So happy that I pulled the car off the motorway at the wrong junction and headed for Woolhope. They didn’t notice at first, too engrossed in a game of ‘what would you rather?’
Would you rather eat a donkey’s penis or take a cracked rib?
Would you rather fuck Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt?
Would you rather have no sex for the rest of your life or ten hours sex every day for the rest of your life?
Would you rather die now, or never at all, not for the rest of time?
“Would you rather find another stupid game, or walk the rest of the way home?” I said, but I was joking.
“Spoil-fucking-sport! Out he comes, Mr Grumpy!” Rick laughed.
“Quick-fire round, your turn,” Katie said, and her attention was all on me. “Would you rather… work the rest of your life or retire right now?”
“Work the rest of my life.”
“Would you rather… have bogeys for saliva, or piss for saliva?”
I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuckkind of question is that?”
“Answer!” Rick said. “You HAVE to answer!”
I shrugged. “Piss? Jesus, I’ll go with piss.”
“Would you rather live in a zoo or an aquarium?”
“Zoo.”
“Would you rather have twenty kids until you die or never see a kid again?”
“Twenty.” I looked at her. “I’d rather have twenty kids than no kids.”
She rested back in her seat. “Rather you than me. Kids would totally wreck the cool-as-fuck house you guys have got going on. I think you’d rethink if it happened.”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”
Rick leaned forward, stuck his chin on my shoulder. “Um, where the fuck are we?”
And Katie noticed. She sprang to life, staring out of the windows. “Woolhope,” she said. “We’re heading for Woolhope.” She turned to me. “Why are we heading for Woolhope?”
Rick chimed in. “Yeah, Carl, why are we heading for Woolhope? You got a sudden urge to mount a horse?”
I shot him a look in the rearview mirror. “Katie’s feeling a little worse for wear, I figure it’s the least we can do.” I glanced in her direction. “You want to see your horse, I presume? Muck him out or whatever you horsey folk need to do of a weekend.”
She nodded. “Yeah, but I was… I was going to do it later… get Jack to help.”
“And now there’s no need, is there? We can help.”
Rick seemed happy enough to go along with it. He patted her shoulder and she tipped her head, pinned his fingers against her cheek. “We can help. Good call, Carl.”
“It’s up here,” she said. She pointed to a pub on the right. “Turn off here, over the common, then swing up to the left, you’ll see it.” Ifollowed her directions and she became visibly animated, restless in her seat despite the boot-kicked cervix. “Here,” she said. “It’s up here.”
I turned down a long bumpy driveway.Weston’s Maintenance Services.It looked like an agricultural yard, a little worse for wear. Some rusty old machinery out the front of a farmhouse, a few chickens dashing about the place. She pointed to a space in front of an old rickety barn, and I parked up. She was out of the car before I’d even turned the engine off, and her expression was a wonder.
Rick jumped out after her and she took his hand, started pointing things out. She made him poke his head in the barn as I locked the Range, and then pointed down a concrete path, her eyes locked on me.
“He’s down here,” she said. “Do you want to meet him?”