Where Have All the Boys Gone?(27)

“Ah, but can they make pancakes?” she said suddenly.

He smiled. “No. They can’t make pancakes. They can’t make wars either.”

They walked on to a glade covered in toadstools. Although still chilly, the late afternoon sun filtered through the trees in slices.

“My mother used to bring me here when I was small,” said Harry suddenly. “I really did think fairies and elves lived here then. Sorry,” he apologised embarrassedly. “That’s stupid.”

“Of course it’s not stupid,” said Katie. “I still kind of believe it now.”

Harry gave a half-smile. “Thanks.”

“No, I actually mean it,” protested Katie.

“You act that daft, I’m not surprised.”

“Don’t talk about the fairies like that—they’ll come and take your teeth.”

He shook his head. “Anyway, this place is called Gealach Coille. It means, ‘Moon Forest’ in Gaelic.”

“Oh!” said Katie.

“What?”

“The language. I just realised what Louise was watching on BBC2.”

“Well, I’m delighted for you. Anyway, this is one of our greatest concerns and, really, at the heart of why we’re recruiting PR now. To strengthen our armoury, if you like.”

“What?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” said Katie, crossing her fingers. She’d learned her lesson about that one.

“This cannot get out, do you understand? The only people that know are me and Derek.”

Katie nodded solemnly.

“This is your job, do you understand? You can be as annoying as you like, but this is the really important stuff.”

“OK, OK.”

“So if you want to go back to London, you have to say now. Once I tell you this, you’re committed to the end.”

Katie looked around her. Motes from the leaves floated in the beams of sunlight. There was a gentle rustle of breeze through the trees. The peaty earth gave off a rich, dank odour underneath her feet. Without thinking, she leaned her hand out and felt the stump, the lichen damp and the wood flaky underneath her fingers. It felt effortlessly strong, one of the anchors of the world that stretched far beneath the earth. Harry watched her, quiet for once. She wasn’t always a stuck-up harridan, he supposed. When she kept her mouth shut for more than ten seconds, she was almost attractive.

Katie looked up, and seemed surprised to see Harry staring at her. He dropped his gaze immediately.

“Um, OK,” said Katie, who had indeed been a little taken aback by the intensity of his slightly craggy stare. He still looked like a young Gordon Brown, but there was a weird bit of her wondering if that was really such a bad thing. It surprised her so much she wasn’t exactly expecting to say what she said next. “OK. Yes, I’m ready. I’m staying.”

His face suddenly cracked into a grin that looked like the sun coming out.

“What?” said Katie crossly. “Stop looking at me like that. What, you think I won’t make it?”

“No,” said Harry, who was as flustered by his idiotic grin as she was. “Don’t know what I was thinking of.”

“Good. So, what’s this big secret then?”

Harry took a deep breath as his thoughts instantly returned to more serious matters. “Well, Gealach Coille isn’t protected.”

“What do you mean? I thought all forests were protected?”

“Well. We’re victims of our own success really. We’ve hit our quotas on replanting; on environmental impact, and, well, I already explained about the deer.”

“They can’t pull this down!” said Katie, outraged suddenly. “This has been here longer than anything, than any one of them!”

“Yes,” Harry agreed earnestly.

“And there’s millions of animals living here.”

“Yes.”

“And the fairies would be furious.”

“Let’s head back to the car,” said Harry.

“So what are they going to do with it?”

“Well, they can’t knock it down completely—yet. But they can clear a great deal away and build . . . ahem,” Harry cleared his throat as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word.

“Yes?”

“Um, I believe they want to build a golf course of some kind.”

“They just want to chop everything down right here—for a golf course?”

Harry nodded.

“But that’s just stupid. Plus, imagine, golfers everywhere. They’ll all wear yellow sweaters and toast the Queen.”

“Quite,” said Harry. “Although to be quite honest, I wouldn’t care if it was a convent for sick children. I really don’t want to lose this forest.”

He fondled Francis’s ears, who had been too lazy to come for the walk and was firmly ensconced in the front seat, pretending to be asleep. Katie climbed around into the back without comment.

“And once they’ve got planning for that, they get it for anything. Petrol stations, Holiday Inns, a stupid airport or something.”

Katie sat in the back of the Land-Rover, looking out of the tarpaulin. Brilliant pink rays of sun were hitting the tops of the trees. They looked as though they were on fire.