Inconsolable (22 page)

He frowned, confused by the change of heart when everything they'd just said had been said a dozen times before.

“I want to help you.”

He reached for her and she stepped back, when she wanted nothing more than to be in his grasp.

“You help me every day,” he said.

“By amusing you,” she scoffed, because they laughed as much as they talked, as much as they were comfortably quiet with each other. She turned her head; she didn't want to see the appeal in his eyes.

“I don't stand on the edge.”

Her head snapped around, their eyes locked. “What?”

“I haven't done it since we started seeing each other. I don't need to anymore.”

She grabbed the lapels of his coat. “Drum, what does that mean?” It had to mean whatever compelled him to live in a cave was over with. It had to mean he was on the way to normal again.

He folded his hand over hers. “I don't know.”

“I do.” She smiled. He was going to be fine. “It's time to leave the cave. It's time to pick up your life again. I can help you.”

He squeezed her hand. “No.”

“Drum, babe. It's the middle of winter, it's cold. You don't need to be there anymore, you said that yourself.”

He let her hand go. “No. That's not what I said. The only thing that's changed is I feel less like killing myself.”

She gasped. She'd known that's what his game of chicken with the edge was about. But he'd never expressed it like that. Always painted it as the opposite, as life affirming.

“I can't ever leave there.”

And this was the fact of his mental illness; not the tragic clothing, or the unorthodox living he'd carved out for himself, they were simply symptoms of a bigger issue she was desperate to ignore.

“But you do leave, you have.”

“I come back. I always come back. It's my home. I thought you understood that.”

Foley closed her eyes. It was easier to stop them burning if her lids where down. Easier to avoid looking at her hermit squatter, and shun the knowledge she was falling in love with a man who was damaged, who might never be well.

He caressed her cheek. “I don't need your help.”

She opened her eyes. He'd bent his neck so his face was close. “What do you need from me?” she whispered.

His hand stole up her back and under her hair and over her collar, warming her nape, holding her close. Another man would kiss her. Drum's cheek grazed hers. His face was cold. Another man would know how to answer that question so all her fears were neutralised.

She clutched at his coat, willing him to respond in a way she could move forward with. He murmured her name, something she couldn't do for him, and she knew with a sickening realisation that the only thing she could do was leave him to get him help, leave him to move on with her own life.

They stood in the dark while a cold sea mist swelled, frozen. Drum locked in whatever pain and distress made him believe in his guilt, his lack of worth, and seek an unorthodox shelter, and Foley clinging to an unreasonable expectation that Drum could be her less ordinary when he was a man most in need of the security of being more ordinary.

She moved a hand to his face. “I have to go.” She had to not come back and that was terrible in its rightness.

His grip on her neck softened and he dropped his hand away. He moved his head so their foreheads rested together. “See you in the morning.”

She shook her head because that was safer than opening her mouth. She rubbed her thumb across his cheekbone, knowing this was the last time she was going to touch him.

“It's a full moon tomorrow night. I'll light a fire to keep you warm.”

She said, “I can't,” and the smallness of her voice, the way it wavered, told him what she couldn't say. It wasn't about the morning or the moon, it was about these moments stolen from life, an imaginary wonderful that had no real world parallel. She couldn't build a relationship with a man who was homeless and preferred it that way.

He sucked in a breath and his hand came back to her neck. “No.”

“I can't.”

“Please don't.”

“It's not right. You need help. I'm making your life seem normal. It's not normal.”

He pulled away, both hands lifting to his head, a Hugh-like gesture of despair, the frost on the grass crunching under his feet. He paced in front of her, a few steps left, a few right.

Words jammed in her throat, tears coursed down her face. They'd never played a video game, never talked on the phone, never gone to a bar or eaten a proper restaurant meal. She couldn't have him home to her parents' for dinner. She couldn't talk about him at work, introduce him to her friends. They'd never kissed and yet he was her moon, her stars, her sun, all burned up in a meteor shower.

She caught his hand and he stilled. He said, “I understand,” in a voice that was cut up and corrugated, and the rift inside her ripped wide. She threw herself at him, encircling his neck, pulling their faces close.

One heartbeat and he wrapped his arms around her. Two heartbeats and he'd lifted her to her toes. Three heartbeats and their eyes locked. Four and she did an unforgivable, unrepeatable thing.

She kissed him.

20: Knockout

Foley's kiss detonated inside him, shattering his peace, resetting his expectations. Drum clamped a hand to the back of her head to hold her in place as the sweetness of her mouth made his blood surge. This was wrong, but he couldn't stop it. This was devastating, but he wanted more.

It was one kiss, the briefest press of her lips to his and it knocked sunrise out of the sky. He'd never see it again without missing her heat, without craving her touch.

She made a soft sound of surprise and she kissed him again, her fingers digging into the back of his neck, her short nails biting. This time her lips parted and he tasted her, fear and delight, bravery and regret, and he gave her his tongue, his flavour, fault and shame, and she swept them away, so all that remained was the sensation of her warm, wet mouth, her throaty sighs and moans.

He curled around her and made her his haven, his place, his new home and yet he knew the weight of him could demolish her. But he couldn't stop. He took her kisses and he made them longing and lust, built of them a flimsy promise he'd try to be different, try to explain.

She kissed him and her face was hot and wet, and she climbed his body like it was a rock wall, and he wasn't cold, and he wasn't sorry, and he wasn't wretched about everything that had happened before now.

All his pain, his confusion, was shunted aside with the sting of her teeth and the slick of her tongue. They bumped noses and caressed each other. Pausing, panting, taking more. He planted his feet hard so he could hold her steady, so he could be the shore she broke on, because this would break her, that was the way of it, and when she was ready he had to let her go.

Until then, until she needed her freedom, he took her lips, her mouth, her throat, the curves and angles of her through too many layers, too many considerations, and he learned them so they'd keep him warm like a blaze in an oil drum when this was over.

She ended it with the same kind of wrench she'd started it with, unwinding from him in increments, withdrawing from him in stages; a closed mouth kiss, a hand through his hair, her feet to the ground, her face pressed to his chest, her hand in his, then their arms stretched long till only their fingers touched.

“I can't,” she said, voice broken, and he let their fingers separate, let her go.

Drum watched Foley run across the park. He waited till he thought she'd made it to her car and then he waited longer, knowing she might sit there before she drove away.

He walked the streets for the rest of the night, too keyed up to sleep. Tomorrow he'd be alone again. Tomorrow he'd replace the shine that was Foley with the existence he'd chosen, because he'd been wrong to think he could have her in his twisted life without hurting her.

He had no odd jobs to do and no money for breakfast, and it was too cold to sleep. From the cliff he could see the skating rink set up for Ice by the Sea. The council had brought in the last of the fir trees in big pots yesterday to make the whole thing look like Christmas in July, if it were ever planted on a surf beach. This weekend the first skaters would hit the ice.

He kept to the cave that whole day, but hunger drove him out Sunday morning. He hauled garbage for Tony in exchange for a bacon and egg roll and coffee and a big bag of bruised fruit, and then he went to watch the skating. There was a large crowd he could get lost in. He leaned against the railing and sipped his coffee. No one on the ice could skate with any degree of anything but luck. He'd learnt as a kid, but he hadn't been near skates in years, wondered if it was like riding a bike, like flying a plane.

He watched until he attracted attention. A staring kid, the strained smile and hasty turning away of a harassed mum. He hadn't washed or trimmed his beard, or changed his shirt. He hadn't cared. He'd stood on the cliff edge this morning before he let hunger win. He turned to go and then he saw her. Foley'd seen him first, was watching. She raised her hand then shook her head and turned away. He was close enough to see she was pale, unhappy.

He walked back to the cave, his head full of wild fantasies. Foley in his arms on the ice, screaming her fear, laughing her pleasure. In the afternoon a storm built. Purple clouds with a green underbelly full of ice. If he was lucky it would roll out to sea.

Foley came over the ledge just before dark, as the rain arrived. She wore a dark jacket and bright red scarf, and she brought the storm.

She jumped down already fighting, her scarf whipped about in the rising wind. “There are two key reasons for someone to be homeless.” She ticked them off on fingers raised in anger while the sheet lightning electrocuted the sky. “Need and choice. Which are you?”

She was fierce and he loved her for it. “Both.”

“That's not an answer.”

“It's my answer.”

“Homelessness can be a deprivation, basic lack of facilities. It can be about politics, squatting to conserve a place people care about, or breaking buildings so they're torn down to make way for something new. Are you trying to make a political statement?”

He shook his head and the first rumble of thunder growled.

“And you're not deprived, because there are places you can go. You're intelligent, you can work, you can earn a living. But you don't. Why?”

It was seriously raining now. “Foley, come in the cave.”

“I'll dry.”

He sighed. He wanted his arms around her, he wanted his lips on her, but she was furious with him.

“I need answers.”

He needed her. “You won't like them.”

“I kissed you. You're a homeless man and I kissed you, and I can't stop thinking about it.”

He took a step towards her and she backed off. “No. You're sick and you need help and I hate that you won't do something about it.” She pointed off to where the clouds were low and menacing and shifting fast. “Despite that edge, you're a coward.”

So she knew that, without him saying it. Her eyes were open. He took another step towards her. “I can't stop thinking about it either.” He was consumed by it, like he'd once been obsessed by research results and financing options, by experimentation and trials.

“I didn't come here to kiss you again.” She had one arm wrapped over her stomach as if to protect herself. “I'm never kissing you again. Never, do you understand that?”

The wind snatched her scarf, she tried to catch it but it lifted from her collar and slid through her grasp. The storm swallowed it, a flash of passion in the gunmetal sky. A flare of defiance like their kiss, blown away to nothing.

“It's pissing down. Come in the cave before we both drown.”

She stalked passed him as fork lightning joined sheet lightning and the sky crackled with savagery, bringing a driving wind.

He ducked under the cave roof, but they were going to get wet still. The back wall was already saturated, as was the couch and his small stash of clothing and books. Foley was trembling, cold, angry. He needed to get her warmed up, but rain had doused his fire.

“Don't come near me.”

Rain dripped off her jacket, her boots squelched as she moved, her hair was slick to her scalp, her ponytail thinned. A clap of thunder boomed almost overhead and a ripple of sheet lightning showed him her face. It wasn't the cold, or anger—she was terrified.

“It's only a storm. It'll pass.” He might've been talking about them. They had the same characteristics, sudden, brooding, cataclysmic crashing together, damaging.

She jumped at the next crack, her hands flying up over her ears as the first of the hailstones started bouncing on the rock ledge and pelting in at them. They were in the storm now, no visibility; the beach, the sea, the sky melted together in one grey, purple green mass of cloud. He moved in front of her to shield her, opened his arms, feeling hailstones ping against his legs, the noise of them a strange roaring patter.

She kept her distance. “Storms like this freak me out.”

“They end, Foley. It'll be okay.”

In her eyes was a cloud of indecision, a burned-out rainbow of resolve, and then a sonic boom, a crack that stood the hair on his body on end, and she was in his arms. She huddled into his chest, her whole body trembling. He tucked her against him, into the wound in his heart that was made from wanting and knowing he couldn't have her.

The sky fell down on them, the rock shelf turned to ice and he told her the first of his crimes, whispering it between the rumbles of thunder into her ear. “My name is Patrick. My family always called me Trick.”

She lifted her face, he lowered his. She put her lips to his lips and said his name, and the storm moved inside him, tearing at his lungs, blowing out his ears, phasing out his vision, and making his hands shake. He kissed her like she was forbidden and survival all at once.