Just Last Night(28)
What would help? Not more wine.
I get more wine.
MENTALLY, I PULL the files I have marked “Finlay Hart.” They’re both dusty and slender, figuratively speaking.
I’ve known Susie since primary-school age and although Fin was two years older, he always seemed much older to me. Two years in youth is a chasm.
If I went for sleepovers, he was always a scarce presence. He was slight in build, but tall, with watchful eyes and Susie’s same enviably thick hair, but much darker brown, like their dad’s.
He wasn’t unfriendly toward me, but neither was he friendly. He didn’t have many mates of his own and I’d hear Susie teasing him about it. Once I heard him reply: Well, you only have HER. She looks like a sad-eyed doll. One of the chubby-faced ones with a hair ribbon that are found in attics. I ditched my hair slide with the bow on it, after that.
In our nice suburb, I came from the scruffy end at the far side of it, living with a warring mum and dad. The Harts’ address was a spacious, 1930s detached house with a driveway, a garage, a well-tended front garden and a storm porch for boots and umbrellas. Their street did parties with bunting for Royal weddings. My mum called the Royals parasites.
In that way that kids are aware of social castes, I vaguely assumed Finlay Hart, all of ten years old, thought me a little beneath.
“SUSIE. IT’S FOR YOU” were his entire words of greeting when he happened to yank open the inner, then outer front door when I called.
One memory stands out, something I rarely think about.
The only thing I did with both Hart siblings was bike rides. In a time when children were still allowed to get on two-wheeled transport and piss off for vast stretches of time, we used to pack a picnic into the satchels on the back of the saddle and cycle out from our suburb to the countryside.
Sometimes we were a foursome, with a girl called Gloria on their street who had a voice like a foghorn and a helmet haircut. (She’s a Liberal Democrat MP now.) Susie and Gloria were locked into a ridiculous competition in regards to stamina—their obsessive need to outdo each other carried through to their degrees and careers. Until Gloria got married at twenty-five and had triplets six months later, and Susie was finally happy to hand over the winner’s trophy.
On one scorching day, both of them pedaling like maniacs—out of breath, but pretending not to be, keeping up appearances with effortful conversation—I gradually fell behind. Fin was keeping pace with me, possibly because as the eldest, and male, he anticipated a major fury coming his way if they lost possession of the sad doll girl.
Under a large tree by the side of a road, he and I stopped for a rest, my metallic green bicycle with white shopping basket propped against it. Fin had something sharp and racy in black and red, which was more like a couple of metal right angles than mode of transport.
“They have to come back this way,” Fin said. “Let’s wait for them to pass.”
I liked this idea, and we lolled against the bark and picked blades of grass and listened to the bee-buzz hum of distant lawnmowers. We lay down and closed our eyes and imagined we were comfortable enough to sleep. We sat up again, because the ground was lumpy and grass is tickly.
“Have you heard of kissing?” I asked Fin.
I’d seen it on a television program the night before; the woman was in a pink nightie with thin straps and slippers that looked like high heels. I’d been riveted. I’d said to my brother, Kieran, “I’ve never seen Mum and Dad do that,” and he said, “That’s because they don’t like each other in the way that man and lady do,” and, well, from the mouths of babes.
“Yes,” Fin said. “Of course I know what kissing is.”
“Would you like to do it with me?”
(I don’t think I’ve ever been as forthright with a member of the opposite sex since.)
He glanced up from under his floppy fringe and gave a nonchalant shrug. “Yeah, I s’pose.”
We shuffled around opposite each other and pressed our mouths together. His lips felt soft for a boy, although I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting. We repositioned our heads and tried again. It was not a good or bad experience, just a curious thing to choose to do, I thought.
Susie and Gloria reappeared in the distance and Fin and I righted our bikes and rolled them back down to the path. Once again, the girls outpaced us and disappeared into the horizon. As we arrived at the Hart residence, I wondered if I wanted to kiss Fin Hart goodbye.
As I was about to suggest it, his dad came shooting out of the house, demanding to know why Susie had arrived home first and unaccompanied by her brother. A torrent of urgent paternal words regarding his irresponsibility were unleashed in Fin’s ear and he was propelled indoors by his upper arm, his mum hovering in the background, arms folded, to continue the scolding.
“Oh, hello love!” his dad said, on seeing me. “Put your bike in the trunk and I’ll drive you home.” Mr. Hart was always very doting toward me.
Evelyn is such a lovely, clever girl, I’m glad you’ve made one good choice in life at least, Susannah, he used to say, to much eye-rolling and DA-AD! from Susie.
I don’t recall seeing much of Finlay after that hot summer, him having crossed that childhood-pubescent dividing line where girls were stupid, girls who were friends with his sister probably most of all, and being seen with them was social suicide.