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Then she laughed and it was I told you so set to music. They ran the length of the beach in silence and then another whole lap with just the sound of their feet and their breath. The light was almost gone when they sat in the sand. He faced the sea.
She faced him. “Tell me what to do again.”
“Close your eyes and focus on one thing.” He snuck a look at her. She had her eyes closed and a twitchy smile, like she’d guessed he’d check. Pieces of hair had come loose from her ponytail and curled around her face. He’d brushed a flyaway strand away from her cheek before he’d thought about it. He hadn’t touched more than the wisp of hair, but she must have felt the nearness of his hand before he snatched it away. She opened one eye and smiled.
He gripped his knees, digging his fingers around the bone to keep them still. When he’d touched her last night it was goodbye, now he didn’t know what it would be.
“Let your thoughts occur, but don’t chase them. Breathe and feel it fill you up.”
His own thoughts were hunting clouds and butterflies with a rapid fire automatic weapon; he couldn’t grasp them or pin them down and he was filled with indecision; it weighed on him like a war crime, but he wanted nothing more than a tender tether to her.
She closed the eye and sighed on an exhale. Her body softened, her smile relaxed.
“That’s it.”
He turned his face to the sea again and closed his eyes. He tried to let those errant thoughts explode to mist, burn away. He breathed and listened to the sea and failed. His senses were too tuned to her, vibrated with her nearness. He should’ve felt constrained by that, compromised, but in that moment he gave up fighting it. It was too big, too unexpected and he was tired of this struggle. He opened his eyes, stretched his fingers out on his thighs and looked across at her.
She’d given up too. She was leaning back on her hands. “I’m not very good at this.”
“It’s not easy.” It was torture to sit beside her and not want to touch her, to forgive himself enough for that want not to make him feel sick.
“Are you talking about meditating?”
“Yes.” He barked it too quickly and felt transparent when she laughed.
“Is it so bad, this being together like this?”
He turned his face away. “You could be together with any number of eligible, suitable, mother-approved men.”
“You had me up until that crack about mother-approved. Now you’ve all but mandated our friendship.”
“How is this going to work, this friendship?”
She leaned forward, elbows to her knees, tried to look him in the eye. “Easy.”
It wasn’t easy, it was a tidal force; inevitable. Other people tried to befriend him, Paul, some of the staff at Fat Barney’s, Tony and his wife Gina, but friends were a luxury he didn’t deserve, and Foley was a force of nature who could alter his carefully constructed world, tear the logic of it all down and shred it before he knew where he was. He couldn’t afford that. He didn’t want it. Going back to the house during the sculpture show had been hard enough, all that luxury and no edge to remind him of why he couldn’t have it.
He stood, brushed the sand from his hands. When he was kid he used to collect strays; the dog with the stumpy tail, the cat with half its ear chewed off, the lorikeet with a broken wing and the neighbour, Benny, who always smelled of beer and told corny jokes, but was more fun as a babysitter than after-school care.
Benny became a surrogate uncle. The animals were smuggled into his bedroom and though he knew they’d be discovered, he got to keep them for a while; the cat, which curled up under the bed and slept, he got to keep a whole day and night.
There was the odd stray cat in the park, skeletal, wild-eyed and scared and he’d wanted to tame one and keep it, but that too felt like comfort and comfort was against the rules.
Foley wasn’t a stray like the cat; like Benny, her humour was real, and so were her claws. She wouldn’t be tamed or handfed. She’d trash the place. But there was something about her that was as comforting as it was challenging.
She stood beside him, brushing the sand from the back of her legs. “Drum?”
He didn’t look at her. “I’ll see you round.”
He kicked into a run. He’d stay on the soft sand where his body would have to work harder, and by the time he got to the other end of the beach he’d remember why he couldn’t afford to have Foley as a friend.
15: Conspiracy Without a Theory
There was something about that moment of seeing Roger and Gabriella alone, together, at the end of the corridor that made Foley feel awkward. Maybe it was the way Gabriella turned her face away, or Roger didn’t. He looked straight at Foley, smiled and said her name.
It was just a moment, and the corridor was the main one off which all the offices opened and in the very next moment, Hugh stepped out of his and joined Gabriella and Roger.
Hugh looked at her bemused. “Are you joining us?”
