I’ve never heard Finlay, or indeed anyone, sound this raw.
‘I’m sorry for being like this,’ I say, in the deep silence that follows.
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest my loss is greater.’
‘I know you didn’t. Come and sit down,’ Finlay says, and guides me to the edge of the bed. ‘How about a cup of milky tea with a large sugar in it? It’s what my mum would suggest.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ I say, smiling. It actually does. I watch as Fin goes to fill the kettle in the bathroom, rustles around in the stash of sachets and plastic pots of UHT milk, clanks the china cups.
‘Why have you got the television on, on mute?’ he says, noticing the dancing picture in the gloom.
‘I turned it on and I didn’t know how to turn it off.’
‘Silent rugby at Twickenham is oddly hypnotic.’
Fin hands a cup to me, demonstrating good manners in twisting it so the handle is nearest. From his bearing, you’d think he went to a posh school, not my school. He is a bit of a Gatsby.
‘Thank you.’
‘Want to be alone, or shall I stay for a while?’ Fin says.
‘Stay! If that’s OK.’
‘Of course.’
Fin pours hot water onto a tea bag, dunks it and casts it aside, and walks to the bed. It’s so huge that he can lie on it and channel surf without it feeling as if we’re in bed together.
As I drink, I realise that as well as being emotionally unsettled, I was half drunk and dehydrated. Halfway down the cup, I feel significantly steadier.
Finlay holds the remote aloft and clicks through channels rapidly. For a few seconds, a male model with goatee and top knot in huge plus fours swings down a catwalk and holds a jacket off his shoulder, before pulling it up, wheeling round and stalking onward.
‘Oh fucks sake. Where’s the off button on this thing?!’ Finlay points the remote while pretend hammering at it in straight-faced ire, and I gurgle with delight both at the incident, and Fin having a sense of humour about it.
I have a tiny revelation: I like him. I’m not sure I trust him, but I do like him.
‘Oh my God, can you do that?’ I say.
‘What, walk? Yes. Thank you.’
‘Can I see a modelling picture? Are there any online?’
‘No, too old, I’m afraid. Archive material. They were still using Box Brownie cameras.’
I gurgle some more. This was the brightener I needed.
‘Did you do any famous “campaigns”, as I believe they’re called?’
In laughter, I’ve unintentionally rolled closer to Finlay. Our arms are nearly touching, and neither of us are moving away again.
‘Hmmmm, not telling you. You’ll look it up.’
‘You said there’s no photos of you anywhere!’
‘I was lying, as people do when they do not wish problematic women to know things.’
‘Problematic, haha.’
He lifts his hips off the bed, pulls his phone out of his sweatpant pocket, turns it on and presses a few buttons, careful to angle the screen away from me. ‘Think there was one for a whisky brand that was quite Mad Men, that I didn’t hate …’
My heart rate jumps a little, as it dawns on me he’s doing this not only to oblige me, but to impress me. I didn’t think for a second he’d actually show me anything, in my teasing. But I have more power than I realised.
Fin holds the phone, screen side to his chest.
‘Alright, I’ll show you this but the search term has been obscured for a reason!’
He barks this in a mock ‘schoolteacher when the bell rings’ voice and I’m weak with giggling as he turns the phone toward me and I hold it steady, my hand over his, and examine the image. It has such an effect on me, I almost wish I hadn’t started this.
Finlay Hart in a slim-cut, dark brown sixties suit, one arm thrown over the back of a leather booth, the other holding a lowball glass with ice, staring straight down the lens with a ‘come shag me then’ petulant challenge in his eyes. His hair is coal black and short, his skin looks lit from within.
‘You look phenomenal,’ I breathe. ‘Seriously. I don’t know why you’re embarrassed. I’d have this shit framed.’
‘If it’s cheered you up then maybe it was worth it,’ he says, charmingly, repocketing his phone and sipping his tea.
‘You’re an enigma, Finlay Hart,’ I say.
Fin sets his cup down and turns his face to me, and we gaze at each other in the flickering moon glow of the television.
‘I don’t want to be an enigma.’
‘What do you want to be?’
‘Isn’t that always the big question.’
We both pretend to watch people hanging out of rolled-down windows and firing guns in the police car chase through nocturnal Los Angeles streets in whatever film is playing, after the rugby. I don’t think either of us are thinking about it.
‘Do you ever wonder what it would be like, to drop all … this, with someone?’ Fin says, eventually. He makes a gesture up and down from his face to his shoulders and down to his waist that leaves me nonplussed. ‘The defences and the deceptions and ways we have of impressing people. To fully be yourself, with no … no fear, I guess? Of how you’re coming over. No management of the impression you’re making. Total honesty.’
I get an unwelcome flashback to being astride Zack, getting ready to pretend to be someone who would please him.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Maybe I should.’
‘For what it’s worth, if you could see yourself through my eyes, I don’t think you’d think you were a busted flush at this “living”, Evelyn.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I see a person who has everything going for her. The only thing you lack is self-belief.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. I parcel this incredible compliment up, mentally, to unwrap and fully enjoy, after he’s gone. ‘You’re not doing badly yourself.’
‘Hah. That’s what I told myself. It’s so strange being back here. I realise I left part of myself behind. Like pulling yourself out of a bear trap and half your leg not coming with you. You’re free, but you limp.’
‘Why was it a bear trap?’
‘I said had you ever wondered about dropping this,’ he motions at himself again, smiling. ‘Not that I was ready to.’
‘Haha. I don’t want to be an enigma, said the man who spoke in code.’
‘I think what I really meant was: I don’t want to be an enigma to you.’
‘Why?’
We’re side by side on a bed and he’s looking down at me, steadily. I’m accosted by an urge to pull his t-shirt upwards. Wait wait wait … are we going to kiss … surely not? I’m very nervous, yet, I discover, receptive to this turn of events, looking at his outline in half light and being close enough to smell his shower gel. I lean in closer so our sides are touching, my right breast pressing against his arm. It’s as encouraging as I can be, using nerve endings, without seizing him. He’s still too intimidating for me to risk that.
‘I should go to bed,’ Fin says, pulling back and sitting up straighter, voice a notch louder.