Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘I get by,’ she said, then, before he had a chance to challenge her, ‘where did your interest in art come from, anyway?’

  ‘Mama used to take me to galleries when I was a child,’ he explained. ‘Much of the time, we lived close to the Army barracks, because of my father. And they were not always the best places. Mama was my best friend when I didn’t have any of my own, and we would play drawing games together, or make models, that kind of thing.’

  ‘What about your father?’ Pepper asked.

  ‘Ah, with Papa, it was always football,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Or cricket. Sometimes boxing. Always sport or fighting. My mother stopped putting my drawings on the wall, because he would take them down. He thought it was pointless to encourage me in something I was very bad at – which I was – but it felt unfair to me then. When he was sent abroad, or went away on Army exercise, those were the best times, because my pictures stayed up for weeks, even though they were terrible.’

  ‘You poor little mite,’ remarked Josephine.

  ‘That is sad,’ agreed Pepper, putting down the tweezers she had been using to nudge the smaller pieces of her mosaic into place.

  Finn shrugged. ‘I was never that good at any of it,’ he said, trying for a laugh that came out as a sort of grunt. ‘Not the art or the sport, so neither Mama nor Papa won that battle in the end. I chose to study business and accounting at university, which was very stumpf – dull – but now I can look after the money side of my business. I don’t think I would be able to launch a website if I could not crunch the numbers.’

  ‘Maths brings me out in hives,’ Pepper confessed. ‘Sums may as well be written in Egyptian hieroglyphics for all the sense they make to me.’

  Pepper was relieved that the conversation had moved natur ally away from discussions about childhood. She didn’t feel like telling them that there had never been any of her drawings displayed at home – not after Bethan’s accident.

  ‘Is this beginning to look anything like a bowl yet?’ Josephine asked, raising hands that were covered in clay in a gesture of mild exasperation.

  ‘Erm . . .’ Pepper clenched her teeth together. ‘Is that what it’s supposed to be?’

  ‘I thought that you were making a boat,’ Finn observed, his knee finding Pepper’s under the table. In every other relationship Pepper had ever been in, she had assumed the role of the giver, while the men had been the takers – but intuition was telling her that Finn was different. How could she fly home to Suffolk tomorrow and leave him? It did not seem fathomable.

  With her mosaic finished and set aside to dry, Pepper fetched some paper and charcoal and started to draw him, barely looking down as her hand moved easily back and forth. She sketched in the neat curve of his ears, the wispier hairs on his temples and the dent of concentration that had appeared between his eyebrows. His mouth was slightly open, his lips smooth, the blond stubble around them a scattering of sand, and his eyes were like brushed velvet in their softness, so rich with integrity.

  For the first time since meeting him, she wished that instead of being here in Portugal, they were back in Suffolk, sitting together in her studio. There she would have the right paints to mix, her own easel and a teapot keeping warm under a cosy. They could lock the door, shut out the world, and bask in the pleasure of having found one another.

  Pepper added smudges under Finn’s eyes – a private tell of the late night they had shared – and the shaded hollow of his throat, pinching the stick of charcoal so she had an edge to add in the buttons of his shirt, and the lashes that were casting faint shadows on his cheeks. She was so absorbed in her task, that at first she didn’t notice that Finn had finished his mosaic and was now watching her intently.

  ‘All done?’ she asked brightly, blowing the dust off the portrait and propping it gently against her chest.

  Finn flashed her his megawatt smile. ‘Ja!’

  ‘Going to give us a gander?’ enquired Josephine, who hadn’t looked up. She was still immersed in her bowl-cum-boat and was using a wooden stick to scratch on a pattern.

  ‘I think it must be ladies first,’ he said. ‘I had a plan for mine, but it is––’ He clenched his teeth together. ‘Not exactly what I imagined.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s brilliant,’ Pepper enthused. ‘Mine is just silly.’

  ‘What is this?’ he said then, reaching across the table and trying to pluck the sheet of paper out of her hands.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, gripping it tighter. ‘Just a few scribbles.’

  ‘If it is nothing,’ he said, the corners of his mouth lifting amicably, ‘then surely you can show me.’

  ‘It’s not finished,’ she told him. ‘It’s rubbish. Please don’t. I’ll be so embarrassed.’

  ‘It is most certainly not rubbish,’ approved Josephine, putting down her stick.

  Pepper loosened her grip slightly, looking from Finn to Josephine and back again.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she said, giving in, then put her head in her hands as Finn swiped the paper out of them triumphantly.

  ‘It’s awful, I know,’ she muttered. ‘Chuck it in the bin – use it for scrap. Burn it!’

  ‘Hush.’ Finn’s eyes were wide. ‘This is sehr, sehr gut.’

  He turned it around so Josephine could see, and the older woman whistled.

  ‘What did I say? Barrels of talent.’

  Finn stared first at Pepper, then again at the portrait. ‘You drew this? Just now as we were talking?’

  ‘Well, in the last ten minutes or so,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘But it’s not finished – it needs work.’

  ‘Can I keep it?’ Finn asked.

  ‘It’s not done,’ she said again. The attention was causing her to squirm. ‘It’s not fit to be seen.’

  ‘I really want it,’ he pressed, clutching it just as close to his chest as Pepper had done.

  ‘Honestly,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s crap – it’s better off in the bin.’

  ‘I would take it, if I were you,’ Josephine said to Finn. ‘It will likely be worth a lot of money one day.’

  Finn was still staring at Pepper, his expression hard to read. She was aware that she was coming across like a moron, but it was true what she was telling them – the portrait wasn’t good enough. Not as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Show me what else you have made,’ Finn said, rolling up the portrait as if that settled the matter. Lifting away the cardboard barrier he had put up between them, he peered down at Pepper’s pelican mosaic and immediately began to laugh.

  ‘And yours?’ she prompted, standing up.

  Finn surprised her then by looking almost bashful, and when she saw what he had made, she almost wept.

  It was a large, red pepper.

  Chapter 18

  The muted Aldeburgh palette had always served to soothe Pepper in the past, the greys, blues and whites an antidote to her often fractured mind, but now that she was home, she found them too subdued. She missed Lisbon’s terracotta rooftops and bright explosions of flowers; she wanted to be stirred, not stilled, to laugh, to feel the sunshine warming her limbs and too many custard pastries filling her belly. She craved the flames that the Portuguese city had ignited within her, and the fiery spirit that had driven her towards Finn. Home had always been where she belonged, but now it felt as if she had left a piece of herself somewhere else.

  But Pepper did not have any time to dwell – she had promised that as soon as she was back from her trip, she would head over to The Maltings for a few hours to do a painting class with some of the more able residents. After arriving late due to the battery of her ancient Volvo being flat, she encountered pupils who were restless from the off, and by the time her allotted two hours were up and the session had come to a fractious and noisy end, Pepper felt too shredded by exhaustion to face the drive home straight away.

  After piling all her paints, brushes and canvases into the boot, she decided to take a stroll around the grounds of the house. It was a pleasant enough day, all
cotton-wool clouds and tepid sunshine, and once she had crossed the lawn and was following the narrow pathways between the rose bushes, Pepper began to feel better. She could see The Maltings’ grand but lichen-covered water fountain in the distance, and was struck by a sudden urge to run over and toss a penny in for luck. Drawing nearer, however, she saw that someone else had beaten her to it.

  ‘Nice day for a stroll,’ she said, as Samuel stood up from the circular wall to greet her.

  ‘Mrs Howarth told me the roses were out,’ he said, gesturing back the way Pepper had just come. ‘I thought I’d take a look, but there are so many chuffing bees.’

  He was dressed for work today, in a soft grey tracksuit and battered pair of Nikes, while Pepper was wearing a black jumpsuit covered in sunflowers that she’d found in a charity shop. Thanks to her few days in Lisbon, she was sporting a tan for the first time in years.

  ‘You been away?’ Samuel asked, and Pepper nodded.

  ‘Portugal.’

  ‘Mate, that sounds lush. You look as if you’ve been smooched by sunshine.’

  And other things . . .

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, stretching out her bare arms and admiring the soft caramel hue. ‘It went past so quickly. I felt like I’d just got to know the place before we had to leave.’

  ‘Holiday blues?’ he asked, and she smiled.

  ‘Something like that.’

  They continued to chat for a few minutes about all the usual things – work, weather, what TV series they had binged on recently – and Pepper found herself wanting to tell him about Finn. Why, she didn’t know – it wasn’t like the two of them were all that close. Perhaps she simply had a severe case of mentionitis. In an attempt to steer the subject her way, she asked Samuel if he’d had any more dates lately.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘A second one with the girl I told you about before.’

  ‘And?’ Pepper flicked a coin up into the air.

  Heads Finn will call tonight, tails he won’t . . .

  ‘Queen side up!’ Samuel declared. ‘Nice one.’

  Pepper tossed her two-pence piece into the water, watching as it sank down to join the others. All those wishes. When she and Bethan were little, they used to tell each other everything; whisper secrets to one another after lights out, share stories and giggle with their fists stuffed into their mouths in case their parents heard them. Bethan had always been a fragile child, even before the accident, and Pepper could remember how much she loathed letting her sibling out of her sight. She felt as if she always had to be two steps behind her baby sister.

  Until the day she wasn’t.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, forcing herself back out of her momentary gloom. ‘Is there going to be a date three?’

  ‘Nah.’ Samuel aimed a kick at a stone, sending a cloud of dust up into the air. ‘I’m a busy bloke, so if I’m not, you know, feeling it, I don’t think there’s much point wasting my free time.’

  ‘I thought you believed in letting love grow?’ she teased. ‘None of that thunderbolt crap for you, right?’

  ‘All right.’ Samuel folded his arms. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I am a big believer in lust at first sight. But if you don’t have that, you’re probably never gonna have the other. That’s the way I see it.’

  ‘I guess in an ideal world, you’d be after both,’ she said, giving him a sidelong look.

  ‘Hang on a mo,’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you met someone? Ah, no – you have, haven’t you? You went and had yourself a holiday romance.’

  Pepper laughed in surprise.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  Samuel bent down so he could examine her face.

  ‘Afraid so – your eyeballs have turned into hearts.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘Come on then – spill.’

  So Pepper spilled. She told him about Finn walking past her on the steps, how he’d turned around and asked for her number, how she’d been unsure of whether or not to contact him, only for fate to intervene yet again, and put him beneath the very same tree that she had chosen to shelter under. Samuel kept his arms folded as she explained about Belém, then raised an eyebrow when she told him what Finn had said about the stars wanting them to meet.

  ‘How do you know he doesn’t say that to all the girls?’ he joked. Then, seeing he had upset her, hurriedly added, ‘I’m only pulling your chain.’

  ‘I know it sounds soppy and mad,’ she admitted. ‘But it didn’t feel that way when I was there – it just felt, I dunno, like he had always been there, waiting in the wings. I just had to meet him.’

  Samuel smiled then, but he was no longer mocking her.

  ‘If that’s the case,’ he said, ‘then you’re lucky. I had someone like that once, a long time ago. But she left. I lost her.’

  ‘Her loss,’ Pepper countered, but Samuel was shaking his head.

  ‘Believe it or not, I was going to be a doctor,’ he told her. ‘I went to medical school, did all that. I was good, too – I was known as “Steady Hands Selassie”. Everyone thought I would become a surgeon one day, including me.’

  ‘Good name,’ she said. ‘What changed your mind?’

  Samuel chuckled. ‘Thanks for assuming it was my choice,’ he said. ‘And not down to the fact that I messed up or something.’

  ‘You don’t seem the type to fail.’ Pepper regarded him for a moment. He was a doer, she could tell. A man who got things done – the opposite of a ditherer. It was a trait he shared with Finn.

  ‘If you’re not willing to fail, you’re not ready to succeed,’ he said gravely.

  ‘Deep,’ she drawled. ‘Did you just make that up?’

  ‘Nah.’ Samuel grinned. ‘I saw it printed on the wall of a gym once.’

  The clouds had started to huddle together since they’d been talking, their white plumes reminding Pepper of a gaggle of geese, and she shivered.

  ‘Do you mind if we walk – I left my cardigan in the car?’

  They took the long route back towards the big house, past the wildflower meadow and The Maltings’ resident pair of donkeys, both of whom stuck their furry faces over the fence. Samuel delved in his tracksuit pocket and unearthed a packet of Polos, scratching each animal behind its large floppy ears as they crunched away.

  ‘Truth now,’ he said. ‘I bloody loved being a doctor. I loved the pace, I loved how demanding it was, that no two shifts were ever the same. I didn’t even mind the lack of sleep. I think I thrived on it, you know. Junior doctors get into a sort of competition with each other and themselves – who can last the longest, score the best cases and cope most admirably with an emergency. I saw a lot and learnt so much. When I look back now, it feels like it wasn’t even me doing those things, you know? Three years sped past in a mad sort of blur, and I was at the stage where I had to make a decision about my speciality, and my future. And it was then that it struck me.’

  Pepper was about to ask what the ‘it’ was when he continued talking.

  ‘I realised that all the best work I’d done was not the medical stuff – putting lines in, stitching bashed-up faces and setting broken bones. It was the other stuff, the hand holding and the listening. The people stuff. Often, you see, a kind word can heal far better than a pill or a bandage. Oi, don’t make that face. I know what you’re thinking – that all this makes me sound like some sort of new-age hippy type.’

  ‘On the contrary.’ Pepper shook her head. ‘I was thinking that I agree with you.’

  ‘My doctor mates wanted to get patients through the system as quickly as possible,’ he went on. ‘Whereas I wanted to spend time with them, follow up with them. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point over the past ten years or so, we have all stopped talking to each other, and I reckon we’ve stopped listening, too. There’s too much interference,’ he added, making circular motions around his head that were brisk enough to alarm the donkeys. ‘Too much noise.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ P
epper agreed. ‘It never seems to stop, does it?’

  ‘It does if you switch some of it off,’ he said simply. ‘But I reckon when it comes to most people, there’s a real fear of becoming disconnected, of missing out, you know?’

  ‘What did you do when you realised all this?’ she asked. ‘Did you just quit?’

  ‘I did.’ He shrugged. ‘Just like that. And it was the best decision I ever made. It lost me some friends; and my girlfriend left me––’

  ‘No!’ Pepper was appalled. ‘Just because you resigned?’

  Samuel shrugged. ‘She had a plan, and the salary I would eventually have made as a surgeon was a large part of it.’ He cut Pepper off before she got the opportunity to say something disparaging. ‘She’s honestly not a bad girl, just the wrong girl for me. Last I heard, she was happily married to a consultant and they’d had a few kids, so I’m sure she’s got no regrets.’

  ‘And you think she was The One?’ Pepper asked earnestly.

  Samuel laughed. ‘The One?’ he repeated, making inverted comma marks in the air as they continued walking towards the house.

  ‘I’m telling you, Pepper – there is no such thing.’

  Chapter 19

  It felt strange to be applying make-up so late in the evening, but Pepper wanted to look her best for her date. The FaceTime date she had arranged with Finn.

  She had tried on at least three different outfits since receiving his message, eventually settling on a plain black vest top and checked pyjama shorts. Over this she threw her chunkiest, floppiest jumper – a gift from a client she had taught to knit the previous year – before pulling a brush through her freshly washed hair.

  She felt nervous, but they were the good kind of trembles. The ones that transformed your belly into a bubbling cauldron and made it impossible to sit still. Pepper found that she couldn’t concentrate on anything – not her novel, not the radio, not a BBC crime drama series starring one of her favourite actors – so she eventually gave up on all three and went on a cleaning spree instead. If this was how she was going to feel before every call with Finn, her house would resemble a show home within days.