If so, Susie wouldn’t have told me this.
I remember once when Becky Fucking Villa Holiday stung Susie for the whole cost of their luxury accommodation on a girls’ weekend in Bath. Susie paid up front for the place they rented, for convoluted reasons of convenience given by Becky. Susie had been surprised to receive a thank you card from Becky afterwards saying how wonderful it was for Susie to treat her for her thirtieth, especially as she was spent up due to her forthcoming Nile cruise. I read it and snorted.
‘Translation: I have mixed in my birthday obligation with a hint of “I can’t afford to pay you anyway” to create the maximum inhibition and discouragement to ask me for the money. Hi I’m Becky Bramley, I have massive clanking balls of brass.’
Susie guffawed but stoutly defended her and insisted the agreement to go Dutch must’ve slipped her mind. I was incredulous that arch cynic Susie could be so naïve in the face of an obvious heist, and concluded she was soft on Becky. With hindsight, I can see it was more about Susie being unwilling to admit that anyone had got one over on her, than thinking the best of Becky. ‘Being taken in’ wasn’t a thing that happened to Susie, it was totally off brand.
Was the intensity with Finlay not only that he was her brother, but that at some point, she’d been utterly blindsided by him?
In what feels like not much time at all, we’re into twilight Edinburgh, car crawling along more densely populated roads, past Georgian sandstone houses with white-framed windows. The satnav is now issuing commands every thirty seconds, after its long nap on the motorway.
We inch down Princes Street and come to a halt in front of The Caledonian, a red sandstone Victorian façade with Corinthian columns, white-gloved doormen and gilt logo-ed awnings. A Union Jack and the Scottish flag hang at angles on poles, and there are neat box hedges and revolving doors.
I wait patiently for Fin to drive past it and on to the reasonably mid-priced anonymous option we’re booked in at, while the satnav intones: ‘You have reached your destination.’ Fin’s car door is opened for him by a liveried footman. As is mine.
‘This is where we’re staying?’ I say, having clambered out, as Fin hands the car keys over.
‘Yes?’ he says.
‘It’s The Waldorf,’ I say, squinting at the signage. Everything is up lit, so the edifice glows honey-yellow against the blue-black sky.
‘As in the salad, yes.’
‘But … Wow. OK.’
‘The Waldorf is where we went when we came up as kids. More my mum’s taste, to be fair, but I thought my dad might’ve homing pigeoned back here.’
‘This is a fair step up from what I’m used to,’ I say, looking back at the car, which is having luggage removed from it before being taken away to be parked, without our involvement.
‘I can book you the guest house in East Lothian where the top TripAdvisor review said there were Minion toys on the bed and cryptic graffiti in blood on the shower wall, if you’d prefer?’ Fin says.
I step into the revolving doors, laughing.
Oh God – I can withstand flash, but flash and witty is too much.
In the gleaming curved marble lobby with white napery, we have to wait behind tourists in loud shirts with Nikons, in Velcro-fastening sandals. Fin checks his watch.
‘It’s pretty late to find a restaurant,’ he says. ‘Shall we each get room service tonight and then head out to the sights tomorrow? Meet you down here at nine?’
‘Sure.’
‘Each’ meaning ‘not together’. I suppose I could be offended at Fin’s lack of wanting to spend any more time with me, but a burger eaten on a bed, while I’m in what Americans call a ‘waffle robe’, is too appealing.
‘Put anything you want on the tab while you’re here,’ Fin says, then hesitates, his face colouring in a way I’ve not seen before. ‘I mean, I don’t want there to be any awkwardness or confusion over it. I asked you to come here. It’s my responsibility and therefore my bill. Obviously.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. Then, at a loss of what else to say, looking around, trying to ease the tension: ‘This place, though! I top out at the Radisson Blu for a spendy weekend.’
There’s possibly a creakingly obvious subtext of: I didn’t know you were loaded!
Fin puts me on edge anyway, so I’m possibly not judging the line between playfully irreverent and rather crass very well.
‘Did Susie not slag me off for having money?’ Finlay says, having read it as I predicted. I twinge a little.
In the quiet of the lobby, the murmur of voices echoing, his asking me this feels potentially significant. I’m the guardian of Susie’s estate now, intellectual if not literal.
‘No,’ I say, glad I can at least be honest. ‘She never mentioned that at all.’
‘Wouldn’t have predicted she’d miss that out, but perhaps, thinking about it, I should have.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’ll have slagged me off for absolutely everything else?’ Fin’s manner is light-hearted but there’s a weight behind this that makes it feel threatening to me. Not to mention a history.
‘No, I meant: why should you, having thought about it, predict it?’
His eyes narrow, quizzically.
‘I know the legend has it I’m horrible. “Has money” is only going to be used if there’s an angle in the case for prosecution. As far as I’m aware, there wasn’t one. I’m not an arms dealer, I don’t buy corporate boxes at Ed Sheeran gigs.’
I laugh. Fin humour is delivered with a curt precision, and so straight faced that I only realise it is humour a second or two after he finishes speaking.
I’m all of a sudden awash with curiosity about Fin’s side of their war, while simultaneously certain it’ll be a heavily biased fiction.
No one gets a reputation by accident, a favourite truism of Justin’s. (I seem to recall I once argued against this, from a general vague sense of injustice, and Justin retorting: ‘When you can show me the exception, I’ll start making exceptions.’ I have yet to show him an exception.)
Fin steps forward to the reception desk and I fidget while he checks in, feeling very scruffy in the surroundings.
‘Do you know if your dad’s staying here?’ I say, under my breath, as Finlay hands me my key card in its paper sleeve, room number Biro-ed on it.
‘No, but there’s no point asking. I’ll get Data Protection, blah blah.’
‘Hmm,’ I rub my chin. ‘They won’t tell you if he is here, but I bet with some light wheedling they’ll tell you if he isn’t.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Let me try,’ I say. I move forward to the available person behind reception, who, probably helpfully, is a man around Fin’s father’s age.
‘Hi, I wonder if you could help me. Myself and my brother,’ I nod back at Fin, in earshot, looking perplexed: ‘… are here to surprise my dad for his seventieth birthday. I don’t suppose you could call up to his room for us, and tell him there’s someone down here to see him? Please don’t say who we are though!’ I flap my hands nerdily at the two of us, make a mouth-zipping gesture.