not days, we’re not going to find him doing stupid sightseeing buses. Not that I had any better ideas,’ he adds, remembering it was my suggestion.
‘Yeah. I reckon in a new place, he’ll stick to his former points of reference,’ I say. ‘Where was his family home? Where he grew up?’
‘Portobello, the seaside. Lovely day for it.’
‘Let’s go back to the hotel, dry off, get lunch and try that this afternoon.’
Finlay nods. ‘I think the forecast is actually dry, later.’
‘I might get a photo of this before we go,’ I say, looking out at the rain hoying it down.
I pull my phone out and unlock it, and with sickening inevitability, the last thing I had open appears, my camera roll. Finlay Hart glowering at me, unaware he was my subject.
Fin isn’t quite close enough to see the full screen but he can still spot himself well enough.
‘Is that … me?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, re-angling my phone, glad that my hood is partially obscuring my face, and that I can legitimately not meet his eyes, shrinking into the fur. ‘You wandered into my compositions of the castle.’
‘When I was standing still?’ Fin says, with his infuriatingly sharp thinking. I’m momentarily without comeback, sizzling with embarrassment, pretending to concentrate on focusing in on an archway, pushing at the screen with finger and thumb.
‘I wanted general mementos of the trip,’ I say, writhing internally.
‘Mementos of people who don’t know they’re being photographed,’ Fin says. ‘Do you also take locks of hair from your sleeping victims?’
I look at him in shame and his face is lit up in amusement.
‘Oh, now you stop sulking, in your malicious glee!’ I blurt, faux-indignant, but glad he’s not outright calling me sinister. ‘I’ll delete it if you’re that bothered.’
‘No, don’t. I’m touched you’d want to remember a single second of this,’ he says, in a diplomatic tone.
I put my rain-speckled phone away.
‘Can you get rid of any of the ones where I have a double chin though?’ Finlay says, with the insouciant flirtiness of someone who’s never been troubled by a double chin, and has slyly correctly guessed there’s photos, plural.
‘It’s a deal. Though I’d remind you, vanity is a sin.’
‘And I’d remind you that creepshotting is not ethical.’
The storm billows around us as we smile at each other under our hoods and I feel inexplicably … what’s the word? Soothed. I feel soothed.
Back at the hotel, I scroll through a series of unexpectedly luminous, sulky pictures of a man with dark hair in a blue coat, and feel something that I wouldn’t call soothed, exactly.
28
Although I appear at ten to one, in hopes of being first, Finlay is already sitting in the bar. He’s toying with the spoon in the saucer of a cup of tea, amid lots of young shiny people in 1920s fancy dress, buzzing from high spirits and midday alcohol.
They join in a lusty round of ‘Happy birthday Dear BOBBY!’ while a pleased-with-himself-looking cherubic lad with a side parting in a white tuxedo and lopsided bow tie raises a coupé glass to them. I notice the women, in feather headbands, dropped waists and kiss curls, are in badges saying ‘East Egg’, the dapper men branded ‘West Egg’.
‘It’s one of those passage of time ironies, isn’t it,’ I say, quietly, after greeting Fin and ordering a Diet Coke: ‘The Great Gatsby was about how wealth and glamour and social climbing will hollow you out and destroy you, steal the love of your life away. So naturally we appropriate it for “wahey, let’s get wrecked” costumes for parties that unironically celebrate those things.’
‘Haha. Never mind Jay Gatsby, I could tell them wealth and social climbing as a mysterious nobody in New York doesn’t lead anywhere good. My culture is not your prom dress, Bobby,’ Finlay says, with a knowing smile, looking up from under his brow. I’m momentarily floored by his exceptionally quick and self-aware riposte, combined with looking like a sodding film star. I can practically see the fireworks going off behind him.
‘A “passage of time” irony … is a good phrase. I’m a walking “passage of time irony”,’ he says.
I laugh in admiration, and Fin and I share a confidential look. I get the distinct impression he’s trying to make a connection with me, but I don’t know why he’d do that. I’ve lost my bearings and need to recover them, swiftly.
‘I wasn’t aware psychology was lucrative and social climby,’ I say, carefully, steadying myself. ‘But then I don’t know any psychologists so I’m not