Finding Ruby , livre ebook

Finding Ruby
Jemima Price
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-06-30
Finding Ruby About The Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgements Prologue Part One London Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Part Two Thailand Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Part Three Laos and Cambodia Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Missing Chapter Twenty-Six Part Four Thailand Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One The Joneses Chapter Thirty-Two Part Five The Gili Isles Chapter Thirty-Three Epilogue
About The Author
Jemima Price has travelled extensively and combines this with her love of writing. She is currently a busy working mother and teacher in Cambridge.
Dedication
To ‘the dudes’ T, J and S and the best days of our lives.
Copyright Information ©
Jemima Price (2020)
The right of Jemima Price to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528945738 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528971461 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
Special thanks must go to Christianne for being my first reader and laughing – and crying! - in the right places. Thank you to Mum and Sally for reading this so long ago and believing in me, even if it took me a while to do something about it. Thank you to my little army of boys at home, for making me want to keep my feet on the ground. Thank you to Jennie and Simon for that day, long ago, when we sat down in a pub with a map and worked out the trip that was to change our lives forever.
Finally, thank you to Tony for giving me the cosy fire but also the cool refreshing breeze.
Prologue
With a heavy stomach, I watched the bank moving further away from me as the small wooden boat crossed the river sluggishly. I felt the eyes of the boat driver on me as he manoeuvred the rudder, wondering no doubt why I was alone, why I wasn’t with a boyfriend or a group of girl travellers like most of the other passengers. I looked towards the oncoming shore avoiding his eye contact. Scraggy palms swayed in the breeze and people moved along the narrow beach like ants, loading passengers, animals and sacks of coconuts onto boats. Growing smaller and further away by the second, the riverbank behind retreated from me, and with it, my old life. Clutching onto my rucksack to stop it from slipping over the edge and into the murky brown water, I turned back to the advancing shore. The approaching land looked verdant and alien. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. A few months ago, everything had been so normal. Now here I was on a boat, deep in the heart of the jungle, heading somewhere I had never been before, with no plan and no concrete destination in mind.
Go back. The thought kept running through my head like a mantra. But from somewhere deep within, a small, resolute voice answered: “There was no going back.” There was nothing to go back to.
How had it come to this? I was on my own in a strange country, far from anyone or anything I had ever known and I was terrified. I fixed my eyes on the shadowy, leafy bank, trying to numb my heart and silence my mind.
Just get through today, I told myself. Tomorrow was too much to think about yet.
Part One

London
Chapter One
I stared in disbelief at the small rectangular piece of paper in my hands and felt the happiness of the sunny morning draining away. Richard grinned at me expectantly; his eyebrows were raised in question, waiting for my response.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
He was evidently very pleased with himself.
I forced a smile onto my face but I couldn’t raise my eyes from the piece of paper.
“Rich, this is…fantastic, but…”
I re-read the ticket; a round-the-world ticket flying to Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles before returning to London.
“Valid for a year,” Richie said excitedly. “We fly into Bangkok, then we can travel around South East Asia as much as we want, before flying to Singapore for a bit of shopping, then onto Australia for a couple of months and a few days in LA on the way home. It should take us about nine months, but we can extend it if we like, which I imagine we will…”
I had switched off after the ‘nine months’ because I had noticed the date of the first flight. It was 1st October. Today was the 30th August.
“Rich, this must be wrong,” I said turning the ticket to face him, “The date says 1st October.”
He shook his head, grinning that impish smile that always won me over, no matter what he had done – and trust me; he had done a few things that needed a lot of winning over.
“No mistake. I thought we should strike while the iron’s hot. Feel the fear and do it anyway and all that. I thought a month was plenty of time to get things in order, buy our rucksacks and stuff, get our jabs, get your sabbatical sorted, get someone into the flat…”
“Get someone into the flat?”
I sat up straighter in bed, nearly tipping over the orange juice that was balanced on the tray on my lap.
“Well, yeah,” he shrugged. “We can’t just leave it empty while we’re away, can we? The mortgage has to get paid somehow.”
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. His smile faltered. This obviously wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. I snapped my mouth shut, reached out my hand and squeezed his knee.
“Look, Rich,” I said forcing a smile onto my face, trying to mean what I was about to say, “This is a really lovely surprise, but…well, it is a surprise. I mean you only mentioned you would like to go travelling the other day…”
“A month ago, and I haven’t stopped talking about it since. You just never listen to me,” he sulked.
“OK, a month ago. But there’s been quite a lot going on. You know, buying a flat, moving in, decorating; you can’t blame me if I didn’t take you seriously about this,” I tried to catch his eyes as they studied the floor, no longer smiling and happy. I suddenly felt awful. I put on my biggest smile, masking my dismay.
“Rich, this is great. It really is; I was just surprised that’s all. Thank you.”
I kissed his unshaven cheek. The dimples that I adored appeared as a slow smile spread over his face, and before I knew it, he had jumped astride me on the bed, pushing the breakfast tray aside, knocking juice all over the duvet as he bounced up and down.
“Rich, the duvet…” I protested weakly.
“I knew you’d come round. It’ll be great, Ruby. Just imagine: you and me on a beach in Thailand. And you never know,” he pinned my wrists to the bed either side of my head, “it may just be the kind of place that would persuade someone to get engaged…”
My stomach lurched as he leaned down to kiss me. OK then, that persuaded me. As he bounced off the bed and skipped into the bathroom singing a Bob Marley tune, I couldn’t stop the sinking feeling in my stomach. Backpacking. I just didn’t do backpacking.
***
“ Backpacking ?” the voice screeched down the phone, “What the hell are you talking about, darling?”
“Well, putting a rucksack on your back and travelling round the world. That’s what I am talking about, Mother.”
“You?” I could see her throwing her perfectly coiffed red hair back over her shoulders as her tinkling laugh came down the phone. “Don’t be absurd! Get a refund. Go to Barcelona instead. Or New York for Christmas. It’s just wonderful.”
“Yes, I know, Mother, and that is more my thing, and it is what I would prefer to do. But Rich wants to go backpacking, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Rich wants, Rich wants,” she mimicked. “When are you going to do what you want, darling?”
I knew she would be shaking her head, and I heard her taking a drag on her cigarette. “Whatever happened to women’s lib? Waste of bloody time. Your generation is more of a push-over than ever before.”
I sighed. Mum just didn’t get it. Rich was impulsive and was wont to do this kind of crazy thing – which was part of why I loved him – but there was no room for compromise; it was his way or none at all – and although I knew deep down that it probably wasn’t very healthy in a relationship, I also knew that to hold onto him, I had to go along with it. It usually wasn’t all that bad. Like the skiing trip he booked last minute, last Christmas, even though I had never skied before and had never entertained the idea in my life. Never mind that I broke my wrist on the second day and had to watch him hurtling down the slopes for the next two weeks; I was quite happy sitting by the fire and waiting for him to come home in the evening for romantic cuddles and candlelit baths. Although there was actually only one candlelit bath, as Rich had made some new friends on the slopes – some lawyers from London – and he wanted to go to the resort bar most evenings. Anyway, I was happy to let Rich shine. He flew, and I was the rock he always landed on.
“Mum, I’