Revenge of the Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    ‘I’ve not been drunk for – oh, I don’t know. Days. Hours, more probably,’ said Ben.
    We sat on the roof of the cabin.
    ‘I missed you,’ he said.
    I laughed at that. ‘You big fibber,’ I said. ‘You never miss anyone, or anything.’
    He looked a little bit hurt, but I knew it was an act. Despite all these people, despite everything that had happened between us in the past, he was just angling to stay the night.
    ‘You’ve done a great job with the boat,’ he said.
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I like the bedroom.’
    Here we go, I thought.
    ‘I like the skylight. It must be wonderful to lie there at night and look up at the stars.’
    I smiled. ‘Actually, it’s more of an orange glow. Light pollution isn’t just confined to London, you know.’
    ‘I was trying to be romantic.’
    ‘I know you were, Ben. But you forget I know you too well. It doesn’t work on me any more.’
    ‘Genevieve! What happened?’
    ‘You have to ask? I saw you with that girl when you were supposed to be going out with me. Did you forget that?’
    The words were easy to say now. At the time it had broken my heart.
    Ben shook his head. ‘Christ, you’ve got a long memory. I didn’t mean that. I meant, what happened to you in London? You left so suddenly. Nobody knew where you’d gone. Lucy thought you’d been kidnapped.’
    ‘Nothing happened. Don’t be so dramatic.’
    ‘Genny, you quit your job and walked out. You literally walked out.’
    ‘Who told you that?’
    ‘Who do you think? Lucy, of course. She said it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in your office. She said you marched in to the CEO’s office while he was having a meeting and threw your letter of resignation on the table. Then you just grabbed your coat and left. She said she had to empty your desk for you, and when she took the box round to your flat you were all ready to move out.’
    I didn’t speak for a moment. That feeling was back: the sense of disquiet. The tide had started to rise and in another few hours it would be at its highest point. Already the boat was moving, just slightly, the comforting feeling of the Revenge holding me up and cradling me. And yet, with the boat full of people, it didn’t feel quite right.
    From the skylight next to us on the roof, I could hear genial conversation coming up from the galley below changing subtly into more heated tones. Joanna and Malcolm, by the sounds of it – and, on the other side of the exchange, Lucy and Simone.
    ‘All I said was –’
    ‘I know what you said, and I know what you meant.’ That sounded like Joanna.
    ‘You lot are all the same, you haven’t got a clue –’ and that sounded like Malcolm, the edges of his words blurred and slurred by cheap beer ‘– you think just ’cause we live on a boat we’re somehow inferior, just ’cause you choose to live in a house…’
    ‘I didn’t say anything of the kind!’
    ‘Well, why was you going on about the bathroom, then? I tell you, when this boat’s finished it’ll be palatial, and you lot will all be blinded by jealousy.’
    Lucy laughed. ‘I don’t think so somehow.’
    On the deck above, I put my head in my hands. ‘Oh, God. I knew this was a mistake.’
    Ben took the opportunity and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘They’re just drunk, Genny. It’ll all be forgotten in the morning.’
    ‘Ben! Where the fuck are you?’ Lucy was coming up the steps into the wheelhouse, stomping with her high-heeled boots on the varnished pine. ‘Gavin? Let’s go to the pub.’
    ‘Want me to stay here?’ Ben asked me quietly. He still hadn’t been spotted.
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘You go with them, it’s fine.’
    ‘I could always come back later.’
    His voice sounded so hopeful that for a moment I looked up. It would be so easy to say yes, I thought. It would be easy to have him here, to share my bed with him tonight and put him on the train to London in the morning. Would it hurt, one night with Ben? Five