Northanger Abbey. Val McDermid

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      It was true that there had never been a games console in the Morland household. But Cat had been in other homes where the children had had apparently unlimited access to a staggering range of virtual experiences. And from those encounters, she dredged up something she hadn’t known till she’d looked up Hebridean Harpies on Wikipedia. ‘Do you play DragonSky?’ she asked.

      He nodded with enthusiasm. ‘I used to play it all the time. Not so much now that Felony Driver IV came out.’

      ‘Did you know that Morag Fraser was one of the writers on DragonSky?’

      Taken aback, he goggled at her. ‘I don’t see how,’ he said. ‘You sure she didn’t just make the credits for being somebody’s girlfriend or something?’

      Before Cat could muster a response, Bella, who had been walking ahead with James, turned and pointed at the building where their flat occupied part of the second floor. ‘This is us, Johnny.’

      Although she had begun to feel quite cross with John Thorpe, the warmth with which he greeted his mother and sisters restored Cat’s general spirit of goodwill. Even so, she was taken aback by the apparent rudeness of the banter the Thorpes exchanged with one another. ‘Ma, dearest,’ John said, hugging his mother so tight she squealed. ‘Where in the name of God did you get that hat? It makes you look like the Wicked Witch of the West.’

      Martha Thorpe smacked him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘You are the worst boy in the world, turning up without warning.’

      ‘And where are the two ugly sisters?’ he called, bringing his siblings rushing from their bedroom to perform the same whooping dance he’d earlier conducted with Bella. However brutal it all seemed compared to Morland family life, it appeared to please the Thorpes.

      ‘You’ve put on weight, fatso,’ Jessica said.

      ‘And you’ve got five more zits on your nose,’ her brother riposted. ‘Ma, have you got a washing machine here?’

      Martha sighed. ‘You’ve brought your washing, haven’t you?’

      ‘Clever girl,’ John said. ‘You guessed. I’ll bring it up later. But look, Ma, see who I’ve brought with me.’ And he hauled James, blushing, into the ring of Thorpe women. ‘You can squeeze us in here, can’t you?’

      Martha looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know where.’

      ‘Oh, Ma, you can sleep on the sofa, and Jamie and I will share your bed,’ John said with the cavalier ease of a man who has never had to pay the piper. ‘Now, Jamie, sit yourself down and Ma will get us a coffee to revive us after our drive.’ And he was off again, regaling the company with a paean of praise to his new car.

      By the time Cat and Jamie escaped from the crowded flat, Martha had accepted a collective invitation to a ceilidh that evening at the grand New Town home of one of her clients, Bella had dragged her to one side to tell her that Johnny thought she was the cutest thing he’d ever clapped eyes on, and John himself had informed Cat that he was going to dance her legs to stumps at the ceilidh. To be the centre of such attention left Cat a little breathless. It was very far from what she was accustomed to, and it was hard to sift through the swirl of mixed feelings she was enduring.

      ‘He’s pretty full on, is Johnny,’ James said as they set off to walk back to the Allens’ flat.

      Were it not for the friendship between the two men and the flattery of John Thorpe’s interest in her, Cat might have answered with more acerbity. Instead, she simply said, ‘The whole family are pretty full on.’

      ‘But he’s a good guy. He’s always up for a laugh.’

      ‘He’s certainly never short of something to say.’

      James laughed. ‘There’s no pleasing you girls, is there? You’re usually complaining that guys have got nothing to say for ourselves, but when we do talk to you, apparently you don’t like that either.’

      ‘Whatever. You seem to be everybody’s favourite in that family.’ The comment was innocent enough, yet James flushed.

      ‘They made me really welcome when I stayed with them in the Easter vac,’ he said. ‘You like them? Martha and the girls?’

      ‘I do, very much. Bella especially. We totally hit it off.’

      ‘That’s great. But then, what’s not to like? She’s smart and funny—’

      ‘And so beautiful and cleverly dressed and well read,’ Cat butted in. ‘Exactly the kind of girl I always wanted as a best friend.’

      ‘And she’s easy-going and relaxed,’ James added. It wasn’t quite how Cat would have described her friend but she let it go because James continued, ‘And she thinks you’re great too. She texted me to say she’d met you and how cool she thinks you are. And when a girl like Bella thinks you’re cool, then you know it’s the truth.’

      ‘Wow! She said that? Awesome. I didn’t realise you were such good mates. You know, Bro, you hardly said anything about her when you texted me after you stayed with them.’

      They were in the middle of the Dean Bridge as she spoke and James turned away to lean on the parapet, gazing down at the treetops below. ‘I hoped you’d get to meet her yourself soon, and I didn’t want to influence what you thought of her. I’d be as happy as you if the pair of you ended up best friends.’ He swung round and smiled at her.

      ‘That’s very sweet of you, James. Oh, and by the way, what’s with the whole “Jamie” thing?’

      He shrugged and resumed walking. ‘It was Bella’s idea. She said they knew too many Jameses and she didn’t want there to be any confusion who she was talking about. So she started calling me Jamie and they all followed her lead. Though, to be honest, I think Johnny’s taking the piss a bit.’ James spread his hands in a wry shrug. ‘That’s blokes for you.’

      ‘Still, he obviously likes you. And it was really thoughtful of him to stop off in Newcastle to see if you wanted to come all this way to see me and the Allens. He must have thought I’d be missing you all.’

      James gave her a quizzical look, which she took to mean that he was surprised at her effusiveness. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Right. Thoughtful. And how is everyone at home?’

      Cat’s exposition on the home life of the Morlands occupied them all the way back to Queen Street, save for one brief digression on Bella’s sense of humour. The Allens were delighted to see James, and to hear that they too had been invited to the ceilidh. Mr Allen begged off, on the grounds that he had to endure a one-man version of A Farewell to Arms, but Susie was ecstatic to have so early an opportunity to wear the dress she had bought only that afternoon from the sweetest little boutique in the Lawnmarket.

      By mid-afternoon, Cat was exhausted with people and conversation and was quite delighted to sneak off up the hill to the Book Festival to listen to three Shetland poets reading from their work. Luckily they passed her comprehensibility test and they wove a web of words around her, its dreamlike quality the perfect preparation for an evening’s dancing that would be at once systematic and spontaneous. The first time she’d done Scottish country dancing, she’d been whirled around emotionally as well as physically. Who knew what the second occasion might hold?

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