‘Ben!’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, grabbing me by the hand and leading me towards the palace. ‘I had a flight from London to Amsterdam tonight, and I was going to spend a day taking pictures of canals before catching another flight from there to Singapore tomorrow evening. I can still make my connection if I fly tomorrow afternoon.’
I walked beside him, dazed for a few moments. ‘Really? You really did that? Just to be with me?’
He stopped and turned, waited for me to look at him. ‘I really did.’
Chapter Four
MY LEFT SHOULDER was stiff, and I stretched to ease it. The movement brought me from the shallows of sleep into consciousness. I blinked and found Ben looking down at me.
Oh, yes. I’d gone to sleep lying on his lap, and by the looks of his groggy expression, he’d also dozed off, feet propped up on a low table, back resting against a padded bench in the darkened lounge area of the hostel he was staying at.
I hadn’t realised that when he’d cancelled his flight to Amsterdam that it had been non-refundable. He’d said it hadn’t cost him much to find one the next day, but he’d only had his hotel booked for one night, so he’d had to pull in a favour from a travelling acquaintance who worked in a hostel in Southwark because that was all his carefully rationed funds would allow.
However, it meant we didn’t really have anywhere private to go. He’d managed to find a space in a room with four sets of bunk beds, two of which were currently occupied by sleeping men, so we’d hung out in the lounge area on the ground floor, full of funky and easily cleanable cheap furniture. I stretched again, yawned, and pushed myself to a sitting position. ‘What time is it?’ I said, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hand.
Ben checked his phone. ‘Ten past four.’ His voice sounded lovely all sleep-roughened. I leaned in and gave him a kiss.
Although I felt bad about costing him money he couldn’t afford before his big year-long trip around the world, I couldn’t regret the fact he’d stayed. Last night had been amazing. After sorting out the hostel, we’d gone to somewhere near Kings Cross that did stupendous curries for a couple of pounds a bowl, then he’d managed to blag us seats at a ‘floating cinema’ in what looked like a mini Canary Wharf somewhere in West London by promising he’d take a few free shots as publicity. Well, when I say ‘seats’, I mean a tiny boat for two that bobbed up and down on the water as we’d watchedJaws.
After the film, we’d just walked and talked through the streets, which had started out full of noise and colour, populated by drunk people either looking for a club or the wrong night bus, but had grown gradually quieter as the night had deepened. In the end, it had almost seemed as if we were the only two people left in the city. We’d arrived back at the hostel at about two and had talked some more before eventually nodding off.
‘Hungry?’ he asked and walked over to the brightly lit vending machine on the other side of the room. I nodded, so he fed it some coins and returned with a couple of packets of Hula Hoops and a Twix to share. ‘Sorry. You have to learn to forage and eat what’s available when you’re travelling on a budget.’
I popped open my packet of crisps and tucked one leg underneath myself. ‘It’s just what I wanted,’ I said, throwing a couple of Hula Hoops into my mouth. ‘If you’d taken me to the Savoy for breakfast, this is what I’d have ordered.’
He laughed, and I smiled back at him. I loved that I could make him laugh. ‘I’m not sure they serve Hula Hoops at the Savoy.’
‘Well, they should,’ I said, mumbling through the crunchy potato rings as I stuffed another handful into my mouth. All that walking earlier had obviously given me an appetite. As I chewed, I wondered what inhabited the vending machines in some of the far-flung places he must have visited. ‘What made you want to travel for a living?’ I asked when I’d finished my mouthful. ‘How did it all start?’
Ben leaned back against the padded bench and sighed. ‘Right from when I was little, I remember being obsessed with atlases. I was always getting the one my father owned out of the bookshelf and turning the pages, wondering what it would be like to live on those little dots of colour in the middle of distant oceans or up on the mountain ranges that ran like spines through countries and continents. I suppose, in some ways, I’d been planning to leave Invergarrig since I was old enough to read.’
‘What’s it like, your hometown?’ I asked.
‘It’s nice enough … I mean, it sits on the edge of a loch, and there are mountains, even a castle.’
‘Sounds like the sort of place people would choose to visit, not leave at the first opportunity.’
Ben looked down, breaking eye contact. ‘I never really felt at home there.’ I shuffled close and snuggled up against him, my back pressed against his side, and his arm came down over my shoulder. ‘I always felt like I didn’t belong, like an outsider. Is that weird?’
I shook my head. ‘No … I get it completely. Not many kids where I grew up play the violin.It made me different.’ I sighed heavily. ‘And now I’m not even sure I want to do it any more.’ I put my bag of crisps down and turned around so I could see his face. ‘What made you feel that way?’
‘My dad,’ he said, without emotion. ‘He made it clear I was a disappointment to him.’
I frowned. ‘Why would he think that? You’re carving out a niche for yourself, doing a career you love. Isn’t that what everyone wants?’ In contrast, my parents had supported me every step of the way to pursue my dreams. That was why thinking about dropping out had been so hard.
He exhaled. ‘It’s not a “proper” job, apparently. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps, go into insurance …’
I pulled a face.
Ben laughed softly. ‘Exactly! And the fact I didn’t want to do that caused a big issue.’ He fell silent for a moment. ‘But, to be honest, that wasn’t the start of it. He’s always been like that – picking away at my sister and me. Nothing we did was ever good enough, and it got even worse after my mum died. She used to go to bat for us, even though I now realise she might have been scared of him too. So, I suppose the question should be: whywouldn’tI want to leave Invergarrig as soon as I got the chance?’
‘Your mum died? Oh, I’m so sorry, Ben.’
‘It’s okay. It happened a year after I’d left home, and my sister bore the brunt of living with him alone – she’s two years younger than me, so she was only seventeen when it happened. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I think he got even worse after Mum passed. I think that’s when Cat really started to struggle.’ He stared into the darkness on the other side of the room for a few seconds.‘At first, she acted out. You know, basic teenage rebellion, but now …’ He turned to look at me, and there was a bleakness in his expression. ‘I’m worried about her.’
‘Do you get on?’
