Page 29 of The Love of Our Lives
Adam turns to me as we jump out. ‘I’ll grab you a sweater from the car before we go. The weather can get pretty hairy at the top.’
I smile but really I’m nervous, uncertain what he means byhairy.
After I’ve pulled on the soft green sweater, we head on to the same dirt pathway as another few people, which cuts into the grass and stretches off into the rising hills. It smells of summer grass and bonfire smoke, and I think of how autumn is actually just around the corner.
What if I’m still stuck here?
‘Penny for your ponies,’ Adam says, and I turn, confused.
‘Sorry, it’s something Lilly says to me sometimes.’
‘Who’s Lilly?’
‘My mum.’
‘You call your mum Lilly?’
‘Well, that’s her name.’ He raises one eyebrow, then grins. ‘Don’t worry, I know it’s a bit weird, but my mum’s always been a bit like that.’
I can’t help noticing the slight stiffness in his jaw as he says it.
‘She’s probably what you would call a hippy,’ he goes on after a moment, ‘but I tend to think of her more as a woman with alternative views.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask carefully.
He shrugs. ‘Well, I was raised pretty much everywhere and anywhere. I was born in Canada, but Mum had a bucket list, you see, and she didn’t really think that having a child should get in the way of it,’ his jaw stiffening again, ‘so, in between getting dumped at my grandparents’ cabin from time to time, I had my third birthday in Nepal, my fifth in Papa New Guinea, my eighth in Kenya . . . I could go on.’
‘It sounds amazing,’ I say, thinking of how much I would have loved to have had those experiences and seen those places too.
‘Amazing in some ways, yes,’ Adam says with a half-smile, ‘but a little disruptive for a child too. She had some mental health problems, you see, and never really addressed it, so I never quite knew if I was going to get happy Lilly, who would take me places, or the Lilly who would leave me. But it was fun too, I guess, getting to see the world like that. There were no rules, really. She even let me start this tattoo when I was fourteen.’ He laughs, indicating at his arm.
‘Yes, I was wondering,’ I say, glad to look more closely now, and he pulls his sweater sleeve up a bit higher. ‘It’s really different.’
‘Well, it’s basically a big old mess of some places I’ve been, and stuff I’ve done.’ He points to his forearm. ‘That little river right there’s from this beautiful little spot I was in in Venezuela, and that spiky tree twisted into it is from when I was in New Zealand, that horse was from when I was fifteen and went bareback riding in Belize. There is zero design to it, as you can see,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Just stuff I’ve enjoyed, or things that have stuck with me.’
‘And what about this one?’ I say, touching the badly drawn moose above his elbow. He flinches slightly.
‘That,’ he says, his eyes twinkling at me, ‘was one of the mistakes. A drunken decision when I was eighteen and I was missing Canada.’
‘It sort of looks like a small child drew it,’ I say, looking at the mismatched antlers and large saucer eyes. I can’t help laughing.
He examines it afresh and starts laughing too.
‘Yeah, OK, it really does,’ he says eventually, wiping a tear from his eye, ‘but I promise my furniture is better than my animal drawings.’
I smile. ‘I believe you.’
He grins back at me, and finally pulls down his sleeve.
‘And what about school?’ I ask after a moment, curious how it all worked.
‘There were lots,’ he says. ‘But we’d stay on in a place a little longer sometimes, enough to keep my grandparents from flying out to get me anyway. And I’d usually make some friends, only to be dragged away again. I’ve kept in touch with a few around the globe though.’
I try to imagine it all, that level of uncertainty – that level of freedom too. It’s all just so very different from my own cosseted life with Mum. She wouldneverhave let me ride horses bareback in Belize and miss school, and she certainly wouldn’t leave me. I feel guilty to admit that I sort of wish she would have. Just sometimes.
‘And do you still see your grandparents then?’
Adam pauses, looks straight ahead. ‘No, they died a few years back now.’
