Colette Paul is one of Scotland’s best contemporary short story writers, and her new collection, A Complete Success, reaffirms her skill in depicting the familiar and the extraordinary in life in modern Scotland. We hope you enjoy this extract from the story, ‘Marrakesh’.

A Complete Success
By Colette Paul
Published by Batis Books

Marrakesh 

Rosemary arrives at the station early, and sits outside in her car. Last time she was here Hannah was alive. There are only a couple of trains today and the place is deserted. Rain is coming down in buckets, drumming on the car roof, outside everything dark and dripping. She puts her hands on the steering wheel, takes a deep breath. Now that she is finally meeting Scott, she isn’t sure if she wants to or not. 

They hadn’t even known Hannah had a boyfriend until after the funeral. It was one of her new friends from university who’d told them. He’d been at the funeral, she said, but had been too upset to speak to them. 

How long had they been going out? Rosemary had replied. Was it serious? 

I think just a month or two, the girl had texted back. Rosemary wasn’t usually pushy, but she’d persisted in getting his number, and then persisted in contacting him, after he didn’t reply. The thing was, she knew that Hannah wouldn’t have gone out with just anyone; that she must have really liked this boy. Even as a little girl she’d had decided tastes. She knew exactly what she wanted to eat, or wear, or do. She would pinion on one girl to be her best friend, and no one else would do. It worried Rosemary the way she’d put all her eggs in one basket. She would have been the same with boys: all or nothing. 

She locks the car, and hurries to the shelter in the platform, rain splashing on her face. It bothers her that Hannah hadn’t mentioned Scott. Even when Rosemary had asked specifically if she’d met anyone nice, she’d said nothing. They’d always talked about everything, her and Hannah, nothing was out of bounds – or so Rosemary thought. Of course, it was different when she moved to university. She’d been caught up in settling in, going to her classes, meeting new people. But even then, they’d messaged all the time, spoken on the phone every few days. She’d known when Hannah was fed up, when she was homesick. She’d heard all about the antics of her spoiled roommate. She knew about the tutor who set them entire books to read with one week’s notice, and then interrogated them in the seminar. But nothing about Scott. What else doesn’t she know? 

The woman who killed Hannah wasn’t much older than her – a twenty-eight-year-old nurse with a three-year-old and a four-month-old. The children had been in the car with her when it happened. It was Halloween; they were all in fancy dress, on the way to a party. At the inquest it had come out that the woman had been flipping her visor down – there was low sun that day – when Hannah had stepped out suddenly between two cars. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Rosemary doesn’t remember much about that day, or the days following. According to the family liaison officer, the nurse was distraught. That came up at the inquest too, the devastating effect it had on her, the driving conditions, the fact of her young children who needed her. She didn’t even get a driving ban. Rosemary hates her. She hopes she is haunted by Hannah every minute of every day until she dies. It doesn’t matter that hating her won’t bring Hannah back, or that the nurse’s life has had been ruined too, as Douglas has suggested. Maybe it has or maybe it hasn’t. Who knows? She still gets to wake up every morning and see her children. 

Central Station disorientates her, people moving purposefully in different directions. She gets a taxi to the Byers Road subway station, where they have arranged to meet. The driver makes chit-chat as they drive, but she experiences his words as white noise. It’s painful to be sitting in traffic, the workaday world blithely passing outside. She keeps looking at her watch, worried she’ll be late. She feels she will know him as soon as she sees him, but the first boy she approaches looks at her blankly. She steps inside the subway entrance. Gusts of hot air rush against her cheeks. A man is busking, his dog lying in a position of dejection beside him, paws crossed wearily. She’d been worried about Hannah moving to Glasgow, all the stories you hear about drugs and stabbings. Hannah used to say to her, ‘Mum, I’m not like you, I’m a city person,’ and she could see it, Hannah shining in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, the lights, the shops, all the different types of people. For a moment, a wave of absolute despair grips her. She knows not to fight it, just to let it pass. She shuts her eyes, and when she opens them, people are emerging from the escalator. She spots him. She’s sure this time. She has a vague memory of a group of young people at the funeral, sitting near the back. He’s tall and skinny, wearing one of those scarfs she associates with Palestinian rebels. Curly brown hair, freckles – he looks about fifteen. 

‘Scott,’ she asks, touching his shoulder. For months she has sat in Hannah’s room, touching the things Hannah has touched, looking at the things Hannah has looked at, trying to conjure her up from her old sketch books, a Klimt poster, the pyjamas she’d left under her pillow on her last visit home. But now here is this boy, someone Hannah cared for, someone who touched her heart. His eyes are red, as if he’s been crying too. ‘I’m Hannah’s mum,’ she says. But instead of replying, he leans in and hugs her. His chest heaves up and down. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘I know. I know.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, wiping his eyes.

A Complete Success is published by Batis Books and is available now, priced £13.99