Underlife by Robert Finn (different e readers txt) 📕

had been a few tears at first, but very little had been said, and now they had both settled into a comfortable peace. Rachel didn’t know if it would last, but there was every reason to think it would be put to the test later that very day. Rachel was expecting a visitor.

*

Matt phased in and out of consciousness for a long while. The warm cotton-wool of painkillers kept him from understanding the few glimpses of reality he gulped down, before he sunk back into his concussed and medicated stupor.

It was a week before he had any control over the comings and goings of his mind, before he had any say in when his eyelids dropped closed. And it was ten days before they let him have a visitor. The first person they let in to see him was his girlfriend. Matt knew she’d only called herself that so that they would allow her in, but he liked the idea of it all the same.

Rachel looked gorgeous, although the puffy, yellowing bruise across her cheek hurt him worse than the ache in his ribs when he saw it. He wanted to get up, make a fuss of her, even just manage to sit upright, but he couldn’t. After a moment he stopped trying.

Once the nurse had left, she looked him over, concern in her eyes. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Only when I’m awake,” he said. He smiled at her. “Thanks for coming to see me. I was hoping you would.”

She looked horrified. “Are you kidding? Of course I’d come and see you. You saved my life. And look at what it cost you.” She took in the cast on his arm, the drips, and the contraption holding his splintered ribs together. “You don’t do things the easy way, do you?”

Matt was worried that he was going to laugh for a second, which didn’t bear thinking about. He’d probably fall to bits if he tried it. “Well, some of it is a bit vague,” he said. “But I remember nearly dying and then I remember you being there and I could breathe again.”

They said nothing for a moment, their eyes wandering, occasionally connecting, and then one of them would glance away.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Rachel said at last.

Matt said nothing. She went on, “I hid half of that money. It took them ages to come and get us. So I just grabbed it. The police didn’t search my bag. A friend of mine is looking after it, though he doesn’t know what’s inside the case I left him. Here’s the key.” She pulled a little slip of metal out of the pocket of her jeans and laid it on top of his bedside cabinet.

“Why…” Matt said, looking confused. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“Well, you said…” Rachel sounded awkward. “You said you were unhappy. You said you were,” she dropped her voice, “a thief and you didn’t want to be. There’s about a hundred thousand dollars there. It won’t make you rich, but it might let you start over.”

Matt didn’t know what to say. Rachel added quietly, “It’s enough for a plane ticket too. When you’re feeling better.”

“You want me to… You’re inviting me to visit?” he said.

“You can visit,” she said. In little more than a whisper she added, “Maybe, if you like it, you could stay?”

Matt’s face was burning now. He wanted this more than anything, but he couldn’t let himself believe it. This wasn’t how real life worked. He needed to tell her the truth before she found out anyway.

“I want to,” he said. “I think it’s the best offer I’ve heard in my whole life. But, what about the fact… I mean we don’t really know each other. You don’t really know me, is the point. Someone like you…” he was struggling now, finding the words getting stuck in his throat. “I would just make a fool of myself and you’d be disappointed.”

Rachel leaned over and kissed him carefully, once, on the lips.

“You’ve got a point,” she said, “I don’t know very much about you. And I don’t think we’ve got much in common. It takes years before you really know someone. All I know about you is that you make me laugh — sometimes. And that I can absolutely trust you with my life.” She smiled at him and gently took hold of his hand. “And I’ve noticed that you can’t seem to take your eyes off me. I decided that was enough to be going on with.”

“Well, if you put it like that,” Matt said haltingly, but with a smile on his face. “We should probably at least try. Shouldn’t we?”

Rachel was beaming at him. “Yeah, because if I set my standards any higher I don’t think there’d be anyone in the world who qualifies.”

They sat for a little while, not saying much, but both OK with that. And then Rachel explained to Matt the story she’d told the police. When she was done, he said, “You think they believed it?”

“I think they’re used to things not making sense. They just don’t have any better theories,” she replied.

Rachel looked thoughtful for a moment and then pulled something flat and shiny from the back pocket of her jeans.

“Listen, Matt,” she said. “The things we saw — the things that Warren could do — they were pretty weird, right?”

He nodded. And she went on, “As well as taking half the cash, I also had a quick look in that guy Kieran’s wallet. I found this.” She placed the metal rectangle, about the size of a business card, next to the key.

“I don’t know why he carried it with him, but I’ve got a theory. I think it was to remind him that there were more important things in life then understanding people like Warren. I know it’s not easy to walk away from a mystery, but I think this one time that you should. Tell me that you won’t try to find out more about who Warren was. Just get better and then fly out to see me, OK?”

Then she leaned over and kissed him again, and said goodbye.

It was another three weeks before he could get out of bed and even then his doctors advised him against it, but his bones were knitting and he wasn’t in any danger. He’d had thirty-one days to mend and it was enough that he could get around if he had to. The day after he got out of the hospital he picked up the money Rachel had left for him — and the day after that he booked a plane ticket to Seattle.

He slept through most of the flight and then they made him ride in a wheelchair from the gate. Rachel was waiting for him when a helpful Skycap wheeled him into the arrivals area.

He thought about the metal card she’d left for him as she drove them past white fields under a sky so pale and clean he could hardly believe he was on the same planet as London. He looked over at Rachel now. The bruise was gone from her cheek and she looked well and happy and beautiful. When she turned to smile at him, he thought his heart would burst with the feeling of it. He didn’t think he could ever say it aloud, he wasn’t brave enough, but all he wanted in the world was a chance to make her happy. If he never did anything else right in his life that was OK, if he could do that single thing.

After she’d left his hospital room he’d reached over and picked up the metal card. It had been a struggle to get his arm all the way over there and as he moved it, he found she’d left a picture too. It was an old photo of her, holding a horse’s bridle and smiling. She had written ‘see you soon’ on it.

He read the words on the metal card: ‘why study power when you can study happiness instead?’ She needn’t have worried. He didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed the card so that it slipped off the edge of the table and into the bin. Then he propped the picture against a water glass, so that he could see it when he turned his head, and he settled back to think about the future.

The End

The events of Underlife take place before those of Adept and Ex Machina. In the subsequent novels different central characters take up the story.