Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [85]
‘You’re not really going to make me go on all those rides, are you?’
‘Oh, yes, one after the other. All of them. And I have a shortcut pass, too. Amazing what you can book on-line now. No queuing. You can just go from ride to ride to ride, without so much as a sit-down. Isn’t that clever?’
None of them remembered the last time Tom hadn’t had an answer.
Even without queuing it took almost three hours for Tom to ride them all. Natalie saved Nemesis until last. Rob and Serena rode all the same rides, but with gusto and enthusiasm – although Serena staggered off Oblivion wondering whether her fertility was at risk from the G-force – rather than the gut-wrenching, tummy-flipping, nausea-induced reluctance with which Tom joined each line. Each time, he gazed at her imploringly.
‘For God’s sake, Tom, you look like a seal that’s about to get clubbed. Take your medicine like a good boy. No reprieves, however pathetic you are.’
‘I’ve never noticed this streak of malice in you before, Natalie. It’s not altogether attractive.’
‘Tough.’
Actually it was quite attractive. Only he felt too sick to think about it. ‘And you’re not going to go on any? You’re making me do it alone?’
‘I might go on one, later. But first, I need to watch you suffer. It wouldn’t be half as much fun if I couldn’t. Besides, I hate the things. They make me sick.’
Rob was eating a hot dog. Fluorescent yellow mustard and ketchup squelched out of the edges. Serena was picking pieces of pink candy floss off a stick and eating them daintily. Tom winced. ‘Urgh. How can you?’
Rob chuckled, and Serena pinched his cheek maternally. ‘There, there. Over soon.’
Natalie went on one. Nemesis, obviously. Poetic, she thought. The front two seats were free. She pulled Tom towards it. ‘The front? Really?’
‘Really. It’s the best seat in the house.’
When they were strapped in and waiting to start, she turned to him. ‘Got your wallet?’ Tom felt in the top pocket of his jacket.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Give it to me.’
He pulled it out and passed it to her. She opened it and fished out the card from the speed-dating night from behind his driving licence, then handed it back to him. ‘I should have known you’d still have it in there.’
‘I still have my university library card too. I don’t clear it out very often.’
‘Mmm.’ She passed him the card. ‘This is what we’re going to do. Arms above your head, please…’
Which was how, when Nemesis reached the zenith of its torturous sixty kilometres an hour journey to hell and back, a small white card – barely visible – fluttered in the air and floated serenely to earth behind the hot-dog stand.
O for Opera
‘Bugger it. Let’s not go.’
‘But you’ve bought the tickets.’
‘So? Let’s flog ’em.’
‘Where?’
‘Outside the place. Like proper ticket touts.’
‘Isn’t that illegal?’
‘Natalie! So righteous. So law-abiding.’
‘I can’t help it – I’ve always been like this.’
‘I remember. Except in the car. You’ve always been pretty lawless in the car.’
‘Lawless but safe, I like to think.’
‘So, look, if it worries you, I’ll do the touting. You can keep lookout. Pretend you don’t know me if the busies show up.’ Natalie giggled.
‘That might work.’
They wandered towards the theatre. ‘So, what was it again?’
‘Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Hours and hours and bloody hours of fat women wailing. No costumes, no sets, just wailing.’
‘You sound like a real fan.’
‘Not bloody likely. Most I’ve ever done is sat through Carmen and La Bohème, and they’re, like, the easiest ones. The most “accessible”, which I took to mean the ones least likely to make you want to slash your wrists.’
‘I saw La Belle Hélène, with my godmother, on about my tenth birthday, I think. It was pretty.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘If you’re such an opera loather, why buy the tickets in the first place? Not stumped, were we?’ She cocked her head at him.
‘No. A bit. Okay – completely. Plus I was looking for a bit of revenge myself, after the whole vomitorium that was Alton Towers.’
‘So, what changed your mind?’
‘Well,