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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 di
d 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.
