It would be one nice piece of news to impart, hopefully, on a day when she had very little good news to impart.
Most people who came into her office were pleased to see Sofia’s bump, or at least offered good wishes or made a polite enquiry. Sofia’s client that morning, Mr McCredie, was not most people. He seemed extremely uncomfortable that it even existed, averting his eyes from her middle.
She smiled more than usual and did her best not to mind: Mr McCredie was eccentric, after all, and the news was so bad, it was probably best not to have gushing congratulations over the baby before having to tell him the worst.
‘So?’ He looked nervous and glanced at his very old, very large watch. He hated these meetings. Sofia wasn’t overly fond of them either.
‘Mr McCredie, I have done what you asked for but I have to tell you – and you should speak to your accountant too – but I’m afraid that’s it. This is nearly the end. There’s almost nothing left to sell.’
It was heartbreaking. A family fortune, a good name, a huge Highland estate which had brought in income for years.
But Mr McCredie had no interest in managing the estate, had let it go to rack and ruin, the huge house falling apart. He had no family, no siblings to take it on. He had the Edinburgh flat and the bookshop, but the latter was making absolutely no money and so he had sold more and more land, and spent more and more of his inheritance, his capital, just to live.
And now the country house was sold, and the money for that had been swallowed up by the capital gains tax and the land tax and everything else. Sofia had the unpleasant job of telling him that he had been bequeathed a fortune, and that he had run through it all – not by gambling or marrying or living an extravagant life, but simply by not paying attention.
Mr McCredie said something surprising.
‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘All I care about is the shop.’
‘Aha,’ said Sofia. ‘Yes. The shop. I’m afraid there’s bad news about that too.’
Mr McCredie looked startled. He ran an ancient bookshop in an old part of town, that was more or less all Sofia knew. That, and the fact that it made absolutely no money.
‘They’re going to raise the rents,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you heard?’
Mr McCredie shrugged. He was not, she knew, the best person at opening envelopes.
‘It doesn’t … it doesn’t seem to make any money.’
For the first time, his face was genuinely worried.
‘Well, it’s … it’s not about that. It’s more … we sell old, rare books. Very specific. You can’t just walk in and get the new Ian Fleming you know.’
Sofia decided not to tell him there hadn’t been a new Ian Fleming in quite a while.
‘I realise that,’ she said.
‘I’ve been building a collection – I have some of the finest architectural studies of the city in existence!’
‘I know. It’s just … if the shop can’t pay its way, I don’t know how it can be subsidised.’
‘But it’s … I’ve had it for such a long time. There have been bookshops on Victoria Street for two hundred years.’
Sofia nodded.
‘I’ve asked around,’ she said. ‘You could sell it as a going concern.’
He blinked.
‘Oh goodness. I really don’t want to do that.’
Sofia winced.
‘No, I mean, you can only sell it as a going concern. If it doesn’t start making money, you’re just going to lose it anyway, without getting any money for it.’
The old man blinked slowly.
‘And the rents go up in the new year.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re telling me.’
Sofia would never ever have mentioned it was because he refused to read the many letters they had sent him on the subject. The reason it was at the last minute was not down to her. Sofia couldn’t bear anything last minute.
‘You have to show a profit,’ she said. ‘Over the next two months ideally – including Christmas, and before the rent hike. If you do that, you will probably find a buyer. If you keep losing money … you’re going to lose everything.’
This time when he looked up his eyes were damp.
She sighed. The universe was conspiring with her bloody mother.
‘By … by Christmas? I have to turn a profit by Christmas?’
‘I think,’ said Sofia, ‘I think I know somebody who can help.’
Everywhere in Edinburgh is uphill. This doesn’t seem like it can possibly be true, but it is.
And possibly nowhere truer than Waverley Station, sunk at the very bottom of a drained loch, perched incongruously in the middle of a city, where other more sensible cities have rivers and bridges and appropriate things.
And in the dark freezing afternoon numbness of the grey station, full of whistles and the smell of coffee drifting across the terminal, a small, cross figure was hoisting a rucksack on her shoulders and staring upwards mutinously.
‘Oh you don’t have to get a cab, it’s hardly any distance,’ Sofia had texted, but it turned out if you had to walk uphill constantly and it was a howling gale it did feel like a big, gigantic, ginormous distance.
First off, from the top of the wind-strewn staircase leading from the station, the city rose around her, but Carmen barely noticed it for the thousands of tourists in front of her taking up all the space with their huge backpacks. She’d been to the city before of course, on school trips, or up to the festival, but she didn’t know it well. As she shoved her way up, head down against the wind, the first thing she saw was a huge outdoor bar propped right in front of the station, with a live band and twinkly lights all around it.
Further on, leading into the darkening evening, was a winter funfair as far as the eye could see, as well as stalls selling sausages, mulled wine, hot chocolate and schnapps. Obviously they started early around here.
People were everywhere: little children, eyes wide, in their light-up trainers; teenagers laughing and shoving each other; young girls in sleeveless tops and short skirts, oblivious to the weather. Carmen noticed none of it, blindly following the map on her phone and trying not to get run over by what, to her shock when she glanced up, turned out to be a tram, dinging angrily at her.
They have trams? she thought, jumping back. Who knew?
She remembered once again her parents’ strained looks of disappointment as her mother had let slip, as kindly as she was able, that her sister’s law firm handled the affairs of someone who had a shop and was looking for some seasonal help.
‘You let Sofia find me a job?’ said Carmen, distraught.
She had been quite capable of looking for a job herself. Okay, she had also been doing quite a lot of doomscrolling and watching Netflix and reading all the Anne of Green Gables books again, because that was just self-care and she was grieving for the loss of the job and the life she’d had and why wasn’t that okay?
‘So Sofia knows best again?’
Her mother and father looked at one another.
‘She’s just trying to help,’ said her mother.
‘She’s just showing off. What if I hate it?’
Carmen was aware she was being a brat, sitting at home, getting her laundry done and her meals cooked and her father – her gentle father, who almost never reproached his girls – nonetheless looked up from over his crossword and raised his eyebrows.