Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew’s first night together and Arthur’s Seat outing turn a tentative post-graduation encounter into the beginning of a lasting bond. On the morning of 15 July 1988, desire, embarrassment and the prospect of separation pull in opposite directions: each seems ready to leave, yet neither quite wants the night to end. Their day on the Edinburgh hillside gives them time to speak, while their near-farewell forces a choice between letting the encounter disappear and making contact again.

Morning After in Edinburgh

The scene opens on Rankeillor Street, where Emma wakes at nine-twenty after perhaps three hours of sleep. Dexter is perched on the edge of her old wooden chair, quietly pulling on his trousers. He puts a hand in his pocket to still his loose change, then begins dressing in the previous night’s white shirt. Emma watches him, recognizes that she wants him to stay, and suspects that he wants to leave almost as much. The small, careful gestures of his departure give the morning its uncertainty: intimacy has happened, but neither has yet said what it means.

Dexter invents a reason for leaving, telling Emma that he had planned to go at lunchtime. In fact, his parents are staying overnight, taking him to dinner and leaving the following morning. His lie was meant to make a quick escape easier; as he kisses Emma, he regrets it and thinks he should try to be more honest. Emma smiles at his explanation, then rolls away from the kiss to go to the loo. The exchange leaves attraction intact but exposes the instinctive evasions that complicate it. Dexter asks whether there is a phone he can use, while the morning continues to hover between departure and the possibility of staying.

The Climb and the Uneasy Conversation

Fifteen minutes after a companion suggests that Emma and Dexter go without her, the two step out into the hazy July morning. Salisbury Crags loom at the end of Rankeillor Street, and they set off toward the hillside. The climb extends their time together beyond the bedroom and gives the encounter a public, ordinary shape: they walk, talk and share the day rather than treating the night as a self-contained episode.

The conversation does not immediately resolve their uncertainty. Emma begins with the weather, recalling the St Swithin’s Day saying and noting that there is no sign of rain. Embarrassed by the banality of the subject, she falls silent, then asks more directly how Dexter feels about the night they have spent together. He says he feels rough. Emma clarifies that she means how he feels about the two of them. The question shifts the scene from physical discomfort to emotional consequence, but the exchange does not produce an easy answer.

At one point Dexter holds out his hand, palm upwards. Emma looks at it with distaste, then takes it resignedly. They sit with their hands linked, both feeling foolish, until their arms tire and they let go. Dexter tries to avoid the unresolved conversation by pretending to sleep, using his jacket as a pillow; his body aches and alcohol pulses in his head. Emma interrupts that retreat by asking if she can say something to put his mind at rest. The account records her gathering her thoughts, but not the substance of what she says. That gap matters: the scene shows her choosing to speak without supplying a neat declaration to settle the meaning of the night.

A Shared Afternoon, and the Prospect of Goodbye

Emma and Dexter spend the rest of the afternoon on the hillside laughing and talking. They exchange information about their families, including what their parents do and how many siblings they have, and tell one another favourite anecdotes. These are modest disclosures, but they turn an intense, uncertain encounter into the beginning of mutual acquaintance. In the middle of the afternoon, they fall asleep side by side, lying chastely in parallel. At five, Dexter wakes with a start; together they collect the empty bottles and the remains of their picnic and begin the woozy descent toward the city and home.

As they approach the park exit, Emma realizes that they may soon say goodbye for good. They know different groups of people, and Dexter will soon be travelling. Even if they meet again, she imagines, the encounter might become fleeting and formal, while he forgets the small rented room where the night began. She regrets not asking for another night, but feels she has left it too late to ask. Her private resolution to be braver and speak her mind in future contrasts with the faintheartedness she believes has brought them to the park gates without a plan.

After they part, Emma walks south toward The Mound. She thinks through a practical rather than heroic ideal: work hard, make a difference in the world immediately around her, cherish friends, remain true to her principles, experience new things, and love and be loved if she gets the chance. The expansive resolve sits beside the small facts of the separation: she has no telephone number or address for Dexter, and he has not asked for hers. Her final words to him had been a conventional farewell, not a request to stay in touch. The gap between what she wants and what she has managed to say gives their parting its force.

The Return and the Beginning

Before Emma has gone far, she hears smart shoes striking the pavement behind her. Dexter calls her name, red-faced and breathless, trying to recover his nonchalance. His return reverses the expected goodbye: instead of allowing the encounter to fade, he has come after her. They exchange contact details on scraps of paper. Emma gives him her own number, her parents’ number in Leeds, and addresses in Leeds and Edinburgh, emphasizing the correct Edinburgh postcode; Dexter writes down his details in return.

Dexter makes clear that calling first is not a contest, and suggests that Emma might come to stay after he returns from France in August. He then admits that having her there would frustrate him because he would be unable to do what he wants. Emma asks what he wants, though she already knows. He puts a hand lightly on the back of her neck; she puts one on his hip, and they kiss in the street as people hurry home in the summer light. The narration calls it the sweetest kiss either of them would ever know, then marks the moment as the point where everything begins. The event’s decisive turn is not simply that they have slept together: it is that, after nearly letting the day end as an isolated memory, they choose to leave one another a way back.