Page 123 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
And then, when the last chime has sounded, someone knocks at the door.
‘Come,’ I say steadily.
Joey walks in first. He winks encouragingly at me before leading the other two men in.
‘Mr Benjamin and Mr Harris are here to see you, m’lady,’ he announces, and he gives a small bow.
Benji looks at him likes he’s gone mad, but I just smile serenely and say, ‘Thank you, Joseph. That will be all.’
Joey backs out of the room, leaving Benji and Graham standing at the end of the table looking a bit lost.
‘What’s going on, Amelia?’ Benji asks. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am perfectly fine, thank you, Alexander,’ I say, feeling a little guilty I was treating Benji this way. But it was necessary for me to create the desired effect on Graham. ‘Now if you would leave me alone with your friend here, I’d be most grateful.’
Benji looks at Graham.
Graham simply shrugs at him, and holds his hands up in a ‘I have no idea what’s going on’ gesture.
‘If that’s what you want?’ Benji asks me, with a ‘are you sure you’re okay?’ look.
‘I am perfectly sure, thank you.’
‘All right, then. I guess I’ll see you both in a bit.’
Benji leaves the room. I notice he sort of backs out, without turning his back on me. It was working already.
‘Shall I sit, or do you want me to stand?’ Graham asks in a sarcastic tone as the door shuts behind him.
‘You can sit down,’ I say, gesturing to one of the few chairs we’d left around that end of the table, at completely the opposite end to where I was sitting on my ‘throne’.
‘Gee, thanks,’ Graham says, pulling out a chair.
I watch him, and wonder what I ever saw in him. This sarcastic tone was what he always lowered himself to when he was on the back foot.
‘So, what do you want?’ I ask, getting immediately down to business.
‘What do you mean, what do I want?’ Graham replies, folding his arms across his chest. ‘You asked me to come here, didn’t you? I thought you needed money?’
‘You know exactly what I mean. You didn’t come here to offer us money. When you realised it might be me and Charlie that were living here, you came to see us.’
‘That is true, I can’t deny it. I was curious; I wanted to see how you were.’
Keep calm, Amelia. Keep calm, I repeat in my head, as I feel myself beginning to tighten up. ‘After all this time?’ I reply steadily. ‘You wondered how we were? What happed to wondering how we were in the days after you walked out? What happened to wondering how we were in the weeks and months after that? When we had no money and got thrown out of our home. Where was your wondering then, hey?’
Graham looks down at the table. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, not looking up at me. ‘I shouldn’t just have walked out on you like that.’
‘Damn right you shouldn’t.’
‘But I couldn’t help myself, I was confused. Confused about who I was. Who I wanted to be.’ He looks up at me with a wretched expression.
‘And whodidyou want to be?’ I ask, trying my hardest to feel no sympathy for him. ‘Toby?’
Graham shrugs. ‘I . . . I don’t know. Like I said, I was confused, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just knew I had to get out. It was like a noose around my neck pulling tighter and tighter. I couldn’t breathe, Amy.’
‘No,’ I correct him immediately, ‘you have no right to call me that any more. My name is Amelia. It stopped being Amy the day you walked out.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Graham says again. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you and Charlie. You were my world.’
