Page 26 of The Lucky Escape

‘I’m afraid so,’ I replied, solemnly but with flickering eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure that you doing the pretendHome and Awayaccent is as annoying as people doing the posh English accent and saying things about five o’clock afternoon tea with the Queen. Sorry.’

He kept a straight face and volleyed back: ‘I normally take my tea with Lizzie at four thirty, actually.’

I jutted my chin at the monstrosity on his head. ‘Did you buy the hat especially?’

‘Will you think less of me if I did?’

I kept po-faced in response, the pair of us in a comedic stand-off of who would break first. I did actually want him to take it off, but I had to admit it was nice that he was so keen, and also apparently oblivious to the reactions of everyone around us. He only wanted to make me smile, and didn’t mind being a plonker to do it. I pulled the hat off his head and tugged it onto my own, adopting a grin and giving him a wave of jazz hands.

‘Strewth! You look a million bucks!’ he exclaimed, the accent returning.

‘The hat can stay,’ I replied, wagging a finger at him. ‘But the accent has to go.’

‘Right you are, ma’am,’ he replied in his normal voice, understanding that I meant it. He clapped his hands together and looked around the hall. ‘Okay then. So. We’re going to Australia.’

‘Apparently. But if you want to chicken out …’

‘Yeah, good prompt actually. Thanks for the exit opportunity.’ He pretended to walk away, leaving his suitcase by my side but swishing his arms like a Swiss marching guard.

‘Don’t make me drink my airport beer alone!’ I shrieked after him, and he turned on his heel and yelled, imitating a sergeant major:

‘Make it an airport gin and tonic, and I’m sold.’

‘You’re paying,’ I cackled, as he came to retrieve his luggage. ‘So you can have whatever you want.’

He took the tickets from me.

‘May I?’

I stepped back. I vaguely knew which direction we had to head in but I hadn’t figured out which check-in desk yet because I’d been so busy watching everyone and thinking about Boots.

‘I need to buy travel plugs,’ I said. ‘Once we’re through.’

‘I have four,’ he responded, not looking up. ‘We can share.’ Then he creased the tops of his eyebrows together, looking perplexed. ‘Annie, these are business-class seats. Did you know that?’

I took the paper from him and looked. ‘How have you reached that conclusion?’

He pointed at the bit that said: BUSINESS CLASS.

‘That was my first clue,’ he noted.

Business class? I mean. It was nineteen hours to the otherside of the world, so if that was right I wasn’t going to be upset by it, but did Alexander’s parents really pay for business class? They weren’t exactly on the bread line, but business class to Australia must have cost thousands of pounds.

‘That feels like a lot,’ I observed, and he watched me chew the information over. ‘Why don’t we go and see what they say at the desk? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but also, I am going to owe Fernanda and Charles anincrediblylarge Toblerone if it turns out you’re right …’

‘This way then,’ he instructed me. ‘Down to twenty-two to twenty-six D.’ He pointed a finger at the departure board and I quickly tried to locate what he was alluding to.Qantas, the board flashed,check-in desk 22–26 D. It turned out my travel buddy was good at airports too.

‘After you,’ I said, my tummy inexplicably somersaulting as he took my suitcase alongside his own. It was nice that he was a gentleman that way. He was looking after me, and I wasn’t too proud to admit to myself that I liked it. I made a mental note of that detail to report back to Mum on the other side.He looked after me, Mum! He was kind! Stop making me out to be somehow unethical!

I needed to stop worrying about my bloody mum. Fernanda had loved it when I’d called her and asked if I could use Alexander’s ticket for Patrick. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, but she wouldn’t even let him pay for the name change – she’d been overwhelmingly delighted for me, and didn’t even ask how I knew him or if she’d met him before. I tried to squash down the guilt at her generosity, because it made her happy to do this for me, she’d reasoned. Her bigheartedness was humbling.

Patrick trotted ahead, cargo shorts that I’d normally think no man should be seen dead in sitting low on his hips, hiscollared polo shirt lazily half-tucked in at one side, the muscles in the backs of his arms twitching as he moved.

Over his shoulder he said, ‘Stop staring at my bum and hop to it, you.’

‘I thought you had tissue under your heel,’ I said, too quickly, and he stopped to lift his shoe and check.

‘You don’t,’ I continued. ‘Trick of the eye.’

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