The Days of our Birth
Charlie Laidlaw
(Rampart, £18)

Next-door neighbours born on the same day, Peter and Sarah share a lifelong bond, and the sixth novel from Paisley-born Charlie Laidlaw charts the development of their relationship across 20 years of birthdays, offering a highly engaging story of friendship and self-discovery, as well as a sensitive and nuanced depiction of a woman on the autism spectrum.

We see them first on their sixth birthday, having separate parties in their back gardens in North Berwick – all the girls at Sarah’s, the boys going to Peter’s – and Peter promising to pass her a piece of his cake through a hole in the fence. But as they get older birthdays will become a special time for the two of them to share together.

This is not least because Sarah’s friends gradually drift away on the basis that they find her weird and distant. As well as being the smartest girl in the school, she’s very analytical and literal-minded and finds it hard to grasp the subtleties of facial expressions and social cues.

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“She knew this, and was saddened by it, because she wasn’t odd or unfriendly. She would have liked to hang out with other people ... .” Sarah is, in fact, fascinated by them, watching them in the street and imagining what their lives might be like. She reads voraciously too, not so much for pleasure as to gain an understanding of people who seem as unfathomable to her as she does to them.

The only one who gets her is her best friend Peter, who doesn’t put much effort into his schoolwork but is so devoted to Sarah that he invents a Tolkien-inspired language for them to converse secretly with each other. The two of them were walking to school hand-in-hand from such an early age that holding hands is second nature to them, and they’re completely comfortable in each other’s company. But then they reach the age when pairing up with boyfriends and girlfriends becomes an issue that can’t be avoided.

They decide not to take their relationship down a romantic path, which always seems to lead to breakups and acrimony, but to remain “special friends”. But is that really what they both want? That’s the question that will hang over them for years to come.

With the basic structure of a romance bolted into place, Laidlaw sets about exploring his characters and the complexities and subtleties unique to their relationship, showing each phase of their young lives from both of their perspectives. And while Peter’s side of the story is involving enough, as he negotiates the challenges of young love in the shadow of what is clearly the defining relationship of his life, it’s really Laidlaw’s depiction of Sarah’s inner life that distinguishes The Days of Our Birth.

Contrary to outward appearances, she’s a very emotional person, weighed down not only by her separation from Peter when she’s packed off to a school for “special” girls near Brighton, but also by the widening gulf between herself and the mother who sent her there. By the time Sarah is experimenting with online dating to make up for the lack of companionship in her life, we’re accustomed to seeing the world through her eyes and are thoroughly invested.

Movingly depicting both youthful innocence and the wave of disillusionment and heartache that strikes in early adulthood, The Days of Our Birth has such a generosity of spirit that it’s hard to resist being drawn in by the warmth of Laidlaw’s writing and the charm of his characters.