Inconsolable (10 page)

“You were tired.”

“Have you slept at all?”

“No.”

“What will you use as a bed?”

“I'll manage.”

She looked up expecting to see his face in profile or his eyes turned down. He was looking right at her. He was doing this more often now but it was still a shock to see him focused on her.

“You understand why I'm worried about you?”

“It's your job.”

“Yes, that and after what happened to your stuff. I'm very uncomfortable about you going back to the cave, tonight or any night.”

“Which is also your job.”

She wasn't going to win anything here. She couldn't even get more of a name out of him.

“They won't come back. I'll be safe.”

“Hold on. That sounds like you know who did this?”

He gave a brisk nod. “Not for sure, but I have a fair idea. They've had their fun.”

“We can report them to the police, you know.”

He shook his head, “I don't want that kind of trouble.”

“But it's as much theft and destruction of property as it would be if they broke into a house.” She wasn't entirely sure of the legal point of distinction there, it likely wasn't that simple, but her bet was neither was Drum, and she was correct at least in principle.

She smelt the rain before she felt it, hot tar and cooling engines, interrupting their conversation. Drum moved to gather their rubbish and dispose of it. She followed him down the stairs, through the kitchen and out onto the street.

“Wait, I haven't paid.” She fumbled for her wallet. She'd have to go back inside the restaurant.

“It's taken care of.”

“What, you paid for me? No, no, no.”

“We're getting wet.”

“We'll dry.” His line, her turn with it.

“You can buy coffee,” he said, and walked off.

She was forced to jog to catch up to him. He took her to the takeaway window of a coffee bar, and he did let her pay, explaining that he'd do some odd jobs for Paul to earn the meal. When their coffees were ready, he led her to one of the covered picnic table pavilions fronting the beach. From where they sat you could see the part of coastline where his cave was. It was a craggy, dark shadow, gothic fairy story forbidding.

They'd avoided getting too wet, most of the distance travelled being under shop awnings, except for the last dash to the picnic table. Had the weather been better, all of these tiny bright-coloured pavilions would've been taken by families, by couples eating their takeaway meals and picnic dinners, as they watched the beach and shooed scavenging gulls away.

Foley slid into the bench seat with her back against its wall. Drum sat opposite, but he was being dripped on from the roof. He dodged it, a second drip started up, he dodged that too, until a whole line of drips came down on him.

She patted the seat beside her and he moved into it. They faced the ocean and drank their coffee. If this had been a proper date, this is where they'd have talked, told each other secrets, kissed, made out in the rain with the salt drift, the smell of barbeques hastily abandoned, and the thrill of each other's hands, sheltered from discovery by the bad weather, by their lack of care what anyone thought.

Drum sat stiffly beside her, holding his body away, but he was less remote, less anxious than he had been at the beginning of last night. Looking at each other was awkward, but she was intensely aware of him all the same.

“You let me touch you last night. You held me.”

There was something wrong with her that she wanted to prod at him like this, wanted to be with him at all. Nothing stopped someone being friends with a homeless person, but what she was doing was inappropriate, it was unprofessional. She was tense inside out for his reaction.

He angled his chin to look at her out of one eye. “You were asleep.”

She blushed. “I was aware of you. I knew you put your arm around me.” She was an idiot. Maybe she was the one with a mental illness.

He grunted, shifted, banged his knee on the underside of the table.

She sipped the last of her coffee and tried to feel bad about being caught out, about what she was doing, about flirting with a homeless guy it was her job to help.

“Did you hear anything my flatmate said?” If Nat could see her now, hear her.
Shit
.

He shook his head, looked out at the beach. She wasn't sure she believed that. Nat was loud, but he can't have heard it all, or he wouldn't have been so far up the hill.

“It's going to rain all night. And even if it doesn't, you'll be drenched before you get home. Let me take you somewhere dry for the night.”

“You need to stop.”

Foley looked down at her hands, fingers twisted together in her lap. “I can't stop.”

It was the simplest thing she could say when her chest was crawling with feeling, writhing with the sense of him. It was more than the desire to make sure he was safe. This wasn't the job that was making her throat tight, making her desperate to touch him again, lean her head on his shoulder and have him put his arm around her.

She hadn't felt this way about a man for a long time, not since uni and Jon and his lies, maybe not since that smirk of Hugh's drove her libido mad. That's all this was, surely. Drum was a beautiful man, an interesting puzzle. It was the equivalent of Jon's incredible intellect and Hugh's once maddeningly sexy grin slammed together and bound up with ropes of intrigue and a manner that put her body on red alert.

Drum would be oblivious to the turmoil that seethed in her. They sat there saying nothing, not touching, facing out towards the beach. They might've been two strangers waiting for a bus as the rain fell in a steady pattern, bringing cooler air with it.

“I shouldn't be around you, Foley.”

Her breath snagged. She looked at Drum and their eyes caught, strung like party lights. Her stomach flipped. What did he mean by that? He shuffled sideways and stood up, rain pelting at him. He lifted his face to it, baring his throat like it was an act of worship.

“Drum.” He didn't have his tarp to keep the weather out of the cave. She'd convince him to go to a shelter.

“Look at me, Foley.”

She double blinked at him, at the command in his tone.

He pushed wet hair off his face. His shirt was already soaked. “I'll keep my part of our deal. You need to keep yours.” He stepped away from the little dry island of the picnic pavilion into the weather. He looked directly at her. He said, “I don't want to see you again,” and walked away.

She watched him till he was part of the gloom, a dark, moving, low-hanging cloud in the distance, then made a dash to her car and drove home. She was wet through, but she had a hot shower and fresh, dry clothes to put on, a soft bed to lie in, waiting for her.

She should've felt good about all that. About the deal with Drum, about being able to tell Gabriella she'd done what she'd set out to do, found an acceptable solution to the problem of the homeless man cluttering up the sculpture exhibition. But she felt like crying instead.

When she got home and Nat told her about the petition, she felt like throwing up because she was sick with the knowledge she'd have to break her promise and see Drum again.

10: Shaken

She didn't keep her promise. It made Drum irrationally angry because Foley only did what most people do. She lied. Acted in her own best interest.

He'd kept to the cave most of the morning while the rain blew about in feathery strings, this way, then that way, buffeted by the wind, blowing old cloud out, bringing new cloud in, an ever replenished buffet in the sky.

She'd shown up when the sun did. A shout, a plastic carry bag in her hand. He considered taking the back way out, but in the wet it could be slippery and she was stubborn enough to try to follow him. He stayed put on his new couch. Both of them wet. Both of them would dry. The couch was black vinyl, torn in places, but sturdy still and waterproof enough, as well as being long enough to do for a bed. It hadn't been easy getting it here, he owed a favour to Noddy and Blue.

Foley wore office clothes, a dress, shoes that had no business being on a rock face. He'd never seen her dressed like this, the flipside of her lovely casualness last night. She'd gotten too comfortable coming here and that was his fault. He should never have let her stay for the sunrise. Never have gotten in her dinky little car. Never have agreed to go with her to Fat Barney's. He should never have touched her. It was bad enough he could no longer stop himself looking at her.

He looked at her now with her shiny hair and her sunglasses, with her bribery in hand. He could smell Chinese food and his traitor gut rumbled. She stepped down onto the lower ledge as if this was a shopping centre or a movie theatre and she was here for the entertainment value. He should go out the back way and be damned, she couldn't follow him in those shoes, she couldn't make the jump in a dress that was slicked to her hips and thighs.

He stood up to go and she said his name and smiled as if there was a reason he might like his name on her lips, those lips curved to smile, that he might like her.

That did it. She couldn't stand here and smile at him like that, because he did like it.

The raw, dark anger that lived in the sinews of his body, wrapped tight and restrained so it didn't cause more hurt, broke free. “Fuck off and leave me alone.”

She took a step back, her lipstick mouth making a round shape, her body tensing in surprise. “Drum, it's me, Foley.”

She thought he didn't recognise her. But he knew who she was. She was bright and fresh, light and hope, and all the entrancing things he'd given up and no longer deserved. He roared at her. Incoherent sounds of noise and hate and fear. She had to get away from him, before he infected her, made her dirty. He had to make her understand that.

She dropped the food, her bag, and she put her hands up, but he kept on, voice raised, swearing at her. He had no way of knowing how long he raged, how little sense he made, but after a time there was nothing left of her but a huddle of knees and red and black fabric, jammed against the rock. He stopped, hands to his head, tongue so unstuck he could rip it out, towering over her as she hid from his verbal assault.

He left her there. He was a monster. She'd see that now. He went to the edge and curled his toes over. The sea was churned up, cut, choppy from the wind and rain. He needed this. He listened for her, ached to hear her scrambling away.

“Drum, please come away from the edge.”

He closed his eyes and softened his knees. He'd hurt her when he'd been trying not to. Why did she keep coming to him? Why did she make it so hard?

“I promise. I promise I won't ever come back if you step away from the edge.”

The wind scoured his skin, but didn't rub the filth of him away.

“I didn't mean to break my promise. I didn't mean to. I want you to be safe. Please come away from the edge. You didn't hurt me. I'll go when you come away from the edge. Please, Drum, please, please, please come away.”

Her voice wrapped around him and held him steady. She should be gone. He should be alone.

“Please Drum, please.”

She was frightened. And so was he, frightened of what she made him feel, of how much he wanted to hear her voice, see her smile, touch her skin and have the life of her close to him. He took a step back from the edge.

Her breathing was all broken up, choppy like the sea. He took another step back and another and another, then turned to face her. Her shoes were off, her sunglasses, her hand was over her mouth and she shook like the wind was inside her.

What could he say? What would she understand? He took a step towards her and she nodded, turned to pick up her shoes.

“Stop.” He put his hand out. He no longer wanted her to go. He needed to explain.

She straightened up but kept her eyes down. She was ready to run, her shoes in her hand. His reality was bad enough; he couldn't send her off with nightmares.

“I would never jump. I would never kill myself. That's too easy. You don't need to worry about me. You need to stay away.”

She sobbed aloud, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were shocked into hard marbles, glistening wet and fixed on him.

“I'm sorry.” Useless words. He'd said them so often and they'd never mattered, but he didn't have any better. “I'm bad news for you. But I won't hurt myself.”

She heaved a breath. “I don't believe you.”

He took another step away from the edge, closer to her. He could smell sweet white flowers; her perfume. He lifted his hand to her, wanting to take the fear away, not knowing how, but she reached her hand out too and their fingers brushed, then her hand was in his, like that one time before but different too, because this time she truly knew to fear him and still she touched him.

And he couldn't take it. It mattered that he'd scared her. It mattered that she was here. He closed his hand around hers and stepped closer. She dropped her shoes. He watched as her breath settled as she blinked slow, squeezed her eyes to stop them tearing up.

“I am sorry, Foley.”

She lifted her chin, her hand squeezed his. “If you ever do that again I'll …” She was so fierce, but she knew she had nothing to threaten him with. She launched herself at him, slapping his chest and arm. “You fucking scared me. You fucking great shit of a man. I thought you were going to jump and it would be my fault.”

He let her hit him, shake him, his arms at his sides, until she exhausted herself, one hand resting on his chest. “I have never been so scared in my whole life. I nearly wet myself.”

If he'd been a better man he'd have known how to soothe her, known how to hold her. She was so slight, so small compared to him, but she was stronger, so much stronger. When she broke away he thought he might fall. “I'm sorry.”