong.

"Nine," I respond on the second.

"Eight."

"Seven."

"Six."

"Five." I turn in his arms so that we're face to face, the air between us clouded in our breath.

"Four." His hands move from my waist to my face, cold fingers brushing my wild hair away.

"Three." I lean my weight against him, hands on his chest where I can feel the thump thump thump of his heart.

"Two." It's barely a whisper, our noses are touching.

"One." I kiss him as the fireworks shoot into the sky over the river.

When the show is over we all go back into the dance hall for one last dance, the Orcadian Strip the Willow. It leaves every single person in the room panting for breath but the caller gives us no chance to recover, launching straight into Auld Lang Syne. I decide that it's a relaxed and good-humoured way to welcome the New Year, all of us holding hands in a circle and singing a song that no one seems to know all the words to. It somehow provides an opportunity to think. But no sooner have I started contemplating my life than the music changes tempo and the circle begins charging in and out, belting at the top of their lungs. It's such a shock that I find myself laughing out loud, only held in the group by the firm grip of Sandy's hand. And then the circle breaks up and Sandy grabs me in a ballroom hold as everyone starts to gallop manically around the floor in joyful chaos. I'm laughing so hard by this point that he's supporting all of my weight, but then he dissolves too and we end up in the middle of the dance floor just holding each other. As we calm down we stay there, rocking slowly in each other's arms. Our heartbeats synchronise and slow, every breath I take full of his scent. It feels so right, just the two of us, like we really are two puzzle pieces made to fit together.

This is going to be our year.