Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
‘I just can’t.’ He flaps his hands and feels lost in the room with two such incredible professionals. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Ben, we’re staying,’ she says, keeping that same gentle soft tone. ‘Just get dressed.’
‘But . . .’
‘Please,’ she says, locking eyes on him.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he says pointedly. ‘You both look normal in those clothes. I won’t. I’ll look stupid because I don’t belong in them.’
‘Ben, get dressed.’
‘Safa, I can’t . . .’
‘You can and you will,’ she says, taking a step closer to him. ‘You’ll be okay. Christ, you’re Ben Ryder,’ she says again with her dark eyes locked on his. ‘Think of the incredible things you’ve done.’
‘That stuff doesn’t bother me,’ he says desperately.
‘What does then?’ she asks questioningly.
‘I don’t know, like . . . being away from home and . . . not being at home . . .’
‘That’s homesickness. That’s normal. Everyone gets it.’
‘But this is forever and . . . we’re not going back.’
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Sit down for a minute.’
‘Safa, I’ll sit down but—’
‘Good, then do it.’ She guides him to a chair as Harry starts shredding her grey top into hairbands. ‘Break it down into an hour at a time.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We’ve got to disconnect from what we were. We’re here to do this. We died. We do not belong to the places we came from. So,’ she says, pausing while leaning towards him on the edge of her chair, ‘worry about the next hour and just that next hour. Get through that and worry about the next one. Do that and eventually all those hours roll into days and this feeling you’ve got will ease up.’
‘How do you know?’
She shrugs, remembering what she had to endure at Downing Street and that fourteen days had seemed like a lifetime but she knew she would get through it. ‘Because it will,’ she says.
The way she speaks to and looks at him, the tone of voice, the care in her eyes and genuine concern in her manner all work to push that panic away until he starts to feel settled and calm again.
‘Okay,’ he says, more to himself. ‘Hour at a time.’
‘Hour at a time,’ she says.
‘Okay. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ she says, quickly reaching a hand out again, and for a second he thinks she’ll grip his hand in a comforting gesture but she stops and pulls back at the last second. ‘I’ll get you through this, Ben. Now get changed.’