my job isn’t here. I don’t want to tell you to come with me, even though I passionately want you to come with me, if that’s what you want. Tearing someone else’s life up by the roots like that isn’t fair. I don’t know how we make this work, but I don’t want to not try, either. So yes, I want to meet Roger. But meeting Roger has a lot riding on it. Because if this is just going to be a very eventful few days, I feel like we both should agree that. Not that it will make my leaving feel possible. OK. Now you.’
There’s a pause where I clear my throat and hope my voice works.
‘Yeah, same,’ I say, casually, and in the tension breaking we both laugh so much we have tears forming.
‘I think …’ I pause. ‘I think when you think of all the things we’ve both overcome, to be sat here in this car together, having found each other. I don’t think we should let the distance between England and New York bother us. We’ll work out what happens next. We got here. We’re together. That’s what matters.’
Fin leans down and kisses me, and I twist round and put my fingers into his hair and kiss him back, soft then harder, feeling him respond.
‘Might be easier if you undid your belt,’ Finlay whispers, pointing at it, twisted across my chest like I’m in a child harness. I guffaw.
‘Know when I knew that I loved you?’ he says. ‘When I met you in the lobby to go to dinner. You were walking across the lobby, bandy-legged in those heels like a Gumby in Monty Python. It was like I could hear an orchestra, and all the stars came out.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, it was either that moment, or when you were bellowing you’d not even seen my pubic area on Leith quayside. I was very relieved about that, by the way.’
‘Worst thing imaginable, for me to see you naked, then?’
‘My personal Vietnam. Let’s never let that happen.’
I laugh and reach for the door handle.
‘Why do I feel we understand each other so, so well, Evelyn? I’m meant to be the one who has answers for things like that,’ Fin says, looking at me in some sort of awe. ‘It’s like my whole life was about travelling back to you.’
I’ve had time to think about this, lying awake in a cottage listening to rain on the roof. Thinking about how Finlay never abandoned me, whether it was on bike rides as children, or hotel rooms as grown-ups.
‘Because of the lesson we taught each other,’ I say.
‘What is that?’
‘Recovery.’
44
Three Months Later
The quizmaster’s booming voice cuts through the burble of chatter.
‘In the BBC comedy series The Office, the Slough branch merges with a second branch of their paper merchant business. Where was that branch based? Where was that, branch based?’
Why do quiz comperes always put the pause in a sentence in a really odd place?
‘Reading,’ Justin hisses, tapping a forefinger on the sheet.
‘Ricky Gervais is from Reading, that’s why you think it’s Reading,’ I hiss back.
‘It’s not going to be a big city,’ Ed whispers, fingers rifling in a bag of Frazzles. ‘It’s got to be Slough equivalent.’
He throws a Frazzle to Leonard who wakes up, eats it and goes straight back to sleep.
‘It’s where the John Travolta dancing guy comes from,’ I whisper.
‘Which was Reading,’ Justin says.
‘It’s not! Back me up, Francis.’
Francis nods. ‘Reading’s too big.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Also not funny enough, somehow.’
‘Is Slough funny?’ Justin sniffs.
‘Intrinsically, yes,’ Ed says. ‘Imagine Vic Reeves singing in melodramatic voice … the whore was from SLOUGH! Funny.’
‘Swindon,’ Finlay says.
We all look at him in surprise.
‘You live in New York, you don’t know our trivia,’ I say.
‘It was on well before I left Britain, and we have the BBC over there.’
‘Swindon? You’re sure?’ I say.
‘Yep,’ Fin says, necking more beer. He complains about the ‘Carrington half stone’ he’s put on since we started dating, three months ago. As someone who regularly spins out brushing her teeth to watch him shower, I can confirm it suits him.
‘Right, that’s the last question,’ the compere says. ‘We’ll have a short break, then I’ll be back to do the scores.’
‘When do you fly back this time, Fin?’ Justin says.
‘Wednesday,’ he says. ‘I’ve reached the plausible limit of Skype consultations, for time being. Eve’s going to join me for her month in New York, the week after.’
He reaches up and touches the nape of my neck, under my ponytail. ‘I’m going to