Page 73 of Last Night

‘Yeah … mostly. I’m not sure I want to stay for good. Put it this way, when I get together with friends all we do is moan about how awful it is, which is the point you know you’re a native. How about you? Do you like Nottingham?’

For once, Fin’s determinedly neutral tone sounds like something approximating grace.

‘Hahaha. New York … to Nottingham. Big Apple to … tiny oranges. Big cats to bin raccoons.’

Fin smiles. ‘I like it.’

Of course he does, in that gently patronising way that cool people, who have nothing to prove, feign approval of uncool things.

‘You left it,’ I say, also smiling.

He loosens his collar and peers up at a road sign.

‘Sometimes people leave places they like. Sometimes people leave peoplethey like.’

‘You’re a therapist, aren’t you … are we into therapy now? Can you charge for this?’ I say.

‘No matter how many years I’ve done my job, this being said to me never gets old,’ he says, still smiling, but it’s thinner, and I make a mental note he doesn’t want to discuss his work.

‘Do I like Nottingham. Yes in some ways, no in others,’ I conclude.

‘That’s every adjusted person’s view of anywhere really, isn’t it?’ Fin says. ‘I’d mistrust anyone who said “Yeah where I live,best place ever, it’s perfection.” I would suspect it’s more about their choices having to be the best ones.’

I steal a sidelong look at him. This sort of cynicism, I can work with.

‘You say that, but my dad lives on a sheep farm in Australia and I think you’ll find it’s literal heaven on earth.’

‘Do you mistrust him?’

‘… Yes,’ I say, and in mutual surprise, I laugh and Fin grudgingly smiles. His face looks completely altered in amusement, like he was never the other person all along. It freaks me out a little.

God, it’s come back to me: Susie conceding he was probably a good model because: ‘He looks different in every single photo. Not like a different photo of the same person, or another angle, a different person. Brrrr.’

That now-familiar hard pang that I can never tell her any of this. With the added psychic blockade of the fight I can never have with her, either.

After over an hour of intermittent, low-key small talk, Fin sees a blinking on a mobile he has in a holder and says: ‘Ah. Romilly’s calling me.’

‘Romilly?’

There’s no time for further explanation as he prods ‘Accept Call’.

‘Hi, Rom,’ Fin frowns. ‘You’re on speakerphone, I’m in the car. I have someone with me.’

Crackle: ‘Who?’

‘Eve. She was a friend of my sister’s. She’s helping me find my dad. Remember he absconded?’

‘Oh. Hello, Eve?’ says a crisp, East Coast,Sex and the Cityvoice. A Charlotte one, or actually – Miranda.

‘Hi!’ I say.

‘I wanted to let you know that Ethan’s appointment went fine. They want to see him again in three months but they don’t think there’s any damage to his hearing.’

‘That’s great. Is he happy?’

‘Oh yeah, he’s back to being a little jerk again. I took him to Balthazar to celebrate and he ate half the breakfast menu. The waiter couldn’t believe it.’

‘Good! Tell him I’ll bring him something back from here.’

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