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“Really?” I glanced at the poolside clock. “It’s only six and we’re not meeting them ‘til ten.”
*****
If anyone had told me during my residence at Albermarle Hall that within a year of leaving the accursed place I’d willingly be using sex as stress relief, I’d have laughed them out of the dungeon. Yet here I was, sated and boneless across a huge cream leather sofa with a similarly relaxed and naked Lili lying on top of me.
“Thank you,” I managed.
“Sometimes even I’m humbled by my own charitable works,” Lilith murmured into my armpit, then proceeded to fall asleep for another hour.
*****
“Are you sure this get-up’s okay?” I asked, appraising myself in the full-length mirror. “I really don’t want to be coming across like some kinda flash bastard.” I’d ditched my jeans for once and replaced them with a pair of soft corduroy pants that Lilith assured me were burgundy, and absolutely not purple.
A typical damp Dublin day also had me swapping my faithful Converse for a pair of dark brown leather ankle boots and I’d stuck with one of my familiar plaid shirts, worn over a white t-shirt, as extra protection against the chill. Spain was clearly sending me soft.
“You look utterly gorgeous and entirely you.” Lili emerged from applying her makeup in the bathroom and stood behind me to slide her arms around my waist. “The only problem with you Finn, is that you’re cursed with the dreadful affliction of looking amazing in whatever you choose to throw on. You could probably cut armholes in a pillowcase and it’d be on the Paris catwalks by spring.”
I turned away from the mirror and gave a soft ‘oh’ of surprise as I caught proper sight of her.
For a second, I imagined that I saw a flicker of worry in her perfect face. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“You’re not in costume,” I said. Everything about the forthcoming meeting – new people, strange territory, a need to be on guard for the pair of us – would normally see Lilith dressed in one of her sharp and immaculate vintage outfits. Instead she wore her favourite pair of worn black jeans and a red hoodie that had been mine until an unfortunate encounter with a hot wash.
Even her eyes were still blue – today, just a little paler than a clear winter sky – and my heart swelled. This was the human and entirely vulnerable Lilith Bresson that only her closest circle ever saw, and she was willing to meet my sister without her shield in place.
“Well I could hardly let you be the only brave one in our party, could I?” She checked herself one more time in the mirror then rested her forehead against my chest. “I… Well. Um, you’ve probably gathered by now that I don’t do families terribly well. At all, if I’m brutally honest.
“Look, I intend to do everything I can to make sure this goes right for you, Finn. And if that means that they might actually have to accept me for the imperfect being that I really am, then so be it.” She straightened her shoulders then stood on tiptoe to arrange my shirt collar to her liking. “So shall we do this thing?” she asked, striding for the door before I had the opportunity to dive back into bed with her and demonstrate my eternal gratitude for the fact that she’d walked into my life.
Chapter Fifteen
Lilith
Khadija arranged for the Rossmont’s limo to drop us off in Temple Bar, right outside The Drover’s Arms. The venue for our first meeting with Niamh was a typical Dublin city centre pub; Victorian red-brick, with ornate architecture and gleaming brass, offering visitors an Authentic Irish Experience. In this case, this appeared to consist of endless amounts of Guinness, something called a ‘Hangover Buster’ breakfast served all day from opening time, and live music from midday until midnight.
From our email exchange we’d learned that Feargal was a tattoo artist who also worked the pub circuit as a fiddle player with a folk band called Bugger’s Muddle, and the Drover’s belonged to a friend of his so we could meet in the private function room with our privacy assured. In welcome addition, tourist Dublin slept late, with its hordes of stags and hens still working off the excesses of the night before.
Even at ten o’clock the streets were deserted, and the bitter drizzle wasn’t going to make it much of a day for sightseeing. The only colour came from the first of the year’s Christmas decorations swinging and sparkling in bold defiance against the gloom.
Finn and I stood on the pavement outside the pub. He had his arm draped across my shoulders and I could feel the tension thrumming through his fingertips. “Oh Christ, I can’t do this,” he said. “Not yet.”
I looked up at him. In the ten minutes it had taken to drive from the hotel his golden Santa Marita tan had faded to a shade of pale green. “Are you going to hurl?” I asked.
“No.” Finn swallowed hard. “Um, maybe.”
“Do you want to walk for a while?”
Finn glanced at his watch. “It’s ten already. We’ll be late.”
“Fuck ‘Late’ Finn,” I said. “Better that than dead of a heart attack on the kerb.”
“Aye, fair play,” he agreed, and we set off.
*****
It took two circuits of Temple Bar, hunched against a soft rain that soaked us both through, before Finn finally gave me a nod that indicated he was as ready as he was ever going to be.
“Ah fuck, what if she hates me?” I heard him sayu to himself as we went through the door.
