Chapter Seventy
‘I don’t know why you couldn’t stay longer.’ Mum’s hands reach as though to embrace me, settling on straightening my scarf instead. It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes, half expecting her to bend down and tighten my shoes, maybe ask me if I’ve remembered to pack a hankie today, before tucking hers into my sleeve.
‘Come on, love.’ Geoff takes her still fluttering hands in his. ‘Kai’s got to get back to work.’ Hmm. Someone’s been asking Mr. Google questions. Can you saynet worth, Geoff? ‘He can’t be expected to keep Kate in the style she’s accustom to or else!’
Despite his gruff, jovial tone, I glower at him, stopping short of reminding him that I work myself, and that I’ve done so since turning fourteen.God deliver me from parental perdition at the airport.It was bad enough spending the whole day with them; my mum in high fidgets, not missing a passive-aggressive opportunity to dig in her pearl-handled paring knife. Kai and Geoff bonding and seeming to retreat into some kind of manly-man-hour while dinner was being prepared by the little women serfs.
Norman Rockwell-esque, it was not, especially as my expression during said meal resembled a smacked butt.
‘But we’ve barely seen you.’ With a high-pitched sniff, Mum wipes a stoic tear from her cheek.
‘Come on, Mum. When I lived here, you barely saw me, either.’Because you do my head in my.
‘Shush now, Cynthia,’ Kai says, sliding his arm across my shoulders. ‘There’s no need to be upset. You’ll be with us in a few weeks.’
‘They will?’ I ask, panic flaring under my ribs as I peer up at him.
‘Yes, for the wedding,’ he replies meaningfully. Lifting my hand, he kisses it, his eyes alight with the knowledge that I’m nervous he’ll inadvertently tell them we’re already hitched. That and my patience is wearing paper thin.
‘Oh, yeah.’ Oh, shit.
My eyes catch the glint of light sparking from my right hand; my beautiful round-cut diamond, surrounded daisy-like by more brilliants. It’s a little Art Deco and a lot fabulous. My thoughts immediately turn from my ring to those of our wedding, my stomach twisting uncomfortably. It’s not so much the thoughts of the wedding itself, the Dubai leg, that is, though it’s not something I’m in any hurry to experience.Especially as technically, we’ve already done the deed.But it’s the thought of our return—confronting all I left behind. The trouble ahead.
‘Beautiful.’ Mum’s misty-eyed smile, brings me back, her gaze following the diamond as I lower my hand. ‘Such exquisite taste.’ She beams at Kai. And well she should. The size of this thing, I’m surprised I don’t have a security detail following me around. I thought Mum might give birth to kittens when I’d flashed my hand, the sun glinting off its central diamond, causing light to dance across the kitchen ceiling, as though cast by a powerful disco ball. Of course, she’d thought we were just engaged.
‘And after that, Christmas is just a matter of weeks away,’ Kai adds.
‘Christmas?’ I repeat, disconcerted. Surely he’s not inviting them for that. Will his family celebrate Chrissy?
‘Though you may need to speak to my mother,’ he continues with a small frown. ‘She may want to claim us for Courchevel, if the weather’s good. Skiing,’ he adds, following my questionable look, and returning his attention to my parents. ‘Of course, you’d both be welcome, too.’
I smother a snigger as I image the pair of them decked up for the snow. Plaidsaloppetesfor Geoff and maybe floral ones for Mum.
‘Thank you,’ Mum answers uncertainly. ‘Or maybe Kai would enjoy his first Christmas in the sun? We know how to enjoy ourselves at Christmas, don’t we, Geoff.’
‘Bloody oath! Stock up on the grog, veg out in the sun.’
Yes, because that’s how all Australians celebrate the birth of baby J... eating prawns and getting drunk in the sunshine. Stereotyping at its best.
As Kai makes some crack about his liver not being able to withstand Geoff’s hospitality, I add a kind of colourless laugh, my eyes silent pleading,please-don’t-let’s-come-back-for-that.
‘The gate will close soon.’
‘So lovely to meet you.’ Mum’s hands flutter around Kai’s open jacket, like she’s resisting straighten his clothing, too.
Taking her hands in his, he leans in and bestows kisses on both her cheeks, which suffuse immediately with colour as she exclaims a soft, ‘Oh.’
Kai and Geoff do the manly back-slapping goodbye-thing as my mother squeezes the life out of me.
‘You’ll call when you get there?’
‘I will.’
‘And you’ve got everything you need?’
‘I have.’
‘You weighed your bags, didn’t you? You know those excess baggage charges are extortionate.’
