The People's City by Anne Hamilton

Author:Anne Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

4

JULY, 1959

They had been worried that the day of the graduation would be rainy – the forecast had spoken of an unsettled air flow – but it was wrong and Edinburgh was bathed in sunshine. Outside the McEwan Hall the newly-minted doctors, whose graduation this was, congregated in groups with parents and friends. Ewan was there with his family and with his fiancée. He had just announced his engagement and they had managed to find a ticket for Catriona. She was wearing the ring he had bought for her from the jewellers at Greyfriars, a tiny diamond, a fragment of reflected light, barely visible, but all that he could manage. ‘I’ll get you something more serious later on – when I’m a consultant surgeon,’ he said.

‘It’s perfect,’ she reassured him. ‘I don’t want anything bigger than this.’

He introduced her to one of his classmates. ‘Engaged, as of one week ago.’

‘Eight days,’ said Catriona, and showed the ring on her finger.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the friend. ‘Your first house job?’

‘Royal Infirmary,’ said Ewan. ‘Right here. Then, I hope, the Simpson. Catriona’s got a job with the Council – in the Housing Department.’

Another of his friends came, and shook hands with Catriona. Somewhere nearby, one of the parents took off her hat, and it blew away. Ewan chased after it and handed it back. Catriona laughed. Ewan said, ‘What can you expect with a big fancy hat? They become aerodynamic.’

Catriona looked at him, and smiled. She loved him. She had loved him, she realised, since that day he came with his friend who wanted to take her photograph. If he had not done that, then she would never have become engaged, and would not be here. I am a doctor’s wife now. And it all came about because Matthew had seen her with those two children and had thought it would make a good photograph.

She could tell that Matthew sensed what there was between her and Ewan. She could see that he was worried about something because he had become quiet and had even been a bit impatient with young Jamie. Did he resent the fact that she and Ewan had fallen for one another? Why should he? She and Matthew were more or less complete strangers to one another – they were barely friends. He had no claim over her.

And Ewan had said to her, ‘I don’t want him to know about us. Do you mind? It’s just something I sense. I think he might be jealous.’

She said, ‘I know what you mean. But I don’t think he’s got any right to be jealous. He and I never went out together, or anything. All he did was take my photograph when he saw me in the street with those kids. It was the kids he wanted to get in his picture, I think.’

‘Even so,’ said Ewan. ‘I don’t want him to know.’ He paused, and then confided, ‘He’s a bit wet behind the ears, to tell you the truth, he’s from the sticks somewhere – know what I mean.

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