Page 94 of Last Night

‘Yes, your senses are correct. I ended it in spring, but she’s convinced I’m going to change my mind.’

‘Are you?’

‘Oof. More of these, before I can do that? Same again, thanks,’ Fin says at my nodding, and gestures to the barman.

‘No, I’m not, but I have a relationship with her five-year-old that I’m finding very hard to walk away from. Also, she said a thing in our final fight that I can’t forget. I’ve lain awake in the dark, thinking about it.’

‘Was it …life is one vile fuckin’ task after another? Al Swearengen,Deadwood.’

Fin laughs, fully corpses, and I know I’ve definitively broken through the hard carapace with him. Susie would’ve found that funny, too.

‘She said … ah, thanks.’ Fresh drinks arrive. Fin waits for the barman to move away. ‘She said … you don’t want me because I remind you too much of yourself.’

‘… Oh.’

‘Mmm.’

‘What did she mean?’

‘She means – well, she said as much – I’m tough and I’m cynical and my faith in people is broken. But I want an optimistic, kind, more gentle, person to restore all that. Someone who, if I actually got, she said, I would eat alive and pick my teeth with her bones.’

‘Oh.’ On my bare knowledge, Romilly sounds like she might have him sussed.

‘Plus she said, “That sweetness and light girl hasno chat”,’ he grins.

‘No chat?’

‘No wit, no comebacks, no spark. Can’t make me laugh.’

‘Did she have someone in mind?’

‘No. It was very Romilly to be disgusted by even thethoughtof the next person I might date.’

‘Why does it keep you awake?’

‘Because I’m forty in four years’ time, and I worry she’s right. When you pass on something that has good things about it, but isn’t good enough, you’re gambling that something one day will feel better, aren’t you? Stick, or twist. I’m getting old enough to say: I might be wrong about that.’

I pause. ‘Fuck, you sound like my mum! Don’t tell me Mum was right about Mark!’

‘Well. She remarried a “human burp”. Equally you can be too accommodating.’

I honk loud enough that the barman looks over.

Fin’s phone, lying on the bar, bursts into light. Not only a call, a full-screen picture, a FaceTime. Featuring first a red-haired woman, then jostled by a small red-haired boy. I think: bit late to have a child up? Then remember New York is hours behind.

‘Oh, speak of the devil,’ Fin says, with a startle at Romilly’s features. ‘I best get this.’

‘Of course,’ I say, swigging the last of my drink and pushing down off my stool.

‘Meet at nine in the lobby for the grand tour of Leith?’ Fin says.

‘You’re on!’

Upstairs, I get into my room, pull my pyjamas on, tease my hair out of its pins and brush it smooth under the bathroom light.

As I pad through to the bedroom I see my phone flashing on the nightstand. I pick it up – it’s an unknown caller, an international number with mysterious digits.

Out of the sheer intrigue, I answer it.

---