Inconsolable (3 page)

She put out her hand and they shook, as though they were both wearing suits, in a meeting room with walls and air conditioning, bad filter coffee and uncomfortable chairs. She watched their joined hands. His was big and calloused, dry, it swallowed hers up, but there was no power there. No I'm the boss of you inappropriate squeezing, no hand on top rolling to demonstrate dominance. It was handshake of equals.

Except she had electricity in her life and he was incapable of meeting her eyes.

“You got stung.” His chest and one arm were traced with thick red lines. “Badly.”

He released her hand and shrugged one shoulder.

They could talk here, on the top ledge, but he looked so uncomfortable, his neck bent so his whole face was tilted down and his hair falling across his forehead. If they stayed where they were, anyone using the path could see and hear them. She'd come dressed for the climb.

“I'd like to see where you live.”

His head shot up and he frowned. He thought she was making fun of him.

“I'd like to see your camp.” He didn't need to know she'd seen it yesterday. “Here.” she held the cardboard tray out. “This is for you.”

He looked at the tray but made no move to take it.

“There's a bacon and egg roll and a cappuccino, though the froth has probably melted by now.”

He shook his head. “Thank you, but I've already eaten.”

“Oh.” He was an unemployed homeless guy who knew Japanese, shook hands, spoke like a gentleman, and had already had breakfast. Or he was lying? She knew he'd been drinking something. “Please take the coffee at least.”

His hand flexed, but he didn't otherwise move.

“I brought two of everything and I've not eaten.”

He pointed. “See that darker rock with the indentation.”

She followed his hand. He was going to show her the easy way to his camp. He stepped across to where he pointed and she followed.

“From here it's up and across to go down.”

He reached for the tray and she gave it to him, then followed him up two giant rocky steps and down a curving slope, before three small graduated ledges that worked like steps cut in the rock appeared, an easy way to conquer the varying heights of the rock shelves.

This approach was less intuitive and less obtrusive than the full frontal assault she'd tried yesterday. If he'd been home then, he'd have heard her coming, and given most people would take the straightforward approach, she'd bet he'd never been surprised by an unwanted visitor. It meant something that he'd shown her the right path to his front door.

His camp was as neat this morning as it had been yesterday. The suitcase zipped, the sleeping bag rolled. There was a pile of books by the bed, beaten-up classics. A Hemmingway, a Kerouac. She could see the spines of
To Kill a Mocking Bird
and
The Count of Monte Cristo
. If he'd made breakfast, there was no evidence of it, other than the mug, left on the iron table.

He gestured to one of the chairs. “Please take a seat.” He put the tray on the table and walked to the bed, his broad, tanned back, slim hips and athlete's calves accessible for her viewing pleasure. He picked up a t-shirt and put it on and she sat before he caught her staring, reached for a coffee cup and lifted the lid. The froth had disappeared but that distinctive coffee aroma was joyous. She watched him, standing a little away from the table, looking out to the horizon.

“I can't drink two of these.” Her second lie of the morning, but this one was spoken aloud. “I brought it for you.”

He stepped up to the table and picked up the cup. “Thank you.”

She plucked up one of the white sandwich bags. “I can't eat two rolls either.”

He sipped the coffee and looked away.

The handshake, the t-shirt, the please take a seat. She took a gamble on his good manners. “It feels rude to eat in front of you.”

He pulled out the other chair and sat.

She smiled and held out a sandwich bag.
Eat my dust, Gabriella
. He'd willingly brought her into his camp; if he accepted her food, she was one step closer to having him accept her help.

He took the bag, but put it down on the table and made no attempt to open it. Her own mouth was watering from the smell of the bacon.

“Why are you here, Foley?”

She'd made it this far on false pretences and while he looked perfectly calm and sane, he could still throw her over the cliff; looking at him, he could easily do that, and unlike yesterday, no one other than Nat knew she was here now. The Gabriella in her head stepped sideways, avoiding the dust plume and smiling prettily.

He didn't smell of alcohol. He wasn't twitchy. Would a dangerous man stop to help people when he might get hurt himself? Nothing about Drum alerted her to peril. “I'm from council.” She watched him carefully, expecting his hospitality to be withdrawn, if not some outright hostility to surface.

His eyes were on the table. He was very still. “You were on the beach last night.” He looked up briefly and turned his head away. “Hot water, not vinegar.”

She gagged on a bit of bread roll, coughing, and his head lifted. How had he managed to notice her? He had a screaming kid in his arms.

“Are you all right?”

She coughed again and took a sip of coffee. “I'm fine. Yes, that was me on the beach.”

“You tried to help.”

“You didn't need any. You had it under control.”

He gave a tight nod then hovered a flattened hand over the sandwich bag. “So this is on an expense claim?”

She blinked at him in surprise. Good manners, language skills, neat homemaker, saver of stung tourists, he knew about claiming work expenses, and he looked liked he could model for a surfing magazine. He was not your average drunk, druggie, mentally ill, down on his luck, hairy, smelly, junk hoarding, homeless guy.

“Yes, I guess it is.”

He picked up the bag, the trace of a smile ticking up one corner of his mouth. Oh, if he smiled for real it would transform his face from classic carved cold marble to kissable chocolate fudge Sunday. Under her sunburn Foley blushed, her whole face feeling itchy with it.

They ate in silence but for the occasional wheeling, shrieking seagull. She'd rehearsed a bunch of lines in the car and at the deli, all of them revolving around the idea of introducing herself, showing her concern for his welfare and offering him help.

This man sitting in front of her didn't fit any of the usual profiles where this strategy might work. He didn't appear to be a substance abuser, though that was hard to tell. He clearly had an education. He looked better than healthy and he wasn't talking nonsense. If he wasn't overly friendly well, hell, she'd barged in on his morning, and she can't have been welcome.

He stared at the sea. “You didn't come for the view, exceptional though it is. There are a number of other vantage points as well-located.” He wouldn't look at her but he was capable of exerting control.

“I came to see you.”

“And having seen me, what next?”

Cheeky, and not going to be pushed around. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Little I can do to stop you.”

There was a lot he could do. There was physical power in his body, and he wasn't slow-witted. She'd like to have said, yes, stop me, stop me prying, stop me muscling in on you, stop me disturbing you and getting my way, because you look like you know exactly what you're doing here, and I have no right to talk you into moving on.

But she couldn't do that. No matter how almost normal he seemed, he was living on an exposed cliff top, and if more people knew about him, things could get dangerous. He expected the why question, she gave him something different to consider while she tried to re-plot a path forward.

“What do you like about living here?”

He screwed the sandwich bag up and used the napkin to wipe his mouth and hands, putting both into the tray with their empty cups. He took a long time to answer, so long she thought he wasn't going to.

“I can be clean here.”

An answer that didn't make sense. “But you have no water, no electricity.”

He shook his head. “You won't understand.”

“I'd like to try.”

“You'd like me to move on, but I'm not bothering anyone and I don't want to leave.”

“In winter it must be so cold and bleak.”

“In winter it's as winter needs it to be and so am I.”

The softness of his voice was at odds with the sharpness of his words. Her turn to hesitate. “But in the rain and the cold. I don't know how you don't freeze to death, get sick.”

“I have warm clothing and there are other places I can go if it gets too bad.” She knew what he meant. Shopping centres, libraries, train stations, waiting rooms, churches.

“Are you religious?”

He closed his eyes. She could only see his face in profile, but he closed his eyes as if the question pained. “I think if there were a God, things would be different.”

She looked out at the coastline wrapped around them. “But this beauty, this place you choose to live in, some people think that's God.”

“For you, maybe. For me it's science.”

“Is science your religion?”

He opened his eyes again, but kept them focused on the distance. “If I have any religion at all, it's to do no harm. I'm not harming anyone by living here.”

“It's not legal to squat on public land if there's any danger.”

The law on squatting was oddly complicated. Squatters had certain rights, though they could be charged with criminal trespass if they inhabited a building. Outdoors was a different matter. Council had a charter that protected the rights of homeless people and it specifically said they could inhabit a public place unless there was a threat to security, their own personal safety, or they were causing a disturbance that constituted a breach of the peace and became a police matter.

Drum was doing none of that, which was one reason why this issue had been escalated to community relations and why Foley was sitting here now, wishing she'd brought more than a meal to the negotiating table. The other reason was the outraged artistic director of the world's largest outdoor sculpture exhibition who'd threatened to go public about Drum if he wasn't moved on before the exhibition started.

The man who called himself Drum grunted. “It's legal to do a lot of things that hurt people.”

Hmm, what to make of that? “The thing is, people know you're here now and they don't like it. Some people don't think you should be allowed to live here.”

Like many people, Geraldo Blanco thought being homeless was akin to being criminal. He was artistic, but that didn't make him a humanitarian. He'd vowed to rout Drum before the exhibition opened if council wouldn't, by fronting the media. No one wanted that—a dispute with a public figure of some fame, and untoward attention directed towards Drum that would compromise public safety—least of all a mayor trying to keep his head down in the face of a potential council amalgamation, where he could lose his job.

Drum grunted again. “But it would be okay for me to lie in an alleyway, doss down in a covered car park, or an abandoned building with the other homeless people.” He swept a hand in front of him. “Look at these views. Can't have me getting above my station.”

Foley frowned and her sunburned forehead protested. “No, that's not what I mean.” Drum wasn't scaring her physically, but his softly delivered verbal jousts were formidable. “People don't think you should be allowed to live on public land like this—”

“Because they'd rather give up their fine homes and live here instead?”

She shook her head. She wished he'd look at her. There was no anger in his voice, but without being able to see his face properly she couldn't get an accurate read on him.

“Because for one reason or another, they're frightened of you.”

He looked down at his legs, the sparse hair bleached white blond. “No one is frightened of me now, unless you are?”

She noted the now. “I'm not.” Common sense said she should be, but she didn't feel anything menacing from him. “Should I be?” He'd hardly say yes.

“It would be smarter than arriving with breakfast. I could be off my trolley for all you know.”

Which was yes in a whole other way, but with wry humour instead of any implication of a threat. “But you're not, are you?”

He flicked the quickest glance at her over his shoulder. “I'm living in a cave.” He turned back to the panorama. “Would you have that as entirely sane?”

She sighed. Of all the situations she'd thought she might walk into here, verbal sparring wasn't one of them. She had a whistle, a phone and pepper spray—useless. She needed a dictionary and a first in debating.

“My mother lives in a nice house and she's not entirely reasonable. I'm not sure that a known address is the determiner of sanity.” She'd hoped he might smile at that, look at her and laugh, or ask about her mother, anything to connect better with him.

He never shifted his gaze. “Most people would argue with you on that. Cave equals psycho with various attached descriptors: Jesus freak, headcase, psycho, nut job.”

“Are you ill? Did something bad happen to you?”

“I think you're smarter than your questions.”

She laughed. “I wish. If you'd seen me yesterday, you'd think I had seriously compromised brain function, and this is not going how I planned it.”

“How did you plan it?”

“I thought you probably needed help and I wanted to help you.”

“I don't need your help.”

He was one of the least vulnerable people she'd ever met. Except he still wouldn't do more than glance at her, he thought he could be clean by living here and he'd once frightened people.

“You live in a cave.”