He breathes deeply as he leaves the city. The Mustang blows along the roads among the russet leaves. Adam tries to take it slow– he is still a little shaky – the fight with Christie took it out of him.
The drive out to Nowhere is beautiful. Autumn is well advanced but the deciduous trees are still flush and red. Through them can be seen the land sharp beneath, the sky bright blue behind a lacework of branches.
No one has told him what is needed from him at Nowhere and this adds to Adam’s nerves. He is not likely to meet Leaf Winham himself, but the thought of all the hellos and small talk with whoever it might be is exhausting. So much work to be done before he can start to have the real conversation, the only one that matters, with the wood.
Up the road goes, snaking like yarn. Adam likes driving up past the lakes and meadows. It is a different world up here – a higher level of existence, like those medieval paintings of paradise, suspended in the clouds above all the regular dirty mortal business.
He turns off the highway onto an unmarked road that winds along the mountainside. The next turn, to Nowhere, is unmarked too and he drives past it twice, retracing his steps, squinting.
The road goes up in a series of hairpin bends. The Mustang strains. At a certain point Adam realises, startled, that he is driving in silence – the engine has cut out. He steers, cursing, into a gravel turnout. The incline is too steep. Over and over the Mustang’s engine roars and strains and dies – he can’t get it going again.
Adam gets out of the car, into the mountain silence. The land lies spread out below. It is easy to see how someone could feel like a god.
He has only stood there a moment, wondering what to do, before he hears the sound of an engine on the cold air. A black pickup comes round the downhill turn and pulls up. ‘Thought I might find you here,’ a friendly voice says. The guy has a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Adam catches a glimpse of brown chiselled jaw. He feels his heart lurch. Old instincts, the kind thatmake people bend low at altars, stir. Even Leaf Winham’s jaw looks famous.
‘Everyone’s engine stalls on this corner,’ Leaf says, eyes shadowed in the brim of the baseball cap. ‘Thought I’d come check.’
‘You didn’t have to come yourself,’ Adam says. He is startled to hear how high his voice sounds.
Leaf Winham shrugs. ‘It’s a good day for a drive. Jump in.’
The cab of the pickup is warm, which is welcome. Adam is very aware of the man beside him, his proximity, the tiny rustling movements of his clothes and body. He can smell Leaf Winham, he realises. A spiced, bark-like attractive scent comes from his skin.Leaf Winham is giving me a ride, he thinks, and it’s hilarious and kind of wonderful and before he realises he has coughed out a laugh.
Leaf shoots him a glance of understanding but doesn’t say anything.
The road runs up the mountain. Leaf Winham asks Adam questions. Where is he from? Does he like living in Boulder? Adam answers the questions. After that initial shock he feels almost relaxed. It’s such a strange conversation that he has forgotten to be shy. No big deal – just having a catch-up with the star ofWolves in the Ruins. Adam loves Leaf’s second film. It lived behind his eyes for days after. It was about a group of runaway kids who lived in abandoned tenement blocks in an unnamed city. It was Leaf’s breakout role at fifteen. Leaf and Adam are the same age. He has always found this weird – that a person like Leaf could have an age.
A set of high steel security gates looms on the road ahead. Above the arches a wrought metal sign.Nowhere. Adam has seen it in pictures. This is the entrance to Leaf’s kingdom. ‘Welcome to Nowhere,’ Leaf says. ‘It was called that when I bought it years ago. I kept it because I thought there was nowhere I would ever fit in. I thought it was smart, back then. Edgy. What an idiot. Never got round to changing it.’
The guy who sits in the booth has a gun. A big one. The gates part silently as the pickup approaches, and the guy with the automatic tips his hat at them as they pass. Leaf pulls over. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Paperwork.’
Adam sees a black town car parked behind the gates. A smiling man with silver hair emerges. ‘Hi y’all,’ he calls. He looks like everyone’s favourite grandpa. ‘Samuel Ross,’ he says, offering Adam his hand. ‘Head of security, which means I live a slow life, right?’ In the other he holds a clipboard and a fountain pen.
The nondisclosure agreement is weighty. Adam starts to read it and then shrugs and flips to the end to sign.
Don’t forget, Adam thinks as he gets back in the pickup beside Leaf,who this is. Don’t be fooled. This is not just some guy.
They are in a long meadow valley, tool down a pine-scented road. There are paddocks and split-rail fences on either side; horses peer over the bars with curious faces. They enter an orchard ripe with apples. When he leans forward, he glimpses bright colours through the trees. ‘Is that a carousel?’
‘I bought a whole fairground and had it shipped up here,’ Leaf says. ‘Crazy, I know. I was using at the time. Back then I wanted everything to be unreal. Nowadays I spend all my time trying to cling to reality.’ He shrugs. ‘It costs more to move it, now. Plus maybe it’s not such a bad thing, having a reminder of the stupid stuff I did when I was high.’
For a moment Adam doesn’t know how to answer. Leaf is not what he had imagined. He seems lonely, like someone who hasn’t spoken for a while. ‘I think about that all the time,’ Adam says. ‘I’m in all the buildings I design. They’re pictures of who I was at the time.’
Leaf turns for a moment with a smile of such sweetness that Adam feels dizzy. ‘That’s it,’ he says. ‘So the Ferris wheel speaks for itself. To your left,’ he adds.
Adam looks and there it is, a great Ferris wheel against the sky. He snorts before he can stop it, then claps a hand over his own mouth.
‘Yeah,’ Leaf says. ‘I know.’
The house heaves into view. It’s log and shining glass, in the style of a cabin. But eight times the size. He can see an infinity pool up on the third storey. The log is a façade, Adam realises – underneath the house must be concrete, stone. Nowhere House is like Leaf – pretending to be a regular guy.
As they go up the broad steps Adam catches a glimpse of white down the side of the house. A stretch of green grass. White wooden crosses stand upright in the earth. Adam catches his breath. ‘Jackrabbit,’ he whispers. It’s what his grandma taught him to say when going past a cemetery. ‘Who’s buried there?’
‘Pets,’ Leaf says. ‘Cats. A couple of Jack Russell terriers. My chin-chilla, Maxy. I find it difficult, letting things go.’
The heavy double doors swing open into a large atrium. Pairs of antlers ring the walls. A row are mounted above the cavernous fireplace. Buckskin and cowhide rugs litter the boards. Two staircases wind up to a high gallery behind. The house stretches out and above, airy. Adam sees how beautifully built it is, how each newel is turned with love. Light pours in from all angles, lighting the room gold. It’s like a cathedral. Adam catches his breath.
Leaf takes off his cap. His face, so familiar from the screen, is startling. It’s exactly the same yet completely different. Leaf has fine lines around his eyes which Adam hasn’t seen. Maybe they cover them with makeup. His hair is dark at the moment, longer than Adam expected. He is smaller, slighter than he looks in pictures. Adam realises that he’s staring, and that Leaf is holding out his hand.
