Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘Are you having fun with me?’ he asked.

  Pepper smiled.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then – you see. It would not be fun if you were not fun.’

  ‘Are you always so . . .’ Pepper searched for the word.

  ‘Direct?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Ja, I guess so. It is the German in me. We always say what we mean. Mama is the same.’

  ‘Us Brits are all mumbling apologies, self-deprecation and pretence,’ she joked, and Finn chuckled.

  ‘Not my papa. Maybe he is an alien?’

  ‘I fear he and my mother might have that in common,’ Pepper added, feeling slightly guilty, and Finn laughed even harder.

  ‘I think,’ he said then, taking a step towards her, ‘that we have a great many things in common. It is good that we met – and then met again.’

  Pepper wanted to agree, but all she managed was a gargling sort of cough. Finn was standing so close to her now that she could see the sprinkle of stubble across his jaw, and the dark smudges under his eyes. Where had he come from, this miraculous man, this person with whom she felt so alive, yet so at peace? She kept waiting for the uncertainty to tap her on the shoulder, for the practical side of her subconscious to point out all the reasons why this thing between her and Finn, whatever it was, could not last – but nothing came. Not so much as a murmur. The more time she spent with him, the more she got the feeling that something inside her was mending.

  Something she hadn’t even realised was broken.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Do you prefer sunrise or sunset?’ Finn asked, as he and Pepper stood side by side, each staring out across the city. The Castelo grounds were rough and dusty underfoot, and the gardens surrounding them were dotted with gnarly trees.

  Pepper had heard the bells ringing in Lisbon’s many churches and knew her time with Finn was almost up, yet she could not seem to drag herself away – not from him, or from the view spread out below them. A sun as dark and slick as honey had trailed down behind the rooftops, leaving behind a sky shot through with fiery reds and smouldering yellows. The dying embers of a day that Pepper knew she would never forget, no matter what happened.

  ‘Sometimes I go down to the beach at home to watch the sunrise,’ she told Finn. ‘Usually, I hate being all by myself, but it’s different at dawn. It feels like I’m the only person in the world privileged enough to see it, as if Mother Nature is showing me her hand under the table. And the more beautiful the dawn,’ she added, turning from the view to look at him, ‘the more beautiful I feel the day must become.’

  Finn nodded.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘But I have always preferred the sunset – it is so much more dramatic. And if you are a night owl, like me,’ he went on, ‘a sunset signals the start of the fun.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re a party boy?’ she asked, but Finn chuckled.

  ‘Maybe once upon a time,’ he said. ‘But not any more. Now, I am too old.’

  ‘How old is too old? No, don’t make me guess!’ she added, seeing him about to retort. ‘That never ends well. I went on a date last year and the guy guessed that I was forty-four.’

  ‘No!’ Finn laughed out loud.

  ‘Yes,’ she promised. ‘The very next day, I started using face cream.’

  ‘I like faces with lines,’ he said then, and Pepper screwed up her own on purpose.

  ‘I do not mean yours!’ he protested, jabbing her arm gently with a finger. ‘I mean, in general. Lines equal life lived, stories to tell, wisdom to be shared.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t have any, then,’ she quipped, although it was not strictly true.

  Finn shifted until he was facing her and began to examine her through his fringe.

  ‘For example,’ he began, raising a hand. ‘Can I?’ he asked, pausing a few inches from her cheek.

  ‘Yes.’

  Pepper’s voice sounded hollow.

  ‘This line,’ he said, lightly running his finger along the top of her cheekbone, ‘tells me that you smile a lot, that you are a happy person. While this one,’ he continued, stroking her forehead, ‘shows me that you use your eyes to work, that you are often concentrating.’

  If he carried on touching her like this, Pepper thought, it wouldn’t just be the sun that was sliding down towards the ground.

  ‘But these,’ Finn said, his fingers coming to a stop on the fleshy part between her eyebrows, ‘prove to me that you worry sometimes, that you care about people, feel concern.’

  ‘What, my frown lines?’ Pepper asked, trying to make a joke out of the situation. ‘They’re so deep you could hide soldiers in them.’

  Finn smiled, but she could tell he was only humouring her.

  ‘Look at mine,’ he said, squinting hard so that two trenches appeared in the same place as hers. ‘Too much sun,’ he muttered. ‘And probably too much wine. My friend Otto drinks far too much. He is only thirty-six, but he has the skin of a fifty-year-old.’

  ‘Thirty-six is a good age,’ she replied, and Finn smiled properly this time.

  Removing his hand from her face, he said, ‘Thirty-eight is not so bad either.’

  ‘When I was still a teenager, thirty felt impossibly old,’ she told him, digging through the dusty earth with her foot. ‘I thought that my whole life would be sorted by then, but I am so far away from where I imagined I would be, aren’t you?’

  Finn considered this.

  ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I am exactly where I want to be, doing what I want. And I am happy.’

  ‘Do you mean in general?’ Pepper asked, then could not help but add, ‘Or right now?’

  ‘Right now,’ he repeated, drawing out each word until he could tell she was hanging on them, ‘I am very happy indeed.’

  ‘Really?’ Pepper whispered, holding her breath as Finn moved closer.

  ‘Ja,’ he said.

  She allowed her eyes to travel downwards until she was staring at his lips. It felt like such a first kiss moment, up here overlooking the city, the fading light of the day colouring the sky. She was so sure it was going to happen that she closed her eyes, only to open them a second later as she heard Finn clear his throat. He had stepped away and was resting his elbows on the Castelo’s outer wall, his gaze drawn by the thousand twinkling lights that signalled a city’s transition from day to night.

  ‘I should go.’ Pepper sounded as dismal as she felt. ‘I’ve been way longer than an hour.’

  ‘OK.’

  Finn seemed neither happy to see her go, nor sad that she was leaving. Pepper hesitated for a moment, stepping from one still-soggy Converse to the next.

  ‘I guess this is goodbye, then?’ she said. But as she turned to leave, her cheeks burning, Finn reached across and looped his arm through hers.

  ‘Don’t run away,’ he said, sounding puzzled. ‘I will walk with you.’

  Pepper let herself be led along, wondering how she could have read the situation so wrong. Linking arms was not something you did with a person you fancied; it was something she did with Josephine. And why had he done all that face stroking if he wasn’t planning on kissing her afterwards? She was caught between embarrassment at having made it so obvious she liked him and disappointment that he clearly did not feel the same way. Here she was again, reading signals worse than a blind train driver, believing that butterflies in the belly meant love, when what they were really doing was beating out a percussion to accompany the words: he’s just not that into you.

  Finn said very little as they wandered back down through the Alfama streets, but he seemed content, and every time she braved a look in his direction, she found him smiling down at her. He must be relieved to be on the verge of escape, she surmised grumpily, then shrieked as Finn pulled her suddenly and forcefully backwards. She had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even noticed the tram hurtling around the corner.

  ‘That was close,’ Finn said. ‘Too close. You might have e
nded up flat, like a crepe.’

  It was such a ludicrous image that Pepper could not help but laugh.

  ‘I’d rather be a pancake,’ she said. ‘You know, being British and everything.’

  ‘Both are sweet,’ Finn agreed. ‘Like you.’

  Was he mocking her now, or did he mean it?

  Pepper unlooped her arm from around his.

  ‘My hotel is just at the bottom of those steps,’ she said, pointing across the road. ‘You don’t have to walk me all the way down there – I’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, with the same reluctant acceptance as before.

  ‘OK.’

  Pepper paused, took a step back, then forwards again towards him.

  ‘OK,’ he said again, this time with a grin.

  ‘OK,’ she repeated.

  Finn extended a hand, his fingers brushing the tips of hers as she began to finally walk away. She got to the top of the steps before she turned once more to look at him, then laughed as he started waving exuberantly with both hands.

  ‘Send me your number and I will message you!’ he shouted, his voice carrying over the sounds of traffic and travellers, of music and voices.

  Very quickly, before the nagging voice of self-doubt could pipe up again to talk her out of it, Pepper brought her hand to her mouth and blew him a kiss.

  Chapter 13

  The number twenty-eight tram set off with a rattle and a jangle.

  ‘Jorge and I used to ride this route every day,’ Josephine said, grasping Pepper’s hand in her own. ‘Back in those days, the tourists hadn’t cottoned on yet, so it was mainly the local folk that used it. Very lazy of us, given how young and spritely we both were at the time, but we never could resist.’

  ‘I can see why,’ Pepper replied, waving back at a group of schoolchildren through the tram’s open window. ‘I feel as if we’ve travelled back in time.’

  ‘Now you see why we had to get a taxi to Praça Martim Moniz this morning,’ Josephine added. ‘The only way to get a window seat on the left side is to get on board right at the beginning of the journey. Jorge taught me that. Quite often, however, the two of us would simply leap up and hold onto the bars at the back, rather like we were surfing the thing.’

  ‘You daredevils!’ Pepper said in delight. ‘I can one hundred per cent picture you doing that – probably even now.’

  ‘You are far too generous to me, darling.’ Josephine chuckled. ‘If I jumped up onto anything these days, it would likely be the last agile thing I ever did.’

  There was a loud screech as the tram brakes were applied, and a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ from everyone riding inside as they began to descend an almost-vertical road. Pepper fell into the same contented silence as Josephine, enjoying the feel of the sun-warmed air as it streamed in through the open windows. The city was bathed in a sleepy, butter-coloured light this morning, the sun yet to reach full mast. As they trundled and clanked into the Alfama district, the views became increasingly mesmeric, and Pepper gazed out as a kaleidoscope of pastel houses, smooth cobbles, dazzling azulejos and abundant plant life flashed past.

  ‘Do you see?’ Josephine whispered. ‘Do you see why I fell in love here?’

  Pepper could only nod, her mind straying predictably to Finn. Thinking about him made her feel as if she were standing right on the edge of a precipice, but rather than being struck by the fear of falling off, she felt free, as if she could fly, just as she had in her dream last night. Right out into the open, dipping and soaring and leaving the rest of the world far behind.

  Glancing from the view to her friend in the seat beside her, Pepper was surprised to find tears trailing down the older woman’s cheeks.

  ‘Oh no, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Don’t mind me; just being a silly, sentimental old bat.’

  ‘You are neither silly nor an old bat,’ Pepper scolded gently. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with feeling sentimental.’

  ‘Being back in this city, and travelling once more through all these memories, it makes me feel young again – in here.’ Josephine tapped a hand against her chest. ‘But all that does is remind me in the same breath of how decrepit I am – and how much of my life has vanished in what feels like the merest whisper.’

  ‘But you’ve had such a full life,’ Pepper argued. ‘Four children, a long marriage to a man you loved, career success.’

  ‘You’re quite right, my dear girl.’ Josephine extracted a proper handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her cheeks. ‘I had everything I wanted – and now I have this. And I have you. What a joy you are.’

  Pepper was about to reply with a rebuttal, but then she remembered Finn’s light-hearted telling-off from the previous day and stopped herself. She hated it when people attempted to push aside the compliments she gave them, so why did she persist in doing the same thing to others? She must try to stop.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed, pressing her shoulder against Josephine’s. ‘And thank you for bringing me here, for broadening my very limited horizons.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Josephine tutted. ‘Darling, you have an artist’s soul, just like dear Jorge. When you see the world in the way that you do, there are no walls or bars at the windows. I would wager that you could be in the smallest, darkest place in the world, and still find beauty in the shadows.’

  Pepper’s voice cracked as she started to reply, and she was forced to clear her throat.

  ‘Perhaps once,’ she said. ‘But not for a very long time now. The truth is, since Bethan died, I sometimes feel as if my whole life exists inside a small, dark room.’

  ‘Grief can feel like that,’ Josephine said softly. ‘The key is not to allow it to box you in. Think of the person you lost, and what they would want for you.’

  Pepper thought of Bethan’s zest for adventure, of her little sister’s hopes and dreams, dashed before she had a chance to realise any of them.

  ‘What about what they would want for themselves?’ she said. ‘That counts, too.’

  ‘Of course it does, darling. But one of those things would surely be a desire to see those you love happy. Not long before I lost Ian, he made me promise that I would not retreat into the space he left behind, but that I would keep living for the both of us – keep striving to do all the things he would have done if he had the chance. I think about that every day.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Pepper was nodding, but her insides twisted with sadness. All at once, the colours beyond the window seemed to lose their vibrancy, and the serenity that had settled over her was replaced by a churning wave of sorrow.

  Pepper had always struggled with feelings of guilt surrounding Bethan’s death. She didn’t blame herself for what happened – it was an accident – but she did feel a strange kind of shame at having been the one who survived. And she suspected that she was not the only one.

  As if on cue, Pepper heard a buzzing sound coming from her bag, and for a fleeting second, her heart leapt in hope that it was Finn, calling to bring the sunshine back into her day.

  But it wasn’t. It was her mother.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Philippa.’

  Her mother had not called her Pepper since Bethan died.

  ‘Your father is getting married,’ she announced wearily. ‘To his secretary.’

  ‘Hang on a sec, Mum.’ Pepper clamped her phone against her ear with her shoulder as she helped Josephine down the steps of the tram. They were in the Chiado area of the city now, not far from the next location on Josephine’s list. She shouldn’t really have answered, given the fact that she was supposed to be giving her full attention to her friend, but when she saw her mother’s name on the screen, Pepper had remembered the missed call from the previous day and been walloped by a thump of guilt.

  She could hear her mother sighing with obvious displeasure at the other end of the line and could appreciate why. This would be her father Martin’s second attempt at another marriage since he had left her mum. Since he left both of th
em.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed to Josephine, who waved away her apology and motioned towards a nearby bookshop. Pepper watched her go in through the open door, then let out a breath she had not realised she’d been holding. Looking around for a place to sit down, she settled on a low wall that had been decorated in yet more patterned tiles. She would be willing to bet that if you reached out a hand anywhere in the city, the first thing you would touch would be art in some form or another.

  ‘So, I guess that means there’s going to be another wedding?’ she asked, staring down at her sandalled feet. Pepper had painted her nails that morning, choosing a rich ruby red to match the scarf tied up in her blonde hair. For the first time in ages, she had thought carefully about every element of her outfit, even treating herself to a white sundress from a shop not far from the hotel. It was the first item of clothing she had bought new in years.

  ‘He wants us there again, of course,’ her mother said. ‘Something about a show of unity, merging his old family with his new one.’

  ‘Are we allowed a plus-one?’ Pepper asked, even though she was not sure who she would invite if this was the case.

  ‘I have no idea.’ Her mother’s voice lurched a notch closer to shrill. ‘They’re doing it over in Guernsey, would you believe? Like we’re all made of money and can afford flights and hotels.’

  Pepper closed her eyes and took a slow breath in. Her mother always became more agitated when she was talking about Martin, and although she had assured Pepper many times that she harboured no hard feelings towards him, it was painfully apparent that the opposite was in fact true.

  ‘I went ahead and booked us a room,’ her mother went on. ‘I thought I should, before the hotel filled up. She’s very young, his new––’ Her mother could not bring herself to say the words ‘wife-to-be’. Instead she mumbled something unintelligible, before adding, ‘She’s bound to have a lot of friends coming. Your father’s probably only inviting us to swell his numbers, make him look more popular.’

  Ouch, thought Pepper, but she made no comment.