Page 40 of Fool Me Twice
Si just laughed, which was...probably for the best.Then he tossed Zig a black helmet with blue flames painted on the sides.“There you go.Matches your hair.Put that on and we’ll take her out.”
They climbed on the Harley, Zig sitting snug behind Si.There was no bar behind him to hang on to so he slung his arms around Si’s waist and that familiar feeling of safety came flooding back, bringing with it a curious pain in his chest that Zig did his best to ignore.
Si started the engine.It roared like a fucking tiger, all muscle and power.Then he hit the accelerator, and they sped down the road.
The ride took them out of Glastonbury into open countryside, past farmers’ fields and through villages and small towns, all brightly lit and decorated for the season.The ends of Si’s hair hung below his helmet and danced wildly in the strong wind.
After they’d been riding for around an hour, as good as Zig could guess, Si brought the hog to a halt on a quiet country lane and they got off, removing their helmets.Zig tried to fluff up his hair in a wing mirror, but it was a lost cause.He scowled at his reflection.
Si laughed.“Don’t worry, you’re still pretty.”
Zig straightened, brandishing an eloquent finger at him.“So where are we now?”
“Wessex,” Si said proudly.
“Uh-huh.You know that ain’t a real county, right?Thomas Hardy made it up.”
“I know it ain’t called that in real life, but I looked it up, and it’s all based on real places.See, first I reckoned I’d take you to Bath, cos of Jane Austen, you know?But then I checked to see if there was anything going on, and it’s the last weekend of their Christmas marketandthere’s a match on, so it’ll be heaving.Not that it ain’t always.So I thought of Wessex.And here we are.”
“I can’t believe you remembered I said I’d read Thomas Hardy.”
“You only told me it this morning.”
“Yeah, but...”Zig shrugged, not sure how to explain.“You like all that science-fiction stuff.Comic books and that.Modern stuff.All them dead authors I read—I didn’t think they’d mean enough to you to stick in your head.”
“Course they did.You like ’em.”
Zig’s rib cage was doing some weird thing that made it feel two sizes too small.“So what part of Wessex is this, exactly?”he asked, keeping it light.
“You’ll find out.Come on, we got a bit of walking to do.It ain’t far.”
Si led the way down to the end of the lane, then got out his phone and frowned at it a bit.Zig tried to see what he was looking at but the bastard danced out of his reach, moving lightly for such a big bloke.“Ah ah ah!It’s a surprise.”
“What am I, five?”
“You ain’t never too old for a surprise,” Si said firmly, putting his phone into his pocket.
“Depends on the surprise,” Zig muttered darkly, then couldn’t help flashing Si a smile.
They walked on until they came to an ancient stone bridge.It was long, with several arches over the water, and bulged out at intervals with what Zig could only imagine were places for ye olde peasants to stand while crossing so they didn’t get in the way of any carts or carriages coming the other way.
“See that?”Si pointed to a big old house—mansion, really—with steep pointy gables and three unreasonably tall chimneys, like the people who’d built it were too posh to breathe their own smoke when they popped outside to check the gardener wasn’t slacking.“That’s Woolbridge Manor.Or Wellbridge, if you ask Thomas Hardy.FromTess of the D’Urbervilles.”
Zig blinked.“That’s where she and that bloody hypocrite Angel Clare went to stay after they got married.”
“That’s right.Least, that’s what the internet’s been telling me.It ain’t got much about this Angel bloke, though.Why’s he a hypocrite?”
“You know the story of Tess, right?”From Si’s look, Zig realised he didn’t.“She’s this innocent country girl who gets date-raped in her teens by a posh bloke and has a kid out of wedlock.Years later, she meets this so-called angel and marries him.On their wedding night, he confesses to her he’s had a lover before her.So she’s all, ‘Thank God, I can tell him what happened to me.’Except he then throws a massive wobbly and basically tells her she’s dead to him cos she’s not a virgin.And then it all goes downhill from there.”
Christ, what if Si had reacted like that when Zig told him about being inside?How many blokes would want a convicted criminal taking up house room?Zig couldn’t take his eyes off the house, and found he was hugging himself.
Then a thick, leather-clad arm draped over his shoulders and squeezed him.Was Si maybe thinking about Zig’s confession too?
“Bastard,” he rumbled in Zig’s ear.“Guess I shoulda read up on that one a bit more before bringing you here.”
“No—no, it’s good.I mean, yeah, it’s sad, and it makes me fucking mad, but it’s amazing, seeing the actual place he had in mind when he wrote it.I always thought it was smaller, you know?Dunno why.”Warmed by Si’s embrace and hoping it’d never end, Zig shook his head, then he laughed.“Weird to think of the bloke going round scouting out locations.Wonder what the people who lived there then thought about it?”
“Nowthatthe internet didn’t tell me.But guess who used to own it?Family called Turberville.”
