"Yes, she was here briefly before we took off on a yacht trip for a couple of months around the South Pacific."
"And did she find it particularly depressing?"
I pause, allowing the biting comment on the tip of my tongue to dissolve. "I don't think so. I believe she said something about how practical it was for me to live a minimalist lifestyle, given my travel schedule."
“Really? It must be true love then because I would’ve thought she’d have ended up running for the hills.”
"Well, she didn’t so I guess she’s not as shallow as other people might be,” I say, maintaining eye contact while I tell him he’s shallow. “Anyway, I think we should get out of here and go see a particularly special part of the Paradise Bay Resort where Princess Arabella and I will be spending a few days of our honeymoon — the Island of Eden. I've prepared a special surprise for your viewers. We will be taking my family’s yacht and sailing our way to Eden. So let's get going." So I can become Captain Manly Guy.
Tosh shuts off the camera and lowers it from his shoulder while Nigel gives me an impressed nod. "You're good. You have a unique ability to steer the conversation away from where you don't want it to go."
"Oh, was I doing that?" I ask innocently. "Just trying to move things along and keep the pace up for the audience."
Nigel gives me a smile I can only describe as smarmy. "You're not going to win, you know."
“Aren’t we on the same team?" I ask Nigel, hardening my gaze and setting my jaw.
“Of course,” he says, but we both know neither of us mean it.
"And here we are, on the Banks’ family yacht, the Waltzing Matilda. She's an impressive ninety-foot schooner built back in the 1920s that the family briefly lost due to financial problems before Princess Arabella bought it back for them. Tell us about that,” Nigel says. “Was it a moment of shame for your family?”
Bastard. "No. My brother sold her to save the resort after we'd been hit particularly hard by Hurricane Irma. I had been planning to buy it back with the winnings fromPrincess in the Wild, but we were approximately an hour late getting to the finish line. The opportunity was about to pass by when Arabella stepped in and bought her back for us. A very generous and kind thing to do."
"Be honest, that must have been rather emasculating for you,” he says, feigning sympathy while taking a direct shot at my sense of pride. “I know you received a lot of public criticism for that."
"Well, perhaps for a more old-fashioned sort of person. But I like to think of myself as a forward-thinking man,” I tell him. “Besides, Arabella felt responsible for us not crossing the finish line in time and she wanted to find a way to make it up to me."
“Do you still blame her for what happened out there?"
Oh for…I shake a finger at him and say, "I see what you're trying to do, Nigel, and it is not going to work."
Nigel tilts his head and gives me an extremely condescending look that makes me want to toss him overboard. "The only thing I'm trying to do is allow the viewers to really get to know you, but the fact that you're avoiding the question may lead some to believe that you do, in fact, blame her."
My jaw tightens even though I’m trying like hell to look casual. "Well, they would be wrong. As the experienced party out in that jungle, the responsibility for our safetyandour ability to move through the jungle quickly enough was squarely on my shoulders."
Scratching his neck, Nigel says, "But she ate the berries that made her sick which slowed you down."
Through gritted teeth, I say, "And it was my job to stay with her so that she wouldn't come to harm, and I failed to do that."
"So your failure resulted in you being gifted this gorgeous yacht. How fortunate for you.”
Fucker. He’s got me there, doesn’t he?
It’s late in the afternoon. We’ve been to Eden and back, and now Nigel and I are sitting at a small round table at the beach bar (which has been closed during the interview). So far, I’ve managed to avoid making an arse of myself, but instead of feeling relieved, I feel a heightened sense of anxiety, as though I’m going to fuck it all up at the end like a cop who winds up getting shot an hour before he retires.
"So, Will. Let’s set the stage. You’re a six-year-old boy in Valcourt. It’s almost December, and, like all small children, you’re getting excited about Father Christmas coming to visit. Your dad, a podiatrist, and your mum, a homemaker, hire a sitter one night so they can go to your dad’s office Christmas party. You kiss them goodnight at the door, probably giddy that the sitter will let you eat an extra piece of cake before bed, but you had no idea it would be the last time you’d ever see your mum and dad alive. Talk about that.”
I blink a few times, doing my best not to regress back to that night. Not in front of this tosser. “Well, as you can probably imagine, it was quite an awful shock for my brother, sister, and me.”
“Of course it was. Orphaned so suddenly when a drunk driver killed both your parents. The life you’d always known ripped from you in a split second. How did you survive that?”
Dammit, he’s better at this than I thought he’d be. My nose tickles with emotion. “With the help of my brother and sister, and of course our uncle who immediately came to Valcourt to get us.”
Nigel nods his head with a meaningful look on his face. “How do you think that tragedy shaped who you are now?"
Moving to safer territory… “Well, for one, we moved halfway across the world and spent the rest of our childhood here on the island. Obviously, living with an outdoorsman like Uncle Oscar certainly impacted who I would become."
"And tell me about him. He sounds like a larger-than-life sort of man—resort owner, world traveler, sailor. He was obviously the biggest influence in your life and then you lost him just as suddenly when you were only sixteen years old to a heart attack. That must've been far more than a young teenager should have had to handle. Do you think you’ve fully processed this loss?"
