Page 91 of Last Night

An awkward pause ensues.

‘OK, since Bev’s brought it up, we can’t avoid it any longer. Will you marry me?’ Fin says. ‘We don’t know each other but we can’t make a worse mess than most people who do get to know each other first, right?’

‘Since you put it like that.’

I laugh gratefully, and we clink glasses. I initially took his words as a graceful way of breaking the tension, but he’s gazing at me in a way that might, just possibly, be construed as flirtatious? Nothing thus far has prepared me for Finlay Hart, flirting. Had you asked me the one thing he’d never do, I’d have said, flirting.

It’s not fair, in these surroundings, in his white shirt, with his bone structure, after Jesus has dropkicked me through the goalposts of life.

‘Can I tell you something weird, without you thinking I’m weird?’ Fin says.

‘Probably depends on it not being too weird?’ I say, trying to reassert some sass, as I feelvulnerable and a little bit … what would my mum call it?Squiffy.

‘Years back, maybe five years ago, I was in a bar in the East Village. The kind of self-regarding place that plays Yo La Tengo and Whitney Houston and the barmen have sex-offender moustaches. There’s a dog walking around and it serves melon-flavoured cocktails in jelly jars … The dog’s not serving.’

‘Jelly?’

‘Jamjars, sorry. See, I’ve got some American in me now. And “Catch” by The Cure came on, you know it?’

‘Yes, this is my wheelhouse! Kind of a ditty …? “I’d see her when the days got colder” – that one?’

‘Yes!’ Fin’s the most animated I’ve ever seen him.

‘That song came on and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I got this pin-sharp image of you stood at the door when you used to call for Susie. A big bow in your hair. Your solemn eyes.’

I gasp.

‘I didn’t think you remembered me! Or any of that. Or I’d have mentioned it.’

Finlay frowns.

‘Of course I do. I’ve been away for a while but I don’t have amnesia. Listening to that song, thousands of miles away, so many years after: I realised what it was about you that felt so unusual.’

‘Was it the Edwardian ghost hair accessory?’

‘You always looked so worried. For a kid.’

‘Did I?’

He plays with his wine glass stem again and looks at me, and I feel seen, though I’m not fully sure why.

‘Yeah. Well, to me. Maybe it takesone to know one.’

I puzzle.

‘Shall we get the bill?’ Fin says.

‘Fancy a nightcap?’ I say, when we get back to The Caley. ‘On me, too! I don’t like not paying for anything.’

‘Why not,’ Fin says.

Its bar is a narrow, galley space so we have to sit side by side on high stools at a counter, which I always like.

I watch the barman rattle ice in a shaker like a maraca after we order two smoked Old Fashioneds.

With minutes to go, I remember my nine p.m. check in with Ed, and apologise while I hack out an EVERYTHING FINE, SITUATION NORMAL bulletin, without explaining that’s what it is.

‘Sorry, meant to reply to my friend Ed about something,’ I say.

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