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‘I’m not usually in the habit of freaking out like that.’
‘You didn’t,’ I assured him. ‘And if you thinkthat’sbad, you should see me when there’s a spider in the bathtub. I’ve been known to phone friends at all hours for emergency assistance.’
His face was definitely relaxing now, and I saw with relief the glimmer of a smile. ‘Well, you can add me to the list of potential rescuers, if you like. Spiders don’t bother me. I spent the first ten years of my life in the country that made the huntsman famous.’
I raised my eyes from the pathway, which was proving more and more tricky to negotiate the further we got from the hotel. ‘Australia? I didn’t know you grew up there.’
A memory flickered in his eyes. It looked like a happy one. ‘My mum was Australian, and my dad was English. We moved back to the UK for my father’s work when I was a kid.’
Finn’s use of the past tense when he spoke about his parents hadn’t escaped me. But I knew better than to ask about them. If he wanted me to know more, he would tell me.
‘You don’t sound much like an Aussie,’ I said, determined to keep things light.
‘The accent comes and goes,’ Finn said, with an easy shrug. ‘It’ll probably return with a vengeance when I spend time there.’ His jaw hardened, as though he’d accidentally revealed a secret.
The pathway had been getting steeper, and the heels I’d chosen for the evening were proving totally inadequate.
‘Are you okay to walk in those shoes?’ asked Finn when a loose stone nearly felled me. ‘We’re almost there now,’ he continued, offering me his hand for assistance, ‘but I could give you a piggyback for the rest of the journey down.’ His smile was broad, and his eyes were finally twinkling again.
For a millisecond I imagined myself on his back, my thighs clamped fast around his torso, his hands clasped beneath my bum for support. A totally inappropriate dart of desire shot through me, leaving a scorched trail that started in my stomach and ended between my legs.
‘I’m fine,’ I said on a gulp, dropping to a crouch and spending far longer than necessary unbuckling my sandals. I didn’t risk standing up until I was one hundred per cent certain every trace of my wayward thoughts had been erased from my face.
The sun was continuing its low slide towards the horizon, bathing the area in that particular hue photographers like to call the golden hour. I’d never appreciated that expression quite as much as I did right then, as I placed my hand in Finn’s once again.
The colours grew even more intense when the pathway ended its meandering course and spilled us out at the end of a seaside promenade. I smiled as my gaze travelled along a row of pastel-coloured beach huts that stretched as far as I could see. ‘They look like tiny Monopoly houses,’ I confided to Finn, laughing at his wry comment that you’d need to pass ‘Go’ a great many times to be able to afford one.
‘Beach walk or seafront?’ he asked, reaching over to take my shoes and carry them for me.
There was an ardent feminist deep within me who was probably wondering who the hell I was right now, but I was happy to ignore her.
‘Seafront.’
Most of the beach huts had been closed up for the day, but there were a few diehard owners who were determinedly squeezing the last moments from the warm summer’s evening. They were sitting outside their miniature buildings on folding deckchairs, with plaid blankets spread across their knees to ward off a chill I couldn’t even feel.
Almost everyone we passed called out a greeting; some even raised their cup of tea or can of soda in an unspoken toast to the end of the day. There was a charming, quintessential Britishness about the huts, with their peeling, weather-worn paintwork and their cheery occupants. I was totally enchanted – which was how I’d been feeling about almost everything that evening.
We’d almost reached the end of the promenade, and as spectacular as The Manor House was, I was in no real hurry to return. The Finn walking at my side was a far more laid-back version than the one we’d left in the hotel grounds, and I wanted to keep hold of him for as long as possible.
Finn heard the music before I did. He paused on the pathway, his head tilted, to catch the faint strains above the sound of the waves lapping at the shoreline. There were only a few beach huts up ahead, and it was fair to say they all looked a little more shabby than chic. The one playing the music had long corkscrews of faded yellow paint curling on its clapboard front.
The music was surprisingly loud and crackled in a way that made me think it was an old vinyl record. I vaguely recognised the song as one more likely to live in my parents’ music collection than mine.
We slowed down and then came to a stop as an elderly man emerged from the yellow beach hut’s open doors. I don’t think he even saw us standing to one side in the shadows, for his attention was focused only on the elderly woman two steps behind him. He held out a liver-spotted hand, and she placed hers within it. The thin band of gold on her finger gleamed among a concertina of wrinkles.
The man’s spine was stooped, but he was still taller than the slight woman with the wispy white hair. He gave her a smile full of dentures and love as he placed his hand at her waist. He paused for a moment, listening for the beat, and then swept her into a dance that my years of watchingStrictlyreliably informed me was a waltz.
Beside me, Finn was smiling warmly as his eyes followed the elderly couple while they danced on the pathway as though it were a ballroom. They were lost, not just in each other but wherever it was the song had taken them. They moved with the ease of a couple who’d been held in each other’s arms for decades. There was a beauty in their somewhat clumsy, stumbling movements. This song was theirs; this moment theirs; and their love was so tangible, it brought tears to my eyes.
I glanced at Finn, surprised to find him looking down at me with an unreadable expression on his face. Someone would be there inhisfuture, when his eyesight was fading, his jaw less firm, and his back bent with age. How crazy was it to want so badly for that someone to be me?
‘I’m so sorry, do you want to get past?’ called out the old man, attempting a twirl in true Fred Astaire fashion.
‘No. Please carry on,’ said Finn, his eyes crinkling at the edges with the warmth of his smile.
‘It’s lovely watching you both,’ I added.
The old lady’s smile was beatific as she looked at us over her husband’s bony shoulder. ‘It’s our anniversary. Sixty years today. We danced to this song at our wedding.’
