earned him a frown. ‘It was always my dream to go to art college, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. He said I needed to learn a proper trade. That messing about with paints and canvases wouldn’t put food on the table.’
‘Supportive then?’ I said, taking another sip of wine and thinking how comfortable and relaxed Jasmine looked. Her eyelids were beginning to droop.
‘He’s old school,’ said Finn. ‘What you’d call a man’s man and my half-brother is a chip off the old block.’
‘But not you?’
‘No, not me.’ He sighed. ‘I take after my mum.’
‘So how come you’re here?’ I asked. I wanted to find out the rest of his story now. ‘Making sculptures from scrap is a big leap from paints and canvases and laying bricks.’
‘It’s taken me a while to get here.’
‘Go on.’
He shifted to get more comfortable and I handed him his glass because he couldn’t reach it.
‘Dad didn’t know it,’ he continued, ‘but I always had it in the back of my mind that I’d go to college once I’d qualified as a builder and even though a few years passed, I was still determined not to give up on my dream, that is until I went to a couple of college open days. I wasn’t there long before I realised how out of place I looked, how much older than everyone else I suddenly was.’
‘What, even the mature students?’
I knew that plenty of people returned to education or had career changes.
‘At the ages I was, I seemed to kind of fall in-between,’ he frowned. ‘Too young for the mid-life lot and definitely too old for the rest.’
‘So, what happened after that?’ I asked, leaning a little closer in my eagerness.
‘I carried on doing various bits and pieces at home, and then one day we were helping this couple clear out a garage ahead of building an extension. We were filling skip after skip and I realised what a waste it was, sending it all to landfill just because it was unwanted or no longer fit for its original purpose.’
He looked at me and I nodded for him to continue.
‘I took a few things home and reimagined them into something else. Took them apart and then put them back together in a totally different way.’
‘I see,’ I said, as the pieces began to fall into place.
‘It was a complete fluke that Luke happened to see one of the pieces I’d made. He’d come to talk to Dad about some work we were doing here and arrived as I was moving it around in the garage.’
‘Your dad was a bit miffed about that, wasn’t he?’ said Luke, as he came back into the room and caught the thread of conversation.
‘Yeah,’ grinned Finn. ‘He was embarrassed, I think. His idea of what I should have been spending my free time doing wasn’t quite the same as his.’
‘But I could see that Finn had a real talent and a passion that wasn’t going to be fulfilled in a tiny corner of his garage at home,’ Luke told me, ‘so, after we got to know each other a bit better, I offered him the studio here to work in and a commission to go with it.’
‘When I told Dad,’ Finn carried on, ‘he went nuts.’
‘So, we turned the space above the studio into a flat,’ said Kate, joining us again, carrying with her a delicious smell and cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen.
‘And now,’ said Finn, bringing me up to date, ‘I’ve just moved in.’
‘And are you still working for your dad?’ I asked. ‘Or have you fallen out completely?’
‘He’s still not come around to the idea, but we’re not completely estranged,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. ‘I would love to make a full-time living from the sculptures, but for now I’m working as a builder by day and in the studio at night and during the weekends. I don’t want to fall out with the family so I’m trying to juggle things and I’m so grateful to you two,’ he added, turning to Kate and Luke, ‘for giving me this opportunity.’
I raised my glass to the pair of them too.
‘I’d like to add my gratitude to Finn’s, if I may?’ I smiled. ‘You’ve given me an amazing opportunity too. Thank you both so much.’
‘That’s one thing we do have in common,’ said Finn, smiling at me and making me blush.
‘That and really, really long hair,’ said Jasmine, who was suddenly wide awake again. ‘Did you bring my