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I could feel his terror even as he held me. His heartbeat thrummed against my ear and there was no ignoring the tremor in the hands. To add to my concern he wasn’t exactly loaded, but behind the scent of toothpaste and countless cigarettes there was the subtlest taste of vodka. Not his drug of choice, which meant he was still fighting the bigger craving, but a stark reminder nonetheless that he was a man in need of a chemical prop to get him through the challenge ahead.
There was something else, too. I couldn’t define the cause, but there was a strange light in Finn’s eyes that hadn’t been there when I left for my run. Still, he had made it to this point and was now immaculate in blue jeans, a white heavy cotton shirt, and his ubiquitous worn black Converse boots.
“So, let’s do this thing, shall we?” Finn asked, and offered me his hand. The skin around what remained of his fingernails had been picked at and pulled away so that tiny beads of blood had dried on the tips of his thumbs, and I fought the urge to take us both back to the shelter of the house even as we stepped out together into the night.
*****
By the time we’d walked into the centre of town, Finn had started to calm down again. He’d even managed to say a shy ‘Hola’ to some of the faces that had begun to look familiar to him. His greetings were, without exception, returned with genuine affection. His beauty turned heads wherever we went, but it was the warmth in his hesitant smile that kept every gaze fixed on him. The residents of Santa Marita had fallen utterly in love with Finn, and none more so than our host for the evening, Benedicta Esparza.
Benedicta was a stately, handsome and indefatigable Basque woman in her seventies who had single handedly raised three sons whilst running the most popular bar in the town. Her father had fought with the Republican Army in the battle against Franco, and Benedicta continued his legacy of immovable socialism and an ability to fight whoever was deemed a threat against those she cared for. The day she had pulled her father’s Mauser on an overly-curious journalist ‘investigating’ Santa Marita’s adopted artist had passed into local legend, and now that same fierce care had expanded to embrace the town’s newest resident.
In the handful of times I’d coaxed him to venture outside our four walls, she had plied Finn, a terrifyingly picky eater, with a killer combination of tapas and maternal concern until he’d eaten more in an hour than he normally got through in a week.
Benedicta usually made a small fortune on Maundy Thursday, the first of the four big celebrations that ended Holy Week; her little bar stood on one of the main streets that led to the town square, and revellers would use it as a meeting place before taking their places at the side of the road to watch that evening’s Procession of the Penitents. Tonight, at Nat’s request, she hadn’t hesitated to shut her doors to everybody but our little party; if we were going to be sheltered anywhere, it was at Ben’s.
We were the first to arrive, and Benedicta had already placed a complimentary bottle of Cava in an ice bucket on a table by the window. I decided not to stand on ceremony and poured two glasses to drink whilst we waited. Finn drained his glass in one, and was just holding it out for a refill when Nat and his new girlfriend walked through the door.
Vanessa Latimer was five feet and eight inches of honeyed-blonde insignificance, clad in cerise Cavalli and matching Louboutins, and polished and attractive in that way that only girls with impeccable English bloodlines and a bottomless allowance from Daddy could manage. Nat clearly needed ‘uncomplicated’ in his life at the moment I decided especially after the turbulence of the past year.
I extended a hand before there was any confusion about cheek-kissing, or even worse, hugging at this introductory stage. At least I managed to give her a polite, almost-warm smile; if only for Nat’s sake I owed the woman a chance.
She returned my smile with what appeared to be genuine cordiality and took my hand with a firm, confident grip. “Oh, it’s so lovely to meet you at last, Lilith. And I need to say this right now, okay? I am so sorry about all that ridiculous business with daddy. I’m really nothing like him – he just gets so, like, unreasonable sometimes?”
I reminded myself that it would probably be deemed a little harsh to hate a person merely because of their ridiculous inflection, and took a long drink of Cava as I watched how she dealt with Finn. Nat had clearly briefed her, because she passed that test, too. Another earnest but safe handshake, and no sign of any prolonged gawping. It seemed that we could proceed to the next stage and sit at our table.
*****
As the evening progressed I almost let myself relax, but there was always that unease whispering in the furthest recesses of my psyche and I had long since learned that it was foolish to ignore it.
Vanessa was utterly vapid and every sentence she uttered appeared to be a question, but she hadn’t yet made an error in her conduct. By nine o’clock I was beginning to inwardly chastise myself for being so worried; just another half an hour and Finn could retire with full honours. I was also exhausted, and I wondered if I’d always have to be this suspicious, constantly running every conceivable variable whenever we were away from the refuge of our home.
Finn
Sleep deprivation, withdrawal and alcohol combined to ensure that nothing felt real asI contributed to the conversation without ever really knowing what I’d said, and tried to laugh in all the right places at anecdotes that I hadn’t actually listened to.
Back in Dublin I’d walked past countless such scenes: warmly-lit restaurants and bars filled with couples, or animated groups of friends celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and the arrival of Friday after a particularly challenging week at the office. I’d glance through the windows and know for certain that I could never be part of who they were or what they had; I’d existed on the periphery, a thing to be used when life turned sour and a creative outlet for anger or hate was needed and now I was actually part of one of those groups, one of those polished, smiling young men with the world at their feet, I had never felt like such an impostor.
Still, three years of playing contemporary courtesan for Blaine Albermarle was paying off, because I was actually doing it. I was making reasonably proficient small talk with Vanessa – mainly listening to the difficulties of mooring a yacht in bad weather, and how, like, it was so difficult to find a career in fashion in, like, Spain? If you were, you know, like, English, yah? – and if there had been any other punters in the bar they might have thought I was normal.
As long as I took a decent mouthful or three of wine every now and then and focused on the minute hand on the ornate clock on the wall steadily ticking down to our planned departure time of ten o’clock, my panic stayed trapped in its box. Sure I’d had to press a finger hard into the fresh burn on my leg half a dozen times to pull myself back to the now, but even that was okay; I was coping. And all the while, Lilith’s hand never moved from where it rested gently in the small of my back, reassuring me and guiding me through the evening.
I might have actually made it through the whole show, if it hadn’t been for the fucking voice.
I was concentrating on nodding in all the right places and not ripping every fragment of skin from around my fingernails when I heard it.
“Freedom is not granted by mere distance, Finn darling.” Blaine Albermarle said, her clipped vowels and low, seductive tone unmistakable.
“Fuck you.” The fork I’d been holding in my left hand clattered to the stone floor. “Shit. Sorry,” I managed.
As Vanessa looked at me as if I were a complete nutjob Benedicta scurried from behind the bar and picked up the fork and replaced it with a clean one. “It’s fine. There’s a new one here. See? No problem. Nothing broken,” she soothed.
I turned to Lilith in desperation. “Oh God, please tell me you heard that,” I pleaded.
“Heard what?” she asked, genuinely puzzled, and I knew then that the voice was a special treat just for me.
“Nothing. Just… Nothing. I thought… Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’m being a right wanker, that’s all. Look, I’ll just go and grab a quick smoke, clear my head.”
“Sure, but are you -”
