Ollie Always by John Wiltshire Page B

sugar or alcohol, as he was pretty much topped up with both of those.
    “Janice would love this.”
    Ollie felt fairly sure that Skint’s wife wouldn’t love him, for many reasons, so he didn’t reply. Instead, because he felt so empty, he murmured, “Has she arrested anyone recently?”
    Skint laughed. “She’s just made half colonel, so she’s not hands on anymore. Policy mostly.”
    “Colonel?”
    “Yup. Colonel Jan. She’s working in London now. Hates it.”
    Ollie had little familiarity with work, so he couldn’t comment on this, but it struck him as odd that someone who hated something didn’t just give it up. After all, working in London unhappy, or…living with Skint, very, very happy. It seemed an easy choice to him. So easy, he decided he would ask, despite his plan not to speak. “Why doesn’t she pack it in and come and join you then?”
    Skint was staring out over the vast dam they’d just passed, his face turned away. Ollie thought he wasn’t going to reply, but then heard, “It’s complicated.”
    Uh-huh. In Ollie’s experience—and although he was only twenty-five, he had enjoyed a strange and colourful life so far—situations that were described as complicated, in fact, weren’t. At all. Solutions invisible to the subject in question were incredibly obvious to everyone else.
    Still, none of it was his business. He hadn’t wanted to drive with this man to Queenstown. He hadn’t volunteered to escort him around the previous day nor spend the afternoon on the beach with him. He hadn’t written a word of his novel since he’d met Skint—and wasn’t blame so much more fun than procrastination? Except for the cats, of course.
    Ollie took a corner too fast and to fill the void, asked, “How long are your friends here for?”
    “Couple of weeks more they said, jammy buggers. Sicknote lies about everything though.”
    “Sicknote?”
    Skint made a small noise of incomprehension and Ollie, eyes off the road for a moment, repeated, “Sicknote? You have a friend called Sicknote?”
    “Oh, yeah, he coasted through training on one.”
    Ollie was stumped for another topic of conversation.
    They passed through Cromwell and glimpses of the mountains seemed to keep Skint happily engaged. Mountains and road, and then they were at Ollie’s turnoff. He had to drop Skint here. It was the middle of nowhere. Skint had been confident the whole way that he could either walk or hop on a bus. Ollie had known both these for the fallacies they were, but for some reason, he hadn’t pointed this out. He discovered the reason when he found himself commenting, “I have to go into Queenstown tomorrow to shop. Stay with me tonight, and you can come in with me then.”
    Skint hesitated.
    Ollie wanted to shout, “Not stay with me. We’ve got eight fucking bedrooms!” then realised what he should be protesting was, “I’m not gay! I’m not Oliver Fitzroy. I’m not trying to seduce you,” but it occurred to him that all three of these statements might well be lies. Even he found it hard to tell anymore.
    Skint suddenly grinned and nodded. “Okay. You’re a pal.”
    Yeah. Great. He’d always wanted to be one of those.
    §§§
    Ollie wasn’t embarrassed by his mother’s wealth, although the fact that he always thought of it as hers, thus trying to distance himself from the very thing he relied on, told him that he wasn’t quite as sanguine as he pretended to be. He’d never known anything else. He’d lived the privileged life of the very wealthy since before he could remember, although in certain moods and with enough alcohol inside, he could debate the definition of privilege with the best of them. Sometimes, he saw this concept on a continuum with happiness. Opposite ends of the spectrum and facing each other off uneasily.
    As they wound around the long track to the station farmstead, he wondered what Skint was thinking about it all—the endless vista of yellowing grass interspersed with rock