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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 h
ands, 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.”
