but look at me! I’m not dressed! We’ve been travelling since eight this morning!’
‘Ne’mind,’ says Roly, ‘don’t suppose anyone’ll notice.’
‘Oh good God,’ says Rufus, ‘she could have told us. How many people has she asked, do you know?’
‘Not that many, I don’t suppose. Not a lot of notice, after all. Hunt. Locals. You know.’
‘Oh, well, it could be worse, I suppose,’ he says.
‘No it couldn’t! I haven’t washed my hair in three days! All my slap’s at the bottom of my rucksack and there’s a hole the size of Tasmania in my pants.’
‘Don’t bend over, then.’
‘That’s some help. Thanks. Can we stop so I can brush my hair, at least?’
Roly sucks air through his teeth. ‘Think things kicked off an hour ago. Can’t really be much later than we already are.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Not much further,’ says Rufus. ‘See? We’re on the Stow road already. We’ll get signs in another couple of minutes.’
I glance back out of the window and see that our surroundings have changed dramatically. We’re driving fast along an undulating main road lined with majestic deciduous trees and a dry-stone wall that is so well-covered with lichen that it looks as though it’s been standing there since neolithic times. A wide green verge is broken at regular intervals by neat ditches a foot wide and six inches deep. Side-roads are announced by tidy black-and-white-painted Dick Whittington signposts that break the mileages down to quarter-mile distances. And suddenly, the place names are really, really foreign: The Slaughters; Lower Swell; Guiting Power; Shipton-under-Wychwood; Stow-on-the-Wold. I catch glimpses of thatch, of smokestacks and tiles made from a peculiar golden stone I’ve never seen before: not the strong gold of Gozo, but a gentle, silvery gold: palomino gold. And, despite the fact that we’re driving through a landscape I know to be early winter, it’s so – green. It’s like a kid’s been let loose with a paintbox and tried to come up with as many versions of the same colour as he can in half an hour. There’s lime green and lemon green, rusty green and green so dark it’s almost black. There’s eight shades of khaki and a good dozen of emerald. There’s pea and olive and grass (at least a score of grass), and gold and leaf, malachite and verdigris, bottle and sea, there’s green that flashes bright yellow when the sun breaks through the clouds and green that’s almost oily in the shadows.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘What?’ says Rufus.
‘This.’
They both look a bit puzzled. ‘ What? ’
‘This! This view!’
‘View?’
I jerk my head at the scene out of the window.
‘Oh, that ,’ says Rufus. ‘ That’s not a view.’
‘Looks like one to me,’ I say.
‘No, no,’ says Rufus, as we swing off the main road on to a road signed Bourton Allhallows. ‘ This is a view.’
As he speaks, the woodland comes to an abrupt end and I see that we are driving along the high back of a rolling hill some hundred and fifty metres high. And on either side, two river valleys meander broad and mellow under a sky so huge it feels as though you must be seeing beyond the horizon.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘Sheep country,’ says Rufus.
‘Heythrop country,’ says Roly. ‘Best hunting in the world.’
The man’s obsessed. He’s like a surfing bore. Less decorative, though.
‘Wow,’ I say, again. I’m really lost for words. ‘So this is where you grew up?’
Rufus nods. ‘Learned to fish down there,’ he says, ‘and had my first sexual experience over in that field.’
‘Who was that, then?’ asks Roly.
‘Miranda Vaughan.’
‘Ah, Miranda,’ says Roly. ‘She was everyone’s first sexual experience, wasn’t she?’
‘You too?’
‘Pony Club camp, 1988. Asked me if I wanted to help her stuff her haynet. ’f’ya know what I mean.’
‘We hit a patch of stinging nettles,’ says Rufus. ‘Knees like blackberries for a
‘Ne’mind,’ says Roly, ‘don’t suppose anyone’ll notice.’
‘Oh good God,’ says Rufus, ‘she could have told us. How many people has she asked, do you know?’
‘Not that many, I don’t suppose. Not a lot of notice, after all. Hunt. Locals. You know.’
‘Oh, well, it could be worse, I suppose,’ he says.
‘No it couldn’t! I haven’t washed my hair in three days! All my slap’s at the bottom of my rucksack and there’s a hole the size of Tasmania in my pants.’
‘Don’t bend over, then.’
‘That’s some help. Thanks. Can we stop so I can brush my hair, at least?’
Roly sucks air through his teeth. ‘Think things kicked off an hour ago. Can’t really be much later than we already are.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Not much further,’ says Rufus. ‘See? We’re on the Stow road already. We’ll get signs in another couple of minutes.’
I glance back out of the window and see that our surroundings have changed dramatically. We’re driving fast along an undulating main road lined with majestic deciduous trees and a dry-stone wall that is so well-covered with lichen that it looks as though it’s been standing there since neolithic times. A wide green verge is broken at regular intervals by neat ditches a foot wide and six inches deep. Side-roads are announced by tidy black-and-white-painted Dick Whittington signposts that break the mileages down to quarter-mile distances. And suddenly, the place names are really, really foreign: The Slaughters; Lower Swell; Guiting Power; Shipton-under-Wychwood; Stow-on-the-Wold. I catch glimpses of thatch, of smokestacks and tiles made from a peculiar golden stone I’ve never seen before: not the strong gold of Gozo, but a gentle, silvery gold: palomino gold. And, despite the fact that we’re driving through a landscape I know to be early winter, it’s so – green. It’s like a kid’s been let loose with a paintbox and tried to come up with as many versions of the same colour as he can in half an hour. There’s lime green and lemon green, rusty green and green so dark it’s almost black. There’s eight shades of khaki and a good dozen of emerald. There’s pea and olive and grass (at least a score of grass), and gold and leaf, malachite and verdigris, bottle and sea, there’s green that flashes bright yellow when the sun breaks through the clouds and green that’s almost oily in the shadows.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘What?’ says Rufus.
‘This.’
They both look a bit puzzled. ‘ What? ’
‘This! This view!’
‘View?’
I jerk my head at the scene out of the window.
‘Oh, that ,’ says Rufus. ‘ That’s not a view.’
‘Looks like one to me,’ I say.
‘No, no,’ says Rufus, as we swing off the main road on to a road signed Bourton Allhallows. ‘ This is a view.’
As he speaks, the woodland comes to an abrupt end and I see that we are driving along the high back of a rolling hill some hundred and fifty metres high. And on either side, two river valleys meander broad and mellow under a sky so huge it feels as though you must be seeing beyond the horizon.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘Sheep country,’ says Rufus.
‘Heythrop country,’ says Roly. ‘Best hunting in the world.’
The man’s obsessed. He’s like a surfing bore. Less decorative, though.
‘Wow,’ I say, again. I’m really lost for words. ‘So this is where you grew up?’
Rufus nods. ‘Learned to fish down there,’ he says, ‘and had my first sexual experience over in that field.’
‘Who was that, then?’ asks Roly.
‘Miranda Vaughan.’
‘Ah, Miranda,’ says Roly. ‘She was everyone’s first sexual experience, wasn’t she?’
‘You too?’
‘Pony Club camp, 1988. Asked me if I wanted to help her stuff her haynet. ’f’ya know what I mean.’
‘We hit a patch of stinging nettles,’ says Rufus. ‘Knees like blackberries for a
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