by Jenny Oliver
‘Found anything?’ Dolly asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ruben replied. Then he straightened up, rubbing his back like all the lifting was strenuous work. ‘You’re the policewoman, shouldn’t you be able to detect things like this?’
‘Well, I’m not a very good one,’ said Dolly, practically hanging off the matted vines.
Zadie was quick to disagree. ‘Fox said you were a great policewoman.’
Dolly paused. She felt herself blushing. ‘Did Fox say that?’
She saw Ruben clock her expression with interest. She remembered how desperate she had been to prove herself to him. For him to fall at her feet in awe of her adult self. And he had done just that when she’d arrived. Yet far more significant was this tiny scrap of compliment that Fox had paid off the cuff about her ability to do her job.
‘He said you were unique,’ said Zadie. ‘A maverick.’
Dolly felt herself deflate. ‘I’m not sure they’re compliments, Zadie. I think they might just be polite ways of saying I’m not so great.’
‘Oh no.’ Zadie shook her head. ‘No, they absolutely weren’t. He was using you as an example to me about the power of being yourself. They were totally compliments,’ she added. ‘Well to me they were. I’d love someone to call me unique.’ She grinned, stretching out her arms. ‘Zadie, you are unique …’ she said in the over-the-top theatrical tones of a potential stage suitor. Then back to her normal self she added, ‘Who wouldn’t want to be unique?’ as if anything but was preposterous. ‘Come on, Dad – I mean, Ruben – we should try lifting the ones over there.’
Ruben followed behind her, bewildered by the little firecracker now ruling his life. ‘I completely agree,’ he said to Dolly over his shoulder as he was dragged away.
Dolly stayed where she was, holding her bundle of vines, not sure what to do next. She could hear Zadie in the distance saying, ‘Is it too soon still for me to call you Dad?’ And Ruben’s voice, ‘No, no, I’d like it if you called me Dad …’
Alone, she replayed the chat about Fox in her head. She could feel her blood rise from her toes up through her body. Her fingers start to tingle. Her cheeks blush with excitement.
He thought she was unique.
Zadie was right. There could be nothing better. She was a great policewoman – if a little hot-headed. She was a maverick. She was strong and tough and could box like a champ – although not as well as Fox but there was still time. She could keep pot plants alive. She could coax a confession out of her sister. She could, if Fox hadn’t done it for her, pop her own shoulder back into its socket. And if she could do all those things, she could damn well admit to herself how she felt about Fox.
Whether she could admit it to him was another matter.
She started to walk a little faster to where he was at the front of the orangery. ‘I like you,’ she tried. ‘I really like you.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I think I like you more than I thought I liked you.’ She was getting closer. ‘The woman who doesn’t confess her feelings is alone forever.’ She bit her lip. Come on, Dolly, you can do this. Her heart was beating so fast she worried it might burst out of her chest.
But as she neared the front doorway something was happening. Olive and Fox were prising open a small manhole next to the entrance. Fox was holding the heavy lid, laughing as Olive reached inside, grimacing at the smell and the grime. Dolly watched as she fumbled around. ‘Anything?’ Fox asked.
Olive said, ‘No,’ pulling back so Fox could drop the heavy manhole cover with a thump. Olive put her hand on his arm. ‘Nice try,’ she said.
Fox’s eyes were alight. ‘I really thought we had something there.’ He brushed some dirt off Olive’s T-shirt.
Dolly found herself watching in horror. She could feel her confidence wane as she watched the easy camaraderie between them. It wasn’t so much a jealous fear that something might happen between the two of them – but then, who wasn’t charmed by Olive? – it was the foolish feeling that she, Dolly, was something special. When he was like this with everyone. That was why everyone liked him! He was the great Fox Mason. Her boss. Her mantra-prone mentor. He’d be all, Love exists boundless within us and can not be confined or some other mumbo jumbo to let her down gently. She had fallen for it – believed herself, in his eyes, to be different, when he was all about the job. Oh, it was so embarrassing. The idea of them going back to work an item was laughable. She blew out a breath, Lucky save, Dolly. She felt foolish for even thinking she could march up and tell him how she felt.
Fox glanced over and noticed her standing there. ‘Find anything?’ he asked.
Dolly shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, unable to work out what else to say, where else to go. Standing like a lemon when she should have sauntered away. She felt upended by disappointment.
Fox’s forehead furrowed as he studied her.
Next to him, Olive said, ‘I’m going to go and look over there.’
‘OK,’ he replied, ‘I’ll be over in a sec.’ Then he ambled cautiously over to where Dolly still hadn’t moved, her brain pulling her in one direction, her body in another, the result locking her into place.
When he got level with her, Fox said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Dolly replied flatly.
Fox laughed. ‘Yes there is.’
‘No there’s not.’
Fox frowned at her, trying to decipher her expression. She felt like he was trying to say something to her with a look. Like his eyes were speaking. But then suddenly she was fourteen again, watching Ruben putting baby birds into a nest, misreading signals, wondering if the look in his eyes matched the look in her own. So she looked away.
Fox sighed.
Dolly glanced back. Did he just sigh? In annoyance or disappointment? She tried to think like him. All his negotiator stuff. Fox wasn’t a sigher. Only when things got really bad. As he said himself, he was controlled. He didn’t look controlled now. His brow creased, his eyes dark with what looked definitely like annoyance. His eyes were normally wide and welcoming.
He was looking around, surveying the area. ‘I don’t think there’s any treasure here,’ he said with none of his usual verve.
Dolly tipped her head, taking in the downturn of his mouth, the defeat in the drop of his shoulders. How do you know when something’s not right? Compare it to how they are normally. ‘You don’t think there’s any treasure here?’
He turned to look at her with a shrug. ‘Not gold anyway.’
Dolly didn’t know if he was talking in some secret code or not, but the way he said it made her fingers start to tingle and her heart thump hard in her chest. She stared as hard as she could into his eyes, looking for something, some real, concrete sign, but she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t be certain. But then she figured, maybe the fact he wasn’t looking away was the sign, and she knew it was now or never. Nothing would ever be concrete. Without allowing herself to think of the consequences, she reached up, put her hand on the back of his neck so she could pull him towards her and she kissed him with every breath she had in her being. Her bad arm pressed between them, her shoulder screaming, but she didn’t let him go. His mouth, his smell, his skin, all locked with hers. Like everything her teenage-self had hoped for in a kiss. And even if he pushed her away, she didn’t care, because she had done what she thought she would never do again. Acted on instinct, taken the first step. She didn’t breathe. She had her eyes squeezed tight. If this was it, it was enough. She had tried. She had shown herself to care.
She felt his surprise. The momentary instinct to jerk back. But then she felt his hand as it touched softly to her waist. His fingers spread, warm and solid against the fabric of her T-shirt. And then his other hand moved to the other side of her waist and still she feared that now he would set her away. But instead he moved her slightly to the side so there was no pressure on her dislocated arm, then he reached a hand to her hair and stroked it through his fingers like he’d wanted to for weeks. And she felt herself relax a fraction, lo
osened her grip on the back of his neck. He was free, if he wanted to go.
But he stayed.
And finally she breathed.
Then she heard Zadie’s voice say, ‘Ooooh, look, Dolly and Fox are snogging!’
And she felt his mouth smile on hers. She moved away so her forehead pressed against his collarbone and she breathed again. Inhaling the calm safety of him. And he stroked her hair.
Then she looked up into his dark black smiling eyes. And he looked down into her beaming blue ones and said, ‘Christ, it’s about time. I’ve wanted that to happen since I first met you.’
‘You have?’ Dolly pulled away with surprise. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because I had to let you realise it for yourself.’
Dolly closed her eyes and leant her forehead to his chest. ‘How can you manage to get the upper hand even now?’
Fox laughed. ‘Because I’m Fox Mason. That’s what I do.’
Dolly looked up at him, eyes narrowed. ‘Except I saw the nametag in your backpack, Mason. I know that’s not your real name.’
For the first time Fox looked a little caught off-guard. His grip loosening slightly on her waist.
Dolly licked her lips, smugly satisfied. ‘You’re a big fat liar, Algernon Mason.’
‘Sssh!’ Fox tried to silence her. ‘No one calls me Algernon.’
‘I’m not surprised!’ Dolly laughed.
Fox blushed, it was his turn to hide his face on her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ Dolly whooped with a snigger. ‘Finally, I have the upper hand!’
To shut her up, Fox kissed her. Hard and powerful, engulfing her smugness.
When Dolly pulled away, almost giddy with glee and endorphins, she said, ‘You can’t silence someone by kissing them. What would Buddha think?’
Fox thought for a second. ‘I don’t think he’d mind. He was a fan of seizing the moment: “For who can say for sure that one will live to see tomorrow?”’
Dolly groaned. ‘You could use that about anything! I think you pull any old proverb out to justify the means.’
Fox just kissed her again by way of response.
Dolly pulled back a third time. ‘So where did you get Fox from?’
‘An accidental drunken tattoo.’
Dolly snorted. ‘So you do make mistakes!’ she said, unable to hide her pleasure at the fact.
‘Yes, Dolly, I make mistakes. Can we get on with the kissing now?’
‘Certainly.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Olive watched Dolly and Fox with a little tear in her eye.
‘That’s sweet,’ said Ruben.
‘Yes,’ she replied, unable to believe quite how emotional she was becoming. She supposed once you opened the gates a touch, it all came flooding in.
The fight with the vines and the ivy was becoming more half-hearted. Everyone was tired and hungry and the sun was only getting hotter. Even the previously indefatigable Zadie sat slumped on a fallen column and said, ‘It’s hopeless.’
Olive couldn’t deny it. She was about to suggest they give up and go back to the house when her phone rang.
Marge perked up. ‘How have you got reception? I didn’t know there was reception here. Oh goodness, I have reception too. How fun.’
Olive looked at her screen. Mark.
She moved away from the others. ‘Hello.’
Mark didn’t say hello, instead he just said, ‘Olive, I think I made a mistake.’
Olive frowned. ‘What do you mean a mistake?’
‘I mean what we had was good and solid and I’ve ruined it.’
Olive found she didn’t even need to think about it before replying. ‘No Mark, you didn’t make a mistake. What we had was lovely but it was holding us back.’
‘No, no I don’t think it was. It’s different with Barbara. Olive, I’m a mess, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.’
Olive smiled into the phone. ‘I think that’s how it’s meant to be, Mark.’ She felt so completely removed from him that it was hard to believe how long they had been together. She felt so platonically about him that it was like she was giving her brother or an old friend relationship advice. ‘You’ve got something good now with Barbara.’
‘I don’t know, Olive. We argue more and she doesn’t think the same as I do.’
As Olive listened, the warm sun on her face, she said, ‘Mark, I didn’t think the same way as you either. And we didn’t argue because neither of us were saying what we really wanted. What you’ve got now, I don’t know, it might not work, but at least it’s real.’
He started to speak again but Olive realised they were completely wasted words. ‘Mark,’ she said, ‘we’re not going to be together again.’
He stopped talking.
There was an awkward silence.
Olive looked around at the derelict orangery then she said, ‘Mark, can anything be a liquid, gas and solid at the same time?’
And Mark said, ‘Well not many things. In thermodynamics it’s called the triple point.’ This was his favourite kind of conversation. ‘So there’s a liquid called cyclohexane that can be all three states of matter but under very specific conditions. Do you know, actually Barbara was working on something …’
Olive listened to what Barbara was working on. She said that all sounded very interesting. Mark said that yes it was. And Olive said, ‘I think you and Barbara sound like a very good match.’ And Mark said, ‘I’m not sure you’re meant to be the one persuading me into my relationship.’
And Olive said, ‘I want you to be happy.’
‘But not with you,’ Mark said.
‘You wouldn’t be happy with me,’ Olive replied, and when she hung up she looked at the blank phone screen for a second and felt the slightly terrifying feeling of freedom.
Ruben was waiting by the orangery entrance. ‘All OK?’ he asked.
Olive nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yeah, good actually.’
He tipped his head like he was happy for her.
She found she wanted to tell him all about it but instead she focused on the search. ‘OK. We need to think about this differently,’ she said.
Ruben said, ‘We need to think about it like your dad.’
‘Yes!’ said Olive. ‘Yes, we need to think about him. What he was thinking. He’d just come back and he’d supposedly hit the jackpot. He’d be what? Feeling jolly?’
‘Cheeky?’ proffered Ruben.
‘I don’t think he was ever cheeky.’
‘No.’
Olive suddenly had the image of her dad with his gold, hiding it somewhere, waiting expectantly for the big reveal. Adrenaline high. Excited. And then crash, the hideous disappointment and horror that followed.
‘Don’t think about it,’ said Ruben, like he could read her mind. ‘Stick to the bit before that.’
Olive glanced up with surprise. He winked. She smiled down at the dusty floor.
‘Come on,’ said Ruben, ‘he’s found treasure, what’s he thinking?’
‘He’s thinking, there’s no such thing as buried treasure. You want something in life, you have to go looking for it. X never marks the spot.’
Ruben nodded, remembering the stories himself. ‘Yet he’d already done the hard work.’
‘So X could mark the spot,’ said Olive.
Ruben spun around. ‘OK everyone, we’re looking for an X!’
Dolly and Fox appeared. ‘What do you mean an X?’ Dolly asked, her hand wrapped tight in Fox’s.
‘X marks the spot,’ said Olive. ‘Some kind of cross.’
‘OK,’ said Fox. This was his kind of thing. ‘Let’s get to it.’
Even Marge got involved.
Everyone ripping down vines, sweeping paving stones, lifting fallen benches to spot any kind of marking.
Olive and Ruben worked in a frenzy side by side, clearing and hauling away debris. Like finding the X meant more than just treasure. It proved a point, somehow. Maybe of how well they worked toget
her.
But it was Zadie who found it. Having climbed up onto a high windowsill she shouted, ‘Look, look, it’s there. The sun on the back wall!’
They all stopped what they were doing to look. Like some pagan trick of the light, when the sun refracted through the panel of glass in the top section of the building it made a shimmering X on the brickwork at the back.
Ruben frowned. ‘It’s bloody lucky that bit of glass is still there!’
Olive said, ‘We haven’t found it yet.’
‘True.’
They walked towards the back wall. Just before they got there, Ruben said, ‘I wasn’t being flippant, you know, last night. I may have come across as flippant but I assure you I wasn’t.’
Olive swallowed. ‘I didn’t think you were flippant.’
Ruben’s mouth spread into a grin, ‘Yes you did.’
She couldn’t reply because Dolly and Fox had jogged to join them, followed by Marge and Zadie.
Olive ran her hand over the bricks touched by the shimmering light, then moved to others that she knew would be lit at different times of the day until she found one that was loose. She looked back at the others. ‘I think it’s this one.’
‘Take it out then,’ Dolly urged.
Olive gently pulled out the brick, slightly concerned the whole remaining structure might topple. Then she reached into the dark space left behind. When she withdrew her hand, in it she was holding a gleaming nugget of gold, about the size of her palm.
‘Holy moly,’ said Ruben.
Dolly laughed.
Marge whistled.
Olive turned the gold over in her palm. She had an urge to drop it. It felt gaudy and grotesque. She wondered how something so small in the scheme of things had caused so much trouble. Set so much in motion. While the others watched in gleeful astonishment, all Olive could think of was the bittersweetness of the victory; if only they had found it twenty years ago. If only it had never been hidden in the first place. All the alternative pasts offered by this lump of shiny metal.