by Jenny Oliver
‘What’s that building?’ Zadie asked, pointing at the intricate fretwork of a dilapidated greenhouse.
Ruben looked where she was looking, then immediately turned to Olive to see her reaction. Olive had paused.
‘That’s, erm …’ He’d lost his train of thought having seen Olive’s expression. He’d avoided the orangery since he’d been back. ‘It’s where they used to hothouse fruit, like pineapples, in Victorian times,’ he said, distracted. Beside him, Olive was silent. All Ruben could envisage were tangled, sweaty limbs. Steamed up windows, frantic hands and desperate kisses. It made him have to swallow before he could refocus.
‘Wow, can we go and have a look?’
‘No,’ they both said in unison.
Zadie frowned.
Thinking on his feet, Ruben said, ‘The structure’s too dangerous.’
Zadie seemed placated by the answer and, turning towards the lake, jabbered on about how she much preferred pineapple to passion fruit but her favourite by far was mango. Olive walked silently beside him. Ruben wanted to ask her if she was OK but when they got to the lake, Zadie started jumping up and down, grinning gleefully in front of a statue of a woman bent forward standing atop big black and gold arches, a dog at her feet.
‘Look, look it’s Diana, I think,’ Zadie squealed, swiping her hair out of her eyes. Then proved herself right when she got to the plaque and read it. ‘Yes, look, Diana of the Treetops.’ She pointed to the engraved words and then repeated the clue. ‘“There you are in the treetops.” And the sky part must refer to Diana as goddess of the moon.’
Ruben was very confused. ‘How do you know all this stuff?’
‘Because you can’t study to be a playwright without knowing about Greek mythology.’
‘You’re twelve!’
‘My mum thinks I’m very advanced for my age,’ she said, leaning proudly against the side of the fountain but sticking her hand in a great blob of goose poo at the same time.
‘Urgh, gross!’
‘Advanced but completely clueless,’ Ruben scoffed as Zadie wiped away the green poo on the grass. ‘Enough of Barry and his amateur dramatics and Penny thinking you’re a child prodigy, you need me, Zadie, to educate you in the ways of the world.’
It was Olive’s turn to scoff with surprise, snapped from her silent reverie. ‘Are you serious? What are you going to teach her about the ways of the world, Ruben?’
‘I have lots to teach her. About how to act with people. How to chat. How to … dress …’ He was running out of things to say that weren’t just ‘how to be cool’, but he couldn’t say that without sounding like a complete prat.
But Olive had perked up and wouldn’t let the subject lie. Instead, she was trying not to laugh. ‘They sound like great life lessons. Stormzy would be proud.’ She glanced at Zadie, who giggled.
‘Yes, haha, let’s all laugh at Ruben. Hilarious.’ Ruben raised his brows heavenward. It had been a while since he’d laughed at himself. His tactic was usually to make the women he met laugh with him not at him, but, as he looked at Olive and Zadie both amused, both openly mocking him, perhaps that said more about the women he met. He didn’t want to analyse too deeply the fact he was actually quite enjoying himself, so instead he squinted up at the lake statue and said, ‘I always thought she was a mermaid.’
Zadie despaired. ‘Why would a mermaid have a dog?’
Ruben shrugged. ‘I don’t know! I was a teenage boy. Why would I think about things like that? The only thing I remember is being able to see one of her boobs.’
Olive rolled her eyes.
Zadie blushed.
Ruben walked round the other side of the lake. ‘See, boobs,’ he grinned, pointing to one of Diana’s exposed breasts.
Zadie shook her head at him. ‘I don’t think it’s right to get all pervy about a statue.’
‘It’s not pervy,’ Ruben protested. ‘It’s admiring.’
Zadie put her hands on her hips, calling across the lake. ‘No. That’s what all those groping old men say who don’t like #MeToo.’
‘Please don’t lump me in with the groping old men.’ Ruben was aghast. ‘I’m very pro all that. I like strong women. I can just appreciate a well-sculpted statue, that’s all.’
Olive seemed to have despaired of him.
Zadie narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve got some poetry I think you should read. To better yourself.’
Ruben opened his mouth to protest but seeing Olive watching him, recognising that look as one he had spent aeons trying to impress, that had always pushed him – as his daughter now seemed to be doing – to do better, to be better, to listen and question more. ‘Ruben, what do you think about this in the news? What do you mean you don’t have an opinion? Everyone has an opinion. OK, well think about it now, what’s your instinct? Don’t joke. I’m not going to kiss you until you give me a valid opinion. Yes, it is blackmail …’ Realising suddenly that that look aligned with a time in his life when he was infinitely happier than he’d ever been before or since, he found himself holding his hands up and saying, ‘Fine. Fine! Give me your books and your poems. I’d love to read them. Bring it on.’
Zadie responded with a smile of sweet satisfaction. ‘Great. I’ve got some in my bag, we can look at them together later.’
Ruben came back round to their side of the lake, his shoulders stooped in acquiescence. ‘Can’t think of anything better.’
Zadie was delighted. ‘And Shakespeare?’
‘And Shakespeare,’ he agreed through slightly gritted teeth.
‘Hey look, there’s a fish!’ Zadie skipped off in the direction of the fish. Ruben blew out an exasperated breath.
Olive said, ‘That was good. What you did just then.’
‘Yeah?’ Ruben felt his despondent body puffing up with pride.
‘Yeah,’ she said with the spine-tingling, well-done smile that Ruben had only ever thought he’d see again in his memories.
Olive turned towards the Diana statue in the centre of the lake. ‘So this clue …’
Ruben looked where she was looking, still basking in the glow of her congratulations, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun, and he said, ‘Someone’s going to have to swim across.’
They stood side by side looking at Diana.
‘I’ll do it!’ Zadie bounded back.
Ruben was about to agree when Olive shook her head. ‘We can’t send Zadie across.’
‘We can’t?’ It seemed like an excellent idea to him because otherwise he knew which muggins would be swimming across in his Calvin Kleins.
Olive said, ‘She’s a child.’
‘Oh right.’ Ruben paused, then said for a laugh, ‘Well that leaves you, Olive.’ Knowing in a couple of minutes it would be him in the freezing lake because this new camel-jumper wearing Olive was not the type to breaststroke through grubby pond water.
But next to him, Olive was starting to nod.
Ruben made a face. ‘Are you actually going to do it? Because I don’t mind if you want me to …’
Olive chewed on her lip. ‘I don’t want to do it at all. But I think I should do it. You know, because I chickened out of getting the other one.’
‘I wouldn’t call it chickening out,’ Ruben demurred, realising that he was actually quite keen to step in and prove his machismo by wading waist-deep into the lake. It might earn him some more brownie points, or at the very least would show off the abs he’d been working on with Peloton’s ‘Crush Your Core’ session. What was the point otherwise?
But Olive had started to unbutton her jeans. ‘I would.’
Ruben swallowed, completely distracted from any counter-argument by the fact she was about to strip off. He couldn’t drag his eyes away. She untucked her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. Her skin was so pale it was almost white. He remembered the mole on her right shoulder blade.
Zadie shot him a look. ‘You’re perving.’
Ruben snapped to it. ‘I was, I’m sorry. I hold my hands up.’ H
e made a show of being ashamed of himself and Zadie shook her head with disappointment, swiping her overlong fringe out of her eyes.
Olive stood by the edge of the lake in her lemon-yellow bra and jeans. She glanced at Ruben and said, ‘Turn around.’
‘What?’ Ruben was aghast.
‘Turn around!’ Zadie picked up the order like Olive’s bodyguard as she started to slip out of her jeans.
Much to his disgruntlement, Ruben had to turn around. He was holding the T-shirt Olive had given him. Soft white cotton. ‘Is this one of your T-shirts that doesn’t crease?’
Olive sounded surprised, ‘How do you know about my T-shirts that don’t crease?’
‘Google,’ Ruben said as if it were nothing.
Olive said, ‘You’ve googled me?’
‘Yeah, so what? I’ve googled you,’ he said, defensive. ‘I bet you’ve googled me.’
Olive thought for a second, then said, ‘No.’
Zadie laughed.
‘Oh haha,’ Ruben sighed. Was this to be his role between them? ‘I’m glad you find it funny,’ he said to Zadie.
Zadie’s cheeks pinked as she carried on giggling. Then she said, more serious, ‘You can turn around now.’
To Ruben’s disappointment, Olive was already waist-deep in the lake.
‘Oh my God, it’s freezing!’ she shouted. Then as it got deeper and she had to breaststroke towards the fountain, she said, ‘There are reeds all round my ankle. Yuck! Oh, what was that?’ she flipped over and pushed something away. ‘Oh God, it’s a giant bloody fish.’
‘Be careful,’ Ruben shouted back, ‘it might be a pike.’
‘What?’ Olive swam quicker.
Zadie said, ‘Do you really think they’re pike?’
‘No, but we don’t have to tell Olive that.’
Zadie looked torn between her new-found hero Olive and being in cahoots with her dad. Ruben grinned at her, drawing her into a cosy pact of conspiracy, which made Zadie smile under her breath, satisfactorily silenced from telling Olive the truth. He tried not to think about whether this was father-daughter bonding or blatant manipulation as he cupped his hands together and shouted, ‘Fast as you can, Olive!’ spurring her into motoring in front crawl to the statue.
Olive got to Diana and hauled herself up onto the ledge. Ruben finally got to see her black lace pants but the notion of being an old perv had lodged into his brain and it wasn’t as much fun as he’d hoped.
Olive squeezed water out of her hair. ‘God, I hate fish.’
Ruben barked a laugh. Zadie turned away so she wouldn’t be caught laughing too.
‘Can you see the clue?’ he shouted.
Olive had a cursory glance around the statue. ‘No,’ she said, clearly annoyed and embarrassed at her near-nakedness. She shuffled round the plinth to look on the other side. ‘Nothing. I’m going to stand up. Don’t watch me, Ruben,’ she shouted.
‘Olive, I’ve seen you in your pants before, you know.’
She frowned from the statue. ‘A long time ago!’
Zadie cut in, gleefully, ‘You two did used to go out!’
Ruben threw her a verifying wink that made her hop with excitement. Then he folded his arms and watched with growing amusement as Olive started climbing the statue of Diana, as best she could. She was all legs and arms trying to cling onto bits of bronze. Her hair was falling all wet down her angry face. It was like the clock had turned and there was fierce, teenage Olive doing what had to be done. He remembered the icy swims they’d do together in the winter. Goading each other through those first few punishing minutes that were always worth it for the glorious high of cutting through the glassy sea, just the two of them with nothing but miles of blue out ahead. Treading water and looking back at the snow-covered beach, picture-perfect when out of reach.
‘Go Olive!’ Zadie cheerleaded.
‘There’s nothing here!’ Olive shouted. Then pushing her hair off her face, she looked back at Ruben and Zadie. ‘Who are we kidding? Do we really think a clue my dad planted twenty years ago would still be here? And how the hell would he have got to the middle of the bloody lake anyway? What am I doing?’
They both looked at her in the middle of the lake, clutched onto the Diana statue in her underwear. It did suddenly seem very unlikely.
Ruben was about to shout as such when suddenly Olive went, ‘Oh, hang on a minute,’ distracted by something by Diana’s foot. ‘I think I have something. It’s stuck …’ She dislodged a small black plastic box from between Diana’s feet, like the tiny Russian doll version of the blue one Ruben had found the first clue in, and waved it at them. ‘This is it! It’s the clue!’
‘Good girl!’ Ruben clapped.
Zadie said, ‘You shouldn’t call her a girl, she’s a woman.’
‘I don’t need any more of that from you, thanks,’ he remarked, but not meanly, instead he found his tone more gently mocking, like this was their repartee. And he watched the unexpected pleasure on Zadie’s face as she turned to cheer Olive.
Olive was now getting gingerly back into the soupy lake water. ‘Urgh, the fish,’ she cringed as she sploshed in. ‘Oh, and it’s even colder.’ She half waded, half swam across to where they were waiting. And as she rose out of the water, for a moment, Ruben found himself completely entranced. Hair slicked back, determined in her bra and pants, expression like she dared him to comment, all he could see was teenage Olive. And he suddenly couldn’t think of anything he had done with his life between those days and now. He liked his life, or he’d thought he’d liked his life but it seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke when he remembered his Willoughby Park days. The adventures, the company, the dares. The pressure to expand his mind, to be better, to try harder. Not because of school or his father. But because of her. Because of Olive and her opinion of him.
He found himself a little flustered by her semi-naked presence, whereas in contrast she seemed to have grown in stature and confidence. ‘Do you want me to er … Do you want to use my shirt as a towel?’ he offered.
Olive gave him a look like he was mad. ‘No, Ruben. I’ll be fine.’ She reached over to take her T-shirt from his hand – which he’d completely forgotten he was holding – and slipped it on over her damp skin. She had trouble with her jeans, her legs soaking, and winced as she tried to prise them up her thighs.
Zadie was watching Ruben watching Olive with much animation. Ruben shook himself, needing to nip those feelings in the bud, pronto. Olive was nothing like the women he dated nowadays, she was too terrifying. He’d never be able to relax for a second.
She said, ‘I can’t believe there are pike in a tourist lake,’ tying her wet hair back off her face, her make-up all gone, still shivering.
Zadie said, ‘They aren’t pike. Ruben was lying!’
Olive opened her mouth wide, then thwacked him on the shoulder in admonishment, and Ruben said, ‘You’re meant to be on my side!’ to Zadie, who giggled. He once again took note of the warmth inside him. Then he reminded himself that this set-up was transitory. He had been on enough holidays on yachts and secluded villas with friends to know that anything felt special in the bubble of amused camaraderie. It was in the real world where it fell apart.
Chapter Eleven
The roof of the house in the cornfield that Dolly and Fox were heading towards, thirty degrees due east of where they had crashed, turned out not to be the roof of a house.
‘It’s a barn,’ said Dolly, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand as she caught her breath. She was hot and dirty and gasping for a drink.
‘It’s not even a barn,’ Fox said, parking the bike then standing to stare at the dilapidated building. ‘I don’t think it’s been a barn for twenty years.’
Dolly walked forward into the shade of the collapsed galvanised roof, rusted holes casting beams of light onto old hay bales. A pigeon fluttered out when it heard her. A nest of straw on one of the big beams. In one corner was an old tractor, overtaken with ivy and a mesh of discarded rust
y metal. There was a chair with a ripped plastic seat on the floor and a set of upturned metal shelves. Behind the barn was a small forest of pine trees and bare needle-strewn earth. Ivy grew up the side of the iron barn and threaded in tendrils along the path.
Dolly climbed up on one of the hay bales to get a better look out across the network of fields. A patchwork of green and yellow for miles around. The odd smattering of sheep. She saw a grey stone house in the distance, down the hill and back up the other side. ‘The farm’s over there,’ she pointed straight ahead.
Fox didn’t bother with any compass directions this time, he just nodded, ‘Now she tells me,’ and walked over to pick up the chair, his limp more pronounced now they’d stopped, and set himself down with a wince. The rickety chair legs wobbled and looked like they might give way.
‘How’s your ankle?’ Dolly asked.
‘Fine,’ he said, untying his boot and pulling it off, teeth gritted against the pain.
‘Looks fine,’ said Dolly drily.
Fox didn’t reply, just pulled off his sock and lifted his jeans leg up to reveal an ankle swollen up like a tomato.
‘Shit!’ Dolly said, looking at it in awe. ‘You walked here on that?’
Fox shrugged. ‘I’ve done worse.’
Dolly remembered the Swiss Army knife toe-cutting-off story.
‘How’s your shoulder?’ he asked.
It hurt like hell. ‘Fine,’ she replied.
Fox nodded. He just sat there. Catching his breath. Then he shut his eyes.
Dolly sat on the edge of the hay. She checked her phone, still no signal.
‘What now?’ she asked.
He shrugged. Opened one eye. ‘We roll back time to yesterday afternoon when I offered to give you a lift?’
Dolly bit the inside of her cheek. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’
‘I know you have,’ he replied.
‘Well, stop looking at me like that. What more can I do apart from apologise?’
Fox huffed, his expression incredulous as he got up and started to walk gingerly to the bike.
