Free Loving Susie by Jenny Harper Page A

It’s only Wednesday night and I’ve only got a very important meeting at eight thirty tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Taking over the world?’
    ‘Not the world. Just Scotland.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Looking forward to that desk of yours?’
    ‘Actually, yes. It was a great week, but the project I’m on right now is quite interesting.’
    She groans. ‘Don’t tell me about it, I wouldn’t understand.’
    Callum grins again, the smile revealing pleasingly white teeth and, even better, reaching his eyes so that they fill with amusement. He gathers their glasses. ‘Back in a tick. You can tell me your plan to take over Scotland when I’ve got another pint.’
    Mannie watches him as he moves across to the bar, the athletic easiness of his movements reminding her of one of the many reasons she is attracted to this guy. He’s sexy, and funny, and knows not to smother her with affection. He lounges against the bar, waiting to be served. He looks relaxed, full of understated confidence, buff. He turns towards her and winks and she feels a surge of desire. Bugger it. He is bloody attractive.
    ‘Mind if we don’t stay together tonight?’ He’s back, handing her a V-shaped cocktail glass, its contents pink and opaque, a wedge of lime balanced on the rim. ‘I haven’t even unpacked and I’m shattered.’
    She feels the heaviness that comes with disappointment. ‘I’m flattered you had time to see me.’ Stop it, Mannie, he’ll hate that. She curses herself and adds quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I was planning on washing my hair.’
    Callum shifts closer to her and lays his hand on her thigh. ‘So long as it’s nice and clean on Friday,’ he murmurs into her ear. ‘And doesn’t need any more attention till Sunday night.’
    She giggles, relieved. Everything is fine between them. And that, she discovers, matters.
    Later, after they have left the bar and Callum has headed back to his flat, she climbs on a bus to Portobello, where she shares a bright apartment overlooking the sea with her two friends, Jen and Myra.
    As the bus trundles down Leith Walk, she notices that the number of Polish delis seemed to have doubled and that café society has reached even this rather run-down part of town. This is the neighbourhood for Asian stores, grocery shops, greengrocers, jewellers – specialists in 24-carat gold necklaces and huge, elaborate earrings. There are bric-a-brac shops and fabric shops, cheap bed stores and shops whose windows are so begrimed with dirt that it’s unlikely that anyone actually knows what they sell.
    When the bus turns right at the foot of the Walk, things get worse. They’re close to the old port, and it shows. Grubby Victorian warehouses, now empty and forlorn, display signs of such dilapidation that collapse seems imminent. Here and there, efforts are clearly being made to capitalise on brownfield sites by the construction of modern flats – too far from the liveliness and clutter of Leith Walk to be appealing.
    The bus heads on east and the sea comes into view. This is the part of town she loves, where town meets shore. Here she can slough off the strains and pressures of work and relax.
    Portobello, once a thriving small town in its own right, has long since been subsumed into the great city of Edinburgh. It still retains its own character, with its mix of Georgian mansions jumbled higgledy piggeldy alongside smaller period terraced houses, some with pillars, some painted, the paint inevitably peeling in the constant salty winds from the sea. As they near the High Street, Mannie phones Jen.
    ‘You at home?’
    ‘Yup. You on your way?’
    ‘Back in ten. Will I get a bottle?’
    ‘Not unless you’re in for some serious drinking. I’ve only just opened one.’
    ‘Pour me a glass, will you Jen?’
    ‘That bad?’
    Mannie laughs. ‘Just being sociable. See you.’
    She turns into their street exactly eight minutes later, and is in the new block in the ten she promised.
    ‘Hi,’ she says to Jen,