Page 80 of Going Solo

But I loyally followed the GPS, taking the turn-off for the M5 up to Birmingham. Cole pulled his cap down over his face, folded his arms, and put his bare feet up on the dashboard.

“That’s sad, Tobias.”

“Oh, I’m back to Tobias, I see.”

“Today would have been the perfect day to see an ancient historic monument.”

“What happened to sitting with the discomfort?” I asked. “How does sulking like a five-year-old fit in with that?”

“I didn’t say I was perfect. It takes practice.”

“So, practise.”

“Can’t we call in for a little bit?”

“Imagine the chaos it would cause if Cole Kennedy rocked up unannounced at Stonehenge.”

“We could go in disguise!”

“Did you bring a spare Druid costume, babes? Only mine’s being dry-cleaned.”

“Fine,” Cole said, kicking his legs down and opening the packet of Haribo. “But I haven’t given up on feeling the grass under my feet today. It’s a gorgeous day. I spend way too much time surrounded by air-conditioned concrete. I’m a farm boy. I need grass and dirt and…”

“Cow poo?”

“Cow poo is a remarkably underappreciated commodity.”

Five minutes later Cole was plugging in his phone to share a playlist of obscure Estonian pop he thought I would like when he started tapping wildly at the GPS screen.

“Hetty Pegler’s Tump!” he said.

“Are you having a stroke?”

“Hetty Pegler’s Tump,” Cole repeated, frantically pointing at the screen. “It’s a historic ancient monument. And we’re driving right past. Can we go? Just for half an hour. Please? Let’s sit in the long grass and enjoy the sun.”

I looked at the GPS. Sure enough, there were the wordsHetty Pegler’s Tumpright underneath the wordsUley Long Barrow. A barrow is an ancient burial ground. I knew that because there were heaps of them around Colchester. We’d gone to one called Lexden Tumulus when we were doing the Romans in school, but I didn’t remember too much about it. All I could remember was we had this lushtour guide who wore a centurion uniform. He had thighs like the trunks of horse chestnut trees, and when he bent over to fix his sandal, I copped an eyeful of both of his chestnuts and the horse they rode in on. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he should have been working with children. Anyway, I’d never heard of Uley Long Barrow, so I didn’t think it was famous. If it was anything like the barrows at home, there’d probably be no one there. If Cole wanted grass under his feet, Hetty Pegler’s Tump seemed like a safe, Kenneddict-free option.

“Sure,” I said.

“Get in!” Cole pumped his fist and lobbed a Haribo into his gob.

* * *

It was almost midday, and the summer sun was high in the sky. Cole Kennedy and I lay flat on our backs in the tall grass with our shoes off. Above us, a vivid blue expanse and dots of fluffy white clouds. Beneath us, the skeletons of a bunch of people who, according to the interpretive sign, died more than five thousand years ago. There was absolutely no one around—just us, some deceased ancestors, and four of Cole’s Jack Reacher–fied security detail. It was almost romantic.

“You know those texts?” I asked.

“Thosetexts?”

“The one where you said you felt like you’d grown up in the wrong country, the wrong culture, and the wrong religion.”

Cole picked a stalk of grass and rolled it between his fingers. “Of course.”

“So, now, knowing you’ve got Turkish heritage, I was wondering if you finally felt like you belonged somewhere? Like, has it helped?”

“It certainly explains my fetish for watching big hairy guys wrestling in olive oil.”

I laughed. “You don’t have to be Turkish to enjoy that. That’s universal.”

---