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His eyes blow wide. ‘How did –oh my God. That arsehole. He’s never let me live that down, you know, after I told Dad what happened and he got in trouble. Webothgot drunk, you know. We both had the bright idea to go find that crate of beer.’
‘Don’t worry – from what I heard, Lloyd’s end of that story waswaymore embarrassing than yours.’
‘The yoga.’ He scoffs. ‘Kinda wish I’d been there to see it, you know.’
‘I didn’t realize he got in trouble over it.’
Will sighs, fidgeting with the laminated menu onthe bar counter. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he missed that part of the story out.’
‘I can see what you meant,’ I tell him, thinking about the last time we spoke. ‘About him not always being a total prat. Well – he probably was a bit, stealing the spotlight to run a drunk, impromptu yoga class, but I mean the part where he was trying to help you out. I can see why you defended him.’
Will smiles softly to himself. His fingers drum absently against the menu. ‘I heard you guys hung out last Friday.’
He says it quietly enough that I know he’s conscious of people overhearing; whatever Lloydhastold him, he’s obviously aware it’s not common knowledge. It does something funny to my insides. Guilt? Excitement?
‘Yeah,’ is all I reply.
By now, our drinks are ready. Beads of condensation sweat along the outside of the glasses already. I poke the black paper straw around and take a sip, revelling in it. Pimm’s was the first drink I bought after I turned eighteen. My birthday isn’t until the end of the school year so I’d been left behind with soft drinks whether I liked that or not, while my friends got to flaunt their new IDs at bartenders and bouncers. But a bunch of us went to a beer garden when it was finally my birthday, and even though it poured down with rainand we had to huddle under the parasols, they were adamant I’d get to enjoy my first ‘proper’ taste of summer in a beer garden – which they unanimously decreed was Pimm’s. It was a proper, grown-up,cosmopolitankind of drink, they insisted. Appropriate, now we were all officially real adults.
I’m not sure I like it very much, but I like the memory of it enough to make up for the taste.
Will and I drift to the fringes of the party, watching everybody else in companionable silence. A game of boules is wrapping up in the middle of the lawn near the pond, a crowd gathered around. A laugh peals out from the centre, hearty and infectious; someone shifts enough that I can see Lloyd there. He’s collected up some of the boules and is juggling with four of them, launching them higher and higher, to the amazement and delight of Arrowmile employees and interns. Topher is there, too, having collected up the other boules, laughing as he watches. He nudges Lloyd, trying to get him to demonstrate how to juggle so he can join in.
‘Does it ever get on your nerves?’ I blurt.
I don’t know Will. A couple of brief, polite conversations and some second-hand stories from his brother don’t amount toknowinghim. But he’s oddly easy to be around – not in the way Lloyd is, but in a calmer, more present way. I know a few conversationsdon’t make a friendship, but I feel a weird sort of kinship with him, not unlike how I did with Lloyd that first night we met.
So I’m not altogether surprised when he doesn’t need to ask what I mean.
Instead, he just says, ‘You’ve seenHamilton, right? I mean, have you?’
‘Of course. I’m not a monster.’
He chuckles. ‘Well, you know how Hamilton’s always super obsessed with his legacy? Can’t stop going on about it, bases all his decisions around it?’
‘Sure,’ I say, although I have no idea where this is going until Will looks back at his brother and dad, gesturing slightly with his glass.
‘Dad makes Hamilton look like he doesn’t give a fuck about his legacy.’
‘Oh.’
Oh, indeed. It’s another few pieces of the jigsaw. Unprompted, Will carries on.
‘And, I get it. He started up this company a few years before we were born, and start-ups are always rough at the beginning. Especially when he had to sink so much of the original funding into development that wasn’t going to pay off for a while. It was tough. He worked hard. Poured his heart and soul into it. And … I respect that, I do, but I just wish he hadn’t expectedusto do the same thing. Everything was always about Arrowmile when we were growing up. I think I learned what a profit and loss statement was before I even finished learning my times tables. After we finished up Year Seven – I remember, because when other kids went back to school and we had to talk about “what I did on my summer holidays” in French class, ours was always way different to everyone else’s …
‘That summer, we spent a lot of time at Arrowmile. Mum had just died, and I don’t think Dad knew what to do. With himself, or us. He threw himself into work and I guess he thought if it helped him, it’d work for us, too.’
‘Oh,’ I say again, and it’s all I can manage, not sure how else to voice my sympathy. I’d never made the connection of Lloyd talking about when his mum died to the same summer he started spending so much time at his dad’s company.
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ Will says affably, with a fleeting but sincere smile. His weight shifts from one foot to the other as he gets more comfortable. ‘It was nice to have some familiar faces around – we knew a lot of the staff already from odd trips into the office – and it was definitely better than being home with this big empty presence where Mum used to be, you know? But it became habit, and Dad started …’
He sucks a breath through his teeth, uncertain.
‘You don’t … I didn’t mean to pry,’ I tell Will, feeling equally awkward all of a sudden. ‘You don’t have to tell me about all this.’
It’s not like I have any right to this information. I’m curious about Lloyd, but I’m not owed answers. Certainly not from Will, who I barely know.
But I get the impression he wants to talk about it, that there’s some relief in sharing it with someone who might understand, so I wait patiently after he nods that it’s okay, until he’s ready to carry on.
