I don’t book the flight. Not immediately. Instead, I go to a client reception I forgot about until James reminds me at six-thirty.
“You’re supposed to be there.”
“I know.”
“You’re still sitting down.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That usually happens while standing too.”
I tell him to go home. By eight, I am in a hotel ballroom pretending to care about a development proposal while my mind keeps returning to Lagos. Then Saoirse walks in. I notice her before she notices me. That irritates me for reasons I choose not to examine. She is wearing black, nothing dramatic, and speaking to an older woman near the bar. When she turns, her eyes find me almost immediately. There it is again. That recognition before recognition. She crosses the room.
“I thought you had work.”
“I do.”
“This looks painful.”
“It is.”
She smiles. A waiter passes between us carrying champagne. As he moves on, I catch the faint scent of my own fragrance from my collar—dry woods, incense, something darker underneath. Saoirse’s expression changes.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. You definitely smelled something.”
She looks amused. “You say that as though smelling is suspicious.”
“You don’t wear perfume.”
She glances at herself.
“Observant.”
“Everyone in this room is wearing something.”
“I’m not everyone.”
I wait. She takes pity on me.
“Bridges process more sensory information than most designations. Smell can become… crowded.”
“If I’m in a room with twenty people, sometimes I know who hugged whom before arriving. Who sat in whose car. Which fragrance belongs to which coat.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It can be.”
I look at her differently after that. Not because she sounds fragile. She doesn’t. Because until now, Bridge has sounded like a useful word the Council put beside her name. I hadn’t thought about what living inside it might cost. She nods toward me.
“Yours is easy.”
“My what?”
“Your fragrance.”
“Why?”
“It stays with you.”
“That is usually the objective.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean it doesn’t reach for anything else.”
For some reason, that lands harder than it should. We stand there while the reception moves around us. Then she says, “You should go to Lagos.” The moment disappears.
“Of course.”
“I wasn’t sent here to persuade you tonight. I’m saying it because what happened at your office frightened me.”
That gets my attention.
“You didn’t look frightened.”
“I’ve had practice.”
Before I can answer, someone calls her name. She looks over her shoulder, then back at me.
“My father used to say Nigerians can recognise each other anywhere.”
“Your father clearly never attended an event in London.”
She laughs. It is the first completely unguarded sound I have heard from her. Later, when I leave, I find the Council’s flight email still unopened. I stand outside the hotel for a long time. Then I open it. Edinburgh to Lagos. Tomorrow. I confirm the ticket before I can change my mind.