But although his mother’s news had been a year out of date, it had somehow been more poignant and relevant to Ollie since that fateful visit to Larkhill.
Dear Ollie,
David says I’m a fool. Luke and Jonas said the same, and when Barry Knowles
says that about you, you know you’re about as low as you can go. If I am stupid then I’ve become so over worrying about you. I know you don’t want to talk about anything, ever, but you almost died in that accident. You weren’t the one who had to come to the hospital every day and watch your only child lying there, knowing he was wishing he’d died too. Have you not worked out yet that the one thing I’ve never given Oliver, because I want you to have it first, is true love? So, yes, I’m a fool, but when I saw Tom Collins sitting alongside your bed, watching you while you were unconscious, I knew, Ollie. I knew. You can call me deluded, obviously not to my face, but this complete stranger had read about the accident to the son of the famous…you know how they do exaggerate…author, and there he was. He told me he wanted to help. He’d worked with war-damaged veterans, Oliver! He’d been at Headley Court. What could be better? I was cautious. I was. I didn’t just hire some complete stranger to look out for you—I’d done that before with Edward Barnes. I had Tom checked out. He was getting divorced. He was leaving the army. He was perfect for the job. I did not ask Tom Collins to enter into any sort of relationship with you. Seriously, Oliver, is that even credible? Whatever happened between you two happened exactly like that—between you two. I don’t deny, however, that his looks were a factor in choosing him. I also don’t deny I asked him to help you find yourself. Oh, if you could have seen him alongside your bed…I think the world has a habit of falling in love with Mr Thomas Collins, and I was no exception. But I wanted that love for you.
Oh, darling, you were so happy when you came here in October. You may not have been able to see it, but whenever Tom spoke to you, you simply lit up. I should have told you. I know I should have, and I wanted to, but Tom was really angry with me. We had a terrible argument about you one night. He said he wanted to quit, that things were getting out of hand. He was furious about everything, but, of course, mostly at himself—for lying to you. Although when I pointed this out, and you know I am the soul of discretion and the master of tact, he almost became apoplectic. And Tom, bless him, has many good qualities, but his vocabulary and intellect aren’t two of them, are they? Did you know he was illiterate when he joined the army? He barely passed their basic skills test, and it was only because he was so fit that they wanted him. He had to be sent to a special army school for four weeks, and they taught him to read. Isn’t that awful? I think he’d been in a home or something ghastly. Anyway, you told me not to blame Tom, but I do a little. He talked a lot about helping people find their path, but if you ask me, he’d lost his own map somewhere along the way! (Remind me to use that with Oliver soon. I like it.) But I blame myself more. You called it tough love? It isn’t, Oliver; it’s fearful love. If I had tough love, I’d have picked you up in that hospital bed and shaken you and, yes, punched you until you saw bloody stars.
The only one who comes out of all of this with no blame at all is you.
Please come back, Ollie. The others have left. I’m here on my own and will probably stay while it’s so ghastly in England and go home when the first daffodils are out on the drive.
I would love to have you all to myself for a while.
I won’t track you down, although God knows I don’t think that would be all that hard, would it? How big is Cambridge? Exactly. I respect your decisions entirely. I always have. I steal your life and try to give it to Oliver, but he doesn’t have your good nature or kindness. I’m tempted to send him into a debauched decline somewhere in North Africa, chasing little boys.
Tom Collins is long gone. I’ve not heard from him since you left. I’m selling the house in Dunedin, and if you don’t want to use it anymore, I’ll sell the crib, too.
Whatever pain my mistakes have caused you, remember, they’ve probably hit Tom just as hard.
Whatever else you do, Ollie, believe me when I say that I did what I did for the best of possible motives and would do the same again. And, yes, I’m probably borrowing that from some novel or other, but, darling, this is me.
All my love as always,
RF
§§§
He’d rented a car at the airport, his own little convertible having been abandoned in the long term parking in another lifetime, when he’d been a different man. He set off for Queenstown the next day after he’d had a good night’s sleep. He needed to pack up the crib, get his possessions shipped back to England and contact the agency selling Tom Collins’s villa.
But he’d been away for almost a year and a half; a few days wouldn’t make all that much difference.
The drive to Queenstown wasn’t as enjoyable in the large off-roader as it had been in his little convertible, but then it wasn’t any fun either on his own. Large off-roaders were safe, however, and Ollie intended to live a very long life.
There was no blossom now. This was April. Autumn. Ollie still found it hard to assimilate. The vine and fruit trees of Central were ablaze with gold and red and yellow. The air was crisp, the sun intensely hot on his arm, which rested on the ledge of the open window. He’d come through a severe winter in Cambridge and was pale and could feel the pleasant prickling of the burning sun.
When he got to Cromwell, instead of turning left to Queenstown, Ollie went right, toward Wanaka. No stragglers. There were two fallen comrades, and he needed their absolution.
Ollie knew Wanaka quite well. He preferred it to Queenstown, and had he not been only a boy when his mother had purchased the hilltop station across the mountains, he’d have begged her to buy here. However, although he knew all the bakeries, bookshops, bars, and the expensive clothes boutiques, he’d never had any desire to visit a veterinary surgery before. He had to stop and ask for directions.
He wasn’t expecting James to actually be there, picturing him with his arm up to his elbow in a cow’s arse somewhere high and scenic. However, he was leaning on the counter, frowning over a vast pile of paperwork. And swearing colourfully.
Ollie grinned and said, “Hello.”
James looked up. “Hi, what can I do for you? Sorry, taxes. Bloody nuisance.”
Ollie nodded. “Beats treating dag, I bet.”
James frowned then he straightened. “Shit. Oliver? Ollie? Bloody hell, what have you done to yourself?”
Ollie waved away the changes to his appearance. A year of pure food and constant exercise had done the inevitable to his body. Finding out at the end of March that his novel had been accepted for publication had probably put the grin on his face. He’d sent it to
Hodder
under the name Oliver King. One day, he had no doubt his more infamous identity would be exploited to sell his books, but this first one he had written and sold entirely anonymously. So, yes, maybe the happiness showed through as well as the hard-won muscle.
They shook hands, and James bundled up his papers and ushered Ollie toward the staff room at back of the surgery, calling for one of the nurses to take over for him on reception.
“You given up on farmers?”
“Oh, no, I’m covering for my partner today. Wow, this is a surprise. Tea?”
Ollie nodded. “I wanted to say sorry, about last year, the date.” He used air quotes and made James roll his eyes. “But I also wanted to ask about the dog. What happened? Is he okay?”
James hesitated and then turned his back to finish squeezing some teabags in the hot water. Finally, he handed a mug to Ollie and sat opposite him. “He got adopted by someone local. I lost touch to be honest. Lots of patients…”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry. Did they ever trace his owners? Prosecute?”
James shrugged and changed the subject by commenting on Ollie’s hair.
Huh, who knew, guys do talk about hair.
Ollie smiled happily and rubbed his hands over his shorn, army-short buzz. Running every day, he’d discovered, was much easier without having to give a thought to whether your hair looked good in the rain. James, he was absurdly glad to see, had not apparently learnt this lesson, and was still channelling his inner Boris.
“So, are you back for good?”
Ollie shook his head. “We’re selling some property, and I needed to sort it out. Look, I really do feel bad about what happened last year. I was wondering what you were doing this weekend. I hear the Skyline does an all-you-can-eat New Zealand feast…”
James fiddled with his mug, and Ollie immediately clarified, “Just friends.”
The fidgeting increased. Ollie felt a small pang of regret. You could try, but not all damage inflicted could be healed. Edward Barnes could not be given back his life, nor James, apparently, his trusting nature. He nodded and began to rise, but then the other man said suddenly, “Look, I’m working all weekend—at the Arrowtown festival. Can you meet me there for coffee one morning? I could do coffee, I think.”
“Daylight? Lots of other people around?”
James chuckled. “If I feel threatened on a date, I remind guys where my fist has been and that usually shuts them up.”
Ollie’s brows rose. “I’ll file that away.”
James grinned, clearly remembering their exchange in the pub on that earlier, fateful night. “So, coffee? It’s a date?”
Ollie gave him a rueful lip twitch. “Yes, it’s a date.”
§§§
The early settlers in Arrowtown, a small gold-mining community in the mountains, had missed the English countryside so much that they’d planted deciduous trees in avenues along the main street. Now, over a hundred years later, the hillsides around the town were famous for their blazing autumn colours, and a craft festival was held under the original soaring chestnuts and maples of the avenue. Ollie had been to the festival with his mother and her various guests many times over the years with the enthusiasm most teenage boys show for crafts. He’d trailed around being bored and embarrassed by his mother’s enthusiasms.
He woke that morning in his luxurious bedroom in the hill station and dressed for his run. For the first time in a long while he was reluctant to get up and moving. This was hard. Everywhere reminded him of Tom. But it wasn’t cleansing, it wasn’t healing, if it didn’t hurt.
He took the same route they’d taken up to the top of the mountain. He now made the summit without even breathing hard. As Tom had once commented, Ollie had a runner’s build, and now that he’d found it, he had no intention of giving it back to anyone. Lean, light, and fairly unconcerned now about bodily pain, Ollie could do some serious distances along the Cam. He was extremely pleased, therefore, to discover steep terrain didn’t faze him either. At the top, he paused, thinking about the day ahead. It was seven o’clock. He was meeting James at ten.
There had been no physical spark between them at all. Ollie was glad. He’d not gone there to begin on that path again. This was all about closing down a chapter of his life before turning the pages of the new one he’d made for himself. Oliver King. Ollie stretched and pulled some of the shockingly cold air into his lungs. The sky was beginning to lighten, not a cloud in sight. It was going to be a hot day. James was in charge of the welfare of the veterinary float—one of the entrants in the annual parade along the main street. All the vets in the area, nurses, assistants, and eager families, chose pets and shelter dogs to represent the work they did and paraded with them. James was on duty to ensure they were all watered and patted sufficiently.
Ollie had agreed to meet him by the waffle stand, which, they both knew was easy to find and always in the same location. The main street was closed to traffic, and a small section of it was filled with chairs so visitors could listen to the singer and eat waffles smothered in syrup and cream as they planned their attack on the craft stalls under the towering golden trees.
Ollie got to the fair half an hour early, which told him he was either too eager or too hungry. He had spent years sitting in those white plastic chairs, stuffing his face with waffles. Now, he bought some chestnuts and wandered along the stalls, wondering why age made craft more interesting.
He almost missed his mother, which was the first time in his entire life he’d thought that, including his first night at boarding school, aged seven. It was a sobering thought, and he smiled when he considered writing to her and telling her this. Perhaps he would. No casualties. No one left behind.
He came to a stall selling beautifully crafted Rimu furniture, some of the most expensive items being sold that day. But Ollie couldn’t even begin to imagine the skill and the work that had gone into creating things of such beauty. He would have passed on by, the memories evoked almost too painful to bear, but bravery was like a muscle: it needed to be torn and rebuilt over and over and over again to withstand life’s hardships. So, instead of moving on, he stowed his bag of chestnuts in his pocket, and then, like everyone else who visited the stall, he ran his hands over the smooth, cool wood.
Something caught his eye at the back of the little canvas tent.
It was a dog.
It had stood up when it had realised Ollie was pausing for an inordinately long time, almost as if it owned the stall and was going to engage him in some salesman banter. It had risen onto three legs.
Ollie stared at the large, shaggy, three-legged creature for a while, and the dog stared back. Ollie could only imagine what was going through its mind.
It’s him! That’s him! Arrest him, someone!
There were no alarms, however, and no one came to rugby tackle him to the ground. The voices of accusation were in his head alone. The dog even wagged its tail.
It came forward to where Ollie was, walking on three legs as easily as if
he
had not stolen one from it. The left hind leg was missing from the hip down, but if the dog knew this, it clearly didn’t let it bother him at all. The tail increased its velocity, threatening some small wooden objects on the coffee table. Ollie caught at them, righted them, and then knelt down to the dog. He felt he was risking a great deal doing this. If he were a dog that’d been abandoned and then run over and had now caught up with the bastard who’d done that final dirty deed, he’d have also been wagging his tail to lull him into a false sense of security before he tore his throat out. And this dog seemed more than capable of doing that, very fetching bandana or not.