“Well, it’s not a Chelsea tractor.”
Now Alex’s eyes are gleaming. “I’ve never driven off-road before. Really off-road.”
“You want to drive?” I say, and hold out the keys. “Go on, city boy. Knock yourself out.”
—
Alex wends his way carefully through the yard and out through the back gate, then speeds up as we get into the fields.
“Careful,” I keep saying. “Not so fast. Don’t run over a sheep,” I add, as he drives through the six-acre field. To be fair, he keeps well to the side and goes at a reasonable speed. But the minute we close the gate behind us in the empty far meadow, Alex is like a kid at the dodgems.
The meadow is a massive, bumpy, uncultivated mess—we actually get money from some government scheme for letting it grow wild. Alex drives at speed down one side of the meadow, then reverses at speed, then wheels around like a crazy person. If it wasn’t so dry, he’d be skidding by now. He hurtles over a set of rough hillocks at such an angle that I cling on to the handle, then he heads up a steepish bank and careers off the top. He actually whoops as we fly through the air (albeit for a second or two), and I can’t help laughing, even though I bumped my shoulder as we took off.
“Bloody hell!” I say, as we crash back down. “You’re going to—”
I break off. Shit. He’s heading toward the ditch. Except he can’t see that it’s a ditch because it’s covered in long grass and reeds.
“Slow down,” I say tensely. “Slow down!”
“Slow down? Are you nuts? This is the best thing I’ve done in my l-aaaaaargh!”
The Defender lurches down, and for a terrifying moment I think we might roll. My head has crashed on the ceiling. Alex has bumped himself on the open window frame. He frantically floors it, almost willing the Defender upward out of the ditch.
“Go!” I’m screaming. “Go!”
With an almighty whirring of wheels and growling of the engine, we manage to get out of the ditch, career bumpily along for a few hundred meters, then stop. I look at Alex and gasp. There’s blood all over his face, dripping down his chin. He turns off the engine, and we stare at each other, both panting.
At last I say: “When I said, ‘Knock yourself out,’ I didn’t literally mean knock yourself out.”
Alex gives a half smile, then frowns, eyeing my face closely. “I’m fine. But are you OK? You got a real bash there. I’m sorry, I had no idea—”
“I’ll live.” I touch my forehead, which is already sprouting a bruise. “Ouch.”
“Oh God, sorry.” He looks shamefaced.
“Don’t be.” I take pity on him. “We’ve all done it. I learned to drive in this meadow. Got stuck in the ditch. Had to be pulled out with a tractor. Here.” I reach in my pocket for a tissue. “You’ve got blood everywhere.”
Alex scrubs the blood off his face, then peers through the windscreen. “Where are we?”
“The meadow. Come on, let’s get out.”
It’s a pretty stunning day. It must be after one o’clock by now, and the sun is high in a cloudless sky. The grass is long and hay-like; the air is still and quiet. All I can hear are the skylarks singing, way, way above us, in their endless streaming ribbons of sound.
I get out the blanket we always keep in the back of the Defender and spread it over the grass. There’s a box of cider we keep there too, safely moored under its netting, and I take two cans out.
“If you want to know about Somerset,” I say, throwing a can to him, “then you need to drink our local cider. Only, watch ou—”
Too late. He’s exploded the can all over himself.
“Sorry.” I grin at him. “Meant to warn you. They’ve had a bit of a shaking.”
I open my own can at arm’s length and for a few moments we just sit there in the sun, sipping cider. Then Alex gets to his feet.
“OK, I do want to know about Somerset,” he says, his eyes glinting. “What’s that hill over there? And whose house is that on the horizon? And what are these little yellow flowers? Tell me everything.”
I can’t help laughing at his intensity. He’s so interested in everything. I can totally imagine him cornering an astrophysicist at a drinks party and asking him to explain the universe.
But I like it too. So I get to my feet and follow him around the meadow, telling him about the landscape and the farm and the flowers and whatever else catches his eye.
At last the sun is getting too hot to keep striding around, and we settle back down on the blanket.
“What are those birds?” asks Alex, as he stretches out his legs, and I feel a tiny satisfaction that he noticed them. He didn’t have to.
“Skylarks.” I take another swig of cider.
“They don’t shut up, do they?”
“No.” I laugh. “They’re my favorite birds. You get up early and you step outside and…” I pause, letting the familiar sound wash over me. “It feels like the sky’s singing to you.”
We’re both silent again, and Alex seems to be listening intently to the birdsong. Maybe he’s never heard skylarks before. I have no idea what his upbringing was.
“I called you a city boy before,” I say tentatively. “But are you? Where did you grow up?”
“Try ‘cities boy.’?” He tilts his head as though recalling. “London, New York, Shanghai for a bit, Dubai, San Francisco. L.A. for six months when I was ten. We followed my dad’s work.”
“Wow.”
“I’ve had thirty-seven addresses in my life. Been to twelve schools.”
“Seriously?” I gape at him. Thirty-seven addresses? That’s more than one a year.
“We lived in Trump Tower for a few months; that was cool….” He catches my expression and winces. “Sorry. I know. I’m a privileged bastard.”
“It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t—” I break off, biting my lip. I need to tackle something that’s been bothering me ever since I saw him again. “Listen, I’m sorry for what I said at the office. That your famous daddy gave you your career.”
“It’s fine.” He gives me a wry smile, which tells me he’s heard it said a lot of times.
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s not fine; it was unfair. I don’t know anything about how you started out, if you had an advantage—”
“Well, of course I had an advantage,” he says calmly. “I watched my dad my whole childhood. I went into the office, the studio…I learned from him. So, yes, I had an advantage. But what was he supposed to do? Not share his job with me? Is that nepotism?”
“I don’t know.” I feel confused now. “Maybe not exactly. But it’s not…” I trail off.
“What?”
“Well,” I say awkwardly. “Fair, I suppose.”
There’s silence. Alex lies back and looks straight up at the endless blue sky, his face unreadable.
“You know the names of birds,” he says. “You lived in the same house all your childhood. You have a two-hundred-year-old farming background keeping you stable and grounded. Your dad loves you more than anyone could love anything in the world. You can tell that in thirty seconds.” He pauses. “That’s not fair either.”
“My dad?” I say, taken aback. “What do you mean? I’m sure your dad loves you too.”
Alex says nothing. I survey his face, sidelong, and it’s motionless except for a tiny twitch at his eye. Have I stumbled on ground I shouldn’t have? But, then, he’s the one who brought it up.
“Doesn’t your dad—” I stop dead. I can’t say, Doesn’t your dad love you? “What’s your dad like?” I amend.
“Super-talented,” says Alex slowly. “Awe-inspiring. And a total shit. He’s very driven. Very cold. He treated my mother badly. And, for what it’s worth, he didn’t get me my first job.”
“But you had your name,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Yes.” His face crinkles as though in humor, but he’s not smiling. “I had my name. That was half help, half hindrance. My dad’s made a lot of enemies along the way.”
“What about your mum?” I ask tentatively.
“She has…issues. She gets depressed. She withdraws. It’s not her fault,” he adds at once, and I can see a sudden boyish defensiveness in him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, biting my lip. “I didn’t realize.”