‘I can imagine,’ she whispered. ‘I suppose I should have put two and two together – here was me thinking you were only back for Kate’s wedding!’ Her laugh was forced and Fin could feel her willing the situation to lighten.
‘It would take more than a free bar and a white dress to drag me back to this place.’ He grinned, taking the kettle and filling the empty mugs. ‘Weddings aren’t really my thing.’
‘I remember,’ she replied softly.
A comfortable silence fell over them both, as Fin emptied the teabags into the bin.
‘Did you have fun at Kate’s? I hardly saw you after the dinner,’ he remarked.
‘Yeah, it was great, although I left quite early in the end.’
‘Ah. I see.’ Fin added a heaped spoonful of sugar to his tea.
‘Can’t party like I used to.’ She rested her back against the cabinets.
‘You’re telling me,’ Fin chuckled. ‘I could barely get out of bed the next day and I wasn’t even hungover.’
A darkness clouded Eleanor’s expression and Fin felt the years of painful memories start to rear their ugly heads once more.
‘Somebody give me strength!’ Freya’s voice interrupted, as she entered the room carrying a huge cardboard box. ‘Mum’s just made me go up into the bloody attic. You know howmuch I hate heights and spiders and dark places. I’m completely covered in dust. It’sgross,’ she moaned.
‘Do you want me to put some whiskey in your coffee?’ Fin offered.
‘More like coffee in my whiskey, please. Mum is on one today, Eleanor, I swear.’
‘Excuse me?’ Angela trilled, entering the room with a devilish grin on her face. ‘Did you say something about me, darling? You have dust in your hair, by the way.’
‘Eurgh.’ Freya began to frantically pat down her hair. ‘There’d better be some kind of family riches in that box you’re about to hand out to us.’
‘Riches come in many forms, dear girl. I thought while we have the pleasure of Fin’s company we could have a look through some of the old memory boxes your father and I kept in the loft. It needs to be cleared out at some point and who doesn’t love a little trip down memory lane, hey?’
Fin felt his entire body tense.
‘Do we really need to do this right now?’ Eleanor frowned. ‘Can’t we eat first? I’m starving.’
‘Lunch won’t be ready for an hour. Judging by the timing of your last few visits I expected you to be anything but on time, and there was no way I was going to risk serving our special guest here dry chicken.’ Fin felt Angela grip his shoulders tightly, giving him a little encouraging shake. ‘So, stop being a spoilsport and let’s get stuck in!’ She flung open the box, sending specks of dust everywhere.
‘Well, would you look atthis,’ Angela gasped, lifting a large photograph up for closer inspection. ‘Your school photograph. I can’t believe you were ever this small. Look at you, Eleanor. Lord knows why we decided to give you that awful bowl haircut.’
Eleanor scowled. ‘Because you claimed you didn’t have time to do my hair every morning.’
‘It really was much simpler when it was short,’ Angela clucked.
‘Yeah, but really,reallyugly,’ Freya snorted, grabbing another photograph of Eleanor as a child and holding it proudly in the air.
‘Now, now, let’s all play nice, shall we?’ Angela cooed. ‘Ah. This is a good one.’ She took another picture from the box. ‘The three of you all dressed up for Halloween.’ She handed the photograph to Fin, who couldn’t help but smile. There they were, standing side by side outside the front door of this very house.
‘Freya is looking pretty pissed off dressed as a … wait … what is that? A beach ball?’ He laughed.
She snatched the picture from him and shot him a scathing look. ‘No! If I remember rightly, I wasmeantto be a pumpkin on holiday. You and Eleanor were going as a corpse bride and groom on honeymoon, and you told me the only way you’d let me come trick or treating with you was if I dressed up as a beach pumpkin.’ She sighed, still sore from the memory. ‘I look awful.’
Eleanor glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled wryly, taking the photo from her sister’s hands and eyeing it carefully. ‘That doesn’t sound like something we’d do. Besides, it looks like we’re dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’
‘I know!’ Freya cried. ‘You decided to change outfits at the last minute without telling me. It was the worst Halloween ever.’
Fin nearly choked on his cup of tea. ‘Sorry, Frey. I didn’t realize we were that mean.’
‘You were the worst,’ she sniped, reaching for a handful of crisps and shoving them angrily into her mouth.
