‘Did she have someone in mind?’
‘No. It was very Romilly to be disgusted by even the thought of the next person I might date.’
‘Why does it keep you awake?’
‘Because I’m forty in four years’ time, and I worry she’s right. When you pass on something that has good things about it, but isn’t good enough, you’re gambling that something one day will feel better, aren’t you? Stick, or twist. I’m getting old enough to say: I might be wrong about that.’
I pause. ‘Fuck, you sound like my mum! Don’t tell me Mum was right about Mark!’
‘Well. She remarried a “human burp”. Equally you can be too accommodating.’
I honk loud enough that the barman looks over.
Fin’s phone, lying on the bar, bursts into light. Not only a call, a full-screen picture, a FaceTime. Featuring first a red-haired woman, then jostled by a small red-haired boy. I think: bit late to have a child up? Then remember New York is hours behind.
‘Oh, speak of the devil,’ Fin says, with a startle at Romilly’s features. ‘I best get this.’
‘Of course,’ I say, swigging the last of my drink and pushing down off my stool.
‘Meet at nine in the lobby for the grand tour of Leith?’ Fin says.
‘You’re on!’
Upstairs, I get into my room, pull my pyjamas on, tease my hair out of its pins and brush it smooth under the bathroom light.
As I pad through to the bedroom I see my phone flashing on the nightstand. I pick it up – it’s an unknown caller, an international number with mysterious digits.
Out of the sheer intrigue, I answer it.
32
I lie prone with hot tears coating my face, my mobile handset still a warm slab of glass in my hand from the recent call. A green light unexpectedly winks on the landline by my bed. For the second time inside twenty minutes tonight, I break my own rules and answer blind.
‘Hello?’ I say, blearily.
‘Hi it’s me,’ Fin says. ‘I didn’t wake you?’
‘No.’
‘You wouldn’t have a spare iPhone charger, would you? Mine’s frayed and the battery’s inching up by one per cent a half hour.’
‘Oh,’ I sit up and glance at my open case. ‘Actually, yes. Think I do.’
‘Mind if I come get it?’
I have to heave back a sob and say: ‘Sure,’ which comes out as a squeak.
‘Are you alright?’ he says.
‘Not really,’ I gasp.
Fin pauses.
‘I’m on my way.’
A soft tap at the door moments later and he’s outside, in his t-shirt and sweatpants. Even with hiking socks, it’s a good look for him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he says, as I hand him the charger. I try to speak and instead I burst into fresh tears, clamp a palm over my face. Fin steps into the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
‘Mark called,’ I say, when I get the power of speech back. ‘My ex? In America. He’d seen something on Facebook today about Susie and called me to see how I was. He was so shocked and his shock made me shocked all over again.’
Fin nods, face grave. ‘Yeah. Telling people, talking about it, is a series of aftershocks.’
‘Yes! He was so sympathetic, it really did for me.’
During our conversation, I could hear the snuffling and occasional ragged cry of a newborn in the background of the conversation, an unknown female voice shushing. The connection had that slightly echoey, windy quality of long distance.
Standing in the anonymous surroundings of this grand hotel, it was what Susie and I used to call a ‘searchlight in the prison yard’ moment. When you’re caught in the bright, unforgiving glare of an inspection you’ve not prepared for.
I didn’t want to be with Mark. Yet somehow, his being so distant in sunnier climes, and my being here in cold, lonely dark ones, amid such grief – it made me feel my life had comprehensively fallen apart, since I declined to share his. It felt like judgement, by a higher power.
‘Mark’s memories of Susie caused me to think, you know, in a way I hadn’t, about how we all were,’ I hear my tremulous voice in the quiet of a plush, noise-proofed hotel room. ‘About a time gone past. Racing around in our twenties, when things were hopeful and choices were unmade and Susie was with us. When I could’ve warned her not to get out of taxis early to smoke. It’s all gone,’ I say, looking at Fin with streaming eyes, wiping my face ineffectually with my pyjama sleeve. ‘It turns out that nothing worked out. My friends were the bit of my life I’d got right and now everything is sick and strange and fucked up forever.’
Finlay is frowning in concern, but letting me talk.
‘I feel like I got old overnight. I know how indulgent that sounds when Susie only got thirty-four years. All I have is pain and regret and a shit job where I type stupid things into boxes.’
‘It won’t always be this way, Eve,’ Fin says, quietly. ‘Life has harder parts.’
‘What’s going to change for me?’
Fin smiles, sadly. ‘That’s largely up to you.’
‘Yeah. I don’t have much faith in Future Me. Past Me is a twat.’ I pause for a strangled breath. ‘I miss Susie so much,’ I say. ‘I miss her so much, and I’ve spent this time being uselessly angry at her … and you were right, she was snooping with Ed, like I snooped on her reading that letter. Oh God … I just want her to be here to say sorry, so I can tell her I’m sorry. For everything. And that I love her so, so much and nothing matters except that fact. I can’t, I won’t speak to her ever again, Finlay. Game over.’
I sob openly, and Finlay puts his arms round me.
I make a decision, in the embrace, to lean into it. I’m not going to staunch my tears out of embarrassment. I’m not going to stop and choke this back into something feminine, and picturesque. I ugly heave-sob into his t-shirt until it’s wet enough to stick to his skin. He feels hard-bodied and lean under the fabric, a stark contrast to the squish of my chest. I’ve never been this physically close to an athletic type before. My partners, however narrow they looked when dressed, were always softly British-pudgy from beer and curries. Like me.
‘I miss her too,’ he says, into my hair.
‘Really?’ I look up at him. I blink and focus enough to see he has tears in his eyes. ‘I wasn’t sure if you did.’
‘Yes,’ he says, voice very low. ‘Very much. Not in the same way you do, I can’t miss a relationship I didn’t have. I’d been missing her for a long time. But it’s like I’ve lost a part of myself, my past. So many things only Susie shared with me. I already was pretty isolated, but now I realise, I wasn’t. Not like I am now. And like you, there are things between us that will always be unfinished. After the police called, I sat in silence, before the tears. I wasn’t ready. This wasn’t how it was going to end. I know you only saw the anger. I think there was still some love, underneath. Or a bond at least, whatever you’d call it. I know there was on my side. I found out I’d always been clinging hard to a notion of a point in the future when we could reconcile. The way things were between us wasn’t ever going to be forever, you know? And it turned out, it was.