Page 12 of The Lie
‘Oops,’ said Romy.
It was already seventeen minutes past. There was no way they could make it to Victoria in time, even if they left this instant and by some miracle found a taxi. They hadn’t yet paid the bill and they needed to collect their jackets from the downstairs cloakroom where they were hopefully drying off.
‘We could see about staying here tonight,’ he said, his voice tentative. ‘That, or the milk train …’
Romy tried to think through the options, but the cocktails and the sexual frisson she felt for the man beside her weren’t helping. Her look must have appeared doubtful to Finch, because he immediately held up his hands.
‘I didn’t mean … We’d get two rooms, of course.’ He searched her face. ‘I wasn’t suggesting …’ He frowned. ‘Or we could go to Waterloo, get a train to Havant and a taxi from there. The trains go later on the Portsmouth line.’
The thought of a dreary journey stretching into the small hours, with aching limbs in still damp clothes, did not appeal to Romy. ‘We’d be very late …’
Finch pushed the table away and stood up. ‘Listen, I’ll go and check if they’ve got any rooms first, before we make a decision.’
He left Romy feeling slightly apprehensive. Ten minutes before, her body had been on fire, aching to be alone with Finch. But suddenly being thrown together overnight, albeit in separate rooms …
When Finch came back, he was looking nervous, too. ‘Well, the good news is, they have a free twin. The bad news is, that’s all they have.’
‘Right.’ Romy didn’t know what to say.
‘So you take the room. I’ll bunk off and find somewhere else.’
‘Heavens, no, that’s ridiculous, Finch. It’s still chucking it down.’ She could see the rain splashing in puddles on the outside terrace. ‘Anywhere you find that’s close will cost you a second mortgage.’ She hesitated. ‘We can manage. Two beds, take it in turns to use the bathroom. It’ll be like a school trip.’ She was trying to make light of the situation, trying to hide the nervous tingle she felt running through her body.
But as she watched Finch’s face, she thought he didn’t seem entirely on board with her analogy.
‘I didn’t mean …’ She touched his arm. ‘Let’s give it a go,’ she said encouragingly, inwardly squirming as she thought of the embarrassment of sharing with a man she barely knew. She didn’t even have a clean pair of knickers and a toothbrush – the duo her mother insisted was all a girl needed for a night away from home.Don’t let me snore or dribble, she prayed.
Finch was self-consciously twirling the room key in his hands. ‘Shall we go up, or do you want another drink?’
Romy shook her head.
The bedroom was like the bar downstairs: clean, neat, functional … and chilly. Romy sat down on the end of one of the single beds, Finch on the other. She looked at him. He raised an eyebrow.
‘So, come on, whatdidyou get up to on school trips?’ Finch asked, a mischievous smile on his face.
She grinned back. ‘Oh, smoke, snog boys, the usual.’
He laughed loudly. ‘OK. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.’
‘I bet you got up to much worse.’
‘I wish. No school trips for me … I was home-schooled by my mother until I was fourteen.’
‘Wow, unusual. Where did you live?’
Finch didn’t reply for a moment and Romy felt his change of mood as he said, with clear reluctance, ‘The Painswick Valley, an old stone cottage miles from anywhere. My dear old ma was paranoid about the outside world. Xenophobic, even … probably bordering on survivalist.’ He paused, as if deciding whether or not to go on. ‘The basement was crammed with hundreds of cans of food. She owned three shotguns and a rifle. I could shoot and skin a rabbit by the time I was eight.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘She absolutely hated any kind of authority, which was why she wouldn’t send me to school. She considered all teachers lefty tyrannical morons.’
‘And your father?’ Romy felt almost rude asking, sensing a palpable reticence from the man on the bed next to her.
Finch shrugged. ‘Married man. I only knew him by sight – a local landowner with a large family. He’s dead now, but he never acknowledged me.’ A wry smile formed on his lips. ‘Probably suspected Ma just wanted his sperm – whichmight have been true, knowing my mother – and didn’t want me getting my mitts on his estate.’ For a moment he seemed miles away. Then he added, ‘She was an extraordinary woman, but perhaps not the easiest of mothers.’
Romy was amazed. Robert Fincham seemed the epitome of middle-class conservatism. She had assumed he came from some tidy family in the Home Counties, with two nice parents – father a dentist or in insurance, perhaps – a handful of siblings, two golden retrievers, a Rover on the gravel drive, maybe even a horse in some nearby field.We might have more in common than I thought, she decided. ‘Why on earth the army?’
He laughed. ‘I know, sounds like an improbable choice of career for someone with my background. Nearly gave Ma a heart attack when I told her.’ He hesitated and she noticed him wringing his hands together in his lap. ‘Being used to guns, I suppose, being part of something … And I think I wanted to prove I wasn’t a mummy’s boy … which was what the boys at school called me, of course, when I eventually got there.’
Romy realized she needed to have a major rethink about Robert Fincham. He hadn’t told her a single thing about his childhood before, always brushing off any tentative enquiries she’d made. Talking now, he seemed almost apologetic – embarrassed even – about his upbringing, yet she’d always had the sense that this was a man enviably at ease with himself.
‘So,’ she said brightly, feeling the atmosphere was getting way too thick with Finch’s past and anxious not to start focusing on her own, ‘I suppose we should get some sleep.’
