‘Nein,’ she said firmly, her tone unequivocal. ‘It was stupid, just one night. I hope you don’t think that we––’
‘It’s OK, I don’t,’ Pepper said hurriedly. ‘Finn explained it all. I don’t, you know, blame you or anything.’
‘Danke.’ Clara regarded her for a moment through flawlessly made-up eyes. ‘You are very understanding, very kind. I am glad that Finn has you in his life now – you are good for him. A good influence,’ she said.
Pepper felt her cheeks heating up from the compliment.
‘Is Otto looking forward to becoming an uncle?’ she asked, guessing that he would soon be referring to himself as one.
Clara nodded.
‘Otto is like my little brother,’ she said, her smile widening as they heard the man in question bellowing something about it being ‘two fucking minutes to go, bitches’.
‘He is such a mad baby – being around him is good practice for when I become a mother. We are a family,’ she added. ‘We all care about each other. Finn and I – we will make it work, and he will make it work with you. I don’t want you to worry about anything.’
Pepper did not know how to answer. Instead, she said teasingly, ‘So, you and Otto never . . . ?’
Clara clapped her hands as if Pepper had just revealed the punchline to a hilarious joke.
‘Mein Gott! Is that what you think? Otto is not in love with me,’ she exclaimed. ‘He loves the bottle, and his friends, and different girls every night of the week.’
‘And you?’ Pepper probed. ‘Who do you love?’
Clara’s hand dropped to her stomach, and she fixed Pepper with a no-nonsense stare.
‘This one,’ she said. ‘There is nothing more important now – or ever again for me.’
There it was. So simple and undeniable.
The baby was more important than anything or anyone else, than any friendship fractured by complicated feelings. Finn and Clara must have thought they were in control of their situation, that they were good enough friends for one no-strings hook-up to affect them, but it had. They had created a new piece for the puzzle of their lives, one around which all the others must be built, and there was nothing else to do but feel thankful. Happy and grateful that such a beautiful picture would soon begin to take shape for them both.
‘I don’t think I have said this yet.’ Pepper offered a smile. ‘But congratulations.’
‘Danke.’ Clara’s big brown eyes softened. ‘Ah,’ she said, glancing over Pepper’s shoulder, ‘Ah, look-look – here is Finn for the big Enthüllung.’
Everyone in the room shuffled forwards and made a semi-circle around their host, their phones poised ready to make videos and take photos. Otto made everyone laugh with a flamboyant shushing, and a photographer who had been hired for the night crouched down on his haunches in front of Finn.
Pepper felt suddenly apprehensive for him – and for whoever it was whose work was about to be shown. The pressure they must be feeling, what with all the expectation in the room, must be palpable. Even knowing that her portrait of Finn was on one of the walls here made her feel peculiar enough – a severe case of imposter syndrome that had been gurgling away in her stomach all night.
Someone had passed Finn a microphone, which he held up to his lips now, waiting until the room had fallen silent before beginning to speak.
‘Hallo, Freunde,’ he began, his eyes searching until they found Pepper’s.
‘I am going to speak in English tonight, because there is something I need someone to hear, and to understand.’
He smiled then, and Pepper was transported back to those steps in Lisbon, back to that square where they had sheltered from the rain, to the moment she had known that this time, it was different. That he was special.
‘The story begins at the start of this summer,’ he said.
‘And with a girl I have been waiting my whole life to meet.’
Chapter 51
Pepper could not believe he was doing this.
She wanted to flee, but her legs were fence posts buried deep in concrete. All she could do was stand, rooted to the spot, the air constricting inside her chest as it became clear what Finn was talking about.
Her.
‘I think when it concerns art,’ he said, ‘curation comes not from knowledge, but from instinct. We, all of us, choose based not on what we know, but what we feel.’
He tapped a hand against his chest.
‘All the pieces I have selected for my website’ – Finn smiled as a cheer went up in the room – ‘are there because they made me feel something when I saw them, and because I want to share that feeling.’
Another cheer.
‘So, when I saw this person, this woman . . .’
His eyes flickered once again to Pepper.
‘I felt something right away, in the first moment. We all laugh when someone says they have fallen in love at first sight, but why? We do it with cars, with clothes, with art,’ he went on, gesturing around. ‘So, why not with people?’
There was a murmur in the audience as people either nodded or shook their heads, and Finn watched on, smiling as he always seemed to, amused at life and its many beguiling twists and turns. He saw so much, Pepper thought – more than she could claim to see. It was why he was so easy to love, because he was so interested.
‘I have always been a person who goes after the things that they want,’ he said, this time looking across at his parents. Pepper read nothing but affection on his mother’s face, but his father’s expression was unreadable.
‘And I am proud of the things I have achieved – my business here, this website.’
Yet another cheer went up.
‘And now, it would seem, I have something very special coming to me that I did not plan.’
Finn looked towards Clara, who shifted from one spiky stiletto to the other.
‘But that I know I will fall in love with as soon as I see him or her.’
There was a smattering of laughter as Finn held up two crossed fingers.
‘I thought that I had learnt all the lessons I needed,’ he went on. ‘I was arrogant in that way, and I was a fool – a dummkopf. This girl that I met, she has taught me that there is still much to learn, about what is important, about who matters the most, and why sometimes it is better to do what you must instead of what you want. I am a better man because of her,’ he said seriously. ‘And tonight, I can launch my website because of her.’
Now he really had gone too far, Pepper thought, trying to catch Finn’s eye to illustrate how confused she felt. He wasn’t looking at her, though, he had turned and was reaching for the edge of the sheet behind him. There was a small intake of breath as he gathered up the material in one hand, and then a gasp followed by rapturous applause as the cover fell to the floor.
Pepper did not clap, or move – she simply stared, her mouth falling open and her heart thudding like a trapped bird against her chest.
This must be some sort of trick, or sorcery, or she must be seeing things. Perhaps this was all a dream and she was still asleep in her cottage back in Aldeburgh? Because what she was looking at couldn’t be true – those could not be her tiles up on the wall. Her collage of Hamburg, of her love story with Finn, all the moments they had shared and the places they had been, of her feelings captured as swirls of colour – a picture not only of time spent, but of wounds healed and lessons learnt.