‘I know what you mean,’ Pepper agreed. ‘It never seems to stop, does it?’
‘It does if you switch some of it off,’ he said simply. ‘But I reckon when it comes to most people, there’s a real fear of becoming disconnected, of missing out, you know?’
‘What did you do when you realised all this?’ she asked. ‘Did you just quit?’
‘I did.’ He shrugged. ‘Just like that. And it was the best decision I ever made. It lost me some friends; and my girlfriend left me––’
‘No!’ Pepper was appalled. ‘Just because you resigned?’
Samuel shrugged. ‘She had a plan, and the salary I would eventually have made as a surgeon was a large part of it.’ He cut Pepper off before she got the opportunity to say something disparaging. ‘She’s honestly not a bad girl, just the wrong girl for me. Last I heard, she was happily married to a consultant and they’d had a few kids, so I’m sure she’s got no regrets.’
‘And you think she was The One?’ Pepper asked earnestly.
Samuel laughed. ‘The One?’ he repeated, making inverted comma marks in the air as they continued walking towards the house.
‘I’m telling you, Pepper – there is no such thing.’
Chapter 19
It felt strange to be applying make-up so late in the evening, but Pepper wanted to look her best for her date. The FaceTime date she had arranged with Finn.
She had tried on at least three different outfits since receiving his message, eventually settling on a plain black vest top and checked pyjama shorts. Over this she threw her chunkiest, floppiest jumper – a gift from a client she had taught to knit the previous year – before pulling a brush through her freshly washed hair.
She felt nervous, but they were the good kind of trembles. The ones that transformed your belly into a bubbling cauldron and made it impossible to sit still. Pepper found that she couldn’t concentrate on anything – not her novel, not the radio, not a BBC crime drama series starring one of her favourite actors – so she eventually gave up on all three and went on a cleaning spree instead. If this was how she was going to feel before every call with Finn, her house would resemble a show home within days.
She wished she had a friend that she could speak to – someone her own age, who would give her advice about where to position herself for her call, and how she could angle her face to make it look less like a big looming ham. Why were phone cameras so unflattering? How did all those influencers manage to look so perfect on their Instagram stories? It was a mystery to Pepper, and one she knew Josephine would have no answer for.
She scrolled through her contact list, but every name she paused at was a client, or a school friend who had long since moved away. She had seen gangs of mums having coffee together along the high street, some of whom she recognised vaguely from college, but Pepper had never plucked up the courage to go over and reintroduce herself. Most women her age had several big groups of friends, from work, university or their NCT groups – but Pepper only had her mother, Josephine and, she supposed, although it was a stretch, Samuel. And she was not about to text him and ask for some tips of how to look desirable on a FaceTime date. He would laugh her into the middle of next month.
Pepper had assigned Finn his own special ringtone, but she still jumped about a foot in the air when she heard it. Giving her hair a final fiddle and rubbing a finger along her teeth in case any of her red lipstick had somehow ended up on them, she arranged a smile on her face and answered.
‘Hallo!’
Finn’s slightly blurry face came into view, his smile so wide that it didn’t fit the screen.
‘Hey, hey you.’ Pepper felt heat in her cheeks. He looked so handsome, so clean, so exactly as she had pictured him over and over, ever since she and Josephine climbed into a taxi and drove away from him. Finn was still in Lisbon, he told her, turning his phone around and giving her a sweeping glance at his hotel room, but he was flying home in the morning.
‘Did you find any more artists for your site?’ Pepper asked, glancing down at her own image in the bottom corner of her screen. It was really hard not to, and every time she did, the urge to grimace overwhelmed her. She looked like Phil Mitchell from EastEnders, only more like a thumb.
‘Ja,’ Finn told her happily. ‘One who does ceramic fish, and another who is making these,’ he went on, rustling in a bag before holding up a white plant pot with holes cut out for eyes and a mouth.
‘He is . . . cute,’ Pepper said. ‘That smile is very enigmatic, isn’t it? He’s the Mona Lisa of pots.’
‘That is what I said!’ Finn exclaimed, even more animated now. ‘We are like this,’ he added, tapping the side of his head and then pointing towards her.
‘Great minds,’ she agreed.
‘I like your hair like this,’ he said then. ‘And the black – it suits you.’
‘Thanks.’ Pepper dipped her chin. ‘I hardly ever wear it.’
‘Well, you should.’ He paused for a moment, his mouth twisting to one side, and then he said, ‘du siehst umwerfend aus.’
Pepper tried to repeat his words, but he laughingly cut across her.
‘In English, it means you look staggering – or stunning.’
‘I’m sure I don’t.’ Pepper cringed. ‘I can see myself, you know.’
‘Will you show me your house?’ Finn asked, and Pepper breathed with relief, glad to be off the subject of how good she might or might not look. Getting up from where she had arranged herself on the sofa, she took him on a mini tour which started in the front room and ended upstairs in her bedroom. When she turned the phone back around, she saw that Finn was now under the covers of his hotel bed and had also removed his shirt.
‘Oh,’ she said, unable to stop her eyeballs from bulging in appreciation. Finn was in very good shape and seemed wholly at ease to be half-naked on her phone.
‘My flight is early tomorrow,’ he said, by way of an explanation. ‘It is bedtime for me.’
‘Do you want me to go?’ Pepper hastened, sitting down on the edge of her bed, but Finn shook his head.
‘No – please stay. Perhaps . . .’ He stopped and eyed her for a moment or two. Pepper felt as if she had newsprint all over her face, and that he was trying his best to decipher it.
‘Perhaps what?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps we can both get into bed, and then it will be like we are together, under the covers.’
Pepper almost dropped her phone.
‘Er, OK,’ she said, standing up once again and folding back her duvet. A few seconds later, she was snuggled up against her pillow, her arm stretched out far enough to allow Finn to see her. She had taken off her cardigan, but left her vest on, although from the way he was now looking at her, she felt as if Finn could see straight through it.
‘This is nice,’ he said, as Pepper tried not to fuss with her hair. Being under the duvet certainly offered a more flattering light, but she was concerned about her face looking scrunched up, or her nose too big.
‘Are you OK?’ Finn asked, as Pepper chewed uncomfortably on her bottom lip.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘This is my first FaceTime call – I’m still getting used to it.’