and come and sit here by the stove.’ He led her down a dimly lit corridor to a large kitchen where he indicated an armchair clumsily draped with a purple chenille bedspread. ‘I’ll put on the kettle. Are you hungry?’
She nodded and Finn busied himself around the kitchen, making a pot of strong black tea and cutting two thick slices of bread which he tried to ram into the toaster. Muttering curses at the recalcitrant bread, he shaved off the excess crusts. It was still a snug fit. ‘There,’ he said, pleased. ‘It won’t take a minute now.’
His guest sat obediently by the large wood-fired stove, warming her hands and looking curiously at Finn and then hungrily at the toaster. Finn had the hunched shoulders of a man uncomfortable with his height; with his long thin legs and narrow face he looked for all the world like an apologetic stork. Excuse me, she could hear him murmur at stork meetings and stork functions, do you mind if I sit here, in this seat at the back? And there he would sit looking morosely at the more successful storks, the better dressed storks, the richer storks, the whole network of storks as they mingled and discussed storkly issues with a confidence, a conviction that he could only wonder at.
The toaster, struggling to expel its burden, gave a kind of whummph that was the signal for Finn to perform an extraction and proceed to the generous application of butter.
‘Jam? Honey? I’m out of Vegemite, I’m afraid.’ He looked at Miranda with eyes so blue, so kind, that she burst into tears. ‘If I’d known you were coming I would have got some Vegemite,’ he said, bewildered at her extreme reaction to its absence. He hovered over her, flapping his hands, making little soothing noises.
‘Honey’s fine,’ she sniffled. ‘I’m just cold and tired.’
His grin was unpractised. ‘Honey it is then.’ He indicated for her to come and sit at the table and poured tea into two mugs. ‘Now,’ he said, stirring his tea nervously. ‘What shall I call you? Miranda’s nice, but it is a bit of a mouthful.’
‘You’re telling me.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Wait till you hear my full name—Miranda Ophelia Sinclair. There’s a mouthful for you. I hardly ever get called Miranda. Everyone calls me Moss. It’s from—’
‘From your initials. Very clever. A good solution.’ He looked at her with something like admiration. ‘Moss is a very good solution.’
‘Mother Linsey doesn’t think so. She used to insist on calling me Miranda and I would refuse to answer and we’d go on like that for hours. Days, sometimes. But in the end, on my thirteenth birthday, she gave me a book, some sheet music and a new beach towel and promised to call me Moss from then on. It was a good birthday. Even her card said Happy Birthday, Moss. Mother Amy only called me Miranda when she was mad at me about something.’
Finn’s alarm had returned when he heard the name Linsey. ‘You said before that your mother knows me,’ he said. ‘What’s her name? Where do I know her from?’
Moss licked honey from her fingers and stole a look at his face. Now the moment had come, panic constricted her throat. The bravado with which she had set out had been washed away with the rain. She swallowed painfully. ‘Amy,’ she mumbled. ‘Her name is Amy Sinclair. You knew her from before I was born.’
Finn slopped his tea as he set down the mug. ‘Amy Sinclair . . . Amy and Linsey.’ He stood up abruptly and fussed with the kettle. It was so long ago. The person he was then no longer existed. What was he supposed to say to this . . . this interloper who had materialised on his doorstep? Crouching down on his haunches, he poked at the fire and looked at her covertly from under his eyebrows. She was obviously waiting for him to say something. He frowned. There was something not quite right . . . What was it? It came to him suddenly.
‘Obviously you didn’t turn out according to plan,’ he observed in what he hoped was a normal voice. ‘What did Linsey have to say about that?’
Moss flinched. Despite Linsey’s assurances to the contrary, she had always believed she was a disappointment and here at last was confirmation. She’d been right all along. Her resentment was justified. Her pain was real. She looked straight at Finn, her tone carefully neutral.