that his Finbar story had seriously depleted his fund of small talk. The only things left to say were too big to approach tonight.
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it a night. Bathroom’s through there.’ He put the covers on the stove top and ensured that the back door was secure. Picking up the orange ashtray, he headed off down the short corridor, but hesitated at his bedroom door. ‘Um . . . goodnight, then, Moss.’
‘Goodnight, Finn.’
Finn sat on the edge of his bed and rolled another cigarette. He was trying to give up yet again and was down to four a day. His routine had always included a cigarette before bedtime and he often smoked in bed even though he knew it was dangerous. But tonight he sat upright while he drew in the acrid smoke. With someone else in the house, his carelessness could have serious consequences. Abstracted, he smoked his second and then third cigarette before climbing into bed. His sleep was fitful and he struggled to keep at bay the dreams that drew him back to the house with the rose garden, back to the house where Amy and Linsey had greeted him with so much hope, all those years ago.
2
Michael, Amy and Linsey
WHEN FINN WAS STILL MICHAEL, his stork-features were not at all evident. At twenty-two, he was tall and supple in the way of an athlete or dancer, or even an archangel, and his thick blond hair bore no trace of corrosive yellow. It was whiteblond, a Viking blond that matched his deep blue seafaring eyes. Further blessed, he was one of the brightest in his year at university, where he was majoring in pure maths.
Women found him variously handsome, gorgeous, scrumptious, sexy, funny, clever, attentive, charming: infinitely attractive, in fact. They loved his hard, lean body, the silver-gilt halo of his hair, his kind, vulnerable blue eyes. But despite his undoubted good looks and charm, he had an air of innocence that turned the minds of his female acquaintances to dark thoughts of passion, seduction, and, in some extreme cases, corruption. Every one of them wanted to see lust in those dark blue depths and Michael, who was nowhere near as innocent as he seemed, was happy to oblige. Strangely enough, as he moved easily from one conquest to the next, he left behind very little resentment. Disappointment, yes. But very little resentment.
As none of them actually fell in love with him (or he with them), it seemed only fair to share him around. Most of his women eventually went on to marry lesser but more accessible men. Of the remainder, two never married: one entered a convent, and the other disappeared into the black hole of the Murdoch newspaper empire from whence she later emerged as a waspish commentator on other people’s sex lives.
The problem with all this female attention was a lack of ready cash to fund his exploits. Michael had a bursary that paid for his books, his scientific calculator and some of his rent, and to supplement this, four nights a week he stacked supermarket shelves for twelve dollars an hour, earning just enough cash to cover the rest of his living expenses. As a consequence, he often had to leave his paramours alone in their beds as he dived into his clothes and hurried to rendezvous with laundry detergent, baked beans, tomato sauce, Tim Tam biscuits and bonus-sized bottles of Coke. There was no doubt that money was short, but somehow he always found a way.
‘Hey, Phil, can you lend us a couple of dollars?’ he asked his housemate one day.
Phil looked up from his newspaper. ‘Pushing your luck, mate. I only have six dollars fifty till I’m paid and you still owe me twenty bucks from last week.’
‘Is that a yes or a no?’ Michael had a happy knack of ignoring what he didn’t want to hear. Getting no reply, he began to compile a shortlist of those he hadn’t borrowed from recently. The list was very short indeed. He was close to despair when Phil came over with his newspaper. It was the official student publication, Vox Discipuli.
‘Get a look at this, Mike. A job made just for you. Listen: Part-time position. Earn up to $10,000. Applications are invited from males between the ages of twenty-two and thirty. They must be tall and fair, in good health and with an exceptionally high IQ. Special skill in science or maths preferred. Please send CV, academic transcript and