Chad tilted his head so his temple was resting on the top of Dee’s skull. ‘Did you ever try finding him, isn’t there anything you can do?’
‘Oh yes, we orphans have rights these days, not like poor Oliver,’ said Dee. ‘Apparently my mother refused to say anything. No one knew if she was seeing anyone at the time she got pregnant. All I can do now is wait.’
Staircase six was just a short way across a cobbled rise. They felt the press of the stones through the soles of their shoes. Dee’s head rocked on Chad’s shoulder and a loose hair made him want to sneeze but he didn’t brush it away.
He opened the door and gestured, after you. Dee went in and they climbed up through the creaks to the room at the top.
XLV
XLV(i) Four hours on the road and we find the place without taking any wrong turns. My driver pulls onto the unpaved drive.
It is not a long driveway and the house is modest. Especially modest when you consider the acres of land all around. Two floors, gable-fronted, fifteen yards of porch. The wooden siding is cedar clapboard painted grey with no trim.
Soon after we pull up, before I have a chance to get out of the car, the front doors open. Wooden door, screen door. The screen clatters shut on its springs.
The man who comes out of the house is in overalls and an old flannel shirt. He wears a frayed cap that displays on its brow the Ford logo, florid swan, blue pond. And he carries a shotgun. But the way he handles it, knuckles pink and loose, the gun is not threatening but simply a presence, a yard of potential. He stops and stands on the wooden steps that descend from the porch. And then he spits.
This is perfect, this is just how I imagined it. I want to clap my hands with glee but decide against any sudden movements.
I open the passenger door and step out slowly. The sunlight gently stirs the pig-shit in the air. Palms showing, I raise my hands to my chest the way Jack used to do a hundred times a day. And then the brightness makes me shield my eyes.
Are you Mr Mason?
Who wants to know? the farmer replies.
A friend of your son, I say.
You English? the farmer says.
That’s right, I say. We went to college together.
And your friend in the car there? the farmer says. He go to Pitt too?
No, I say, he’s just a driver. I don’t own a car.
This last piece of information appears to amuse the farmer greatly. I suppose you want to come in, he says. I can’t give you much time. There’s work won’t be doing itself.
He turns and steps inside. The screen door clatters behind him.
XLV(ii) Chad’s mom has given me freshly baked cookies for the ride home, warm pucks cloudy in their wax paper bag.
She comes outside to wish me farewell. The farmer has been feeding his animals. I see him emerge from the large shed behind the farmhouse.
The driver turns off his music as I climb into the car. I wind down a window to wave to Chad’s mother as we crunch down the drive.
Did you get what you came for? the driver asks me.
Yes, I tell him, I think so.
XLVI
XLVI(i) Emilia was becoming tired of Jolyon’s room. The year’s first bright days called out to her from beyond his windowpanes, fields beyond the towers and the spires of the city. It was predicted to be unseasonably warm the following day, so she proposed they should play the next round of the Game somewhere with grass. They could pack a picnic blanket, there would be fruit and sandwiches.
The others acquiesced although Jack took great pleasure in bemoaning the effort required. He also voiced bemusement over the fact that Emilia not only owned a picnic blanket but had brought it with her to Pitt.
Emilia was also the only owner of a bike among the remaining five. The others had to borrow, Jolyon’s requests quickly rustling up another four bikes, fellow students jumping to the task like footmen.
Away they pedalled, Emilia in front, her bare legs turning in the sunshine. She wore a silk scarf dotted with spirals and daisies and her hair was tied back. Chad had to pedal hard to keep up with her, those buttermilk legs going around and around. After the incident in Great Hall, however, he felt awkward enough to stay several bike lengths back.
Jolyon, Jack and Dee formed the peloton far behind. They motivated each other with talk of how good the cigarette would taste at the end of the journey, the wine in the sunlight.
Emilia was a natural leader of expeditions, every half-mile or so she would coast, standing tall on her pedals and glancing back at the others while shielding her eyes from the sun. It looked as though she were saluting the stragglers, proud of her brave troops. While she and Chad waited, she would busily consult a map for which there appeared to be designed in her rucksack a specific map pocket. When finally the cursing peloton arrived she would exhort them to continue with lines like ‘Come on now, the wine won’t stay chilled forever’ or ‘Last one there gets the funny-shaped strawberries’.
Seven or eight miles beyond the city they reached a large ornamental gate, the entrance to a grand old palace. And then after the cigarettes were lit, Jack found something further to bemoan. A sign listing entrance fees.
‘I’m not paying to support the upkeep of a fetid symbol of the fucking aristocracy.’
‘Jack, it’s one of the most beautiful houses in Britain,’ said Emilia.
‘Not to me it’s not. A tower block full of working-class families, that’s beautiful. Not this overwrought wedding cake.’
Emilia looked to Jolyon for some help, the sway he had over Jack, but Jolyon only shrugged.
‘I don’t mind paying,’ said Chad. ‘I’ll pay for you, Jack.’
‘Of course the American doesn’t mind,’ said Jack. ‘It’s not your utter corruption of a democracy, is it? No, Americans are always pleased to swan over here then pour their dollars into this kind of shit. The quaint symbols of an institution they themselves rejected more than two centuries ago.’
Emilia became businesslike. ‘Middle is meeting us here,’ she said. ‘Up by the house.’ She consulted her watch. ‘And we’re late because . . . well, we’re late and he’ll be there already.’
‘I signed up for a field and some wine, that’s all,’ said Jack. ‘Not to spit on the graves of the working class. Look at this village.’ He pointed to the cottages and inns and terraces behind them. ‘Now look at the grounds of this fucking monstrosity. It must be ten times the size of the entire village. All for one family. And I bet they only built the village to house the staff they needed to run that place.’
‘Come on, Jack,’ said Dee. ‘You’re right, but come on. Look,’ she pointed to the admission sign, ‘it costs less to go into the grounds only, we don’t have to do the whole house tour thing. Chad can pay for your ticket and you can buy him a pint later on.’