‘Ah,’ he replied, nodding as if he understood. ‘I am honoured, then. I am your first?’
‘First FaceTime,’ she clarified.
‘And first German?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘That, too.’
‘And first man you have met abroad?’
‘Lisbon was the first time I’ve ever been abroad,’ she confessed, and Finn’s eyes widened.
‘And did you catch the bug?’ he asked. ‘The travel bug?’
Pepper thought for a moment. She had loved every minute of her time in Lisbon, had not stopped thinking about it and was counting down the days until she and Josephine headed off to Barcelona for the second part of their quest.
‘Maybe a bit,’ she told him. ‘But I’m not sure where I would go next, if it was up to me.’
Finn moved his face closer to his phone, until his lips felt as if they were only inches away. Pepper could feel herself unfurling as desire began to nudge its way through her body; her limbs felt loose and her lips heavy. What she wanted more than anything was for Finn to be here, so she could kiss him, so she could press herself against him.
‘I miss you,’ she murmured, making herself look right into his eyes. They were almost black under here, beneath the covers, deep pools of the darkest water.
‘Das ist gut,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Because I miss you, too.’
They had not discussed when they would next see each other before Pepper left Lisbon, but the suggestion that they would was absolute. She had assumed he would offer to visit, but so far Finn hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps he was waiting for her? Pepper was struck then by a flash of courage, her need to see Finn – to properly see him again – smashing down the boundaries that she would usually cower behind, too polite or too fearful to peer over them.
‘I know,’ she said, reaching out and touching her phone, her finger on his lips. ‘I know where I would go first, if it was up to me.’
Finn said nothing, he simply smiled at her expectantly.
‘Hamburg,’ she told him. ‘I would come and see you. Is that mad? That is mad, isn’t it?’
‘Ja,’ he agreed, nodding as she laughed. ‘I think mad, yes. But mad ist gut!’
‘You’re funny,’ she told him. ‘But I can’t just fly over to Hamburg.’
‘Can’t you?’
‘Can I?’
‘Pepper,’ Finn said, and she could see from his expression that he was no longer joking.
‘You are a grown woman. You can do whatever you want.’
Chapter 20
When Pepper knocked on her mother’s front door the following morning, it was with all the confidence of someone who was taking charge of their life, making decisions, being bold, and booking a flight over to Hamburg to see the man they were pretty sure they were falling for as hard and as fast as a bulldozer.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said cheerfully. ‘No, I won’t take my shoes off, because we’re going out. Come on.’
‘What are you talking about?’ her mother replied, rather irritably. ‘Go where?’
‘Ipswich. I thought we could go shopping, get something to wear at Dad’s wedding, maybe have lunch?’
Her mother gaped at her.
‘Come on, Mum,’ she chivvied. ‘It’s not as if I’ve asked you to come and climb to Everest Base Camp with me – it’s just the shopping centre.’
‘Shopping?’ her mum echoed. ‘Now?’
‘Yes! Why not? You don’t have anything else planned for this afternoon, do you?’
The plastic hallway runner creaked as her mother shifted from one slipper to the other.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think that––’
‘That settles it, then.’ Pepper started to back away before her mother could come up with an excuse. ‘I’ve left the engine running in the car, so you get your things together while I turn around.’
Giving her mother a beaming smile of encouragement, she skipped back towards the Volvo, proud of herself for being so assertive. For over twenty-three years she had been mostly tiptoeing around her mother, terrified of saying anything that would upset her, but today she felt galvanised – by Finn, but also by herself. Nothing would ever change unless she did something to change it, and that meant she must find the strength to alter her routine and behaviour.
Pepper watched as her mum closed the front door behind her, double locking it and checking three times to make sure it could not be opened. Despite the May sunshine doing a grand job of pushing aside the clouds, she had put a smart camel-coloured trench coat on over her navy slacks and pale grey jumper and was hunched over as if she was cold. Pepper leant forwards and switched on the fan heater.
‘I’m not sure we’ll find anything worth wearing in Ipswich,’ she grumbled, as Pepper manoeuvred the big car out of the cul-de-sac.
‘Shall we go to London, then? I can drive us straight to the station and––’
‘No. For heaven’s sake, Philippa. London? What a thing to say.’
It took all of Pepper’s self-control not to laugh out loud, and no matter how much her mother acted as if she had been kidnapped throughout the remainder of the drive, Pepper refused to allow her buoyant mood to be affected. She hoped that eventually, her mother would give in, would laugh at one of Pepper’s jokes or ask her how her trip to Lisbon had been. She did neither, however, preferring to stare gloomily out of the window as Pepper prattled on about whatever subject came to mind next.
Her mother’s mood did not improve when she saw the queue trailing out of the multi-storey car park, nor when Pepper used her sat nav to hunt for an alternative, only for it to direct them a mile out of the town centre.
‘We can walk it?’ Pepper said lightly. ‘It’s a nice day.’
Her mother sighed.
‘I just want to get this over with,’ she muttered, and Pepper felt her resolve beginning to crack.
In the end, she drove them back to the original car park, and after ten or so minutes of waiting, a space became free and they were in. Her mother said nothing as they ventured towards the central shopping centre and shook her head at the suggestion that they stop for coffee and cake first.
Pepper’s resolve cracked further.
‘How about this?’ she asked, twenty minutes later, holding up what she thought was a chic and feminine floral number.
Her mother pulled the sort of face one would if they had stepped in a cow pat.
‘Flowers,’ she said disparagingly.
‘And?’ Pepper said beseechingly. ‘Flowers are nice.’
A tut.
‘OK, then – how about this?’
She had selected the fluorescent pink jumpsuit with the diamanté straps on purpose to provoke her mother into laughter, but not even this seemed to work. Her mother merely sighed again, as she had been all morning, and folded her arms across her chest.
‘If you’re not going to take this seriously, Philippa, then why did we come?’
‘I was only joking,’ Pepper complained. ‘You remember what jokes are, don’t you? Those things you tell to make people loosen up a bit.’
‘Perhaps I just don’t find your particular brand of humour funny,’ her mother threw back, sounding prim. Turning away, she ran a hand down the silk front of a plain, cream blouse.