Although I’m sure my surprise is the greatest. I’m not anything like an equal to Fin aesthetically, I don’t think, all false modesty aside. Shows what sitting opposite him can do. Like when film crews hold up reflectors.
‘I’ve enjoyed watching you.’ She leans down and squeezes my arm, resting on the table. ‘Have a long and happy life together, won’t you. For me.’
She picks up my left hand, sees the ring finger is ringless.
‘Ask her, you fool!’ she stage-hisses to Fin.
‘Forgive my wife, she’s had a lot of Bordeaux,’ says the man, and we laugh, and they leave.
An awkward pause ensues.
‘OK, since Bev’s brought it up, we can’t avoid it any longer. Will you marry me?’ Fin says. ‘We don’t know each other but we can’t make a worse mess than most people who do get to know each other first, right?’
‘Since you put it like that.’
I laugh gratefully, and we clink glasses. I initially took his words as a graceful way of breaking the tension, but he’s gazing at me in a way that might, just possibly, be construed as flirtatious? Nothing thus far has prepared me for Finlay Hart, flirting. Had you asked me the one thing he’d never do, I’d have said, flirting.
It’s not fair, in these surroundings, in his white shirt, with his bone structure, after Jesus has dropkicked me through the goalposts of life.
‘Can I tell you something weird, without you thinking I’m weird?’ Fin says.
‘Probably depends on it not being too weird?’ I say, trying to reassert some sass, as I feel vulnerable and a little bit … what would my mum call it? Squiffy.
‘Years back, maybe five years ago, I was in a bar in the East Village. The kind of self-regarding place that plays Yo La Tengo and Whitney Houston and the barmen have sex-offender moustaches. There’s a dog walking around and it serves melon-flavoured cocktails in jelly jars … The dog’s not serving.’
‘Jelly?’
‘Jam jars, sorry. See, I’ve got some American in me now. And “Catch” by The Cure came on, you know it?’
‘Yes, this is my wheelhouse! Kind of a ditty …? “I’d see her when the days got colder” – that one?’
‘Yes!’ Fin’s the most animated I’ve ever seen him.
‘That song came on and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I got this pin-sharp image of you stood at the door when you used to call for Susie. A big bow in your hair. Your solemn eyes.’
I gasp.
‘I didn’t think you remembered me! Or any of that. Or I’d have mentioned it.’
Finlay frowns.
‘Of course I do. I’ve been away for a while but I don’t have amnesia. Listening to that song, thousands of miles away, so many years after: I realised what it was about you that felt so unusual.’
‘Was it the Edwardian ghost hair accessory?’
‘You always looked so worried. For a kid.’
‘Did I?’
He plays with his wine glass stem again and looks at me, and I feel seen, though I’m not fully sure why.
‘Yeah. Well, to me. Maybe it takes one to know one.’
I puzzle.
‘Shall we get the bill?’ Fin says.
‘Fancy a nightcap?’ I say, when we get back to The Caley. ‘On me, too! I don’t like not paying for anything.’
‘Why not,’ Fin says.
Its bar is a narrow, galley space so we have to sit side by side on high stools at a counter, which I always like.
I watch the barman rattle ice in a shaker like a maraca after we order two smoked Old Fashioneds.
With minutes to go, I remember my nine p.m. check in with Ed, and apologise while I hack out an EVERYTHING FINE, SITUATION NORMAL bulletin, without explaining that’s what it is.
‘Sorry, meant to reply to my friend Ed about something,’ I say.
‘Is Ed the fair-haired guy at the funeral, who did the reading?’
‘Yes!’
‘He’s your ex, right?’
‘Ed? No no no, not my ex. Nope.’
‘Ah.’
‘Is this what we call … fishing?’ I say, and Fin smiles back.
‘No, it’s making conversation, when you politely ask a question and the person is free to respond “None of your business”,’ Finlay says, the quote marks clear in the intonation.
He sips his drink and I cast my eyes upward.
‘Oh, very clever. You’re asking as you overheard our barney at the wake?’
‘It was quite heated but I’m not sure I followed what had gone on. You read a letter? A letter from the box of personal items you weren’t going to look at, but hey that’s not important right now …’
Fin does a comic ‘look into middle distance while tilting the glass to his lips’ pose and I guffaw, my stomach clenching with guilt. I’m still slightly stunned he has such levity in his repertoire: like your mate sitting down at a street piano, and bashing out a fluent Moonlight Sonata.
‘Apart from that one moment of weakness,’ I say, hastily. ‘Which, as you clearly bore witness, fully, karmically repaid me, so you don’t need to bother shaming me.’
‘Right. So if he’s not your ex, why is it an issue he slept with my sister? Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.’
I hard swallow both at the amount he knows, and his asking a question I’ve levelled in great embarrassment at myself.
‘It’s complicated …’
‘We’re in one of those intense situations where we see each other every day for a few days and then never again in our lives, so what would usually be indiscreet, isn’t, right?’ Finlay says.
‘Yes! This is like a holiday romance with no holiday and no romance,’ I say, with the boldness of a woman who’s half a centimetre deep in orange-flavoured paraffin.
I describe the letter to Ed at university going astray, Hester, the engagement, the sense of understanding between us, and my discovery regards Susie, in context. I summarise everything Ed said when he came round and gave Rog chew sticks. It feels good to purge it by telling someone, so much so it outweighs any hesitation and my self consciousness.
Fin listens to it and says at the end: ‘I see why you were upset.’
I breathe out. ‘Thank you.’
‘Want my take?’
‘Yes,’ I say, and brace, as Finlay is sufficiently clever that even if he gets it wrong, he’s going to sound right.
‘Your boy Edward has had his cake, and eaten all of it.’
My eyebrows rise.
‘He’s had exactly what he wanted from each of you, hasn’t he? Adoration from you, steady commitment from his fiancée, casual sex with Susie. It’s hurt all of you in different ways. Susie only in terms of her memory, as far as we know. But who knows. Must’ve torn her up, keeping it from you.’
‘Yeah, I guess so?’
‘He chose to start things with you, he chose to let them drop, he chose to start dating someone else and let you find out the way you did. And he chose to cheat. Yet he doesn’t own those as choices, but as pieces of bad luck? Beware the Nicest Guy in the Room, who doesn’t think his failures are the same as everyone else’s.’