again, she turned and headed up the stairs that led from their basement kitchen, pulled her coat from the hook near the door and walked with silent steps into the chilly morning air.
People were everywhere. Finn stood still and took a few moments to adjust. After a week in the frozen wilderness, where the only noise was the wind curling round rocks or the crunch of snow beneath his boots, a busy provincial airport terminal was an assault on the senses. Not that he minded.
This was just a different kind of adventure, a different kind of wilderness. One that Finn considered far more dangerous, even with its thick sheen of civilisation.
And, while he hadn’t minded Toby’s company, he’d been secretly relieved when the man had been whisked away in a limo as soon as their helicopter had hit the tarmac. Now he was alone again. No need to use his vocal cords unless he really wanted to. No need to take anyone else’s needs into account. He could move at his own speed and choose his own route.
He ignored the moving walkway, clogged with bored-looking tourists with suitcases, hitched his rucksack higher on his back and set off down the near-empty carpeted area beside it, his strides long and his smile wide.
A buzzing in one of the side pockets of his cargo trousers tickled his legs. At first it made him jump, but then he realised what it was and bent to fish his mobile phone out of a slim pocket low down on his right thigh.
‘Hello?’
‘Great! Finn, I’m so glad your mobile’s finally on again. It’s all gone pear-shaped since I last talked to you …'
Finn gave a lopsided smile and began walking again as he waited for his producer to finish his mini-rant. Simon always got like this after a shoot. Finn knew he just had to let Simon vent until he’d either run out of steam or run out of breath—whichever came first.
When the sentences weren’t hurtling past at a hundred miles an hour and blurring into each other, Finn firmly squeezed a question of his own in. ‘So … what’s really up, Si?’
There was a slight pause at the other end, as if the other man’s unending monologue had suddenly encountered an unexpected hazard and had taken a split second to work out how to flow around it.
‘Slight snag, as they say.’
‘What sort of snag? We’re supposed to be off to Panama tomorrow. Can’t it wait until we get back?'
‘Ah …’
Okay. Now he’d managed to dry Simon up completely. This was news Finn probably didn’t want to hear.
‘It’s Panama we’ve got a problem with.’
Finn stopped walking altogether. ‘Oh?’
‘Anya Pirelli has injured her knee in a training session. Her coach says it’s going to be months before she’ll be ready to tackle a desert island.'
That wasn’t a problem, it was an unexpected blessing! Finn started striding again.
‘How awful,’ he said, feeling genuinely sorry for Anya, but he couldn’t help thinking there was a silver lining.
‘Don’t worry, though,’ Simon added quickly. ‘I’m working on a couple of possible replacements as we speak.'
Now, that was what Finn had been afraid of.
‘There’s no need, Si. We can go back to the old format. Me on my own.'
Simon’s silence was heavy enough to slow Finn’s pace yet again.
‘No can do, I’m afraid, Finn. The TV company have seen the rushes for the first new-format episode. They loved the Formula One star in the swamp. Said it did just what they’d been hoping it would. They’re adamant you need a celebrity sidekick.'
‘But—’
‘I agree with them, Finn. It makes you seem more human. Less of an indestructible force of nature yourself, someone the ordinary guy in the street can relate to.'
Finn had reached the end of the wide hallway now and he had to dodge people stepping off the end of the moving walkway as the space narrowed and funnelled them towards the gates.
‘Okay, okay,’ he finally said. ‘Let me know who you’ve got lined up when you’ve got something firm.'
He said his goodbyes and hung up. He was just about to shove his phone back into his khaki pocket and button the flap shut when he realised there was someone else he probably ought to call before he couldn’t use it again.
He punched a speed-dial button and waited. He got Nat’s voicemail. That was the problem with having a woman in his life who was as free-spirited as he was. He left a brief message, then checked his account for messages, too.
First in the queue was one from Nat.
‘Hi, Finn,’ her message said, sounding a little tense. ‘Look, the South Pacific shoot has been moved forward and I’ve got to fly out this evening.'
Finn frowned. He hadn’t seen her for four weeks, and he’d been hoping to catch up with her this evening. Oh, well. It couldn’t be helped.
‘Anyway,’ Nat continued, ‘your itinerary says you’re connecting through Schiphol, and so am I. I could get there early and we could meet up.'
Oh. Okay. That would be good.
Finn nodded to himself and waited to see if there was anything else. The pause was so long he’d started to pull the phone away from his ear when she spoke again.
‘Finn, I—’ Another pause, shorter this time. ‘We really need to talk, that’s all. Call me.'
And that was that. Finn tucked the phone back into his thigh pocket and shrugged.
Gate Ten loomed close and he moved swiftly and silently through the forest of people until he was standing near the desk by the doors.
The thought of leaving one point on the planet only to arrive somewhere different a few hours later always got Finn excited. And the sense of anticipation did a good job of stifling any niggling questions trying to take root in his brain. Like whether he should have been a little more heartbroken about not speaking to Nat in person. Or that perhaps he should wonder why she’d slipped from his consciousness as quickly and as completely as the phone bumping against his leg in its khaki pocket.
After class that day Allegra returned home. No one had said anything, but she’d known they’d all read every word of that review. It had been there in the surreptitious glances when they’d thought she wasn’t looking. It had been there in the barely contained smirks behind her back. She hadn’t even acknowledged the few sympathetic looks that some of the girls had tried to send her. Those had been the worst.
She’d been so much younger than everyone else when she’d joined the company, still a child almost. If the age difference hadn’t driven a wedge between her and her contemporaries, her meteoric rise through the ranks in the following couple of years certainly had. Now she had colleagues and dancing partners, but she didn’t really have any friends.
All she had was her father.
That
