‘Right. Change of plan, on health grounds. I get to go outside for some fresh air to aid my recovery, and you get to keep your clothes on.’
‘Lilith, I need to do this – I mean, we can’t -’
‘I’m still going to draw you. I’m just doing my best to find a professional compromise despite an unexpected problem.’
Finn ripped another strip of skin from his thumb as he considered this. ‘Might work. Not more than the once, and she’ll be as pissed as hell, but yeah, we might just get away with it.’
‘Well that’ll do me for now.’ I began to gather together my sketch pad and a handful of pencils. ‘Do me a favour and roll that rug up, will you? I could do without a damp arse on top of everything else this morning.’
*****
‘It’s nothing glamorous,’ Finn explained as we emerged from the Hall, blinking against the bright daylight. ‘Just weeding, that’s all – I sorted out a herb garden for Henry last year. All that organic bollocks, no weedkiller, so I need to keep on top of it.’
Despite Finn’s low-key introduction to his other world, I was left speechless. The garden, hidden by the vast servants’ wing and therefore something I had not seen on my morning run, was amazing: Finn’s own artistry.
Herbs that I recognised – lavender, chives, clary sage, mint – stood in gentle regiments alongside a good many I had never seen. He had arranged the textures and colours with an eye for structure that many of my fellow so-called-artists would never be able to achieve. Even in the morning sun, the scents were beginning to mingle to create a heady perfume.
‘You undersell yourself. It’s beautiful, Finn.’ He spread the rug on the grass for me. ‘How the hell did you get into gardening?’
‘Ah.’ Finn glanced up, squinting in the sun. ‘I got put inside when I was eighteen. ‘Possession with Intent to Supply’. Nothin’ major, more like buying in bulk and sharing it out – keeping the cost down for a group of us that worked the Park, but I still got two year. Served one. I did this horticulture course to pass the time. Turned out it was something I could do. That, and I discovered the library. Pretty much read a book a day, every day I was in the place.’ He sat back on his heels. ‘It sounds mad, but it was probably the happiest I’ve ever been. The safest, I know that. If I’d have known what I was coming out to, I’d have kicked off, trashed my pad or taken a screw hostage. Something – anything to get the extra year.’ He gave a remorseful smile. ‘Hindsight, huh?’
‘Oh yeah, hindsight,’ I agreed.
‘Still, I could always grow something that could poison the whole fucking lot of them – that’s the only way it would ever work, taking everyone down in one go. Blaine, Coyle, all the sick bastards that use this as their little place in the country.’
For a moment, his pale, intense face hardened, then the grin returned. ‘That’d add a twist to Henry’s wild bloody mushroom risotto – I could frame the poor little fucker and be in Dun Laoghaire by sunset.’ He laughed hard at the thought, only stopping when his smoker’s cough kicked in and rendered him breathless.
‘Christ, you’re a wreck, Finn.’
He cleared his throat and spat noisily into a hedge. ‘Yeah, I know.’ He pushed his wind-ruffled fringe out of his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry for being a twat, Lili. For earlier.’
Lili. A diminutive that no-one else dared use, yet from Finn it somehow sounded right. ‘Forget it.’
‘I just – Christ, I was shitting myself, to be honest – If you hadn’t looked at me that first bloody night, known what you know, then maybe…’
‘It’s worked out, Finn. It’s okay.’
‘Nah, it’s not okay. It was Coyle I wanted the fight with, not you. Scrote of a man.’ He stabbed a trowel deep into the soft earth. ‘And you defending me – nobody’s ever done that. Probably why I was such a cunt about it.’ Finn glanced around as if Coyle might still be lurking, and for all I knew, he might be. ‘For fuck’s sake watch him, Lili. He was a dangerous little bastard back in Dublin, but here he’s got enough power to make him lethal. Next time, just try to leave him ‘til he gets bored, huh?’ There was a real plea to his voice, but I didn’t need telling. Coyle exuded threat in the same way that other men sweated.