Page 73 of When We Are Old

“Matthew!” Hannah screamed down the stairs.

We leapt apart, his smile and the clutch of his hands as he pulled me into a tight hug, making tears threaten to overspill from my eyes.

“Yes?” he shouted back.

My poor Ma would never cope with this.

“Why’s your house purple?”

I chuckled against him, pressing my face into the fabric softener smell of his vest, nuzzling against his muscles.

“Ask your mother.” He shouted back and then he hugged me once again and we sat on an island of hope in a sea of change.

* * *

“Fuck it’s freezing.” I grumbled, ducking my neck down in my coat like a turtle. Lennie, who seemed to be wearing a light sports jacket without the need of gloves, scarves, or a woolly hat, laughed and wrapped her hand around me. Hannah had taken Beth and Leah off to find some insects in the small woodland area to the right of the rugby pitch. I had one eye on her though, not just because she was in charge of two small children, but also, I didn’t want to lose her.

This was wild Scotland… I might never find her again if she wandered off. Although I had no fear that she would be swiftly returned if someone found her and realised how reptilian she was. So far so good though. We’d got through moving the bedrooms around, all of us getting showered and ready to leave the house and getting to the rugby club all without a tantrum. Me having a tantrum—obviously.

“You’ll become hardy in no time.” Lennie laughed as I jumped up and down.

“So you come every week for Matthew’s boys?”

“Of course. Ryan would normally be here too if he hadn’t got so damn goosed last night.”

I studied her, lips pursed, and then had to ask. “Sorry. Goosed?”

“Aye, drunk, you know?”

I rubbed my head at the merest mention of alcohol. “Yeah. Goosed, hey?”

“Pissed, sloshed, half-cut, sottered.” Her smile grew. “And my personal favourite, “Tram-lined,” which that wee bugger will be if he keeps getting drunk like that at his Mam’s kitchen table.”

“Oh God. She’s not going to hate me, is she? I didn’t mean to get that drunk.”

Lennie scrutinised me with a flash of dark eyes. “Pissed were ye?”

“My headache tells me so. Honestly, I can’t remember.”

Lennie laughed, throwing her head back. Mist bloomed out of her mouth. How could she not be cold? “Not to worry. That’s standard at the Carlings'.”

I wrapped my arms tight around myself. “It’s nice. I don’t think Hannah knew what to make of it.”

“She’s a rare blether that one.”

“Pain in the arse? Yes.” I nodded, wishing to hell I could remember a larger percentage of the evening before.

“No, talkative. She likes to chat.” Lennie stared at the pitch, where somewhere Jack was covered in mud and no longer recognisable, and then hollered some abuse at the children that made my ears ache.

“Not normally,” I continued once she’d stopped encouraging the youngsters to stop passing like their mothers, with questionable parentage. “So why do you and Ryan always come to practice?” I watched her two daughters play at kicking dirt.

“Ryan’s got it into his head that if we surround ourselves with boyish activities, the next bairn shooting out my fanny will be a boy.”

“I’m not sure that’s scientifically proven.”

Lennie shrugged. “Sore spot it is, Matthew and Liam getting the boys.”

“But Liam’s boys don’t play rugby on a Saturday?”