Ollie Always by John Wiltshire

vegetable aisle, Ollie realised that if he tried to explain about his mother, he would only prove more that he needed exactly what Tom was giving him—hard road; help to negotiate it. He wouldn’t be surprised if motivational posters went up soon—kittens in wine glasses and captions that read, If you can dream it, you can do it . Clearly, people didn’t have the same dreams he did.
    They were back at the house and unloading bags of suspiciously leafy green objects—green was on Ollie’s colours-I-do-not-eat list, too, but for different reasons than the pink, although if anyone ever offered him green cock it definitely wouldn’t go in his mouth either—before Ollie plucked up the courage to mention that Tom might not want to stay once he’d met…Mother. And was there any way to say that without wanting to put on a wig and a floral dress and make squeaking knife noises?
    “She’ll love me. Mothers always do.” Tom began to pull some green leaves apart, running them under the tap.
    Ollie put the kettle on and tried another tack. “She might love you too much.”
    Tom grinned. “Maybe she’ll adopt me.”
    Ollie made some tea, mulling over whether he could sneak a biscuit without being spotted. The green stuff was going in a bowl. It wasn’t looking good. He didn’t think his mother would have adoption on her mind when she saw Tom Collins. Her last lover had still owned his childhood teddy bear. Which was fine, but he’d brought it along when he’d come to stay one weekend. It was entirely possible Tristan had been channelling his inner Sebastian Flyte, in which case it was a vaguely amusing affectation, but the fact that he’d also spent the entire weekend chatting to his mummy on the phone made this seem rather unlikely to Ollie. And Ronnie had a bit of a thing for soldiers. She’d grown up with them, her godfather being Colonel of the Regiment of the Grenadier Guards…
    “I’m not going to eat that, by the way. I thought I’d better let you know before you start adding the orange thing.”
    “Pepper.”
    “There you go. Dumb name. Sounds like a perky girl in a boarding school story by Enid Blyton. I say, Pepper, old thing, you awful swot; gosh, I shall jolly well not let you have any ginger beer .”
    “You ever thought about being a writer?” Tom split the pepper between two plates and added half of the green.
    Ollie considered the concoction. “You do know that this is why everyone, every single person in the entire world, hates dieting. You totally know Day One is going to look like this.” He picked up his fork and began to carefully inspect each leaf. He’d once been brave and tried eating a healthy item, and halfway through had discovered something white and gelatinous on it. Rather like some of the pink offerings, in a way, when you thought about it.
    “Eat.”
    “I’m working up to it.” He took a sip of tea instead. “So what about this visit with your friends? Aren’t you going to meet up with them after all?”
    Tom kept his head down, munching, and only shrugged and changed the subject by asking, “So, you reckon your old mum’s a bit of a Lady Chatterley then?”
    Ollie spluttered out the hot liquid. “What?”
    “That she might like a bit of the rough. Working class soldier types…”
    Dear God. This is what happens when you allow reading to the masses. “Mellors was an officer .”
    Tom frowned deeply. “No, he wasn’t. He was rough and down and dirty. Like me. That’s the whole point of the damn book.”
    “I think you’re confusing him with Sean Bean. Anyway, trust me, that’s not what I meant at all, and Mother knows a lot of soldiers already. And I don’t mean in the Biblical sense. Well, I suppose she might. I meant Help for Heroes . The charity for disabled soldiers? She’s a patron.”
    Tom shrugged and changed the subject again by pointing to the window. “Eat up. Day’s getting away from us, and I want to do your assessment, so we’re ready to