Ollie Always (2 page)

So, shoes.

This was something of a dilemma. Although he lived in New Zealand now, and occasionally tried to fit into the culture, going barefoot was a step too far. It was a step too far in any civilization in his opinion, and certainly unwise whilst moving swiftly on ones feet in a pretend running motion. The runner, Ollie was very glad to note, had proper shoes.
He
did not, unfortunately. But he had some Converse knock-offs from China and reckoned these would have to do. He had shorts and a T-shirt, of course. Fitting into the culture and all that…

Five minutes before he knew the runner would arrive, that tiny yellow speck on the horizon, Ollie slipped out of his living room, jogged down the steps and onto the soft white sand at the back of the beach, where the crashing ocean never reached. It was hard going, so he slowed to a walk, and made his way carefully along until he could see a suitable gap in the bush bank that divided the beach from the road. It wasn’t that easy. The triffids dominated the landscape, and where they hadn’t taken up an aggressive stance barring his way, gorse bushes stuck up with their unpleasant and impassable scratchy branches.

Very gingerly, aware his window of opportunity was slipping by, Ollie parted the shrubs and tried to force his way toward the road.

He checked his watch. The man would be at his house by now. Ollie quickened his pace, thrusting through the spiky fronds, almost getting into a jog, when with a soft
crump
the sandy ground beneath him fell away. One leg went with the falling bank, one stayed on the top. Something tore, and it wasn’t only his T-shirt caught in the wicked, vicious-edged shrubs. An agonising burn shot up from his inner thigh to his groin, and he grabbed at himself, moaning softly.

It was double-PE first thing Monday morning all over again!

“Hey, you okay?”

Ollie closed his eyes for a brief moment. It was inevitable. What had he expected? He should have gone with the medical emergency in the garden option. At least then he’d have been able to drape himself elegantly, tragically, while he waited.

He sighed inwardly and opened his eyes.

Christ.

The runner was utterly…Ollie’s pulse quickened, as if he had actually been running, and he wasn’t entirely acting when he stuttered, “Yeah, I…sand…leg.”

The stunning man smiled broadly and came closer, peering over the edge where Ollie’s leg still dangled.

Ollie began to pull himself together and made to rise from his inelegant sprawl. He glanced down at his hand. Before he could stop himself, he screamed—an inarticulate, cursing, high-pitched sound that made the other man swear too and step rapidly away.

“Oh my God, oh my God,
shit
!” Ollie’s cries turned into a wail of genuine and total distress. “I’ve put my hand in dog shit!”

He was too revolted to see what the other man thought of this but couldn’t help but hear an amused, “I’m not sure that is specifically
dog
shit.”

Ollie’s mouth dropped open. He looked up, and the man shrugged and added helpfully, “Freedom campers were here the other day…”

Oh, God, the man was English—a too-much-to-hope-for coincidence now utterly wasted. Ollie simply wanted him gone, so he could restore a tiny shred of his dignity. Actually, he wanted to crawl home and
wash
.

His mouth still open in distress, the inevitable happened, and his chin began wobbling. He swallowed deeply and pushed himself to his feet, holding his offending hand as far away as something attached by an arm physically could be held.

He’d completely forgotten about his leg until it did its tearing thing again—a sudden hot stab right into his groin, which made him hiss.

Still extending his arm to its maximum stretch, leaning over in pain, he decided there was only one thing to do—fall back on the Englishman’s innate ability to be superciliously, icily polite, and retreat.

“Anyway, thank you so much for stopping. I expect you want to get on.” He took a step, felt sweat break out on his brow and doubled over, breathing deeply.

“Where’s your car?”

Ollie straightened and nodded vaguely toward his house, the roof of which was just visible over the triffids. “I live there, actually.”

“Oh, long run then.”

Ollie gave a brittle smile at the man’s natural wit and hoped the
sarcastic git
he was thinking came over loud and clear. By the man’s twitch of a smirk in reply it did.

“You gonna be able to walk that far?”

Ollie graciously assured him that he could. He took another step and stopped again, biting his lip.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Suddenly, Ollie was seized around the waist and flung over the complete stranger’s shoulder.

He knew he should protest about the presumption, the position…but to his utter horror he only heard himself whine, “But I’m all shitty…”

“Yeah, I noticed. Keep that hand away from me. Do you have a shower?”

“What?”

They were emerging onto the road. Ollie pictured the scene from the point of view of someone passing in a car. Not good.

“A shower? A thing to wash in?”

“Of course!”

“Okay.” The man actually jogged slightly.

“Uhgh.”

“Sorry.”

It wasn’t easy being courteous to someone’s bum while upside down, so Ollie figured his best defence was silence.

They entered the house. The runner took a swift look around and marched Ollie down the hallway, easing open doors with his toe until Ollie mumbled, “One at the end.”

Deposited into his own bathroom and eased down onto the edge of the bathtub, Ollie slumped with his one hand still stuck as far away as possible. He shuddered theatrically. “Thank you. I can manage now.” He hobbled to the sink and began scrubbing viciously, wincing and holding his breath.

“I’d guess you’ve strained your adductor muscle.”

He peered up into the mirror to see the stranger watching him. “What? My what? Where?” More furious scrubbing.

“In your leg. Does it still hurt? It can be a difficult injury to recover from.”

“What!” Ollie glanced down and tentatively probed his groin with his spare hand. Three minutes! He’d done three minutes of exercise in the last eight years and look where he was now! More furious scrubbing and rinsing.

“You got a kettle?”

“What is your obsession with my possessions? Yes, I have a kettle. I have a washing machine and a toaster and a computer. Happy?”

The man chuckled. “I was going to offer to make you a cup of tea.”

Ollie slumped again. “Oh. Thank you. I think I’ll have a shower. I feel…”

“Dirty?”

Ollie looked back up into the mirror. He considered the man observing him. “Yes.”

The man smirked. “Yep, shit will do that to you every time.” He strolled out and apparently went to find the kitchen.

When Ollie emerged, pink and so sanitised his skin was almost raw, he could walk relatively normally. He wasn’t about to attempt the splits or anything, but then he wouldn’t have tried that in normal circumstances.

The stranger was sitting at his kitchen table, drinking from one of Ollie’s favourite mugs, and he waved at a second alongside him on the table. “Feeling better?”

Ollie nodded and eased himself down into a chair across from the man. “I think we’d better be introduced. Ollie.” He held out his hand.

The man shook it. “Skint.”

“Skint?” Was that a faint blush? Intriguing.

“It’s a nickname. Everyone calls me Skint. So, I guess we’re neighbours, Oliver.”

Yesss
. “
Ollie
. It’s Ollie. Always. So, have you bought the old place over the hill?” God, he was good.

Skint made a small noise, which Ollie took to be assent, and asked in reply, “How long have you been here?”

“New Zealand? About a year. Three hundred and thirty-one days, in point of fact.”

Skint raised his brows. Ollie shrugged and changed the subject back to the interesting topic of the man called Skint. “You?”

“Six weeks.”

“You bought a house within six weeks of arriving! Bloody hell, what if you didn’t like it here?”

“What’s not to like?”

Oh, let me count the ways.

“Besides, I guess I’d just sell again if I wanted to leave.”

Ollie almost spluttered at this naivety about the facts of life in New Zealand but covered by taking a sip of his tea. “Biscuit?”

Skint shook his head. “I don’t eat sugar.”

Ollie’s lip curled of its own accord, so he glanced away and tried not to think about the delicious shortbread in the cupboard.

Skint was looking around the place with what appeared to be a practised eye, which was confirmed when he said admiringly, “This is an original villa. Have you had it long?”

This was a bit tricky. Ollie didn’t want to get into the hows and whys of him living in this particular house, so he answered the first part to distract his guest from the second. While he rambled on about architectural features, he studied this man, who was by any reckoning exceedingly distracting himself. He’d been right about Skint’s hair being long, but it wasn’t shaggy at all. It was well cut and hung at exactly the length that made Ollie want to run it off the broad forehead and slick it back. His nose was straight. This latter feature beautifully balanced a pair of wide-set brown eyes, and the tan wasn’t flush at all, as Ollie could see tan lines around the man’s collarbone. All this perfection was topped off by heavy, designer stubble, which only emphasised a manly jaw. Ollie wasn’t very good at judging people’s ages, but he put the guy at a few years older than he was—possibly thirty. Something was vaguely familiar about him, especially around the eyes, and Ollie tried to place him in the various worlds he’d inhabited—parties in London, or Cambridge…possibly even school—Devon?—but could not make the insubstantial recognition solid.

He finished his nice distraction about the villa and, keeping the momentum of the conversation away from himself, added, “What do you do?” Then he quickly apologised and muttered, “Sorry, I’ve been here too long. Ignore me.”

“Is that something I’m likely to get asked a lot?”

“Absolutely. Everyone will ask. It’s like we might say…bit chilly today. I think it’s required. They train them in primary school. By high school they learn to add in a question about how much land you have, and then by the time they’re adults they can ferret out how much money you earn, too. Sorry. It’s a bit chilly today, isn’t it?”

Skint laughed and nodded. “Not when you’re running—as you’d know, obviously.”

This was provoking, so Ollie ignored it. His mind drifted back to his shortbread tin. How could anyone drink tea without a biscuit? It defied belief. It was really the only point to making tea in the first place.

“So, Ollie-Always, what do you do? See? I’m assimilating.”

Ollie lifted his gaze to the man’s face at the seemingly innocuous use of the nickname. He could not detect anything other than friendliness in the expression. It was only
his
heartrate, then, that had ratcheted up a notch…The man’s brows rose, clearly prompting him to reply, but it was an even trickier question than the house one. Ollie wrinkled his nose. He’d tried out his, “I’m a writer,” once or twice on strangers already, and each time, he’d been met with, “Anything I’d know?” How the bloody hell was he supposed to know what they knew or didn’t know, and, besides, other than the fact that he hadn’t written anything
yet
, he was
planning
to write under a pseudonym. Which was something else he didn’t want to get into: house, job, name. Which were all one and the same problem really, when he thought about it.

He had to say something. It was a Tuesday, and he was sitting in his kitchen at eleven o’clock in the morning. “I’m a writer.” He winced, waiting for the inevitable.

Skint only nodded thoughtfully. “Good place for it. Amazing view.” His eyes were scanning the empty beach with the never-ending crash of waves. “Very peaceful. I look out over the valley and the mountains, but I can hear the sea at night.”

Nice cue. “Do you have family with you?”

“My wife’s staying in England for a while more.”

Ollie got up carefully and fetched his shortbread.

It was very comforting.

CHAPTER TWO

Hopelessness was another great procrastinator Ollie had found over the years. Not only for writing of course. Pretty much for doing anything. His friends had always been able to tell when he was being stalked by his black dog because things weren’t sterilely clean everywhere. It wasn’t all that funny being laughed at when you were miserable anyway, but it always cheered him up to have an authentic excuse not to be working on his novel, as opposed to just generally not working on it, probably because he couldn’t write. He was a total failure at twenty-five. But it took some skill to fail this young, and that always added to his list of things to be jolly about when depressed—he never did anything by halves.

Wife.

Wife still in England. Therefore even more loved and treasured than if she were physically here—hanging around and nagging for jobs to be done, as Ollie assumed wives did. No, this one was eleven thousand miles away. They probably Skyped for hours every night. Then Ollie grinned and wondered how the stupidly named man was coping with rural New Zealand internet speeds. No Skype for Skint. Unless he was happy seeing his wife’s mouth move five minutes out of synch with her voice.

Ollie wasn’t waiting for the runner this morning. So deliberately was he not watching for Skint that he was in fact on the other side of the house, counting the waves, when a knock sounded on the door followed by a, “Hello?” from the hallway. Skint had let himself in. As soon as Ollie limped in from the living room, the man said breezily, “Sorry, thought I’d save you the trouble of coming to the door—given your leg. How are you? I wanted to check you’re okay.”

Ollie nodded, rubbing idly at his injury, until he realised this might be misconstrued and roused himself to ask, “Time for a cup of tea?”

“Sure. So, how are you?”

“Fine. I think I was lucky.”

“Best put off running for a while maybe.”

This was said in such a deadpan manner Ollie couldn’t tell if he was being had, so he decided to focus on making the tea whilst desperately trying to think of something to say.