The Passenger by Daniel Hurst (great book club books TXT) 📕

a job to fund this Asia trip, but I decide it’s best not to. I get into enough arguments with my daughter when it’s just the two of us. There’s no point starting one in full view of everybody on social media.

I lock my phone again and return it to its usual place on my leg before taking a sip from the glass of water that the waiter kindly poured for me when I sat down. As I do, I think about my daughter and wonder if I am being too harsh on her. I told her that I wouldn’t be giving her the money to go travelling and that she would have to get a job to save up for it if she was really serious about it. Of course, Louise didn’t like that and told me that I should give her the money as a present for finishing school last year. I told her that I couldn’t afford it, but she disagreed. I wondered how she could do that, but then she told me she knew about my safe.

Apparently, she had seen it in the bottom of my wardrobe when she had sneaked in there to borrow one of my tops the day before. The sight of it seemed to confirm to her that I was sitting on a small fortune. I tried to pretend that there was nothing in the safe except for my passport and a few important banking documents, but Louise didn’t buy it. I might have raised a stubborn and argumentative child, but I didn’t raise a fool. She told me she knew there was money in there, and my face gave away the fact that it was true.

I tried to explain to her that the incident with Johnny had left me distrustful of the bank, so the safe had seemed like a good idea. I told her that I had been given a pay rise at work and been saving hard over the last few months, which she seemed to buy as a cover story, sparing me having to tell her the truth that her mother had been going on dates with wealthy men four nights a week. But her knowledge of the cash only made her more determined that I should give her some money.

The fact I told her the money was for my writing went down about as well as expected.

‘Amanda, I’m so sorry I’m late.’

I hear the distressed voice of the old man just over my shoulder and turn around to see my date smiling down at me. ‘Charles, lovely to see you!’ I say as I get up out of my seat and go to give him a hug.

I am not usually so affectionate with clients, but this one is different from all the others. Charles is much older than the rest of them, for a start. He’s seventy-one, with wisps of grey hair on his head and a posture that tells me he is weary from a lifetime of working hard. He’s also the only client I have who isn’t single because of divorce. Charles is a widow. His wife, Mary, passed away five years ago, and after one too many lonely nights at home, he has entered the world of escorting to give himself a little company in his twilight years.

I’ve never felt emotionally attached to any of the men I have shared a meal or a bottle of wine with over the last six months, except this man standing in front of me right now with his diminutive frame drowning in an oversized suit. He looks so cute, and it breaks my heart to think that he is dressing up to impress me now because he is no longer able to do it for the woman he truly loved.

I shed several tears on our previous dates when he recalled his last few days with his wife before she died, and I also felt the fear of the future gripping me when he talked about what it is like to be alone at his age with no one to even talk to. All he wants is some company to share his many stories with, and ever since we met, I have been more than happy to provide it for him.

I have been on several dates with Charles over the last few months, most of them in this bar right here, but a couple at the theatre just around the corner. Charles loves the performing arts and used to watch several plays a month with his wife before she passed. While I could never come close to replacing her, I was more than happy to take her place and sit beside him in those dark rooms while we watched the actors entertain us on the stage. But it was only after a couple of these dates when Charles confessed to being more than a fan of the theatre, telling me that he actually used to work in it.

His eyes came alive as he recalled his varied career as a director for several productions in the West End, and I was thrilled to hear all about his time spent working with some of the most famous actors and actresses in the country. But it was only when I got home and put his name into Google that I actually saw how famous he was in his own right. Far from being just a pleasant man, Charles was also one of the most successful theatre directors this country has ever produced.

But putting his impressive and illustrious career aside, I’m going to miss this man after tonight simply because he makes me feel good. He is full of warmth, humour, and good grace, as well as possessing some of the finest manners I have ever seen a man display—it’s not an exaggeration to say that he has restored my faith in the male population.

If only he were thirty years younger.

But the thought of saying goodbye to Charles makes me anxious because