Inconsolable (15 page)

Nat ran her petition in support of Drum's right to live on the cliff, and a bunch of stories focusing on homelessness that ranged from the plight of street kids to the nuisance of traffic light window washers, and the great work done by local restaurateurs who supported a food bank for the destitute.

The one downer was another letter from the agent handling the Beeton house. Record crowds to the coast must've flushed new interest out. If only it could've inspired someone to love Sereno back to life.

Foley should've felt relieved that she could work a normal day for a few weeks until planning the Winter Wonderful festival needed her full attention. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, eating on the run, the strain between her and Gabriella, but she was Frustrated Foley all over again.

She tried to run and the stitch came back. She did a few stretches and couldn't shift it. She needed to chill. Maybe take a couple of days off. Maybe go on a date with someone and give herself something to think about other than work. She walked on. So much for a life less ordinary.

And whose fault was that. It was two years since Jon, two years since she'd had more than a few dates with anyone she was interested in. It was easy to be ordinary when all you did was sideline your personal life to work, and amuse yourself by hiding the TV remote from your likewise work obsessed flatmate.

Oh God, that was worse than ordinary.

Ordinary wasn't stalled at work. Ordinary probably got flirted with at least occasionally, had her hand held, went out to dinner and pashed in the car after drinking too much. Surely, Ordinary had awkward one night stands with men who were less than appealing in the cold, hard light of a hung-over morning, and occasionally did the walk of shame in last night's clothes while worried about running into the guy again. Ordinary at least had things to laugh about and regret.

Foley had the beginning of headache and a stitch that wouldn't go away and the most interesting thing in her social calendar was a school reunion she was most definitely not going to, and being godmother for Hugh's new baby.

She'd walked almost the entire length of the beach when it all clicked into place. This whole thing she'd been doing with Drum, thinking about him all time, wondering if he was okay, wanting to see him with her own eyes, all of that infatuation, as Nat was right to call it, was because she'd boxed herself into too tight a corner.

She was all work and more exasperating work and the play was all missing.

What she wanted was the director's job she'd worked for, but in its absence she'd accept strong hands and good conversation, a nice face and a sharp wit. She wanted to dial up admiration, laughter and humour in the form of a confident man who was complex and thoughtful, who liked great food and being outdoors, who could make her laugh and think and feel like she was more than a desk, a chair, a phone and a keyboard.

She wanted kisses that stopped clocks, touches that pleasure drugged. She wanted endless hot sex without fear, or guilt, or responsibility before her insides dried up from lack of use. And none of that was out of the ordinary. That was what most people, who weren't news obsessed Nat, wanted; to have someone who loved them and to love them right back for a day, a week, a month, so long as it was genuine and felt good.

And it wasn't so hard to achieve ordinary. She had online profiles if she could be bothered checking them, and there was the old-fashioned way, picking up a guy in a bar. At least that way you could see what he really looked like first. That's the way it used to work before Jon. She'd been confident, brave, excited about meeting new people. After Jon, she'd been hurt and scared, and here she was two years later, Frustrated as all fuck Foley.

But if she could be duped that badly by a man she was close to, how did that bode for building something with a suspect online profile or a random hook-up in a dark bar?

Maybe if Nat could be bothered, they'd have gone out together, been each other's wing women. But Nat would rather read a week-old copy of a foreign language newspaper than stand around in a bar hoping for some action. Nat hadn't had a case of boy germs since her uni years and appeared to be in peak health without them.

Foley stopped walking. She looked out at the horizon where storm clouds shifted and shafts of rain caught the last of the sunlight like godly glittery curtains. Those storm clouds were all threat and no action. Just like she was. She'd wanted this life less ordinary and she was living like a nun with a vocation.

She eyed the other end of the beach. She should be running, burning the frustration off: Gabriella, Drum, work, feeling lonely and unsexy and unloved, but if she couldn't have a good hug, what she really wanted was food less ordinary: a greasy hamburger, a pile of hot chips with vinegar, a cheesy pizza, a whole packet of Tim Tams.

That at least was instantly actionable. She turned her back on the sea and the storm clouds to go in search of comfort food she could regret in a few hours like an ill-advised hook-up, and there he was, sitting cross-legged in the sand with a straight back and his eyes closed, his hands on his knees and expression so calm, so perfectly peaceful she wanted to kick sand in his face.

Shit
. He had the whole beach, the whole coast and his own freaking cave and he had to be right there. Not that she had to talk to him. Even if he opened his eyes, she didn't have to. He wasn't the job anymore. She could pretend she didn't see him, she could trudge straight past him, she could go the other way, she could …

He opened his eyes and he smiled at her and all her nots and coulds and wasn'ts reformed into a fast heel pivot and a swift walk in the other direction. She got a few car lengths away before she pulled it together.

Drum wasn't a bushfire and she wasn't a tree he could burn through. He was a mentally disturbed man and she was behaving like lunatic.

She turned back. He hadn't moved. When she got closer she could see he'd closed his eyes again and she felt slathered in foolish sauce for the second time in as many minutes.

She stood a little in front of him. There was a man who begged at the main intersection of the town centre. He was often shirtless. He wore his hair in a plait. He went barefoot and the soles of his feet were black and tough, cracked thickly like the tread in a car tyre. He smelled dreadful. He held a piece of torn cardboard that said, “Please halp me. Good bless.”

There was another man, Asian, so filthy his skin was the colour of tea steeped for too long. His hair was one long mat, shaped like a beaver's tail, almost reaching his knees. He wore a plaid dressing gown all year round. Neither man would stay in a shelter long. Neither would allow the council, charity, or church services near them. Both annoyed local businesses and frightened children, and both lived hard, sad, disconnected and heartbreaking lives.

Drum looked like a surfie dropout or one of those hippie types who lived out of a camper van. He was clean and healthy and, if you put aside his unstable attachment to the cave, he was an educated and interesting man. He was heartbreaking in an entirely unexpected way.

He opened his eyes. They connected directly with hers as if they were a homing device and her breath stalled.

She took a couple of steps towards him. “I'm sorry, that was plain rude of me.”

He inclined his head. “It's okay, you're mad with me. I get it. It shows you have good strong self-preservation instincts.”

Foley shook her head. Her preservation instincts were gift-wrapped with her way too ordinary life. “How can you get it?”

“I can see it in you.”

She huffed out a laugh.

“You're ambitious, you're dissatisfied, you're anxious. But mostly you're wondering if I deliberately came down here to annoy you. For the record I come here every night, weather permitting, to run and to meditate.”

She frowned. His guesses were general, vague and spot on. “Well, I'll leave you to it.”

“Whatever it is you want, Foley. Whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you find it.”

She shifted her weight onto one leg and jammed her hands onto her hips. “Don't go getting all mystical on me. I had you pegged for a rational hermit squatter guy and here you are going all transcendental and wishful thinking on me.”

He smiled. “Don't knock it till you try it.”

“You were really meditating, not just sitting there listening to the sea?”

“That can be a meditation, so can chanting or exercise.”

“If you start chanting, I'm out of here.”

He smiled and patted the sand beside him. “Give me fifteen minutes and I'll give you a meditation that'll take that stress out of your eyes, at least for tonight.”

She must've had scepticism in those stressed-out eyes, because he patted the sand again. “You didn't get what you wanted from running. Maybe you can get it from being still.”

Beguiling hermit squatter man. She took a step closer. “I was going to get it from junk food.”

He tipped his head back to look up at her. “That can work too, but it comes with unfortunate side effects.”

She sat cross-legged beside him, the sand cool on the back of her bare calves. “Now what?” Tim Tams made more sense than this.

“The idea is to be still, let all the stress, everything you're worried about go, and just be without it for a little while.”

She snuck a look at him. “What worries you?” It wasn't a witch of a boss, or a sad social life. But maybe it was the lack of those things most people took for granted, a job, friends, a feeling of worth.

“Nothing when I'm here doing this.”

Maybe he'd been a lawyer in his former life. “Good duck. Quack.”

He smiled and the beauty in that was part way to a meditation all by itself. They sat in the falling light looking at each other and saying nothing for longer than should've been comfortable, and yet Foley had no urge to get up and walk away.

“What do I do now?”

He turned his head to look at the sea. “Pick something to focus on, just one thing.”

“What do you choose?”

“The sea. My own breathing.” He turned his face around again and a heat-seeking missile locked onto her eyes. “An image of something beautiful.”

It was entirely inappropriate that she was holding her breath. She couldn't meditate and hold her breath. She knew nothing about meditating but she was sure it didn't work like flirting or passing out.

“Take a breath, Foley.”

It shuddered in her chest and out of her throat in an embarrassing waver.

“Take another one.”

She took it, open-mouthed and shallow.

“Close your eyes and listen to the sea.” Drum closed his and turned his face away.

She watched him, this strange, inappropriate man she was so drawn to.

“Are your eyes closed?”

She didn't want to close them, she wanted to shuffle slightly sideways so she was closer to him, so she could see him clearer, feel the warmth coming off his skin, smell his raisin toast scent. “Yes.”

His cheek lifted. “Close your eyes, Foley.” He turned his head and caught her staring and she felt no compunction to turn away because she knew he would.

Except he didn't.

He turned his whole body around, pushing sand aside with his knee and she breathed and breathed and no air seemed to get past her nostrils, her whole body felt light and flyaway, a lure cast out on a fishing line, and his eyes were busy, travelling all over her face in a way that made her heat from the inside. She licked her lips because she was thirsty as well as breathless and Drum made a sound she didn't think belonged in a meditation, a throaty hmm as he reached over and put his palm over her eyes. “Close them.”

He took his hand away and she wanted to snatch it back, but she did as he'd said and closed her eyes because his voice was hypnotic and she wanted more of his instructions.

“Take a deeper breath and hold it.” She did. He waited for her exhale. “Take another one.” She did. He waited. “And another. Make them slow and deep. Make each breath fill you up from toenail to hair tip.”

She breathed and she filled with air, but her thoughts were pinging around like popping corn in the microwave, each one slamming new awareness of him into her. He was sitting so close and his hand had been so warm on her face. If she inched forward her knee could touch his. If she opened her eyes he might close them for her again. What did this mean? Why was it hard to concentrate on anything but him? She was the worst meditator in the history of sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed, and if he was still looking at her he'd know. She almost opened her eyes but he spoke again, trapping her in her fake meditative state with the jostle of unsuitable thoughts.

“Let whatever is in your head just be. All the most important thoughts will wait for you. And when your mind has rested you'll know what to do with them.” She kept her eyes closed and tuned in to his voice, to his nearness. “For now just breathe, it's enough, one after another, deep and full and long. No breath costs, no breath hurts, none is greater or lesser or smarter or richer, or more beautiful. None competes, none takes away. Each breath just is. All of them wonderful, all of them free, and yours to take and give away.”

Foley tuned in to the frequency of his words and breathed, and so did Drum, and she was aware of the sea and the temperature dropping, the feeling of the sand on her legs and her mind settled, her brain got quiet and all of her disconnected, frantic thoughts fell away; but one.

They breathed like that together, in sync, until her shoulders dropped and her neck felt easier and her day's frustrations lifted off.

She opened her eyes to find the light gone, to find him watching her in the glow from the ambient orange night lights on the promenade.

“You were saying goodbye. When you said you hoped I'd find what I was looking for, that was goodbye.”