Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

  The next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion. There was a loud honking of horns, a screech of alarm and a male voice shouting. Before Pepper could even untangle herself from the seatbelt, Josephine had been hoisted up in the air by a tall man in a hooded top, and the motorbike that had almost hit her was speeding away, its driver yelling obscenities over his shoulder.

  Rushing around the bonnet of the taxi, Pepper practically fell across Josephine, who had just been lowered gently to the ground by her rescuer.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she exclaimed, then, when Josephine nodded, ‘You gave me the scare of my life. What were you thinking? Jesus Christ, woman!’

  Glancing up, she was just about to start thanking the man when he pulled down his hood and smiled at her.

  ‘Wh––?’

  Josephine beamed up at them both from the pavement.

  ‘Finn, darling!’ she giggled. ‘Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?’

  Chapter 37

  In spite of the fact she had come less than an inch from death by angry motorcyclist, Josephine batted away Pepper’s suggestion that she see a doctor.

  ‘Not a scratch on me, thanks to this one,’ she said, linking an arm through Finn’s. ‘But I will let you come up and make me a hot toddy, if you insist.’

  ‘No more alcohol!’ Pepper implored, signalling to Finn with her eyes to back her up.

  ‘You heard what the lady said,’ he told her obediently. ‘I think it is best that we get you into bed.’

  ‘But it’s my final night.’ Josephine tried to wheel around as they reached the hotel entrance. ‘I was rather hoping to go out dancing. Jorge and I would go down to the beach at sunrise and dance across the sand. Did I ever tell you that?’

  ‘You did.’ Pepper smiled. ‘And if you want me to wake you up before sunrise so we can go and do the same thing together, then I will.’

  This seemed to satisfy her, and between them, they managed to get Josephine into the lift and up to her room without too much trouble. Finn boiled the kettle for tea while Pepper helped Josephine remove her make-up and wash her face. There was a black scuff mark on the hem of her beautiful trousers where they had been run over by the motorbike.

  ‘Are you sure nothing hurts?’ Pepper checked.

  ‘Only my pride,’ Josephine said, extracting a packet of ibuprofen from her washbag and swallowing two dry. ‘And I’m too old to worry about that now, thank heavens.’

  Pepper’s heart still raced. Her friend could so easily have hit her head, or had her arm broken.

  When they emerged from the bathroom, Finn was nowhere to be seen. Pepper held Josephine’s tea up to her lips so she could sip it, then tucked the sheets in around her and switched on the bedside lamp.

  ‘I’m only a few doors down, so just call my phone if you need me. It doesn’t matter what time it is.’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ Josephine was already closing her eyes. ‘And thank Finn for me too.’

  Finn. Their knight in efficient German armour. Where to even begin?

  Letting herself out of Josephine’s room, however, Pepper almost tripped right over him. Finn was sitting on the carpeted corridor, his back against the wall.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said.

  Pepper slid down until she was sitting beside him.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ they both said at once, and Finn jerked his head backwards in surprise.

  ‘What have you got to be sorry for?’ he asked. ‘You have not done anything wrong.’

  Pepper chose to ignore the implication behind his words – that he had done something wrong – and said instead, ‘All those calls and messages. You must have thought I was a right old nag.’

  ‘No.’ Finn was adamant. ‘I should have called. I did not want you to worry, but I knew that if I spoke to you, then I would have to tell you. And I wanted to––’ He stopped, clearly struggling. Pepper pressed her knee against his.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Finn’s hands found the drawstring of his hoodie and he pulled each one until his face disappeared from view.

  ‘Scheisse,’ he muttered, banging the back of his head against the wall. ‘Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse.’

  ‘Listen, Finn.’ Pepper’s voice sounded steadier than she felt. ‘Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m not a monster, you know. I won’t bite.’

  He was still hidden in the depths of his hoodie, so Pepper hooked a finger in the gap and eased it open.

  ‘Why don’t you start,’ she said, ‘by telling me why you flew all the way out here. I mean, not that I’m not thrilled to see you – I am – but I would probably have been fine to wait until you came to Suffolk in a few weeks’ time.’

  At this, Finn emitted a grunt.

  Pepper prised the material apart until she could see his eyes, then knelt in front of him, her hands resting on her knees.

  ‘It was Clara’s idea that I come,’ he said.

  Pepper had not been expecting that.

  ‘And it is not so far,’ he added, finally pushing back his hood. His hair was sticking out at all angles, but for once, Pepper did not feel able to reach across and smooth it down.

  ‘And I am glad that I came,’ he said. ‘I had been sitting outside the hotel for two hours, waiting for you. Every car that pulled up, I was staring at it, hoping it would be you. So, when I saw Josephine, I got up and ran.’

  ‘Thank God you did,’ she said. ‘You’re her hero.’

  ‘But not yours?’ he probed gently.

  Pepper sighed and rubbed at the beginnings of a headache. There had been too much sun and alcohol today, and nowhere near enough water. Finn sat forwards, his dark-blue eyes hopeful. He wanted to kiss her, but Pepper could not let herself melt into his arms – not yet.

  ‘I think we must talk,’ he said.

  ‘We must,’ she agreed. ‘But not here.’

  There was no sofa in Pepper’s hotel room, just a single hard-backed chair, so she and Finn had little choice but to perch on the edge of her double bed. Pepper could feel the tension simmering between them – tension that had, up until this point, been driven by their mutual desire. Today, however, that feeling had shifted. There was no trace of the energetic and affable man who had dragged her through the rain in Lisbon now – this Finn was tormented and edgy.

  For something to do, Pepper fetched two glasses from the bathroom and filled them with bottled water, handing one to Finn as she sat back down.

  ‘Danke.’ He drained it and turned to face her.

  ‘I am afraid I have some bad news.’

  She knew from his stricken expression that it must be bad. Someone close to him had passed away, perhaps? Or something had happened with the business?

  ‘Whatever it is,’ she told him, ‘we can get through it. I’m here for you.’

  ‘It is Clara,’ he said, so forlornly that it could only be the very worst of news. Pepper was muted by dread as she pictured the tall, strikingly beautiful German woman who had been so kind to her.

  ‘She . . . she’s not?’ Pepper began.

  ‘Sick?’ He almost laughed. ‘Nein – of course. She is fine. In fact, she is happy, considering.’

  ‘I don’t understa––’

  ‘Clara is pregnant,’ he said, again in the same flat tone.

  ‘Oh.’ Pepper was so relieved that her whole body seemed to deflate. ‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it? I mean, I assume she will need to take some time off work, and I guess that also means you will have to stay in Hamburg for a while longer than we planned – but that’s OK. I can fly over and see you more often in the meantime. We’ll find a way. You’re not cross with Clara, are you? It’s wonderful news.’

  Finn merely grunted.

  ‘It is!’ she persisted, increasingly puzzled by his reaction. ‘You should be excited that one of your best friends is having a baby.’

  ‘Having my baby.’

  Pepper went to reply, but the words fused together in her throat and she coughed, har
d and loud and painfully.

  Finn sighed, his gaze now fixed on the carpet.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘The baby, it is mine.’

  This could not be happening.

  ‘What do mean, the baby is yours?’

  This had to be a prank. His weird Anglo-German sense of humour was failing to translate, and in a minute he would explode with that big-hearted laugh of his and tell her that it was all a joke.

  ‘I mean exactly that.’ Finn sounded frustrated now. ‘Me and Clara had sex – one time. It happened at a festival two months ago. We all went – me, Clara, Otto – there was a lot of beer, a lot of drinking. It was a stupid thing – we laughed about it the next day.’

  Pepper hated to ask, hated herself for even entertaining the thought, but she had to be sure.

  ‘And it’s definitely yours? There isn’t any chance that it could be someone else’s?’

  ‘Pepper,’ Finn tempered wearily. ‘Clara is one of my oldest friends. She would not lie to me about this – it is not what she planned either. But, you know, she is thirty-eight, she wants to keep it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Pepper said numbly. ‘Of course she does.’

  ‘You are angry?’ he stated, as Pepper stood up and began pacing around the room.

  ‘No,’ she said, managing to keep her voice level despite her gathering tears. ‘I’m not angry. I just need a bloody moment to take this in.’

  ‘It is a shock, I know,’ he said wretchedly. ‘But me and Clara, we are not going to get married or something. It is not the nineteen-fifties. My life is not going to change all that much.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Finn!’

  He stared at her, his eyes the wide of the wounded.

  ‘Of course your bloody life is going to change,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘A baby changes everything – you must see that?’

  Finn shook his head in bewilderment, his thick butter-gold hair flopping across his forehead. Pepper wanted to run screaming from the room, but she could not make herself move. What a fool she had been to believe what they had was real – what a fool to think that she could meet and fall in love with the romantic hero she had been holding out for her whole life. She had known right from the start that what they had was too good to be true, and now fate had turned over the cards and played her happiness off the table.

  ‘Please don’t give up on me, Pepper,’ he said then, attempting to placate her by remaining calm. ‘I thought that you wanted to give things with us a proper go?’

  ‘I did,’ Pepper snapped. ‘I do! But this is . . . It’s too much . . .’

  The air-conditioning unit clanked in the corner, and upon noticing it, she shivered.

  ‘Here!’ Finn started to pull off his dark-blue hoodie to offer it to her, but Pepper was already reaching for her own cardigan. They stood for a few seconds, both unsure what to do next. Finn spoke first.

  ‘Shall we raid the minibar?’ he suggested hopefully.

  Pepper sighed.

  ‘I’m not sure getting drunk is going to solve anything.’

  ‘I only meant one,’ he tempered. ‘To remove this . . . this edge.’

  ‘You go ahead,’ she told him. ‘I’ve had more than enough tonight.’

  Overcome by another need to move, Pepper began pacing around the room again. The butterflies she always had around Finn had been replaced by angry bees – she could imagine them swarming out of her mouth like something out of a horror film.

  ‘Salud.’ Finn raised his glass of whiskey half-heartedly.

  ‘What are you drinking to?’ Pepper asked. ‘Impending fatherhood?’

  He frowned at that, his forehead creasing.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

  Pepper crossed the room to sit beside him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I’m being such a bitch. You’ve come all this way. I’m just . . .’ She gestured helplessly. ‘I don’t know. In shock, I guess?’

  ‘You are not the only one.’ Finn stared down into his glass. ‘I cannot believe it.’

  ‘If I was a nice person, I would be saying congratulations,’ she said sourly. ‘Having a baby, becoming a parent – it’s an incredible thing.’

  ‘But?’ Finn looked at her. His eyes looked almost black in the lamplight.

  ‘But as happy as I am for you both, I’m also sad. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

  ‘I did both things,’ he admitted. ‘At first, I did not believe that it could be true. I accused Clara of lying, of being jealous.’

  Pepper’s eyes widened.

  ‘But that was stupid,’ he continued. ‘She loves me as a friend – nothing more.’

  ‘For now,’ Pepper murmured. ‘But in time, maybe the two of you w––’

  ‘No!’ Finn shook his head. ‘Never.’

  ‘A baby changes everything – will change everything,’ she countered. ‘You have to do whatever it takes to look after it and,’ she added, thinking of her father, ‘support Clara, too.’

  Finn looked askance and took a gulp of whiskey before replying.

  ‘Clara understands,’ he said. ‘I told her that I am not going to change my plans. I want to be with you.’

  Relief flooded through Pepper.

  ‘I want that too,’ she said, but when Finn then put his arm around her, she felt her whole body tense up.

  ‘Clara has her parents in Hamburg and a lot of friends,’ he went on. ‘We will get someone in the restaurant to cover for her, all will be well.’

  Pepper was confused.

  ‘Where will you be?’ she asked, and Finn smiled for the first time.

  ‘With you,’ he said simply.

  ‘But you can’t!’ Pepper moved away from him. ‘You can’t leave Hamburg now.’

  ‘Of course I can.’ Finn was nonplussed. ‘That is what I want to do.’

  Could he really be saying this? Pepper chewed on her bottom lip in agitation.

  ‘You know me, Pepper,’ he said, as if that explained things. ‘The reason that I am happy in my life is because I do not compromise. I know what I want, and I go after it.’

  And he had, hadn’t he? He had chased after her in the street, had pursued her until she gave in. What had seemed so romantic then now felt tainted by his singlemindedness. And while Pepper could allow that he might be in shock, she was dismayed by his determination to distance himself from his own child. It felt too close to home.

  ‘I think the time for putting yourself first may have ended,’ she told him. ‘Soon, there will be another person to prioritise, one that will mean more to you than any ambition – or any other person.’

  Finn had been taking sullen swigs of whiskey while she was talking, and now he was staring moodily down into the bottom of his glass.

  ‘I thought that we wanted the same thing,’ he said, his shoulders slumped. ‘I thought you were happy that I was coming to live with you. You tell me one day that you are falling in love with me? Well, this is love – it endures beyond mishaps and problems.’

  ‘Finn.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t you see?’

  He shook his head, seeming irritated now.

  ‘I don’t want to be someone that you end up resenting,’ she whispered, barely trusting herself to speak in case she started to cry. ‘I have enough of that in my life already.’

  Finn put his glass down on the bedside table and pushed a hand through his hair, gripping it as if he wanted to pull it out.

  ‘I know!’ he exclaimed, gripped by a sudden burst of energy. ‘You can come to Hamburg – live with me.’

  Pepper was already shaking her head.

  ‘Ja! Why not? I will teach you to speak German. And you don’t have to work; I have plenty of money from Freunde. You can help me with the website – we can travel the world together, or you can stay at home and paint all day, whatever you want. I will look after you and Clara. It would work, I know it. Things will be great.’

  Pepper allowed herself a minute to imagine it. Finn was offering her adventur
e, companionship, security, love – all the things she had wanted for so long; the things she told herself would make her life complete. And now, here they were, being handed to her freely and genuinely, without question.

  ‘I–– I don’t know.’ She faltered as his expression fell.

  ‘I’m not giving up on us, I’m just trying to do the right thing by everyone.’

  ‘Maybe, it is time that you stopped thinking for everybody else?’ he replied bitterly. ‘Perhaps, for this little while, try to think only about yourself?’

  He made it sound so easy.

  ‘I don’t know, Finn.’ It was barely a murmur. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  He shifted his position until he was facing her again.

  ‘You are in shock,’ he said steadily. ‘Of course you are, so take some time. Think about what you want, because I know already what it is that I want.’

  ‘But how long do I––’ She stopped again, words had abandoned her. It was so hard to look at him and see the man she had known, the one so right and so ready to be with her.

  Finn took her hand. ‘I will wait,’ he said. ‘Take as much time as you need. I will be waiting.’

  Pepper thought he was about to stand up and walk away and braced herself for the sorrow of seeing him go. But instead, Finn leant forwards, taking her face in both his hands and pressing his forehead against hers.

  ‘The only way that this will change our future,’ he said, ‘is if you let it.’

  Chapter 38

  The trip to Barcelona had only lasted four days, but it was a different Pepper that arrived back in Aldeburgh.

  Never before had she felt so conflicted, so unsure whether to laugh at the absurdity of life or shout obscenities at how unfair it was. It was no longer clear to Pepper what she wanted, or where she was heading. The ground had opened up below her and all the lights had gone out, and now she was falling without end, in limbo and with no idea which direction to turn. All the while, the same thought rebounded through her mind over and over: Finn was having a baby with someone else.

  She knew she had changed, because the old Pepper would have taken her frustration out on the work she had created, but when she laid out her tiles on her studio workbench, thinking she would destroy them, she found that the urge to do so was no longer there. Just as her feelings for Finn had not dimmed in intensity, nor had the love and hope and happiness that seemed to flow from each image – they were still every bit as powerful.