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She’d touched his hand before she realised it was a stupid thing to do, the briefest contact, and he took a step back as if it’d burned him, his eyes widening, his breath catching in his throat with a glottal thump. But his last sentence scared her. She didn’t want him lost forever. She was hopelessly bound to him in some way she couldn’t shake off, more than duty, more than beating Gabriella; his madness had stormed inside her heart and lodged there.
“Tell me where you’re going.”
He looked back out to sea. “You don’t need to know. I’ll be gone from here until this nonsense stops and I can come back.”
“Is your new place … is it …? Drum, tell me about your new place.” She didn’t like to think of him as just out there somewhere, unnoticed, unattended, unloved. His face was turned away. “If it’s safe, you should stay there, not come back.”
His head whipped around, his expression anguished.
She pressed the only advantage she had. “You said you’d do whatever I told you. I’m telling you not to come back.”
He pushed hair away from his face. “You don’t understand. I need to be here.”
She sighed. Drum’s need to be at the cave had to be a symptom of his sickness. She needed professional help with this now. Her amateur hour caretaking, her protection of him as her own project, had gone on too long. He wasn’t an item on a to do list, his removal from the cave wasn’t a triple point score against Gabriella. But for now, one day at a time was a reasonable outcome.
She raised her hand and as quickly lowered it, in case he thought she intended to touch him again. “All right, all right. Just for now, until after the sculpture walk, you’ll stay away from the cave.”
He shook his head, not a no gesture, more a shiver of displeasure. And she could see how much making that promise cost him in the way his body gave up the fight. He shrank in on himself, like that first day they’d met.
“Will you be okay? Can I do anything for you?” Another head shake. He turned to walk away. “Drum.”
She wanted something from him; she wasn’t sure what, but not this defeat. She’d liked him better when he was alight with fury, because he was strong with it. She had to hope this was the last time she saw him. She stuck out her hand, a clear signal, business not social, a convention not an intimate contact.
He half turned and saw her hand, his eyes coming up to her face. In that held contact was a world of indecision, misunderstanding and confusion. He said, “Goodbye, Foley,” and he walked away.
She watched him go, across the park, away from the cave, but he kept looking towards it as if he couldn’t quite believe he was leaving. She watched him until she couldn’t see him anymore and he never once looked back at her.
When she got home Nat was channel surfing, but quit flicking when Foley entered the room. “How much do you hate me?” Nat said.
“For putting a spotlight on a homeless man? You’re out of the will.”
“I stopped them running a photo. It could’ve been worse. He’s an easy mark with an ultra long-range lens. When he’s in the cave you can see him from the beach.”
Foley gasped. She’d been worried about dog walkers with their phone cameras catching him. She hadn’t stopped to think about what Nat could do.
She dumped her bag and jacket. “It doesn’t matter anymore, he’s gone.”
“On the record gone?”
She shrugged and kicked her shoes off. Why not? It’s what everyone wanted. He was gone, and if all the forces stacked against him believed it, things could go back to normal. “Yep. Just waved him off.”
“For real?”
“What do you want, a written guarantee? I watched him walk away, in the opposite direction to the cave. He told me he had a safe place to go.”
“Did he tell you where that was?”
“Nat.”
“Look, I know you hate this so I’m trying to balance it out.”
“No. Absolutely no profile on him.”
Nat turned the TV off. “Not that.”
She was barefoot but still in her work clothes. She had red toenail polish on one foot and the toes of the other foot were bare, as if she’d gotten distracted halfway through and never bothered to finish, which was probably precisely what happened. Still only one earring.
“Not anything. It’s all over. Everyone can stand down. No sculpture walker, park user, coastal birdwatcher, ever need worry about a man they never knew was there and now isn’t.” She closed her eyes. She’d reduced a man to nothing but a nuisance.
