Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

‘You’re right,’ she agreed now, stroking her big toe along the underside of his foot. ‘I don’t know how people cope living in big cities. It must feel so claustrophobic. At least with the sea stretched out in front of you, it feels as if there’s a way out.’

  ‘That is very important to me,’ he replied, his expression more serious now. ‘I think that moving around so much when I was growing up has made me a nomad – the thing that scares me the most is being trapped somewhere, unable to come and go as I please.’

  ‘You can come and go here as much as you please,’ she assured him.

  ‘Danke.’ He put a hand over hers. ‘I am happy to hear that.’

  Pepper had spent most of the morning and early afternoon showing Finn around her home town, starting with a walk along the shingle beach to Thorpeness, where he had stared up in awe at the House in the Clouds, followed by a wander past the 16th-century moot hall and lunch at Aldeburgh’s famous fish and chip shop. He’d had something appreciative to say about it all, from the rusted edges of the famous Britten Shell sculpture on the beach to the cluttered storefronts along the high street, and had made Pepper stop endlessly so he could take photos of the pastel-coloured houses, charmed as visitors so often were by the names displayed on decorative plaques beside front doors. Was Sun Trap Cottage the best place to catch a tan, he wanted to know? And did a family of anglers reside at the Bait Station?

  Finn was also enchanted by Aldeburgh’s many gift shops and art galleries and helped himself to a number of business cards belonging to local artists whose work he was keen to sell through his website. It was coming along very well, he told Pepper. All he needed now was the right collection to launch it – a showstopper of a piece. Something that would blow people’s minds and put his website firmly on the map. When she asked him what kind of thing he was looking for, however, Finn had simply shrugged helplessly.

  ‘When I see it, I will know.’

  ‘I’m glad you like my hometown,’ Pepper told him now, selecting a sun-warmed pebble from between Finn’s feet and balancing it on her knee. ‘I was worried you might find it too twee.’

  ‘Twee?’ He looked confused, and Pepper grinned.

  ‘You’re so fluent, I forget that English is not your first language,’ she said. ‘Twee means too quaint and cute – excessively pretty.’

  ‘That is why it is the perfect home for you,’ he said, not missing a beat.

  ‘Oh, stop!’ She laughed, but Finn didn’t join in. He was looking at her thoughtfully.

  ‘Remind me again,’ he prompted. ‘How do you and Sam know each other?’

  ‘Samuel? Oh, he works at one of the residential homes where I volunteer, looking after kids and young adults with severe brain damage.’

  ‘Because of your sister?’ he asked. ‘Was she sick like that before she died?’

  Pepper did not want to talk about Bethan today. Finn was supposed to be the happy part of her life, the person who enabled her to put thoughts of her late sister to one side for a few hours.

  ‘She had epilepsy, and it was a fit that caused her accident,’ Pepper muttered, her words tumbling out one on top of the other.

  ‘This is difficult for you to talk about.’

  Finn shifted closer to her on the blanket. The beach was busy with families, groups of friends and waddling toddlers with buckets full of shells in their pudgy hands – Pepper felt as if every single pair of eyes was on her, pitying her.

  There’s that weird loner who teaches art. The one with the dead sister.

  Finn didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just pressed his bare leg against her own – a gesture of solidarity that almost broke through Pepper’s resolve not to cry.

  ‘You miss her still?’ he asked. ‘You feel like it is unfair that she died, and you survived?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pepper nodded. ‘I do.’

  Finn ducked as a football appeared from nowhere, narrowing missing his head.

  ‘First a bat and now a ball – everything is out to get me in this place!’ he exclaimed.

  Pepper saw that his smile was back in place and felt her whole body sag with relief.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, clambering to her feet and reaching for his hand. ‘It’s high time you found out just how cold the North Sea can be.’

  Wincing as the sharp edges of pebbles dug into their bare feet, they wobbled down to the shoreline, both gasping as a freezing wave splashed up over their legs.

  ‘Scheisse!’ swore Finn. Letting go of Pepper’s hand, he dived forwards under the water.

  ‘Nooo!’ Pepper shook her head when he re-emerged and beckoned for her to join him.

  ‘It is not all that cold once you get in,’ he promised, through teeth that were definitely chattering.

  ‘I’m perfectly fine where I am, thank you,’ she said, but before she could retreat to dry ground, Finn stood and started pulling at her arm until she half staggered, half fell into the sea.

  Pepper laughed as she swam after him, her flailing arms bashing water into his face until he gripped her wrists, lifting her up with ease until her legs were wrapped around his waist. Conscious of the children paddling only a few feet away, she wriggled clear, swimming further out until there was a decent distance between themselves and prying eyes.

  ‘It’s bloody freezing!’ she wailed, squeezing icy water out of her hair.

  Finn slid his hands across her bottom.

  ‘Are you getting warmer now?’ he asked, and Pepper felt herself stir. She and Finn had made love on her sofa the previous night, and then again in her bed that morning, each of them driven by the same uncomplicated longing that was coursing its way through her now.

  ‘I want to tell you something,’ he said.

  ‘Um, I think I can guess what . . .’

  ‘Oh.’ Finn glanced down at his shorts. ‘No, not that.’

  ‘It’s actually very impressive,’ she observed. ‘In water this cold.’

  Finn smiled but didn’t laugh.

  ‘I have been thinking about perhaps taking a break soon,’ he told her. ‘From Freunde.’

  ‘You have?’

  Pepper pushed Finn’s wet hair off his forehead. Her own she had bundled up into an untidy knot, but strands of it had escaped and were stuck like seaweed to her cheeks and throat.

  ‘I want to focus on my website for a while,’ he went on. ‘Get it ready to launch in the springtime.’

  ‘Good idea,’ she said, wondering where he was going with this.

  ‘So, I also thought,’ he added, his hands closing around her waist. ‘That perhaps I could work here?’

  ‘In England?’ Pepper was startled. ‘What – you mean here? In Aldeburgh?’

  ‘At the moment, I think it makes more sense to call it Cold-Brrrr,’ he replied, lifting his arm out of the water to show her his goose bumps. ‘But yes – here.’

  Pepper opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  ‘I know it is still the very beginning for us,’ he went on. ‘But I feel––’ He stopped, taking a breath. ‘No, I know. I know that I want to be with you – to try and make things work between us. I do not like being away from you, and today I realised that perhaps I do not have to be. Clara and Otto will be fine for a few months without me. I can move here while I finish the website, then after that we can see.’

  ‘And you would want to stay with me, in my little house?’ Pepper asked, even though she knew that must be exactly what he was planning. She felt all at once equal parts terrified and exhilarated at the prospect, at his confidence in their connection and his desire to be a permanent fixture in her life. It was happening so fast, maybe even too fast. But then again, hadn’t meeting Finn been the best thing that had happened to her for years? Wasn’t it true that she had wanted to be swept off her feet by a man who was both capable and romantic her entire life?

  ‘Of course, this can only happen if it is what you want,’ he added. ‘If you get fed up of the sight of me, I promise to go.’

  ‘No, no!’ Peppe
r hushed him with a kiss. ‘I could never get fed up of you.’

  ‘Danke,’ he said, his smile now every bit as wide as it had been that first day in Lisbon.

  ‘I mean it, what I said before,’ he told her, gathering her against him until Pepper could knit her feet together in the small of his back. ‘About wanting to be with you.’

  ‘You are a smitten kitten,’ she teased, blinking as small waves splashed up and over them.

  ‘The fact is,’ he murmured, cupping her face in his hands. ‘I am falling in love with you.’

  Chapter 30

  Finn’s declaration of love lifted Pepper up so high that for days after he flew home to Hamburg, she still felt as if she were floating.

  Love. Finn was falling in love with her.

  She had faltered when he said it, her words falling out in a tumble as she tried to make sense of what was happening. She felt as if she’d been yanked up into a jet stream of feeling and had no choice but to let herself be swept away by the moment. She knew that it was all happening fast, just as she knew that it was all utterly bananas, but she also knew that she had never felt this way about anyone before, and never been made to feel this full by someone else. Pepper was fit to bursting with unbridled joy, with possibility, with generosity – she wanted everyone in the world to feel as she did, to be loved and to love.

  Because she did love Finn. She knew she did. This was exactly what love was supposed to feel like. It was what she had been holding out for her whole life.

  Any fears that she may have had about Finn living too far away for their relationship to stand a chance had been allayed. He liked her enough to move countries. He was so confident that what they shared was the real thing, that he was willing to uproot his entire life to be with her, to make a go of it, to not give up but give it everything he could.

  The more Pepper thought about it, the more astounded she felt. But she also felt bigger and bolder somehow, as if his unwavering belief in her, and in them, had been exactly the boost she needed to toss aside her lingering self-doubt. Not only did she stand taller and walk prouder, she also painted feverishly. With the Hamburg landmarks complete, she began on Lisbon, recreating a dripping wet orange tree with figures side by side under its branches, a molten sunset set off by darkened rooftops, trailing petals, tiny azulejos, jaunty trams and winding cobbled streets draped in tiny lights.

  Every image she created reminded her of a moment – a lingering look or a tentative touch, a kiss stolen beneath the stars or a breath caught up in a web of emotion – and as she conjured up each one, barely pausing to lower one brush before picking up the next, Pepper finally understood the lesson she had failed to learn all those years ago: that art, real art, made you feel.

  With only a matter of days left until she and Josephine would fly to Barcelona, Pepper packed her teaching schedule full, even venturing into London one afternoon to host a team-building session at a corporate office in Canary Wharf. Rediscovering her own passion for art helped to energise her, and she knew she was doing her job better as a result. More people than ever were asking for details of her classes, calling to see if she could squeeze them into candle-making, collaging or life drawing. Her little studio had never seemed so busy, and Pepper felt proud – prouder than she had ever allowed herself in the past.

  Each evening, she and Finn would FaceTime each other from under the covers of their respective beds, sharing stories of their day and making plans for what they would do once he came to live in Aldeburgh. Pepper had already made space for his clothes, cleared a shelf in her bathroom cabinet and created an area in her front room where he would be able to set up his laptop. The house was ready, she was ready – now all she needed was him.

  It was now the evening before her flight to Barcelona, and Pepper was on her way to meet her father and his wife-to-be at a local pub for dinner. When her dad had called earlier that day to invite her, Pepper had been surprised. Although she spoke to her dad fairly regularly, she didn’t go to Kent to see him very often and had never met the woman who would soon be her stepmother. He had promised that it would be ‘low-key’, then threw her slightly by adding that he was keen for the two of them to ‘bond’ before the wedding.

  Now that Finn was moving to Suffolk almost as soon as she and Josephine returned from their trip, Pepper felt more able to face the upcoming nuptials – not least because she would now have a proper boyfriend to take along as her plus-one. There was also a small part of her that still longed to spend time with her dad, whom she had been so close to as a child. That man, the one who’d let her ride up on his shoulders, who’d take her and Bethan rock-pooling, played football with them and read them bedtime stories at night, felt at times like an apparition – one that Pepper had dreamt up in her head.

  Arriving at the bistro pub a few minutes early, Pepper was shocked to find her mother already seated at the table.

  ‘Mum, you’re here.’

  ‘So I am.’ Her mother was giving nothing away. Like Pepper, she had made an effort with her appearance, and was wearing a pale gold shift dress, her hair neatly blow-dried.

  ‘You look nice,’ she said, hanging her denim jacket on the back of a chair before sitting down.

  Her mother blinked absently as if she hadn’t heard.

  ‘Is that a dress?’ she asked.

  ‘A jumpsuit.’ Pepper tried a smile. ‘Flattering on the bum, but a real pain when it comes to having a wee with any sort of ease.’

  ‘I see.’

  In an effort to keep the conversation flowing, Pepper asked what she had been up to since she last saw her a few days ago, being careful to make sympathetic noises when her mother bemoaned the builders that had been putting in a new kitchen next-door, and exclaiming in delight when she admitted that she’d won ten pounds at the Bingo.

  ‘I didn’t know you even went!’

  ‘And you?’ her mother eventually enquired. ‘Anything I should know?’

  She had always phrased it that way, as opposed to asking Pepper if there was anything she actually wanted to tell her. Just as it had when she was a teenager, the question rankled.

  ‘Oh, you know me – all work, work, work.’

  She had tried to tell her mum about Finn twice now, but each time she seemed to get nowhere. She couldn’t tell if her mother simply didn’t care, or if her words had not penetrated. There would be no choice soon, though – she would have to acknowledge his existence once he was living down the road.

  Her mother looked tired as she reached for her sparkling water.

  ‘Is it tomorrow you go away on holiday? Benidorm, was it?’

  ‘Barcelona,’ Pepper corrected. ‘Should be fun – lots of art to see.’

  ‘Right.’ Her mother unrolled her napkin and lay it across her lap.

  ‘Did Dad tell you this dinner was a chance for you and Keira to bond, too?’ Pepper asked, grasping onto the one thing she hoped would, in fact, unite the two of them. But her mother had stopped listening. Her attention had been diverted by a waitress dropping a tray of empty glasses, and after a moment, she lowered her head and rested it on her hands.

  ‘And you’re still happy to go to the wedding?’ Pepper went on.

  Her mother nodded faintly.

  ‘I, er. I have someone I want to bring – a guest.’

  ‘Oh?’ Her mother looked up at that, her gaze suddenly so focused that Pepper was taken aback. For a moment or two, she said nothing, merely fiddled with her fork.

  ‘Well?’ her mother went on, and Pepper couldn’t tell whether she was angry or simply interested. ‘Are you going to tell me who?’

  Pepper went to reply but was interrupted by the arrival of her dad. Martin Taylor was slim and pale with the dishevelled grey hair and crinkled blue suit of someone who had been blown in sideways by a gale. In contrast, his fiancée, Keira, looked immaculate in a dove-grey clinging dress, ivy-coloured pashmina and a pair of scarily high black patent stilettos. Having never met her before, Pepper was gratified when Kei
ra offered her a shy smile of greeting. The two of them must be about the same age, she thought numbly, accepting a brittle hug from her father.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ Keira said, as Martin sat down beside his former wife. ‘The sat nav went absolutely doolally and kept shouting at us that we were going the wrong way. It was all, “perform a U-turn” here and “you are going the wrong way down the street” there. I’m amazed we made it at all, to be honest with you.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Pepper passed her a menu. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’

  ‘Ditto.’ Keira glanced across at Martin. ‘I thought it would be nice to get together before the big day. I mean, it won’t be long now before we’re all family.’

  Pepper’s mother cleared her throat, her expression thunderous.

  ‘Wine?’ blurted her dad, reaching for the list and hiding behind it. ‘There’s a nice Riesling here, if anyone fancies that?’

  ‘Riesling is German, right?’ Pepper checked, and he nodded. ‘In that case, yes please.’

  ‘We had a lovely bottle of that at that fish restaurant in Berlin, didn’t we, Mart?’ Keira was twiddling a dark-brown curl around her finger.

  ‘Your dad took me there for our first mini break,’ she confided to Pepper. ‘I’d never thought much about Germany before then, if I’m honest, but it was great. So much to see and all that history.’

  ‘I just got back from Hamburg,’ Pepper said. ‘I loved it.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’ demanded her mother, who seemed to have been switched off sleep mode for once. ‘I thought it was Lisbon that you went to, Philippa?’

  ‘It was,’ said Pepper patiently. ‘I went to both, remember?’

  Her mother took a sip of water and coughed.

  ‘City breaks are all the rage these days, aren’t they?’ Keira continued. She seemed blissfully unaware of any tension, but Pepper could almost feel the sharp tips of her mother’s eye-daggers as she pointed them across the table. ‘It’s so easy to pop off for a sneaky little weekend away.’

  ‘Is that what the two of you did when you started your affair?’ her mother asked politely.