The Getaway by Ross Armstrong

Author:Ross Armstrong [Armstrong, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

The first Mrs Rathwell

Amelia

At the beach, Ben returned to where I lay and Kostas watched from the car. Ben called to JR, reminding him to stay in the shallows as he showed us his crawl.

‘So, what did Bobby mean?’ I said, still chilled in the hot sun at seeing Bobby’s writing. ‘Think about that point when strangers become friends?’

Ben shook his head, lost in thought. I wondered whether he had charmed Rathwell as much as he had me. My eyes landed on the handsome curve of his mouth. I was so taken with his face from the moment I saw it. That careful, studied manner.

‘Is it about us?’ Ben said. ‘Or someone else? Someone close to Rathwell who forced their way from stranger to friend?’

‘I’m not sure Rathwell is who you should be worried for.’

‘Maybe. But I had a feeling he wanted to tell me something when no one else was around.’

I nodded. ‘How did he seem to you?’

‘Stable. Sofia says he’s beaten worse,’ Ben said, with odd conviction, and I wondered why he had been charmed by the older man. ‘He’s a fighter.’

The phrase always seemed so naïve. As if other people who aren’t so tough can disable their own immune system through cowardice. I thought of my own mother and all of those tubes going into her. And my dad nowhere to be seen. I cursed myself for even thinking of him here. I had kept who my father was from the Rathwells for long enough. There were times I felt sure they knew, but they never let on.

‘I think Rathwell has us right where he wants us. If you ask me, that’s what Bobby was trying to warn us about,’ I said.

He gave me a look. Our relationship had moved across the line of flirtation, as if we were destined either to marry or to murder each other.

‘Not sure Robert even knows what’s in front of him, but his body’s hanging in there,’ Ben said. ‘My mother’s the other way, she’s totally aware of how her body’s failing her.’

‘Gosh,’ I said.

‘God, you really are posh,’ he said, like it was an insult.

‘And you’re not,’ I laughed. ‘I’m glad you’ve stopped putting it on.’

‘I wasn’t putting anything on,’ he said, suddenly defensive. ‘We were encouraged to speak properly at drama school. We were told to get a pocket mirror so we could do tongue-tip exercises. You have to adapt when you move around a lot, so I was used to it. But still, I’m neither northern enough nor posh enough. I do some regional accent I’m told I’m not as real as the others with it. But, as you can tell, I haven’t perfected well-spoken either to the natives. Neither upstairs nor downstairs, one casting assistant said.’

He didn’t see any irony in explaining being stuck between two worlds to a young mixed-race woman. But I didn’t mention it.

‘I think you’re perfect as you are,’ I said, with a smile. It was so strange, a holiday feeling had returned for a second, like nothing had happened.

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