Page 24 of The Lucky Escape

I got a hole in one again. I gave a pointed look of victory.

‘We don’t even know each other.’

‘We do.’

His turn again, a point pinging up on the small handheld screen we’d been given.

‘Okay then, yeah, sure, let’s go on my honeymoon together.’ Sarcasm dripped from my every word. ‘You can carry the suitcases and I’ll get drunk on the plane and leave you to explore on your own.’

My turn. I got it in one. By the next hole, the tone of our conversation had shifted from a joke to a legitimate pros and cons list. Patrick was waiting for me to say something else, so I told him: ‘You just focus on shooting your shot, please. Look, we’re holding the people behind us up.’

He swaggered over the golf ball and made a show of adjusting his jeans to allow for maximum movement, wiggling his bum at me.

‘Just play!’ I squawked.

He hit the ball and it went straight into the hole. ‘He shoots, he scores, he flies to Australia!’ he cried, waving his hands in the air.

‘It’s a terrible idea,’ I said. ‘Stop teasing me with it.’

‘Au contraire,’ he countered, as I putted my ball. ‘It’s a brilliant idea. You said yourself you’re desperate to say sod it to the rules. What could make the point better than running off into the sunset with your old pal Pongy Paddy?’ The use of his old nickname made me suck in my cheeks to stop myself grinning.

We headed over to the last hole of the course. We wereneck and neck on the scorecard, and suddenly I wanted to win more than anything.

‘Ladies first,’ he said. ‘If you score, it can be your brief moment of winning before I come right up behind you. So to speak.’

I put the ball on the ground and did my own peacocking. It made him laugh. I liked the sound of it – carefree and genuine. He made me feelfunny, instead of performing a role for him. I didn’t have to act like a girlfriend or fiancée or wife or good girl. I was just being me.

‘How did you get to be this way?’ I asked. ‘This YOLO spirit?’

I hit the ball gently and we both watched as it glided over the fake grass into the next hole.

‘Nice work,’ he said, and I acted like it was no big deal. It all came down to the next shot: if he missed this one, I won. If he got it, we’d have to go to a tie.

‘Okay, here’s the deal. If this goes in,’ he suggested, ‘I get to decide if I’m coming with you.’ I raised my eyebrows as if to say,is that so?‘And if it doesn’t, you get to decide if I’m coming with you. But either way, you’re going.’ He used his club to point at me. ‘Almost three weeks in Australia? Who’d turn that down?’

I didn’t say anything.

‘And the YOLO,’ he continued, ‘comes from exactly what you were saying. That there are no prizes for playing it safe. Life is short, and precious, and we only getone. It could end tomorrow. I won’t be the guy who has it end on his way back from the office, thinking about all the could-have-beens. I decided a long time ago to be a today man. Anything else is just too sad.’

He lined up his shot, closed one eye, and hit the putteragainst the ball. I could tell immediately that he’d given it too much force and it was going to make him overshoot the mark.

I was right.

The ball sailed past the hole, making me the winner. And the decision-maker.

He looked at me. He’d totally done it on purpose. I could tell by the lopsided smirk that he was revelling in pushing me to be more spontaneous. More carefree. But I’d told him that’s what I wanted, hadn’t I? He was nudging me in the direction that I willingly wanted to go. Maybe he’d be good for me, then, being a nudger. Maybe it wasn’t wrong to take the trip, to take the money, to take a plane and see what my problems looked like from half a world away. That’s what Alexander had done, wasn’t it? Put thousands of miles between him and his problems?

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this,’ I began, and Patrick walked towards me, eyebrows raised and his gaze penetrating. ‘Potentially, this will be the worst hangover I’ll ever have. But … Patrick …’

He batted his eyes at me like a cartoon character.

‘Would you consider coming on honeymoon to Australia with me?’

He put a hand under my chin and tilted my face up, just slightly. For a terrified second I thought he was going to kiss me. He didn’t. Instead he looked deep into my eyes and adopted a pretty convincing Australian accent to say, ‘Babe. I thought you’d never ask.’

10

I love airports. I love airports, and I am good at them. It’s a learned skill, and actually one that Alexander taught me. You need time in an airport, and also an airport budget. Airports are the black hole of money. You can go into Boots for a bottle of water and come out eighty quid down,poof, on last-minute wet wipes and deodorant and adapters.

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