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“I’ll probably start in Bangkok and take it from there.”
“By yourself?”
“At first, yes. But I’ll meet up with people and if they’re going in the same direction, I can travel with them.”
Gabriel rubbed his chin. “We need to talk about this, Beth.”
“Of course. But my mind is pretty much made up. I need to get something good on my CV. Future employers will want to know what I did during my second gap year and if I say that I stayed with my parents, babysitting for friends—well, it would look a bit lame.”
“When are you thinking of going?” Iris asked.
“Next month.”
“Next month?” Gabriel’s dismay was apparent. “Why do you need to leave next month? Can’t you wait until after Christmas?”
“No, because the flights will be more expensive then.”
“I’ll pay the difference.”
“Gabriel.” Iris managed to catch his eye. “Stop. You’re making Beth feel bad.”
“Sorry.” Gabriel looked at Beth. “It just feels a bit rushed, as if you haven’t really thought it through.”
“Can we talk about it tomorrow, Dad? It’s that I’m meant to look after Hamish tonight. Esme and Hugh are going out for dinner.”
“Can’t Joseph babysit?” Iris couldn’t help herself. “You told me heloves looking after him. It would be nice if you could have dinner with us for once.”
“I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow, I promise.” Beth was already backing toward the house. “We can talk more about it then. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.” She blew them a kiss. “See you later.”
Iris glanced at Gabriel. His whole body had sagged, as if his world had come to an end. But then, Beth was his world.
“You didn’t really expect her to spend a whole year here, did you?” she asked.
Gabriel looked up. “Why, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t really think about it. But now that I have, I can understand her wanting to do something useful with her year out, have something to show for it.”
“How do we know she’s not going with Joseph?”
“Joseph?” She looked at him in alarm. “What do you mean?”
“She said Bangkok. You know I told you that he had given his phone number to a student at the school? According to Maggie, he’d offered to show her around Bangkok. He’s very familiar with Thailand apparently, and usually spends the summer there.” He found her eyes. “Will you still be as blasé about her going if she tells us tomorrow that she’s going to Thailand with Joseph?”
“That will never happen,” Iris said from between gritted teeth. “There’s no way she’s going anywhere with that man. He’s an alcoholic! He might be on the wagon now, but I bet it wouldn’t take much for him to fall right off.”
“I wish we’d never met the guy,” Gabriel said bitterly. “I wish you’d never brought him into our lives. He’s nothing but trouble. Charlie would probably still be alive if it wasn’t for him. And Laure. And if she hadn’t met him, Pierre might still be alive.”
“She killed Pierre before she started a relationship with Joseph,” Iris reminded him.
“We don’t know that. Maybe she told Pierre that day in Paris thatshe’d met someone else, maybe their argument started from there. Maybe Pierre told her that he’d never let her go, so she killed him. We don’t know, Iris. That’s the absolute tragedy. We just don’t know.” He pushed his chair back. “The only thing I know is that if Joseph is at the root of Beth’s decision to go to Asia, I will bloody kill him.”
62
Iris carried a tray laden with bowls and cutlery into the sitting room. They were having a takeaway tonight in front of a film chosen by Beth. A family Saturday night in, of which there had been too few.
She and Beth had gone shopping that morning, to buy her a backpack for her trip to Thailand. When Beth had told them last week that she was going traveling next month, neither of them had realized that they were almost at the end of September, and that “next month” was just days away.
During the week, they had talked to her about her trip, and that’s when she’d told them she was planning to leave around the twentieth of October. It meant they only had three weeks left with her. Iris had managed to soften the blow for Gabriel by suggesting that they met up with Beth wherever she was at Christmas.
