Blades

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I shoot out of Sandy's arms like they're suddenly made of hot coals, neck and face scorched red as if they genuinely are. I steal a glance at our intruder: a girl of about twenty with thick dark curls and a thoroughly amused expression. Her eyes sweep me up and down and then dart back to Sandy, and while her gaze is not unkind it only intensifies my blush because it's so knowing. It doesn't help that she's also one of those unfairly well-put-together sort of people who go and wear a well-put-together sort of outfit and lots of funky jewellery on top. I am fully prepared to die of embarrassment.

      Although Sandy stands unnaturally straight and his cheeks are a little tinged, he outright glares at the girl in his doorway. She pouts back cheekily.

      "Evening, Fi," he says. I have a feeling he says it purely for my benefit since they've been having a full-on eye conversation for several seconds. The girl, however, seems to take this as permission to talk to me.

      "You must be Freddie," she says, striding across the threshold to shake my hand. I nod, still too self-conscious to speak, and am offered a warm smile in return. "I'm Fiona, this squirt's big sister." She reaches across the room with a long, elegant arm to literally ruffle Sandy's hair as she says it. I've never seen him look more outraged and have to stifle a snigger. Bless him. "Mamma sent me to tell you dinner's ready. Sorry I had to interrupt." She swishes back out of the door with a backwards wink at her brother. And now Sandy's face burns.

      We follow Fiona downstairs, where we're greeted by the most delicious smell I think I've ever been faced with. Within a glance you can tell that the kitchen is Anna's own little palace, all dark wood and granite surfaces and a large vase of flowers and spices lining the shelves. She bustles about in the warm lighting, herding everyone to a seat while she sorts dishes and food and candles. The smell turns out to belong to some incredible-looking chicken stew in a pot big enough to feed several armies and a pile of rosemary potatoes. It's an effort not to just stand and gape.

      As Anna continues to organise around us, Sandy introduces me to his dad, Alastair. He sits at ease at the head of the table looking purposefully mussed with his linen suit and shadow of stubble. His Scots accent is so thick that I have to pay attention to understand him, but the tone is easy enough to read: soft and attentive and jovial. It doesn't take a genius to see where Sandy gets it from.

      I learn very little during the main course, other than that Fiona is a fashion student and that they followed Alastair's job down south, which I suppose I already knew. Instead I find myself politely quizzed on all aspects of my life, from what I like at school to where I've been on holiday. By all rights the questioning should feel like an interrogation, even covering my relationship with Charlie (no, Fiona, he is not my boyfriend), but there's something about the way that Anna and Alastair ask that doesn't feel intrusive at all. As he's brought up it strikes me how different a meal is here compared to at Charlie's, much more formal in this sit-down atmosphere with a proper rectangular table. Behind it there's the same feeling of family, but Fiona and Sandy don't squabble like Mark and Charlie do at mealtimes. Perhaps it's just the presence of a father that makes it seem from such a separate world, but I'm not sure it's that either. It seems to me that there must be an infinite number of ways a family can function, and I have just never met one as apparently textbook as the McConnells.

      Anna is dishing up her homemade strawberry tart before talk finally turns to skating.

      "Sandy fancies himself a bit of a Scott Moir, you see, Freddie," Fiona says as she accepts a plate from her mum, "the romantic type of skater. He's into all that emotion over technical stuff."

      "I've never said that, Fi," counters Sandy beside me, still cool as a cucumber despite his sister's slight jibe, "I just think that all the technique in the world can't make up for a lack of emotion in your skating. I guess Virtue and Moir are just a good example of how much difference the feeling makes, that's why I always say I try to be like Scott." That's just what I think. I watch him while he says it and wonder at how matter-of-fact he is over such a personal opinion, how honest.

      "What about you, Freddie?" It's Alastair who asks, reclined in his chair with a glass of dessert wine. Seriously, how do all these people not put on any weight? "Who are your favourite skaters?" This, at least, is an easy question.

      "Torvill and Dean," I say, and now it's Sandy watching me, "It's not the most original choice, I know, but they're what got me into skating in the first place; and they've got that emotion thing, too. You feel what the story of their skate is."

      "Ah, classic choices are classic for a good reason, though," Alastair says with a reserved smile I recognise from his son, "Torvill and Dean were on the rise when I was at university and were a great inspiration to me."

      "You skated?" For some reason this surprises me. It never entered my head that this grizzled, suit-wearing advertiser had once been as consumed with edges and music and pattern dances as I am. He must see the surprise on my face because he laughs.

      "Strange to think now, I know, but I practically grew up at Murrayfield rink. I joined the club before the Kerrs and everything." He laughs again with a wistful air before seeming to refocus. "I put these two on the ice as soon as they could walk; I was determined they'd know the joy of skating like I had."

      "You were a bit of a two-timer, though, Dad," says Fiona. Sandy grins at her and turns to me.

      "He did men's solos right the way through school and then decided he'd take up ice hockey for the university as well, signed up when he was drunk in freshers' week. As you can imagine, the figure coaches were none too pleased."

      "Oh, they hated me for it," Alastair says, eyes sparkling, "they were determined it would ruin all my technique in one fell swoop. Admittedly, I'm sure it didn't help it all that much...but I didn't take skating seriously like you, Sandy, I just wanted as much time on the ice having as much fun as I could get. They couldn't stop me, and they knew it. Once a McConnell is set on something there's no stopping us."

      My eyes flick back to Sandy, remembering his set jaw and flashing eyes as he warned Samuel off and his dogged determination in training. He meets my gaze, and I think there's something in its chocolate depths that is admitting this to me: while the kindness is not an act, the affable often is. He will fight heart and soul to get what he wants.

      Anna shoos us off back to Sandy's room to 'work', horrified when I try to help the others clear the table – "Freddie, darling, I can't let a guest help with housework!" The two of us make our way up the stairs after I've offered as many compliments about the food as I can think of, and I sit back on Sandy's bed. This time he sits next to me.

      "I don't know about you," he says, not looking at me, "but I'm not sure we need to look any further for our free dance track." He swallows and turns towards me. "What do you think?" It's pretty obvious what he's actually asking. We both felt something when we danced to that song before. It was exposing and it was terrifying, but it was wonderful. What he's saying is that he's willing to expose himself like that again, eventually in front of an awful lot of people, to let me under his defences a thousand times over, to play-act the love scene we're not allowed in real life, for the sake of the emotion-filled free dance he dreams of. And he's asking if I am, too.

      "No," I say, "we don't need to look any further."

      I see the flash of surprise in his eyes, but then he nods. And here I am again, inches from his face, consumed by his hair line and rounded nose and constant slight-smile. And I think I must be crazy, enjoy self-torture, because that's what resisting him to that song over and over and over is going to be, I know it.

      And the worst part is that I know something else, too. There's no way I have that much self-control.

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