Free Wish You Were Here by Catherine Alliott Page B

concentration that our knuckles were white with the effort of clinging to the rail, our faces dizzying shades of eau de Nil. It wasn’t so much the rise and fall of the great boat in the swell that I had trouble with, it was the uncertain length of the pause in between. The prow would keep rearing up on the crest of a huge wave, hesitating … oh God, the
tension
… and then swooping down again, like a roller coaster at a so-called funfair. The fact that the pause wasn’t always followed by a swoop but sometimes by a dead drop, like a lift
plunging from top to bottom, was my undoing. It was this last motion that caused havoc with my stomach and, eventually, despite me gulping desperately into the gale, caused me to vomit over the side. Unfortunately, the wind blew it straight back into Rory’s face.
    He was terribly good about it. Wiped his face and his pink Ralph Lauren shirt down with a ‘Couldn’t matter less, Mrs Murray-Brown’, even though I’d ceaselessly told him to call me Flora. But it wasn’t my finest hour. Naturally, I was horribly embarrassed, but Tara was mortified.
    ‘Mum – how could you!’ She flew into the Ladies to find me as I mopped myself down, clutching the basin in an effort not to be thrown across the room, as the boat continued to lurch hideously.
    ‘Well, obviously I didn’t intend to throw up in your boyfriend’s face, Tara,’ I said through my teeth, gritted in case there was more; in case I needed the basin for more than just support.
    ‘Yes, but it’s so gross! I am
so
embarrassed.’
    Amelia materialized beside us, pale and tight-lipped, but not from the swell.
    ‘Toby’s just told me something awful. Apparently, you skipped past him on the landing with no clothes on, is that right?’
    ‘I
ran
to the airing cupboard, Amelia.’
    ‘
Naked?
’
    ‘I didn’t know he was in the house!’
    ‘Oh, like you run around the house with no clothes on a lot! You’re not doing a Mrs Robinson, are you?’ She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. ‘Trying to seduce him?’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

    ‘Well, you’re not making a very good impression, Mum. Try harder, OK? I am not impressed.’
    Two pairs of appalled eyes bored into mine and then the sisters stalked off, united in their disgust, flashing me horrified backward glances over their shoulders as they went and murmuring mutinously.
    Frankly, I was beyond caring, so sick did I feel. I only felt remotely human again when we got to Calais and I was able to change in the loo in a bar and put my dress and Rory’s shirt in a plastic bag in the boot of the car. Even then, I have to admit, the smell still wasn’t great and, to be honest, whatever they say in the adverts, having six people in one people carrier is not ideal. We certainly got to know one another pretty well during that ten-hour drive down to the south of France.
    Rory’s manners were impeccable, really exemplary. But much as I hoped they’d rub off on the rest of us, it was rather exhausting to hear once again how extraordinarily comfortable he was, and did everyone else have enough room? I hoped he’d relax when we got there. Toby and Amelia, at the back, couldn’t have been more relaxed, slumped against each other, plugged silently into their music, Toby, whenever I glanced in the rear-view mirror, foraging furiously up his nose with his finger. Tara was engrossed in a book on Virginia Woolf, so it was rather left to Rory to keep the conversational gambits going. He gave us a valiant running commentary on the flat, northern countryside, explaining how the landscape had disadvantaged the Allied troops during the war – did I mention he was reading history? – and how Montgomery had intended to march his men in strict formation over these fields with
a view to accessing the beaches below, but the lack of natural topographical camouflage had hindered him. He told us about pincer movements, back-up plans, resources. It really was all extremely